CHARLIE COUNTRYMAN

CHARLIE COUNTRYMAN is a strange and fascinating film that feels like it has too many good ideas clashing with each other and shouldn't work and yet somehow does.  It stars Shia Labeouf, but don't let that put you off. His big-eyed naivety plays well here, as the directionless romantic sent to Romania by his dying mother (Melissa Leo).  While there he gets into all sorts of random scrapes, some of which involve taking large quantities of drugs in a youth hostel with Ron Weasley and Jay from THE INBETWEENERS. But the meat of the story is Charlie falling in love with the grieving daughter of the man Charlie sat next to on the  plane. Played with a perfect accent by Evan Rachel Wood, the character of Gabi is perfectly aware that she is a movie trope - immediately asking Charlie if he wants to fall in love with her because she is vulnerable and exotic. She also has that most cliched of movie tropes - a nasty violent ex-husband, played with mordant wit  by Mads Mikkelsen (HANNIBAL).  

It's a movie that can be schmaltzy but is aware of that, and so is undercut by incredibly dark humour. The scenes in the youth hostel are genuinely laugh  out loud funny - I mean, I've never spent time thinking of porn names for Rupert Grint, but Boris Pecker is a work of genius. And some of the exchanges between a completely deadpan Mads Mikkelsen and Shia Labeouf were fantastically funny - just wait for the scene citing Dizzy Gillespie. So kudos to screen-writer Matt Drake for penning such a self-aware, daringly random, and funny script. As for the direction from first time feature helmer Fredrik Bond, it's elegant and particularly good in its use of music. The soundtrack featuring Deadmono is superb.

Like I said, this is an odd film that defies genre descriptions but if you go with it there's more than enough pay off.  Shia is at his most likeable (low baseline I admit), the music is great, Mads Mikkelsen is truly superb and Evan Rachel Wood is heart-breaking. 

CHARLIE COUNTRYMAN aka THE NECESSARY DEATH OF CHARLIE COUNTRYMAN has a running time of 103 minutes and is rated R.  The film played Sundance and Berlin 2013 and was released last year in Norway, the USA, Denmark and Israel. It was released earlier this year in Singapore, Belgium, France, Portugal and Hong Kong. It is currently on release in the UK and Ireland.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2

After the turgid teen-moping of DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 1, it comes as quite a relief to see the HARRY POTTER franchise close with what is essentially a two-hour epic battle between good and evil. Director David Yates' DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2 is visually stunning, beautifully constructed, and never falters in pace or tone. Indeed, in its tight pacing, Steve Klove's adaptation beats J.K.Rowling's baggy source-novel hands down.

It feels somewhat superfluous to provide a plot summary for one of the most popular children's books of all time, but for those of us who read the book on release and have since forgotten the mechanics of the ending, here it is. The movie takes place in contemporary England, where ordinary people live unknowingly alongside a world of magic. Young wizards are trained at a boarding school called Hogwarts, and older wizards are governed by the Ministry of Magic. But over the past seven films, we have seen the world of good magic over-turned by the reappearance of the evil Voldemort - a former Hogwarts pupil - with a particular vendetta against our improbable hero, Harry Potter. We pick up the story with Harry Potter and his side-kicks, brainy Hermione and loyal Ron, on the hunt Horcruxes - the magical objects into which Voldemort poured his soul. If the kids can kill the Horcruxes they can save the world from a reign of Black Magic; their school from a fierce magical battle; and Harry from a fateful confrontation with his nemesis.

The resulting film opens as a kind of heist movie, with Harry and co. breaking into Gringotts bank on the hunt for a horcrux, but pretty soon we are back at Hogwarts and into the final battle which absorbs the vast majority of the run-time. The visuals are simply stunning. I have always been impressed by the make-up and CGI effects that transform Ralph Fiennes into the snake-like Voldemort, but the image of his foetus-like horcrux was incredible and unforgettable. And Hogwarts is evocatively photographed in murky gloom (yes, even without those awful and unnecessary 3D glasses), and is hauntingly battered and bruised by the final act. We are basically in the realms of a war movie - and the producers do not shy from showing us death and destruction. The post-battle scene, with nurses dressed in WW1 style costumes, was both deeply affecting - as well as deeply British - as they all sit around and have a nice cup of tea! 

