2022 - July
The Old Gun (1975) 4/4
Green for Danger (1946) 4/4
Lakeside Murder Case (2004) 3.5/4
The Appointment (1982) 3/4
The State Counsellor (2005) 3/4
The Turkish Gambit (2005) 3/4
A Hard Day (2014) 3/4
The Debt (2007) 2.5/4
The Debt (2010) 2.5/4
Masquerade Hotel (2019) 2.5/4
Masquerade Night (2021) 1.5/4
Green for Danger (1946) 4/4
Lakeside Murder Case (2004) 3.5/4
The Appointment (1982) 3/4
The State Counsellor (2005) 3/4
The Turkish Gambit (2005) 3/4
A Hard Day (2014) 3/4
The Debt (2007) 2.5/4
The Debt (2010) 2.5/4
Masquerade Hotel (2019) 2.5/4
Masquerade Night (2021) 1.5/4
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- DirectorRobert EnricoStarsPhilippe NoiretRomy SchneiderJean BouiseDuring World War II, a peaceful French surgeon decides to ruthlessly exterminate an SS squad because of the atrocities they'd just committed in his countryside home and childhood village.16-07-2022
How long can you mind your own business? As the saying goes, until they come for you and there's no one left to speak up. Such is the case of Dr Julien Dandieu (Philippe Noiret), the anti-hero of Robert Enrico's "The Old Gun", one of the most striking and unforgettable war movies ever made. He is living out the occupation in a small town in the south of France. Being one of the few surgeons in the understaffed and undersized local hospital, he lives with all the benefits afforded him by his position. He has the respect of his French colleagues and his German bosses alike. When a resistance member is admitted to the hospital, he pretends not to know him. He doesn't help the Germans, but he doesn't harm them either. Julien Dandieu minds his own business.
And what business is that? For Julien, his sole occupation is looking out for his small and unreasonably happy family. His precocious daughter Florence (Catherine Delaporte), his caring mother (Madeline Ozeray), and, most of all, his gorgeous and loving wife Clara (Romy Schneider) whom he regards with the same dazzlement an art lover regards the Mona Lisa for the first time. When he's with them, in their cold house without electricity, time stops and the war is tuned out. There is no occupation, just the tenderness of a loving home.
But as is so often the case, the more you repress a horror the stronger it becomes. I won't reveal what exactly happens to Julien's little family except to say it is probably the most shockingly brutal scene I know of in film history. Watching it today, my heart froze, my throat dried up, and my ears started buzzing as tears welled behind my glasses. It is one of those precious few moments that can be described as pure cinema. No other art form, literature, painting, or theatre, can capture the pure horror of war with quite the same unflinching brutality.
And then there was no tender, loving home anymore. Not for Julien. All that was left was an unquenchable rage and an old shotgun left in the attic of his grandfather's house.
Watching "The Old Gun" one gets the feeling that Enrico has somehow managed to capture the raw emotion of his character and commit it to celluloid. Quite apart from its superbly executed action scenes and memorable performances is the sheer and honest emotionality of the film that hits you like a tonne of bricks.
As Julien picks off the Nazi killers one by one, Enrico follows his stream of consciousness. He contrasts the stark brutality of the murdering with the happy memories of Clara and Florence. The day at the beach, the school graduation, the day they found a dog on the side of the road. The result is not, as one would expect, melodrama. Instead, Enrico's style has a grounding effect making it less a French precursor to "First Blood" and more an intricate landscape of battling emotions inside a man who's lost everything.
"The Old Gun" is a marvellously complex movie which raises questions about the morality of revenge, the costs of comfort, and, of course, the horrors of war. But the wonderful thing about the film is how simple its form is. Instead of making a wide-spanning fresco about the Occupation, Enrico deftly packages all of that into a small-scale film about a single, regular man and his day of revenge.
It helps, of course, that the man is played by Philippe Noiret who gives his finest performance here. Note, for instance, the painful scene in which he discovers the fate of his wife and child. He turns away in horror but cannot make a noise or he too will suffer their fate. So he screams silently, face scrunched up, mouth gaped open. It is about as real as a portrayal of pain can be.
4/4 - DirectorKim Seong-hunStarsLee Sun-kyunCho Jin-woongJeong Man-sikAfter trying to cover up a car accident that left a man dead, a crooked homicide detective is stalked by a mysterious man claiming to have witnessed the event.18-07-2022
A school of thought says that every well-constructed plot is nothing more than a series of obstacles the leading character has to overcome to reach his ultimate goal. The higher the obstacles and the more inventive the solutions, the better the plot. In the old days of cinema, such plot construction was the bread and butter of comedians like Harold Lloyd who had to climb a building to marry his beloved in "Safety Last" and Buster Keaton who had to save his girlfriend from dastardly train robbers in "The General".
Nowadays, there's a fairly active subgenre of thriller movies, constructed very similar to old-fashioned slapstick comedies, which do a good job of exploiting that old adage. Think "Crank" or "Headhunters" or even Steven Knight's high-concept thriller/drama "Locke". A kind of movie in which the leading character is thrust into a variety of seemingly impossible situations which he has to scramble to find his way out of while fighting against a significant time crunch.
That's the kind of film Seong Hun Kim has set out to make with "A Hard Day", an exciting and frequently funny thriller which begins with the worst night in police detective Ko's (Sun-kyun Lee) life and then gets more and more convoluted from there.
It's the night before his mother's funeral and Ko is running late to the wake. Why? Because he is being investigated by internal affairs who are certain his unit is on the take. They're right. A vast amount of cash is locked away in Ko's desk and Ko has to remove it before the IA guys manage to open it. As he races over to the police station, a man pops out of nowhere and Ko smashes into him with his car.
Bothersome corpses have been a staple of black comedies since the silent era, but the solution Ko finds to his problem had me in stitches. It is so blasphemous and dark that it is easily the whole movie's highlight.
