Groundhog Day review

 Number 266 on the top 1000 films of all time is Harold Ramis' 1993 fantasy comedy 'Groundhog Day.'

Phil Connors (Bill Murray) is a journalist reporting the famous Groundhog Day festivities in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvannia when he finds himself trapped in a time loop. Forced to relive the same day over and over, the cynical and irascible Phil has to rethink how he wants to live his life. Andi Macdowell co-stars as Phil's producer and love interest Rita Hanson.

Since its release, Groundhog Day has become a cultural phenomenon with its fans celebrating it every year. It's certainly a satisfying watch as we see Phil complete a nice character arc. We see him start a miserable, grumpy reporter who hates how he has to report nonsense stories like the Groundhog Day into a man who starts to appreciate life more.

Much of this was down to Bill Murray. Harold Ramis was determined to use Murray, as all the other choices seemed too nice. But Murray turned what could have been an unlikeable Phil Connors into a likeable character. Granted he's still a hit of a jerk, but he is a likeable one. Although he is in a very undesirable situation.

Ramis' direction was very good as well. Time-loop films by their very nature can have a tendency to be repetitive, but Ground Hog never felt particularly monotonous. not for me anyway, as for Phil, it was a very different story.

I was a little confused about Andie Macdowell's accent. at times, it was standard American and at others, it reverted to her native Georgian accent. Andie Macdowell specifically asked to do this, but I don't understand why. it was very jarring.

Nevertheless, Groundhog Day was a very enjoyable and creative film with lots of humour and lots of heart.

End of Watch review

 Number 633 on the top 1000 films of all time is the crime drama 'End of Watch.'

Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena) are best friends and LAPD officers. Shot documentary style, the film follows their relationship as they stumble upon a massive drug-running and people trafficking organisation and soon become targets of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Since starting this challenge, I've watched my fair share of cop dramas from Crash to Training Day. And they're often felt unrealistic. Either they've been over-the-top or too understated. But End of Watch had a lovely authenticity flowing through it. Part of that was down to its cinematography.

As previously stated, this was shot as a documentary. This is worked into the story. Brian is doing a film class and so he's filming all his police work on a hand-held camcorder. What he misses is picked up by dashcam and bodycam footage. Some critics maligned this as being unnecessary and confusing. Yes, at times, especially during the gunfights, it did become chaotic. But that's exactly what it would be like in real life. And the camera work adds another layer of realism. It shows these cops at their most relaxed, there is no fake facade or veneer. These are your police, like them or not. 

Rather than being unnecessary, it made everything feel so much more real. What I will concede is that it was strange seeing the Mexican gangbangers film themselves with camcorders too. Surely, they're smart enough to realise that they're incriminating themselves. This didn't make any sense.

Another reason End of Watch felt so real was because of the chemistry of the two leads - Gyllenhaal and Pena. Reportedly, the two didn't connect at first, but over time they became good friends. And this came across in the final project. A lot of the banter between them was completely improvised making their relationship all the more genuine. You got a real sense of the camaraderie that exists within the police force.

If there was anything I didn't like, it was the ending. *Spoiler alert* The cartel tracks down Taylor and Zavala - shooting both of them. Taylor survives and Zavala doesn't.  It would have been better if this was the other way around. Taylor is reckless and impulsive, often dragging his friend into danger - he's the one who initially incurs the cartel's wrath. It would make sense that his rashness would get him killed. But then again, it's all too common for the more rational characters like Zavala to die because of the impulsiveness of people like Taylor.

Granted, the film is a little cheesy in places - I could have done without Taylor's opening monologue, where he espouses about what it means to be a police officer. However, I do think that this type of cultural identity definitely exists within the LAPD.

This is a gritty police drama that neither exaggerates what being a police officer is like nor does it romanticise it. Rather it creates an authentic reality that lets the viewer make up their own mind.

Training Day review

 Number 613 on the top 1000 films of all time is 2001 crime thriller Training Day.

Set over twenty-four hours in a rough LA neighbourhood, Training Day explores the relationship between two police officers: the maverick, borderline corrupt, Narcotics detective Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington) and his new rookie partner Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke.)

Training Day pits two moralities against each other: Harris' the ends always justifies the means and Hoyt's justice over vengeance. Whereas the naive and innocent Hoyt wants to play by the rulebook, Harris rips it up and throws it out the window. He is adamant that his own brand of justice is what produces results from faking search warrants to unlawfully shooting suspects and covering up their murders. Hoyt has to battle hard to tow the line. The last thing he wants is to be sucked into Harris' corrupt ways.  But which form of justice is best?

Training Day makes a compelling argument for both. There is a time for following the rules and a time for breaking them. Breaking the rules, all the time, like Harris does, makes them redundant. But you can't be rigid, like Hoyt, and follow them to the letter. Which morality is better? That's for the audience to decide.

Denzel Washington won the Best Actor Oscar and while he brought a realism to the character, I don't think his performance was oscar-worthy. We've seen the corrupt cop who breaks the rules to get the job done time and time again. While Washington brought a charisma to the role, he was over-the-top. His adlibbed line "King Kong aint got shit on me" just sounded stupid.

Ethan Hawke was more convincing as the still wet-behind-the-ears Hoyt. It is his actions that drive the plot forward. Despite Harris' warnings, he stops two junkies trying to rape a teenage girl - an intervention that later saves his life when Hoyt is about to be killed by Mexican gangbangers. And it is Hoyt's refusal to go along with Harris' cover-up of a murder that brings them to odds. Perhaps you could argue Hoyt symbolises every wide-eyed, newbie cop determined to save the world while Harris is the cynical, jaded, washed-up copper beaten down by the world he has been trying to save. And rather than playing the victim, Harris spins the opportunity to his advantage.