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the film is that the main characters are rather over-shadowed by Professor McGonagall's "Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more"-style battle-cry and Matthew Lewis' scene-stealing turn as Neville Longbottom. Indeed, on the back of his appearance in this film, 6 foot tall and looking for all the world like a young Clive Owen, one can't help but suspect that he might have a brighter post-Potter future than Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint!

If I had any difficulty with the film, it was the use of 3D. I didn't feel that it added anything, and enveloped an already hauntingly dark film in yet another dark veneer. My other two problems rest with the book rather than the film, which after all, has to be faithful or risk disappointing the fans. I continue to believe that J.K.Rowling lost her gumption when it came to Harry's final choice - that there was a darker but more satisfying ending that she could've written. And I rather felt that Neville Longbottom was short-changed in the epilogue.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2 is released globally on July 15th.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1 - Everything is possible and nothing is meaningful

David Yates continues his plodding, faithful, uninspired direction of the Harry Potter series with the first half of the final book. After ORDER OF THE PHOENIX and HALF-BLOOD PRINCE we should've known what to expect - a workmanlike film adaptation of the novel, with neither the gothic style of Alfonso Cuaron's AZKABAN, nor the ability to portray emotion without mawkishness from Mike Newell's GOBLET OF FIRE. In David Yates hands, this franchise has become a dreary endurance test for anyone other than hard-core Potter fans - descending from the banality of the last installment to unwatchable boredom interspersed with cringe-worthy emotional scenes in this film. I'd blame screenwriter Steve Kloves too, but somehow I can't imagine that these emotional mis-steps can really be the fault of the man who, in a happier earlier career, penned WONDER BOYS.

The upshot is that HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1 is unwatchable - dull, badly acted, ploddingly paced, full of failed attempts to tug at our heartstrings and basically a complete waste of time. The producers should have had the balls to condense the admittedly baggy source-text into just one film, cutting out scenes where the teenagers sit and brood and focusing on the destruction of the horcruxes. Because this film basically reads as two and a half hours of prologue. I left the cinema thinking, "Is this it?" and worst of all, "Dear God, if Guillermo del Toro wanted to direct this, why on earth didn't they let him?!"

In fairness, it must be hard to inject these films with suspense and emotional shocks - after all, most of us have read the books. Indeed, I am lucky enough that having read them on release, and forgotten most of the detail in the interim, I was more likely to be drawn into the plotting than true fans. As the movie opens another year is beginning at Hogwarts but Harry, Ron and Hermione aren't going back to the happy, colourful adventures of the early films. The world has changed - fascist goons fill the Ministry of Magic; Dolores Umbridge has installed Snape as headmaster of Hogwarts; and there are dark rumblings about registering all muggles. The tone of the film is established - it will be dark, cool-coloured, cold, and full of mis-trust and peril. The film opens and closes with the death of a trusted character and the death of minor characters litters the film throughout.

As the movie opens Harry is being transported by convoy from the Dursley's house, where he has spent the summer, to a safe house run by the Weasleys. The friends are betrayed and Harry, Ron and Hermione set off to destroy the horcruxes that contain Voldemort's soul. Problem is, they don't know where the horcruxes are, or even how to destroy them. And in carting the horcrux around, it fouls their temple, Ring-style. As the film progresses the kids find the sword of Griffindor; discover that Dumbledore had a brother; and that a kid called Grindelwald has been nicking stuff from Bellatrix Lestrange's bank-vault. But we don't really get much further along in understanding the bigger picture of what is actually happening. The plot of the film is thus made up of long periods where the teens sit and brood, inactive, and short spurts of danger where they find, or destroy a horcrux or escape the clutches of Death Eaters. By the end of the film, you are no clearer as to key characters' motivations than at the start.

