Allied (2016) film review

Year: 2016
Running Time: 124 minutes
Director: Robert Zemekis
Writer: Steven Knight
Cast: Brad Pitt, Marion Cotillard, Jared Harris, Lizzy Caplan

Allied is now showing everywhere and is distributed in Australia by Paramount Pictures.

Robert Zemekis' Allied is undeniably spectacular to look at, but does not have the suspense nor intrigue which such a promising story with it's incredible pairing of Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard deserves.

The year is 1942 and as the war rages on, a Canadian intelligence officer, Max Vatan (Brad Pitt), arrives in Casablanca to embark on a deadly mission with a beautiful French Resistance fighter, Marianne Beausejour (Marion Cotillard). The two pose as a married couple, but they cannot fight the strong attraction they feel towards each other and fall in love. When they return to England and marry, all is idyllic until Max is told that Marianne is under watch as she is believed to be a German spy. If she is found guilty, Max must be the one to end her life.

Allied looks and sounds like something very exciting. The plot is definitely intriguing and the teaming of Robert Zemekis with Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard is thrilling. However, something has really gone amiss with this promise. Allied presents a case where the story is better than the screenplay, as it's execution is rather slow and tedious at times. The film is currently being marketed as and really should be a romantic tale that is laced with intrigue and suspense, but is a disappointment as it falls short of this due to the underwhelming screenplay and an unfortunate and rare flat performance by Brad Pitt.

Pitt is capable of far more than what we see here in Allied. His performance is rather lifeless when it should be intense and full of emotion, especially in the face of uncertainty over his love and life. It seems as though Zemekis has directed him this way so that his performance is more subtle than overtly emotionally powerful, but considering how epic the rest of the film (besides the screenplay) is, Pitt should be able to show up. On the other hand, Marion Cotillard gives her consistent best in the role of Marianne and plays the role of the suspected femme fatale wonderfully.

Besides Cotillard, the saving grace of Allied lies in the visual aspects of the production. The film has been drawing comparisons to Michael Curtiz's classic, Casablanca for it's sense of nostalgia and, more obviously, for it's location. The production design by Gary Freeman is fantastic and shows the North African city in the romantic light just right for the film and is especially atmospheric. Joanna Johnston's costume design is absolutely sublime, especially for Cotillard's Casablanca wardrobe. Her design pays homage to classic film starlets and especially that of Ingrid Bergman (Cotillard's Casablanca lunch outfit which is very much like what Bergman wore as Isla in Casablanca).

Allied has been made on a grand and epic scale with a great deal of promise, but it falls short of it's potential with it's lack-lustre screenplay and unfortunate direction.

6/10

12 Years A Slave (2013)

Year: 2013
Running Time: 134 minutes
Director: Steve McQueen
Writers: Solomon Northup (novel), John Ridley (screenplay)
Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael K. Williams, Lupita Nyong'o, Michael Fassbender, Sarah Paulson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, Paul Giamatti, Paul Dano

12 Years A Slave will be released in Australian cinemas on the 3oth January 2014 and is distributed by Icon. Now showing in the USA and the UK. Please see local guides for details on times and locations.

!2 Years A Slave is without a doubt the most powerful feature film of the year. It has everything one would associate with a perfect film and potential award winner as it is completely unforgettable and immaculately made. As a result of it's perfect direction by Steve McQueen and incredible performances by all the actors involved as well as a wonderful adapted screenplay, the film is overwhelmingly emotionally powerful and honest in the most brutal way. It is a painful, but wonderful cinematic experience which consists of so many best achievements for the 2013 year in film.

 Based on a true story, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a free man from upstate New York who lives a happy life with his wife and two children. When he ventures to Washington DC with who he believes to be two businessmen interested in his talents on the fiddle, he is abducted and sold into the slave trade in the deep south. His first master is the sympathetic Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch) who treats Solomon, who is now known by his slave name of Platt, with respect, but after giving one of his paid workers, Tibeats (Paul Dano) trouble, he is sold to notorious hard man, Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender). Epps is known for "breaking" his slaves and when questioned by those who advise him otherwise such as Bass (Brad Pitt), he insists that he will do whatever he wants with his property. Soloman exhibits an incredible amount of strength and resilience to make sure her survives long enough to see his family and be free once again.

12 Years A Slave is an incredible and heartbreaking tale of one man's fight for freedom in the slave trade. Flowing at a perfect pace where nothing feels rushed and nothing feels left out makes the film consistently captivating and allows for a great deal of attachment to take place between the viewer and the characters on screen. McQueen's film is extraordinarily memorable for it's incredible tale of the fight for freedom and it's welcomed but full-on intensity.

