No. 359 : Wild Men (2021)

 

Wild Men at the IMDb

 This subtitled Danish film was offered up to me on the BBC iPlayer and I was glad that I gave it a go. Most Scandinavian films involve murders and detective work in the dark, but this was mostly good fun and it had a strong heart.

The film opens with a large man dressed in animal skins attempting to shoot a goat with his homemade bow and arrow. He fails to nail his quarry and ends up having to settle for a toad instead, which causes him to be sick. He’s obviously a novice at the outdoor life and he soon heads to a petrol station/grocery store where his lack of money leads to him fighting with the staff and making off with a basket of shopping.

Meanwhile three more urban young men come a cropper when they hit an elk in the road and crash. There is seemingly only one survivor, and he staggers off with their large holdall of money. He soon stumbles into the path of our fur clad hero Martin, who manages to carry out some pretty decent first aid, including some stitches on a nasty leg gash.

Elsewhere the police are looking into Martin’s shop heist and into the crashed car, which now has no bodies, unless you count the elk hanging out of the front, which I do.

Two hapless policemen find the injured bagman but Martin decides to help his new friend and handcuffs the two cops together. The bagman, whose name is Musa, convinces Martin that they should head to an idyllic village where people live as Vikings did, off the land. As they set off on their quest a jaded police chief ramps up the investigation and Musa’s erstwhile colleagues set about recovering their cash. Who will achieve their goal? – and is it one that is worth having?

I quite enjoyed this film which was for the most part a gentle comedy, but one laced with a bit of gore, torture and some killings. The central theme was one of isolation and of people struggling with the modern world.

We didn’t get a lot of backstory to Martin’s plight but we know his life in the woods amounted to only ten days when we first encounter him. His seemingly long-suffering wife and his two daughters – and their rabbit! -set off from Denmark to find him in the Norwegian forests and, to be fair, she does a lot better than the cops!

The ‘tired of life’ policeman was a bit of a cliché but I liked his curmudgeonly attitude, and he got a fitting end, something akin to that of Mike in ‘Breaking Bad’. There was some commentary on immigration and the dilution of traditional values – some of it deliberate, such as the monetised Viking village and some of it less so with the drugs trade seemingly following the incomers. This slant was tempered by the Martin/Musa relationship which ended on a positive note.

I don’t think I learned much here – certainly nothing about surviving outdoors! – but it was a warm good-natured film that offered some social commentary and a few laughs along the way.

Best Bit - Viking Village Visit

W Rating 15/23

No. 358 : Windfall (2022)

 

Windfall at the IMDb

This film popped up on my Netflix offering and, despite never having heard of it, I thought I’d give it a go – well you are entitled to your once a year ‘W’ fix!

The film is pretty low key, set all in one house and garden over a couple of days. We open with a man approaching a sumptuous desert property eating an orange from the orchard along the way. There is no dialogue for the first seven minutes as he systematically goes through the house looking for things to steal. He chances upon a handgun, a wad of cash and a Rolex watch. So far so good and he’s ready to go.

 Fortunately for the film, the two homeowners arrive back and soon chance upon the hapless burglar. The next 80 minutes or so deal with the ensuing hostage situation and, as you’d expect, details slowly emerge about the relationships and the background to the situation. At an early stage the burglar leaves but on seeing a CCTV camera, which the owner had denied existed, he returns seeking a $500k payoff. The owner readily agrees, but the cash will take a day to assemble. To complicate matters further the Mexican gardener shows up and soon he’s a hostage too.

Will the cash appear and why has this specific target been chosen? Will the crumbling marital relationship survive the ordeal and who will reap the windfall of the title, if anyone?

 

This was an OK sort of film, but it was really slow and not a lot happened to cover even the lean run time we are given. None of the characters are afforded names which is always an annoying conceit for me – everyone is shouting ‘Babe’ or ‘You’ all the time! The burglar, named ‘Nobody’ in the credits, was played by Jason Segel who you’ll remember from ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’. This dramatic role highlights that comedy is his strength as I wasn’t buying his desperate hours, soul searching protagonist here. The homeowner is credited under ‘CEO’ and is played by Jesse Plemmons or Todd from ‘Breaking Bad’ as he’s more commonly known. I think he may have done a better turn as the burglar as he didn’t convince as the tech entrepreneur billionaire.

 

Filling out the cast as ’Wife’ was Lily Collins – she was forgettable too and did little with thin material. She gets a big finale that wasn’t earned, and I think that was the result of 90 minutes of the run time approaching with no cohesive or logical ending in sight.

 

The film did offer a bit of commentary on technology making people obsolete but to be honest my sympathies started with CEO and stayed there. ‘Nobody’ came across as entitled and unfocussed and although his randomness was a deliberate part of the character, he never came together as someone whom I cared about, feared or believed.

 

There are a couple of minor twists to keep you interested but it will be a passing, and soon to be forgotten, interest. I see the three principals all got producing credits along with the director and I’m sure a sunny shoot on the Netflix tab was fun for all concerned – just a shame the viewer wasn’t invited along for the ride!

Best Bit : The Gardener Does the Windows

'W' Rating 11/23

No. 351 : Wrath of Man (2021)

 

Wrath of Man at the IMDb

I saw a trailer for a new Guy Ritchie film starring Jason Statham, Josh Hartnett and Eddie Marsan called ‘Operation Fortune’ that looked a lot of fun. I was surprised to see it pop up on Amazon Prime, but it turned out it wasn’t the fun caper film from the trailer but a heist movie involving the same people. It’s almost like they finished one film early and decided to bash out another seeing as they had all the crew assembled. If my assumption of this cookie cutter approach is correct, one film would have to be the poorer cousin; but which one is it? It’s this one!