I was so bored by the inaction, or numbed by the CGI fuelled action, that I started to contemplate the logical holes in the plot. Harry is in such danger his friends have to put him in hiding. And yet he can walk through the Ministry of Magic for a good few minutes before any of the fascist goons recognise him! And, even before that, Harry's friends risk his life to transport him to safety. Why don't they just apparate him to the safe-house? And why didn't Ron, Hermione and Harry just apparate out of the Ministry of Magic once they found the horcrux? After all, apparating is used to get them out of plenty of holes later on in the film - unless the director feels we need a good chase scene. And if apparating has been used too much, they can use the convenient fiction of the house-elf, who can apparently go where he pleases and find what he wants. If it's so easy for Creature and Dobby to locate Mundungus and bring him to Harry, why don't the kids ask them to find the Horcruxes and sit back and relax? Now I know that's just ridiculous, but by using these deus ex machina so often, J K Rowling damages our belief in the rules of her universe and makes everything possible and nothing meaningful.

So, is this film worth seeing? No, not unless you're a mega-fan. The only things that really work as cinema are a beautifully animated sequence telling the tale of the Three Brothers, made by Ben Hibon; and the character Dobby the House-Elf, voiced by Toby Jones, who alone delivers lines that are genuinely funny and genuinely moving. Together these two factors make up perhaps twenty minutes of screen time leaving two hours of dross. Low-lights include a scene where Harry tries to cheer Hermione up by making her dance - the actors looked as embarrassed as the audience - and a gauche scene where Ron imagines Harry and Hermione kissing.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1 is on global release in all bar France, Switzerland and South Africa where it opens next week and Hong Kong and South Korea where it opens on December 16th.

HARRY POTTER & THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE - bland

The sixth installment of the HARRY POTTER saga is a perfectly serviceable and enjoyable addition to the franchise. The movie wastes no time in establishing the characters and the story so far - so neither will I. After all, how can you spoil a movie when everyone's read the books? Technically, the film works fine. Steve Kloves has done a good job of condensing the material without being too slavish and Bruno Delbonnel has filmed it in the same warm, dark tones as A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT. The special effects and production design are top-notch. The performances are particularly strong - all the regulars do well, with Daniel Radcliffe given a chance to play some comedy, rather than just look put-upon. Among the new-comers, Jessie Cave plays comedy brilliantly as Ron Weasley's first girlfriend and Evanna Lynch steals every scene as Luna Lovegood.

For all that, I did have two problems with the film. Not big enough to kill my enjoyment, but flaws nonetheless. First, the movie lacks any real inventiveness or directorial stamp, in the manner of Alfonso Cuarón's AZKABAN. Second, the film is too biased in favour of the teen rom-com material in the novel at the expense of properly developing the serious material concerning Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, horcruxes, Snape and Malfoy. The films have been getting progressively darker and more emotionally satisfying. The last movie featured a genuinely scary scene with Ralph Fieenes. But this movie went for the easy laughs. And in doing so, the film-makers dropped the ball. Take, for example, the limited screen-time and development of Draco Malfoy. That's an emotional struggle to get your teeth into, but his final confrontation with Dumbledore is very brief. And what about the identity of the Half Blood Prince? That's revealed almost as an aside!

So, top marks for light laughs: but they dropped the ball on the darker content.

HARRY POTTER & THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE is on global release.

Early review from Al - HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX

This review is brought to you by guest reviewer, Al, who can usually be found here. For BINA's review flip to the end of this review.....

Like many of you, I've followed the Potter franchise through every book and film it has spit out - and with every new installment comes a wave of anticipation and excitement, particularly bigger this time around since the last film set the bar pretty high.

