Tag: Ray Winstone

Millie Bobby Brown Ready to leave Stranger Things but Takes Giant Step Back in Netflix Film Damsel

Millie Bobby Brown Ready to leave Stranger Things but Takes Giant Step Back in Netflix Film Damsel
I have come to kill your monster.
Spoilers

Millie Bobby Brown has been ready to leave the Netflix hit Stranger Things for a few seasons now. She wants to grow up, play more mature parts, et al. But she has taken a giant step back in the film Damsel.

This twisted fairly tale of a film is pretty good overall. A rotten kingdom, who pay human tithes to a fire spewing dragon, have been pulling a nasty trick for some time now. They invite other kingdoms whose coffers are near empty to marry into their prosperous family.

Brown plays Elodie, the eldest girl in Ray Winstone‘s (Lord Bayford) fiefdom AKA the damsel. He reacts with a certain excitement when Queen Isabelle reveals that she wants his daughter Elodie to be the princess to her son’s prince. Elodie’s stepmother, Lady Bayford (Angela Bassett) immediately starts “grooming” the prospective bride on the rules of a royal court.

I have come to kill your monster

It is fitting that Ray Winstone play the father figure in this Young Adult film. He did, after all, play Beowulf in the 2007 film of the same name. Anyone who was actively watching films will remember the advertisement clip: “I am Beowulf and I have come to kill your monster.” *Sidenote: This particular clip of Winstone growling out this line never failed to crease me up. Quite possibly because I’d just watched Sexy Beast. *

At first Elodie is reluctant to consider entering into an arranged marriage. But her poppa relates a few home truths. The entire population under the protection of his Lordship, are hungry. This marriage will align them with Queen Isabelle and fill the royal coffers.

The young damsel realises that she must agree to this union so that her people can be supported. Mum, dad and baby sister all pack their bags and head off to the wedding.

as you wish

Elodie goes along with this setup but not without some reservations. Lady Bayford tells her step daughter it is not too late for the girl to back out. Her father reminds her what is at stake. Elodie agrees to go on and gets thrown into a hole right after the ceremony.

Going any further into this by the numbers damsel in distress feature would mean even more spoilers, so we will stop here.

However.

There is a plot twist, or two, and these do help the drag the film out of the dungeon. Rotten Tomatoes give the film a 55% with the audience score adding a further 10%. We are not quite sure the audience rating is not just because the wildly popular Brown is in the movie.

Millie Bobby Brown has chosen to play her damsel straight as a string. This helps to some extent but this will never be the Princess Bride sans prince. Although in terms of “baddies” Queen Isabelle is really up there with her cold blooded determination to survive at any cost.

damsel in distress

Damsel feels a bit like a failed attempt to let Millie Bobby Brown grow up. Her character goes from new bride to sword wielding badass. But the qualities that make her determined enough to tackle a monster were there already. Her transition then is hardly surprising.

Brown could have made any other film with similar characters and still turn in a decent performance. She convinces as the threatened damsel in distress, just as she convinces as the one girl who can break a pattern of deceit and death.

Netflix

Damsel is streaming on Netflix right now. It is definitely worth a look and Brown fans will not be disappointed. We give it a solid 3 stars, mainly because someone was clever enough to put Winstone in a film about a monster. And someone else was smart enough to put “Buttercup” in a movie where she is a villain.

The Gentlemen (2024) Netflix and Diluted Guy Ritchie

The last really good “gangster” film from Guy Ritchie was ROCKnROLLA (2008). Guy’s output in the London gangsters arena has been slow and a tad arthritic. Ritchie’s next effort was The Gentlemen in 2019, which was an 11 year break between tales of London wide boys. The latter offering was a tepid rehash of what made RnR so much fun. Now, five years later, we have Netflix offering up diluted Guy Ritchie in this “follow up” with the small screen version of The Gentlemen.

Stephen King tells a story about his son Joe Hill. The now grown, and successful author, was approximately five years old at the time of the story. The tale has to do with the plethora of left-over turkey after the familial feast. The crux of the turkey story was the youngsters rejoinder to an announcement that, yet again, left-over fowl was on the menu. Joe looked at the offering on hand and cried (sic) “Not this sh*t again!”