I won't go further into the plot except to say that even after the night ends, Ko's life does not get any easier as the repercussions of the hit-and-run catch up with the wily corrupt detective. The plot starts getting more and more complicated with gangster flick staples being thrown into the mix and yet I can't help but feel that "A Hard Day" would have been a far better movie had it all taken place across that single night.
As the obstacles become higher, the solutions to them become more and more improbable and less audacious and funny. The film still maintains a healthy sense of humour but devotes more time to its crime flick trappings than is strictly necessary. As a result, the pacing which should be breathlessly snappy slows down exposing the flimsy construction of its plot. Shame.
Where the film does continue to shine is in the performances of its two leads. Cho Jin-woong is especially good as the film's big villain, giving a gleefully devious performance while having what appears to be the time of his life. On the other hand, Sun-kyun Lee does a superb job with what is unquestionably the tougher role. He manages to give a likeable performance as a not particularly likeable character and hold our sympathies for two hours even while getting himself involved in some decidedly nefarious activities.
The rest of the film rests on Seong Hun Kim's direction which is not as stylish nor as witty as it should be. Most of the films I mentioned earlier relied on high-octane visuals and a lot of sharp humour. In comparison, "A Hard Day" is a far more pedestrian production which could have worked fine were it a pacier picture. With a runtime of almost two hours, I started getting a little bored with its flat visuals and televisual camerawork hoping for a little more invention.
But "A Hard Day" is still a fun movie. Especially in its first 40-minutes which play out like an unusually nasty slapstick comedy. With its strong leads and several unexpected twists, there's more than enough here to keep you entertained if you've already seen the better movies of its ilk.
3/4 - DirectorMasayuki SuzukiStarsTakuya KimuraMasami NagasawaFumiyo KohinataA serial (3) killer leaves a GPS code of his next target with each victim - this time Hotel Cortesia Tokyo. A detective goes undercover as hotel staff - haircut, manners etc.18-07-2022
"People come to a hotel wearing masks. The staff members try to imagine their guests' real faces but must never, under any circumstances, take those masks off. Because, in some ways, the guests are coming to the hotel to enjoy a masquerade ball."
This perceptive bit of dialogue is delivered by a long-time employee of the hotel which serves as the vibrant, picturesque setting for "Masquerade Hotel", a Japanese film which is itself masquerading as a murder mystery. The film starts off as a group of policemen pile into the aforementioned, classy hotel which they believe is being stalked by a serial killer. In order to capture the elusive murderer, the cops will go undercover as bellboys, waiters, and concierges in this reputable and highly disciplined establishment.
The film is based on a novel by Keigo Higashino, probably Japan's most famous mystery author, but "Masquerade Hotel" is no whodunnit. What it is, in fact, is a comedy of manners centred around the culture clash between the buttoned-up, well-trained, always-smiling hotel staff and the uncouth, clumsy, suspicious police officers. This conflict is best exemplified by the film's leading characters, the brutish yet brilliant police detective Nitta (Takuya Kimura) and the cooly efficient concierge Naomi (Masami Nagasawa) who is assigned as his supervisor.
Before any significant clues are even hinted at, the mystery plot takes a back seat to a series of amusing yet unconnected vignettes in which Nitta must learn to accommodate himself to the hotel staff's obliging ways. "The guests set the rules and we must follow them," says Naomi. But this proves a hard lesson for Nitta to learn especially as the hotel guests seem to become more and more quirky as time passes. But as he continues to run into complainers and those simply looking for a free upgrade, rude people and old enemies with grudges, a lady faking blindness and a dangerous stalker, Nitta slowly starts fitting in with the hotel's affable staff and more than grudging respect develops between Naomi and him.
But what of the murder mystery? Very little, in fact. Occasionally, here and there, the filmmakers will throw in a daily briefing or a suspicious guest but far from being the film's focus, the thriller aspect is merely one of many different genres thrown into the mish-mash blend that is "Masquerade Hotel". I have no idea how this fragmented narrative played out in Highasino's original novel but on screen, the result is wildly uneven. The film sharply turns from comedy to drama to thriller and even to horror without any rhyme or reason. However, its major saving grace is that director Masayuki Suzuki is unusually proficient at all of them. The comedic scenes are well timed, the thriller is pacy and mysterious, and the few horror scenes are genuinely spooky. Especially effective are the scenes with the fake blind lady who appears to be some kind of a medium. Her stillness contrasts well with the bustle of the hotel and the result is decidedly unnerving.
With its bevvy of subplots, lack of solid focus, and a 130-minute runtime, "Masquerade Hotel" is what can be best described as a complete, meandering mess without a clear narrative or even pace. However, it is also delightfully charming and old-fashioned in a way Hollywood movies haven't been since the 1960s. There is not a trace of cynicism or satire here, no darkness or brutality. The film is so honestly uplifting and feel-good that it is impossible not to be taken at the flood of fun.
It is also wonderfully stylish in its sweeping camera moves and gorgeous production design. Also worth noting is the romantic soundtrack by Naoki Satô which immediately betrays its old-fashioned roots. The waltzing main theme alone (cleverly reminiscent of Khachaturian's "Masquerade") is like a wave of nostalgia.
"Masquerade Hotel" never works as a coherent motion picture but it is so stylish and good-natured and fun that one can't help but be swept away. While I was fully aware of its many flaws, its nonsensical plot, and its lack of structured storytelling, I can't deny I was having a ball and that it kept my attention for the duration of its mammoth runtime. This is also not in small part down to its charming leads whose chemistry only adds to the magical romanticism of this cockeyed film.
