Film Review: The Last of the Mohicans

Director: Michael Mann

The 1992 historical epic, set during the French Indian War on the East coast of america, is a must see film that had past me by for all these years. The film is more based on the 1936 film than the novel of the same name, the screenplay was adapted by Mann and Christopher Crowe. The film became renowned for its stand out lead performance from Daniel Day Lewis and the ubiquitous soundtrack with the main song replayed during the movie being taken from "The Gael" by Dougie McLean.

Hawkeye (Daniel Day Lewis)

Set in 1757, The French and Indian War is well underway as the English and French battle over Carolina with the Mohicans taking sides to protect themselves. Hawkeye (Daniel Day Lewis) is the adopted son of Chingachgook (Russell Means) and his brother Uncas (Eric Schweig). They are fighting with the British in the war but are promised leave if they're villages are attacked. After the slaughter of their village whilst they are away, Colonel Edmund Munro (Maurice Roeves) say he does not have enough evidence of the attack as Major Duncan Heyward (Steven Waddington) lies about it. This leave the Mohicans with very little chance of escape to save their land and people.

Daniel Day Lewis is excellent in the lead role, as an actor he is always thoroughly prepared for a role and performs to the highest standards. The score, with the recurring theme, is excellent and the perfect accompaniment to the backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. The setting is absolutely staggering and one of the best examples of stunning cinematography I've seen, give me this over CGI nonense anyday.

Major Duncan Heyward (Steven Waddington)

The plot is intriguing but plays a much bigger emphasis on the romantic storyline and the battles between the English and French than I thought it would, the displacement of the Mohawk people by the war and the violence against them was slightly pushed more into the periphery. This was certainly a disappointment for me but the storyline is a good one aside from that. Some of the lines have a cringe factor of cliché proportions but again I think that is just 20 years of aging catching up.

3/4 Beautiful classic but looks a bit dated

Film Review: American Psycho

Director: Marry Harron

A 2000 satirically dark comedy, based on the now infamous book by Bret Easton Ellis of the same name. It was always said that the book was too violent and complex to be made into a film, having read the book I don't think I've ever seen anything that would be harder to make into a film. Before viewing the film I felt it would either be a long epic covering every subtle nuance from the book or a quick short film that just covers the basic storyline, as it turns out they went for the latter.

Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) attacking someone with an axe 

Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) is a wealthy investment banker who lives along in an impressive Manhattan apartment. His life generally involves eating in upmarket restaurants, wearing expensive designer clothes and look great amongst his equally shallow friends and work colleagues. However he is also secretly a complete psychopath whose main aim is to torture and kill his victims.

Harron does a good job of pulling together a richly complex book into a narrative fit for the big screen, its almost a nostalgia piece to the late 80's with its gaudy sets, bad suits and cheesy 80's pop. The violence is toned down a lot from the book which is to be expected but its actually very tame indeed compared to similarly violent flicks of the time. The whole film is very distant and sanitized which I guess was a deliberate move by Harron to reflect this quality in the characters who are actually all very distant from one another. Bale is excellent in the lead although quite different from how I imagined Bateman to be.

Patrick Bateman contemplates killing his secretary Jean (Chloe Sevigny)

The ambiguity over how reliable Bateman is as the source for this narrative is largely untouched within the film, there are still the trademark scenes from the book (police cars blowing up. conversation with his lawyer and everyone mistaken Bateman for someone else) but the actual question is largely ignored. The film world demands much more answers than the world of writing so we almost have to believe what Bateman is doing is actually happening which removes some of the mystery and allure.

The snappy back and forths between Bateman and his colleagues are rather poor to say the least, it lacks the dynamism that is displayed in the book which is something that cannot be blamed on the transition between mediums. This makes the final acts of the film more tiresome than they should be as we rumble on from the violence to see what will become of Patrick Bateman. But I feel my criticisms are probably on the harsh side, mainly because I adore the book so much.

