Movie review - "Uncharted" (2022) **

 I get what they were going for and I wanted them to get there - an old 80s style adventure, with twists and tongue and cheek action - but it's a quite sluggish trip. Tom Holland is okay at first but Mark Wahlberg seems bored then after a while Holland seems to be bored too, Sophia Ali lacks spark and Antonio Banderas is clearly just paying the rent.  Tati Gabrielle is good. No one has any chemistry.

Movie review - "Daddy's Home" (2016) **1/2

Smooth, well constructed comedy with Will Ferrell as a step-dad intimidated by the real deal, Mark Wahlberg. Linda Cardinelli plays the thankless Marissa Tomei-style role. The jokes and story are solid rather than inspired, but it has a good heart, and nice message (about being a dad). I enjoyed the dance off finale.

TV review - "Boardwalk Empire - Season 5" (2014) *** (warning: spoilers)

Not a notable improvement on Season 4 although at least this has a really strong, emotionally satisfying finale. For most of the running time however this seems to be tap dancing. The kid characters were either undercast or just not evocatively written - Nucky's uninteresting nephew, and the mysterious kid who pops up wanting to be mentored; I kept forgetting who they were. Kelly MacDonald is given something to do but not that much really. You feel like the makers just listed who they wanted to kill off, and let that drive episodes.

Some deaths come as a jolt - Patricia Arquette's and Michael Shannon's especially. Chalky's death was moving but didn't make any dramatic sense for me - I know you could argue it, but I didn't buy it, not after everything he'd been through. Michael Shannon again looks lost for a lot of the time, so when he dies, while it's sudden, it's also a bit of a relief because his character never seemed to have direction after he left the FBI. (Which I'm sure was the point it's just not that satisfying to watch).

Eli was just dull here, moping around with three day growth all the time. It was also annoying how the FBI were so ruthless they tortured a Capone accountant into informing - at this point I felt the writing was just plain lazy, basing the show on production design and HBO coolness. The flashback scenes involving young Nucky were really distracting because of the guy's teeth. Gretch Mol in the nut house wasn't bad, but got repetitive.

But there were some fantastic bits - in particular the action sequences have never been done better. And like I said the finale was incredibly moving, where Nucky does a genuinely horrible thing (throughout the run he's been more bad ass than bad, never as evil as people around him i.e. a Hollywood gangster) and is shown to deserve to die and is executed by someone with the right to do so. The writing picks up too with fresh takes on Capone.

So in the end I feel that the series probably should have wrapped up after three, but the last two installments weren't bad and it did have a satisfying conclusion.

TV series review - "Boardwalk Empire - Season 4" (2013) *** (warning: spoilers)

It was always going to be hard to top Season 3, with its fantastic climax of Nucky under threat, and they didn't manage it. Best thing about this was the addition of Jeffrey Wright as a kind of black power, highly educated gangster - a different sort of black gangster to what we've seen before. His clashes with Chalky White, Nucky and so on were very exciting. Stephen Graham's Al Capone is always interesting.

Far less gripping is the psychotic FBI agent Tolliver, and stuff involving Nucky's nephew, and the Gretchen Moll stuff with Ron Livingstone (though this does have a decent pay off) and Nucky's adventures in Florida with Patricia Arquette. 

They ran out of stuff for Kelly MacDonald to do. Michael Shannon always looks as though he's going to do something interesting but never quite crashes through - I expected him to be running his own gang by now. And you get the feeling when they ran out of ideas they just decided to kill someone off - like Harrow or Eddie. Always watchable, just a dip in quality - I think they'd run out of things to say.

Movie review - "Lone Survivor" (2013) **** (warning: spoilers)

Thrilling, heart-pounding war film which marks a massive improvement on Peter Berg's early foray into the War on Terror, The Kingdom. It helps this is based on a true story and focuses on a more containable, emotional story: four members of a recon patrol who are dropped into the Afghan mountains to stake out a Taliban leader, and find things go horribly wrong.

