Pursewarden Reviews

The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Cold war paranoia thriller that hasn't aged well

[3/10 · 6 May 2024]

Cold war paranoia thriller that hasn't aged well.

I remembered it enthralling, but now it made me chuckle.

Some of the elements that made for suspense are now involuntarily funny. Like the martial arts fight between Sinatra and the Hollywood asian stock villain.

Or the "wait a minute" marriage proposals that more than one male character spurted out in the movie.

Some of the acting feels at moments over the top.

Specially the soldiers having nightmares.

Not Sinatra, a more than competent actor; or Landsbury who, as usual, shines.

Janet Leigh is underused, with a forced token role as love interest.

The last third is still the best, including the ending sequence, which has parallels to the mostly superior The Parallax View.

Luther: The Fallen Sun (2023)

A brainless wasteful mess

[1/10 · 17 May 2023]

Luther was always portrayed as a brilliant detective. As the only one in the police willing to do "what it takes" to stop the most heinous killers.

The series was over the top, a bit lurid, bloody, and willing to stretch the believable for a couple of miles until cracks started to show.

Nevertheless it was full of atmosphere, and even if the main character, Luther, is impulsive, likes to guess before investigating and walks all the time into traps. It still had Elba with a all-in performance as a moral force against evil.

It was never plausible but always engrossing, and a bit clever, and cool.

I liked watching the series, even if it never felt like a proper procedural and it reduced human beings to small categories: moral fighters, brilliant convoluted killers, evil moral perverts and simpleton victims.

The new Netflix movie is all that, but much much worse.

We got the most "evil" killer played by Andy Serkis. His whole character is a super effective anxiety obsessed evil villain that didn't make the cut to be in a Bond movie or a Thomas Harris novel.

Serkis wears a wig the whole performance, and seems to forget that he's not glued into motion sensor capture devices to later animate his character. So he overdoes everything from movements to face expressions, to the point of caricature.

Luther is all-resigned superman hero. He will take any beating with any blunt instrument. Stabbing, guns, cold water, prison gang rape (or something resembling that), and still stand up with a committed half bored half annoyed expression. He will guess and run, avoiding any sort of procedural following up. He will promise on camera to a crying mother to find her kid without a single clue in his mind of what's going on. He will be ambushed half a dozen times because he's too over confident to mind himself in a killers dungeon, a prison shower or a dark tunnel. He doesn't need a gun, strategy or a plan. He's just unstoppable and that's his thing. He will move the plot by sheer force.

A plot point in the movie, is the first victim's mother, going into prison, asking for Luther to recriminate him for lying after he promised to find her son. By now it's probably a year later (I mean, we don't know how much time but all this happened: his arrest, his trial, his sentencing, prison, etc). It becomes a sketch from hell. A Non-Player character in a video game showing up, repeating his two tired lines of plot deriving dialogue.

Then we have the new police DCI (Cynthia Erivo) whose first instruction to two dozen police officers is "find me a single link among the victims and we will get him".

She is over confident, impulsive, emotional and full of hubris. I waited the whole film for her to show some backbone or brains. To stand up to the killer, assess the situation and with clear morals find another way (as Luther begs her to do). But she just can't. She's a slobbering mess begging a mass murderer to spare her and her daughter when he's streaming her killing from a torture dungeon.

Her best move of the movie is to half stab Luther and using a water high pressure hose against gasoline in flames. I mean... The screenwriter seems to believe all murder dungeons under a forgotten house in the mountains in Norway will have not only the best internet connection, but also a high-pressure water hose available in case it comes handy.

BTW you can't extinguish a gasoline fire with water. You can't operate a remote door underground from a cell phone (with bluetooth or wifi or 5G) inside a frozen lake in a valley hundreds of meters from a remote house in a snowy valley. Not even in Norway.

In Neil Cross's universe it seems everyone has a secret and everyone is susceptible of the worse moral corruption to keep it quiet.

Is like a massive society functioning under the most cheap email blackmail.

"We hacked your computer and have video of you doing nasty things, we will send this to all your contacts" But instead of asking for crypto, you are asked to betray your police job, your family, your society, and do the most heinous things, including killing strangers.