Jason plays his usual character - bald and gruff ex-special forces with a mysterious past - who on this outing is called ‘H’ - they may have been trying for a Steps sub-plot, but it wasn’t really developed. The film opens with a heist which we see from the security van’s crew’s perspective. Something goes awry and we hear that two guards and a civilian have been shot from the police radios - remember that for later.

We then meet Jason who is applying for a job at the security firm three months later. He’s told of the previous robbery and is taken through his paces by ‘Bullet’, the senior guard at the firm. Jason barely scrapes a 70% pass mark at the evaluation, but we suspect that he has more in his locker. True to form his van is soon held up, but Jason shoots up all the bad guys without drawing sweat or changing his facial expression. Company rules say that any incident involving a fatality means those involved should get a desk job, but the boss tells flunky Eddie Marsan that Jason should be promoted instead - he does have top billing, after all.

Meanwhile we meet up with the troupe of bad guys run by ‘Burn Notice’s Jeffrey Donovan. He’s getting on a bit so he gets some help from Clint junior, Scott Eastwood. Scott has a bit of a cloudy eye, so we know from the start that he’s a total psychopath. The robbers are ex-military and are keen for a big score and target Jason’s depot on Black Friday when there will be $150 million cash on hand - haven’t these people heard of credit cards?

The narrative jumps back and forth in time with captions appearing regularly - at one point we are five months back and then it’s ‘3 weeks later’ from then or now? It does get a bit confusing. There are also chapter titles which define the 3 acts, which just come across as pretentious in a film with low aspirations, such as this. Just remember Jason has a soppy son he dotes on and that there’s a mole in the security network who is almost definitely the one you think it is from the start.

This was a half decent offering, and if you are of mind to stick on a mindless Jason Statham film you won’t be disappointed. This isn’t one of his light-hearted efforts where he drops a couple of zingers, this is the brow furrowed and no shit taken Jason with plenty of double taps and needless blood letting.

The non-linear narrative is easy enough to follow, mainly because every ‘twist’ was signposted brighter than a Christmas tree. We know Jason is on the path of vengeance - the title is your clue - and it didn’t take much mental agility to work our where he’d been wronged and who needed shooting to sort things out.

The characters are all wafer thin, but it did seem pointless to kill off virtually every one of them. I know it makes the baddie a bit more ‘boo hiss’ if he kills a few people we have investment in, but sadly the investment was nil, with the interest rate even lower.

Donovan had very little to do and it looked like a lot of the principals did their work in a few days when it suited their schedules. The film lacked any of the glamour or budget of what ‘Operation Fortune’ promises and clearly this effort will be seen as the runt of the litter. For a film like this to succeed you need to really care about the character and his motivation. Here Statham’s character didn’t make any sense, nor did his involvement in the initial heist. ‘We need you to tell us if the truck goes left or right’ says the mysterious overlord on the phone. Given the ambush was set up on the right it didn’t really matter what Statham called in, as that was their only chance of success anyway. Why Jason and his son stopped for a front row burrito was just illogical.

Anyway , slice and dice it anyway you like this was an unsatisfying revenge flick that had some decent gun play and a few familiar faces looking for an easy pay day. It was competently made but totally forgettable and a lesser Statham, if there is such a thing.

Best Bit : Jason drops his burritos ‘W’ Rating : 10/23

No. 322 : White Boy Rick (2018)

 

White Boy Rick at the IMDb

 Time for some true life crime biography next in the shape of this depressing and skuzzy drama that depicts the short crime life of Rick Wershe, who spent 30 odd years in jail prior to his recent release.

I had never heard of the case, but seemingly our hero was the youngest ever paid informant of the FBI at age 14 and the longest serving non-violent prisoner in the US penal system. These things considered, I had little sympathy for our protagonist and as such did not have too much affection for his bio-pic. That said, it was a decent offering but not one to love; more of a morality tale to remind you to stick in at school and not get involved in the selling of guns and narcotics. Duh.

We open with the young Richie and his Dad, Matthew McConaughey, buying firearms at a gun show. No, not me at the gym, an actual event for the sale of firearms. The 14 year old Richie spots a fake Kalashnikov which enables is Dad to get a good deal from the dealer. They make even more profit when Richie sells on the guns to the local drug lords with the addition of silencers, that Mahogany fashions in his basement.

Mahogany dreams of owing a video store - it is 1984 after all - and doesn’t mind dealing with drug pedlars, despite his own daughter being addicted to crack, if it helps to achieve his goal. Richie’s ‘in’ with the drug barons catches the attention of the FBI and soon agent Jennifer Jason Leigh has Richie on the payroll. They convince Ritchie to buy and later sell drugs so that they can infiltrate the gang. This doesn’t go well for Richie who gets a bullet in his guts for his trouble.

With no other means of support and a new baby to provide for, Richie starts to produce his own crack. Inevitably he gets caught and his FBI handlers are as much use as a cock flavoured lolly pop when Richie goes down for life. How did it end up here and can he cut a deal to earn his freedom? Is he a victim of society or a death dealer who got his just desserts?

This was a decent period offering with a great cast, but the subject matter and viewpoint weren’t to my liking and to be honest, to my mind, Richie got what he deserved. He was well played by the slow talking, but likeable Richie Merritt, but I had no sympathy for the character or his choices. It was rote large that his options were limited but he was clearly a poor drug dealer and his motivations didn’t excuse his actions.

Matthew McConaughey was good in his now familiar role of the lowlife scumbag - see ‘Killer Joe’ and his series of ‘True Detective’, but he couldn’t rescue the narrative here. He was a gun dealer who bought into his son’s drug ambitions. I liked the line when he said he’d maintained a good family and Richie pointed out he had a drug addict daughter and a screwed up son. You could say this was just a slice of life in the 1980s but why was Richie deserving of a bio-pic? He was made out to be on a path with no exits, but to accept that would be just accepting his criminal choices.

The period was well realised and there was an excellent supporting cast including a never rougher Jennifer Jason Leigh and a frankly miscast Eddie Marsan as some sort of drug lord.

