Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist

Rated: MWestwood: Punk, Icon, Activist

Directed by: Lorna Tucker

Edited by: Paul Carlin

Produced by: Eleanor Emptage, Shirine Best, Nicole Stott, John Battsek

Starring: Vivivenne Westwood, Andreas Kronthaler, Kate Moss.

Throughout her long career, avant garde fashion designer and activist Vivienne Westwood has been a giant safety pin digging into the side of the British establishment.

From the first little backroom shop in the King’s Road that she shared with Malcolm McLaren selling records (him) and clothing (her), Westwood claims to have invented punk, with McLaren managing (or perhaps mismanaging) the Sex Pistols and Westwood responsible for the punk aesthetic.

She has often described herself as a woman on a mission and, in the 1970s, the mission was to confront the establishment through sex. Pronouncing England as the home of the flasher, Westwood designed a line of rubber wear for the office to sell from their shop now flagrantly rebranded SEX in huge, hot pink letters.

Her designs from that time onwards have become no less confrontational, from the 1976 Destroy tee shirt calling out the establishment as fascists to the 2003 show where she sent her male models down the runway wearing fake breasts over their polo necks. Believing that clothes are deeply emotional, Westwood creates clothing, ‘to face the world in a spectacular way’, as with supermodel Carla Bruni’s 1994 appearance on a Paris catwalk in a scanty faux fur thong. At last, a fitting riposte to the 1936 surrealist Object, the fur-lined teacup.

Despite the sensation her designs create, Westwood takes a very practical approach to design. As one of her assistants observes of Vivienne and partner Andreas Kronthaler’s collaboration, ‘They work with their hands, they work on the body, they have a rapport with the body’. Westwood has been making her own clothes from an early age, and her working class background probably goes some way to explaining the campaign of guerrilla warfare she has been waging against the establishment. Far from hiding torn edges and safety pins, Westwood features them as symbols of insubordination. She wants her clothes to ‘tell a story’, one spiked with mischief and defiance.

But there is an even more personal impetus underlying both Westwood’s designs and her activism. When she was nine, Westwood was transfixed and horrified by a painting of the Crucifixion. It was a seminal moment. Since then, it has become her mission, ‘To stop people doing terrible things to each other’. Wanting to change the world, she joined a Greenpeace expedition to the Arctic Circle. The environmental devastation she witnessed there left her traumatised. Over time, her mission has become ever more focussed, homing in on the financial establishment as, ‘The rotten financial system,’ and, ‘A hydra that is destroying us’.

Even so, this Designer of the Year (twice) who performs cartwheels on the catwalk has been struggling with a conundrum common to many underground artists. As the work gains recognition, it is at the same time being subsumed into the very establishment it is agitating against.

If fashion or popular culture interest you in any way this documentary is a must-see, and for the rest of us it’s a fascinating insight into a fiercely original spirit.

 

Donbass

Rated: MDonbass

Directed by: Sergei Loznitsa

Script by: Sergei Loznitsa

Produced by: Heino Deckert

Starring: Tamara Yatsenko, Liudmila Smorodina, Olesya Zhurakovskaya, Boris Kamorzin, Sergei Russkin, Petro Panchuk, Irina Plesnyaeva, Zhanna Lubgane, Vadim Dobuvsky, Alexander Zamurayev, Gerogy Deliev, Valeriu, Andriuta, Konstantin Itunin, Valery Antoniuk, Nina Antonova, Natalia Buzko, Sergei Kolesov, Svetlana Kolesova, Sergei Smeyan.

Donbass, named because of the region in Eastern Ukraine where the film begins and ends, isn’t a typical war film.

This is a confusing and absurd film of moments during a war between the Ukraine regular army made up of volunteers and the separatist gangs supported by Russian troops.

The focus is on the ground amongst the people living their everyday lives in a world of chaos with chapters showing bombs dropped while laughing on the phone, waiting in the car in line at yet another check point.  And a raucous wedding filled with congratulatory soldiers with code-names like Lumber Jack and Coupon.

It’s a disturbing mix of footage shot in freezing weather and underground bunkers where civilians are forced to live without water, heat and a working toilet – like people from the ‘stone age’.

This is director and scriptwriter, Sergei Loznitsa’s fourth feature film.  He describes Donbass as a fiction based on true events, quoting Varlam Shalamov in his short story, PAIN: it’s a film that’s, ‘a distorted reflection in a curved mirror of the underground world’.

And it’s a cold world with a constant undercurrent of threat.