The film itself does not sugar coat the issue of slavery and gives perhaps one of the most brutally honest cinematic looks at slavery in pre-Civil War in the deep south of America. While films such as 1939's Gone With The Wind has given us a slightly distorted or best possible outcome look at slavery in the past where the masters are sympathetic to and treat their help well, 12 Years A Slave looks at the true terrors many had to go through. The film is extremely graphic in certain scenes and this can be very upsetting for some and extremely uncomfortable to watch. A great deal of the ways which the slaves are treated in the film are not censored in any way, shape or form and will upset and dismay many viewers. Yet, you feel true appreciation for Steve McQueen not holding back and wanting to show people this terror to give them a real perspective of what slavery could be like. The film is so powerful in the way that it makes you feel shocked, disgusted and heartbroken, but you are also overcome with how beautiful the film surrounding the hard emotions are.

Although visually confronting at times, 12 Years A Slave is just a pleasure to the eye. There are some absolutely stunning shots of the Louisiana plantations and their surrounds of the cotton fields, bayou and woods. The amazing sunset shot over the top of the trees and the scenes which naturally such as these are accentuated by the amazing musical score. The score itself gives such an impact and as the same haunting music appears throughout the film, it starts to increase emotion more each time each time you hear it.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is magnificent as Solomon Northup. He completely personifies the character and changes as the film goes on as a result of his circumstances. Although you see a man who is being worn down by what he is going through, you also see a man with an incredible amount of spirit and so much fight left in him despite what he is going through. One of the most powerful moments in the film is when the camera is on Ejiofor as he sits and looks around the plantation and at one moment he looks straight down the lens of the camera and it is as though he is really looking at you personally and pleading with you to help him.. It is an amazing moment because looking into his eyes you forget that this is an actor and is really a man of unfortunate circumstances looking for help from anyone who will listen.

Newcomer Lupita Nyong'o is absolutely incredible in her first film appearance as slave girl and object of Edwin Epps' affections, Patsey. She is another character who has an incredible amount of strength in her. Although she does have a death wish as she believes it is her only way out of that way of life, she is still full of life. It is such a sweet scene where you see her in the field making her own dolls, as you see the young girl who is still there and dreaming of happiness. Her final half an hour in the film is just overpowering and heartbreaking. She is a true star and if Patsey is anything to go by, her future career is going to be legendary.

Michael Fassbender gives a perfect performance of such a complex character. Epps is absolutely brutal and a real monster, but there is something else there. It is almost as though he struggles to maintain his brutality and has moments when he is on the verge of giving into being sympathetic, but pulls himself back into believing that his slaves are his property and that he must do what he can to make his assets work for him. There is no denying that he is evil, but his evil is felt greater in some scenes than others. Fassbender is so interesting to watch and every scene he is in brings both a sense of dread and a sense of intrigue. The scene between him and Ejiofor chasing each other is a great piece of cinema and the two have a great chemistry in the oppressed slave and tough master relationship.

Sarah Paulson, who plays Epps' wife, is also very good. Her character also has many layers which are to be examined when deciding what type of a woman she is. Like her husband, she has her moments when she borders on sympathy, but feels she has to reason to make it seem like she isn't sympathetic. Of course, she isn't sympathetic towards Patsey and here she demonstrates how fiercely loyal she is towards her husband by sticking around even though she threatens to leave. Paulson is quite scary at times and another very charismatic character. Benedict Cumberbatch also does well and Brad Pitt's performance is brief, but very effective.

Steve McQueen's 12 Years A Slave wants to show everyone the extreme hardships and horrors those in the slave trade had to endure, and that being free in the north didn't mean you were always free from danger. Intense and beautiful, 12 Years A Slave will be praised and remembered for years.

9.5/10

The Counselor (2013)

Year: 2013
Running Time: 117 minutes
Director: Ridley Scott
Writer: Cormac McCarthy
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Rosie Perez, Natalie Dormer

The Counselor opens in Australia on the 14th November 2013 and is distributed by 20th Century Fox. Now showing in the USA and will be released in the UK on the 15th November.

Ridley Scott's The Counselor has all the potential in the universe. Scott provides the film with a critically acclaimed and respected director, Cormac McCarthy a successful writer and a stellar cast make up the reasons why one would be forgiven for being excited about this film.