The film ended with captions suggesting that Richie had been harshly treated but the film failed to elicit any sympathy from this viewer. There was no suggestion that Richie didn’t know what he was getting into, and although he inhabited a world with few options that didn’t excuse him dealing in deadly drugs.

When you have no sympathy for the lead in a bio-pic it’s hard for it to succeed but overall this was a well realised and enjoyable film, albeit one with a skewed moral compass.

Best Bit : Bruce Dern makes Pancakes ‘W’ Rating 17/23

No.309 : War (2007)

War at the IMDb

Jason Statham, with his hair at critical point, stars in this routine thriller which has more than a little ‘Face/Off’ about it.

For some unexplained reason Cockney sounding Jason is working the Asian Unit for the FBI in San Francisco - later on his black, balder  partner is introduced and some one says ‘You don’t look Asian’ whilst Statham is in the background with his gor blimey trousers on.

We open with a moody dockland showdown. Jason and his partner have tracked down ‘Rogue’ a top assassin who uses signature bullets - you’d think the first thing you’d do as an assassin would be not have a signature, but let’s go with it. Statham takes a hit but he’s saved when his partner shoots the bad guy in the face and into the water. Naturally the body isn’t recovered and that spells bad news for the partner when Rogue shows up at his house and kills everyone and burns it to the ground. Well, to be fair, he singes it a bit.

We then jump ‘3 years later’ and Jason’s obsession with Rouge has cost him his marriage. He has a new partner in the shape of David’s boyfriend off ‘Six Feet Under’ and a failing relationship with his child - and authority. The Triads and Yakuza are at war with the FBI in the middle. It gets a bit confused but it’s the usual gubbins about honour with two antique horse being the main point of debate. Can’t they have one each and give us an early night?

Rogue steps out of the shadows and blow me, it’s Jet Li. He’s been to Saul Rubinek’s plastic surgeon, but sadly not a coach in diction. He's all quiet and enigmatic, but comes across as a bit dull. Jason starts to close in on his man but Rogue’s loyalties aren’t clear. Whilst working for one faction he is also stirring things up for them too. Can Jason solve the riddle of Rogue’s true identity and are things as they seem?

This was an OK effort, but nothing memorable -my IMDb score tells me I’ve seen it before but I didn’t remember the big twist. If you think it’s strange that Jet Li is playing a baddie , it really isn’t.

I felt the whole production was poorly lit and too dark. They may have been going for atmospheric but it was hard to see what was going on a lot of the time. It did look like a Japanese co-production which meant the film seemed off kilter with lots of seemingly pointless exchanges taking place in Japenese. That’s fair enough, but when a film is designed by committee it never comes across as a cohesive piece of work.

There were plenty of shoot outs and sword fights but these were generally just padding between the big revelations. Fair play to them for subverting my expectations, (again) but it did all seem too far fetched - I didn’t know plastic surgeons could whack a foot off someone’s height too!

Statham’s character was really one dimensional and although he was given a 70’s muscle car to add some depth, he was more ‘John Prick’ than ‘John Wick’. Shouting at subordinates and beating up witnesses is so ‘The Sweeney’.

Overall this was a workmanlike thriller with a couple of decent twists but not enough to set it apart in a crowed genre.

Best Bit : ‘With Compliments’  W Rating 14/23

No.286 : Wild in Blue (2015)

Wild in Blue at the IMDb

Sometimes you start a film and if you weren’t writing an unread ‘W’ movies blog you’d cut your losses and watch something else. ‘Wild in Blue’ is such a film and it was a trial to sit through its nihilism, pretentiousness and jerky camera actions.

The film opens with our hero, Charlie, with a gun in his mouth. He has it in and out of there several times but, alas, decides to save us form an early night and chooses to keep on living - well if you can call it that.

Charlie is a nasty piece of work and has many fantasies which may or not be real. He has a threesome with a couple of hookers before strangling them. He offers poor old Karen Black, in what was her last role, help in fixing her car before smashing her face in with a hammer. That scene was plain nasty and if it wasn’t for the terrible makeup, I’d have been quite disturbed by it.

All the while Charlie is filming his activities and offering us his ponderous narration. He says his film  is intended to ‘help us bury the dead things inside of us’ which is very generous of him, but frankly, he shouldn’t have bothered. The film uses Charlie’s footage as part of the narrative so we get lots of static-filled VHS shots and focus that looks like the steady-cam was on a bungee rope. I’d imagine this process was to draw us into Charlie’s world and to give us a voyeur’s view of the action - well that and it’s cheap.

Charlie makes a friend who is also weird and wants to be hurt. I may have misread this but I think the friend didn’t exist except in Charlie’s mind as no one else reacts to him when he’s perving about, and Charlie acts out the friend’s fantasies. Things may look up when Charlie gets a nice girlfriend. Again I’m not clear if the sociopath is imagining things or she’s a hooker, but she is quite game for most things, usually involving strangulation.

At times it looks like Charlie will take it too far and the last elongated scene is of him filming himself strangling her with the film intercut with him being beaten up as a child by his Dad, the Stunt Man himself, Steve Railsback. Seems a strange thing for a family movie to be made of, so again it may all be playing out inside Charlie’s frazzled brain. Will the ‘why did she agree to be in this?’ girlfriend survive and will Charlie find the gun he was playing with at the start? I can help to look!

This was a God awful film that looked like some dreadful film school project - cheap and with every cut and effect filter you can imagine. Amazingly IMDb says it won some awards - must have been ‘Least Use of Focus in a Feature Presentation’. There was no attempt to engage you with the characters with scenes dragging on for an age in a clearly improvised and meandering manner.

You could see art house types lapping it up, but it just grated throughout with its industrial noises and strobing lights setting the scene for people to have rough sex with their clothes on. Prudish yet extreme is a strange mix.