2.5/4 - DirectorMasayuki SuzukiStarsMasami NagasawaTakuya KimuraRyo IshibashiAn anonymous letter is delivered to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. The letter states that a criminal of a murder case will appear at the countdown party Masquerade Night that will be held at Hotel Cortesia Tokyo.19-07-2022
"If you live strictly within the bounds of the rules, following them becomes their sole purpose." This is the lesson that Naomi (Masami Nagasawa), the meticulous and disciplined concierge of the Hotel Cortesia Tokyo will have to learn in "Masquerade Night", the carbon copy sequel to "Masquerade Hotel" one of the messiest films in recent memory.
But even if "Masquerade Hotel" was corny, incomprehensible, and wildly loose-limbed it was possessed of a kind of old-fashioned charm and romanticism that made it a fun viewing experience. Its sequel, however, is so similar that it plays out like a series of deleted scenes from the first movie. There is again a bizarre serial killer on the prowl at the hotel and Nitta (Takuya Kimura), the hard-nosed homicide detective, once again has to go undercover as a concierge under the watchful eye of the rule-abiding Naomi. Their relationship is one of the most disappointing aspects of this film because it plays out as if someone had hit the reset button. Instead of continuing directly from the first film's ending which saw them become an ideal killer-catching duo with strong hints of a romantic undercurrent to their chalk-and-cheese relationship, here they start from square one again. Thus we get to watch them go from resentment to grudging respect and then towards friendship once again pretending as if they hadn't already done so.
The formula of the first film is replicated here as well and between solving the mystery, Nitta and Naomi have to deal with a bevvy of bizarre requests from the hotel's many quirky guests. But as anyone who's ever sat through a DVD compilation of deleted scenes can tell you, there's usually a reason why they were not included in the film. "Masquerade Night" perfectly emulates the formula of its predecessor but misses out on all of its verve, charm, and energy making it play out like a very pale imitation instead. You can easily imagine all the various subplots and cameos as scenes originally shot for the first film but left out because they just aren't up to its standards.
Oh, sure, all the major players from the first film are back and do just as good a job as before. Takuya Kimura and Masami Nagasawa are likeable and funny in their roles. The film is absolutely gorgeous to look at thanks largely to cinematographer Shoji Ehara and the frequently breathtaking production design. And director
Masayuki Suzuki's distinctive style is as grandiose as ever with its sweeping camera movements. However, it all feels like a rehash. What it lacks is not technical prowess or even talent but that buzz of originality, inspiration, and novel energy. That new car smell.
On the other hand, the actual plot is far better this time around. Based again on a novel by Keigo Higashino, Japan's bestselling mystery novelist, the story actually makes sense in "Masquerade Night" even though screenwriter Michitaka Okada makes sure we don't have an easy time following its beats. The film is set on New Year's Eve when the hotel hosts an enormous masked ball during which, the police have reason to believe, someone will be killed. But which one of the 500 masked guests is the killer?
The set-up promises a far more exciting movie. Instead, this 130-minute movie spends two-thirds of its mammoth runtime on Nitta conducting background checks. It is an astoundingly boring 90 minutes before the plot really kicks into gear but even the big climax is a bit of a dud when it turns out it's nothing more than an endless run around the hotel but this time with masks on.
While I recognized its many, many flaws, I enjoyed "Masquerade Hotel" mainly because of its charming energy and good-natured humour. "Masquerade Night", on the other hand, manages to faithfully replicate everything except those qualities. It is a stale, boring, largely humourless rehash of a formula that didn't really work that well the first time. The result is predictably a letdown.
1.5/4 - DirectorSidney GilliatStarsAlastair SimSally GrayTrevor HowardAfter the nurse who declares that a recent surgical death was a murder also dies, an enigmatic Scotland Yard inspector arrives to investigate.25-07-2022
A quaint British village under constant threat of air raids is the perfect setting for a whodunnit in "Green for Danger", one of the finest British thrillers this side of Alfred Hitchcock. And like the best films of the master himself, it confidently swings back and forth between suspense and good humour as the wily Inspector Cockrill (Alastair Sim) noses his way around the local hospital full of rescue workers, soldiers, and bombing victims.
Right off the bat, "Green for Danger" sets off an unexpected foot. Unlike what one might expect of such an institution, this wartime hospital is far from a paragon of virtue and heroism. The small surgical staff is headed by one Mr Eden (Leo Genn), an unfitting name for a man who would find more in common with the snake than Adam and Eve. He's a smooth operator, having already stolen the heart of one nurse and seduced another away from her fiancee. As luck would have it, however, the fiancee in question is the hospital's anaesthetist Dr Barnes (Trevor Howard), a rather nervous type with the look of a man whose past is catching up with him.
But then everyone's nerves seem to be shot as the film takes full advantage of its 1944 setting. Bombs are flying overhead, falling on people's houses without rhyme or reason. Anyone could become its next victim and everyone is acutely aware of it. This produces a taut atmosphere among the already uneasy colleagues and one of the nurses, the young Esther (Rosamund John), is feeling most keenly having already lost her mother in the bombing. Her co-workers find other ways of letting off steam. Nurse Woods (Megs Jenkins) laughs so she wouldn't cry while the pretty Nurse Linley (Sally Gray) spends her days coquetting with her fiancee and her lover.
Then one day, a wounded rescue worker is wheeled into this den of iniquity. He is brought into the operating room, put under and never wakes up again. His death doesn't garner much of a reaction. He's written off as another victim of the Luftwaffe. But it tests the already tense interpersonal relationships in the hospital to their breaking point until another body turns up.
Enter Inspector Cockrill, another left turn in this cockeyed detective picture. Having seen your Agatha Christies, your Sherlock Holmeses, and your quota quickies, you'd expect a dogged, solid, and perceptive copper to waltz into the situation and untangle everything with a quick puff on his pipe. However, this particular dogged investigator subverts those expectations very quickly. Oh, sure, he is, as his name says, a rather cocky fellow trying his best to swagger and snoop around his suspects. However, his bravado quickly proves to be unfounded.