One chapter shows a German journalist who’s pulled from a vehicle at a check point for questioning – the soldiers happy to have found a ‘fascist’: even if you don’t think of yourself as a fascist, your grandfather certainly was.

Only for them to all get bombed anyway.

I wouldn’t say the film was overly violent, but the violence shown is disturbing because it all seems so senseless.

I spent a lot of the time watching the film in confusion, trying to figure out who was on what side.

The civilians shown to be just as confused, one scene showing a middle-aged woman talking to a volunteer captured and tied to a pole with, ‘Extermination Squad Volunteer’ taped to his chest, asking when the bus will arrive… and how she can’t walk as far as she used to…

Then to see the man inevitably get almost based to death isn’t really my style of entertainment.

I get the statement made here – the degradation of people living amongst the senselessness of war; but I found the viewing extremely dry, confusing and absurd.

Which was the point, I grant, but it was just so depressing l was left with a sense of incongruity and bitterness.

A Star Is Born

Rated: MA Star Is Born

Directed by: Bradley Cooper

Screenplay by: Eric Roth, Bradley Cooper and Will Fetters

Based on the 1954 Screenplay by: Moss Bart and the 1976 Screenplay by John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion and Frank Peirson

Based on a Story by: William Wellman and Robert Carson

Produced by: Bill Gerber, p. g. a., Jon Peters, Bradley Cooper, p. g. a., Todd Phillips, Lynette Howell Taylor, p. g. a.

Starring: Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper Sam Elliott, Andrew Dice Clay, Rafi Gavron, Anthony Ramos, Dave Cahppelle.

A Star Is Born is one of those country love stories because with real love comes the real tragedy of watching a star rise despite people telling her she’s ugly and the mega-star musician suffering addiction and tinnitus while losing the sense of who he is.

Add music, good music, and you’ve got more just a love story.

I didn’t go into the film expecting to like the music so much.  I’m a ‘No pop no style, I strictly roots’, kinda gal.

But all the singing was recorded live and most of the songs original and written for the film – no miming, just the real voice so you can feel it coming through the screen.

And with the opening scene of Jack (Bradley Cooper) singing “Black Eyes” with band, ‘Luckas Nelson & Promise of the Real’ I was hooked.

Sure, Jack was blitzed, but he could still sing a good tune.

Cut to Ally (Lady Gaga), a waitress, heeled boots under a toilet stall, pacing, breaking up with a ridiculous boyfriend – ‘fucking men!’ to her getting ready for a gig singing in a drag bar where you bring your own boobs – with pasted fine-line eyebrows, lying back on a bar, her voice slipping over the French as she sings “La Vie En Rose” (Louiguy and Edith Piaf) – there’s goosebumps when their eyes meet – they’re soul mates.

The music is used to compliment the story because it’s all about seeing these two together on screen: first time director Bradley Cooper with first time feature film actress Stefani, AKA Lady Gaga.

What a combination: Cooper as Jack with that soulful look off-setting the sometimes-awkward Lady Gaga as Ally, only to be used for added authenticity because we’re all a bit awkward sometimes. And yet, really, she’s not.  Ally just is.

It’s amazing how much I feel like I know this character now.  And how I’m relating to this superstar so well – she’s funny, genuine and wow, can she sing.

But it’s the two of them together that really makes the film.  I don’t think Ally would have been as believable without Cooper as Jack.  And Lady Gaga’s voice lifts the film above the usual country love song.

I was so thankful this wasn’t a musical or music video.

A Star Is Born is a well-balanced film with the authentic music matching the love story so when the music got poppy, the story got sad, to go full circle back to the earthy music again to compliment the end of the story.

Even when there could have been a cheesy moment between older brother Bobby (Sam Elliot) and younger brother Jack, all the feeling was captured in a look from Bobby while backing the car away – everything shown in that one look.

There’s drama here, and it’s a tear-jerker (damn it! I hate getting teary in the cinema), as we’re shown the life-behind-the-curtain of the talented songwriter finding her voice in the musician who sees her as clearly as she sees him.

First Man

Rated: MFirst Man

Directed by: Damien Chazelle

Screenplay by: Josh Singer

Produced by: Wyck Godfrey, p.g.a., Marty Bowen, p.g.a., Isaac Klausner, Damien Chazelle

Based on the Book by: James R. Hansen

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Patrick Fugit, Christopher Abbott, Ciaran Hinds, Olivia Hamilton, Pablo Schreiber, Shea Whigham, Lukas Haas, Ethan Embry, Brian D’Arcy James, Cory Michael Smith and Kris Swanberg.

