Usually, I relegate movies that piss me off quite as much as this thing to my
Saturday “Three Films Make A Post” segment but sometimes a boy does have to
express his anger and pain in more than a hundred words. Really, calling this a
movie goes a bit far, and is a bit of an insult to those people making movies in
their grandma’s backyards and could probably use the 35 to 60 Million US Dollars
this was apparently budgeted at to make a thousand films that at least show some
enthusiasm for the art of filmmaking; and who certainly have more talent than
the crew of highly paid professionals under “director” (I use this term loosely)
Peter Berg demonstrate here.
Now, if you’ve seen any of the other films Berg made with Marky Mark in the
lead, you’ll probably expect the reactionary spirit far beyond the average of
the not exactly progressive action movie genre (and as you know, I love me some
action movies even if they have their heart on the wrong side), as well as the
inability of Wahlberg to act his way out of a wet paper back, his macho alpha
male posturing mostly emphasising how ridiculous the guy is in these roles; the
casual racism is going to be a given too, I suppose.
But Berg (and whoever else is responsible for the decisions made during and
after production) doesn’t stop there this time around. The dialogue (“script” –
and I use the term even more loosely then “director” - by Lea Carpenter) is a
painful mess that’s made slightly more bearable by a sound mix that seems as
embarrassed by this shit as everyone else involved also should have been and
buries about half of the dialogue under noise and crappy music. The action
direction lets the Michael Bays and Tony Scotts of this world look like beacons
of clarity, Berg apparently going out of his way to shoot the action sequences
by pointing away from the action as often as possible. This becomes particularly
egregious during the martial arts fights of poor, misused Iko Uwais (who also
happens to be the only one in the movie bothering with some acting; Marky Mark
can’t, John Malkovich won’t), scenes that suggest to me that Berg would really
hate for the audience to see or actually enjoy any of this crap. For reasons
only known to the filmmakers, our “hero” spends much of his time insulting
everyone he meets, be it co-workers, strangers or random passersby, making the
guy unsympathetic even in a genre whose heroes are borderline psychopaths
anyway. The film’s also suffering from the delusion that gritty (you can bet
everybody involved just loves that descriptor, plus the good old “edgy”)
dialogue means having Marky Mark use the word fuck at least ten times in every
scene. In reality, this just makes the character we spend most of the film with
even more of an asshole, and a childish one to boot.
Tonally, this pretends not to be a proper action movie at all, but more the
kind of think-peace-style semi-political semi-action thing like Sicario
or Zero Dark Thirty (both films I have problems with, too, but
rather more upmarket ones having to do with their meaning and storytelling and
not a lack of even the most basic filmmaking skills). That nobody involved has
the brains or the talent to actually make that sort of film nearly goes without
saying; turns out there’s more to this filmmaking stuff than pointing a camera
away from the action. Though that bit, Berg has down pat.
I could go on berating Mile 22 for another six-hundred words or so,
but by now, my imaginary readers will have gotten the gist and can supply their
own insults towards its “storytelling” and “plotting”.
Showing posts with label iko uwais. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iko uwais. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 10, 2020
Sunday, November 10, 2019
Headshot (2016)
A man (Iko Uwais) with a headshot wound is washed ashore in
a small Indonesian fishing town. Young doctor Ailin (Chelsea Islan), manning the
place’s small clinic for a time, manages to save his life, and clearly develops
a bit of a thing for him while he’s still in a coma. Because she’s reading “Moby
Dick” at the time (she’s clearly a woman of excellent taste), she privately dubs
the guy Ishmael. That name is going to stick once he wakes up, for he has only
the faintest traces of memories of his past, so Ishmael he is now.
Of course, people do not find themselves getting shot in the head without a reason, and his past is going to catch up to him rather sooner than later. And because movie bad guys are cruel like that, Ailin and a random little girl are going to be dragged into his affairs rather more than anyone deserves; and Ishmael will learn that he’d probably rather have not remembered what the people from his past coming for him drag back to the surface again.
It’s really interesting to compare the joint Kimo Stamboel/Timo Tjahjanto feature Headshot with Tjahjanto’s directorial solo outing The Night Comes for Us. Both, once they get going, are action films of relentless pace, each of which contains about as much set-piece violence as two normal action films. As a matter of fact, you could argue that there’s a bit too much crushing of heads, shooting of bodies and so on and so forth, going on here, the directors clearly working from the theory that when one action scene is great, two must be even better. It’s a bit exhausting to watch at times, to be frank, but on the other hand, every single action scene (again in both films), is so inventive, so excellently staged, and so over the top in its violence, one can hardly blame a director for not leaving any one out. As a viewer, one simply needs to be prepared to be overwhelmed.
