MOVIE REVIEW
The Guard (2011)
Sony Pictures Classics
“The Guard” is that rare breed of crime story that involves a passive protagonist, à la “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.” It’s not that the protagonist in “The Guard,” Brendan Gleeson’s Sgt. Boyle, apathetically takes a backseat as events unfold. He is simply more occupied with cracking wise, cavorting with prostitutes and tending to his dying mother than actually solving the case at hand. It is quite an achievement, then, that writer-director John Michael McDonagh manages to calculatingly frustrate and engage viewers simultaneously through the duration of the film.
Continue reading “The Crime-Fighting Irish” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Escapist (2008)
Vertigo Films
The opening shots of “The Escapist” provide an intriguing study in the ways those elements serve as a compacted distillation of the filmmaking interests borne out over the course of a feature. The film begins with Frank Perry (Brian Cox) sitting alone, a serious, concerned look affixed to his face as darkness shrouds him and Leonard Cohen plays on the soundtrack. It’s an introspective, peaceful moment that jarringly contrasts with the film’s next sequence, in which the title is introduced in large letters that fill the screen as we join, in process, the prison escape around which the narrative centers.
Continue reading “Shaking Off the Shackles of Convention” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Hunger (2008)
IFC Films
Winner of "Camera d’or" at Cannes Film Festival, British film artist Steve McQueen’s feature debut, “Hunger,” is perhaps the best cinematic treatment yet of the Irish Troubles. Indeed, just as Terry George and Jim Sheridan’s “Some Mother’s Son,” Mr. McQueen’s film revolves around the 1981 hunger strike led by the late Irish Republican Army volunteer and British parliament member Bobby Sands. But it ultimately achieves radically different results. While Mr. George’s beat-you-over-the-head approach was instantly forgettable, Mr. McQueen’s abstract yet visceral take on the same events truly gets under the skin.
Continue reading “Pound of Flesh as Bargaining Chip” »
