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thomasj-hall
Reviews
Abattoir (2016)
Only if you are desperate
The good:
Some gorgeous set design and interesting photography. Dayton Callie is splendid as the "villain." Some of the special effects are quite entertaining. Jessica Lowndes is very striking.
The bad:
Jessica Lowndes' acting is rather wooden, but Meryl Streep couldn't save this script.
If there was a script. The plot is utterly incomprehensible.
Heed the advice given regarding the haunted forest: Stay very far away!
Jack Taylor: Cross (2010)
Philip Marlowe meets the means streets of Galway
Iain Glen as Jack Taylor is utterly watchable. And it is hard to resist a PI who team of "secret informants" are a selection of the town drunks.
To my North American ears the accents are a bit difficult at times, but that is a mere quibble. I also think these very dark stories should have been filmed in high contrast black and white, but I think all noir stories should be shot that way.
The plots can be a bit far fetched, but Taylor is a compelling character marvelously played.
The major weakness is the dialog. There are no pithy one liners that make Chandler and Hammet so endearing, such as Chandler's line that "It was the type of wind that set housewives to testing the edge of the carving knife as they eyed their husbands' throats....."
Wild Card (2015)
Jason Statham Does Vegas
As a work of "cinema," Wild Card is nothing special. There is unusual depth to Jason Statham's character and Stanley Tucci plays one of the nicest, kindest, and therefore most frightening mobsters ever. But there's no great drama or great emotional impact.
As an "action thriller" it is better than most, but the fight scenes don't measure up to "Transporter 1".
Fine, mindless entertainment but it lacks the non-stop action of some of Mr. Statham's other films.
Wallander (2008)
Branagh plus intriguing scripts. What's to resist?
Kenneth Branagh could probably read a telephone book and make it interesting, and here he has much better material to work with. It's almost worth watching just to see how much better he has become since Henry V.
The stories are more character studies than whodunits, and the solutions sometimes seem a bit contrived. But the characters are well developed and well played. The punch often comes not from the revelation of the killer, but from the discovery of what ordinary, "decent" people may be capable of. You might not look at your neighbors in quite the same way...
Two quibbles: Everyone speaks English, in a Nordic setting. I prefer that to sub-titles, but it does jar at first.
I have watched one or two episodes of the Swedish production and found them rather darker and more brutal than the BBC production. Those who want undiluted Nordic noir will want to pass on the BBC version. Those, like me, who are made of lesser stuff, will welcome the BBC interpretation.
Marcella (2016)
Very watchable, but madly confusing
Without Anna Freil, my rating would be 4 out of 10. She has great screen presence and makes the confused, and possibly mentally ill, Marcella rather compelling.
The rest of the cast is equally skilled and the killer is played marvelously and is nearly as chilling as Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal.
At least I think he is the killer. The plot is VERY confusing, but so are The Big Sleep and Out Of The Past.
Not in the same league as Wallander or "Dragon Tattoo" but recommended for those who looking for some mindless entertainment.
Paranoid (2016)
A last resort
I gave up after 4 episodes. Fine actors trying to make do with a script seemingly from the 1960s - the lead female character is "neurotic," as we would have said back then. She's a smart detective but can't function without a man in her life. How that got made in the 21st Century is beyond me.
As for the plot, someone is killing people in a small English village, evidently as to conceal some massive conspiracy by Big Pharma. I found myself more interested in the typewriter used by the first victim to prepare her notes (thus keeping them safe from Web snoopers).
Skip it.