In his universe British helicopters fly British armed police into Norway to arrest people. Helicopters that have scuba divers ready to jump, just in case they find a frozen lake somewhere and someone inside to rescue.

Luther: the fallen sun is so so stupid it's painful to watch. Even if you love Elba, even if you love the Luther character, even if you only have a Netflix subscription and you'll watch anything.

Harrow (2018–2021)

Down a unrecognizable slope

[1/10 · 18 August 2019]

First season was well executed and interesting until the bit overextended ending. But season 2 is so irritating it's difficult to bear. Overacted, stretching believability to extremes beyond any forgivable point. Characters out of character, plot driven irrational behavior. It all works to ruin any good thing it had for the sake of cheap thrills.

Avondale Dogs (1994)

Magnificent

[10/10 · 29 August 2005]

Avondale dogs is a little jewel. A coming-of-age story about a little white boy in love with his Maori neighbor kid. His mother is dying, he's worried, does childlike mischiefs and dreams about a crashed pie truck. Nicholas' short is full of sensitivity, he achieves in a few minutes to translate the whimsical quality of childhood, the terrible burden of life uncertainties, and the magic found on the most common activities. By a strange coincidence, every time the boy does something "bad", like shooting the neighbor's pigeons, his mother gets worst. This imbues guilt in a very subtle manner, there's a quiet desperation behind the boy's eyes. Damien Lay is an extraordinary actor, able to portrait fragility mixed with a complex and indelible innocence. A very beautiful and moving film.

The Model (1994)

Clever

[10/10 · 29 August 2005]

Jonathan Brogh short, takes on a very old man that decides to start painting again. He hires a nude model. The whole point of the short is a clever reflection of the tin line between art and prejudice. After a while, the model suspects she's with a dirty old man and demands to see his work. He refuses, is not finished. The model is furious, he apologizes, is a very old, sad man, didn't knew he had forgotten how to paint. She leaves taking the money. The last shot is the opposite from that very long joke THE BELLE NOISEUSE, as in some of the best shorts, an unexpected note that rewrites everything behind. A good example of New Zeland's film.

Conejo en la luna (2004)

Brilliant

[9/10 · 22 October 2004]

This is probably the first Mexican urban thriller that doesn't fall into goofyness or folkloric gags to keep the audience in. The director doesn't go for joking himself out of horrible situations, they stand as serious as a political execution. Its a hard movie, with a terrible subject and a wonderful realization. OK, its portrait of Mexico fits more a decade ago, but that's not a problem in a narrative full of corruption, souless souls, great dialogues, creepy characters and horrible situations. The political game hasn't been shown as fully since the wonderful HEROD'S LAW. One of the movie's asset is the way the narrative focuses in many characters, jumping from one site to the other to build up suspense. The whole English setting could have been easily a cheapy, instead the production work it carefully to provide it with something all recent Mexican urban thrillers lack: verosimilitude. If the worst problems this movie has are in some production values, the acting and the screenplay are worth it. Even if Jesus Ochoa plays the same role he does so well, this portrait is probably his finest (just compare to the shallow cardboard he played in MAN ON FIRE), he is creepy and somehow likable. When a "first world" citizen looks for refuge in his own country's embassy just to get a "huy mam, come back tomorrow at eight" from a night watchman, you get a glimpse at the director's good eye for the reality touch. One of Mexico's best of this year.

The Village (2004)

Forget the twist

[8/10 · 17 September 2004]

The big problem of M. Night Shyamalan movies is that he created this twist ending trademark. If by all means any movie that spots "surprise ending" will end up spoiling it since everyone in the audience is going to be expecting something, the game enters an endless and stupid fight of egos. The director trying to show how smart he is pulling up surprises, and the audience anticipating anyhow. Thus most movie reviews of THE VILLAGE speak about the not so surprising ending, the disappointing surprise, etc. Well if the movie was JUST the surprise, it would, certainly, be a waste with a better place as a Twilight Show chapter. But THE VILLAGE is much more than a twist ending. If you enter the theater understanding you are probably not going to be surprised and let the burden of surprise out of the movie, then you have a very good suspenseful, and enjoyable, drama with a few minor scares. One played wonderfully by the cast (except maybe Brody, going over the top), and with a very subtly direction by Shyamalan. If there is a future for this director, he should forget the success of the SIXTH SENSE and try to focus into storytelling, something he does better than four fifths of today's directors.

