Million Dollar Baby review

Number 227 on the top 1000 films of all time is Clint Eastwood's 2004 sports drama Million Dollar Baby.

Clint Eastwood plays Frank Dunn, an irascible boxing coach and gymowner. When Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) asks him to train her, he refuses as she's a girl. But thanks to some gentle encouragement from his friend and former protege Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris (Morgan Freeman,) he soon changes his mind.

I'm going to say it now. I don't like boxing. It doesn't interest me. And as such, boxing films don't interest me regardless of whether they're Rocky, Raging Bull or Million Dollar Baby. I was bored for much of this film but that was more down to my own personal likes and dislikes rather than the film itself.

But I do have one valid criticism and that is Clint Eastwood's acting. He is great director, but he always acts the same character. In Gran Torino he is a grumpy old war veteran, in Unforgiven, he is a grumpy old bounty hunter and in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, he is a grumpy, old cowboy. You get the picture. Million Dollar Baby was no exception to this rule. He plays a grumpy, old boxing instructor with a secret heart of gold. How he was nominated for a best acting Oscar, I will never understand.

But I do understand why Hilary Swank won the Best Actress Oscar and Morgan Freeman, the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Their characters were far more interesting to watch. Maggie has a dysfunctional relationship with her trailer trash, welfare fraud families, while Scrap went blind in one after one fight too many. It was interesting to see how these two characters relate to each other, due to how they both have dark backgrounds.

Seeing Scrap knockout the obnoxious upstart boxer Shawrelle Berry (Anthony Mackie) was one of the best parts of the film.

The ending also surprised me. I thought it would be a cheesy happily ever after, but it was anything but...Dunn arranges for Maggie to fight the German champion Billie "The Blue Bear" Osterman who has a reputation for fighting dirty. In the fight, The Blue Bear sucker punches Maggie and she falls onto her stool and breaks her neck, leaving her as a quadriplegic. To make matters worse, her leg is amputated when her bedsores become infected. She asks Frank to euthanise her which he reluctantly does. I totally thought she would make a miraculous recovery and take down the Blue Bear, but it wasn't to be. And I liked this ending better. It wasn't a fairytale ending, but something more realistic and powerful.

Overall, while Swank and Freeman were great, I just didn't care for this film. But that's just because I don't like boxing.

There Will Be Blood review

 Number 224 of on the top 1000 films of all time is Paul Thomas Anderson's epic period drama There Will be Blood.

Daniel Day-Lewis plays Daniel Plainview, a prospector turned ruthless oil tycoon in Southern California. Over the course of three decades, we see the rise and fall of his empire, as well as his tempestuous relationship with local preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano.)

I'll readily admit that I'm not a fan of period dramas. Generally, I find them slow and boring. I'm just not interested enough in their subject matter. And There Will be Blood  was no exception. This is no disrespect to Mr Day-Lewis. There is no doubt that Plainview is a despicable character. After his adopted son is deafened by an explosion, Plainview sends him to a special school to save him the trouble of raising him. He also cheats the Sundays out of their land and refuses to allow Eli to bless his new wells. 

Despite this he is still a very charismatic character to watch. I wouldn't necessarily say I wanted him to achieve his goals, but I was intrigued to see what would happen. And this was down to Day-Lewis' strong portrayal. He gave a character who could have easily been a stereotypical, moustache-twirling panto villain, a humanity and moral greyness.

I just wish Anderson had this in a shorter amount of time. At times, there is a lot of talking and the pacing was slow. I'm not sure we needed to spend as long as we did on Plainview's fake brother Henry (Kevin J O'Connor.) But maybe that ties in well into the central idea behind the film: it doesn't matter how rich you are if you're the only one enjoying the wealth. Plainview turns his son against him and kills the fraudster impersonating his brother. I wasn't entirely clear on the motivations of the fraudster, but presumably it was to steal Plainview's money.

The film climaxes with Plainview's rivalry with Eli bubbling over into a fall-on confrontation. Plainview beats Eli to death and the film ends with Plainview sitting alone in his massive mansion, a somewhat obvious metaphor for how the pursuit of wealth can leave you lonely.

I did want to enjoy this film more than I did. Day-Lewis truly earned his second Oscar win, but the pacing could have been faster with far less shots of the desert landscape. But hey, maybe that's just me. As I've said, I'm just not a fan of period dramas.

In the Name of the Father review

Number 205 on the top 1000 films of all time is Jim Sheridan's 1993 biopic In the Name of the Father. 

Based on the true story of Gerry Conlon and the Guildford Four, we see the lovable rogue Gerry Conlon, a Belfastian who along with three others are falsely imprisoned when the IRA bomb a pub in Guildford.

Would you believe that this is my very first Daniel Day-Lewis film? He plays Gerry Conlon, taking him on a great character arc from workshy layabout to charismatic hero. From humble beginnings stealing lead from the roofs of houses in Belfast, we see him evolve into a brave leader prepared to stand up for what's right.

And why is that? Because he and his friends have been horrifically betrayed by the British criminal justice system. Bullied into signing a false confession, by policemen keen to cut corners to secure a quick win, he is sentenced to life in prison.

But that isn't all. Conlon's family are also imprisoned under the erroneous idea that they're a support network for the IRA. This includes Conlon's father, Giuseppe, (Pete Poselthwaite.) Poselthwaite is always a formidable actor and he played very well off Day-Lewis, as the film explores their dysfunctional relationship. Giuseppe is a straight, hard-working bookkeeper, in contrast to his immature son, and he quickly disapproves of Gerry's growing relationship with IRA prisoner and true bomber of the pub, Joe McAndrew. But when Giuseppe dies in prison, in the midst of mounting an appeal, Gerry takes up his cause. Although this was somewhat predictable, it was still tragic.