There is a wonderfully witty scene in which Cockrill is seen resting in bed after a long day's snooping while reading a mystery novel. In his cocksure way, his eyes light up and a smug smirk appears on his face. He has bettered the writer and solved the crime! He turns the book over and reads the final page. His face drops. He was wrong! "I must be getting old," he says glumly.
Alastair Sim is simply wonderful as the unusual detective. At this point in his career, he was a well-respected comedic performer but "Green for Danger" offered him his a chance to truly show off in a major role. Sim pitches the character with surgical precision (excuse the pun), making his Cockrill at the same time a comedic figure and a convincingly authoritative detective. In fact, he often uses his goofy appearance and clumsy manner to disarm his suspects, making them underestimate him much in the same way Peter Falk's Columbo would do some 20 years later.
But despite several quite amusing moments involving Sim, "Green for Danger" is a suspenseful and surprisingly dark thriller, subverting the usual standards of the cosy mystery not only by setting its plot under the traumatising (and, at the time, extremely recent) wartime conditions but also by colouring its characters in all shades of grey. Even the detective, who in these kinds of films is a personage of unquestionable moral standing, turns out to have taken his fun and games too far in the film's rather bleak climax.
As mentioned before, director Sidney Gilliat performs an admirable balancing act between comedy and thriller. There are several suspenseful sequences in this film that would make Hitchcock himself proud. The most memorable for me must be the superbly atmospheric murder scene in which an unknowable figure dressed in surgical scrubs stands menacingly, scalpel in hand, over its doomed victim as the raging storm outside bangs the windows open and shut, open and shut, open and shut. Note, in this scene and many others, the first-rate chiaroscuro photography by Wilkie Cooper (who also lensed Hitchcock's "Stage Fright") and the doom-laden orchestral score by William Alwyn which never-the-less possesses a kind of breeziness which perfectly encapsulates the tone of the movie.
The screenplay is by Gilliat and Claud Gurney adapted from a well-known novel by Christianna Brand. It is a well-plotted and niftily paced detective story with a deviously clever little twist at the end. It isn't, perhaps, on the level of Agatha Christie's finest brain teasers but it is certainly head-and-shoulders above the standard.
"Green for Danger" is, as you might have gleaned already, a favourite of mine. An engaging mystery story with an unusual setting and a tone which is darker than its comedic stylings may suggest. Led by the wonderful Alastair Sim it is as good as a whodunnit can possibly be.
4/4 - DirectorShinji AoyamaStarsKoji YakushoHiroko YakushimaruAkira EmotoThree couples are staying at a lakeside cottage with their children. They want them to prepare intensely for a prestigious high school's entrance exam with the help of a private tutor. One night, one of the wives confesses to her husband that she has killed his mistress...2022-07-27
Deceit is the seed out of which all thrillers grow. It is written in the whodunnit instruction manual that every suspect must be lying, haunted by a dark secret, concealing a sordid past, and paranoid about being found out. The genius of "Lakeside Murder Case", based on a novel by Keigo Higashino, Japan's favourite mystery novelist, is that it is set in circumstances under which deceit is not only inconspicuous but required.
The film is set in a remote lakeside cabin where three couples have retreated with their children. They are not, however, there for a holiday. They're there to be prepared for the gruelling entrance exam to Japan's most elite school. Conducting the preparations is a stern and eerily distant man whom even the parents refer to as Sensei (Etsushi Toyokawa). He speaks little, observes everything, and judges a lot.
Appearances are everything, we learn, and the parents have to seem just as perfect as their children in order to pass the exam. The requirements are such that they would make Jesus Christ an unlikely candidate. This is where deceit enters the picture. One couple, the Namikis, for instance, has been separated for a while but they've decided to play-act the perfect spouses. But what happens when the husband's mistress, a free-spirited artist (Yûko Mano) shows up at the cabin uninvited? Well, the drab title rather spoils that twist.
So, now there's a body at the lake. What are the parents to do? The school's admission officers surely won't like that. They decide to cover it all up. The corpse is wrapped up in a plastic sheet and dumped into the lake. The blood is cleaned up. Her face bashed in with a rock to prevent identification. Morals be damned - the children come first. Or so they say. But it increasingly becomes obvious that the parents are not thinking of the elite school as a wonderful opportunity for their children but as a status symbol. A status symbol worth turning your entire life into a lie for. Hypocrisy runs rampant among the characters in this film. A very clever scene sees one of the mothers, who was not bothered for a second by the murder or the cover-up, raise concerns about her car being used to transport the body. "My daughter sleeps there," she protests. To be fair, it is a rather expensive car.
"Lakeside Murder Case" seems, for quite a while, to be a fairly straightforward film. A sort of "Columbo"-esque thriller in which the killers have to think several steps ahead of the police. But here it is writer Keigo Higashino who is being deceptive. It would be a massive spoiler and a disservice to this intriguing picture to explain how, but as the plot unravels this film becomes quite a damning indictment of a world in which one has to forego morality and honesty in order to be respected and successful. We've all heard of the stereotypical tiger parenting and the race to get children into the best schools (sometimes before they're even born), but I don't recall seeing it laid bare with quite the same brutality and intelligence as here. Thus, despite its silly title and thriller trappings, "Lakeside Murder Case" should not be viewed as a thriller but rather as gruesomely cynical satire. My hat's off to Mr Higashino.
I have not read the novel but I do suspect some depth has been lost in translation. Especially in regards to the characterisation. The mothers in particular are thinly drawn and tend to fade into the background as their husbands carry both the dramatic and subtextual weight of the story. Thankfully, the performances are terrific, especially from Akira Emoto as the level-headed surgeon who takes to murder like a fish to water.
The film stars the always excellent Kôji Yakusho whose presence only makes me think of what wonders Kiyoshi Kurosawa would do with this material. His ability to make the mundane terrifying would really give this film a different dimension. That is not to say that director Shinji Aoyama does a bad job. Quite the contrary. His direction is moody, dynamic, and evocative. However, I do feel that he leans a little too heavily on the suspense aspects of the film which ultimately don't pay off as the story veers into a completely different direction in the third act.
