As director Gilles Paquet-Brenner‘s debut feature in the US and based on a French novel by Serge Brussolo, Walled In was perhaps not the best vehicle to show the celebrated French director’s talents. While not a bad film, it certainly doesn’t dazzle or overly impress.

With a boogeyman who stays (mostly) off-screen that is a maniacal architect working under the belief that if he incarcerate’s live victims into the walls of his creations that their horrific death will strengthen his buildings and allow them to stand forever, there is not a whole lot of jump scares or in your face terror in this horror/thriller.

Moving at a fairly pedestrian pace, the film follows Mischa Barton‘s character, Sam who is the first of the demolition specialising family of Walczak to graduate from college. Her present for this accomplishment is two-fold, she gets a trip to France with her hubby professor Peter (Naom Jenkins) and her first “solo” demolition job as an engineer.

The job is to set up a colossal monolith out in the middle of nowhere that has been built as a luxury apartment building by the world-famous architect Malestrazza (Pascal Gregory). Once she arrives at the apartments she meets Mary the caretaker (Deborah Kara Unger) and her only son Jimmy (Cameron Bright) plus two other residents who’ve refused to move.

After Sam arrives she learns of the building’s disturbing and deadly history and about the horrible death of the architect who built it.

While this film does have some “harrowing” moments, it suffers from a lack of real terror throughout. It is too predictable and slowly paced to build up anything to really deserve it’s genre of horror/thriller. I enjoyed Barton’s performance, but then I usually do, and Unger is always a treat in anything she does.

The real let down was Bright as Jimmy. Where his character is supposed to be deep, withdrawn and tragic, he comes across as snotty, secretive and self-centred. By the time the film’s “twist” is revealed, we’ve already guessed it and by that point do not really care.

Walled In is not a terrible film, it’s just not a great one. Easily watchable and one that you don’t have to pay a lot of attention to while viewing. The overall experience is a bit blasé and not thrilling at all; with a plot and story that befuddles and meanders all over the place and not a few plot holes, the film also suffers from a serious lack of logic that, I feel, may have been destroyed in the editing process.

A 3 out of 5 star film, just for some of the sets and the presence of Mischa Barton and Deborah Kara Unger (who I adore).

It is currently playing on Netflix at the moment in the UK.

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What would you do if you had a chance to relive just one day over and over? Try to change your destiny? Change the world? Change your life? In a 24 hour rewind you wouldn’t think that there would be a huge opportunity to change very much. Three “twenty-somethings” find out just how life changing a repeated second chance is in this brilliant little film from Canada.

Written by Arne Olsen (Relic Hunter, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie)  and directed by Carl Bessai (Severed, Normal) Repeaters is the story of three inmates of a drug rehabilitation centre in Mission City. Kyle Halstead (Dustin Milligan), Sonia Logan (Amanda Crew) and Michael Weeks (Richard De Clerk) all hang out together and one event filled day they become caught in a time warp that results in them re-living that day repeatedly.

The combination of great story-line and great performances by the lead actors made this spontaneous purchase of an 8 pound DVD turn into a real gem of a film.

Richard De Clert, Amanda Crew and Dustin Milligan.

The publicity/marketing for the film states that the film is like Taken meets Groundhog Day. Now that sounds good, but in my humble opinion the film is more like Groundhog Day meets Flatliners.

My only real problem with the film was the lead actors resemblance’s to other actors and (in one case) to one of my first cousins. The most obvious one was Amanda Crew who looked so much like Jennifer Love Hewitt that I kept wondering how she’d managed to look so young. Obviously the film makers saw this resemblance as they never lost an opportunity to put a knit hat on her head that enhanced the likeness.

Still, resemblances aside, the actors did a magnificent job in the film. The three of them interacted with each other and other characters in the film, brilliantly.

The best thing about the film, was their evolving feelings about the repetitious day. Denial, acceptance, enjoyment, disillusionment. and realisation. Unfortunately, the two male characters had more of a story arch than the female lead, but despite the slight annoyance of this fact the film still delivered a pretty impressive punch.

There is not a whole lot of information available on this 2010 Canadian independent film, but they do still have a website: Repeaters.

