jatrius Reviews

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022– )

Just not really getting it.

[3/10 · 19 September 2022]

I've waited until the end of Ep 4 before commenting. I accept that this show wasn't created for me, a Tolkien fan before Ralph Bakshi, who loved Sir Michael Hordern's Gandalf etc However, despite wonderful cinematography, this show fails on too many levels.

Not least is it's heartless. Impossible to root for anyone. No respect is given by any of the main characters. Tolkien's vision of Numenor and its failings has been subverted to other matters all of the present day and therefore there's no fantasy escape. Another example of Americans not 'getting' IP of a British origin. Cf The Avengers etc. As for following the lore, yeah, right! Too many deviations to list. Avoid. Life's too short.

The Assassination of Trotsky (1972)

Great cast, great director - complete turkey of a movie

[3/10 · 11 November 2011]

Avoid.

Interminable opening crowd scenes of labour activists arguing as they parade in a clumsy attempt to highlight the passion of the schism. Romy Scheider and Alain Delon are strangely passionless and Richard Burton's Trotsky is on autopilot. Maybe they all just fancied a holiday in Mexico. There's no dramatic tension because there's no sympathy available for the characters on screen; instead the viewer is willing the whole ensemble to get on with it so that they can do something more interesting with their life like stare at fridge magnets or grout some bath tiles.

***** Spoiler Alert ****

Trotsky does get assassinated. It's as banal as that.

Rogue Male (1976 TV Movie)

Taut thriller - wasted on the plebeian generation

[8/10 · 18 July 2005]

I have read the book, and it is still, rather surprisingly, not as well known as some of the lesser output of Alastair MacLean or Hammond Innes, for example, despite its being of the very highest order.

This adaptation does slightly change the plot but not to the detriment of the pace or the characterisation. This is not a jolly hockeysticks pre-War John Buchan world that these characters inhabit. The protagonist, never named in the novel, is emotionally stunted by virtue of his aristocratic upbringing and the grieving process for his one true love, whom we can guess at being either a Czech, or a Pole from Danzig/Memel. In a gesture of futile resistance the lord decides to hunt down the great dictator, in a spirit of cold vengeance and sporting curiosity. He is caught and tortured and having expended much inexplicable violence upon him the Gestapo decide to fake his death as a fall from a cliff in order to explain his injuries, having satisfied themselves that his actions were not instigated by the British government. He survives this ill use and then begins one of the most stirring manhunts in literature as he attempts to return to England without embarrassing his former circles.

However, when he returns to England he finds that not all is well back in the sceptred isle.......

O' Toole is on fabulous form. The lead villain is all you would expect from a Fascist sympathiser, polished, virile and an emetic upon right-thinking people. the celebration of countryside and sport is not lost upon the director as the motor for the political beliefs espoused by both sides as Milord strives to survive and the German Foreign Service seek to make political capital out of his predicament once they have his admission of acting under orders wrung out of him. It is a beautifully paced evocation of a rustic idyll that no longer exists as a result of the chancre, which it, itself, has spawned.

The New Statesman: A B'Stard Exposed (1994) Season Unknown, Episode Unknown

Mordant satire

[10/10 · 17 March 2005]

Alan B'Stard is a High Tory MP whose ambition is only excelled by his ruthlessness. If you know the New Statesman then you will know the animal that we are dealing with. Extremely funny but I doubt whether this will transfer well over to the US. This is not because of any bitchy complaint about "Americans don't get irony"(although a lot of that features) but because the series was so very rooted in its own zeitgeist of Thatcherite Britain. You laugh so much only because recognition of the series' targets hurts so much and if you weren't personally there then the less obvious gags will inevitably fall flat. Still, B'Stard is a creation of comic genius.

Night Ambush (1957)

Reason for the title

[3 February 2004]

Yes , it does come from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

This is because when the operation occurred, the British operators went under the codenames of Oberon, Titania and Ariel for the radio traffic back to Cairo. See Xan Fielding's memoirs as well as Lawrence Durrell's recollections of Paddy Leigh Fermor in Bitter Lemons, his reminiscences of the British campaign against EOKA in Cyprus in the late 50s.

It's not that bad a movie as it absolutely avoids the mawkishness of a propaganda piece and has a semi-documentary feel to it. You must remember there was an entire SS division on the island against which the 5 Britons and about 800 partisans were ranged. It is not so much derring-do as in the vein of The Password is Courage, another excellent true - life drama of Bogarde's.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979)

Go Buy NOW

[10/10 · 16 January 2004]

Quite simply the best thing I have ever seen the BBC produce in my lifetime, or before it for that matter. Guinness is impeccable, living down the shame of Obi, but the piece is an ensemble one. Hopcraft's script is taut, bitter and acerbic with some amazingly funny barbs thrown in the conversations as the group finally realise that they have been penetrated to the highest levels of the Service. Anthony Jayston was never so good in Quiller, Bernard Hepton is amazing, Ian Bannen, Beryl Reid, Ian Richardson. The cast have no weak links. Hywel Bennett is very good as an edgy operative, so bleached by the netherworld that he no longer knows who to trust. Direction is clinically crisp yet every scene is enjoyed at its natural pace and the outdoor scenes are every bit as good as the studio set scenes. Fabulous!!!

Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell (1999 TV Movie)

A majestic tour de force

[9/10 · 2 February 2003]

Keith Waterhouse's tribute to his own very good friend is not a play that is to be attempted by the faint hearted. Its demands upon the main protagonist are severe. Peter O'Toole keeps on the right side of mawkishness as he recounts the memories of a vodka sodden journalist, Jeffrey Barnard. Jeffrey Barnard's binges would, upon occasion, lead to his missing the deadline for his weekly column in the political weekly 'The Spectator' when his Low Life column would be replaced with the terse euphemistic title of the play.

The play is really a consummately delivered monologue. It is a lament for a Soho that has now passed. All the bohemian characters have now been replaced by wannabes, striking poses rather than living lives. Jeffrey Barnard could easily be dismissed as a boring old conservative but this danger is easily averted by the thick vein of madcap humour. This play is hysterically funny as Jeff recounts his views on women, wives, ex- and present, and his passions for gambling, horses and drink and hostelries. A puritan would not enjoy this, but its portrait of an unrepentant roue is beautifully paced and it is not without its moments of genuine pathos. I do urge you to see it.