I'll start off with the good stuff, then work my way down. Imelda Staunton as plays the part of Dolores Umbridge perfectly and hits all the right notes. Aside from Potter himself, the other main characters weren't given much attention and as a result constantly appeared dull and uninteresting. Umbridge, however, was simply a joy to watch, and they certainly managed her character nicely. The special effects were not too shabby, all the wand-waving and so on isn't something we haven't seen in the previous Potter films. The high point when Dumbledore battles Voldermort is executed magnificently (and I found it the most memorable part of the film), and they certainly took the SE opportunities the part of the story handed them.

The biggest problem with the film was its jarring inconsistency: for a large portion of the film the mood continually alternates from good to bad. The lighter, less serious scenes would constantly interrupt whatever sense of suspense or tension that was being developed. Consequently the heavier scenes were undermined and the build-up to the climax was significantly stunted.

The script felt like it was guided by a checklist at times, responsibly including parts of the book that mattered most (without overstuffing), and while this effort is commendable, they could've given more time for certain important parts to completely develop and be part of the story, instead of simply adding to it. Terms like 'Order of The Phoenix' and 'The Prophecy' are introduced impatiently then given skimpy explanations, after which they're repeatedly mentioned and used as a character's motivation.

Compared to previous installments, there's little room given for subplots and the film is largely dedicated to Potter. As a result there are only a handful of scenes without him, and sadly Daniel Radcliffe is incapable of carrying such weight on his shoulders. His acting chops haven't improved much - he seems awkward in the role and has a lot of trouble emoting -e ven a simple smile looks unconvincing - a lot of overacting when he's supposed to look frightened/threatened. Personally I found that Radcliffe's poor acting did a lot of damage to this film.Even with music and special effects attempting to convey a certain scene's darkness, Radcliffe's acting still comes off as distracting and makes the whole thing look plain fatuous.

The characters we've grown to know and love - Potter's two main compatriots, Dumbledore, Trelawney are provided little screen time and simply blend in with the rest of the supporting cast. Even Hagrid appears less than thrice - a shame considering how far previous films had gone to make his character (and few others) likable and essential to Potter's life.

HP&TOOTP is an enjoyable but forgettable follow-up to the last installment, though the ending effectively sets up a solid platform for the next film - establishing a sense of continuity and hopefulness that tells us it's not the end,and however unsatisfying this Potter film may be,the journey's still incomplete and there's more to go on for.

HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX is on release in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, the USA, Venezuala and Argentina. It opens on the 12th in Germany, Hungary, Malaysia, New Zealand, Portugal, Serbia, Sngapore,Slovakia, South Korea, Thailand and the UK. It opens on the 13th i Colombia, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Latvia, Mexico, Norway, the Philippines, South Africa, Sweden and Turkey. It opens later in July in Egypt, Croatia, Czech Republic, Israel, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania. It opens in China and Greece in August.

The late review from Bina007, back from Barbados: There are some things that are always faultless about HARRY POTTER movies. They are based on richly imagined source material and the studio spares no expense in bringing all the wonderful details of J K Rowling's world to the screen. I love the beautiful Hogwarts sets, the eccentric characters with their vivid costumes and the seamless CGI characters such as the House Elfs. The films are also leant a level of authenticity by the rich cast of British character actors.

Having said all this, the films remain a mixed bag. The first two installments, THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE & THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS were directed by hack Christopher Columbus and had zero visual flair. Still, they got the job done. And in those days, the job was easier. The material was mostly light, fun and magical. It was all about buying your first wand and winning the House Cup. The gripping finales were all about solving neat puzzles.

Then came THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN, directed by Alfonso Cuaron of Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN fame. He produced a film of rare visual style that followed the book in becoming far darker. The evil manifests itself as dementors - an analogy for depression and a brave theme for Rowling to introduce in what remains a children's book. We also first feel the power of the "real" wizarding world and the Ministry of Magic. Cuaron also made the movie more adult in that it focused more on Harry's emotional life rather than joining the dots of Rowling's increasingly elongated plot-lines. However, this also led to the movie feeling a little disjointed and less emotionally engaging.