Anyone hoping for a straightforward genre piece will be sorely disappointed by "Lakeside Murder Case" even if its final revelation is masterfully disturbing. It is in fact a rather bleak indictment of elitism in society and the ends to which parents are willing to go to provide what they believe will make their children happy. The children, who lurk in the background throughout the movie, meanwhile, seem happiest on those rare occasions when their parents spend time with them playing cards, cooking, or talking. They don't seem awfully interested in the elite school and distantly observe as their parents claw their way towards it. Make of that what you will.
3.5/4 - DirectorAssaf BernsteinStarsGila AlmagorNeta GartyEdgar SelgeIn 1965, Rachel Brener is one of 3 young Mossad agents who caught "The Surgeon of Birkenau" - a Nazi monster who was never brought to trial in Israel and is presumed dead, when in reality he has managed to escape after a botched kidnapping. 35 years later, a small article appears in a local paper in a Kyiv, Ukraine, revealing that the the Surgeon is alive. The 3 older Mossad agents have to decide whether to complete the old assignment and eliminate their target or let the truth come out (and their reputation be destroyed).28-07-2022
Israel is a young state but one steeped in history and legend. A state created by history's martyrs and built on the promise that "never again shall Masada fall". And it hasn't not for a lack of trying from its many global enemies largely because of the unconquerable and uncompromising fighting spirit of Israel whose tenets are precisely those historical events, battles, and trials which have since grown into myths and legends.
Assaf Bernstein's thriller "The Debt" poses the question of what if one of those tenets was a lie. It is a brave suggestion for an Israeli film to make and Bernstein deserves a lot of respect just for the chutzpah considering the flack Spielberg took when he made a similar suggestion in his superb film "Munich". Bernstein plays a little safer, however, taking as the basis for his film a fictional myth though one closely resembling the capture of Adolf Eichmann.
The legend is this. In 1964, a trio of brave, young Mossad agents was sent to capture the notorious Surgeon of Birkenau (Edgar Selge) who had since become a respected gynaecologist in Berlin. The trio were Rachel (Neta Garty), a nervous but determined young woman tasked with posing as one of the doctor's patients; Ehud (Yehezkel Lazarov), a brash funny guy who is the muscle of the operation; and their leader, the cold and unknowable Zvi (Itay Tiran). The three managed to kidnap the doctor but before they could transport him to Israel where he was to stand trial, he tried to escape and was killed in the process.
Cut to 1997 and the story has become a national myth. Rachel is a highly respected lecturer who has just published her autobiography and Zvi has risen to the top echelon of the Mossad. The two haven't seen each other in years until a story in a Ukrainian newspaper instigates an uncomfortable reunion. A dying man in a Soviet retirement home is claiming to be the Surgeon of Birkenau. But he can't be, can he? And yet Rachel and Zvi seem to believe it. She packs her bags and travels to Ukraine with instructions to eliminate the old man before his story reaches Israel.
What really happened in 1964 and is the old man really who he claims to be are the driving questions behind this thriller and yet its best scenes have little to do with its suspenseful set-pieces. It is the quiet moments before and after the missions that impress and the excellent cast who carry the otherwise clunky script.
Note, for instance, the wonderfully evocative scene set the night before the 1964 mission. None of the three can sleep and to alleviate their nerves they have an impromptu dance in their Berlin apartment.
My personal favourite, however, is the deeply uncomfortable sequence in which Rachel poses as one of the doctor's patients. The tension is absolutely palpable as she has to put her feet in the stirrups of the Surgeon of Birkenau while he prods meticulously around her genitals. "This is my hand. This is the speculum," he creepily intones.
The 1964 cast is marvellous, especially Neta Garty who manages to walk the line between being both vulnerable and absolutely convincing as a highly trained Mossad agent. It is nevertheless Edgar Selge who steals the show with his unflinching portrayal of a Nazi in hiding with more than subtle shades of Laurence Olivier in his performance.
Unfortunately, after an exhilarating first half which covers the 1964 mission, the film quickly comes undone. The 1997 scenes are nowhere near as interesting focusing mainly on the older Rachel's attempts and failures at breaking into a retirement home. While Gila Almagor gives a nicely nuanced performance of a woman who can't quite bring herself to believe in the sanctity of her mission anymore the script by Assaf Bernstein and Ido Rosenblum paints her as an indecisive bungler. To say that her inability to gain access to a retirement home stretches credibility is an understatement. These scenes also run on for far too long and are tediously repetitive.
The second half of the 1964 storyline fares no better. After the doctor is safely captured the film becomes a kind of battle of wits between him and his captors. However, the dialogue is stilted and cliched as the Surgeon of Birkenau on a whim turns into a kind of German Hannibal Lecter. It is also so painfully obvious where all of this is going that when the big twist happens I kept waiting for something else to justify the well-built suspense. Nothing came.
"The Debt" is built on a fascinating premise and the scenes focusing on its well-drawn characters are interesting and expertly shot. However, the film utterly fails to be a thriller with its predictable twists and clunky plot mechanics. This is a crying shame as the performances are first-rate and the scenes focusing on the capture of the Surgeon of Birkenau are as good as anything in "Munich".
2.5/4 - DirectorJohn MaddenStarsHelen MirrenSam WorthingtonTom WilkinsonIn 1965, three Mossad Agents cross into East Berlin to apprehend a notorious Nazi war criminal. Thirty years later, the secrets the Agents share come back to haunt them.28-07-2022
Coming into "The Debt", the British/American remake of a flawed yet intriguing Israeli thriller, I wondered how it would translate. Not because it had a particularly complex plot but because its subject matter is so profoundly Israeli. It was a film which prodded at the very basis of Israel, a state steeped in myth and martyrdom and built on legends such as the Siege of Masada. It asked what if one of those myths was to be exposed as a lie.
