December 2017 movie review part 1

CRISS CROSS (1949) D- Robert Siodmak
Received wisdom tells any prospective bank robber that you can’t rob an armoured car. Unless you’ve got an inside man. Enter Burt Lancaster, who just happens to work for a security company. Problem solved. Or is it? They might still have to shoot a guard, an idea Burt isn’t fond of, but then he owes the gang leader a big favour.

To me this film is the very definition of film noir. It’s beautifully shot in black and white, and carries a plot line so dark I’m surprised it got through the producers, who in those days would often insert a happy ending, regardless of the writer’s and director’s wishes. Sometimes it was the censors who would insist, fearful an innocent public might be corrupted by a plot line suggesting that crime pays and that murder is part of the game when it comes to robbery. Times have changed a lot, as we shall see later on in this review. But here it is clear that even nearly 70 years ago, some courageous film makers did not shy away from depicting the darker aspects of human behaviour. Brilliant.

JOHN WICK PART TWO (2017) D- Chad Stahelski.
Hitman John Wick (Keanu Reeves) would retire, but a Mafia boss makes him an offer he cannot refuse: kill the boss’s sister. Having achieved this difficult task (she is surrounded by tough guys 24/7), the boss, showing a remarkable lack of gratitude, puts out a contract on him, and the price on his head: a cool 7 million bucks. Suddenly every hitman in New York (and there appear to be hundreds of them) is anxious to collect the fee. With every assassin in the world now out to kill John Wick, how can he possibly survive even one day?
           If you’re asking that question you clearly don’t know how John operates. In the first film, someone asks a gang boss if he is the ‘boogeyman’. The boss replies: “John Wick isn’t the boogeyman. He’s the man you send to kill the boogeyman.”
           Despite all this violence (we see John, personally, kill 128 people; it was only 84 in the first film) there is a strict ‘assassin’s code’ which must never be broken. Referee of the code is a mysterious man called Winston, (played with suitable gravitas by Ian McShane), to whom everyone defers. We don’t know why, and it’s probably best not to ask.

I enjoyed this film enormously, and it went down well with critics around the world too, which begs a question: what’s so fun about watching a man murder so many people, with knives, guns (he favours the head shot, obviously, as you tend to stop being a threat after that) and even, in three cases, a pencil? Well first, he only kills people who are trying to kill him. Second, the whole thing is done with such style and panache it is almost balletic in its beauty. Directed by a man who was principle stunt co-ordinator for The Matrix movies, this film takes the phrase ‘killer movie’ to a new level.

SOPHIE’S CHOICE (1982) D- Alan J. Pakula
In post-war Brooklyn, an aspiring writer improbably named ‘Stingo’ (Peter McNicol) makes friends with the girl upstairs, Sophie (Meryl Streep), who has a rather nervy boyf (Kevin Kline). The 3 become inseparable, though they have to cope with Kevin’s bizarre and sometimes terrible mood swings. Turns out Sophie has some sort of past, perhaps something that happened in the war, but it is not until near the end do we hear what this ‘choice’ thing is about, and when we do find out it almost seems peripheral, though of course it isn’t.

Merry Streep has never been more beautiful, or acted better, than in this movie, which rightly won her the best actress Oscar that year. But the other 2 players are also strong, even if the ‘Stingo’ character is a little contentious. Does he need to be there at all? I found myself asking. But writer William Styron, whose novel the film is based on, clearly thought so, and Pakula agreed. The result is a very special, if sometimes annoying, movie, which has failed to date despite the 30 year interim. Give it a go.