Dead Man's Shoes review

 Number 518 on the top 1000 films of all time is Shane Meadow's 2004 revenge thriller: Dead Man's Shoes.

Richard (Paddy Considine) is a former paratrooper who returns to his hometown of Matlock, Derbyshire with one thing on his mind: revenge. In his absence, a group of petty crooks led by the psychotic Sonny (Gary Stretch) have been tormenting Richard's younger autistic brother Anthony (Toby Kebells.) Richard is a man out for revenge and you best stay out of his way.

Shane Meadows made this film on a tiny budget of 700k, but he made the best of his low-budget with this entertaining, but not amazing film. It was certainly a good watch, but definitely no worthy of a higher place on the top 1000 film list. Much of the violence happens off-screen, most of the camerawork is hand-held and Meadows filmed on location, all providing a good level of realism. In some ways, this film felt like a pre-cursor to Meadows' breakout directorial effort of This is England.

Paddy Considine is the only big name (although Toby Kebbells has gone onto big things) in Dead Man's Shoes and he did well enough with a relatively shallow character. He won an Empire Award for the role. There isn't much behind Richard's character other than vengeance. Who knows why he is wearing the gasmask when he is committing his crimes especially since the bad guys already know his identity? 

The crooks he aims to kill are similarly two-dimensional with Gary Stretch giving a somewhat campy portrayal of the big bad Sonny. Perhaps that's because Gary Stretch comes from a boxing rather than an acting background. Although maybe I'm just in the minority with this opinion as he was nominated for a British Independent Film Award. I think Toby Kebbells - in his film debut - was one of the better actors, which was reflected in his nomination for Best Newcomer at the British Independent Film Awards.

Paddy Considine also co-wrote the script with Shane Meadows and screen-writer Paul Fraser. I call it a script, it was more a general outline with much of the drama and dialogue being improvised by the actors. Perhaps that's why some of the dialogue was so damn cheesy. I'm thinking about the end where Richard started talking about beasts and monsters.

Speaking of the ending, for once I managed to actually guess the twist. I'm not sure if that's a reflection of my own lack of intelligence or the predictable nature of the film. 

*spoilers*

Maybe this isn't a spoiler if you're smarter than me, but it is revealed that Anthony was driven to suicide by the gang's bullying. The earlier scenes where we see Richard speaking with his brother? He is talking to his brother's ghost. I don't have much problem with the twist itself, but the execution was strange. Anthony was tormented by a group of six bullies until it's revealed that there is a secret seventh one who stood by as an unwilling participant. This man Richard aims to kill last. I found this strange. Sonny was the ringleader. We see how sadistic he was, not just to Anthony, but to everybody. Why wouldn't Richard save him for last?

The undeveloped characters, cheesy writing and strange ending aside, I ultimately did enjoy Dead Man's Shoes. It just shows you don't need a Hollywood budget to make an entertaining film.

Deliverance review

 Number 515 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 1972 thriller film 'Deliverance.'

Lewis (Burt Reynolds) Ed (Jon Voight) Bobby (Ned Beatty) and Drew (Ronny Cox) are four business men who want to canoe down the Cahulawassee river in Georgia before it's dammed up. Lewis and Ed are experienced outdoorsmen while Bobby and Drew are not. Although it first seems this will be a boy's day out, it soon turns into a nightmare journey of survival.

This is a film that started slowly; we see these four townies try and fail to ingratiate themselves with the locals. There is a banjo duel. Nothing too interesting. I was beginning to question my life choices, but then this film proved why it features on this coveted list.

Shit hits the fan when Ed and Bobby are held hostage and tortured by two sadistic mountain men. The rest of the film becomes a deadly game of cat and mouse. Lewis - Burt Reynolds in a star-making role, with his tough-man, survivalist persona is the hero of the first half of the film. However, after he becomes incapacitated Ed emerges as the unlikely hero. Jon Voight proved why he went onto win an Oscar only six years later.

The pace slows down again as our heroes return to civilisation despite director John Boorman's insistence that these scenes were vital to the film. Our heroes swear to keep the traumatic events of the last few days secret. And the film ends on one final image that has bee paid homage to in many countless films.