2.5/4 A good effort to film the unfilm-able book

Film Review: Charlotte Gray

Director: Gillian Armstrong

Based on the book of the same name by acclaimed writer Sebastian Faulks, Charlotte Gray is a tale of the exploits of female special operatives during the second world war who were taken to occupied France to help the French resistance against the Nazis. The film was a big failure for Film Four who financed the project and lost a lot of money due to poor box office sales, they even had to restructure the production teams to cope with the loss.

Charlotte Gray (Cate Blanchett) is convinced to help the war effort after meeting a man on a train who learns that she is fluent in French. Despite warnings from her new lover Peter (Rupert Penry-Jones) she joins the special ops to help the French resistance in a small town called Lezignac in the free zone. There she meets Julien (Billy Crudup) who leads the resistance but is also a communist and she also becomes close to Levade (Michael Gambon), Julien's father, and two Jewish children whose parents have been taken away.

Julien (Billy Crudup) with Charlotte Gray (Cate Blanchett)

The film was generally panned by critics but I have to say I found it an intriguing and tense drama as the Nazi's slowly tighten the net around the French resistance in their small town. Cate Blanchett is a delight to watch in the lead role, despite one or two problems which Ill mention below, and Michael Gambon is the other star man playing his classic role as a grumpy old man. The underhanded nature of the town at the time is what struck a chord with me most throughout the whole film.

There are a few initial problems that come to light with Charlotte Gray, Cate Blanchett's Scottish accent is capable but isn't always present when it should be as she lulls back into her normal accent. This is a minor detail compared to everyone in France speaking English even though the Germans and French sometimes converse in French to one another, once you get past this flaw you see an absorbing and enjoyable war time drama.

3/4 Absorbing drama shows a different war fought in France

This week's releases

Planes 3D: Imagination is obviously at an all time low at Disney, after failing to rehash The Lone Ranger they have taken the success of Cars and gone for the same movie but in the Sky. Dusty, a lowly crop duster plane who sets his sights on becoming a champion aerial racer.

With the odds stacked against him and a most unfortunate fear of heights, Dusty turns to a seasoned pro for tuition and is soon put on the right trajectory to make his dreams come true.

2 Guns: Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington are agents who botch their attempts to infiltrate a drug ring, after escaping they both release the other is an undercover agent and that they have to flee from the gang and their own superiors.

Film Review: Platoon

Director: Oliver Stone

When looking to the studios for funding for his Vietnam war movie, Oliver Stone ran into the issue of legacies within a genre. The studios were reluctant as they saw The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now as the pinnacle of the Vietnam War movie which could not be bettered, they didn't want to make another movie which may flop in comparison to the timeless epics that had gone before. Stone had finished his duty in Vietnam in 1968 so wanted to share his new found beliefs about life and war after such a traumatic experience, finally in 1986 he went out to Philippines to start shooting the movie.

Sergeant Elias in one of the now infamous climatic scenes (Willem Dafoe)

The films main focus is on Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) who is a college dropout who volunteers for combat duty in Vietnam during the war in 1967. His enthusiasm for war is quickly dropping as he fights near the Cambodian border with the heat and tiredness wearing him down, he slowly becomes part of the group within the company that he is assigned despite being accused of falling asleep whilst on watch. But as the war develops he realises that the enemy isn't just the Vietcong.

Like Apocalypse Now, it features a vast cast of characters rather than just focusing on a few. The early parts of the movie do very well in setting the mood between the soldiers and portraying them as many army units are, a bunch of macho men who bullshit and mock each other at every opportunity. But it's the second half of the film that shows the harrowing side of war where men without distinct rules and boundaries take lives into their own hands. A scene where Taylor stops two soldiers from raping young girls in a village they come across was also starkly reminiscent of Casualties of War which has a similar theme set during the Vietnam War.

Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen)

The acting is top notch from many of the actors involved, Charlie Sheen as the still morally guided and fresh faced Taylor is impressive to watch in arguably Sheen's best performance to date. Willem Dafoe is another actor who I would point out for significant praise within the film but on the whole the acting is good from all involved. But most importantly the film adds another dimension to the Vietnam War epics that have gone before and that is surely the highest praise that can be heaped upon Oliver Stone in making this movie, its success was always going to be based around it not just being another run of the mill Vietnam war movie and it certainly isn't.