Aided by the solicitor Gareth Pierce (Emma Thompson,) Conlon secures freedom for his friends. And Emma Thompson gave a great performance. The as she fought for her clients was plain to see. I also loved Trevor Jones' musical score. In the final scene after Conlon has secured his freedom, we hear Irish pipes play in the background. This was a small, but powerful touch.

If I were to criticise the film for anything, I would have liked to have seen more of a focus on the rest of the Guildford Four: Paul Hill (John Lynch,) Paddy Armstrong (Mark Sheppard) and Carole Richardson (Beatie Edney.) But I guess Gerry Conlon was always the focus. And of course Jim Sheridan was playing fast and loose with history to produce a powerful if doomy film.

And why was this Pete Poselthwaite's only Oscar-nominated performance? He was a fine actor and he deserved a few more Oscar nods. 

And you maybe wondering whether the true perpetrators for the Guildford pub bombing were ever arrested? No, despite McAndrew openly confessing that he did it, as God forbid the police admit they made a mistake. And were any police officers every punished for hiding evidence, obtaining confessions under duress that led to the false imprisonment of the Guildford Four? No. I am disappointed but not surprised.

A Beautiful Mind review

 Number 191 on the top 1000 films of all time is Ron Howard's 2001 Life is Beautiful. I'm going slightly out of order, as I had the chance to watch this on Netflix.

Based on the true story, John Nash is a brilliant mathematician and student at Princeton. However, his life begins to unravel when he starts suffering from schizophrenic episodes and hallucinations. Jennifer Connelly, Paul Bettany, Anthony Rapp, Adam Goldberg and Christopher Plummer all co-start.

I have to admit that I'm very conflicted about this film. I can see why it was so popular, with John Nash very much fulfilling the 'Overcoming the Monster' storyline. He is the likable if awkward nerd who beats his own demons to become a success, but the film wasn't for me. And maybe that's because John Nash isn't as likable as you might think. Not at first anyway. And that's down to Akiva Goldman's writing and Ron Howard's direction.

In the first act, we're introduced to John Nash and his intellectual chums as they engage in petty games to prove who's the cleverest. However, all this did was portray them as the prototypical, arrogant nerds. While there is some truth behind the stereotype, it doesn't serve to make the characters anymore likable.

This set-up consumes a good portion of the film and, by the time, we've reached the meat and bones of the film, I had almost lost interest. And if I had I would have missed a very intense second act. Nash is recruited into MIT where he is made to do trivial work that is beneath his huge intelligence. This is when William Parcher (Ed Harris) recruits him to do top-secret research for the Ministry of Defence. But, plot twist, Parcher as well as Nash's best friend and ex-roommate Charles Herman (Paul Bettany) are only hallucinations. Here we see Nash undergo severe psychiatric treatment such as ECT (how this was ever a thing, I'll never understand) until he finally accepts the reality of his situation.

This is where we see Nash at his most human rather than as the archetypal, arrogant nerd. Jennifer Connelly was great as Nash's wife, Alicia. She suffered mentally and physically all due to Nash's hallucinations. I wish the film spent more on the middle section, but as it spent too long on the set-up, it had to rush through the rest of the film.

Also, is it me or as Russell Crowe bad at doing accent? Whether it's as Robin Hood or John Nash, his accents are less than convincing.

This could have been a very powerful film, but it was let down by poor pacing and a bad structure. But what do I know? Perhaps I'm just another of these self-confessed geniuses criticising something that I don't fully understand. 

Dial M for Murder review

 Number 178 on the top 1000 films of all time is Alfred Hitchcock's murder mystery Dial M for Murder.

Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) suspects his wife Margot (Grace Kelly) is having an affair with American Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings.) When his suspicions prove true, he plots to have her killed so he can inherit her fortune.

Hitchcock was famously known as the 'Master of Suspense,' and his skills came to the fore in this delightful movie. This is a deceptively simple film with a limited cast and only one or two sets, yet the tension is always high. Mr Wendice is a devious character evidenced by how he blackmails Captain Lesgate (Anthony Dawson) into murdering his wife. And Ray Milland did well to make such a despicable character interesting and charismatic. Although one could argue that the film leant into an excess of exposition at times, the overly talky scenes still brimmed with tension.

However, I think the film's greatest strength was also its greatest weakness. Perhaps it was too simple. Maybe I've been spoiled by all of today's complicated crime dramas, but I was expecting more from the police investigation. Sure there was a great dramatic irony in us knowing that Wendice was plotting to kill his wife while the police were clueless, but maybe that's because the police didn't do the most thorough of investigations. Wendice may have wiped clean most of his fingerprints with his encounter with Lesgate, but he still touched the silk stockings that he used as planted evidence with his bare hands. Maybe I'm being overly critical. Fingerprinting might not have had the importance it does now.

But what did puzzle me was the final act. After Margot is sentenced for Lesgate's murder, Chief Inspector Hubbard (John Williams) returns to the crime scene to conduct his own investigation. He then listens to Wendice and Halliday suggest their own theories. And I don't believe that any chief inspector would even consider entertaining such crazy ideas.

Finally, the backdrops for the exterior shots in Maida Vale were so obviously backdrops. I know this was the fifties, but come on.

Overall, I did enjoy this film. Sure it wasn't always the most believable, but it had a delicious dramatic irony that kept me engrossed throughout.