If you get a chance, check this film out. This is the third Canadian film to completely blow me away and it’s left me with a growing admiration for my “first cousins” and their creative ability.

A real 5 star film about a supernatural event that will blow you away.

Watch this film.

Director Carl Bessai.

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A Simple Plan is Scott Smith’s first book. It caused a lot of fuss when it hit the book stands and after reading it, I can see why. I’ve actually reversed into this debut novel of Smith’s because I read The Ruins first and fell in love with his story telling abilities based on that novel.

The book has been called “A compulsive thriller which also happens to be a beautifully written and original work of art” Robert Harris. I believe him. It’s such an accurate description of Smith’s writing style and of the story itself that the publishers have pasted it across the front of the paperback version of the book.

If you look at the Wikipedia plot description, it is a bit too simple, straightforward and a little misleading. From Wikipedia: Three men find an airplane crashed in a forest. The pilot is dead and the cockpit contains a gym bag with $4.4 million in one-hundred-dollar notes. They decide to keep the money, dividing it equally, but their plans go wrong when others come close to discovering their secret, resulting in multiple murders.

Now that description would catch my interest, but it is not what the book is really about.

Hank Mitchell lives in a rural area of America. He is married and his wife Sarah is expecting their first baby. His brother Jacob, a behemoth of a man, is one of life’s under achievers. Jacob’s best friend is drunken wastrel Lou. Lou doesn’t like Hank and the feeling is mutual.

Hank and Jacob’s parents commit suicide when the farm that their father owned got into financial difficulties. The two brothers have little in common and don’t even like each other very much. Hank is an accountant and the only bright spark in his life is his pregnant wife.

Hank, Jacob and Lou make an uneasy trio of men thrown together by familial ties, circumstance and financial similarities. Hank, despite being the only employed member of this little group is basically easily led and taken advantage of. He is not strong enough morally or physically to make a stand for himself.

Then one snowy morning all three men are in a pickup truck when Jacob’s dog (a male named Mary Beth) jumps out of the truck to chase a fox. Both fox and dog disappear into the woods and the men go to find Mary Beth. Once in the woods they find a small crashed aircraft. They also find a dead pilot and duffel bag stuffed with money.

Hank takes control of the situation and decides that if they hold onto the money for six months it will then be safe for them to split the cash and no one will be the wiser. With explicit instructions to not tell anyone about what they’ve found, Hank becomes the “keeper” of the money.

Stress, dire financial situations, lack of secrecy and trust all begin to take their toll on the three men and as events snowball out of control, things turn murderous.

This story had me gripped from the first page. Smith paints a brilliant picture of small town life and the people who inhabit it. His painting of the three (four counting Sarah) main characters made them so real and complete I felt badly for them when things got so out of hand.

Hank was the main protagonist and it doesn’t take long to see that he really is not up to the task at hand. Sarah becomes a big player in the action by first acting as his sounding board and then later taking a more active role in events.

This tale of greed, fear and mass murder was made into a film in 1998 by Sam Raimi, starring Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, and Bridget Fonda, if it is one-quarter as good as the book, I have to see it.

This was a brilliant book. A real 5 out of 5 stars for originality and for characters that leapt off the page at you, they seemed so real. If you don’t read any thing else this year, read this book.

While the title may be A Simple Plan, the story itself is not so simple.

Author Scott Smith.

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As apocalyptic films go, this offering from the writing and directing duo of David and Alex Pastor is pretty damned good. In case you’re wondering why their names sound so familiar, it’s probably because they gave us the film Splinter as well as a few other gruesome films. I do mean gruesome in a “good” way.

The world has been infected with a plague. This viral (and air-borne) disease is an instant death sentence. With no cure in sight, survivors are trying to hold out until a cure can be found. The Green Brothers; Brian and Danny have teamed up with two girls and they’re heading to Turtle Beach. A place from their childhood; a place that holds happy memories and a chance to escape the disease.

Starring Chris Pine as the arsehole-ish older alpha male brother (Brian) of Lou Taylor Pucci (Danny) and the self acclaimed leader of their little band of survivors. The other members of the gang are: Piper Perabo as Bobby, Brian’s love interest and Emily VanCamp as Kate, who is maybe and maybe not, Danny’s love interest.