Van Helsing (2004)

Dumb mishmash

[1/10 · 6 May 2004]

Stephen Sommers latest is an attempt to profit in the line previously taken by "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" but, of course, with a twist. (I may mention a couple of **spoilers** but this movie is spoiled on origin).

Van Helsing (the mythical vampire killer of Bram Stoker´s Dracula) is sort of an immortal slayer searching for monsters (in the first minutes he does Mr. Hyde) to kill with weaponry a la James Bond for the nineteen century. He is cleverly sidekicked with a comic-relief frail to feed him with clever weapons for every season).

He meets Beckingsale, a sort of Rumanian warrior part of a clan fighting Dracula for centuries (which V.H. is sent to help to avoid 9 generations of her family skipping Heaven-as dumb as it sounds). Full of CGI and a plot so contrived that keeps the audience laughing where it attempts to thrill, this idiotic mishmash is a definite must avoid for anyone with enough braincells to read the title.

Dracula and his women have caves full of "eggs" (suspiciously looking like ALIEN cocoons) and are looking for the way for them to live, so they all can dominate the earth (it's never clear why they just don't simply bite a few thousand peasants to populate the region with vampires), and they somehow understand that by using Dr.Frankenstein's machine with a werewolf they can canalize electricity into the ugly cocoons to spawn a few thousand little green demons (that look like suspiciously like the gargoiles from the Hunchback of Notre Dame). The mummy was bad, but was popcorn-watchable-if-you-don't-have-anything-else-to-do, he has gone beyond: this is his worst yet, but we must wonder if his next: Van Helsing II: the mummy of the Louvre, won't go further down.

Jane Doe (2001 TV Movie)

Disaster Movie

[4/10 · 2 April 2004]

What happened with this movie? It starts pretty good (minding is a B-series tv production). Very a-la 24, Jack Bauerish. Then when you get to the half, even if you were trying to still believe its contrivances, the storyline becomes so incredibly stupid and fragmented you start thinking you must have dozed off at some point and missed something.

**SPOILERS AHEAD**

They plan a scam, goes fine, and then suddenly the bad guy henchman jumps at them out of nowhere. We're never told how he got there (is there a scene missing? talk about deus es machina!). Well from there on, cheap blackmail, contrived plot, ridiculous high-tec computer company reliying on 3 1/2 inch disks,the clichés are a dozen a minute and more plot holes than anything you've seen recently on the small screen.

Scenes of the Crime (2001)

Entertaining but Predictable

[6/10 · 8 December 2003]

To begin lets say that the title is a little deceptive, it leads you to believe it's going to be a kind of CSI movie, but really is the kind of mob face to face movie that would have worked better under the pen of David Mamet (Heist) or even the Cohens (Miller's Crossing).

Acting is good (it should since there's not much action in the movie), but the main problem would be that you can see the ending comming since almost the beginning (SPOILER* Since you see the old man paying two hundred dollars to the painters).

Not withstanding, the movie unfolds gracefully (good rythm, good dialogues), maybe boring for some that don't like characters under stress studies.

A solid 6.

La balsa de piedra (2002)

Awfully Stupid

[1/10 · 13 November 2003]

The anecdote of Saramago's novel may be novel in his hands, but that is because of his prose, his talent or his Nobel status. The adaptation origin of this movie is terrible. First is full of technical errors, continuity to start. Second problem is the dialogue. Every time Luppi speaks is to mouth a sentence. For a moment it seems Sluizer has a problem understanding Spanish, specially since all the actors lines are spoken in a stiff robotic manner. The mass chaos images are the saddest note. When the crowd is supposedly driven by panic, to catch a few extras laughing doesn't help the trick. The contrived plot is the last item This one I suffered until the end: the peninsula as a middle step between America and Europe may sound good in a high-school essay, but as the chore of the plot is a very poor excuse. I expected more from the director of The Vanishing (I should have remembered that he directed Crimetime too).