Based on the biography written by James R. Hansen, ‘First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong’, First Man allows the spectacular phenomenon of man landing on the moon to speak for itself.

Oscillating – yes, it gets technical which is the main reason I enjoyed the film – between the drama of Armstrong’s family life and his courage to risk everything to go to the moon, this is a quiet film punctuated by nail-biting suspense.

It would have been easy to over-dramatise the achievement of America being the first to step foot on alien ground, instead, director Damien Chazelle (La La Land (2016), Whiplash (2013)) focuses more on the man: his sacrifice, strength and will to achieve what the American government so desperately wants to achieve before the Russians.

Ryan Gosling as Armstrong holds up the helmet well as the family man and as the brave, cautious and deliberate pilot navigating rockets, that are really bombs, set off while strapped inside what looks like a tin can.

The absurdity and risks are shown with lines like the technician buckling Dave Scott (Christopher Abbott) in for the test run of rocketing Gemini 8 through the atmosphere to see if it’s possible to dock one craft to another in space asking, ‘Anybody got a Swiss army knife handy?’

‘You’re kidding?!’ Dave says as the final adjustments are made.

First Man is about the years it took to accomplish the impossible, opening in 1961 with Neil beyond the atmosphere, testing the ability to cut through and be able to fall back to Earth – and the love of his wife Janet (Claire Foy), son (Gavin Warren / Luke Winters) and the devastating loss of his young daughter, Karen (Lucy Stafford).

This is a drama, the frailty of humanity given as much weight as the courage required to realise one of man’s greatest achievements.

When interviewed to join the Apollo team, Armstrong’s told by one interviewer that he’s sorry for the loss of his daughter.

To which he replies, ‘I’m sorry, is there a question?’

And he’s asked whether the loss has any effect on his wanting to join the Apollo mission.

‘It would be unreasonable to assume it wouldn’t have an effect.’

This statement sums up the movie for me – a quietly suspenseful and direct depiction of what it took and the motivation to drive someone to take such risks without unnecessary fanfare.

Night School

Rated: MNight School

Directed by: Malcolm D. Lee

Written by: Kevin Hart, Harry Ratchford, Joey Wells, Matt Kellard, Nicholas Stoller, John Hamburg

Produced by: Will Packer, Kevin Hart

Starring: Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, Taran Killam, Romany Malco.

I arrived at the preview of Night School with my tub of popcorn expecting a big, bold American-style comedy and it was that, but it was also something more.

The movie opens with Teddy (Kevin Hart) sparring with his sister over his decision to quit high school rather than face yet another test. Teddy argues that the test is not relevant to African American students; he can’t see the point of, ‘calculating the average number of Manatees in California’.

At the time, leaving school did not seem like such a bad idea. A few years later and Teddy is selling barbeques so successfully that his boss offers to hand over the business to him when he retires. Teddy seems to have it all: a drop-dead-gorgeous girlfriend, a luxury sports car and a secure, well-paid future. That is, until he accidentally blows up Barbeque City.

Despite an unparalleled talent for hustling, Teddy is looking at a long term future on the side of a highway wearing a chicken suit unless he returns to school. Unluckily for Teddy, the boy he publicly humiliated when they were students (Taran Killam) now runs the school, striding down the corridors with a baseball bat and a horrible case of ‘black-talking’, and the woman teaching the night class (Tiffany Haddish) turns out to be the complete stranger who dissed him out at the traffic lights earlier on. Even the text book is terrifyingly huge, and definitely not the mere ‘leaflet’ Teddy was hoping for.

If this isn’t enough, he discovers that he has a cocktail of learning difficulties including: dyslexia, dyscalculia and a processing disorder. Not that it wins Teddy any sympathy with his smart and fiercely dedicated teacher. She quips that he is ‘clinically dumb’ before launching a unique hands on special-ed program designed to unencumber his ‘neural pathways’.

All of this might turn others to a life of crime (has turned one class member), but Teddy still has his beautiful fiancé, Lisa, to live up to. Believing that she is out of his league, he has convinced her that he’s working for his best friend as an investment adviser, but he must first qualify for his GED if he is to make this true.

Usually, when I see a movie for the first time I experience the score in a direct, visceral way, and it takes deliberate effort to tune in to the sound more consciously. In this instance I did manage to wrench myself out of the action and I was impressed not only by the cleverness of the soundtrack, but the unpredictable ways it enhanced the comedy.