The slightly upbeat ending and reveal came about 80 minutes too late for me to care and I’m just glad it’s done. Let’s never speak of it again.

Best Bit  : I love a good skirt - (way more than this stinker) 6/23

No.283 : Winter’s Bone (2010)

Winter's Bone at the IMDb

The title here refers to being tenacious, like a dog trying to get at a (frozen) bone in the ground. Our heroine, Ree, certainly displays tenaciousness and you will too, if you manage to sit through this grim but enjoyable offering.

Jennifer Lawrence plays the 17 year old Ree, who is the eldest of three siblings. Mum is a basket case and Dad hasn’t been seen for a while, as he is being pursued by the cops for cooking meth. Ree has to live off the land - mainly squirrels - and the kindness of neighbours as they are saving up to have a pot to piss in.

A bad day gets worse when the cops show up to advise that Dad is due in court in a week and if he doesn’t show the family will lose the house which he has put up as a bond. Ree sets out to find the errant parent and what follows is a big game of hide and seek as she asks round the neighbourhood for her dope fiend Dad.

Everyone is poor but offers a drink or a doobie, but also a warning to stay well away. The code of silence is strong and to talk to the cops would be a death sentence. Ree’s uncle Teardrop says he thinks his brother's dead and tries to put Ree off by taking her to the site of a meth house explosion saying that’s where he died. Ree isn’t convinced and knows that if Dad is dead, proof will be needed to satisfy the bail bondsman.

She heads off to the local kingpin of crime but gets a solid kicking from the womenfolk for her trouble, and is only saved by the intervention of Teardrop who promises to be responsible for her actions. Running out of options Ree looks to enlist in the army for the $40k incentive and to tries and place her siblings with her neighbours.

But wait! A chink of light is offered that may get her out of her predicament. Unfortunately it’s a grim and nasty chink of light but we’ll take what we can get. Will Ree manage to save the homestead and escape from her grim reality?

This was a horrid slice of life from modern day Missouri. The film is shot  vérité style with a dull palette and genuine backwater types filling out the cast. The grinding poverty was well realised with some dead squirrels the equivalent of the big shop.

Lawrence does well in the lead but is a bit pretty despite her unflattering wardrobe. Her Southern drawl is a somewhat distracting but she’s not shy in getting her hands dirty or of taking on some questionable tasks.

The air of menace in every character was good and you got the sense that life was cheap. Even the police with their old cruisers and their complicit actions weren’t immune from the general malaise on show, and I liked that the grimmest possible conclusion was eked out for the ‘where’s Dad’ mystery reveal.

The ending does offer a smidgen of hope for the future, but you get the sense that that will soon be overtaken with some new desperate situation. Not an uplifting tale but an interesting and engaging one.

Best Bit : ‘Pass the chainsaw’ 19/23

No.272 : What Keeps You Alive (2018)

What Keeps You Alive

Canadian survival drama next, as we join a couple of married ladies on their weekend away at a remote family house. You can tell from that poster that things won’t go to plan; but who’s the danger?

The couple, Jackie and Julie, have been married a year and seem very happy although they do keep their bras on when having a cuddle! We learn snippets about their lives such as Jackie is a diabetic and needs regular insulin jabs. I knew that morsel of information would be important later.

The house was built by Jackie’s uncle who had also taught her to hunt. She recalls a time when she shot a bear and she was made to eat it over the course of several days - the attitude being that you only kill what keeps you alive - That’s the name of the film!

The girls meet up with the neighbour from across the lake who knew Jackie from years back, but she knew her as ‘Megan’. We also learn that a friend ‘Jenny’ had died in unspecified circumstances. This causes Julie to question what she knows about Jackie and starts to dig deeper into her past. Huge mistake - as Jackie throws her off a cliff in what was a surprising twist. Jackie goes home to rehearse what she’ll say to the police but when she returns to the body it has gone - Julie is alive and a danger to Jackie’s insurance scam plans.

The two stalk each other through the woods and we learn that Jackie is a grade A wack job who has had a series of wives and partners who have come a cropper. Has she underestimated Julie though? Maybe, as the injured Julie is rubbish at rowing and gets taken back to the house by Jackie with a pre-planned dinner date with the neighbours all that’s keeping her alive.

The dinner party goes terribly for all concerned with the body count soon amounting to everyone in the cast. The rest of the film twist turns like a corkscrew as each lady gets the upper hand before relinquishing it - who, if anyone, will survive? And is falling from 150 feet onto rocks really that survivable?

I liked this film despite some initial misgivings. It was set up as a mystery thriller but soon became a full on battle with some cracking bone crunching injuries and logic defying twists.

The direction was well done with some inventive angles used to convey the action; with surprises flashing in from out of frame before you get a chance to say 'for fuc…'

The two leads were great with psycho Jackie well played by Amy Adams look-alike, Hannah Emily Anderson. I liked her search for Julie as she changed from concerned to resting bitch face in a heartbeat. Brittany Allen was good too, as the put upon Julie, and despite some daft character decisions she pulled off the ‘oh no my wife is mental’ role well.

The last 20 minutes was a bit of a stretch of credibility with chances to end the whole drama being lost. ‘You know what? I’ll leave the tranquillised body there - actually I’ll drive back and have a look. What she’s gone…?!’

The only others in the cast, apart from a flashback young Julie, were the neighbours Sarah and Daniel. They were thinly drawn with Daniel a drunk (he was always drinking!) and Sarah a bit of a screamer and rightly so!

The film kept up a fair pace and although we saw that cliff top a few times too many, there was enough going on to keep me interested. A bit of tighter scripting towards the end would have helped, with the final twist well telegraphed from the start. 

Still good stuff and worth your time.

W Rating 18/23  Best Bit : Going Down!

No.269 : Wheelman (2017)

Wheelman at the IMDb

Following our last offering of ‘Win it All’ this is the second in our double bill of cheap Netflix films starring and produced by actors you’ve never heard of. Can’t say we’re not niche here at The ‘W’ Movie blog!

