Zero Dark Thirty review

 Number 865 on the top 1000 films of all time is Kathryn Bigelow's 2012 historical-drama-thriller film Zero Dark Thirty.

On the ninth of September 2001, America bore witness to its worst terrorist attack in history. And so started the war on terror as well as the man-hunt for the leader of Al-Qaeda Osama Bin Laden. Jessica Chastain stars as Maya, a CIA intelligence analyst who is in charge of the operation to bring OBL to justice. The huge ensemble cast includes Joel Edgerton, Jason Clarke, Mark Strong, James Gandolfini, Chris Pratt, Harold Perrineau and John Barrowman.

In creating this film, Bigelow and writer Marc Boal wanted to highlight the efforts that women played in the catching of OBL. Maya was reportedly a composite of several female CIA analysts who spear-headed the operation. Of course the CIA have never formally acknowledged the existence of these analysts out of fears for their safety. But, either way, Bigelow and Boal did these women justice. It was a great way to showcase female representation on the screen especially because of all the obstacles Maya faces. I'm not even talking about Al Qaeda, but her male superiors constantly undermining her ideas.

Jessica Chastain received an Oscar nod for her performance. It was well-earned. She played the role of Maya with a quiet confidence. And she was very convincing. I think it was a powerful portrayal of a character who despite being constantly set back never loses faith in herself, her abilities or her mission. As for the rest of the cast, I may argue it was bloated. There were a lot of characters that blended into each other. I don't think there was need for all of them. And, unfortunately, that led to some brilliant actors being absolutely squandered e.g Mark Strong, John Barrowman or James Gandolfini. The cast could have definitely be trimmed.

Zero Dark Thirty did receive some criticism for glorifying the use of torture as an interrogation method. This refers to the opening sequence where CIA officer Dan Fuller (Jason Clarke) waterboards and otherwise brutally tortures a terrorist. Torture not being an effective method to gain information aside, I would not agree that this sequence was glorified at all. Granted, it makes for unpleasant viewing, but you can see that Dan is not a sadist. He doesn't enjoy doing what he's doing, but he has a job to do. Later on, he laments on his actions.

But I think Bigelow's direction excelled in the final half-hour of the film where we see a Navy Seal team infiltrate OBL's compound. This was a brilliantly-directed sequence that always kept the tension high. It was gripping to watch. A lesser director may have added on a cheesy and grandiose score, but Bigelow made the excellent decision to not have an incidental music at all. And that was a great way to keep me on the edge of my seat.

Yes, Zero Dark Thirty has a bloated cast - Maya was a composite of many characters, why couldn't they have done that for the other characters - but Chastain gave an Oscar-worthy performance and the final sequence was fantastic film-making.

The Illusionist review

 Number 657 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 2006 romantic mystery film 'The Illusionist.'

Set in turn-of-the-century Vienna, Eisenhelm (Edward Norton) is a well-renowned magician and illusionist who was separated from his love Sophie (Jessica Biel) when they were only teenagers. Now adults, he discovers she is betrothed to Crown-prince Leopold, (Rufus Sewell) heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. He starts plotting to win her back all while he is being pursued by Leopold's chief of police Walter Uhl (Paul Giamatti.)

For a romance film, I thought the romance element was surprisingly weak. Even as teenagers, I don't think Eisenhelm and Sophie had much chemistry. And this was only exemplified when the two grew up. There was a severe lack of chemistry between Norton and Biel. I didn't really believe either of them being together. And considering the film is a romance, that was a major problem. Their performances weren't convincing at all. It was boring to watch. Thankfully, the film didn't linger on the tepid romance.

Instead, it focussed on the cat-and-mouse game between Leopold and Eisenhelm. This was far more interesting. When Leopold hears of Eisenhelm's prowess, he invites him to perform at the royal palace. But when Eisenhelm discovers that the animalistic Leopold is betrothed to Sophie, the illusionist humiliates the crown prince in front of all his peers. This kicks us off a bitter rivalry between the two, as Eisenhelm and Sophie plot to leave the country.