The original film was a rather ambitious piece. It aimed to be at the same time an exciting spy thriller, a psychological drama about three people who were once faithful warriors of the state but whose faith has run out, and a sociological examination of a country's need for heroes and symbolism. Sadly, due to a lacking script, it only worked sporadically.
John Madden's remake, however, is a far less ambitious film. Produced in Britain, all of its sociological aspects disappear. The psychological drama is stripped down to a rather simplistic love triangle leaving only the spy thriller storyline which, unlike in the original, works really rather well.
The story intercuts between two time periods. First, we're in 1960s Berlin where three Mossad agents have been sent to capture the notorious Surgeon of Birkenau (Jesper Christensen) who has since become a respected gynaecologist. The agents are young and driven by the hazy memories of their relatively recently murdered families. Their enthusiasm for the mission, however, seems to be greater than their actual readiness to undertake it.
Then we flash forward to 1990s Israel where we meet the three again. They are celebrated as heroes of the state having successfully assassinated the old Nazi. One of them is a highly respected lecturer. Another, an influential politician. The third, mercurial David (Ciarán Hinds) who left Israel shortly after the mission that made them famous mysteriously returns only to commit suicide. Why? The answer lies in the truth about what happened in Berlin all those years ago.
Unlike in the original film, we're not told upfront what it is that so torments the three former comrades in the 1990s. This is a good decision on behalf of the adaptors Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman and Peter Straughan which allows for a greater sense of mystery and suspense during the 1960s scenes. Another good decision is to focus more on the mechanics of their mission; how they identified the Surgeon, how they plan to get him out of Berlin, and how the plan starts to go awry.
John Madden's "The Debt" is a far more successful thriller than its predecessor. Its first half is full of exciting set-pieces, action scenes, and twists. The logical problems of the original have been smoothed over, and the entertainment value significantly increased. But, ironically it is the drama that now suffers. The characters of the young Mossad agents, so vivid and believable in the Israeli film are here stereotypical and angsty. In the original, Rachel, the lone female agent, entered into a sexual relationship with one of the men because she was scared and needed reassurance and comfort. In the remake, their relationship has been turned into a pouty high-school romance.
There is too much shouting in their scenes, too much portentous dialogue, too much is out in the open. The best scenes in the Israeli film were the quiet moments between the agents as they mentally prepare for the task ahead of them. Those scenes, so full of subtext and emotion, have now been replaced by exposition and melodrama.
The 1990s sequences don't work in either film but for different reasons. In the Israeli movie, they were drawn out, repetitive, and clumsily plotted centring around a highly trained Mossad agent's inability to break into a retirement home. Here, the problem is of an entirely different nature. They have been so stripped down, shortened, and simplified that they have become entirely obsolete. The meat of the story, so to speak, all the action scenes, the melodrama, and the twists are in the 1960s scenes making everything that happens afterwards nothing more than an extended teaser.
This is a shame because the finest work in the whole film comes from the cast in precisely those, needless 1990s scenes. Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson and Ciarán Hinds play the older versions of the agents and are uniformly excellent. Especially good is Wilkinson as the sleazy, manipulative, emotionally distant Stephan.
The 1960s cast consisting of Jessica Chastain, Marton Csokas and Sam Worthington respectively is good but is hampered by the direction and the script which pitch far too many of their scenes at an annoyingly screechy level. In the Israeli version, the Mossad agents come across as clumsy amateurs. In the remake, they come across as love-sick high schoolers. You choose your preference.
The remaking process of "The Debt" was eventually not a smooth one. Like in most things, wherever the adaptors plugged one hole another one sprang up. The one reason why ultimately the Israeli film is better is the atmosphere of quiet tension. Unlike the remake which is full of sound and fury, the Israeli film was at its most suspenseful when it was quiet such as in the perversely uncomfortable scene in which the female Mossad agent undergoes a gynaecological exam conducted by the Surgeon of Birkenau. That scene is reproduced here but the result is not the same. It is well played by the actors but the director rushes through it, anxious, I suppose, to get to the next shootout.
2.5/4 - DirectorDzhanik FayzievStarsEgor BeroevOlga KraskoMarat BasharovThe film is based on the second book from the Adventures of Erast Petrovich Fandorin series of novels written by the Russian author Boris Akunin. The film takes place in 1877 during the Russian-Turkish war. Erast Fandorin has just escaped from Turkish prison and is trying to get on the Russian side as soon as possible to give important information about the upcoming attack of the enemy. On his way he meets Varvara Suvorova, a young lady who is going to see her fiancée - a soldier of the Russian army. Erast also knows that there is a spy somewhere in the Russian army, everyone is under suspicion...30-07-2022
The year is 1877, the setting Plevna, an important strategic point in the Russo-Turkish War currently under siege by the cocksure General Sobolev (Aleksandr Baluev). "I am worried," Sobolev says, "this war has been going far too well". As it turns out, Sobolev's worries are proven right when Plevna is taken back by the Turks right under his nose. What happened? Well, it appears that a fake message sent from his very HQ sent the Russian troops on a wild goose chase, but who sent it?
Enter Erast Fandorin (Egor Beroev), Russia's answer to Sherlock Holmes hot on the trail of Anwar Pasha, a brilliant Turkish spy and a master of disguise. Fandorin believes Anwar has infiltrated his way into Sobolev's camp and is sabotaging the Russian army from within. But who could he be? Is he one of the foreign journalists hanging around Sobolev, one of the General's own staff, or someone entirely different, someone who is beyond even Fandorin's suspicions?
That is the basic plot of "The Turkish Gambit", a wildly entertaining historical thriller. But what makes it such an enjoyable ride has little to do with its paper-thin story. As is so often the case with Russian films, the opulent production values and penchant for high theatrics are what make "The Turkish Gambit" a fun watch. The extravagant battle scenes, the inventive use of CGI to show Fandorin's deductions, a dangerous recce mission over the enemy lines in a balloon, and a moonlit duel on the terrace of a Romanian count's mansion especially stand out.
