artisannes

I was eager to see this (based on some good reviews – therein lies..) and the film begins with a driving sequence in which the character, drives a couple of evil doers to safe harbour. Unlike the Mechanic, where Statham roars off at Concord speed and never brakes, driver is skilled to the point of knowing when to stop, keep to the speed limit, creep, conceal and yes, at times, do the Concord thing.

The opening was pretty much the best thing in the film. There is very little driving thereafter that ever reaches this remarkable first outing, where skill really does knock the blockbusters into their jolly genre.

Christina Hendricks is great in what is really a cameo role and shows that it is wrong to niche her to Mad Men.

Carey Mulligan has a semi-smile on her face much of the time. I wondered if that had more to do with the fact that she was thinking – and I am getting paid for this crap – than attempting to impart enigmatic qualities to her character.

In his interview (extras on the DVD) Nicolas Winding Refn showed his strength at putting down audience members who posed questions. It is a dubious talent. The interviewer laughed nervously throughout but sadly, I think this was due to his actual belief that he was in the presence of greatness. No buddy, you weren't, Nicolas Winding Refn is a prat.

Rarely do I feel so utterly antagonistic towards someone I have never met but the man has so finely honed his pretentiousness to perfection, that I cannot help myself. The interview droned on with the subliminal aural message of. "I am brilliant but having watched his film, I have to decline to agree with him.

Ryan Gosling was remarkable and so wasted because of this. I just felt that he was rowing a boat that too quickly reached the edge of a world that wasn't round and so, just fell off.

Now if I could just take Nicolas Winding Refn to that same edge.

According to his biog, Christopher Egan is a native of Sydney, Australia. And I for one have no problem believing this to be true.

Who then thought it a bright idea to cast him as an upper class Englishman? I have read others saying he was a caricature of Hugh Grant but one thing about Hugh that is accurate when it comes to his acting, is his accent. Egan mangled it and for me ruined what could have been a good film in the spirit of a 'Year in Provence', 'Under the Tuscan Sun', My House in Umbria' and others of that ilk.

Such a shame because the rest of the cast carried it off well, particularly Vanessa Redgrave who wafted an elegance each time she appeared and tried to look inspired at 'her grandson's' acting. Lord she must have been mortified.

And oh my - Franco Nero has aged well. They do make a very handsome couple in their real life pairing.

It would appear that the message here is that the sadistic kids who torture the bullying kids (lopping off fingers, paralysing, disfiguring and so on) can be excused for their behaviour because they had suffered enormously at their victims' hands. Well it is far from being alright and I am unimpressed by this unpleasant film that I saw on the Horror Channel.

I was equally unimpressed by the flimsy intro given by the Sy Fy 'Horror Booth's' continuity presenter, which chose to reference the Columbine massacre as if it was an earlier and disappointing film for its lack of torture and real horror and went (I quote) as follow: "It's not always easy being different and in High School, as we all know, their social system really can be murder - you see you got your Plastics and the Jocks, then there's the Geeks and Goths and the two can never mix. Well, there you have it coming, you see after a while, all that torture and humiliation and bullying and cruelty can get a bit, well - get a bit too much, so much that one day the Geeks and the Goths might just - makes gesture with secateurs.

So the tables are turned on the bullies in this high school horror film, which rings more than a few alarm bells of the Columbine massacre when you think about the storyline. This time however the revenge of the Nerds is taken to the new and gory level of torture and it's surprisingly chilling as well as nasty. Set largely during a costume party the bullies are all drugged, chained up and about to learn the harshest lesson of their mediocre shallow lives. So bullies, beware, cause your time is up."