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Reviews
Boat Story (2023)
Falling between stool(pigeon)s
This might be intended as a comedy, but it's not funny. It might be intended to be serious, but it's not plausible. The gratuitous, graphic, hackneyed violence sucks out the laughter & rapidly becomes predictable as well as unpleasant. The gratuitous surrealism voids the plausibility. It's an interesting (if unlikely) scenario with tortuous & meandering handling: a (gratuitously) serpentine mess. Some scenes are even played deliberately to be cringe-inducingly embarrassing at around the level of a sixth form play.
It's very unusual for me to lose patience with a well cast, well-played, carefully shot thriller, but I'd had enough - more than enough - after an hour and a half. I'm quite happy to admit this might not be enough to form a rounded and incisive opinion, that maybe I'm missing out on a modern Hamlet, but frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. I'm out.
Annika (2021)
Scandi noir lite
Nicola Walker heads a strong cast in this crime drama series set in Glasgow & the Inner Hebrides in which every murder must be solved by the fictional "Marine Homicide Unit" every 47 minutes. Well played & shot though it is, with a style (& credits) strongly echoing actual Scandi Noir there's no escaping that the crime plots are thin, the solutions unsatisfyingly glib; & that the extra-mural storylines - the obligatory soap opera element - are uncompelling for much of the first series. These last take a sharp turn into the genuinely intriguing only in the last 30 seconds of the last episode. The need for such a specialised unit, when a general River Police would seem more suitable, is also never explained. All those watery deaths every 47 minutes, perhaps. Even the USP in which the lead character, a Norwegian by upbringing but (English accented) British by adoption, breaks the fourth wall to share her often Nordic literary & mythological insights on her cases, takes a while to settle.
With a strong whiff of daytime TV, this is Scandi crime drama for those who like the idea but lack the attention span or engagement. Fingers crossed that the last episode is a harbinger of better scripts to come.
Local Hero (1983)
40 years, eh?
It seems extremely strange going to a screening to mark 40 years of Local Hero. Firstly, the only two things in it that have dated are the cars & the film definition, & it's unimaginable that a 40 year old film can remain as fresh as it was in 1982. (Some might say that Mark Knopfler's score is as passé as a Ford Cortina. I'd say it's more like a Porsche 930). The reason, of course, is that it was so sharply observed, beautifully written & perfectly performed in the first place. There's no bombast & no pretention. The script consistently catches the rhythms of normal, natural speech, & yet every line carries far more than the obvious sense - the source of much of its wonderfully understated humour, & of the definition & individuality of its characters, who could so easily have been mere stereotypes.
It's also impossible that I first saw it 40 years ago in a different age, a different world. While I & all those I knew have aged & changed almost beyond recognition, it has not. That in itself makes it sharply poignant.
It seemed sad that there were only a dozen grey heads in yesterday's anniversary showing. Local Hero is more than good enough to hold its own, & it deserves new audiences to appreciate its gentle perfection. It was an obvious classic from the moment of release, & that really has not changed.