The films also share their tendency to be over-the-top gory, with so much blood and other bodily fluids bathing the surviving characters, the classic Japanese blood fountain seems rather reserved in comparison. Again, it might get a bit much for some viewers, but when you go in prepared for excess, you’ll have a great time simply mumbling “did they really just do that?”.
Headshot’s action is a bit different in nature than that of The Night, though, for where the later, Stamboel-less film is an action movie with martial arts sequences, this one’s very much a martial arts movie that puts most of its thoughts into coming up with new ways of getting two or a dozen people killed by Iko Uwais’s fists and feet. So there are quite a few moments echoing classic martial arts cinema, like the scene where Uwais has to fight off his attackers in a police station while handcuffed to a desk. The film also consistently sets Uwais against actors who are just as great screen fighters as he is, so there’s never a moment where we get the Indonesian version of having to pretend Keanu Reeves could beat Mark Dacascos in a martial arts fight. Now, if it where a contest in waving one’s arms around…But I digress.
The other big difference between the two films is in the nature of their protagonists. As Joe Taslim’s Ito in the later film, Ishmael has done terrible things, but where Taslim chose a life as a gangster and did have some, if dubious, degree of choice in his life (even though he tries to become a full human being eventually), Headshot’s protagonist is the victim of a man who kidnaps children, brainwashes them, and uses them as weapons, making him sympathetic even in his most violent moments. The film does use this quite cleverly to keep the audience’s sympathy on Ishmael’s side, emphasising the horror of his upbringing, the irony of him now using what has been taught to him to bring his “father” down, as well as the tragedy that the people he’s killing throughout the film – they don’t leave him much of a choice, mind you – are the closest he ever had to a family and loved ones.
It’s actually rather more cleverly done than you’d expect in a film that’s quite this fond of outrageous violence, but I for one am not going to complain about a film giving me the violence as well as some hidden complexities.
Of course, people do not find themselves getting shot in the head without a reason, and his past is going to catch up to him rather sooner than later. And because movie bad guys are cruel like that, Ailin and a random little girl are going to be dragged into his affairs rather more than anyone deserves; and Ishmael will learn that he’d probably rather have not remembered what the people from his past coming for him drag back to the surface again.
It’s really interesting to compare the joint Kimo Stamboel/Timo Tjahjanto feature Headshot with Tjahjanto’s directorial solo outing The Night Comes for Us. Both, once they get going, are action films of relentless pace, each of which contains about as much set-piece violence as two normal action films. As a matter of fact, you could argue that there’s a bit too much crushing of heads, shooting of bodies and so on and so forth, going on here, the directors clearly working from the theory that when one action scene is great, two must be even better. It’s a bit exhausting to watch at times, to be frank, but on the other hand, every single action scene (again in both films), is so inventive, so excellently staged, and so over the top in its violence, one can hardly blame a director for not leaving any one out. As a viewer, one simply needs to be prepared to be overwhelmed.
The films also share their tendency to be over-the-top gory, with so much blood and other bodily fluids bathing the surviving characters, the classic Japanese blood fountain seems rather reserved in comparison. Again, it might get a bit much for some viewers, but when you go in prepared for excess, you’ll have a great time simply mumbling “did they really just do that?”.
Headshot’s action is a bit different in nature than that of The Night, though, for where the later, Stamboel-less film is an action movie with martial arts sequences, this one’s very much a martial arts movie that puts most of its thoughts into coming up with new ways of getting two or a dozen people killed by Iko Uwais’s fists and feet. So there are quite a few moments echoing classic martial arts cinema, like the scene where Uwais has to fight off his attackers in a police station while handcuffed to a desk. The film also consistently sets Uwais against actors who are just as great screen fighters as he is, so there’s never a moment where we get the Indonesian version of having to pretend Keanu Reeves could beat Mark Dacascos in a martial arts fight. Now, if it where a contest in waving one’s arms around…But I digress.
The other big difference between the two films is in the nature of their protagonists. As Joe Taslim’s Ito in the later film, Ishmael has done terrible things, but where Taslim chose a life as a gangster and did have some, if dubious, degree of choice in his life (even though he tries to become a full human being eventually), Headshot’s protagonist is the victim of a man who kidnaps children, brainwashes them, and uses them as weapons, making him sympathetic even in his most violent moments. The film does use this quite cleverly to keep the audience’s sympathy on Ishmael’s side, emphasising the horror of his upbringing, the irony of him now using what has been taught to him to bring his “father” down, as well as the tragedy that the people he’s killing throughout the film – they don’t leave him much of a choice, mind you – are the closest he ever had to a family and loved ones.