Our reaction upon seeing The Gentlemen being revisited on Netflix was, at least, in spirit with young Joe Hill. After watching the short series, the kinship was real. As five year old Joe wisely pointed out, warmed over excrement is still excrement.

This is not to say that the Netflix version of The Gentlemen smells like last week’s fish, but in terms of fecundity, the bloom has gone off that rose, so to speak.

Rocknrolla gold

Guy Ritchie reached fever pitch with the 2008 film ROCKnROLLA. A heady mix of those London criminals and the new Russian Oligarch. Back in the days of the “Cossacks” buying up dizzying amounts of London real estate. The pacing was crisp, the dialogue clever and the editing was spot on.

All the main and secondary characters interacted with something approaching serendipity. From the slang slinging street hoodlums to their leader, played to perfection by the late Tom Wilkerson and on to the clinically correct Russian mob leader Uri (Karel Roden) there is a certain underlying poetry to each scene.

*Side note: Has the phrase “Victor please come to join us,” ever evoked such a sense of comedic dread?*

The entire film is actually spelled out by Johnny Quid (Played to perfection by Toby Kebbell.) as he explains how a pack of Virginian killing sticks contains everything we need to know about life and where we fit in it.

As Johnny rhythmically recites his cigarette litany of life, his stepfather, Lenny; “the headmaster,” is being schooled in the art of pain by Uri and Victor. This sequence, more than any other, illustrates the very tautness of Guy Ritchie. This is Ritchie on fire. This is gangsta gold.

The Gentlemen bronze

The Gentlemen (2019) offers a look at the gangsters from a different point of view, an American one. While this Matthew McConaughey vehicle is good. It is not great. Despite having an excellent cast list, it fails. The very fact that the entire film is stolen by Colin Farrell in the chip shop scene, says is all.

This scene does not delve into the philosophical pastiche of Kebbell’s pack of cigarettes as life. Instead, it relies on lowkey violence. Slight of hand techniques by an expert. A lesson, nonetheless, but one aimed at the young, vapid and gobby.

The plot is clever, to an extent, but lacks the sheer brilliance of the “Wild Bunch” film. It does, however, leave the backdoor open for the next vehicle.

The gentlemen Netflix Brass

The first film in this little trilogy, sings. There are moments where character’s shine, regardless of the setting. Take Gemma Arterton‘s June, where she “spontaneously” spurts “Thanks” when Lenny describes her flatteringly. Or Ludacris as Mickey, the manager who has a long diatribe about the lack of dry ice. Or even Johnny’s “cowering” cry to Arch, “Don’t hurt me Arch! I’m only little,” all work both independently of each other while at the same time resonating beautifully as a whole.

Netflix attempts this trick with this third offering of gangsta’s in England. This iteration has the entire kitchen sink of nefarious crooks and drug dealers. It even visits the NATs (New Age Travellers). There is the introduction of mad as a hatter religious sects, steeped in violence along with the usual players.

Ray Winstone is the family head who wants to keep the landed gentry on a tight lead as long as possible. His daughter Susie runs the gauntlet between all the criminals one could desire as she plays the new Duke for a patsy.

Sadly, there is no music here. The darkly comic touch of ROCKnROLLA is missing. The melodic patter of the various crime lords is a vacuous mumble. Attempting clever threat and falling very short of the mark.

Everyone, it seems, criminal and aristocracy alike, love classical music, speak in moronic riddles and threats are delivered in a monotone.

Sadly, there was no Colin Farrell slapping a lot of lads about in this one. And while is it always wonderful to see Nigel Havers in anything, his cameo role was too short by half.

If you have Netflix, give this one a look, if you must. But be warned, this is the road less travelled and it is a lonely one. We would like to point out, there is no Russian bodyguard sequence in either of these two “Gentlemen” films. We hav, however, left you trailers of the other Ritchie vehicles in this little trilogy. Enjoy.

Noah (2014): Science Fiction Not Biblical

Still from Noah
In 2014, Darren Aronofsky finished Noah, his version of the biblical tale of a flooded world where only a chosen few survive by building an ark and filling it with pairs of animals, but his story is much more science fiction than bible fact. The film is enjoyable precisely because of this merging and changing of what is normally a pretty large morality tale, bigger than the one about Sodom and Gomorrah by quite a bit, into an epic more magical telling of the first time the “creator” destroyed his creation.