After the film's 117 minutes, what you are left with is an air of confusion. Confusion as to what went wrong when you put together so much of what is right. However, at the same time, there are some incredible things about The Counselor, which makes it all the more confusing.

Counselor (Michael Fassbender) has just got himself engaged and cannot resist the draw of earning just a bit more money to set himself and his fiancé, Laura (Penelope Cruz) up. He gets caught up in the business of drug trafficking by the hand of his friend, Reiner (Javier Bardem) and Westray (Brad Pitt). As a lawyer, Counselor is at the same time still conducting his business with his clients, until him doing his civil duty seems to intersect with the people he really didn't want to mess with in his money making scheme. Counselor is faced with a very real danger and must try to figure out how to save both the lives of himself and those close to him.

What really causes The Counselor to suffer is it's screenplay. We have come to expect so much more from Cormac McCarthy than what he has given here. It is one of those stories you see play out on screen where you aren't quite sure if you are missing some important plot point, or if it is really a simple story pretending to be complicated. It is in this way that The Counselor find's it's confusion. It is a simplistic film pretending to be something more and confusing everyone in the meantime. The dialogue isn't particularly entertaining, with the exception being the unforgettable "car and catfish" scene. The majority of the dialogue is so dull that it affects your concentration levels, particularly in the first 20 minutes. Yet The Counselor is thankfully not completely void of suspense and intrigue, these moments just aren't as prominent as one would have liked. A fun game to play when Counselor and Westray meet for the first time, is to count how many times Westray un-necessarily says and oversues the word "Counselor" in the scene.

The cinematography doesn't quite fail in the way that the screenplay does. There is some stunning photography and camera angles used throughout the film. Scott opens the film with an amazingly filmed bed scene between Counselor and Laura which feels graphic, but shows nothing to suggest that it is.

Michael Fassbender does well with what has been given to him. His best moments on screen are towards the end of the film when his and Laura's lives are in danger. Fassbender still remains natural on screen and 100% believable in his execution. This is perhaps Cameron Diaz's best role to date. She plays Reiner's dangerous girlfriend, Malkina. Malkina is a particularly interesting character. You never know quite what she is up to and she has a tremendous amount of character. She is so different to any other role Diaz has previously done and shows Diaz at her very best. Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz also do quite well, while Brad Pitt really isn't given too much to work with in order to turn out a notable performance on his behalf.

The Counselor is not by any means a complete failure, but is not the masterpiece it could be with so many artists working towards it.

5/10





You may have also seen Michael Fassbender in....
X Men: First Class as Magneto
Prometheus as David

You may have also seen Penelope Cruz in.....
Nine as Carla
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides as Angelica

You may have also seen Cameron Diaz in.....
Shrek Forever After as Princess Fiona
Bad Teacher as Elizabeth Halsey

You may have also seen Javier Bardem in.....
Biutiful as Uxbal

You may have also seen Brad Pitt in....
Moneyball as Billy Beane

Moneyball (2011)

Moneyball

Year: 2011

Director: Bennett Miller

Cast: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robyn Wright

Before I begin my review…

Moneyball is a sports movie with a difference. Even though there is plenty of baseball romanticism, it shows that there is more to sport than what happens on the playing field. Probably a good thing we have a film like that as the sports movie where the losing team eventually becomes the winning team and everyone is left feeling happy is becoming very cliché and boring.

You have really got to hand it to Billy Beane for completely changing the way sports teams are run. This isn’t just restricted to baseball, you can see it in American grid iron football and even in rugby codes. Being a team is all about working together and not just having a few stars and back up dancers (if you can think of it that way).

However, Billy Beane and Brad Pitt really look nothing alike. I would’ve though Brad Pitt would have dyed his hair darker for the role at least.

And just for the hell of it, go Red Sox!!

Review

Moneyball gives us the type of sports movie we have been waiting for since the likes of Jerry Maguire.

You cannot have a sports movie without some winning and losing and sports footage, but Moneyball shows what happens behind the scenes to those who sometimes miss out on all the credit.  It is the intelligent sports movie.

Ex baseball player and now General Manager of the Oakland Athletics, Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) is stuck with the tough job of rebuilding the team after their three star players leave at the end of the season. However, he has to do this on a tiny budget compared to all the other teams in the league which means not being able to afford players of the same calibre as the ones who have left. With his new Assistant General Manager, Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) he devises a plan to focus more on runs rather than stars and is ridiculed and scorned by all those around him at the A’s.