*On a side note here. Am I alone in thinking that VanCamp could pass as a Helen Hunt clone? She really resembles the older actress. Or is it just me? Answers on a postcard please.*

At the beginning of the film, this little band of travellers come across Frank (Christopher Meloni) and his sick daughter Jodie (Kiernan Shipka) rather than help the two by giving them much-needed petrol (gasoline) they swerve their car around and cause damage to the oil pump. They wind up going back and “taking” Frank, Jodie and their car with them.

It is the addition of these two that changes the path of the film and affects everyone in the gang of four.

Frank and Jodie; deadly cargo.

I really enjoyed the film, despite it being about the umpteenth apocalyptic film I’ve seen this year. (Jeeze, obsession much?) I decided to give it a go, even though the trailer was a bit misleading. It looked like yet another Zombie Apocalypse, but it is not. It is an ensemble “end of the world” film that relies on the power of the story and the actors to sell it.

I think they succeeded.

All the actors delivered, no matter how small their screen time actually was. Mark Moses (Paul Young on Desperate Housewives among other great roles) was brilliant as the emotionally shattered Doctor who the group meet in Farmington. Honourable mention also has to be given to Kiernan Shipka as the “masked” Jodie. Despite not getting to see her whole face for the majority of her performance, she sold it, baby, she sold it.

At about an hour and a half running time, the film is not overly long and the story moves forward quite well.

I got a huge “kick” out of one moment in the film where the group have decided to stay in a posh Country Club Golf Course Hotel (and yes, all such “posh” places must be capitalised, thank you) and they have inadvertently put themselves in danger. The two “blondes” of the gang, Danny and Kate recreate the kitchen scene from Jurassic Park (minus the velociraptors). To me, it was a highlight in the film and showed the makers sense of humour and their movie “geek-cred.”

This is a real 4 out of 5 star film mainly because of the strength of the performances. Amazingly, even though I did not like Brian, the leader, I at least understood him. So great result from “Team Pastor” and all of their cast.

Bleach and petrol, images of a post apocalyptic world.

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I first heard of this book “through the backdoor” as it were. I’d seen the film first. I can somewhat hazily remember liking it. It wasn’t anything to write home about, as far as I can remember, but the film did strike a chord with me. I discovered that it had been made from Scott Smith’s (no relation) book of the same name.

I discovered the book whilst perusing the many available books on Amazon. My eye caught a blurb by the horror Meister himself Stephen King. He gave what I thought was a glowing recommendation of the book. That to me was a seal of approval and I then ordered a hardcopy of the book.

It was only after getting said book that I realised that the glowing recommendation was for his first book, A Simple Plan. Upon learning this disturbing and misleading fact, I raised my clenched fists to the sky and cried, “Damn you Amazon!”

Not really. I did, though, mutter a slight curse at my obvious gullibility and no, I do not want to buy prime real estate in the swamplands of Florida… Or do I?

I haven’t read Mr Smith’s first novel, but I am going to since I trust Stevie King implicitly. But for now, I’ll just focus on the book I have read.

The Ruins is set in Mexico (obviously since the Mayan’s don’t come from any other part of the globe) and it follows the deathly journey made by a group of young people who are just starting out in the world. Jeff and Amy are medical students. Stacy and Eric are happy-go-lucky kids who have drifted together. Eric has been hired as an English  teacher and Stacy has no idea what she is going to do.

This group of four have been joined by Heinrich and Mathias, two German men who happen to be in Mexico on holiday and three Greeks who, since no one can speak the language are referred to as Don Quixote, Pablo and Juan. When Heinrich runs off to some Mayan ruins in pursuit of a female student who is working at the site and then seemingly vanishes, Mathias decides to find him.

Jeff, Amy, Eric, Stacy and Pablo decide to accompany him on what appears, on the face of it, to be a lark and an adventure. Unfortunately for this small band of “explorers” when they eventually find Heinrich they also find something deadly amongst the ruins. After being trapped on the archeological site by neighbouring villagers, the group must try to survive until help arrives.

Jeff, the Eagle Boy Scout, is the leader and he must struggle to keep them alive as well as try to find a way out of their deadly predicament.