According to the film, which does quote the bible just enough at the beginning, Adam and Eve have Cain, Abel and Seth. They’ve been kicked out of Eden and Cain kills Abel. He is then banished and it is his offspring who destroy the earth by means of a gross of industrial cities (Aronofsky’s phrasing not this reviewers) and Seth assumes the mantle of vegetarian earth father who bats for the “other side.”

Noah (Russell Crowe), who is the last of Seth’s clan, raises his own family and has a vision of water, he is floating in the stuff. Men are encroaching on Noah’s home and he takes the family and flees. On the way they find an old mine as well as a young girl Ila (who will grow up to be played by Emma Watson) who is badly wounded. They take the youngster and flee into a black area marked with piles of human skulls at its perimeter.

They have entered the land of the giants, aka The Watchers and the men follow. One Watcher rises up and scares the pursuers off and knocks Noah out cold. The family awaken in a canyon surrounded by the rock creatures whose leader orders that the humans be left to rot. One of the Watchers ignores the order and saves Noah and his small family.

The patriarch goes into the mountain to speak to his grandfather Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins). He takes Shem, who he treats with deference and leaves Ham at home with his mother and little brother. Once there, he drinks some “medicinal” tea and has another vision, he now knows what to do about the flooding. He must build an ark. The Watchers, after a sign from the Creator (a spring appears in the middle of all the desolation, Noah plants the seed that his grandfather gave him and it generates a huge forest of trees) help Noah build his large wooden craft.

The task takes long enough that Ila now is a young lady, Shem has a beard, mustache and pretty randy attitude, and Noah has had a haircut and trimmed his beard. Ham, after being pretty much made to feel like a second class citizen his whole life, becomes socially inept and likes to spy on Ila and Shem. The baby is now a pre teen and amazingly Jennifer Connelly, as Naameh, has not aged a day.

As the ark is being built and the animals are arriving in dribs and drabs of birds and snakes so too arrive Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone) and a number of men. After a short exchange with Noah, Cain is surprised to see that the rock giants have joined the other side. Making threats, Tubal-Cain withdraws to build an army to take Noah’s ark.

The surrounding camp is turned into hell on earth as starving people turn on one another and become animals. There is discord in family Noah as Ham cannot find a wife and Ila wants to leave as she cannot have children. The rush is on to finish loading the ark in preparation for the upcoming storm. Noah has doubts.

At the time of its release, there were many religious organizations that were upset at the film’s depiction of perhaps the least known figure in the bible. However Aronofsky chose to take the threads of the tale and to use the names and lineage as well as its outcome but dressed the whole tale with a sort of parallel world coating.

Perhaps the feeling that The Watchers are a version of Transformers, with the one who helps Noah filling in for Optimus Prime, helps bring about that science fiction air to the proceedings. Certainly the message of the movie, that back in “biblical times” man destroyed the planet through his industrial cities and bad practices fits more of a science fiction reality than what really caused the “big guy” to flood the world.

There is also a sort of juxtaposition of morality. In Noah’s world, it is a sin to kill animals to eat, vegan is the order of the day for Seth’s offspring, yet it is perfectly all right to kill men who intrude into his territory. The Creator is presumably meant to be God but Methuselah fulfills that role almost as well, with his little touches of miracles here and there.

Surprisingly, for a film that does not tackle the bible at all apart from the most loose retelling of Noah’s story and choses, instead dances around the whole sin issue, Noah is entertaining, if not a little over long. At 138 minutes there are stretches that are slow and a bit boring. Even with the added touch of having Tubal-Cain as a stowaway on board for a climatic fight and the subplot about Ila’s daughters, the film drags under the weight of all that water.

Still, Aronofsky delivers and despite having made the colossally bad decision to cast Russell Crowe as the “Grizzly Adam’s” version of Noah, the movie entertains. This is one that should be watched via the auspices of DVD or On-Demand. One can take breaks when the film bogs down or fast forward to the action. A 3.5 out of 5 stars, the biggest drop has to do with miscasting rather than all the CG and the attempt to make this into a sort of re-imagining of a bible story. It works better as science fiction with a hint of misplaced finger wagging.