Because we know from the opening sequence and title that only one person will make it back, there is tremendous tension all throughout. It's all going to go badly, and at least three people will die, so you sit there waiting for the Grim Reaper to call.

It also means that Mark Wahlberg, who plays the title role, actually doesn't have the best part - the other three are better, because they all get these awesome death scenes. There are excellent performances from Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster and believe it or not Taylor Kitsch - Berg maybe felt bad about Battleship and owed it to the guy, so gave him a choice role in this, and Kitsch is actually really good.

The first two acts of this are outstanding, with wonderful sense of authenticity, some decent comic by- play (the soldiers worrying about wedding gifts, painting schemes at home, initiation ceremonies for a new soldier) which have the important role of setting up the characters so we actually care about them; then the excitement of the landing, and being discovered by young kids and an old man, and an ethical discussion whether to kill them, tie them up or let them go, then the pursuit and high-powered action sequences. (I know this is being wise in hindsight but surely even at the time tying them up was the right way to go.)

The last third starts with a real wham - the death of Eric Bana and his rescue team - but then becomes a bit more wonky when Wahlberg falls into the hands of some friendly Afghans. He becomes more passive, the story felt more Hollywood - although this element is apparently true as well, I think it would have felt more believable if it had been clearer that the friendly Afghans were partly annoying the Taliban because they had a long-standing feud with the neighbouring tribe. Still, Wahlberg's final farewell to his new allies brought a lump to the throat.

It really is a powerful, epic film. It does dehumanise the Afghans - even the friendly ones barely get any translated dialogue - but since its told from the point of view of American soldiers I feel that's justifiable; it's entirely justifiable dramatically.

Eric Bana provides gravitas in a support part and the guy who plays Turtle from Entourage is in it, and completely fits in.

TV review - "Boardwalk Empire - Season 3" (2012) ****

The series retains its high standard with some great plotting and twists. The difficulties of Steve Buscemi's marriage to Kelly MacDonald, the increasing nuttiness of Michal Shannon, a great new villain in Gyp Rossetti, the (to be honest) super heroics of the henchmen. It's got a great arc with Buscemi under attack and only barely getting out by the skin of his teeth. Wonderful.

Movie review - "Ted" (2012) ***1/2

Extremely funny movie which contains many laugh out loud moments, and a simple structure well executed, even if Mark Wahlberg is too old for his role. They keep calling him 35 but he doesn't look it, and there's a real gap between him and Mila Kunis. Both give good performances, though, as do the people who helped create "Ted". (The special effects are well done).

Jam packed with pop culture references, I mean really jam packed: Flash Gordon, Flying High, Boogie Nights, Tom Skerritt, Norah Jones, etc. It also went on too long, and the Joel McHale section didn't really work (the tone felt out or something), and it's got that strand of misogyny you often find in boysie comedies (there are a couple of scenes with these hot chicks just kind of standing around eg. the one at Wahlberg's work, the ones at Kunis' work) but was generally a lot of fun.

Movie review - "Contraband" (2012) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Dull action movie which never seems to rise above its stock situations: Mark Wahlberg is an ex smuggler so you know he's going to be dragged back in; he's got a best mate since he was kids Ben Foster who hangs around and doesn't pull his weight story-wise to start off with so you know he's going to turn out to be traitor; there's a long explanation about a smuggling technique at the beginning so you know it's going to pop up at the end; he loves his wife so you know the baddies are going to go after them; you know Kate Beckingsale isn't really going to die.

Look, I don't mind a predictable action film, sometimes it's part of the charm, but this feels lethargic - there's none of the coarse base pleasures of say a piece of Liam Neeson schlock. There's a bit of action and suspense but not much, mostly just a lot of running around and yelling. There's a lot of repetition (Beckingsale and her kids are threatened twice) and coincidence (e.g. the day Wahlberg tracks down Beckingsale).