This was a great read. I honestly cannot remember if the film adapted from the book was a faithful representation of the story. I’ve down-loaded the film and I’ll watch it soon so I can make an accurate comparison.

Smith does a good job of fleshing out all his characters and paints a great picture of the young people who don’t let language barriers stop them from connecting with other people.  Unfortunately this lack of language skills is what helps to trap the happy-go-lucky group in the ruins.

The only drawback to the book was some of the actual characters themselves. I bonded with Jeff and with the “spacey” Stacy but none of the others had traits that made them personable enough to connect with. And the “foreigners” like Mathias and especially Pablo, did not have enough development either because of the language barrier (Pablo) or lack of character information due to personality (Mathias).

Despite my “disconnection” with some of the main players, I did feel a lot of empathy for the group and their fight for survival. Smith has also introduced a “Big Bad” that was properly creepy and downright scary! And this big bad was nasty and cruel. I can’t tell you what it is, you’ll have to read the book to get that. But it not something you’ll forget about after you’ve read it.

A real 5 star book with just a couple of 3 or 4 star moments. Keep an eye out for Mr Scott Smith, both his books thus far have made a bit of a wave in the literary community. While I try to chase down a copy of his first foray into the horror/suspense/thriller genre, I’ll be looking for any new books he may release.

Author Scott Smith (no relation)

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I wrote about this film way back when I saw the first trailer and heard about the incredible events that inspired it. That was way back on the 17th of August last year and it was aptly titled Argo (2012): A Truth Stranger than Fiction (just click on the previous link if you missed it the first time around) and I could not wait to see it at the cinema.

Of course if you’ve followed my blog for any time at all, you’ll know that my heart attack at the end of August pretty much messed up my cinema viewing for the last part of 2012. I finally got to watch it today (with the kind co-operation of iTunes who charged me for the privilege) and I was not disappointed.

Directed by Affleck (who also starred as the super spook Tony Mendez – the man who spearheaded this amazing rescue) and based on Mendez’s book, the film tells the “true story” of how six American Embassy employees escaped from the Iranian American Embassy one step ahead of rioting students who stormed the place in 1979.

The true story is in quotes because, like any other “true story” that’s been made into a film, not all the events are “gospel.” The very medium of film fictionalises the story. (I wish I could remember who came out with that saying, I want to credit it to little Stevie King; if I’m wrong, please let me know. Answers on a postcard please.)

We know that the Embassy was stormed and that a lot of the employees were held hostage. We also know that six folks hid in the Canadian Ambassadors house. We know that Mendez came up with a plan to get them out and that he worked with a makeup artist named John Chambers who enlisted the help of Lester Siegel to help the CIA to make a “pretend” movie. A science fiction film called, appropriately enough, ARGO.

Goodman and Arkin, what a double act.

(The best line in the film belongs to Alan Arkin’s character Siegel, who after getting tired of answering questions about the fictitious film says it stands for “ARGO Fuck Yourself” which then becomes the three-man team’s catch-phrase)

So all the main events are true. But the mists of time and the very act of filming the story allows for creative license and a certain amount of padding to take place.

Does this take away from the film or the true events.

Not in my humble opinion.

All this license and padding help to make the film a real “edge of your seat” viewing experience. Even though I remember the event very well, I still sat on the edge of my seat during at least part of the film worried that these six people were going to get caught! Even though I knew this I still tightened up during the market scene. And the airport?

Don’t even go there!

Nail biting tension.

Affleck does a spectacular job of doing what I call, “A Columbo.”

I’ll explain.

In the 1970′s there was a weekly detective show called the NBC Mystery Movie. It featured several different detectives, McMillan & Wife, McCloud and Columbo. Now Columbo was different (and still is as far as I know) in that on his program, we the audience knew who the murderer was. The entertainment came from watching Columbo first figure out who it was and then trapping him or her by the show’s end.

ARGO uses a similar principle. We, the audience, know that the six people get out of Iran. Affleck has just shown how it all worked out. Great premise. Great enough to win the film an Oscar for Best Picture. Just not for Best Director, but, we won’t go there. Despite the obvious snub by the Academy, ARGO had all the right ingredients to be a hit.