The double threat here is Frank Grillo who looks like a slightly less McDreamy Patrick Dempsey. At least he’s better for you than Frank Friedo. This film focuses almost entirely on the single character of ‘Wheelman’ and you’d better take to him fast as you’ve got 80 minutes in his passenger seat coming your way! I found him annoying and shouty with too many swears and not enough empathy, so it was a tough ride for me!

We open with a dull five minute scene as Wheelman gets his hot car for a job. The camera stays in the car as Wheelman gets out and talks money and then goes for a spin. It feels like the film is struggling to get out of first gear? Nervous anticipation or just a bit of dull padding - you decide.

Wheelman soon picks up his two passengers one of whom was Nucky’s brother in ‘Boardwalk Empire’. He’s not much for the chat which is fair enough when you’re off to visit a bank full of customers in the middle of the night with your sawn off deposit slip.

Wheelman hasn’t heard of CCTV or the tracing of mobile phones so he rolls up outside the bank without a mask and takes calls whilst the robbers do their thing. He gets a mysterious call from ‘Out of Area’ who tells him he’s going to be shot after the job. He’s a trusting soul and takes off with the money in the boot leaving the robbers behind.

What follows is a long round of calls as Wheelman talks to Clay- his fixer, his annoying daughter, his annoying wife and the ever present Out of area. There are too many double crosses to go into but eventually Wheelman has the chance to swap the money for his ex-wife and freedom from his debt to the gang bosses he works for. While he wheelspin into the sunset a freeman or will he regret freeing the ex-wife?

This was a pretty dull affair that had lost my interest after an hour. It mined a familiar seam of getaway driver movies but was nowhere near as good as ‘The Driver’ or even ‘Baby Driver’. My main issue was I didn’t care about Wheelman or his motivations. He’s clearly underworld scum so who cares if he gets double crossed? It was hard to track who could be trusted and although that’s the intention it just comes across as a bit of a mess with no cohesive narrative.

The film reminded me a lot of ‘Locke’ with endless phone calls queuing up to keep our man occupied. His catchphrase ‘Shut the fuck up’ was spouted endlessly and I was hoping that Wheelman would take his own advice.

Some of the gun play was decent and there was a good motorbike crash, but apart from that it was just a ‘who’s screwing who?’ set up with the viewer having no investment in the outcome.
Towards the end the daughter showed up and it was interesting that we took her perspective for a few minutes whilst Wheelman went off to do the drop. I say ‘interesting’ but the handover was being built up for ages and then it happened largely off screen.

It seems like Netflix have a bag of money for any aspiring actor/producer with a cheap, contemporary set feature in mind. This may be worthy but I think I’ll be looking for something with a bit more substance going forward. That and frat house sex comedies.

Best Bit : Ooow that’s gotta hurt! ’W’ Rating 12/23

No.264 : Wild Bill (2011)

Wild Bill at the IMDb

No, no it’s not a reprise of  'W' Movie 165 'Wild Bill', the Bill Hickok biopic. This is a gritty British drama with more swearing and fewer cows.

This ‘Wild Bill’ dates from 2011 and was directed by Dexter Fletcher of ‘Press Gang’ fame. It is a bit grim and urban but there is a lot to like, not least a smattering of familiar faces on various stages of their career trajectories.

We meet the titular Bill as he’s being released from Prison after an 8 years stretch for drugs, G.B.H. - you name it. We follow his long trip home from his cell on the Isle of Wight to his horrible flat in a London sink estate. His two sons Dean 15, and Jimmy 11, have been coping on their own for the nine months since Mum ran off with a fancy man to Spain. They are not best pleased to let Dad back in the flat and only acquiesce when forced to do so by the local villains. There ruffians expect Bill to come back to his drug dealing patch, and to seal the deal they get him plastered and a date with the fetching Roxie.

Dean is providing for the family and working as a labourer off the books. Jimmy, who has a bit of the stage school about him, is going off the rails; dogging school and smashing windows. Bill soon sees what he’s missed and resolves to be a good Dad. In no time flat he’s cooking dinner and cleaning the bog.

Dean’s fledgling romance with hairdresser Steff  is stalled by the theft of some money and Jimmy tries to help the family by being a lookout for the drugs gang. Sadly when the cops come calling he trashes the gear and is now in debt to the drug barons.

Bill meanwhile gets a £3 an hour job holding up a sign and soon has the cash to buy his son a hooker for his birthday (it’s Roxy again!) and plates up a mean shepherd’s pie. The kids start to recognise his effort but Jimmy‘s drug debt will see them all have some troubled times before they can start playing happy families. Or gin rummy for that matter. Will this be a story of redemption or was Bill damned before he got off the ferry?

Despite myself I enjoyed this latest instalment of Alan Partridge’s ‘Bad Slags'. The characters are uniformly horrible but you can’t hep to warm to them as they try to make the best of their terrible existences. Charlie Creed-Mills is great as the hapless Bill. He’s painted as a legendary nutter from the start and it’s fun seeing him follow a worthwhile path, as we know it's going to end with him kicking off. I recognised him from ‘Harry Brown’ and I’m pretty sure the same pub was in that too - maybe they come as a package?

Of the sons the older one Dean played by Will Poulter was better and you’ll know him from the recent interactive ‘Black Mirror’, ‘Bandersnatch. He was in the Narnia films too, but I’ve only seen the first one and don’t remember him. He spends a lot of the film scowling but does look made up when the hairdresser takes her top off.

For your money you also get two scenes of Andy Serkiss as a pointless drug lord and Liz White off ‘Life on Mars’ as the ‘hooker with a heart’, Roxy. In addition Ramsay Bolton comes on and does his mad eye shtick - keep working on that your time will come! Needless to say Sean Petwee also shows up as is the legal requirement of any film make in the UK. This time he helps out by only showing up in one scene and he reuses his copper’s costume from ‘Alpha Papa’. Oh, and as a bonus you also get Miss Cross off ‘Rushmore’ as Bill’s ineffectual parole officer.