The best thing about it was all the characters lived in scuzzy houses and never seemed to have any money  -this felt realistic. It has a good sort of look, too.

Script review – ‘The Departed” by William Monahan

I’ve found myself re-reading this script a number of times and I’ve always enjoyed it (even if I feel really sad at the end). It’s a simple story concept-wise, but with plenty of twists and turns, emotional depth, terrific characters and this great, slangy dialogue – among the best of any Scorsese film (although Goodfellas had some wonderful dialogue too). Even though it’s a remake, Monahan absolutely makes the story his own. The social hierarchy of Boston provides a rich background – Southies, Beacon Hill, the church, women who won’t talk to the cops even about their own son’s murder, the difference between Suffolk and Harvard, the hierarchy within the cops… indeed, it’s hard to think of many Hollywood films which have been more about class.

The evil lord of Costello is a great creation – evil, smart, philosophical (“she’s on her way out” “We all are – act accordingly”). He’s sad that Billy has regressed, isn’t sure if he’s clean – but who is reliable noawadays (except Mr French), loves it when he thinks Billy isn’t the rat, is self aware about his own flaws, very smart, sexually weird… The other stand out characters are supporting ones: Mr French, the foul mouthed and hateful but honest Dignam, the clownish Ellerby. The leads are strong too – Billy is a very unheroic investigative cop, full of nervous ticks and constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown, Colin a self-loathing slimebag. This must have been the easiest film to cast. Wonderful work.

Movie review – “The Lovely Bones” (2009) **1’/2

Obviously made with love and care but it doesn’t quite work. Could it have ever worked? The story is about a young girl’s rape and murder – it’s never going to be completely feel good. Peter Jackson gives lots of screen time to the father character, not much to mum (I didn’t buy it she took off for so long). But this is really about the girl and Jackson doesn’t quite crack it. They try to give it more action by having the father and sister investigate – it still doesn’t work. Some very good acting – Saoirse Roman and Stanley Tucci in particular, and period design. It shouldn’t have cost as much money as it did.

Movie review – “The Fighter” (2010) **** (warning: spoilers)

I saw this out of sense of Oscar obligation more than genuine desire, and was delighted to find a powerful, moving story. I can’t believe Mark Wahlberg took so long to get this up, it seems a natural for the movies: true story, boxing pic, great role for a star, choice support parts, romance. Wahlberg is strong and also very selfless – even though he’s the producer, ample time is given to the support cast. Christian Bale is brilliant, as is the girl who plays his awful mother. Actually the whole cast is good – it took me a while to get used to Amy Adams in such an untypical role, but once I did I really enjoyed her (she really made something out of the “girlfriend” part).

It’s not just a film about sport, it’s mostly about family – how they can be wonderful and yet horrible at the same time (Wahlberg and Bale’s awful sisters, Bale’s druggie “family”). I had one gripe but can’t figure on how to fix it: the middle point has a big fight scene where Wahlberg is down and out but uses Bale’s tactics to win; then the finale is a fight scene where Wahlberg is down and out but manages to fight back and win (by then Bale is back in his corner). It’s a repeat of the previous emotional moment. But like I say, I don’t know how you could have gotten around it. Maybe trimmed the stuff leading up. David O Russell’s direction keeps everything fresh and interesting.

Movie review – “The Other Guys” (2010) ***

Many hilarious moments in this: the deaths of Sam Jackson and the Rock, the TLC running gag (even if to be honest I only recognised some of the lyrics), Will Ferrel listening to Little River Band all the time, Will Ferrell’s history as a pimp. And there’s a strong satirical point – the end credits sticks it to the irresponsibility that contributed to the GFC. But for some reason this doesn’t work. The best bits feel like add-ons rather than stemming from the actual story; it seems to lack heart, or purpose or something. Maybe I’m just not a fan of the buddy cop genre, or maybe it’s something else – I’m not sure. I laughed out loud, the cast is outstanding (though Michael Keaton doesn’t really suit his role – needed someone crustier)… but it dragged.