It’s actually rather more cleverly done than you’d expect in a film that’s quite this fond of outrageous violence, but I for one am not going to complain about a film giving me the violence as well as some hidden complexities.
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
The Night Comes for Us (2018)
Indonesian Ito (Joe Taslim) has been working for the Chinese Triads as an
international enforcer for three years now. But when he and his men are tasked
with massacring a whole village, something in him changes, and he can’t bring
himself to kill the last survivor, the little girl Reina (Asha Kenyeri
Bermudez). Instead, he kills his own men and flees with Reina to his native
Jakarta, where he was a gang leader before he and his protégé Arian (Iko Uwais)
had to hire themselves out to the triads to protect the rest of the gang.
There’s not much left of Ito’s old life. Most of his former friends and partners are dead or in jail. His former girlfriend Shinta (Salvita Decorte), his old friend and partner Fatih (Abimana Aryasatya), his frenemie Bobby (Zack Lee) and Fatih’s nephew Wisnu (Dimas Anggara) are really what’s left of his past relations. Ito’s not happy with getting them involved in his troubles, but he believes he needs all the help he can get to come up with enough money and resources to bring him and Reina out of the triads’ reach. For of course, the triads don’t take to Ito’s betrayal kindly, and have sent a veritable horde out to kill him and the little girl. Among them is Arian who doesn’t seem to be completely on board with the project.
Things are further complicated by the fact that the triads are using their search for Ito as an excuse to move in on Jakarta, eventually offering the local crown to Arian if he is willing to betray his old friends. Also involved is a nameless government killer (Julie Estelle), who actually may be on Ito’s side.
I’m pretty sure that once the production of Timo Tjahjanto’s The Night Comes for Us was over and done with, there was no stage blood left in Jakarta, for the film is an unrelenting series of incredibly bloody action sequences. There’s a bit of obviously Heroic Bloodshed inspired personal business between men involved too, but the emphasis here is really on inspired on-screen violence that attempts to be as gritty and icky as the film can get away with – which is apparently a lot when you can get a deal with Netflix for distribution outside of Indonesia.
Tonally, the action is focused on that most tricky kind of choreography: creating fights that look and feel brutal and realistic, sloppy and inelegant like real fights do (probably), with a side note of desperation. Tijahjanto’s direction is tight, with a preference for action taking place in enclosed spaces that add a dimension of claustrophobia to the physical threat and the general violent insanity going around. The film also does what the more hyperviolently gritty side of action and martial arts cinema seldom does (because the hyperviolence makes this sort of thing rather difficult), defining characters through their fighting styles more than by the things they say: so Ito’s a brutal street fighter who just takes hits in the face and is willing to use just about anything to kill you, the government operator is controlled and efficient even when losing a finger or two, Bobby’s an insane berserker, and Arian’s at once elegant, and treacherous, and so on.
Inside of its basic tenet of being as brutal as possible, the film’s action is surprisingly diverse, with a whole load of fighting styles, action styles, and set piece ideas that never really repeat themselves beyond the good guys (good by default, because the bad guys are definitely even worse) being outnumbered, so the film’s action never becomes monotonous despite being quite so unrelenting. The whole blood and guts style of the affair - Tjahjanto’s experience in gory horror is always visible – puts this in great contrast to the much more antiseptic mass violence in something like the John Wick films that go for the videogame approach to bloody violence that may like a bit of gore, but prefers to ignore how messy, unpredictable and downright unpleasant all this bloody murder and human bodies are. Which isn’t to say that The Night Comes for Us is pretending to be more or deeper than it actually is, it’s just curiously human for a film this brutal.
There’s not much left of Ito’s old life. Most of his former friends and partners are dead or in jail. His former girlfriend Shinta (Salvita Decorte), his old friend and partner Fatih (Abimana Aryasatya), his frenemie Bobby (Zack Lee) and Fatih’s nephew Wisnu (Dimas Anggara) are really what’s left of his past relations. Ito’s not happy with getting them involved in his troubles, but he believes he needs all the help he can get to come up with enough money and resources to bring him and Reina out of the triads’ reach. For of course, the triads don’t take to Ito’s betrayal kindly, and have sent a veritable horde out to kill him and the little girl. Among them is Arian who doesn’t seem to be completely on board with the project.
Things are further complicated by the fact that the triads are using their search for Ito as an excuse to move in on Jakarta, eventually offering the local crown to Arian if he is willing to betray his old friends. Also involved is a nameless government killer (Julie Estelle), who actually may be on Ito’s side.