Great story, great cast, great script and a great message. Okay a little too patriotic for some, but hey, you can’t please everyone. Just ask the Academy. I loved all the performances. John Goodman, Alan Arkin (I’ve been a fan since Freebie and the Bean), Affleck, Clea Duvall who I did not even recognise, and of course Bryan Cranston. I got completely excited when I realised that Malcom’s dad from Malcom in the Middle was going to be in this film. And playing a serious part.

But to get back on track here, I just have to say that I loved the film. So much so that now I’m going to have to see all the films that Ben Affleck has directed.

I am curious though, did anyone else have a special affinity with the film’s subject matter? This 1979 event changed my life. I joined the USAF as a result of the Embassy take over in Iran and my future was changed as a result. I probably would not be here typing this blog post, I’d be a cop in a small town somewhere or perhaps building houses.

If you were around “back then” let me know how you felt about the film.

Look! It’s Malcom’s dad Hal and he’s with Ben Affleck!

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Just in case you didn’t know, author Jack O’Halloran has been many things in his lifetime. He was a professional Heavyweight Boxer from 1966 to 1974. He’s been an actor and worked in ten feature films (most notably Superman I and II) and done a fair share of television. He manages Long Beach Studios and he is an author. (Information courtesy of Wikipedia)

This man has been busy.

His first book is Family Legacy. A story about a young man who, after being told that his father died in the second world war, finds out that he is alive and well. Not only did he not die, he’s Albert Anastasia, aka Umberto Anastasio, aka the head of Murder Inc. One of the most notorious men in the history of organised crime.

This young man’s name is Jack Pagano. A “normal” high school student who is a star football player and who has a friend called Rip who teaches him about self-defence and other useful things.

When Jack comes home to find Albert Anastasia sitting  in his kitchen drinking coffee with his mother, he’s surprised. He’s even further surprised when he finds out that Albert is his “dead” father.

Jack doesn’t have very long to let this new information sink in before Anastasia is murdered while getting his hair cut. Jack is immediately thrust into the world of organised crime and he begins the long road toward his destiny.

This was an entertaining first book. Based on real characters who were active in the world of crime and politics back in the 1950′s and 60′s. Using this “real world” base for his starting block, the book feels almost like a “true crime” novel instead of a work of fiction. We follow Jack as he learns who he can trust and who he cannot.

We also feel his confusion when the lines between friend and foe become blurred putting his life and those he loves in danger. Events in the book run up to the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas on the 22nd of November 1963 and the after effects of this obscene act. The book ends in a way that leads me to believe that there are more stories about Jack and his new cronies in the secret world of the Mafia.

The canvas of the book includes the Kefauver hearings and the machinations of Joe Kennedy and others behind the scenes who insured that JFK would win the election. It also shows the tensions of the Cuba crisis from the personal level of Jack’s new girlfriend as well as the publicised paranoia.

I enjoyed the book and gave it a 4 out of 5 stars because the book, to me, lagged in places. I was not expecting a breakneck pace, but, in order to give all the background it tends to slow down and distract from the overall action. It does not happen often and certainly not enough to hurt the book. But it did cause me to drop that fifth star.

Great book and one wonders if it is somewhat autobiographical in nature as O’Halloran himself revealed that he is the son of the infamous Anastasia. I don’t know about that, but I do know that he’s lead an interesting and varied life and it shows in his first book.

Bravo Jack. I want to read more about Jack Pagano and his “rise” in the organisation.

The author Jack O’Halloran.

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Pitch Black was the first film I ever “googled.” One afternoon while hunting for a new film to watch (new as in one I’d not seen before) I had a vague memory of something I’d seen on the telly. The setting was very dark and these giant “bat-like” things were flying around and killing people.

If I remember correctly, I typed the phrase ‘film with giant bats’ in the search engine and the first thing that showed up was Pitch Black with Vin Diesel. The VHS video had been out for quite a while by the time I finally got to see the entire film. When I found it, I got it from one of those Video Rental Vans that used to deliver weekly to your house.

When it came out on DVD it was one of the first films I bought. We watched it again last night. It seemed like a good idea, what with Riddick  part 3 coming out September this year. I found, to my delight, that I still enjoyed the hell out of the movie and I noticed something at the end of the film that I’d never noticed before. A nice surprise for me on top of my usual enjoyment of the story and the characters.