Ultimately, I enjoyed Deliverance. Yes, the beginning and the ending are slow-paced, but the bit-inbetween was terrific.

The White Ribbon review

 Number 508 on the top 1000 films of all time is Michael Haneke's 2009 German mystery-drama 'The White Ribbon.'

The White Ribbon is set in the fictional village of Eichwald, Northern Germany, in the eve of World War One. Here a number of strange events occur including a farmer's wife dying in mysterious circumstances, the son of the local wealthy landowner being kidnapped and tortured, as well as a barn burning down. The village's school teacher (Christian Friedel) begins to suspect the village's children are behind everything.

This might have just been me, but the White Ribbon struck me as an unintentional homage to the German Expressionist films of old. Granted it lacked the surreal landscapes that Fritz Lang popularised, but it did have that overwhelming sense of dread. Plus, there was a very bleak mystery to be solved.

Yet there was something deeply unsatisfactory about the film. Despite how the school teacher has his suspicions about the village children, nothing is ever confirmed or denied either way. Of course that's life and sometimes you never find out the answers to your questions. However, when you have a mystery as great as this, you would expect at least some attempt at an explanation.

Instead when the school leader raises his concerns to the local priest and village's moral leader (Burghurt Klausner) he is quickly ran out of town. Some suspect the town's doctor, but the film ends with no satisfactory answers. All these strange events become strange stories.

Chances are we'll never know the real reason behind the mystery. I imagine that Haneke is one of those directors who like to leave it up to their audiences to decide. I guess it makes sense that the children were the culprits, but why? That's the biggest mystery of all.

The Fugitive review

 Number 505 on the top 1000 films of all time is the action-thriller 'The Fugitive.'

The Fugitive is based on the famous TV show of the same name. It tells the story of respected Chicago surgeon Dr Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) who is sentenced to death for the murder of his wife, despite protesting his innocence. He escapes from custody and aims to prove his innocence while evading recapture by US Marshal Sam Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones.) Joe Pantoliano and Julianne Moore co-star.

At the 1993 Academy Awards, Tommy Lee Jones controversially won Best Supporting Actor Oscar. He beat out the likes of Leonardo Dicaprio for What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Pete Poselthwaite for in the Name of the Father, Ralph Fiennes for Schindler's List and John Malkovich for In the Line of Fire - with Fiennes being a shoe-in for the award. Having seen all but Malkovich's performance, I agree that the controversy was justified. Any one of the other actors would have been justified in winning the award.

Tommy Lee Jones was certainly a charismatic and entertaining presence as Sam Gerard. Was he Oscar-worthy? Absolutely not.

If anybody did deserve an Oscar nod, it would have been Harrison Ford who was great as the leading man Dr Richard Kimble. Yet despite the emotional pathos he brought to the role, he wasn't even nominated. It was a great shame, as I'm tempted to call it some of his best work. Unlike Star Wars, Indiana Jones or Blade Runner, where he played a roguish hero, Dr Ricard Kimble was an everyman.

Speaking of a shame, Julianne Moore was largely wasted in a supporting role. She plays a doctor in the hospital where Kimble hides as a fugitive. He pretends to be a janitor there. Despite scenes being shot giving her a much larger role including being Kimble's new love interest, these were eventually cut.

While we're talking about supporting actors, I've yet to see Joe Pantoliano in a leading man role. He plays supporting characters like the police detective here with so much gusto and energy. It's a shame he's always relegated to the supporting cast.

Questionable editing choices aside, I did enjoy the Fugitive. Granted, it was pure nonsense especially with Kimble surviving his jump from the dam, I was willing to suspend my disbelief. It helped that you could see it was so obviously a dummy. Maybe there were some Tommy Lee Jones' fans adamant that he was fully deserving of his Oscar, to quote Sam Gerard: "I don't care."

The Longest Day review

 Number 494 on the top 1000 films of all time is the epic historical war-drama 'The Longest Day.'

The Longest Day tells the dramatic story of the invasion of Dunkirk told from the perspective both the Allies and the Germans. It has a large ensemble cast with a whole host of famous stars like John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Sean Connery, Richard Burton, Robert Mitchum, Rod Steiger, Robert Wagner and Paul Anka.