I’m pretty sure that once the production of Timo Tjahjanto’s The Night Comes for Us was over and done with, there was no stage blood left in Jakarta, for the film is an unrelenting series of incredibly bloody action sequences. There’s a bit of obviously Heroic Bloodshed inspired personal business between men involved too, but the emphasis here is really on inspired on-screen violence that attempts to be as gritty and icky as the film can get away with – which is apparently a lot when you can get a deal with Netflix for distribution outside of Indonesia.
Tonally, the action is focused on that most tricky kind of choreography: creating fights that look and feel brutal and realistic, sloppy and inelegant like real fights do (probably), with a side note of desperation. Tijahjanto’s direction is tight, with a preference for action taking place in enclosed spaces that add a dimension of claustrophobia to the physical threat and the general violent insanity going around. The film also does what the more hyperviolently gritty side of action and martial arts cinema seldom does (because the hyperviolence makes this sort of thing rather difficult), defining characters through their fighting styles more than by the things they say: so Ito’s a brutal street fighter who just takes hits in the face and is willing to use just about anything to kill you, the government operator is controlled and efficient even when losing a finger or two, Bobby’s an insane berserker, and Arian’s at once elegant, and treacherous, and so on.
Inside of its basic tenet of being as brutal as possible, the film’s action is surprisingly diverse, with a whole load of fighting styles, action styles, and set piece ideas that never really repeat themselves beyond the good guys (good by default, because the bad guys are definitely even worse) being outnumbered, so the film’s action never becomes monotonous despite being quite so unrelenting. The whole blood and guts style of the affair - Tjahjanto’s experience in gory horror is always visible – puts this in great contrast to the much more antiseptic mass violence in something like the John Wick films that go for the videogame approach to bloody violence that may like a bit of gore, but prefers to ignore how messy, unpredictable and downright unpleasant all this bloody murder and human bodies are. Which isn’t to say that The Night Comes for Us is pretending to be more or deeper than it actually is, it’s just curiously human for a film this brutal.
Friday, July 13, 2018
Past Misdeeds: Merantau (2009)
aka Merantau Warrior
Through the transformation of the glorious WTF-Films into the even more glorious Exploder Button and the ensuing server changes, some of my old columns for the site have gone the way of all things internet. I’m going to repost them here in irregular intervals in addition to my usual ramblings.
Please keep in mind these are the old posts presented with only basic re-writes and improvements. Furthermore, many of these pieces were written years ago, so if you feel offended or need to violently disagree with me in the comments, you can be pretty sure I won’t know why I wrote what I wrote anymore anyhow.
This write-up is based on the shorter international version of the film. There seems to be a nearly twenty minutes longer "director's cut", but what wonders it may contain I know not.
Country boy Yuda (Iko Uwais) is going on his Merantau, which, if I understand the film correctly and it's not lying, is a kind of journey into the outside world all young men of his area have to fulfil to be accepted as proper grown-ups. Yuda plans to got to Jakarta and teach the martial art silat there.
But having arrived arrived in the big city the not exactly world-wise young man soon finds himself penniless and without a roof over his head. The handful of contacts that should have provided him with a helping hand or two are all gone and unreachable, and so - this is after all a quest for him - Yuda decides to rough it and hope for the best.
Instead of teaching martial arts, Yuda falls foul of the unpleasant gangster Johni (Alex Abbad) when he decides to protect dancer Astri (Sisca Jessica) from his bullying ways - and that just after Astri's brother Adit (Yusuf Aulia) has stolen his wallet. At first, Astri isn't too happy with Yuda's kind of help, seeing as it closes up the only source of income she and her brother have.
That's just the beginning of Astri's bad day, though, for Johni isn't just your normal shady type, but in fact selling off some of his dancers to the insane couple of white slave traders Ratger (Mads Koudal) and Luc (Laurent Buson), and of course Astri is supposed to become part of the "merchandise". Fortunately, Yuda is again at the right place to save the girl from trouble, even if it means first getting beat up by Johni's henchmen to then start in with a furious comeback. Unfortunately, Ratger does not approve of getting hurt in the ensuing fight and begins to pursue Astri and Yuda with a passion, violence, and hordes of mooks.
By now, we all know about the horrible films that can result when venerable Asian directors are exported to the west. Merantau is something of a bright mirror image of that sickening trend, and shows the great things that can happen when a young Welsh director goes to Indonesia to make a martial arts film. Even better, the positive buzz coming from everyone who counts (so not Roger Ebert, who couldn't even be bothered to get the film's not exactly complicated plot right, it seems) for director Gareth Evans's next Indonesian movie The Raid: Redemption (again starring Iko Uwais) suggests the success of Merantau to be far more than a happy accident.
