Review: FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS

Normally, a movie review sets out its stall with a little preamble, then a quick run through the basic plot, then a critique of perhaps the movie’s main selling points, before rounding things up in a tidy summary – the part most people skip to. Doubly so if there’s a star rating at the end.

That’s what I hate about movie reviews. They always stick to a certain formula, even if they try and pepper it up with a light smattering of casual swearing and a few references to popular culture that you can relate to because YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT THING THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT SO YOU MUST BE JUST LIKE JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE / MILA KUNIS, most likely because someone linked you to its YouTube video on your Facebook profile. Twitter. X-Factor. iPad.

Not this review, though. This review is well aware of the above trappings of other movie reviews, and as such, none of that bunkum will occur whilst discussing Friends With Benefits, a new romantic comedy that’s achingly aware of the hokiness of other romantic comedies, and achingly keen to let you know about it. Two recently-single yuppie-types (what do we call yuppies now, anyway? App-ies? Tossers?) hook up for sex, and then…  Y’know. Stuff happens. You already saw it all in that other movie earlier this year. Y’know – No Strings Attached? You saw it, because Natalie Portman’s in it and you found her hot in Black Swan. Did you see the movie Black Swan? Me too. We’re pretty alike. Let’s hang out.

Except, Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal (you know those guys? It’s okay if you don’t. They’re pretty old. Like The Flinstones! Remember them?) already taught us that guys and girls can’t just be friends – especially if their friendly greeting to one another is a sexy(two)backed beast. And if we learned anything from all those romantic comedies that Friends With Benefits keeps bitching about, it’s that sooner or later the couple who underwent a ridiculous meet-cute early on are just destined to end up together. Not in this movie, though – Friends With Benefits is way too ahead of the curve and self aware to pull that kind of OH WAIT NO THAT TOTALLY HAPPENS ANYWAY.

So yeah. Friends With Benefits. It’s good for a few laughs and the leads are attractive and talented enough to carry it, but as this review is totally not like all the other reviews that came before it, how about we just play some Nintendo Wii instead? You know Nintendo Wii too? Excellent.

(Three stars.)

Review: KILL LIST

Hype. Dangerous thing, hype. More often than not, it’s safer to heed the advice of Public Enemy and simply not believe it. It can devour a movie whole and shit it out the front end of a multiplex projector to nothing but hushed audience apathy. Kill List has endured quite a lot of hype since its debut at SXSW back in March, right through to its feverish reception at FrightFest last month. And somehow it’s weathered the storm, and emerged (almost) fully deserving of the lavish praise already heaped upon it. The best case scenario for seeing Kill List (as is the case with so many movies of its ilk) is to go in cold. And yes, that’s hypocrisy in action right there with that statement, but this is a spoiler-free zone. Suffice, if you've even read of Kill List being held up against other movies, there’s a good chance you’ve wrecked some of its delights straight out of the gate.

Nonetheless, a non-spoilery comparison is with the kitchen-sink dramas of Ken Loach and Lindsay Anderson – if their films had been shot through with a queasy dose of unflinching physical violence and a wry sense of dark humour. The movie focuses on former soldier-turned-contract killer Jay (Neil Gaskell) as he sulks in his suburban family home, rowing loudly with his wife Shel (MyAnna Buring) and condemning his young son Sam to potentially-lengthy future therapy sessions in the process. The worst’s most uncomfortable dinner party heralds the arrival of Gal (Michael Smiley), Jay’s best friend and sometime business partner. Gal has a proposition for Jay – a new job, comprising of a series of no-questions-asked assassinations. Desperate to ease tensions with Shel (and equally keen to fix his busted jacuzzi), Jay willingly accepts.

Of course, that’s merely the first act, but to delve deeper into Kill List’s creepy web of intrigue does a disservice to first-time viewers. Suffice, cracks begin to show on Jay’s icy exterior and all hell gradually begins to break loose. “Gradually” being the key phrase there – Kill List has a slow-building pressure cooker structure that keeps piling on the tension (partly through its characters and partly through its impressive sound design) to create an awesome sense of foreboding dread. When the fan and shit finally meet, the result is as chaotic as it is terrifying.

Director Ben Wheatley made the impressive Down Terrace a couple of years ago, and here he confirms he’s one of the best helmers working in British cinema at present. He milks a trio of great performances from the cast, whose contributions to the script give the dialogue a natural and believable rhythm. Smiley (best known as pill-munching club monster Tyres in Spaced) is particularly striking as the killer armed with just as many pithy one-liners as bullets.

If Kill List has a flaw, it’s that the third act can’t quite cash in the cheques its atmosphere has been writing all along. The blame can’t all be attributed to the film itself, though – there are only a finite amount of endings in the world, and Kill List’s is reminiscent of two deeply disturbingly ones. And given that one of those said endings is as recent as last year, accusations of plagiarism are hardly fair.  A minor quibble then, for a film that delivers a steady stream of gut-punches and leaves you reeling as you exit the cinema, yet somewhat thirsty to dive right back in and experience it all over again.

Review: FRIGHT NIGHT (2011)

Horror remakes, eh? What are they like? When they’re not shot-for-shot photocopies, they’re busy fucking with well-established mythologies. Either way, they’re destined to piss off a good percentage of their target audience. Craig Gillespie’s retelling of Fright Night at least succeeds here, as it spectacularly fumbles pretty much everything that made the reasonably-enjoyable 1985 original worth watching.