It wasn’t until final scenes that I realised that the Night School had been made with a genuine sense of conviction, and with much stealth, guile and cunning I had been drawn into a view of education as more important than any obstacle, however enormous. Yet the achievement of this movie is that there was not the slightest feeling of being lectured to. Well, maybe a tiny bit in the final joke littered speech. By then the entire cast has experienced their own brand of growth. Even the principal has shed his ‘black talking’ sneer.

American Animals

Rated: MA15+American Animals

Directed and Written by: Bart Layton

Produced by: Katherine Butler, Mary Jane Skalski, Derrine Schlesinger, Dimitri Doganis

Director of Photography: Ole Bratt Birkeland

Editor: Nick Fenton

Starring: Evan Peters (Warren Lipka), Barry Keoghan (Spencer Reinhard), Jared Abrahamson (Eric Borsuk), Blake Jenner (Chas Allen II) and Ann Dowd (Betty Jean Gooch).

American Animals is a different kind of heist film that plays out in the style of a documentary shown like a suspense thriller.

The film’s based on the true story of four college students who decide to rob the Special Collections Library of Spencer’s College housing incredibly rare books including Audubon’s Birds of America valued at $10 million dollars.  In broad daylight.

Writer and award-winning director, Bart Layton (winning the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut for The Imposter) utilises the techniques of documentary by basing his script on interviews with the four robbers, Warren Lipka, Spencer Reinhard, Eric Borsuk and Charles “Chas” Allen II and their families and victim of the heist, librarian, Betty Jean Gooch.

He includes the interviews in the film, the facts and post-crime analysis, with the guys recounting each of their unique perspective alongside the dramatization of actors playing the parts, sometimes repeating immediately what was said by the real-life person.  Which could have been repetitious but instead added this interesting layer to the film that Layton uses to create something more than just a documentary or just another heist movie.

It was like putting distance between who the guys are now compared to the people who planned and ultimately committed the crime.

The fantasy of successfully pulling off a heist shown by actors added to the vision of how they saw themselves to cut to the reality of what they had actually done and how it felt, crossing a line that can never be uncrossed.

‘This is the History of Demolition’ says a poster on the wall of Spencer Reinhard.  It stuck with me as the fantasy of pulling off a heist in the middle of the day, to steal rare books worth millions, starts to get way too real.  It’s like watching Spencer’s life fall apart.

There’s a scene when Warren and Spencer are talking about the planning in the early days, where Spencer is waiting for something to happen in his life to give it meaning, ‘Like what?’ Warren asks.

‘Exactly. Like what.’

It seems easy fun, the planning, travelling to New York to meet a Fence, the drawing of blue prints, the stake-outs where Eric, an accountant major, who plans to join the FBI, takes to the planning of the heist like a fish in water.

As Warren says, it’s a, Take the blue or red pill, moment.

It’s the adventure they’ve all been looking for.

And it makes for a great story like an Ocean’s film but with young guys in college, sussing it out like idiots looking up how to rob a bank on Google.

And there’s thought into the way the shots are taken, the opening up-side-down, the cutting from character to real person; a face in front of a computer seen behind the text on screen.

Yet more than the clever cutting of imagery, the matching of each actor to each part was uncanny, and a successful technique because the splicing between the real and the drama works on a completely different level.  Which also says something for the actors such as the familiar faces of Evan Peters (I’m fast becoming a fan and may have a crush) and Barry Keoghan, another one to watch and last seen in his disturbing performance in, The Killing of a Sacred Deer.

The film is a solid package that has a cool soundtrack (The Doors, ‘Peacefrog’ for example), is visually creative and has a fascinating story, with suspense, humour, intrigue, adventure while also showing the toll taken when crossing the line from fantasy to stark reality.

Smallfoot

Rated: GSmallfoot

Directed by: Karey Kirkpatrick

Screenplay: Karey Kirkpatrick and Clare Sera

Screen Story by: John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Karey Kirkpatrick

Based on the book: Yeti Tracks, by Sergio Pablos

Produced by: Bonne Radford, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa

Starring: Channing Tatum, James Corden, Zendaya, Common, LeBron James, Danny DeVito, Gina Rodriguez, Yara Shahidi, Ely Henry and Jimmy Tatro.

The only thing stronger than fear is curiosity.

Living above the clouds on the peak of a snowy mountain, a yeti named Migo (Channing Tatum) has been waiting to train to be like his dad and become a head-butting, gong ringer to call the sun-snail to bring the light of the sky every morning.