The Creators:

Directed by David Twohy  - who also co-wrote the screenplay with the creators of the story Jim and Ken Wheat – Pitch Black was a film that boasted a unique “anti-hero,” a cast that was equivalent to an actor’s smorgasbord of talent, and story that had a great blend of action, science fiction, and horror (or as IMDb categorises it, thriller, which I suppose it is to a huge degree).

The Story:

The spaceship Hunter-Gratzner is transporting goods and people as part of its cargo. A meteor storm causes severe damage to the ship and the pilot, Frye has to set the ship down on an uncharted planet. After jettisoning most of the cargo and passengers, the captain forces her to keep the last two sections of the ship as it crash lands. The tiny amount of survivors include a bounty hunter, two settlers, a holy man and his three sons, an antique collector/dealer, a 14 year-old-boy, Fry and the incredibly dangerous and homicidal Riddick.

The planet appears to be a barren waste. Full of desert and it features an empty mining community. With no sign of where the miners are or where they went, the group begin outfitting a smaller spaceship  to escape this alien planet with three suns. As the “law-abiding” members of the crash keep an eye out for Riddick and try to move supplies a solar eclipse cuts off all the light from all three suns.

The dark is full of death and danger and it will be the longest and last eclipse that many of them will face.

The planet before the eclipse.

The Device:

The planet with three suns has an eclipse that allows carnivorous creatures access to the planet’s surface. Riddick has had his eyes “polished” by a doctor to enable him to see in the dark.

The Twist:

Riddick becomes the group’s reluctant saviour along with the pilot Frye.

The Characters:

*Cast list courtesy of IMDb*

It has to be said that every actor in this film performs brilliantly. Whether this is down to the cachet of talent that had been cast or whether it’s down to the writing of the characters, they all shine in this film. The dialogue as written by Twohy and co is snappy, funny, and ironic. Riddick has the best lines obviously, but Frye also has her fair share of pithy remarks as well.

Out of all the characters, Riddick, Fry and Johns have the best character arcs and their interactions are a treat to behold. But one of my favourite characters was Jack, who has such a case of hero-worship for Riddick that it’s truly funny and touching. But as I said, all the actors knocked it out of the park in this intimate small cast film.

The Verdict:

For it’s time this was a kick-ass movie that entertained and kept you on the edge of your seat. The CGI on the creatures was brilliant and the whole thing was impressive in its presentation and its originality. It made  household names of Vin Diesel and Radha Mitchell and it was only Twohy’s third time at bat as a director.

A great entertaining Science Fiction, Thriller, Horror Action film that does not disappoint and one that can be watched again and again and again. I’d give it a solid 5 out of 5 stars just for having a powerful female character in Fry the pilot and for the decision to use Radha Mitchell.

Neat Fact:

Pitch Black opens with Riddick talking about cyro-stasis. Avatar opens with Jake Sully talking about cyro-stasis.

Riddick invading Frye’s personal space.

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Written and directed by Rian Johnson (Brick, The Brothers Bloom), Looper stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Noah Segan, Jeff Daniels, and Pierce Gagnon as Cid the future Rainman. It is a science fiction/thriller/action film that takes place in the year 2044 and its main plot device is time travel.

Joe (Gordon-Levitt) is a looper. Loopers, it appears, came into being right after time travel is invented in 2074. Immediately banned and made illegal by the government; the new time travel is used by huge criminal organizations as a sort of “Murder’s Inc” where “hits” are sanctioned and sent back to the past to be carried out by a looper.

So in the future hitmen become loopers and in the sense that some things never change, time travel is a criminal’s wet dream; presumably allowing more than just murder to fly the “airways.” When the target arrives in the past, he lands on a tarpaulin; hands tied behind his back and his head covered in a cloth bag.

The second he appears, the looper shoots him and rolls the body over to collect his “Judas” fee of silver bars. In an ironic twist, the loopers work for criminals from the future in the past. If you try to figure it out, you’ll just give yourself a headache. So don’t try, even Old Joe (Willis) says it’s beyond explanation (unless you use straws and salt).

