No.316 : Wolves (2018)

Wolves (2018) at the IMDb

Across both blogs we have watched a few Michael Shannon films recently. He is a top actor and always worth watching, so much so that I considered watching all his films as I have previously done for Michael Caine and Michael Fassbender. Could this be a Michael too far? The considered blog was to be called ‘Michael Shannon and on and on’. Ultimately I have decided against it for now, as I don’t have the time to re-watch all 60 odd hours of ‘Boardwalk Empire’, but stay tuned, if Lock-down 2 : The Sequel happens we could be on!

The ‘wolves’ of this film aren’t of the full moon variety, but the name of a high school basketball team. There's probably a metaphor in there too - 'wolves at the door', ' a pack of wolves', you get the idea. We follow the fortunes of their star player, Anthony, who dreams of a scholarship at Cornell University, where Andy out of ‘The Office’ went. His Dad, Michael Shannon, is an English professor at a poorly regarded college who is also struggling with his novel - Don't worry Mike, takes me ages to read one too. His mum is Carla Gugino who works in a clothes shop to make the family’s ends meet, having sacrificed her own ambitions.

The main spanner in the works is that Shannon is a gambler and not a very good one. We see him winning a $500 bet to clear his bar tab but as the stakes begin to rise his luck begins to falter.

Anthony’s team is doing well but his attempts to promote his friends in the starting line up nearly spells disaster. His coach relies on him but is also worried for his job. The Cornell coaches are impressed but does Anthony have the killer instinct?

Having made their way to the State finals the scene is set for Anthony and the Wolves to win the day, but a late injury may scupper his chances - and give his Dad a way out of his $200k gambling hole.

Although the son’s trials were the main focus of the film, I enjoyed the gambling subplot more, and wished the film had spent more time on this, despite Shannon’s uncharacteristic floppy hair. The gambling mentality was well observed with every small win nothing but an incentive to bet some more. It was kept vague as to whether Anthony’s injury, during a one on one game with his Dad, was deliberately inflicted but you could see opportunity knocking in Shannon’s mind as his son was ruled out of the big game. It was good that things in the final were never certain and his grimaces every time the home town team scored a point were fun and excruciating to watch.

The final scenes which saw a cavalcade of bookies and leg breakers show up at the game, a la Fat Tony in ‘The Simpsons’, before a final last gasp bid for glory were ridiculous, funny and exhilarating in equal measure.

Guglio as the long suffering mother and wife was good but I have no idea why she stuck with the hapless gambler. Taylor John Smith did well in the pivotal role as Anthony who had no troubles to seek, with a pregnant girlfriend and would be coaches on every corner. I also liked Chris Bauer, who you’ll know as the brothel manager on ‘The Deuce’, as Shannon’s erstwhile partner in crime.

I have seen similar films to this - ‘The Gambler’ with James Cann has a few obvious similarities for one - but there was enough new and interesting here to keep me engaged right down to the final buzzer.

Best Bit - 26 seconds left - start the uplifting music!  ‘W’ Rating 18/23

No.302 : Win Win (2011)

Win Win at the IMDb

Paul Giamatti plays Mike in this family/sports drama, a struggling lawyer with few clients and no money for a boiler repair. He has an evening job where he teaches high school students wrestling but his team has never won a match. He hides his financial woes from his lovely wife Amy Ryan, who appears to have dumped Michael Scott, and their young children.

He has friends in Hank Kingsley and Bobby Cannavale, who spends his time stalking his ex-wife and hanging about the locker room. No, not like that. Opportunity knocks for Mike when one of his few clients, Paulie out of ‘Rocky’ is declared incompetent and made a ward of the state. Mike moves in to offer to take over the old man’s care when his secretary mentions the fee for doing so is $1508 a month. Mike’s gesture isn’t magnanimous - he just wants the cash and immediately sticks the old man into a care home.

His plan looks good for about five minutes before Paulie’s grandson Kyle shows up, having run away from his deadbeat mother. This complicates things for Mike who has to house the youth in his basement whilst the boy’s mother goes through rehab. Things liven up when Mike learns that Kyle is a talented wrestler and soon the whole team is being dragged up due to his superior technique and winning performances.

It looks like Kyle may get a wrestling scholarship, but then his Mom appears with lawyer. The court transcript exposes Mike’s scheme and the mother wants Dad back - along with the keep money. Kyle doesn’t want to go back and Paulie wants to go back to his home. Who will get a happy ending out of this soap opera’s worth of dilemmas?

