The Terminal
Iranian refugee Merhan Nasseri arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport in 1988 having been refused entry to the UK and having all his documentation stolen. He was left unable to prove his identity and forced to live within the terminal, where he has remained ever since. Here his story has been given the Hollywood treatment.
Nasseri becomes Viktor Navorski, played by Spielberg favourite Tom Hanks. Rather than be an Iranian political refugee – perhaps a touchy subject in the US these days – the character is from a fictional eastern European country Krakozia, ravaged by war. Rather than have his documents stolen, his country simply ceases to exist, leaving him in a diplomatic, rather than bureaucratic, limbo. He’s given a love-interest in Catherine Zeta Jones’ glamorous flight attendant. And, naturally enough, rather than set the film in France – also perhaps a touchy subject for the US these days – the story is relocated to America.
This all makes a certain amount of sense. The real-life airport-dwelling Nasseri is, by all accounts, a bit of a nutter. He could have left Charles De Gaulle five years ago when the French authorities granted him a residency visa, but refused to sign the papers and started refusing to answer anyone who didn’t address him as “Sir Alfred Merhan”.
The Spielberg/Hanks sentimental and sympathetic treatment certainly makes for a more interesting tale. Even if the weirdness of reality is somewhat diminished, the “based on a true story” get-out will ensure that most cinemagoers will think this IS the true story. The only slight trouble is the inherent lack of believability in the idea that an American airport would happily let a gentleman of Middle Eastern descent wander around the place unsupervised. But then, this is a Spielberg film, and it’s the emotion that’s the key.
Now most people would play being trapped at an airport as precisely that – a confinement; not Spielberg. Perhaps taking his cue from the man the story is based on who refuses to leave even now that he can, under this director the airport becomes a place of freedom and hope – a home after the real home has gone.
It may sound like a tough one to buy into for anyone who has spent even a couple of hours knocking around Heathrow waiting for a flight, but let us not forget that Spielberg remains a master filmmaker and Hanks an effortless actor. It somehow works.
What could, from the story on which it is based, so easily have ended up a depressing tale of isolation, loneliness and encroaching madness with an added touch of heavy-handed political polemicism ends up instead a feel-good and heartwarming tale of triumph over adversity and the indomitability of the human spirit. It is, as with so many Spielberg and indeed Hanks films, a movie that you can’t help but become caught up in. Let the warmth and cuddliness sweep you away, and come to look on airports in a different light.
Super Size Me
You know that feeling you get every time you succumb to one of those utterly irrational desired to go and get a Big Mac? That faint feeling of nausea, the slow realisation of precisely what it is you’ve just put into your mouth, the greasy aftertaste, and the knowledge that even though you may feel fuller you have received precisely no nutrition from the three quid’s worth of gristly you’ve just consumed? Now imagine eating nothing but McDonalds’ meals for a month.
This is precisely what director Morgan Spurlock decided to do for his first foray into the world of documentary feature films. For a month he set himself the task of eating three meals a day at McDonalds and seeing what the effects would be on his previously healthy body. Yep, the results are pretty predictable, but that’s not entirely the point.
Prompted by one of those news items about fat people in America suing the fast food chain for making them obese, Spurlock decided to test the evidence for himself. As he set about making his movie, the case that prompted it was dismissed by the US courts, with Congress simultaneously passing a bill that would protect the fast food industry from any similar claims in future. Of course, fast food is not addictive in the way cigarettes are, but does that make it any less damaging? Does that make the manufacturers of such inherently unhealthy fodder any less responsible for their customers’ slow decline than the tobacco companies that have been successfully sued so frequently over the last few years? These are the questions this film explores.
By the end of his month at MaccyDs, Spurlock has gained nearly two stone, suffered mood swings, loss of sex drive, and nearly catastrophic liver damage. His experiment is likened by his doctor to someone on an extended alcohol binge, and has similar effects.
Very much influenced by Michael Moore, Spurlock is less confrontational in his approach, if equally controversial for the defenders of big business in his basic methods. His detractors might argue that if someone ate ANY sort of food and nothing else for thirty days solid, they would suffer health problems. Plus there are obviously few – if any – people who eat McDonalds meals every single day.
But that is not the point here. Also explored is the US school food system – not so dissimilar to our own – in which children are presented with an endless supply of nutritionless junk and fatty, carbohydrate-rich filler. The point Spurlock is making is simply that some people have little choice but to live off junk. It is relatively cheap, requires no cookery skills, and fills you up fast. If you are on a low income, it is a very easy option.
So, Spurlock asks, why do we continue to allow companies to produce products that we know to be harmful? How can we allow ourselves to consume substances which are so evidently bad for us? One thing is for certain, if you haven’t already been put off Big Macs by the likes of Eric Schlosser’s book Fast Food Nation, this will more than do the job. You owe it to your diet to check it out…
Open Water
The sea is one of those forces of nature that cannot fail to put mankind back in its place. Out in the middle of the ocean, with the horizon all around and nothing but the undulating swell to break the monotony, the insignificance of one individual becomes all too apparent.