In this world of murderous loopers one way to retire is when your future bosses send your future self back to be “whacked” this constitutes “closing the loop.” You get a literal golden handshake and you retire. Joe systematically does his job, learns French and relies on drugs to relieve the monotony of his existence.

When one of Joe’s fellow loopers, Seth (Dano) meets his future self, he is so shaken that he lets him escape. Seth comes to Joe for help and begs for a place to hide. Their boss Abe (Daniels) has already sent Kid Blue (Segan) to Joe’s apartment and they take Joe to see Abe. Joe then gives Seth up to Abe and gets to spend an hour with his favourite prostitute to ease his conscience.

Life goes back to “normal” which means Joe continues to kill his target at 11:30 in the morning and then go for coffee later. One day, the target is late. When it does arrive, he has no bag over his head and his hands are free. Joe is stunned and in the split second it takes him to fire his blunderbuss, his target (his future self) turns and the shot goes into the gold bars on his back.

As Joe pumps another round into the gun, Old Joe hits him with a gold bar; knocks him out and escapes. Joe awakens a bit later with a note telling him to run and catch a train out of town.

Well, it’s 11:30! Time to shoot another target.

Now here is the only spot in the film that confused me. Joe (Gordon-Levitt) returns to his apartment and in the ensuing scuffle, he falls off a fire escape and knocks himself out. We are then treated to a longish montage of Joe actually shooting “Old Joe” and then “living” his life until he marries a Chinese woman and, as Old Joe, gets taken from his house and put into the time machine for his younger self to shoot him.

I was a little confused to say the least. But it did not matter. Any film that deals with time travel is going to be confusing. There are going to be plot holes and mistakes and bits in the film where you can hear the audible sound of everyone’s chin thudding on the ground. But as Bruce Willis’s character says, “It’s doesn’t matter.”

Purists are now pulling their hair and screaming, “Yes, it does matter damn it. What about the space time continuum, blah, blah, blah…”

I say again it does not matter; especially in the verse of this film.

I’ll explain.

Years ago the late Ray Bradbury wrote some excellent science fiction novels. The Martian Chronicles was just one example of his work; immensely popular it was made into a film (once or twice) and a television mini-series. The point about Bradbury’s work is this: when Ray told you that some astronauts took a rocket ship to Mars, that is all he told you. There was no song and dance about what powered the rocket or its payload or its dimensions. It was not pertinent to the story.

Now if you wanted science fiction that was all about the “science” you read Issac Asimov or one of his peers who would gladly give you all the science you might require from your Sy Fy story. The books by either author were equally entertaining but, both were written from a different point of view.

I always leaned more toward Bradbury’s stuff, because I like a good story and I don’t need to know how many booster rockets are needed to get out of the earth’s atmosphere. I feel the same way here about Looper. It’s story about time travel, I don’t need a lot of dithering about with someone trying to explain every little nut and bolt about it. It just is; and I’m fine with that.

The film was vastly entertaining. Even though I did have some problem with Emily Blunt being in yet another movie (I mean, come on guys, is she the only actress available at the moment or what) and as much as I adore Bruce Willis, he also seems to be in a lot this year.

It would probably be easier to list films that Emily Blunt has not been in this year.

Of course this is the third time that the team of Johnson and Gordon-Levitt have worked together. They are starting to look a bit like the Burton/Depp combination; let’s hope that they don’t wind up as stale.

But I have got to say that although I was a bit “freaked out” by the prosthetics used on Gordon-Levitt’s face to make him resemble a young Willis, I was impressed by the fact that Joseph has Bruce’s speech pattern and phrasing down perfectly. I really believed that he could be a younger version of Willis. Very, very impressive to say the least.

The film moves at break neck speed and shows a future that is bleak and violent and (like The Divide’s setting) dirty and hopeless. Joe’s existence before he meets Old Joe is a series of events that all run together fuelled by drugs and emptiness. Despite this depressing background, the movie manages to look like what we imagine the world to look like in 21 years.

I do have to say that I’m impressed that Rian managed to get a “hover cycle” into the film.

My final verdict is that this was a cracking film and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’ll say it’s definitely a 5 star film worth watching and that I’m sorry I missed this at the cinema.

Bruce looks as upset as I am about the hoverbike not working.