That’s what the stones say, and the Stonekeeper (Common) is always reminding the yeti tribe that below the clouds is the Big Nothing.

So when Migo is launched in training, only to miss the gong and be flung outside the yeti community, he’s as shocked as the human when he finds a smallfoot, as the smallfoot human is to find a yeti.

Disappearing from view and leaving no trace, his father and the rest of the village can’t believe Migo found a smallfoot.  Except the SES (Smallfoot Evidentiary Society).

Meechee (Zendaya) and her SES gang, Kolka (Gina Rodriguez), Gwangi (LeBron James), Fleem (Ely Henry) and Cali believe not just in the smallfoot, but that there’s far more out there then the stones have led them to believe.

On their research expedition into the Big Nothing they find Percy, a smallfoot with a career as a wildlife expert; a celebrity made famous by making a TV series that’s about to be cancelled because of a dwindling audience.  Percy will do anything to get his face out there.  Including faking a yeti sighting.  So, when he actually finds a yeti and the yeti finds a smallfoot, they’re both terrified and fascinated.

There’s this, ‘curiosity killed the yak’ theme versus the search for truth being more important than all else.

Which I felt dangerous for a young audience – to go out there searching for the truth no matter what.  I had an understanding for the want to lie to protect… which adds that needed obstacle to overcome in the film, giving the story a bit of grit.

The safety of the yeti and the threat of murder felt a little serious with nutty mountain goats and pink Snuffleupagus look-a-likes needed to soften the vibe of the film.

I just didn’t find the film very funny.

And I think some of the seriousness of the film may have been confronting for a really young audience.

Visually, the artwork and animation was smooth and beautifully put together with realistic fur and chase scenes seen from above like watching a game of Pacman.

But the story didn’t really work for me.  It wasn’t until the film got close to the end that I started to appreciate what the film was trying to achieve.

Mostly, I felt mildly uncomfortable with too many teachable moments for my taste.

Johnny English Strikes Again

Rated: PGJohnny English Strikes Again

Directed by: David Kerr

Written by: William Davies

Produced by: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Chris Clark

Starring: Rowan Atkinson, Ben Miller, Olga Kurylenko, Jake Lacy and Emma Thompson.

Rowan Atkinson returns as MI7 super-spy Johnny English in this third instalment of the series, Johnny English Strikes Again.

Now in retirement, he works as a geography teacher while secretly (always undercover) training new recruits in all things Intelligence, from camouflage, to late-night capture drills including man-traps (that he inevitably falls into), and the subtleties (or not so subtle) seduction techniques needed by all British spies worth their salt.

When MI7 is hacked and all the secret service agents are blown, the Prime Minister (Emma Thompson) already with her hands full running the country with a glass of red in hand, brings back agents from retirement to help find who’s behind the cyber-attacks.

English and Co.’s total lack of digital-savvy is pointed out by ever-loyal side-kick Bough (Ben Miller) as an (accidental) advantage when supervillains plan on taking over the world using technology – ‘I am Sander, I love data’, says the device held by tech-giant, Jason (Jake Lacy) – indeed.

Although the ever-persistent bumbling idiot, Johnny can still drive an Aston Martin and power-up magnetic boots when required – the villains ‘have to get up pretty early to outwit British Intelligence’.

Olga Kurylenko as the too-beautiful-to-be-bad Ophelia does well to keep a straight face.

This is a feature-film debut for director David Kerr, and this is certainly the best Johnny English so far. The material from writer William Davies and the surprising amount of attention to detail gives the film clever humour as well as being silly.

‘Oh look!  Sweeties!’ exclaims Bough when Johnny reveals a suitcase full of cotton-tip explosives, sherbet bombs with locating device and jelly teddies that blow your head off and the roof of the car if eaten.

And Rowan Atkinson is hilarious with his perfectly timed, subtle change in facial expression mixed with moments like the response to an obviously French waiter serving Champagne with, ‘Danke schön’.

It just tickles!

I was crying with laughter when Johnny was attacking the British public when accidently escaping a training compound with VR glasses on; the switching between the VR vision of him attacking an enemy to his covert behaviour in a bakery had me and my nephew in stitches.

I had a lot of fun watching this film with the constant asides (a selfie taken with the PM with the electronic, ‘needs photoshop’) that once tickled got me in hysterics with the more obvious, silly humour.