The direction and pace of the film were well handled and I like the long montage of how drugs were packaged and distributed in the estate. It was a bit like ‘Breaking Bad’. Wait a minute, it was exactly like ‘Breaking Bad’!

The film builds towards an inevitable climax and, to be honest, it was the only part that I felt short-changed by. Our man was summoned to the pub for a showdown with a mental drugs gang, What followed was a bit limp and I don’t think the build up got the pay off it deserved. That said, it was well enough made and I had enough invested in the characters for me to enjoy the overall package.

All the main characters enjoyed something of an arc and, although nothing was resolved, we still have hope for the future. Can’t ask for much more than that!

W Rating 18/23 Best Bit : You don’t get that at my hairdresser’s!

No.228 : Warning Shot (1967)

Warning Shot at the IMDb

David Janssen leads a stellar cast in this 1967 police drama. Technically it should be called ‘No Warning Shot’ but let’s save the nit picking until after the plot summary.

Janssen plays Sergeant Tom Valens who is on a stake out with his partner as the film opens. They are supposedly looking for a psycho killer but they should probably be after the man with the rogue smoke machine instead. They discuss how foggy it is but it looks more like bonfire night. Janssen spots a suspicious character who runs when challenged. Our man soon has him cornered but when the felon moves to draw a gun Janssen shots first sending him into the swimming pool of the apartment complex.

So far so good, but wait? An ID check shows the shot man to be a doctor who was visiting an elderly patient and more worryingly there is no gun. Things quickly spiral downwards for Janssen as he is suspended and the public want his head - this is well demonstrated with interviews with placard wielding protesters some of whom suggest white policemen may get an easier ride - glad things have changed since the 1960’s!

Criminal charges are soon brought and, unwilling to accept a plea, Janssen tries to unravel the life of his victim to see if he really is the good man all seem to think he is. Whilst this is going on he also has to deal with him impending divorce from the lovely Joan Collins - can things get any worse?!

The investigation is well done with a few red herrings thrown in such as woman killed in the same apartment complex due to an illegal abortion which turns out to be unconnected to our case. Other angles include a nutty old lady with a penchant for dog toys, a playboy pilot and a young Stefanie Powers who lacks her ‘Hart to Hart’ hair but still brightens up the screen.

The pieces slowly fall together but who can be trusted and where is that darn gun?

I liked this gritty crime drama. There was no sex or swearing but it was a seamy slice of LA life with some decent brutality thrown in for good measure. The simple premise was laid out at the start and although the film’s sympathies clearly lie with Janssen, the pivotal scene at the start is shot in such a way that we, the audience, aren’t sure if the gun ever really existed.

The detection was good although the resolution was a little bit improbable for my liking. Janssen was a compelling lead and although not that sympathetic, his tough guy with values won me over. He also gets smoochy with Joan Collins but casts her away when she’s half out of her dress - that man has strength! The cast also has Ed Begley, Sam Wanamaker, Walter Pidgeon and  Lillian Gish - Lillian Gish this film is not!

Things do play out as you’d expect but I was wrong footed a couple of times and the pace and drama kept me interested throughout. Well worth checking out.

Best Bit : Joan shows a bra strap!  ‘W’ Score : 18/23

No.224 : What’s the Worst That Could Happen? (2001)

What’s the Worst That Could Happen? at the IMDb

 What’s the Worst That Could Happen? Well making a sequel to this piece of garbage springs to mind. If that comment seems somewhat predictable I can only say, in my defence, that the film started it.

The frankly never funny Martin Lawrence stars as Kevin, a career thief who scouts auctions for information and potential targets. He scores points off an appraiser by telling her that both her designer glasses and star lot are fakes before taking his wisdom to the auction itself. He spots a pretty girl and, on learning that she is selling a treasured painting to pay her bills steals it from the winning bidder. He then returns it to the lady before receiving some sexy payment in return.

At this early stage the moral compass of the film is set when he tells the lady in a post coital chat that he stole the painting and she thinks he’s a stand up guy for doing so. In a world where black people are often stereotyped as thieves and robbers this is dubious at best especially as every black character in the film has similar moral values ; but he makes wisecracks so that’s OK.

Time passes and Kevin and his acting talent free squeeze have moved in together. He has not done any stealing for a while much to the chagrin of his fence, the late Bernie Mac. His pal John Leguizamo tells him about an easy score at Danny DeVito’s house but this soon goes awry and DeVito takes from him his lucky ring that the new girlfriend gave him. The rest of the film takes up the pointless cat and mouse chase as Kevin and DeVito try to outsmart each other to get the ring and stay ahead of flamboyant police Detective William Finchner

This has to be the worst film I have seen in a long time. It is clearly made for morons with pratfalls and the most obvious gags you have ever seen. For example that ancient one where he says ‘There’s no way you are coming on this trip’ just before a cut to a scene where they are on that trip - yeah that’s there. You also get the slackest, most improbable plot allied with characters who have motivations that defy belief. If DeVito is this mega-businessman answering to Senate committees why is he squabbling with a house breaker? Don’t there guys have people to take care of that kind of thing?

Still to get bogged down in semantics does this film a service it doesn’t deserve. It is unfunny, poorly plotted, terribly scripted and downright offensive - why is it acceptable to dress up as Arabs and do funny voices? The tea towel on the head went out in the 1970’s!

The only mild amusement for me, apart from seeing name actors making a fool of themselves, was the funny sign language interpreter and that was stolen wholesale form ‘Airplane!’.

The end kind of summed up the whole enterprise for me when Lawrence appeared in an outsized afro wig and said ‘I’m a black male, not a blackmailer’. Yes, it was that terrible.