The plot itself is almost secondary to these vignettes making "The Turkish Gambit" feel more like a boy's-own adventure than a devious detective thriller. Sure, there are plenty of red herrings and a wonderfully suspenseful shootout in a picturesque cave but the identity of the spy is painfully predictable and the mechanics of his deception are never properly explained.
This is the first cinematic outing for Erast Fandorin (he had previously appeared in the excellent TV mini-series "Azazel" but played by a different actor) the leading character in a superb book series by Boris Akunin. Having read a few of these massively enjoyable thrillers, I was surprised to find his character so different in this film adaptation. Whereas in the novels he is a cool, distant, elegant, almost aristocratic figure, in this film he's turned into a sort of comedic James Bond-like figure. Seeing how the film's tone is also more adventure than mystery, perhaps such a change was necessary. Either way, Egor Beroev makes for a charming and likeable lead even if Fandorin's tragic backstory is only barely hinted at.
This lack of strong characterisation is a major flaw in a movie which contains almost a dozen possible suspects. Keeping track of all the characters who come and go in this film is something of a chore. I liked the jolly Count Zurov as played by the gregarious Dmitriy Pevtsov the most. Less likeable is the film's female lead the enchanting Varvara (Olga Krasko) who is too often written as a dim-wit who either continually compromises Fandorin's investigation or needs to be saved due to her own nosiness. As the only female character in the film, this is some poor representation indeed.
I was also less than taken with director Dzhanik Fayziev's visual style which is clearly inspired by the high-octane action movies of Luc Besson. The editing is distractingly choppy and fast-paced, the camera is constantly moving, panning, zooming, and in every battle scene, there is a bullet-time effect. How tiring and confusing! More than once, I had to rewind the film in order to figure out what exactly happened. Despite Fayziev's garish directing the actual production values of the film shine as well as Andrey Zhegalov's eye-catching cinematography and an exciting score by Andrey Feofanov and Vsevolod Saksonov.
"The Turkish Gambit" is the kind of adventure film that works despite itself. The script is messy and thinly plotted, the direction overly stylized, and the characters mere stereotypes. However, it has that spirited charm of 1930s adventure serials which were so goofy and gung-ho that they couldn't but put a smile on your face. There is little in this film to impress history nerds or mystery lovers but seen as just a spectacular cinematic experience, "The Turkish Gambit" is often a blast.
3/4 - DirectorFilipp YankovskiyStarsOleg MenshikovNikita MikhalkovKonstantin KhabenskiyThird film based on Boris Akunin's "Priklucheniya Erasta Petrovicha Fandorina" series of novels. On a train from St. Petersburg to Moscow general Khrapov was killed and no one else but Erast Petrovich is under suspicion because the killer pretended to be Fandorin. There are initials BG on the handle of the knife Khrapov was stabbed with, the initials belong to a terrorist organization which keeps both capital cities (Moscow and St. Petersburg) in fear. This time Fandorin is not the only one trying to solve the crime, general Pozharski, a famous detective takes over the investigation...30-07-2022
In the span of four years, Studio Trite made three different adaptations of the Erast Fandorin novels from the pen of Boris Akunin, Russia's bestselling mystery novelist. The first and best, "Azazel", came in the form of a colourful and inventive mini-series in 2002. The other two, both released in 2005, came in the form of feature films. The first released was "The Turkish Gambit", an entertaining and hare-brained adventure film. "The State Counsellor" came mere months later but is so different from its predecessors that no meaningful comparison can be made.
Erast Fandorin is now played by Oleg Menshikov, possibly Russia's finest living actor and the only actor to play Fandorin as he was in the novels. Cool, elegant, nimble, and cunning. The part suits him like a well-tailored suit. With his spindly physique and knowing grin, he is the ideal person to play Russia's answer to Sherlock Holmes.
The mystery at hand in "The State Counsellor" begins with the murder of a minister on a snowy Russian night. The main suspect for the murder? Erast Fandorin himself. Not only does Fandorin have to clear his name, but he also has to contend with Pozharsky (Nikita Mikhalkov), a disarmingly gregarious policeman sent from St Petersburg to investigate the case.
Meanwhile, Moscow police are struggling to capture the BG, a group of Communist saboteurs who seem to always be a step ahead of them. How? They have an informant inside the state apparatus, a person who will go to any lengths to protect their identity.
Unlike "The Turkish Gambit", "The State Counsellor" ticks like a nicely wound mystery plot should. There are mysterious murders, a mole in the police force, and even a well-orchestrated action set-piece. This all promises a terrific detective story except for one little niggle. The identity of the villain is obvious pretty much from the moment they're introduced. In fact, there is no one else it could conceivably be. And while the film plays out as if we don't know who the bad guy is, the writer Boris Akunin never gives us any red herrings or believable alternatives to the obvious.
It's a shame because director Filipp Yankovskiy does a great job of establishing a mysterious atmosphere of mistrust and double-crosses. A Moscow in which everyone is looking out primarily for themselves with the chief of police (Fedor Bondarchuk) going as far as setting up a sex affair for his chief rival to be caught in. Everyone in "The State Counsellor" is shifty and distrustful except, funnily enough, for the Communists who seem to be the only characters in the film acting for any other reason but their own interests.
The BG is led by a ruthless agent known only as Green (Konstantin Khabenskiy) and an unexpected romance subplot develops between him and his comrade Needle (Oksana Fandera), a seemingly cold-blooded femme-fatale who proves to be nothing of the sort. I was surprised by the amount of screen time devoted to their story and although none of the Communists is particularly well-drawn characters at least they're given more depth than your standard movie terrorists.