The best thing about Moneyball is that it is intelligent. The script by Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin is very well written and covers all bases.

This is director, Bennett Miller’s second feature length film (his first being the critically acclaimed Capote) and he has once again done a great job. The way he has assembled the script against the visuals and combined visuals of the A’s actual games and filmed cinema footage is commendable.

However, because Moneyball does focus so greatly on the script and the story, it is quite slow and many people will not quite appreciate the sequences of pure conversation with not much else happening.

Brad Pitt is fine as Billy Beane, although in some moments he is better than others. In the first half an hour, he isn’t quite convincing in his role. It seems as though he isn’t really acting, just sitting down and talking to his co-stars. His best moments in the film are the moments where he is in a fit of rage. In his defence though, it is not one of the hardest roles of his career and he does fine.

Jonah Hill gives a good performance as the brains behind Beane’s plan and embraces a character different to the ones he normally plays. Philip Seymour Hoffman is satisfactory in his role as the A’s team manager.

A sports film that not only sports fans will enjoy. One completely refreshing thing about Moneyball is that it is one of the only Hollywood films released this year where there isn’t a romance between two people subplot. Something to be rejoiced.

7/10

Megamind

Megamind
Year: 2010
Director: Tom McGrath
Cast: Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill

In My Own Words
Animation seems to be going in a new direction as of late, hasn't it? There seems to be a lack of the cute and cuddley talking animals which we used to see in the animated films in the last few decades. Now it seems to be the bad guys who are the lead characters in these films who become the heroes and they are anything but cute and cuddley. Just look at Megamind, blue with a massive forehead, hardly what would seem a promoters dream. Cute characters are so much easier to make promotional toys for Happy Meals of and have more staying power. Will we remember these characters in 20 years time which we are seeing now in the same way we remember Little Foot, Simba or the Disney princesses? They're doing their job for the film makers at the moment though, so does it really matter whether we remember them in 20 years just as long as we remember them now? Not cute and cuddley, but the movies around the characters are still great fun and good entertainment!

Anybody know what the toys are in the McDonalds Happy Meals now? I suddenly have an urge to start collecting those awesome toys again.

These are my own words and here is my review.

Review
It is a scenario which we see in numerous films, the underdog falls in love with the beautiful woman, proves himself as the hero but it doesn't matter because she falls in love with who he is underneath. We have seen this a lot, but not so much in animated films. It is not often we see the ugly animated character get the gorgeous girl, but you do in "Megamind"! The film does fit into the animation trend as of late of the bad guy becoming the good guy, but gives it the twist with this unsung hero getting the girl, which will do good things for peoples self esteem. Even if you are blue with a massive forehead and alien looking you can still get the one you love by being yourself! Megamind (voiced by Will Ferrell) has never been good at anything besides being bad. The means of his existence is to fight with Metro Man (Brad Pitt), but when he actually defeats Metro Man, he is completely confused by his new found dominance and lost for what to do next. He decides to create a new super hero for the town, Titan (Jonah Hill) so he will have someone to fight. One thing he didn't count on was failing in love with Titan's crush, news reporter Roxanne Ritchie (Tina Fey) and bringing out more bad in Titan than Megamind ever had.

"Megamind" is a great, fun family film to watch. It is not just a film for children as their are many themes there for adults as well, such as the romance theme which children will of course be unable to relate to. The graphics are amazing in the film and it is one film which is worth seeing in 3D while it is in the cinemas. It is well written and has a lot of great laughs throughout. However, the ending won't be a surprise to anyone and will be something most people will see coming from the very beginning.

"Megamind" has some big names which have contributed their vocal talents to the film. The one thing that is obvious with this is that with each of the cast members, they do not seem to go the extra mile with their characters voices. Each of them, bar perhaps Will Ferrell , plays the type of character they would normally play in a film which they would physically appear in and it is easy to pick who's voice is which. For example, Brad Pitt plays the good looking hero, Tina Fey plays the businesswoman who has too little time for her personal life and Jonah Hill plays the overweight nerd who can't be taken seriouslyh. Will Ferrell does definately do a good job at providing the voice of Megamind and, unlike the others, you can often forget that it is Ferrell's voice you are hearing.

If you are taking your children to see "Megamind", you will probably find that it is more a boys movie than a girls movie. Children aside, it is a film that all ages will enjoy. The graphics are great to watch and the script is witty and funny. Overall, besides the romance, it isn't the most original film to come out in the last few years and it is quite predictable, but definately good for a laugh.
7/10