There is no denying the the technical prowess behind The Longest Day. Shot as a docudrama, director Daryl F Zanuck deliberately chose a black-and-white colour scheme so he could really zero into the human element of the war. 

His cinematographers Jean Bourgoin and Walter Wottiz went onto the Best Cinematography Oscar for black and white. Znuck's special effects team led by Robert Macdonald and Jacques Maumont also won for Best Special effects. Neither of these were a surprise as the film was gripping from the outset, making a two and a half World War Two epic, a fast-paced thrilling watch. No doubt 'The Longest Day' influenced subsequent WW dramatisations like Saving Private Ryan, Dunkirk or Band of Brothers.

However, while the film looked great on-screen and was technically proficient, it fell down on its character work. Like I said, it had a massive supporting cast with many of its actors like Mitchum, Connery, Fonda and Burton being rendered to mere cameos. It was less immersing yourself in a different world and more spot the famous face. There wasn't a single protagonist or protagonists that you could follow throughout the film.

Nonetheless, the Longest Day was an entertaining dramatisation of one of the most important moments of not just World War Two, but world history.

Panic Room review

Panic Room does not feature on any iteration of the top 1000 films of all time. However, as I watched it recently, I'm giving my views nonetheless.

Recently divorced mother Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) and her diabetic daughter (Sarah) have just moved into a new four-storey house in New York City's Upper West Side. The house has its own panic room. After Meg and Sarah are invaded by a trio of burglars the ring-leader Junior (Jared Leto,) the psychotic Raoul (Dwight Yoakam) and the more compassionate Burnham (Forest Whitaker,) mother and daughter take shelter in the panic room. However, that's exactly where the home invaders want to be too.

Panic Room was David Fincher's fifth full-length directorial film. He is well-represented on the 2024 edition of the top 1000 films of all time with 8/12 of his films being featured on there. It's no surprise Alien 3 isn't on the list - maybe it would be on a list of the 1000 worsen films of all time. And perhaps Mank and the Killer are too modern to be featured. But it was a surprise that Panic Room didn't make it onto the list. Don't ask me how the mind of an IMDB audience works, but they obviously love Fincher as the majority of his films make some appearance on this list.

Panic Room had all the hallmarks of your classic Fincher thriller including low lighting, tight camera angles and morally grey characters. It also had a rousing score by frequent collaborator Howard Shore. However, what separated Panic Room from other Fincher thrillers was its sense of claustrophobia. Much of the film takes place in the Altman's panic room meaning you feel every second of its stuffy atmosphere.

 Having been exhausted by the multiple sets on Fight Club, Fincher wanted to direct something far simpler and more pared down. Considering the multiple production issues he had including Jodie Foster being a last-minute replacement for Nicole Kidman (who still appears in a tiny voiceover role) or having to reshoot some of the film with Foster returning on maternity leave, I'm not sure whether this production was much simpler for him really.

Regardless of the simplicity of the shoot, I still thought Panic Room was an entertaining film. It might have lacked some of the social commentary of his most famous film Fight Club or the gore of Se7en, but it had a cracking cast. Jodie Foster, Jared Leto, Nicole Kidman and Forest Whitaker share four acting Oscars between them while Kristen Stewart is also Oscar-nominated. This was only her third film, but proved to be her breakout role. 

Jared Leto brought a great manic energy to Junior who desperately tries to keep control while his well-thought strategy to rob the panic room crumbles around him. He contrasted well with the more calm and controlled Forest Whitaker. However, I think the dark horse of the three was the psychotic Dwight Yoakam who brought a scarily calm energy to the role of Raoul. Although Yoakam is better known as a country music singer this was definitely not his first rodeo as he starred in the earlier 1996 film Sling Blade.

True, as the film progresses, it goes get slightly more absurd eventually concluding in an anti-climatic disappointing ending. 

*spoilers to follow*

Having spent much of the film locked up in the panic room with minimal mobile phone signal, Meg finally gets through to 911 only for them to put her on hold, which rather beggared belief. This was a plot point a bit too fantastical to really believe. In the final confrontation between Meg, Sarah and Raoul, it isn't the women who kill Raoul, but Burnham who has a change of heart. 

