FILM REVIEW: THE GHOST WRITER

Hoyts Distribution
Now Showing

The first clue that the handsomely rewarding writing job which the ghost writer (Ewan McGregor) is being offered – to write the memoirs of recently retired and now disgraced UK Prime Minster, Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan) – may not be a straightforward writing gig? The body of his predecessor having just washed up dead on a beach near the American home of his intended subject. That revelation opens Roman Polanski’s film, based on the bestseller by Robert Harris, and I was hooked from then on.

As a writer needs to eat (trust me, we do!), the ghost (he is never given a name) accepts the job and flown to said house; a glass and steel structure sitting on the coast, constantly buffeted by wind and rain and occupied by Lang, his wife Ruth (Olivia Williams), Lang’s PA (Kim Cattrall), a housekeeper and some security staff. The ghost, while not exactly a prisoner, cannot venture far: the all-but completed manuscript must never leave the study.

McGregor gives one of his best performances in quite some time, as it slowly dawns on his character that not everything is as it seems and he may be in over his head. And Brosnan, continuing to flourish in his post-Bond career, gives an impressive turn as the charismatic former PM whose political career appears to have been more style than substance. His wife, an excellent Williams who plays the by turns frosty then friendly Mrs Lang, was obviously the brains behind the man.

Harris based the character of Lang on actual former UK PM, Tony Blair, but Brosnan plays him with a swagger that was never even suggested in Michael Sheen’s recent spot-on portrayals (in The Queen, The Special Relationship).

The Ghost Writer is a top notch thriller which relies on suspense rather than action to keep you riveted. Yes there are some guns and a chase scene or two, but Polanski opts to channel Alfred Hitchcock rather than subscribe to today’s fast edit, handy-cam school of thriller making.

Polanski effectively uses mood and score to suggest a constant threat of danger to the ghost and to keep you on the edge of your seat. But there’s a also a vein of dark humour running through the film, proof that Polanski is having as much fun as one suspects.

He is in full control of every element and working near the height of his filmmaking powers, making for what is easily one of the best films of 2010.

FILM REVIEW: THE EXPENDABLES

Roadshow Films
Now Showing

Bucking the cinematic trend of recent 1980s remakes, Sylvester Stallone, as director, co-writer and star of The Expendables, has made an "original" action film as though it was indeed sill the '80s. Akin to the violent actioners like Rambo and Commando which reflected the Republican Reagan-era politics of the time, it's as though the project was greenlit during the latter stages of the 2008 US presidential campaign and Sarah Palin (god forbid!) looked headed for the White House.

That latter nightmare scenario thankfully failed to eventuate but it didn't prevent The Expendables being completed - and released. Sly is Barney Ross, head of a team of mercenaries who go in where others fear to tread; the film opens in Somalia where pirates holding Westerners hostage are about to wish they'd traded movies for the high seas.

A rag tag bunch, Ross’s team comprises of one or two superannuated action stars (Sly and his Rocky IV nemesis Dolph Lundgren), some recognisable actors of today (the dad from TV's Everybody Hates Chris) and two not-so-old action stars in Jason Statham and Jet Li.

Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger also make brief cameos, and while Willis can still mix it with the big boys (though he doesn't here, perhaps saving himself for the rigours of shooting Die Hard 5), Schwarzenegger looks as though the Governorship of California has taken its toll.

Willis' Mr Church enlists Sly's team to fly down to some South American isle where a rogue CIA agent (Eric Roberts, another '80s throwback) has set up a puppet dictatorship. The dictator's daughter leads the resistance and it is for her the team returns to the isle; Sly inspired by the words of former teammate now tattoo artist-cum-sage, Mickey Rourke.

From then on the film becomes a 'How To' guide - 1001 ways to kill a man - where knives, bullets, bombs and good old fashioned fisticuffs are deployed. Subtle and witty it's not. It's like Ocean's Eleven for neanderthals, a very poor man's Dirty Dozen. But the body count, and various ways in which that count is achieved, makes Quentin Tarantino's recent Dirty Dozen homage, Inglourious Basterds, resemble a Pixar film in comparison.