Training Day had a nice authentic current running through it. Director Antoine Fuqua gained permission to film in neighbourhoods belonging to the 'Bloods' gang in exchange for Blood gangbangers appearing in the film. However, the ending seemed odd. Harris and Hoyt get into one final confrontation in a barrio where Harris holds control over the residents. The whole neighbourhood comes to watch. While they were initially Harris' acolytes they betray and even threaten to shoot him. I guess they were sick of his bossing them around and I suppose they had lost respect for him, but this is pure supposition in lieu of any real explanation. And it was all pointless anyway as they don't kill Harris. Instead he is later shot by the Russian mob who he has had an off-screen run-in.

Training Day was a good film if a tad overrated. Hawke was great, but the ending was strange. And Washington was more cartoon than actual character.

The Last of the Mohicans review

 Number 474 on the top 1000 films of all time is Michael Mann's epic historical drama film 'The Last of the Mohicans.'

Nathaniel 'Hawkeye' Poe (Daniel Day-Lewis) is an English man raised by the Mohawk tribe in 18th century America. When he falls in love with Cora Munro (Madeline Stowe,) the daughter of Colonel Munro (Maurice Roeves) of the British army, he's dawn into a colonial war between England and France. Meanwhile Colonel Munro and, by extension, Cora and her sister Alice (Jodhi May) are being hunted down by Magua (Wes Studi,) a Huron with a grudge to bear.

Never mind the Last of the Mohicans, I thought I would be the last of the Lintons by the time I finished watching this film. It was only two hours long, but it could have easily been an hour and a half, if it wasn't for all the bloody slow-motion. Don't get me wrong, slow motion can be great when used correctly, but not when it's used for every other shot. We don't need to see the characters walking or riding their horses in slow-motion. Even the fight scenes were in slow motion which became tedious after a while. They're fight scenes, they're supposed to be fast and chaotic.

Beyond this, the film was slowly paced. There was a lot of talking for what was supposed to be a drama. You get the colonials fretting about their ranches being attacked or Munro fretting about his daughters or the colonials plotting to desert the base. There was so much talking that when the action scenes finally happened I had almost switched off. And the less said about all the staring in the fight scenes the better.

The music did nothing to help the pacing either. Large parts of the film including the slow-motion scenes were set to a grandiose, often cheesy, instrumental score, which made the film even slower.

As for Day-Lewis, when he was on screen, I thought he was good, but I also think he was severely underused. This was weird as he is the main character. But it took him a while to appear, and even while writing this review, I was struggling to remember his character's name. But I did like the supporting cast. Madeline Stowe who played Cora had a good agency about her, stealing a pistol and later shooting an Indian who's going to kill her.

And even her sister Alice, rather than be a prisoner of Magua, takes her fate into her own hands by jumping from a cliff. Then we have Major Heyward (Steven Waddington) who goes through a nice redemption arc. He proposes to Cora only to have him reject him and then he quickly becomes jealous of her growing closer with Nathaniel. The two become enemies, uneasy allies and eventually Heyward sacrifices himself to Magua in exchange for Lora's life. Although I found that a bit difficult to believe. Magua, not only wants Munro dead, but also his bloodline. Why would he let Cora go instead of killing her?

If a film stars Daniel Day-Lewis, you would expect to enjoy it, but the Last of the Mohicans didn't do ti for me. Too much slow motion and grandiose music.

Ferris Bueller's Day off review

 Number 425 on the top 1000 films of all time is John Hughes's teen comedy drama 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off.'

Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) is a high-school slacker. He fakes illness to skip school for the day joined by his best friend, the neurotic Cameron (Alan Ruck) and Ferris' girlfriend (Mia Sara.) In the meanwhile, he is relentlessly pursued by his high school dean Ed Rooney (Jeffrey Jones) who is determined to prove that he is up to trouble. He is also separately pursued by his sister Jeannie (Jennifer Grey) who similarly believes that Ferris is faking his illness.

To say that Ferris Bueller has had a massive cultural impact would be an understatement. It's constantly parodied and referenced in popular culture. Deadpool parodying the famous end scene is just one of the million examples. Part of its cultural legacy comes from the film's intertextual humour. Ferris constantly breaks the fourth wall by directly addressing the audience and explaining his inner thoughts. This was a great insight into the character and it provided a lot of the film's humour.

But Matthew Broderick was also great at physical comedy. The famous scene of Ferris  lip-syncing and dancing in the parade was so much fun to watch. It was made even better by virtue of how that was filmed in public and contains unscripted dancing of genuine members of the public. Another great scene is when Ferris is rushing home so as not to be caught out by his returning parents.

But I think another reason it was so popular was how relatable it was. I feel at that age we all have dreams of skiving off school and getting into trouble. We all have fantasies of what we could do if we had the chance. Granted it probably wouldn't be as anything as fantastical as what we see here. I certainly would not be lip-synching on a parade float, but at least I would be out there enjoying life as a teenager rather than being condescended to by a passionless teacher. It depicts a very romanticised view of a more innocent time and it provides a nostalgic lens for modern audiences to look back on.

I just wish that we could have focussed a little more on Cameron. He was the foil to Ferris' carefree ways. Against Cameron's wishes, they drive to downtown Chicago in his dad's vintage Ferrari before leaving it with a parking attendant. Ferris promises that they'll return it undamaged before Cameron's dad even notices. We get glimpses that Cameron's dad is this hard-arse, over-bearing father who projects fear. Cameron is very wary about upsetting him. Yet we never see any of this first-hand. I think something like this could have really helped to flesh out his character, but perhaps it would have been too dark for a comedy.

But overall I really did enjoy this film. It was a funny watch and in lieu of any profound concluding remarks, I'll quote the film's key lesson "life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you'll miss it."