This change of heart means he is inevitably caught by the police. Right at the start, it was established that Burnham was the most compassionate of the three burglars due to his outright declaration of not wanting to kill anybody, so I guess I could buy him coming back to save the women. However, Panic Room received a lot of critical praise for its feminist themes - much of the film prior to the climax shows the female Meg and Sarah outsmarting the male burglars yet they were ultimately saved by a man - Burnham. 

True, it might be unlikely for a mother and twelve-year-old girl to overpower a murderous man like Raoul, but we already saw Meg's intelligence. I would have been willing to suspend my disbelief to have seen her fatally outsmart Raoul. While Sarah was attacking Raoul from behind, perhaps Meg could have found the wherewithal to have picked up Raoul's gun and shoot him. To not have done so, slightly countermanded the feminist messaging. But maybe I'm looking too much into it.

The film ultimately ends on a bit of damp squib with Meg and Sarah discussing new places to live. Perhaps this is what stopped it from featuring on the top 1000 films of all time - that and all the unnecessary slow-motion. 

Although it didn't earn its place on the top 1000 films of all time, Panic Room was still an entertaining and thrilling film to watch. 

Saving Mr Banks review

 Number 488 on the top 1000 films of all time is the biographical drama 'Saving Mr Banks.'

Saving Mr Banks tells the true story of famed Mary Poppins author P.L Travers (Emma Thompson) in the latter stages of her career. Resisting Walt Disney's (Tom Hanks) requests to turn the Mary Poppins books into films for years, Travers finally relents after her dire finances are revealed. She travels to LA to oversee the process. Flashbacks also show her childhood growing up in Australia as well as her troubled relationship with her alcoholic father Travers Goff (Colin Farrell.) B.J Novak, Jason Schwartzman, Paul Giamatti and Ruth Wilson co-star.

As I'm sure sick of hearing by now, I am generally not a fan of biopics or period dramas. This is particularly true of films like Saving Mr Banks where I have no interest in the subject matter. I've never given Mary Poppins a second thought beyond it being an entertaining film. I did not expect to enjoy Saving Mr Banks, but I'm glad to say I was proven wrong.

Much of that was down to Emma Thompson's absolutely delightful portrayal of P.L Travers. She really proved why she is a double-Oscar winning actress. Although Disney heavily lobbied for Thompson to receive what would have been her fourth Oscar actress nomination, she ultimately ended up being nominated for the BAFTA best actress award. Either way, she was great as the Mary Poppins author. I loved her portrayal of the author as this uptight, prim-and-proper, no nonsense Brit who soon clashes with the more laidback and easy-going Americans.

Despite that, we see her icy veneer begin to melt as she is worn down by the executives at Disney. This includes Walt Disney but also by her chauffeur Ralph (Paul Giamatti,) screenwriter Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford,) and composers Richard and Robert Sherman (Jason Schwartzman and B.J Novak.) The actors all had great chemistry together and, despite my general grumpy old manness, I couldn't help but smile along at their antics. This was especially true with Paul Giamatti who was truly endearing as Travers' chauffeur Ralph. Despite Travers' initial hostility, Ralph's optimism never waivers, making him one of the best characters in the film.

Yet beyond the humour and warmth, there was some strong emotional depth. This was saved for the flashback scenes to Travers' childhood where we see her mother Margaret (Ruth Wilson) desperately trying to keep their family and marriage together while her father Travers (Colin Farrell) battles against his alcoholism. Like many alcoholics, he isn't an inherently bad person, but somebody who has just dug himself into a hole. Despite how his actions drive Margaret to the absolute edge, Travers still absolutely adores him. All credit to Colin Farrell for this portrayal.

I said earlier that although Disney lobbied for this film heavily at the Oscars, it was ultimately only nominated for the Best Original Score. This was a well-earned nomination, as the musical numbers were some of the best moments of the film.

Saving Mr Banks really surprised me as a film. Just like the initially icy PL Travers was worn down by American enthusiasm and optimism, so was I. And I'm all the better for it.