The Devil’s Tomb (2009): Event Horizon Wanna Be

The Devil's Tomb
The Devil’s Tomb (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Okay. So on Netflix it seems to be Cuba Gooding Jr month or year, maybe. I have seen Gooding’s name on the movie lists of Netflix in about five different lists. It’s not the same film listed several different times either. It’s at least five different films.

Or six.

Someone on Netflix must have gotten a great distribution deal on Cuba’s films. Either that or no-one else wants them. Because if the rest of these films are like The Devil’s Tomb? It is probably the latter conclusion that fits best.

Directed by Jason Connery (better known for working on the other side of the camera) The Devil’s Tomb looks like Jason’s first directorial foray into feature film. Not so says IMDb (which interestingly lists The Devil’s Tomb as Connery’s first directed film chronologically)  Jason’s ‘maiden’ feature film is Pandemic even though it is after The Devil’s Tomb on Connery’s filmography.

I could have forgiven the film some of it’s most obvious flaws if it was Connery’s maiden voyage. Okay maybe not, because let’s face it, the flaws are many and they range across the spectrum of ownership. The script, the acting, the location…You see where I’m going with this?

I have had a moan before about characters that I am supposed to care about not making the grade. What The Devil’s Tomb has is characters that lack dimension entirely. They have been created so haphazardly and sloppily that they aren’t even two-dimensional cardboard cut-outs of characters.

The plot is basic. A group of mercenary (add a question mark here, because in the Cuba Gooding Jr voice-over at the start of the film he refers to his little band of soldiers as mercenaries, but it appears that they aren’t…really) soldiers are told that they have to rescue Hellboy…Sorry, Ron Perlman from hole in the ground in the middle of the desert.

English: Ron Perlman at the 2011 San Diego Com...
English: Ron Perlman at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gooding’s gang of merry men and women are joined by Valerie Cruz who, it turns out, is Hellboy’s daughter and she has to save only him from the hole. Nothing else is allowed to be taken from this secret location.

So a helicopter takes the group and deposits them outside a secret manhole cover with a combination coded lock and before leaving tells them they have six hours.

It is at this point that the film tries it’s hardest to be Event Horizon but in a hole in the ground. To be fair though the film has tried from almost the first frame to emulate the far superior Horizon by having Gooding’s character have flashbacks (brilliantly filmed in sepia tones so that there can be no mistake that these are indeed flashbacks) to an event prior to this latest mission.

Unfortunately these flashbacks include an almost unrecognizable Ray Winstone (it must have been the uniform, I honestly did not recognise the man until the end of the film) and they are so short, frequent and unedifying that only at the very end of the film do we learn the supposed purpose of them being here.

Once inside the tomb the small band of saviors encounter a priest with a really bad skin condition and Bill Moseley. I’m a huge fan of Moseley and was disappointed to see his cameo wasted as badly as Winstone’s. Quite frankly the producers could have used any unknown in either role, but they obviously thought the names would put a few extra bums in seats.

I don’t want to head into spoiler territory here (Are you kidding me? I hear you cry. What spoilers??) but after they all get ‘trapped’ in the lower floors of the underground facility everything goes ‘Pete Tong‘ (wrong) and they start seeing things and it all goes Event Horizon like but in a bargain basement, ‘we really don’t know how to do this,’ way.

If you look at the shooting budget of 10 million dollars, it is mystifying and downright difficult to figure out where the money went. It most certainly didn’t go into getting a decent script. Or even in getting a decent location. *In the Goofs section of IMDb they point out the very American graffiti that is present in an Iraqi underground bunker that is 900 floors beneath the desert floor.*

Now don’t get me wrong, I like Cuba Gooding Jr. Up until now he’s never failed to move me when I’ve seen him in other films. But in The Devil’s Tomb he just does not deliver. Jason Connery I’ve seen act and I like his work. He has a little bit to go on the directing front, but hey, he has to be given some decent material to work with.

My final verdict on The Devil’s Tomb? Put it back under the sand where it came from. For me a film has to be bad if all I can say during the end credits is, “Huh. So that’s it then.”

They didn’t like the movie either…

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