Sewell was convincing as the spoiled, petulant prince who was always determined to have his way. He was a dangerous villain and the perfect foil to Eisenhelm's outspoken arrogance. But I think the best actor was Paul Giamatti in the supporting role of Chief Inspector Walter Uhl. Initially, starting out as an unwitting pawn of Leopold's plans, he finds himself questioning everything as Leopold becomes increasingly more unstable. Giamatti played this fine balancing act with finesse.

Also despite being about magic, I wasn't convinced about any of the magic tricks shown within the film. Compared to other films like the Prestige, the magic wasn't very impressive at all. It certainly wasn't what I would expect from a well-renowned illusionist like Eisenhelm.

Overall, while it had some good performances, the Illusionist was a largely uneven watch with an extremely weak romance. And considering the film IS a romance, that isn't the best.

Sleepers review

 Number 792 on the top 1000 films of all time is the legal crime-drama Sleepers.

Lorenzo "Shakes" Carcaterra (Joe Perrino,) Tommy Marcano (Jonathan Tucker,) John Riley (Geoffrey Wigdor) and Michael Sullivan (Brad Renfro) are four boys growing up in the Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood of New York. Father Bobby Carillo (Robert De Niro) keeps a watchful eye over them. But when a childish prank goes horribly wrong, the four boys are sentenced to Wilkinson's Home for Boys where they experience horrific abuse by the guards led by Sean Noakes (Kevin Bacon.) Cut thirteen years into the future, the now adult John (Ron Eldard,) Tommy (Billy Crudup,) Shakes (Jason Patric) and Michael (Brad Pitt) swear to take revenge on everybody who did them harm.

Sleepers is very much a story of two halves. We have the lives of the boys before they attend Wilkinson's and their lives afterwards. If anything I preferred the first half. We're given a rich tapestry and a deep insight into life within Hell's Kitchen. There's no doubt that our four protagonists are little shits, but they are still interesting to watch.

And then things go south in the second half. The narrative tension just stops, as we enter a courtroom drama. The contrivance of all four boys all being sent to the same prison aside, the second half was not as neat or tightly focussed, as the first half. *spoilers to follow*

Upon release, John and Tommy become hitmen in the Irish mob. By chance they see Noakes in a bar and they publicly assassinate him. The case goes to court. Michael, now an assistant district attourny, seeing an opportunity to punish the rest of the guards who abused them, takes the prosecution with the intention of botching it. He enlists the alcoholic Dan Snyder ( Dustin Hoffman) to defend John and Tommy.

But the problem lies in how Noakes was killed early on. Noakes was the ringleader. He was the big, bad villain. The other guards were just his cronies. Without him, we're just seeing John and Tommy being persecuted for a revenge kill that the audiences knows they were justified in carrying out. It was dull.

It would have been more interesting seeing Sean Noakes, and the other guards, standing trial for the atrocities they committed. Instead, we were focussing on John and Tommy. And that killed any narrative suspense. The second half felt almost disconnected from the first. It didn't help that Noakes' cronies were little more than names on a page with little characterisation other than being a crony. The one exception was Ralph Ferguson (Terry Kinney) who was the only guard to express any remorse over what he did.

Even though there were some big names in the cast; Robert De Niro, Brad Pitt, Dustin Hoffman have five Oscars between them, I don't think anybody really shone. Brad Pitt and Dustin Hoffman only appear in the second half and De Niro was closer to a supporting character.

Overall, Sleepers was an entertaining if uneven film that went to sleep in its second half.

The Kite Runner review

 Number 655 on the top 1000 films of all time is Marc Foster's 2007 adaptation of the Kite Runner based on Khaled Hosseini's novel of the same name.

Amir (Zekeria Ebrahimi) is a Pashto boy living in pre-soviet Afghanistan. His best friend is also his servant Hassan - a Hazara, (Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada) who is an expert in the game of kite-running. After the soviets invade, Amir and his father flee to the US. Twenty years later, Amir (Khallid Abdalla) returns to a taliban-led Afghanistan to right the wrongs of his past.

I read this book in 2022. It was a powerful and harrowing read. But the film was incredibly underwhelming. I'm disappointed to stay this, but the film lacked the same emotional pathos. 