Unlike what one might fear, Merantau isn't the slightest bit touristy. Evans neither wallows in pretty postcard pictures (unless when it makes sense) nor in the look into the gutter aesthetic (again, unless when it makes sense). The director doesn't present his characters as "exotic" Indonesians, instead showing them as people whose culture might be different from the one the director grew up in, yet who are individuals and not symbols for an interpretation of that culture.
At its core Merantau is telling a very traditional martial arts movie story about a country guy going to the big city and doing good there with the powers of his pure heart and his martial arts skills, but there are a few elements that deviate from the usual formula, if mostly in small ways. There is, for one, Evans's complete avoidance of the horrible "country bumpkin in the city" humour that all too often doesn't let a film's hero look naive and a bit simple as it's probably supposed to, but instead makes a viewer doubt his intellectual abilities completely; there's a difference between being too stupid to live and lacking experience in city life the writers of that type of humour never seem to comprehend.
Evans's film shows other positive deviations too, but those are of a kind I found a bit too surprising to want to spoil now, so I'll just say that I did not expect two central plot points of the film to become quite as dark as they do in the end. It's also very praiseworthy how the film's actual dark moments surprise, yet still feel like organic parts of the movies and not like Evans shouting "look how grim and gritty this is".
Merantau also differs from many (though by far not all) martial arts movies by putting actual effort into the non-action scenes, going out of its way to leave room for quiet moments that not so much provide depth to the characters as they provide them with humanity. That does of course make the action all the more impressive because the audience cares more about the characters in those scenes. We're not talking "naturalistic psychology" here, of course, but I don't think that sort of thing could actually work in the context of a martial arts movie. Especially not in one that has the scenery-chewing Mads Koudal (and the less exalted Laurent Buson whose characters share the sort of male friendship with sado-masochistic undertones John Woo would approve of) as its big bad; including quiet moments does after all not mean a film has to eschew the larger than life when that's more interesting.
Once it gets going - Evans clearly believes in a careful build-up - the film's action (and here you thought I'd never actually talk about it) is quite fantastic, looking to my eyes like a mix of the brutal type of stunt work found in Thai cinema of the first decade of the century and more traditionally elegant fights. "Elegant", even in the truly brutal later fights, is also a fine way to describe the film's approach to fight choreography, as well as Iko Uwais performance. Even when blood is (mildly) spattering and bones are broken, Uwais seems so poised the old, and true, connection between martial arts cinema and ballet comes to mind again, especially after the film has brought the connection up directly early on in the proceedings.
As for weaknesses, from time to time it becomes visible that Evans must have worked on something of a shoe-string budget that didn't allow the fights to take place in surroundings as impressive as their choreography would deserve, so the action occurs in the rather traditional bars, back streets and around a bunch of cargo containers, but at least it's not a series of warehouses (or rather, one warehouse standing in for a series of warehouses). Truth be told, for most of the time, it's too riveting watching Uwais to care about the background too much anyhow.
Through the transformation of the glorious WTF-Films into the even more glorious Exploder Button and the ensuing server changes, some of my old columns for the site have gone the way of all things internet. I’m going to repost them here in irregular intervals in addition to my usual ramblings.
Please keep in mind these are the old posts presented with only basic re-writes and improvements. Furthermore, many of these pieces were written years ago, so if you feel offended or need to violently disagree with me in the comments, you can be pretty sure I won’t know why I wrote what I wrote anymore anyhow.
This write-up is based on the shorter international version of the film. There seems to be a nearly twenty minutes longer "director's cut", but what wonders it may contain I know not.
Country boy Yuda (Iko Uwais) is going on his Merantau, which, if I understand the film correctly and it's not lying, is a kind of journey into the outside world all young men of his area have to fulfil to be accepted as proper grown-ups. Yuda plans to got to Jakarta and teach the martial art silat there.
But having arrived arrived in the big city the not exactly world-wise young man soon finds himself penniless and without a roof over his head. The handful of contacts that should have provided him with a helping hand or two are all gone and unreachable, and so - this is after all a quest for him - Yuda decides to rough it and hope for the best.
Instead of teaching martial arts, Yuda falls foul of the unpleasant gangster Johni (Alex Abbad) when he decides to protect dancer Astri (Sisca Jessica) from his bullying ways - and that just after Astri's brother Adit (Yusuf Aulia) has stolen his wallet. At first, Astri isn't too happy with Yuda's kind of help, seeing as it closes up the only source of income she and her brother have.