Now imagine being in the middle of the ocean without a boat, and with no prospect of one coming. Now chuck in a few sharks.
This is the premise of this low-budget, minimalist thriller. Much like the Blair Witch Project, to which it has been likened by some, the reasons for the central characters’ fear are rarely spelled out, although their terror is often as real as it can get – the actors filmed most of their scenes floating miles offshore with genuine wild sharks. No fancy special effects here, plus – as you may have guessed – it is based on a true story.
There is very little action here, just two people facing the slow battering of loneliness, terror, despair and exhaustion. If you don’t buy in to the central premise it would be easy to sink into abject boredom. That is part of the point. How much do you really think there is to do when you’re floating miles offshore without a boat, or even anything to hold on to? The lack of action is intended to serve to heighten the inherent psychological impact of the situation. This intention succeeds or fails entirely depending on the individual viewer’s willingness to submerse themselves in the situation, and to think how they would react if this happened to them.
But the real chiller here is not the vast expanse of empty water, nor the sharks, nor the encroaching starvation, hypothermia and hysteria; it is the idea that any of us might be forgotten. The couple at the heart of the film, Susan and Daniel (relative newcomers Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis), are just like any other normal boyfriend and girlfriend having an exotic holiday. But they are utterly forgotten. It is this feeling that we might somehow be so insignificant to other people, not just to the vast power of the sea, that is the real terror at the heart of the film.
Unfortunately, this is not made quite clear enough. Director Chris Kentis is hardly overly experienced. He is superb at building up a sense of isolation and hopelessness, but unfortunately not at maintaining interest. It’s all very well making a film in which part of the point is that not a lot happens, but most filmgoers are used to getting at least a bit of action for their buck. The occasional shark fin breaking the surface is hardly enough to compete with the frenzied punch ups and effects of the likes of Hellboy.
But then, it is unlikely that this will appeal to that sort of audience. If you want explosions and fights, look elsewhere. If, for some sadomasochistic reason, you want to spend eighty minutes facing up to some unpleasant emotions and primal fears, this could well be the film for you.
Hellboy
Nazis summon a demon in the dying days of World War II, planning to use him against the Allies. The Allies raid the base; the demon joins them, fighting for truth, justice and the American way as part of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defence. Hellboy is born.
Yep, it’s yet another comic book movie, but this time it’s based on the cult series by artist/writer Mike Mignola which has been running successfully to the delight of a rabid fanbase for the last decade. More importantly, it has been brought to the screen by Mexican cult maestro Guillermo del Toro, best known by mainstream audiences as the director of the dark, violent and supremely cool Blade II and as friend and mentor to Quentin Tarantino.
Director and material, as anyone who has seen any of the helmer’s early Mexican movies will attest, have rarely been more perfectly suited for each other – del Torro even turned down the offer of insane money to direct the most recent Harry Potter in favour of this slice of blackly comic action, which he also scripted. Mignola was also closely involved – a rarity for Hollywood movies – which helps explain why the look of the often outlandish characters and film is so similar to the frequently highly stylised artwork of the comics. It promises to be one of the most faithful comic book adaptations yet seen.
The only trouble is, it’s a fair bet that most people have never heard of Hellboy, even though he nominally inhabits the same universe as Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and the like. Plus, on the surface, it could sound like a blatant ripoff of Men in Black, only with demons rather than aliens being battled by the clandestine government agency. But don’t let that put you off. Ron Perlman, long a del Torro favourite for his distinctive looks, is perfectly cast as this hellspawn hero, a hulking, ugly, cigar-chomping red pile of physicality at the heart of the movie, and is backed up by a great supporting cast, ranging from British movie legend John Hurt to the sultry teen idol Selma Blair.
How is it possible not to love a movie where one of the villains is the mad monk Rasputin himself and Nazis run around trying to raise the hoards of hell? It’s got some nice special effects, some superb production design – appropriately enough, given the comedy Nazis, by one of the team responsible for the look of the Indiana Jones movies – and, again appropriately enough considering Hellboy’s appearance, even features the classic Nick Cave song “Red Right Hand”. If that’s not indication enough that this film has both a sense of humour and a definite style and understanding of the genre it is working in, I don’t know what is.
In short, if you have ever enjoyed science fiction or superhero film, give this a try. You are unlikely to regret checking out what is one of the best examples of this kind of movie yet to hit the screen.
Collateral
For many film buffs, Tom Cruise’s immense popularity seems inexplicable. He has little in the way of charm or charisma, and rarely appears to bother putting in a good performance or taking on challenging parts– with perhaps the sole exception of the otherwise dire Magnolia. Here, as with Magnolia, Cruise is playing against type – even for once allowing himself to look like the middle-aged man he now is – and his gamble is a huge success. Luckily, unlike with Magnolia, the rest of the film is just as good as Cruise’s star turn.
