Valkyrie (2009)

I was stuck with an evening to kill in town with my cinema pass in my hand and so I chose to see a couple of films. I’lll be going to see ‘Frost/Nixon’ and ‘Milk’ with my wife and have seen a few of the others currently showing and so that- and the screening times- left me with a double bill of ‘Valkyrie’ and ‘The Reader’. With ‘Valkyrie’ up first.

So, this is the Tom Cruise lining himself with proper actors like Tom Wilkinson, Terence Stamp and Kenneth Branagh in a bid to showcase his talent. He plays a German Officer with an American accent who loses an eye and one and a half of his hands in the first scene of the movie. Now, as Tom is a severely limited actor whose entire range consists of either flashing a handsome toothy grin or shaking his fist beside his head and shouting, these particular impairments are severe indeed. It's akin to Frank Bruno stepping in the ring with Lennox Lewis again- only this time wearing handcuffs. And, so it turns out as you would expect. I'll explain- Terence Stamp acts Tom Cruise off the screen in this movie and do you know how? He doesn't change his expression at any point and reads his lines solemnly. This is Terry Stamp doing an advert for that life insurance that only the over-50s can have and still he makes Tom Cruise look like a kid in a nativity play. Pitiful, Tom. Give it up and make action movies with car chases like you're supposed to. Or just give it up.

I mentioned earlier that Tom keeps his own accent through the course of the movie and it is fucking pathetic. It isn't acting if you just stand in front of a camera being yourself, you nob! I'm not asking him to do anything strenuous in the way of research like watching 'Das Boot' all the way through, just to swap the odd double-u for a vee and pronounce your th sounds as a zed. Show willing at least. Everyone in the film keeps their own accents by the way- presumably not to show Tom up- which means that you get the broad Scouse of Yosser Hughes conversing with New Yorker Tom as fellow countrymen in the opening scene. It doesn't set the film up well, I'll put it that way. I know that Sean Connery won an Oscar playing an Irish-American Chicago policeman with an Edinburgh burr, but that was a one off surely. I love Connery dearly (incidentally, I saw him interviewed recently and he looks like shit I hope he's okay) but to win for that and not, say, 'Goldfinger' or 'The Man Who Would Be King' must baffle even him. Anyway, I digress. So, everyone keeps their accent and it's fine- until Thomas Kretschmann and Christian Berkel appear. They are German, you see- and everyone is then shown up all over again.

I'm going to digress again now. Mentioning Thomas Kretschmann reminds me, he went straight from filming 'SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2' (which I've seen, to my lasting shame) to filming 'Downfall / Der Untergang'. Has anyone else ever gone quite so blatantly from the ridiculous to the sublime I wonder? This is the kind of thing I found myself thinking during 'Valkyrie'- the thought that occupied me for longest, though, was 'was 'The Usual Suspects' Bryan Singer's version of Deee-Lite's 'Groove Is In The Heart', a brilliant zeitgest-riding fluke?

Of course, this being a Tom Cruise movie it has a huge budget- lots of sweeping helicopter shots, well-paid cameos and CGI which, in truth, do nothing to improve the viewing experience. It is supposed to look expensive and it does. It's still shit, though. 1/10.

Is Anybody There? (2008)

I haven't been able to get on here for a while- in fact it's been a week since I saw Is Anybody There? and Goldfinger- which poses a bit of a problem. My Goldfinger notes were about two paragraphs in and I've just tossed them off so that I can get to this film. It's not like I need notes to remember that particular film. With Is Anybody There? I could have done with notes at the time, this is far from a memorable film.

So you've got Michael Caine as an ageing, retired magician (he seems to like films about conjuring these days) and young Bill Milner from the lovely Son Of Rambow as- guess what- a geeky outsider kid and they strike up a friendship and teach one another about life and love. That's right, they strike up the kind of friendship that is really unusual except in films where they're ten-a-penny. It looks quite nice; shot in a fuzzy, vaguely lo-fi, slightly off-kilter and- I suppose- quite trendy way. There are a couple of good performances- I especially liked Anne-Marie Duff as Bill Milner's mother- and some nice cameos from a couple of top-notch old players (Leslie Phillips, Peter Vaughan, Mavis from Coronation Street, Elizabeth Spriggs and Sylvia Sims). And so I liked it for that.

But because it's formulaic and a bit obvious and determinedly bittersweet I didn't even remember it a week later, rendering these notes redundant, so it's sort of okay but a poor utilisation of the superb talents on show. 4/10

Goldfinger (1964)

I genuinely think that this is one of the best films I've seen. I go back to something that I often harp on about- a film must be judged against its aims and Goldfinger has lofty aims which it exceeds. The third Bond picture followed the excellent From Russia With Love and deliberately raised the stakes from that early high-spot. The intention is to retain the levels of intrigue and to increase the wow factor with a bigger budget used wisely.

Connery returns again as Bond in a serious, steely mood- there is a spite behind his wisecracks throughout- and, for me, his third performance in the role is his best. By his fifth he would have relaxed into sleepwalking through the films for cash. And his iconic status here is assisted by the direction of Guy Hamilton (pipping Martin Campbell as the best of Bond's directors) who achieves the double intention of making Bond credible as a thriller hero and yet incredible as an unflappable superman.