That's just the beginning of Astri's bad day, though, for Johni isn't just your normal shady type, but in fact selling off some of his dancers to the insane couple of white slave traders Ratger (Mads Koudal) and Luc (Laurent Buson), and of course Astri is supposed to become part of the "merchandise". Fortunately, Yuda is again at the right place to save the girl from trouble, even if it means first getting beat up by Johni's henchmen to then start in with a furious comeback. Unfortunately, Ratger does not approve of getting hurt in the ensuing fight and begins to pursue Astri and Yuda with a passion, violence, and hordes of mooks.
By now, we all know about the horrible films that can result when venerable Asian directors are exported to the west. Merantau is something of a bright mirror image of that sickening trend, and shows the great things that can happen when a young Welsh director goes to Indonesia to make a martial arts film. Even better, the positive buzz coming from everyone who counts (so not Roger Ebert, who couldn't even be bothered to get the film's not exactly complicated plot right, it seems) for director Gareth Evans's next Indonesian movie The Raid: Redemption (again starring Iko Uwais) suggests the success of Merantau to be far more than a happy accident.
Unlike what one might fear, Merantau isn't the slightest bit touristy. Evans neither wallows in pretty postcard pictures (unless when it makes sense) nor in the look into the gutter aesthetic (again, unless when it makes sense). The director doesn't present his characters as "exotic" Indonesians, instead showing them as people whose culture might be different from the one the director grew up in, yet who are individuals and not symbols for an interpretation of that culture.
At its core Merantau is telling a very traditional martial arts movie story about a country guy going to the big city and doing good there with the powers of his pure heart and his martial arts skills, but there are a few elements that deviate from the usual formula, if mostly in small ways. There is, for one, Evans's complete avoidance of the horrible "country bumpkin in the city" humour that all too often doesn't let a film's hero look naive and a bit simple as it's probably supposed to, but instead makes a viewer doubt his intellectual abilities completely; there's a difference between being too stupid to live and lacking experience in city life the writers of that type of humour never seem to comprehend.
Evans's film shows other positive deviations too, but those are of a kind I found a bit too surprising to want to spoil now, so I'll just say that I did not expect two central plot points of the film to become quite as dark as they do in the end. It's also very praiseworthy how the film's actual dark moments surprise, yet still feel like organic parts of the movies and not like Evans shouting "look how grim and gritty this is".
Merantau also differs from many (though by far not all) martial arts movies by putting actual effort into the non-action scenes, going out of its way to leave room for quiet moments that not so much provide depth to the characters as they provide them with humanity. That does of course make the action all the more impressive because the audience cares more about the characters in those scenes. We're not talking "naturalistic psychology" here, of course, but I don't think that sort of thing could actually work in the context of a martial arts movie. Especially not in one that has the scenery-chewing Mads Koudal (and the less exalted Laurent Buson whose characters share the sort of male friendship with sado-masochistic undertones John Woo would approve of) as its big bad; including quiet moments does after all not mean a film has to eschew the larger than life when that's more interesting.
Once it gets going - Evans clearly believes in a careful build-up - the film's action (and here you thought I'd never actually talk about it) is quite fantastic, looking to my eyes like a mix of the brutal type of stunt work found in Thai cinema of the first decade of the century and more traditionally elegant fights. "Elegant", even in the truly brutal later fights, is also a fine way to describe the film's approach to fight choreography, as well as Iko Uwais performance. Even when blood is (mildly) spattering and bones are broken, Uwais seems so poised the old, and true, connection between martial arts cinema and ballet comes to mind again, especially after the film has brought the connection up directly early on in the proceedings.
As for weaknesses, from time to time it becomes visible that Evans must have worked on something of a shoe-string budget that didn't allow the fights to take place in surroundings as impressive as their choreography would deserve, so the action occurs in the rather traditional bars, back streets and around a bunch of cargo containers, but at least it's not a series of warehouses (or rather, one warehouse standing in for a series of warehouses). Truth be told, for most of the time, it's too riveting watching Uwais to care about the background too much anyhow.
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Beyond Skyline (2017)
Warning: I’ll not be able to help myself and spoil all sorts of things this
time around!
Remember the eminently forgettable invasion of Los Angeles (which in this sort of film is the world, because who cares about the rest of us, right?) that took place in the decided non-classic Skyline? Well, Beyond Skyline takes place on the eve of that very same invasion, but instead of some hipster yuppies, we follow the adventures of Mark (Frank Grillo), cop on leave with a tragic past. First, he only has to get his son Trent (Jonny Weston) out of custody again, but then the invasion strikes and he needs to go all out fighting for his life and the life of his son, teaming up with subway train driver Audrey (Bojana Novakovic), homeless blind war vet Sarge (Antonio Fargas!) and other people who get killed too early for me to care to keep track of their names.