*spoilers ahead*

There are three harrowing stand-out scene in the book - Hassan's rape by Assef - an older Pashto boy, the stoning in the stadium and the final confrontation between an adult Amir and Assef. What should have been three brutally-honest scenes highlighting the sad reality of living in Afghanistan were little more than damp squibs. The emotional beats completely failed to land.

Perhaps that's due to the film's 12-rating. Maybe if it was fifteen or eighteen, it could have shown a lot more, and thus been more devastating to watch. But the 12 rating hampered it into either rushing or glossing over the most important scenes.

For example, Hassan and Amir win a kite-fighting competition. Hassan runs to collect the fallen kite as a prize for Amir. But Assef and his gang corner him and demand the kite. Hassan refuses. Assef rapes him. This is depicted mostly through allusion and some choice close-ups, but it is rushed, and thus the pathos didn't land. I'm not saying we needed to see a graphic depiction of the rape a la Oz or the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but they could have taken it further. Although I acknowledge this would have been problematic with the young actors.

As such, fearing for reprisals against the young actors, Paramount relocated them to the UAE, fully prepared to pay for them to grow up there. But Mahmoodzada had to return to Afghanistan due to visa issues. There he received death threats from both the Pashto and Hazara communities, and he had to seek asylum in Sweden.

Anyway, I would also make the same point about the final fight between an adult Assef and Amir. Again, it felt rushed without anytime for the emotions land. And I think this was a big faux pas considering this was such a climatic moment in the film. If anything the most emotional points came into the quicker scenes like after the rape Hassan returns to Amir still holding the kite. That was so sad.

But none of this criticism should be directed to the cast. Ebrahimi was very good as the adult Amir. He had to walk a fine line of a guilty man atoning for his past sins and a saviour saving Afghan children from a line of wretchery - a comparison aptly made within the film itself.

Perhaps I've been biased by reading the book first. If I had seen the film first maybe I would have left feeling more impressed. While it isn't inherently a bad film, it could have been a lot better.

The Count of Monte Christo review

 Number 572 on the top 1000 films of all time is the swash-bucking adventure 'The Count of Monte Christo.'

Based on Alexander Dumas' novel of the same name, 'The Count of Monte Christo' follows Edmond Dantes (Jim Caviezel,) a French sailor wrongly imprisoned due to a collusion between his so-called friend Fernand (Guy Pearce) and the corrupt magistrate Villefort (James Frain.) With the help of fellow prisoner Abbe Faria (Richard Harris,) Edmund swears revenge on all who wronged him.

I enjoyed this film a lot more than I thought I would. Before watching it, I had unfairly written it off as another tedious period drama, but I was pleasantly wrong.

This was an entertaining, fun-filled drama, albeit often straying into nonsense territory, but it was good fun nonetheless. Richard Harris only appeared in a supporting role, but he provided some much-needed light relief to what else could have been an overly-serious revenge story.

Guy Pearce was very good as the slimy Fernand. With friends like him, who needs enemies. And Jim Caviezel was likeable enough as our eponymous count. But can we just talk about his accent? I think it was supposed to be an English accent, but on many occasions it strayed back into his native American accent.

But both of them were far more convincing than Luis Guzman who played Dantes' loyal manservant Jacopo. He was completely out-of-place. He also stars in Narcos and Oz as gangsters and he was far more convincing there than here. Henry Cavill also plays Fernand's son Albert. And he was such a wet blanket, it's difficult to believe that Cavill is now one of the hottest men in Hollywood.

Nevertheless, the Count of Monte Christo was a fun, swashbuckling adventure albeit with awful accents and a miscast Luis Guzman.

The Machinist review

 Number 542 on the top 1000 films of all time is Brad Anderson's 2004 psychological thriller 'The Machinist.'

Trevor Reznik (Christian Bale) is a machinist who hasn't slept in over a year. Dangerously underweight, he starts having a paranoid delusions as he wonders whether somebody is playing games with him. But are these delusions or real or not?