‘W’ Score 3/23
Best Bit : ‘The End’

No.182 : Welcome to the Punch (2013)

Welcome to the Punch at the IMDb

Another page from Alan Partridge’s book of ‘Bad Slags’ now as we pick through this British cops v robbers action and swearing fest.

The film opens with a daring bank raid. It’s daring because all the bad guys are wearing suits and escape as a motorcycle formation team. The only cop in town is James McAvoy who has a shiny car and no back up. He’s ordered not to pursue but we know he’s reckless, er a maverick, from the off as he disregards the stuffed shirts at HQ and goes after the bad guys. Clearly Health and Safety called this one right as after a minor kafuffle McAvoy is shot in the leg and the bad guys get away.

We fast forward a couple of years and, although still a cop, McAvoy is bitter and forced to syringe out fluid from his still painful leg wound. He’s still bitching at his superiors, one of whom is that annoying one out of all these type of films and the other the Governor out of ‘The Walking Dead’ who has political ambitions. We learn that the leader of the robbers was Jacob Sternwood who not only has a tough name, he’s tough as well.

The bad man has gone to ground but the cops fancy their chances of a collar when they pick up Sternwood’s son on an unrelated offence. What follows is a predictable game of cat and mouse as the gangster heads back to the smoke to rescue his kid while McAvoy tries to remember to limp and look tough despite a weak beard.

This film wasn’t as terrible as I anticipated but it was still pretty poor. Of course it’s easy to pick nits, so let’s do that then.

McAvoy may now have the leading man status to open a film but he didn’t convince as the haunted copper with a score to settle. He may have been shown a couple of gun drills but his running about and swearing while offering his piece was more laughable than threatening. Better was Mark Strong as the villain but he’s had plenty of practice -  see ‘The Guard’ ‘Kick-Ass’ etc. He certainly topped McAvoy in the acting stakes but even he floundered with some hokey dialogue and ridiculous plot twists.

Down the list you also get Peter Mullen doing what he does and a disinterested David Thewlis as the aspirational politician who’s plan to shoot up London to win votes and lucrative contracts was ill conceived at best. The lead lady was a bit plain and her habit of writing stuff on her hands had her fate signalled from the off - guess where the killer clue is found?

The story was overly complicated and too reliant of coincidence and lucky timing. At the end McAvoy has a long speech where he explains the plot along with flashbacks and I was still a bit puzzled. Some of it didn’t even make sense - Britain’s most wanted escapes from his Icelandic lair, kills plenty, and then jets straight into the heart of London without a second glance. He also manages to meet all his old contacts and wanders in and out of various crimes scenes with no questions asked.

The big showdown where the two arch enemies forge an uneasy alliance was so much horse shit, but at least it did let a few extras get shot up. The production was quite lavish for a British film but it had so many ‘London at Night’ establishing shots you’d think the whole thing was bankrolled by the tourist board - well maybe if every person in Britain wasn’t shown as a total murdering psycho you might.

Overall the film was like a lavish episode of ‘The Sweeney’ and it was certainly better than the recent remake film of that series. Part of the fun is spotting all the actors they found sitting about in the Garrick Club and shoved on screen for five minutes. The violence was moderate with nothing too graphic despite ten million bullets being shot off in the name of entertainment. Worth a look but only a passing one as you skip past it on Channel 5 in a couple of years time.

W Score 12/23  Best Bit - Storage wars Writ Large

No.168 : We Own the Night (2007)

We Own the Night on IMDb

It’s 1988 in New York and things are going well for club manager Joaquin Phoenix. He has girlfriend Eva Mendes getting frisky on the sofa and all the drugs his bloated frame can manage. We soon learn that he is in the employ of the Russians and as anyone who has ever seen a film knows, they must be up to some bad shit. He knocks off work early so that he and Eva can attend a police function in a church basement, a strange affair that keeps the same hours as a hot disco.

Joaquin’s brother, Marky Mark, and Father, Robert Duvall are high ranking cops and they are concerned at our hero’s erratic behaviour and the company he is keeping. The Russians are dealing drugs out of Joaquin’s club and they’d like him to do some snitching for them. The lounge lizard club boss is having none of it but reconsiders when Marky Mark narrowly escapes the attentions of an incompetent hit man.

The bad company Joaquin keeps don’t know of his family connections as he changed his Polish name to ‘Green’ to fit in. This oversight leads them to spill far too many details of their plans to control the drug trade and put a cap in the ass of poor old Robert Duvall.

With this new motivation Joaquin decides to turn squealer and infiltrates the mob’s drug factory, which is frankly rubbish next to the one in ‘Robo-Cop‘. As you’d expect the main bad guy escapes and turns his attentions, quite understandably, on Joaquin and Eva who foolishly stood by her man and indeed took the part.

With the claret flying we learn about a big drug deal going down - if only some implausible bit of deduction can lead them to the remote meeting place where they can wrap up everything neatly and just in time.

This was an OK film but nothing you haven’t seen loads of times before. A kind of low-rent ‘The Departed’ for slow people. The main issue is hanging the whole film on the acting talents of Joaquin, which must have taken some doing as they are hard to spot. His broody silences look like he’s waiting to be given his lines and his manic shouty outbursts just look ridiculous. He does get some quality time with Eva Mendes, who serves as little more than eye-candy, but I guess that’s the benefit of having a producer credit.

Marky Mark is well short of his ‘The Departed’ showing especially at the end where he takes a sudden and unheralded character twist that sets up Joaquin to be the hero. Duvall does what you’d expect but you see no chemistry at all in the family trio.

The bad guy Russians are your stereotyped tattooed psychos but exuded very little menace, even in the supposedly tense ‘wearing a wire’ scene. The action, as it was, was weak with a confusing and poorly orchestrated car chase that had me wondering what was happening. The big shoot out at the end was a damp squib and it beggared belief  the cops shouted out their appearance giving the Russians the time to tool up and flee from the rear windows.