And that’s just before the really weird stuff happens, which includes misadventures on the alien ship, a team-up with the protagonist of the first Skyline who is basically an ickier Kamen Rider without the motorcycle and the henshin now, and a crash-landing in an Indonesian action flick with Iko Uwais, Yayan Ruhian and Pamelyn Chee. Apparently, if you really want to fight back an alien invasion, get them to Indonesia.
This is The Purge all over again: just like with that other franchise, a pedestrian, unoriginal and just a bit boring first movie is followed by a sequel that is a box of candy-coloured, internationally minded fun and Frank Grillo.
Now, obviously, Liam O’Donnell’s (who wrote the first Skyline) film won’t impress people looking for an intelligent, incisive alien invasion film, because it is the purest popcorn cinema. If you want to call a film pure that not only uses elements of most of the alien invasion flicks of the last twenty years (without any “they are among us” elements, of course, because that’d need subtlety), and lets them collide with Indonesian style action cinema – while showing the good taste to hire the right actors for that part of the film – but also shows an ever increasing influence by tokusatsu and even has a mecha battle in its finale. That’s before the film’s epilogue which promises space opera for the probably never coming sequel.
I’m not going to pretend O’Donnell creates this Frankenstein monster-like film with taste (well, neither did the good Doctor), but there’s enough panache and sheer fun with cheese, silliness and all the good stuff of cool violence in cinema on the screen to make up for much greater sins. Plus, once Beyond Skyline really gets going, it doesn’t pause for a second anymore, so that a finale – taking place in front of very picturesque Indonesian temple ruins – that features Iko Uwais hacking aliens into pieces, Yayan Ruhian fighting on even when he’s lost an arm (one supposes it was just a scratch), a tiny mass panic and a just as tiny mass battle, a bad piloted organic mecha and a good piloted mecha slugging it out, a chosen child with vague genetic powers (oh, did I not mention the “save the baby” plotline?), and Frank Grillo being nearly as awesome as Uwais, just feels like the logical consequence of what came before. Well, perhaps not logical, but you know what I mean.
Given its comparatively small budget of apparently around 15 million dollars (which as it seems – and alas – it did not pull back, at least in the US), the special effects are pretty fantastic (if you’re okay with bargain basement Giger design, and who wouldn’t be?), as is the action choreography. What really had me grinning with delight for most of the running time, though, was the sheer willingness of the thing to just go there (as well as to Indonesia for the production value and the Uwais star power) and put a lurid, enthusiastic pulp fantasy on display that by all rights should be loved by anyone who loves classic genre movie values.
Remember the eminently forgettable invasion of Los Angeles (which in this sort of film is the world, because who cares about the rest of us, right?) that took place in the decided non-classic Skyline? Well, Beyond Skyline takes place on the eve of that very same invasion, but instead of some hipster yuppies, we follow the adventures of Mark (Frank Grillo), cop on leave with a tragic past. First, he only has to get his son Trent (Jonny Weston) out of custody again, but then the invasion strikes and he needs to go all out fighting for his life and the life of his son, teaming up with subway train driver Audrey (Bojana Novakovic), homeless blind war vet Sarge (Antonio Fargas!) and other people who get killed too early for me to care to keep track of their names.
And that’s just before the really weird stuff happens, which includes misadventures on the alien ship, a team-up with the protagonist of the first Skyline who is basically an ickier Kamen Rider without the motorcycle and the henshin now, and a crash-landing in an Indonesian action flick with Iko Uwais, Yayan Ruhian and Pamelyn Chee. Apparently, if you really want to fight back an alien invasion, get them to Indonesia.
This is The Purge all over again: just like with that other franchise, a pedestrian, unoriginal and just a bit boring first movie is followed by a sequel that is a box of candy-coloured, internationally minded fun and Frank Grillo.
Now, obviously, Liam O’Donnell’s (who wrote the first Skyline) film won’t impress people looking for an intelligent, incisive alien invasion film, because it is the purest popcorn cinema. If you want to call a film pure that not only uses elements of most of the alien invasion flicks of the last twenty years (without any “they are among us” elements, of course, because that’d need subtlety), and lets them collide with Indonesian style action cinema – while showing the good taste to hire the right actors for that part of the film – but also shows an ever increasing influence by tokusatsu and even has a mecha battle in its finale. That’s before the film’s epilogue which promises space opera for the probably never coming sequel.