Teen Titans Go! To The Movies

Rated: PGTeen Titans Go! To The Movies

Directed by: Peter Rida Michail and Aaron Horvath

Screenplay by: Michael Jelenic & Aaron Horvath

Based on characters from: DC Comics

Produced by: Michael Jelenic, Aaron Horvath, Peter Rida Michail and Peggy Regan

Starring: Greg Cipes, Scott Menville, Khary Payton, Tara Strong and Hynden Walch with Will Arnett and Kristen Bell.

Teen Titans Go! To The Movies is filled with satire and exclamations in large-as-life bold capitalised statements of… Things!

Based on the characters from the animated TV series we have Robin (Scott Menville), forever the side-kick (of Batman) and his team of super-powered friends: Beast Boy (Greg Cipes), Cyborg (Khary Payton), Raven (Tara Strong) and Starfire (Hynden Walch).

But forever the joke of the super-hero community, their fart-jokes and constant breaking into song means they’ll never get a movie made about them – not like the Justice League:

‘Superman’s a national treasure!’

Even Alfred’s getting a film Coming Broom.

And the Bat-mobile.

And Batman’s utility belt.

So, the Titans embark on a mission to travel back in time to wipe out all the super-hero origins so they’ll be the only ones left to make a movie about.

There’s the importance of friends and loyalty and team, overcoming pride and ego to self-acceptance… bla, bla, bla…

But just when I thought the film was going to get cheesy and turn into a kid-musical, the teddy singing the super up-beat song about life, gets run over!

It’s not easy reviewing kid-animation; this is not my usual film to watch.  And I have to say first impressions of stari-eyed Starfire with her constant mangled sentences like, ‘that is more like the it’ and the classic-style animation got me yawning at times.

But what I also found was that I had a grin and was smirking with some laugh-out-loud moments – that catch phrase from Robin is hilarious: ‘Crack an egg on it: Ka Kaar!’

Dripping with sarcasm there were jokes for kids but also jokes for adults, ‘Kids, don’t forget to ask your parents where babies are made!’.

So, although I wasn’t blown away by the animation, I was amused at the jokes (some too mature for really young kids who had more fun laughing at fart jokes and the Titans imitating Lois Lane over the phone to superman) – and the plot came full circle as well.

It’s all about making fun of the super-hero genre – a welcome change while being surprisingly clever.

Boys Cry (La Terra Dell’Abbastanza)

Rated: MA15+Boys Cry

Directed by: Damiano D’Innocenzo, Fabio D’Innocenzo

Screenplay by: “D’Innocenzo Brothers”

Produced by: Agustino Giuseppe, Maria Grazia Sacca
Director of photography:  Paolo Carnera

Starring: Luca Zingaretti, Andrea Carpenzano, Matteo Olivetti, Milena Mancini, Massimiliano Tortora.

Winner of Best First Film at the 2018 Nastri d’Argento Awards

Manolo (Andrea Carpenzano) and Mirko (Matteo Olivetti) have been through primary and high school together.  They have girlfriends and dead-end jobs delivering pizza.

When Mirko accidently runs down a guy, killing him, Manolo tells him to keep going – his dad will know what to do.

From that moment their lives change.  An accidental hit and run that happens to take out a snitch of the mafia makes them think they’ve won the lottery when the accident ends in an induction into the mafia – going from zero to a thousand in a moment making a rags to riches change in their lives.

All they have to do is kill and pimp out underage girls.

Mirko’s girlfriend asks, ‘If you and me broke up would you cry?’

When he doesn’t answer she says, ‘I would’.

Boys Cry isn’t about Manolo and Mirko crying, it’s about a sickness that slowly eats away their lives until there’s nothing left.

The film is blunt and at times boring, like life.  Even down to a mafia henchman making sauce on the same stove-top as a bubbling concoction of drugs: the every-day in the setting of crime making the crime seem every-day.

Boys Cry isn’t a fast-paced thriller, yet it was hard to look away as these two young guys waste their lives and sell their soul because they don’t realise what they’re giving away.

It’s a comment on the value of life.  Where the reaction to wrong isn’t emotional but a physical sickness.  Where empathy is replaced with ambition.

When a high-risk job comes up the Captain of the mafia knows the stupidity of asking the new recruits to complete what really should be done by an experienced killer.  But what have they got to lose?  Two kids?  Slowly turning into psychos?

Some of the camera work gets creative, focussing on the eyes; panning above to show a map of attack, to distance the action only to grip when the action is filmed inside – simple yet effective.

But the film is driven by dialogue, by the conversation between the two friends as they descend into a space where they cease to feel.

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