The film- like The Great Escape which I watched a few weeks ago- is more than a mere film these days, it is a huge part of our cultural fabric. And, with that in mind, it's hard to ignore the significance of Oddjob, Pussy Galore, the Aston Martin DB5 and "no Mr Bond I expect you to die". But doing that and judging this solely on its own merits it still stands up. It is fantastic entertainment; tightly scripted, well acted in the main with compelling memorable characters, hilarious dialogue- "shocking, positively shocking", "no mister Bond, I expect you to die", "I must have appealed to her maternal instincts", "I have a slight inferiority complex" and a great interaction between Bond and his allies M, Q, Moneypenny and Felix Leiter.

I honestly love it. Everyone does don't they? 10/10

Oliver Twist (1948)

It's difficult to know what to mention first- Lean's masterfully clear narrative structure or Guinness's incredible prosthetic nose (what is it about Lean putting Guinness in mad costumes?); Robert Newton's eyeball-rolling losing-it-rapidly Bill Sykes or Guy Green's wonderful almost Expressionistic camerawork; the atmospheric opening or the delicious scenery-eating of Francis L. Sullivan- this is a very rich film. I love the performances, the pace, the storyline and dialogue (though most of the credit there goes Boz, obviously) but most of all I really love the look of the film. The stark monochrome contrast and wonderfully deep set locations in scenes like Sykes' rooftop escape or Twist's flee through the London streets leave an indelible impression on the watcher. This looks more like the London of Dickens' novels than any film I've seen- it is authentic and haunting.

I don't want to say too much, I want to surprise myself when I see it again. Everyone knows the story but this retelling of it is still surprising. Superlative, better even than Lean's Great Expectations. 10/10.

Villain (1971)

"I don't want a fertile imagination, I don't want to know if society's to blame, I just want to catch criminals"

The film opens with two heavies waiting in a London flat, as a car pulls up in the street below they wake Burton giving him time to wash his face and compose himself. As he does so, the owner of the flat returns and they hold him captive. Fresh and alert, Burton enters the room and- with barely a word- begins to deliver a vicious beating and then takes out a cut-throat razor. Our next sight of the victim is when Burton looks up from beside a drip of blood (having made a crass joke about pigeon droppings) and sees him tied to a chair hanging from a window horrifically lacerated. On the other hand our next view of Burton sees him after he returns home and gently wakes his Mum with a cup of tea and offers to take her for a ride out to the coast. Now THAT is how to start a film!

This is one of those films that you rarely hear about, almost a lost classic. You'll be discussing Get Carter or The Long Good Friday and someone will say 'you should see Villain', only as no-one ever has the conversation moves on quickly. It's such a shame that this is forgotten and shite like The Business is relatively lauded. Richard Burton plays Vic Dakin, the kind of character that in summary sounds implausible; he's a gay, sadistic, sociopathic gangland boss who lives with his Mum and rules part of London through fear. It sounds implausible except that there was a guy like that in the sixties called Ronnie (or maybe Reggie, I get them confused) Kray. And, whether you find him plausible or not, the depth of characters like Dakin put this film streets ahead of most efforts in the genre.

It isn't just about Burton- and he is compelling, just the right side of overdoing it- everyone on show here is a cut above. Especially Ian McShane who, as Wolfie a small-time hustler and object of Dakin's sadistic lust, has an even more compelling part and really makes the most of it. Even some of the minor characters are fascinatingly written- Nigel Davenport's dogged, determined and stoical policeman Matthews who appreciates the futility of his task but presses on anyway; Joss Ackland's gangster who spends an entire hold-up chomping down hard-boiled eggs to ease his stomach ulcer; top-notch Irish character actor T.P.McKenna's rival gangster who is far more businessman than criminal; and smarmy, velvet-purring Donald Sinden as a crooked, seedy MP.

In fact, it isn't just the characters- the plot is formulaic but the dialogue is marvellous ("he's a bit bent for a start. You know the type, thinks the world owes him something. A wanker", "you festering pig", "Stupid punters. Telly all the week, screw the wife Saturday") especially when Dakin is upbraiding anyone who dares to even look at a woman ("sordid!") or doesn't wash their hands after taking a piss. I also liked the underlying themes that crime is just a job, a means of employment on both sides of the law and that removing one criminal just creates an opportunity for another jobbing criminal. The crime-as-a-business angle is never overplayed but the existence of a structure, hierarchy and protocol as a given is an important aspect to Villain.

I'd like to mention Christopher Challis' excellent cinematography, not only does he handle the task of transmitting gritty realism with aplomb but he manages to capture an excellent car chase and also take very intimate and graphic shots of various fights including the main crime around which the film revolves. Superb. The soundtrack too (Jonathan Hodge) is excellent, switching from tinny funk to stabbing synthy strings to John Carpenter-like piano motifs; all of it is reminiscent of films that would follow but oddly Hodge himself would get very little more work, similarly the director (Michael Tuchner) did little else of note. But at least they did this. A proper British gangster thriller that I loved- they even found a space for a Michael Robbins cameo- 8/10.