Set in a gloomy night time Los Angeles, Cruise is Vincent, a cold-hearted hitman working for a drugs cartel, charged with bumping off a range of federal witnesses before a court case hits. Needing a ride around town, he hops into the taxi of the prissy and nervous Max (the up and coming comedian Jamie Foxx). Thus begins a frenzied dash through the city in which Max finds himself caught in the middle of a bloody road trip where bullets from either side of the law could end his life in the blink of an eye.
Unlike so many films these days, this does not seem overlong for all its two hours. The pacing here is spot-on, with each new development and each new hit spiralling on from each other in a delicate pirouette of plotting with Cruise’s near-superhuman assassin firmly at the epicentre. Foxx’s cabbie would, in any other film, be indanger of getting overwhelmed, but the former comedian holds his own nicely, matching Cruise’s charm and brute physicality with a casual likeability that easily demonstrates why he so very nearly got the Cuba Gooding Jr role in the earlier Cruise flick Jerry Maguire.
Directed by Michael Mann, this is closer to his frenetic thriller Heat than his more recent outings Ali and The Insider, but demonstrates just as amply his superb understanding of cinema. Far from being the bog-standard car chase and homicide thriller that a lesser director could so easily have produced with this material, Mann raises this tale of a taxi driver’s bad customer far above the standard Hollywood fare. (Sorry – that pun was terrible…)
This vision of LA is closer in style to the New York seen countless times in Martin Scorsese’s films, rather than the bright and sunny paradise that is normally seen on screen. It is almost as if Mann is deliberately aping that other movie about a cabbie’s bad day, the classic that is Taxi Driver. The other major similarity is not to a film at all, but to the superb Hitman computer game series.
The only trouble with the film, perhaps due to the computer game similarities, is that Cruise’s assassin almost appears indestructible. By the final reel it is almost as if he has put a cheat code on, and can no longer be harmed by his myriad opponents. Plus towards the very end, a couple of coincidences seem just a tad too convenient to be fully believable. But these small flaws do not in any way spoil what is otherwise a highly entertaining, adrenaline-fuelled potential future action thriller classic which is almost enough to make you understand just why Tom Cruise is as famous as he is. More of this sort of thing!
Anchorman
Will Ferrell has been knocking around for a few years now, but remains practically unknown in the UK while being a relatively big name in the States. This is thanks to the phenomenon that is Saturday Night Live – the breeding ground of the likes of Dan Ackroyd, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal, Mike Myers and Chris Rock. That one TV show has, in the 29 years it has been running, produced more A-list comedians than anywhere else ever. Securing a place as a regular on the show pretty much guarantees a high enough profile to get at least a few film roles, and Ferrell has been making the most of it.
After his last big outing, last year’s halfway decent festive comedy Elf, Ferrell may be a tad more familiar to UK audiences, but he has yet to prove himself in the transition from small to big screen. Until now, that is. After a series of minor films, and bit parts in bigger movies like Starsky and Hutch and Zoolander, Ferrell, who also co-scripted, has hit on a winner. This could easily do for him what Wayne’s World did for Mike Myers or 48 Hours for Eddie Murphy, and turn him from TV to movie star.
In this exaggerated 1970s period comedy Ferrell is the eponymous television news anchorman Ron Burgundy, a brash, misogynistic braggart who sees himself as the star of “an age when only men were allowed to read the news”. His self-confident sexism is swiftly challenged by the arrival of a sultry new female reporter, played by that other former US TV star Christina Applegate, as the new feminism of the seventies begins to impact on the high pressure world of the news.
It is a basic premise, and hardly an original one, but is Burgundy so wonderfully stupid and lecherous, and the set-pieces so well conceived, that it is very hard not to get caught up in the inanity of the plot and characters. Add in some cameos by Ferrell’s big name buddies Jack Black, Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson and Tim Robbins, and you have all the ingredients for a highly enjoyable, if utterly inconsequential comedy.
This is hardly biting social satire, but it has no wish to be. The aim is simple – make fun of male chauvinists and 1970s fashion disasters. The targets are easy ones, and all are pretty much hit dead on the bullseye. Every now and again, that’s all anyone wants from a movie. Nothing challenging, nothing too clever, just stupid laughs. It’s the Laurel and Hardy approach to film comedy – a bit of slapstick, a bit of wordplay, and a number of elaborate set-ups for a series of inevitable and often predictable (but no less funny for it) punchlines.
It is about time Ferrell made it to the big league, if only because he’s been trying so hard for so long. Whether he has what it takes to make the leap from moderate success to stardom along the lines of the Ben Stillers, Mike Myers and Adam Sandlers of this world has yet to be seen, but this is certainly a promising step along that path. If you fancy a couple of hours of giggling to yourself, Anchorman could well be the one for you.