Essentially Rear Window (or Disturbia, if you’re not old enough to do your weekly shop at Bargain Booze yet) told with vampires instead of boring human murderers, Fright Night (old version) coasted along on a certain goofy charm and a quiet homosexual subtext that seemed rife in horror movies of the time (I’m talking about you, Nightmare of Elm Street Part 2). Fright Night (today version) eschews said charm and subtext, and instead offers you Colin Farrell with a shark mouth and a former Dr. Who swanning around in leather pants and saying “fuck” a lot (settle down, Tom Baker fans – not him).

Anton Yelchin plays another tonally-blank every-teen (despite the fact the wrinkles in his forehead suggest he’s actually 46), who has to deal not only with a hot girlfriend who wants to do sex with him (OH NO TRAUMA), but also the fact that his next door neighbour might be a snarly vampire who’s preying on the teen and/or stripper populace of Las Vegas. Come to think of it, there’s no “might” at play here – it’s established ridiculously early on that Farrell’s slick sex-pest is indeed a blood-sucking creature of the night. This negates any of the tension from Fright Night (old version) that saw William Ragsdale’s horror movie-loving Charlie desperate to convince those around him that Chris Sarandon liked to drink blood. And possibly man-fat, judging from the muscle-headed bodyguard he kept hanging around his abode (also absent from this version). But definitely blood.

Yelchin seeks out the help of David Tennant’s Vegas magician (a poor substitute for Roddy McDowell’s brilliantly-doddery TV host), whose show specialises in “demonic magic.” This makes little sense – why seek out a charlatan like Tennant when surely a priest would be much easier to convince – but then sense, or character logic, isn’t really something that troubles Fright Night (today version).  Witness Yelchin’s instant one-eighty from jittery teen to crossbow-wielding badass – how? Why? Even Farrell’s villain is a damp squib – in the original, Sarandon’s bad guy uses his sexy menace to seduce Charlie’s girlfriend into his arms. Here, Farrell simply deploys the vampire equivalent of a roofied drink, making him less of a feral predator and more a date rapist.

Sluggishly paced, Fright Night (today version) is content to plod along almost at peace with its own dullness; the movie often seems to forget that its protagonists are in mortal peril. There’s a couple of neat flourishes – a one-take attack on a moving vehicle; Yelchin testing vampire lore as Farrell lingers at the back door – but nothing substantial enough to elevate the tedium. And to add the final insult to injury, the 3D is utterly atrocious. Save yourself the effort and money, and go watch the original (and its underrated sequel) instead.

Review: RED STATE

Whipped into the public eye via a storm of anti-critic hostility; snake-oil salesman marketing tactics and rampant ego-felating retweets from his legion of hardcore fans, the furore around Kevin Smith’s Red State seems to be ignoring a key question: is it actually any good?

The short answer is no, it’s not. Essentially a horror-tinged swipe at Fred Phelps and his posse of Westboro Baptist Church fuckwits, Red State lacks several vital elements that would have helped it succeed as either a satire or a straight-up fright flick. After an opening that could well be hoisted straight from a DTV American Pie sequel (three horny teens setting out to nail an older prostitute), the film changes track and turns into a Southern Gothic horror as Phelps-a-like Michael Parks summarily preaches his hateful wrath whilst routinely executing sinners before his congregation. Yet before it settles into this unsavoury groove, the film again morphs into a siege drama, with John Goodman’s ATF agent trying to regain control as the body count at the Five Points church escalates around him.

It doesn’t help that there’s no discernable protagonist here. Our teen leads are thoroughly dislikeable from the offset, so their plight feels of little consequence. Melissa Leo – best known at this point for dropping an f-bomb all over the delicate ears of the AMPAS – doesn’t really deliver anything of note; to the extent that at one point I had to double check they weren’t just using out-takes of Marcia Gay Harden’s character from The Mist. Goodman tries hard, but his character isn’t provided with enough shading to make his conflicted emotions worth caring about. Late in the film Smith tries to establish a teenage member of Parks’ family as a pseudo-heroine. Had we been following her turmoil as a member of the church from the offset it might have paid off – instead, her motivations seem knee-jerk and improbable.

This leaves us with Parks, who quickly establishes himself as the best thing in the movie. Tarantino fans already know that Parks can chew up a scene and spit it out with deadly accuracy, but here he’s given the chance to snarl dialogue front-and-centre for the majority of the film. He acts with the demeanour of a grandfather who’d just as soon beat you to death with his shoe as share his bag of Werthers Originals. He's equally on top form regardless of whether he's sat quietly tinkling at the piano as chaos breaks out around him, or spilling bilious hate from his pulpit.

Smith’s departure from his weary brand of stoner comedy should at least be commended, although after six movies featuring Jay and Silent Bob, it all feels like a case of too little, too late. He can’t resist shoving some humour into the mix – mostly from a pointless Kevin Pollak cameo which requires him to even follow a punch line with a “zing”, like the audience were unsure there was a joke – but the satirising of Phelps (who gets a name check) or any number of his nut bag equivalents seems disappointingly toothless. Previously known for his flat directorial style, at least here the camera pings and zips around with some urgency – this may be the first instance of a Smith movie where his direction actually improves a script rather than diminishes it. A greater effort to focus his story and give the audience something to care about would have worked wonders, but as it stands, Red State is a misshapen, confused tangent with no discernable voice and little to recommend, save for a knockout Michael Parks performance.

Red State is available now to anyone with a US iTunes account; it opens in UK cinemas on Sept 30th.