TV review – “Boardwalk Empire - Season 1” (2010) ****1/2

You get the feeling this was going to be good, without even seeing it, based purely on it's CV: Martin Scorsese, Steve Buscemi, writers from The Sopranos, HBO, multi-million dollar budget, setting in Atlantic City 1920s, Prohibition. And it is good. The period is rich with material and characters: Arnold Rothstein, the suffragette movement, Warren Harding and the Ohio gang (and his mistress), Eddie Cantor, Al Capone, the Klan – there’s dancing girls and corrupt officials and migrants and black gangsters. And whenever things get slow they can liven it up with someone being executed.

Strong acting across the board – Buscemi is great as a crooked politician who tries to do the right thing; Kelly McDonald is very winning as the woman who becomes his mistress (no nude scene from her, even though it was HBO); Michael Pitt is good too in a showy part as Buscemi’s protégé, college educated and war-shocked; Gretchen Mol is terrific as Pitt’s mother! (plenty of nudity from her); Michael Shannon is outstanding as the tormented federal agent. Other parts are good, too: Buscemi’s bitter brother, the black gangster, the war veteran with half his face shot off, the doomed prostitute, Harding’s stupid mistress. The production values are terrific and the story has some genuine shock. There’s no reason why this shouldn’t run for the whole 1920s.

NB Even though it’s mostly set in Atlantic City, they can’t resist going a few times to Chicago. It's as if the writers were going, "please, please, can we visit, just for a bit...?"

Movie review – “Date Night” (2010) ***

Starts brilliantly - Steve Carrell and Tina Fey are a marvelous duo, and their teaming as a married couple is easily enough to sustain a film. The first half hour is great, but when the North by Northwest stuff happens it's less good and eventually things become tired. For instance, Mark Wahlberg's initial appearance is fantastic - but we go back to him far too often (literally; they keep popping back to his place). James Franco and Mila Kunis are funny in their bit too - I expected to see more of them. A good hearted film.

Movie Review - “We Own The Night” (2007) **1/2

Not really much of a story but made by people of great talent. You can’t help thinking “why isn’t the story better” then you see why on the final credits – it was made by a writer director. Then you think “how did this film get funded” and you see why on the next credit – it was produced by the two stars. I can’t think of any other reason why Mark Wahlberg agreed to be in this, it’s not a very big part (three cheers for him, though, for agreeing to play a character who ultimately whimps out at the end). Apparently it took ages to persuade Eva Mendes to appear in this and I can understand that, too – when all is said and done it is just a girlfriend part, and the opening sex scene is gratuitous (albeit entertaining). The main reason to watch the film is for three terrific set pieces, all of them entirely fresh and brilliantly done takes on scenes we’ve seen a million times before – an undercover guy gets busted, a car chase in the rain, and the final shoot out. You wish the rest of it was as good and that the very talented James Gray got himself a co-writer.

Movie review – “Invincible” (2006) **1/2

Inspirational sports movie about a bar tender who makes it in the big leagues. Sweet movie with some impressive art direction. It tries to convey the things-were-tough-but-this-guy-had-heart-helped-them-through angle, but doesn’t quite (to be fair, I don’t know how else you’d do it). Mark Wahlberg is OK as the bartender (at least he looks like he could play football) and there a sweet (fictitious?) romance.