I’ve seen this film twice now having failed to review it the first time around - a shocking ‘W’ related crime that will not be repeated. It worked out well though, as I enjoyed it the second time too!

Paul Giamatti was good as always - he never stretches himself too far, but as a rotund every-man he’s hard to beat. He was punching above his weight with Amy Ryan but good luck to him. Hank was a bit wasted and didn’t really have too much to do in his assistant coach role. Cannavale was better, and as a threesome they were good value as middle aged men trying to live out their dreams through their young charges.

Mike’s first action was to con the court and the old man and despite that you never really took against him. He was in dire financial straights with his wonky boiler, but his early actions didn’t ring true with the rest of the film. Good people make mistakes but this just looked reckless and mean.

The wrestling scenes were well done and, although there were no suplexes or jumps from the top turnbuckle,  former wrestler Alex Shaffer did well as Kyle, despite his ‘Eminem’ haircut. Down the cast list I didn’t buy Melanie Lynskey as the scummy mum as she looks too darn nice. I  liked Nina Arianda  as Mike’s savvy secretary and it took me a while to place her as Axe's girl in the last series of ‘Billions’

Overall this was an excellent character study with plenty of laughs and rye ‘life’s like that’ moments. I’m glad a kind of happy ending was found, but it wasn’t one that wasn’t without cost and it was hard won.

Pick it off the mat and give it a go!

'W' Rating 20/23

No.161 : Whip It (2009)

Whip It at the IMDb

After the ‘girl power’ frenzy that was ‘While She Was Out’ I approached this film with some misgivings seeing as it was written by a lady and directed by Drew Barrymore. As you’d suspect the ‘go girl’ element is high and all the male characters are thinly drawn but it was a pleasant, if slightly familiar distraction.

Ellen Page, late of ‘Juno’ stars as a student and part time waitress who is under the thumb of her overbearing mother who thinks that her two daughters should follow in her footsteps and enter beauty pageants. Clearly our girl is more of a free spirit and after finding a flyer for an all girl roller derby match she decides to go along with her friend to see if there are any ‘cute guys’.

Of course there are and before we know it our little shrew is trying out for the team and having awkward soppy moments with a louche dude who has a band and interesting hair. The roller derby team , ‘The Hurl Scouts’ dress like mobile hookers and generally slap each other about a lot - no wonder there is no shortage of guys. The teams plays against the same five teams and we soon meet the baddie team ‘The Holly Rollers’ and their evil leader played by Juliette Lewis, reprising her bad girl routine from ‘Starsky & Hutch’.

Despite falling over a lot at the trials and looking about twelve our heroine gets on the team after lying about her age. Meanwhile romance is blossoming with the douche bag and he even gets to see her lacy bra and a souvenir in her ‘Stryper’ t-shirt. The roller derby team are usually last but with their new star player they soon start rising up the league.

Before we know it it’s time for all the clichés to set in with the championship game and the mother / daughter beauty pageant taking place the same night. Who will she choose? Will they win and what event? Has the dick weed boyfriend given away her t-shirt? It’s all so immaterial you might find yourself caring.

I actually quite liked this film although I’d be hard pressed to say why. But let’s try.

For one the sport was quite fun. I’d heard of but never seen a roller derby and it looks pretty gruesome. I wasn’t totally sold on the action scenes but they had the standard device of a funny commentator to explain things to the slow people. The team was your usual mix of sassy characters with a smart quip and some bonding never far away. At least the skirts where short and the school girl blouses tight.

The directing by Drew Barrymore was OK but I’d like to have seen a bit of the fat trimmed as nearly two hours for a formulaic rites of passage / sports film is a bit too long. There were a couple of good scenes with the one in the swimming pool nice and touching without being too letchy about a 17 year old.

The cast were all pretty good with Ellen Page almost convincing as a hell cat skater. At one point she does a tiny jump over one person and everyone is like ‘whoa Evel Kinevil here’ although not very convincingly. Barrymore couldn’t resist a small role in the team too but she was looking a bit long in the tooth for the short skirt and coloured hair - more like someone’s granny who forgot her pills.

Over all the film was a forgettable bit of fluff. It did have some indie sensibilities and was almost a hybrid of ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ and ‘Rollerball’ but not enough to spark the imagination or get me pulling on my skates.

As Devo didn’t say Whip It - Quite Good.

Best Bit : I’m wearing my best bra
‘W’ Rating 15/23