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Stephen Leather‘s The Chinaman is another of his earlier titles published initially in 1992. It is about a Vietnamese refugee’s hunt for justice after his wife and daughter are murdered by an IRA subversive group who aren’t playing by the cease-fire rules.

Leather writes about the IRA a lot. His books include characters that are in the Irish Republican Army or are people who have been a part of “the troubles” or have been affected by it.

In The Chinaman, we see the occupants of a department store going about their Christmas shopping. In particular we see the Nguyen family shopping. The girl, sixteen is stunningly beautiful and her mother looks years older than her actual age. We don’t get a chance to learn much about the two women as a motorbike rider has left his bike and a semtex parcel outside the store and in seconds they both become casualties of the resulting explosion.

Nguyen goes to the police to see what is being done about finding the men responsible and they direct him to the Terrorist Branch. He learns from them that it is a political problem; he then goes to the Irish politician who fronts Sinn Fein and reaches a brick wall. Nguyen then decides to take matters into his own very capable hands.

Nguyen is one of the “boat people” who escaped from Vietnam with his family after the war. Initially he fought with the Viet Cong and he switched sides when he realised that life in the NVRA wasn’t to his families benefit. Working with the Americans he fought the North Vietnamese. He is a skilled bomb maker and very able to kill someone with his bare hands. While everyone he comes in contact with see him as the owner of a Chinese food takeaway shop, he is more than his job and he is a sum of his past experiences.

While Nguyen takes on the IRA, the politician who is the spokesman for Sinn Fein, Liam Hennessy is in a race to catch this rogue IRA cell who are violating the cease-fire and killing innocent women and children. Hennessy’s got a traitor in the organisation that is supporting the cell. He must find out who it is and use the traitor to help him stop the rogue cell. Since Nguyen has targeted Hennessy as the person that can tell him who killed his family, Hennessy is also hoping to tell the “Chinaman” that the men responsible have been punished. If he does not tell Nguyen quickly enough, he will kill him.

It is amusing to see everyone in the book refer to the Vietnamese refugee as a Chinaman. Reminiscent of westerns where the characters call anyone with a German or Austrian accent Dutchie, because Nguyen is oriental a somewhat illogical conclusion is made to Hong Kong and he becomes the Chinaman. It is a nice touch and it’s one that mirrors real life. Another mirroring effect is Leather’s use of the IRA in his books.

When I first came to the United Kingdom, the IRA was still bombing civilian targets and killing women and children in support of their cause. Americans had (and a lot still do) a much romanticized idea about the Irish terrorist group and what they were doing. I am sure that good public relations, aka fund-raisers did not help to dispel this romantic version of terrorism.

I was on a bus tour in London October 1982. It was full of US servicemen and women and their families. The tour guide was doing what tour guides the world over do. “If you look to your right you’ll see ______ and if you look straight ahead you’ll see_____.” Right in the middle of his spiel he paused and with an emotional quaver in his voice said, “Earlier this year, the IRA blew up the Queen’s Horses.” Wiping his eyes with one hand he continued, “How on earth could your fellow countrymen support such people? Who did those horses ever harm? Three soldiers died and quite a lot of tourists were injured by the bomb. Why would you support such a thing? Why?”

The bus I was on was silent. I don’t know what everyone else thought, but I was ashamed of the fact that my fellow countrymen had supported this group. The IRA was a fact of life in this country for years, centuries. I’ve worked with men who had the unbelievably terrifying job of patrolling Ireland and searching for the “soldiers” of the Irish Republic Army.

I’ve never seen them as soldiers, terrorists are not soldiers. The picture that Steven Leather paints of the participants of this organisation is one of devout fanaticism and hatred of the British troops and the British government. Of course the picture also includes the religious roots of Ireland and the divide that enabled this “war,” or the troubles as the Irish refer to it, to go on for so long.

When Mr Leather writes his stories, he shows that the IRA still has a firm supporting base from not only American sympathisers, but from Syrian and Palestinian terrorist groups. He describes the far reach that the organisation has and exactly what lengths both sides are prepared to go to.

The Chinaman is a cracking good read and moves at a good pace. It is another example of just how entertaining this author is and will be for some time to come.

I give The Chinaman a 4 and a half stars out of five.

Author Stephen Leather.

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