My Little Eye (2002)

A scary deadtrap

[9/10 · 8 November 2003]

**BEWARE SOME SPOILERS AHEAD**

When I read other user comments about this movie, I keep wondering if they didn't understand what the movie was about. Five guys enter a Big Brother sort of internet-game to live in a house for six months, under the premise that if anyone leaves everybody else looses.

The director chooses to spare the whole six months so we get into the house when there´s only a week left to go. For a few minutes it seems we are watching a Blair Witch Project spin-off but then something becomes very clear. The "company" controlling the game starts manipulating the players to loose.

At the end you get to understand all was a snuff reality internet show. Please be serious, it is not a madman-in-the-fraternity-house kind of a slasher film. There's no madness, just profit seeking. So we end up in a Big Brother kind of Blair witch meets 8mm kind of film.

Technically there is a lot of great stuff. The use of infrareds is creepy. The use of sound works pretty good too. The camera work is basically resembling what you can get from the angles of the wall cameras.

If you get to see this movie on DVD, don´t forget to watch it listening to the "company comment audio track". It will shed some light for all of you that think it is a slasher film. Other great stuff on the DVD: The casting of the five guys for the game (not the actors, the characters). There you can see how good this young actors are.

Finally I have to recognize is a very decent (and effective) work (with a few plot holes: how does this guy connect to internet? really? How does this other guy flip-out? When was he recruited?). Anyway, a very good, creepy and scary film (the better reason to watch it is that, you don't seek for intellectual or artsy satisfaction in a movie like this).

K (1997)

Extraordinary Thriller

[10/10 · 8 September 2003]

This French movie starts as a classic mystery. A young police detective watches his friend and chess mentor murdering a strange man. From this moment, this fast paced thriller takes us from France to Germany, from war secrets to deep stolen art trading, from Nazi hunting to the war of the gulf. The movie has a very interesting and provocative (almost seductive) screenplay, written by the director and other colleagues including famous writer Semprun. Consider yourself warned, you should keep paying attention, if you forget this is not a Hollywood film, with every explanation said twice for the sake of the distracted and the popcorn go-getter. If you miss something you will feel utterly lost, but don't worry it is worth the reward. Is a very engaging story and will keep you guessing until the end, thanks to its fast paced editing. The only weakness will be the awful theme song on the end credits. While you listen to it, you will feel like listening an old James Bond Theme sang by a Russian cover party singer. Terrible. But don't worry since it is played over the end credits you can always Fast Forward or mute your TV.

Minority Report (2002)

Great SciFi, bad Mistery, no A.I.

[8/10 · 20 August 2002]

First, I must say I disagree with the previous posting. Minority Report should have been one of the year's best films. As I was watching it I thought it was one of the best Scifi movies I had seen in a while and then Spielberg lost his touch. I agree that the movie rises some deep moral questions, as most of Phillip Dick's stories, that is one of the wonderful things in this gender and a point dutiful achieved by Spielberg in A.I. But Minority Report is not only a SciFi film but also a thriller, and it is as that that the film runs into faults that go beyond celuloid redemption (if I am allowed the such metaphor). SPOILER ALERT ---the following points will give away important points of the story, beware readers that haven't seen it. As I was saying, the film is a thriller and it suddenly runs into big holes: 1. Why does the PRECRIME police arrest Tom Cruise's character after he allegedly murdered the FBI guy? Wouldn't that be a job for the regular police? 2. Spielberg uses the worst cliche resource to solve the mistery. The killer gives himself away with the old loudmouth trick: he says too much to the wrong person. Its been seen in a thousand movies before (many of them TV of the week flicks) and it's a cheap scene in the context of the movie. 3. Afther it the old recorder in the pocket trick is much worst. 4. The ending also is not consistent. If the precogs predicted the crime it should have happened: they never missed until then. 5. This future society must have been advanced in advertising, prepolice, marketing and traffic design. But they lacked the most simple police techniques. In the murder of the FBI agent the killer uses a gun (Tom Cruise's) that was in the Police's custody since the first guy is shot by Cruise. It would be impossible for the Cruise character to use that same gun to kill somebody else. Summing up, there are many other little missed points in the film. I don't know what was a genius like Spielberg thinking in this ending. It felt as some of those alternate endings you find in DVD-extras gladly because you know they were left on the editing-room floor.