At a stretch you could probably call The Expendables a guilty pleasure but you would have to have been raised on a diet of '80s action flicks by Stallone, Arnie et al, and have a continuing soft spot for these ultra-masculine specimens now reduced to dinosaurs, to get any real enjoyment from it. Or maybe you're a Sarah Palin fan and The Expendables works well as both entertainment and a blueprint for foreign policy: America, fuck yeah!

DVD REVIEW: SOLITARY MAN

Roadshow Entertainment
Available now on DVD and Blu-ray

Solitary Man is an apt title for this film for it's all about one man and one performance. Ben Kalmen is a 60-year-old man with a shady past as a car salesman who fudged his records, but whose real crime was, when given news of a heart condition, abandoned his wife (Susan Sarandon) and daughter in pursuit of a hedonistic lifestyle. That meant mostly skirt, the younger the better. And there is probably no better choice for such a role than Michael Douglas.

In a vanity free performance, Douglas, resembling more his father, Kirk, with every passing year, wears Kalmen as comfortably as a suit. While eager to reclaim his position as the caryard king, Kalmen proves his own worst enemy by constantly letting down those who trust him and, in the case of current girlfriend, Jordan (Mary-Louise Parker), would financially back him. He blows that deal, and relationship, by shitting wear he eats, so to speak, and it's just the beginning of his downward spiral.

Douglas hasn't had a role this juicy or substantial since his wonderful turn in 2000's Wonder Boys, where he played a college professor struggling with writer's block and all manner of personal complications. That character was far more rumpled than Douglas gets to play here but despite the suits and air of confidence Kalmen projects, the cracks are much deeper and the pain far more real. And Douglas relishes every moment.

Unfortunately, that means his co-stars, which include Jesse Eisenberg and Danny DeVito, as well as Sarandon and Parker, aren't given as much to do although DeVito, as an old college buddy still in awe of his friend, and Sarandon, as the long suffering but not bitter ex-wife, are note perfect.

Douglas is garnering early Oscar buzz for his performance here but despite the warm reception by US critics, the little seen film (it arrives in Australia direct to DVD) will perhaps lack the profile to see a nomination eventuate. More prolific will be his reprisal of the Gordon Gekko role in next month's Wall Street sequel, Money Never Sleeps. Gekko earned Douglas his only acting Oscar and if that sequel allows him to plumb similar depths to those in Solitary Man, he could well be up for another.

FILM REVIEW: STEP UP 3D

Universal Films
Now Showing

If there is a benefit to the rise of reality TV (and that's a bloody big if), then it must surely be in the discovery of new young talent, both singing and dancing. Australian Idol, and its American forebear, have given us some talented vocalists and So You Think You Can Dance has unearthed some amazing dancers, simultaneously igniting a love of, and appreciation for dance.

Step Up 3 is a lot like So You Think You Can Dance; a succession of dance-offs between a group of young things battling it out to be the best in something called the World Jam. And the dancing is fantastic; it certainly doesn't require 3D to make it pop. .

The plot, which deals with loyalty, betrayal, chasing your dreams and warding off a heartless bank eager to foreclose, could do with an injection of SYTYCD tension (“Dance for your lives!”), for as it stands it's about as enervating as a stroke.

Moose (Adam G. Sevani) a guy who, despite his Fraggle-like voice and appearance, is beginning his first semester at NYU. He's studying engineering but his real love is dance and it's when he falls in with a like minded bunch of street dancers (they're BFAB – born from a boom box) that he becomes swept up in their pursuit of the World Jam title.

Of course, the end result is never in doubt but the dance sequences which pave the way to that denouement are undeniably thrilling; their first round Jam battle taking place in what resembles Thunderdome, another involves the accidental but imaginative use of water. Like great singing, great dancing is impressive to behold and that's the real reason to catch Step Up 3D.