The police, meanwhile, are used mainly for laughs. They're presented as a motley crew of mostly bizarre bunglers stepping all over each other's toes as they race to be the first to catch the notorious BG. Fandorin and Pozharsky are the only capable good guys in the movie and a friendly rivalry develops between the two as they engage in a mental sparing match of deduction.
Most of the fun in "The State Counsellor" comes from watching Mikhalkov and Menshikov play. They starred together in Mikhalkov's masterpiece "Burnt by the Sun" and this is a welcome reunion of two superb screen performers. Mikhalkov in particular is entertaining as the showboating Pozharsky, a role which he is obviously relishing. As he chews the scenery, Menshikov presents a more quiet, introvert Fandorin giving the character a presence and air of mystery lacking in both "Azazel" and "The Turkish Gambit".
Filipp Yankovskiy directs the picture with confidence and style. The visuals are elegant and moody, never overly stylized or distracting with cinematographer Vladislav Opelyants making great use of snow-covered Moscow streets. The film looks phenomenal. Enri Lolashvili's melodic and wistful score ties a nice bow to the film's atmosphere which is far more engaging than the predictable plot. Having said that, the film would have been helped had it been at least 20 minutes shorter. It sags in particular in the middle where not very much happens for a rather long time.
"The State Counsellor" doesn't have the colourful wit of "Azazel" nor is it as eye-catchingly entertaining as "The Turkish Gambit" but it is a more rounded picture than either. It has a kind of elegance and atmosphere of mystery and historical significance the others lacked and those qualities make it a much closer adaptation of Boris Akunin's novels. It also has a first-rate performance from Oleg Menshikov. It is a real loss for mystery lovers everywhere that he never got a chance to reprise his precise performance as Erast Fandorin.
3/4 - DirectorLindsey C. VickersStarsEdward WoodwardJane MerrowSamantha WeysomA British horror film that starts with a bang, then settles into a slow-moving examination of one day in the life of a British family--a day full of tension and foreboding.31-07-2022
"The Appointment" is one of those films you would blindly rent from a video store as a child and then never forget. Its bizarre atmosphere of dread and precognition would only be enhanced by bad tracking and video hiss. Admittedly, I first saw it on YouTube (it was a VHS copy though) a few years ago but seeing it now, finally on BluRay, it has lost none of its moody charms. In fact, I was surprised by how imaginative and technically well-executed the film really is and just how great its gripping opening and spectacular climax are.
The film opens on a brief but memorable scene which could have made an enticing horror short all by itself. A girl (Auriol Goldingham) is walking home alone from school through a forest. Suddenly, she hears an ethereal sing-songy voice calling her name. "Sa-a-ndy!" She turns around, but no one's there. Then she hears it again. "Sa-a-a-ndy!" She stops, now chilled to the bone. Turns around and sees no one. Looks into the forest and sees no one. Then an invisible force yanks her small body into the bushes like a puppet on a string as Trevor Jones' haunting orchestral score starts playing.
It is a superbly atmospheric and eery opening sequence which perfectly showcases the strengths of Lindsey C. Vickers' direction. Visually, he is an incredibly imaginative director. Look, for instance, at the sequence in which a pack of giant black dogs menace Edward Woodward's character in his sleep; or the clever way he suggests his character's thoughts through flashbacks; or indeed the film's extended final sequence which is probably one of the most horrifying scenes ever captured on film and which I refuse to spoil.
His weakness, however, is as a writer. Not only because his dialogue is stiff and clumsy but because his characters are essentially unknowable. Such is, for instance, the character of the busy father played by Edward Woodward of whom we only know that he's busy and that he's a father. Technically speaking, these are the only two facts we really need to know about him but it would have been nice to be able to form some sort of an emotional connection with the man.
But yes, he's busy and he has to go on a business trip on the same day his daughter (Samantha Weysom) is having her final concert of the school year. The daughter is positively obsessed with her dad. Her mother (Jane Merrow) suggests it's because she's going through puberty and is attached to her father as a male figure but dad rejects the idea as offensive nonsense. Vickers, on the other hand, goes to great lengths to suggest that the daughter's love for her father transcends mere parental attachment. She spends her days caressing his photographs in bed and gazing wistfully up at him as she sits by his feet. There is a rather disturbing scene in which she is lying in bed and hears her father standing at her bedroom door. An expectant smile appears on her face as his hand clutches the doorknob.
It is thus understandable that she is not at all happy with him missing the concert. As it turns out, neither is his wife but for entirely different reasons. On the night of the business trip, both the father and the mother have the same nightmare. A nightmare of the father being chased by a pack of wild dogs leading him to crash his car and die. The father shakes off the dream as nothing more than anxiety but the mother is not so sure. She is experiencing a feeling of premonition. Is her husband really going on a business trip or heading for his appointment with death?
"The Appointment" is entirely built on expectation. By the nature of the format, we know something has to eventually happen in the film and as long as everything is perfectly mundane and ordinary our anxiety rises and rises. It is a clever trick but a devil to pull off. Vickers manages it by the skin of his teeth. While showing us meticulously the entire process of the father's preparations for his trip, the suspense unrelentingly rises. I never found the film boring despite it entirely resting on style, mood, and a feeling of upcoming dread.
Where the film is lacking is in the script department which utterly fails to connect all the story threads into a coherent whole. What do the daughter's feelings for her father have to do with his dreams? What is the connection between the daughter and the nightmare dogs? Why is any of this happening? Vickers never provides any answers instead he continually piles on more and more questions. Now, I'm not usually one to harp on about movies needing to have neat conclusions but the script for "The Appointment" has that distinct feel of being more of a series of high-concept set pieces than a story.
However, the film is so well made and so effective in its style that a lack of substance doesn't really harm it. Beside Vickers' outstanding direction I must also mention Trevor Jones' beautiful score, Brian West's eye-candy photography and some wonderful editing from Sean Barton which seems inspired by Graeme Clifford's seminal work on "Don't Look Now".
3/4