The fourth film reverted to director-for-hire Mike Newell and I condemned it as uneven in tone and lacking in visual flair here. Still, this wasn't so much Newell's fault as a reflection of the fact that books were literally as well as substantively in puberty. The film therefore stumbled from teen rom-com dating angst to seriously scary death scenes as Rowling struggled to balance the maturing and darkening of what began as a children's book.

Which is all a long-winded way of getting to where I wanted to be, at THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX. It is, to my mind, THE MOST SATISFYING FILM IN THE FRANCHISE. It has less visual flair than AZKABAN certainly. The dark tone mostly rips off Cuaron and there is some really clumsy colour-correct in the opening play-ground scene. I also think the lead actors are serviceable rather than amazing. Daniel Radcliffe plays it mostly in a stunned stupour - just look at his lack of reaction when he's told about his expulsion. Emily Watson and Rupert Grint also tend to speak so fast that they gobble up their lines.

But the movie has by far the most even emotional tone of the series in that it is unrelentingly dark. No more Quidditch. No more House Cup. Even the first kiss is basically a sombre affair - as Harry says, it was "wet" because the girl was crying. And Imelda Staunton is simply petrifying as Dolores Umbridge. Freed from the boarding school pranks, this movie has the space to simply be an affecting and well-produced tale of friendship under peril. IT IS THE ONLY FILM IN THE FRANCHISE THAT I WOULD HAPPILY WATCH AGAIN.

DVD round-up 2: DRIVING LESSONS

Where Daniel Radcliffe has stripped off emotionally and literally in a West End play to shake his Harry Potter image, side-kick Rupert Grint merely plays a slightly older put-upon teenager in this woeful coming of age comedy. Writer-director Jeremy Brock gives us a lazy film that has neither charm nor originality and is saved only by a typically witty performance from Julie Walters as an ageing luvvie. She hires Grint's hapless teenager as a home-help and shoe-horns him into driving her to the Edinburgh festival. Predictably, he learns a lot about life and love (i.e. clumsy sex) en route and they form an odd-couple friendship. The comedy derives entirely from Walter's fruity accent and the mild shock value, apparently, of hearing an old woman talk about "roaring lesbians."

DRIVING LESSONS was originally released in the UK in September 2006 and in the US in October. It is now available on DVD.

HARRY POTTER & THE GOBLET OF FIRE - a lesser movie than the sum of its parts

The new HARRY POTTER movie is a decent enough 2 and a half hour version of the novel and if you like the novel no doubt there is some charm in seeing it up on screen. It is fun to see Harry nervously asking out Cho Chang and to finally catch a glipse of evil Lord Voldemort. But if you are not a fan of the books you will probably be bored by the unrelenting gloom of the surroundings and the uncomfortable mix of a corny high school romance and a far darker gothic thriller. This strange mix of the cute and innocent and the far grittier core story is, of course, evident in the book itself. But over a sprawling mass of 600 odd pages each strand has a bit more room to breathe and the contradictions are not so evident. In the movie, the mood swings jar. Most notably, in the penultimate scene we have the long-awaited clash between Voldemort and Harry. Nasty things happen and they are shot with authenticity and acted with conviction. When Harry emerges from this harrowing encounter we feel that he has been through something that is literally terrible. But he emerges into the cute Olde Worlde Hogwarts, with cute friends, kindly wizards and floppy scarves. This return to Enid-Blyton-land subverts the preceeding emotional intensity.

Overall, this is a good movie in its parts. It is well acted, well shot and while I found it over-long it is hard to see where the editor and screen-writer could have cut it down without losing key plot points. But put together I find the tension between the two story strands untenable. Presumably this tension will only get worse in the next two movies as the body count increases. This raises the key question of how suitable and indeed enoyable a movie this will be for kids. The classic horror movie tropes are all in evidence, and as the kids get stuck in a vicious maze at the end, I half expected Jack Nicholson to come bounding out with an axe. More practically, 2 and a half hours is a long time for kids to sit still. The movie has been given a 12A certificate which puts the responsibility with parents to decide if their under-12s are up to it. I would advise extreme caution.

HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE went on global release yesterday.