3.5/4 Still a classic to this day

Film Review: Delicatessen

Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet

French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet captured the hearts of movie going public with the incredibly sweet and funny Amelie in 2001, but his first film that brought him into the public view was Delicatessen. A film instantly recognizable as one of Jeunet's for its offbeat humour and zany scenes. Being a film from the early 90s it was clear early on that it hadn't aged well in the last 20 or so years and had a clear influence from Terry Gilliam in the way it was shot.

Unemployed circus clown Louison (Dominique Pinon) arrives at a dilapidated apartment building above a delicatessen looking for a place to stay and a job as a handyman, he is eventually hired by landlord Clapet (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) who has a track record of luring victims to the building then killing them and serving them as meat in his shop. In a futuristic post-apocalyptic France with food in short supply this is the best way for Clapet to make money. His plans to make Louison his next victim hit a snag when he forms a close bond with his daughter Julie (Marie-Laure Dougnac).

Louison (Dominique Pinon)

This film was bizarre from the outset with Jeunet using some quite simple jokes and a musical routine based around noises coming from the different apartments, it was more of the sweet-natured humour that was much better refined in Amelie and in this instance it completely fell flat. The plot itself is never really developed until a final act which just sees the entire set being trashed by various characters for little real reason, the introduction of the vegetarian troglodists just came across as a desperate attempt to fill in the time to make this a feature length movie.

To be honest the rest in between was rather uninspiring that I'm struggling to find the will to continue writing about it, one of the few redeeming scenes was when Julie invited Louison into her apartment and tries to pretend she doesn't need classes so plans out exactly how it will go she knows where everything is but it was really slim pickings.

1/4 Jeunet makes murder dull and zany humour tiring

Film Review: The White Ribbon

Director: Michael Haneke

Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke has never been renowned for making anything other than unsettling and harrowing film. Last year Amour won the award for Best Foreign Language film at the Oscars as a tale of one couple being torn apart by Alzheimers wowed critics, but in 2009 The White Ribbon was released and also nominated at the Oscars in the same category. Haneke explained the film as being about  "the origin of every type of terrorism, be it of political or religious nature."

The Pastor (Burghart Klaubner) with the children from the village

The film is set in the fictional German town of Eichwald in 1913, the town is a deeply protestant as the children are harshly taught religious values in confirmation classes by the local pastor. Whilst the women of the town are generally mistreated by the Baron (Ulrich Tukur) who employs most of the town and the doctor (Rainer Bock). The story is told by the local school teacher (Christian Friedel) who is looking back on his time in Eichwald as a strange set of events un-nerves the entire town before the First World War begins.

The actions of some of the powerful males in the town as they oppress the women and children is deeply troubling, very little of the abuse is actually physical but they are repressed and intimidated psychologically as the children are belittled whilst the women are left completely vulnerable without the males to feed them and house them. I genuinely think that Haneke didn't give many of the male characters actual names to imply that they could be anybody from any time and that this sort of behaviour isn't limited to this time or place. The films name comes from a story that the pastor tells saying that with his children he used to tie a white ribbon to them as a reminder of purity and innocence from which they have strayed.

The School teacher (Christian Friedel) and Eva (Leonie Benesch)

The tracking shots of the surrounding countryside are beautiful especially in the second act where we see the town in the middle of winter with thick snow on the ground. The beauty of nature cast against the ugly side of human nature. The acting in the film is simply fantastic, every character is entirely believable but the children are the most impressive. They are naturally curious but completely repressed from enjoying their naive childhood by the adults around them. Many believe that Haneke is a joyless and cynical filmmaker but in this instance he is simply humanistic and the ending is a far more truthful revelation than you could genuinely expect.

3.5/4 Harrowing and deeply upsetting parable