De ida y vuelta (2000)

A distressful look into the country's heritage

[8/10 · 8 July 2002]

I must differ with the previous comment."DE IDA Y VUELTA" is not only about the exploitation of migrant workers by landlords, or the choices they made because of the poverty, it goes beyond that. This is the story of a man that seeks for his future in another country as an illegal worker. He returns to find things worse in his little village. The previous landlord's son is now in charge and doing everything to get hold of land. It's like a Mexican version of the plot of Chinatown (without the detective). The last family harassed by the landlord is the family of his former girlfriend and his cousin, one that promised to wait for him, the other who promised to never approach her. This man, incredibly portraited by Taracena, a very talented actor, has to decide where are his loyalties. Specially when everything, in the best film film noir fashion, goes wrong. There are many surprises in the story, Aguirre's direction is full of dark humor, despair and a deep knowledge of human's lack of humanity.

The Center of the World (2001)

A disappointment from Wang

[3/10 · 1 April 2002]

I've followed the career of Wayne Wang for several years. His two New York movies (Smoke and Blue in the Face) maybe probably his best. The Hong Kong epic Chinese Box worked very fine for me, even though the subtitling of the Chinese dialogues was very erratic in the copy that was projected and edited in video here in Mexico. Therefore I was surprised to find this film in the video shelf and very eager to watch it. More when I found out Paul Auster collaborated in the story (he was a key participant in the two N.Y. movies afore mentioned).

It was a sure disappointment. In this story about a computer geek that sort of falls in love with a stripper, Wang forgets that the key point in a dramatic story is that the viewer identifies or at least cares for any of the players. But as soon as the geek meets the girl and offers her money to go for a few days to Vegas things start to drift out of context. The erotic imagery are the center of this world and they work as good as in the best Zalman King soft porn. But this is a Wayne Wang movie, and his characters always should be, and work for that matter, above those issues.

But they don't. The video-cinematography is beautiful, full of interesting close ups and moving camera effects. The film structure is full of flashbacks in black and white that reconstruct the first meeting of the characters in a sort of convoluted manner, becoming tiresome as the movie advances.

There are few strong moments, like the almost cameo by Carla Gugino as a damaged woman that end up not paying off. It's a difficult movie to watch if you expect any rapport with the characters. The ending is an unconclusive as the rest of the film. Trying to leave an open finale, the conclusion seems vague and pathetic.

Violet Perfume: Nobody Hears You (2001)

A Powerful Dramatic and Sour Urban Tale

[8/10 · 19 November 2001]

After watching PERFUME DE VIOLETAS one wonder's if Mexican Cinema can go beyond portraying the sour and depressing stories of urban life. This is not the first entry of the "true life" story gender. Not withstanding looking at the film the cinematic process stands-out beyond anything else. The actresses are great, if one considers that this was their film debut, the surprise is even bigger, great work by the director. The photography also adds to the realm of desperation and reality, a careful camera work with saturated images and colors, changing the lighting and atmosphere between the homes of the two girls. Probably the low point of the film is the music use. It's so directed to the marketing of the soundtrack that make's you wonder if there was other consideration in its use. When the image and the song show the same thing then one or the other is overstating and therefore a waste. Good work and an appalling ending. Its going for the Oscar but probably will be left before the nominees, but it's worth watching.

Malena (2000)

A very beautiful, sad, and sometimes funny film

[9/10 · 28 April 2001]

Malena is the most beautiful woman in the town in Sicily. All the men lust for her. All the women hate her. A little kid follows her around. He is desperately in-love with her. With this premise Italian Director Guissepe Tornatore creates the story of lost innocence, betrayal, despair and bad faith. It starts with a funny contrast thanks to the imagination of Renato, a kid with the role of witness, witness to the story of Malena. Lajos Koltia photography is riveting, almost too beautiful, every frame is a postcard of the Mediterranean. The story is by Tornatore who showed in Cinema Paradiso he has talent for the children's point of view. The film may even start like an Italian art-film version of American Pie, but quickly falls into a darker tone. The screenplay is very good, but Tornatore takes a high risk, when he makes Renato a passive witness of Malena's disgrace, he goes beyond the point of simpathy with the viewer becoming a figure of pathetic cowardness diminishing the emotional strenght of the ending.