I’m not going to pretend O’Donnell creates this Frankenstein monster-like film with taste (well, neither did the good Doctor), but there’s enough panache and sheer fun with cheese, silliness and all the good stuff of cool violence in cinema on the screen to make up for much greater sins. Plus, once Beyond Skyline really gets going, it doesn’t pause for a second anymore, so that a finale – taking place in front of very picturesque Indonesian temple ruins – that features Iko Uwais hacking aliens into pieces, Yayan Ruhian fighting on even when he’s lost an arm (one supposes it was just a scratch), a tiny mass panic and a just as tiny mass battle, a bad piloted organic mecha and a good piloted mecha slugging it out, a chosen child with vague genetic powers (oh, did I not mention the “save the baby” plotline?), and Frank Grillo being nearly as awesome as Uwais, just feels like the logical consequence of what came before. Well, perhaps not logical, but you know what I mean.
Given its comparatively small budget of apparently around 15 million dollars (which as it seems – and alas – it did not pull back, at least in the US), the special effects are pretty fantastic (if you’re okay with bargain basement Giger design, and who wouldn’t be?), as is the action choreography. What really had me grinning with delight for most of the running time, though, was the sheer willingness of the thing to just go there (as well as to Indonesia for the production value and the Uwais star power) and put a lurid, enthusiastic pulp fantasy on display that by all rights should be loved by anyone who loves classic genre movie values.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
In short: The Raid: Redemption (2011)
Original title: Serbuan maut
Welshman in Indonesia's Gareth Evans's second (after the brilliant Merantau) Indonesian movie The Raid is one of those films that is easy to love but also exceedingly difficult to write about, for, like all the best action films, it really is a long series of first firefights, then stunts and extremely violent martial arts sequences, with only just the right amount of plot and characterisation to hold it all together, so not exactly a movie that invites analysis. And nothing even the best writer (which I am not) can do in a review can come close to the actual rush of just watching The Raid's actors move and hit and die.
On the plot level, this is cleverly basic stuff (instead of the idiotic basic plot style someone like Luc Besson prefers): a team of militarized police is assaulting a large apartment building to find and kill its owner, a gangster boss who manages the building as a free haven for other gangsters. Things go pear-shaped for the cops fast. At the point when half of them are already dying in a firefight with a horde of the building's tenants, the Sergeant of the team (Joe Taslim) learns that the superior who is with him on the raid has been lying to him, and the whole assault is not officially condoned at all; that means no reinforcements. Soon enough, there are only the sergeant, the bad superior, talented rookie cop Rama (Iko Uwais), and some cannon fodder characters left, and they are separated in the fighting to boot. Further complications - among them Rama's discovery of the fact that his brother Andi (Donny Alamsyah) is a right hand man of the main bad guy - ensue.
So yes, as a narrative, this is as bare-bones as it gets, but Evans (also responsible for the film's script, as well as its editing) knows exactly how to use the minimalist strokes of his plot to kickstart his characters into motion; and once they are in motion, they never really stop anymore. Or rather, when they stop it seems to be of mere exhaustion and therefore an absolute necessity. Exhaustion is actually a surprisingly important point in the film's action. Atypically for action cinema, Evans never seems to forget how much punishment his characters have actually taken during the course of the movie, and a part of the joy of The Raid is watching actors (with Merantau's returning Uwais as the clear star, and still able to fight at once elegant and brutal) perform ever escalating action sequences while looking progressively winded.
Another, even greater, part of said joy is experiencing Evans's sense of rhythm, the way editing, camera and actors work together to give the film a pulse that makes it closer to a long-form piece of music than a narrative. This is of course not atypical for martial arts cinema, but it's only done with as much consequence and perseverance as here in the very best examples of the genre, turning The Raid: Redemption into something special.
Technorati-Markierungen: indonesian movies,in short,gareth evans,action,martial arts,iko uwais,joe taslim,donny alamsyah
Friday, May 25, 2012
On WTF: Merantau (2009)
While most of the world is celebrating Gareth Evans's Indonesian action movie The Raid, I'm catching up with the past and watch the director's first team-up with his star Iko Uwais.
Lucky me, because Merantau just happens to be a pretty fantastic martial arts movie well worth anybody's time. My column on WTF-Film goes into a bit more detail, so why not click on through? (Please don't answer that in the negative).
Technorati-Markierungen: indonesian movies,reviews,gareth evans,iko uwais,sisca jessica,mads koudal,martial arts,other places
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