TV review - "Entourage" Season3 Part 2 and Season 4 ***/*****

Entourage came dangerously close to jumping the shark in the second half of season 3, partly because of the uninteresting character of Vinnie’s new agent and too much time on Ari’s home life, but mostly because there was a lack of high stakes movie plot going on and because they messed with the Vinnie-E dynamic – by making Vinnie more forceful they gave all his lines over to E, and E had nothing to do. As a result many episodes were flat and flabby.
Things picked up towards the end of the season as the boys turned producer, and the ground work was laid for many of the things that made Season 4 so brilliant: E turns into a producer and gets serious about management, giving him lots of scope for conflict with Vinnie and Ari (different sorts of conflict, too, which is great), Johnny Drama finally has some success but they totally make it work by having him be anal and annoying, the character of Billy Flynn has major “legs”, ditto Adam Goldberg’s cocaine sniffing trust fund baby. The only person who doesn’t get to join in on the fun is Turtle – they get up a girlfriend for him in season 3 but then dropped it.
The women are even more stunning and objectified in this one – apart from Dana Gordon, it’s all pretty much boobs and buts (including some from our own Sophie Monk and Emma Lung, playing Poms). But the scripts are consistently funny and inventive and the Cannes finale is a knock out.

Movie review - "Shooter" (2007) **1/2

I used to regard Mark Wahlberg as a not very talented overly muscular actor whose voice was too soft, but since I've become a fan of Entourage I feel a lot more kindly towards him (it's like he's my friend now, or something). Certainly he's managed career very well, with some excellent films. But, you know, watching him on screen... I still don't warm to him - he's too bland, lacks a strong voice and sense of genuine toughness - though again this is a clever career choice, playing a sniper who is set up by the government.

For the most part this is pretty enjoyable, with interesting stuff about the difficulties involved in sniping. It is familiar but it a skilled rehash - the opening scene has Wahlberg's partner talk about his fiancee just before he's killed for crying out loud (though they partly take the sting out of this by having the financee play an important role later on), there's an assassination, a betrayal. It's probably best not to approach this as a conspiracy thriller a la The Parallax View, which it has been called - it's not really spooky enough, not even X Files lite. Rather, it's an action film with conspiracy overtones.

The wheels fall off in the last half hour or so - it really should end on the mountain but there are two more sequences, and there is this awful clunky political message stuff. It's as if they had a functional slick script but then panicked about it just being an action film and shoved in all these lines about "haves" and "have nots" and conspiracies and "oh my goodness you're untouchable you're a US Senator" (as if Senators are untouchable). Michael Pena is likeable as the nerd audience surrogate character who helps super hero Wahlberg, and its great to see Ned Beatty back in a big Hollywood movie.

TV series review - "Entourage" Season 3 Part 1

The HBO gang keep the standards high with another excellent installment of this series. Vinnie Chase becomes a big star with Acquaman - although I maintain this wouldn't make him a really big star in the way that say Ace Ventura made Jim Carrey a star, people would think Vinnie was carried by the property and James Cameron. There are some lovely moments, like when Vinnie makes the nerds day, when the moms come out to LA, Martin Landau as an old producer and Beverly d'Angelo as a tough agent, the Lloyd-Ari scenes (I so want Lloyd to become Johnny Drama's agent), the 13 year old kid who goes for Ari's daughter (this show is brilliantly cast), the hot threesome episode. Kevin Dillon again brings this wonderful car crash quality to everything his character does and Seth Green is a lot of fun. Some wonky bits - after a while Turtle became too greedy (the thing with the shoes got to me - you don't need shoes, Turtle, this is false warmth), Ari going to Vegas felt wrong (they didn't give him a good enough reason to go); the arrival of an old friend to the gang was a bit distressing, though of course that was the point - it just made the show a little less fun to watch for those episodes. Still great fantasy TV.

Movie review - "Four Brothers" (2005) **1/2

It was a bright idea to remake The Sons of Katie Elder in a modern day urban setting, especially with multi-racial brothers and John Singleton as director. It was also good to have the mother character be seen and be more of a presence, and have one of the sons involved in her death. But for all that the film is a bit disappointing: flat, sluggish, a bit too on the nose with the lyrics of some of the background songs, and do we have to have something with corrupt cops again? It brightens in places, especially the shoot out towards the end, and the way the film is shot is interesting. Why didn't they re-use John Wayne's great entrance in Katie Elder?