You can see what they were going for here but the whole good son, bad son routine failed to ignite as did Joaquin’s redemption - he looked like he was having a far better time at the start! I did laugh when the police chief made Joaquin a probationary cop for the big raid and said ‘After this you’ll need to go to the Police Academy’. At last a vehicle worthy of his talents! - hope he rooms with the guy who makes computer noises!

Best Bit - Hey Eva that sofa hasn’t been Scotch guarded!
Score : 14/23

No. 138 : What Doesn’t Kill You (2008)

What Doesn't Kill You at the IMDb

Here’s a film that’s familiar on many levels but still offers enough nuggets of interest to garner pass marks. It opens with a botched armoured car robbery with an off duty policeman interfering with the sloppily planned job. Ethan Hawke pulls off his mask and strides towards the have a go hero with his gun blazing. Before we find out the outcome of the shoot out we dissolve to the past and learn that this is one of those films where we’ll have to watch for 90 minutes just to get back to the starting point.

Hawke and ‘W’ thread friend Mark Ruffalo are a pair of tearaways who grow up on the tough streets of Boston. We see them as teenagers running errands for the local Irish villain and then 15 years later, still doing the same petty crimes. They try to branch out on their own but an early heist involving dodgy TVs sees them sent down for five years.

Ruffalo eventually makes his parole but Hawke gets an extra six months for bashing a nonce. Our man finds it tough on the outside and soon the nuns and the gas board are looking for their overdue cash. With jobs hard to come by Ruffalo struggles with staying away from petty crime and the bottle. With breaking point reached Hawke gets out and suggests that the end to their trouble can be found with one last big job. With the stick up fast approaching we have to guess who’ll be on the crew and whether it’ll be successful.

We’ve seen most of this stuff before with films like ‘The Departed’ and ‘The Boondock Saints’ heavy influences here. The two leads are excellent and I thought Hawke in particular was very reminiscent of his recent outing in ‘Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead’. This film isn’t as good as that one but that’s obvious seeing that it doesn’t have Philip Seymour Hoffman or Marisa Tomei displaying her charms. We do get Amanda Peet as Ruffalo’s wife but all she does is moan a lot.

The idea that the two protagonists are on a road that has no exits is, again, a well worn one but they could have jazzed it up somewhat as they were basically saying that if you can only get a crappy job you may as well rob banks. The bad guys lacked a bit of menace and while I’m sure their casual threats delivered from their cosy bar was meant to be reminiscent of ‘The Sopranos’ they served only to show their shortcomings next to that series.

I did like the interplay between the two leads with some of their capers such as dognapping clearly played for laughs. Ruffalo was a bit too anguished as the tormented family man trying to do the right thing but overall I cared a bit so something was right. The ending delivered a rather unearned surprised and my usually favoured ‘what happened next’ captions seemed somewhat out of place here, reminding us that it was a movie rather than a gritty drama.

Despite the various nits the film is better than average but not as good as any of the other stuff I’ve compared it to in the review. So there you have it, if the faint praise doesn’t kill you it’ll only make you stronger.

Best Bit : Nonce Gets His Dues
‘W’ Rating 15/23

No.74 : Waz (2007)

Waz at the IMDb

The IMDb gives the title of this film as ‘W Delta Z’ which seems a bit literal to me but to be fair they do use the Greek letter as a substitute ‘A’. Never mind, gets on the list either way!

‘Waz’ is a detective thriller in which a serial killer is on the loose. Jaded detective Eddie Argo and his fresh faced partner Helen notice that the bodies have unusual injuries and have an equation carved into their flesh. Lab tests reveal the presence of horse tranquilliser and as good fortune would have it there is only one source of the drug in the area. They raid the supplier and find slightly wacky lab man Dennis Pennis and the self same equation on the black board. It transpires that Pennis is just the supplier and he only has a few clues to assist the detectives.

The cops notice that the bodies are linked and that they appeared to have been given the choice to be killed or allow a close friend or relative to die in their place. We learn that Eddie had a high profile case collapse that involved many of the now dead people and his only link is the victim in that case, a rather grubby looking Selma Blair. Things move quickly when we learn that Blair is indeed the killer and that she’s been working on the equation which she believes proves that we’ll always seek self preservation over the welfare of others, even if they are our children or grandparents.

The last surviving acquitted man is in police protection but manages to fall into the killers hands. Eddie now has a choice should he let the man die or place himself in the killer’s hands?





This was a pretty horrible post ‘Saw’ serial killer with an elaborate plan movie. I don’t know what’s wrong with a good old fashioned killing spree as nowadays it seems to be a requirement that the killer has a scheme and a sound proof basement. The tortures such as nails bashed into finger nails and knees hammered were really gruesome and certainly not my idea of entertainment.



The detection angle was pretty good, although as soon as we meet the scarred and weird Blair there is no doubt that she’s the baddie. They did well to dispel any notions that her plan was unworkable by having her enlist unwilling strangers to help he move burly men by acting weak and needy.

The big reveal at the end did catch me unaware but on reflection it wasn’t really believable and nothing that had gone before gave it any credibility. The torture scenes were brutal and nasty and although necessary in the frame work of the film you have to wonder who’d enjoy seeing them.

These torture horror crime films are getting more and more prevalent and it isn’t welcome trend. This film wanted to be ‘Se7en’ but fell well short of that and barely scraped its way to parity with the likes of the ‘Saw’ franchise. It did have a good cast but when you have Melissa George and Selma Blair looking like a pair of hags you are clearly not making the most of your assets. Of course grimy and squalid is what the director aspired too and the fact that he achieved this meant only that my enjoyment was curtailed.

Not one to recommended unless you are a sick son of a bitch!


Best Bit : How much do you love Granny?

‘W’ Score : 12/23