This is the David Fincher film that David Fincher never made. It's easy to draw connections to Fight Club, most notably, with the theme of insomnia. Of course, it's impossible for anybody to stay awake for a year, so this film is pure hokum. I was certainly willing to suspend my disbelief for a good film.

And the Machinist was a good film. Up until the final reveal, Brad Anderson drip-fed us twist after twist. You could never tell what was going to happen next. He certainly created an atmosphere of dread with creepy imagery. Case in point that freaky ghost-train scene. Seriously, what was that? Although I'm not sure how much it works now that I know the final twist.

But Anderson also made great use of colour contrasting a cold, industrial blue-light for Reznik's present-day scenes and a warmer hue for all his flashbacks.

One thing I will admit is that I have never been keen on Christian Bale's acting ability. Sure he takes method-acting to an extreme evidenced by the intense amount of weight he lost for this role, but I don't think he has great emotional range. Trevor Reznik was just one of the many dark, brooding, moody men that he plays. Sure, he does it well, but I want to see something else.

Nevertheless, the Machinist was an incredibly creepy, and well-directed thriller. Although it's obviously pure hokum. Who's up for a game of hangman? 

500 Days of Summer review

 Number 461 on the top 1000 films of all time is the romantic-comedy 500 Days of Summer.

Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a greetings' card writer in LA who is looking for his soulmate. He thinks he has found it in Summer (Zooey Deschanel) a woman who doesn't believe in love or soulmates. What happens next?

If there were a list for most underwhelming films of all time, 500 Days of Summer would be number one. If I were to describe this film in one word, it would be average. Sure it was entertaining enough, but it didn't blow me away.

Let's start with the comedy or lack thereof. For the most part, none of the jokes elicited much more than a little chuckle from me. The funniest part was the parodies of the Ingmar Bergman films where Tom imagines himself in The Seventh Seal and Persona. Since beginning this challenge, I have become overly-familiar with Bergman. Otherwise I was only snickering throughout, sometimes at the narration or Tom's friends saying how pathetic he was being.

Let's come onto Tom and Summer whose romance was the focus of this story. Both characters were incredibly insipid. Tom was extremely whiny and Summer felt more like a rough sketch of the girl-next-door rather than a three-dimensional character. I am unfamiliar with Zooey Deschanel's other work, but this role was nothing compared to JGL's role in previous rom-com 10 Things I hate about you.

If anything, the true star of the show Chloe Grace Moretz who co-starred as Tom's half-sister Rachel. Many times she acted as the voice of reason. She was only twelve at the time, but you could already see her promise as an actress.

500 Days of Summer also employed a non-linear narrative in an attempt to subvert expectations. We are shown the different days of Tom and Summer's relationship out of order. However, we didn't get enough time on each day before it cut to the next. This hardly made for a cohesive film.

500 Days of Summer was certainly watchable enough, but it was nothing more than that.

Hamlet film review

 Number 544 on the top 1000 films of all time is Kenneth Branagh's 1996 adaptation of Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

Hamlet (Kenneth Branagh) is the crown prince of 19th-century Denmark. But when his father is murdered by his evil Uncle Claudius (Derek Jacobi,) Hamlet swears revenge. The huge ensemble cast includes Jack Lemmon, Julie Christie, Robin Williams and Kate Winslet.

There is a reason that film-reviewing will always remain my hobby rather than my profession. There so many films that are objectively-enjoyable, but I have no interest in. Hamlet is one of them. Most of that is down to how I have no interest in Shakespeare, but also in relation to Kenneth Branagah's direction.

Branagh's adaptation is the first un-abridged version with all the dialogue coming straight from Shakespeare's original folios. It has been transcribed verbatim. This means that there is a monologue every five minutes where characters would speak for whole paragraphs, but say very little. Some of the dialogue was needless exposition whereas others were purple prose. I'm sure I am sounding ignorant, but I had very little idea what they were talking about. And Hamlet was four-hours long. If the monologues were cut down, the run-time could have been easily reduced to one hundred and twenty minutes.

But also Brannagh made extensive use of extended long shots, having the camera rest on a focal object for much longer than necessary. This really killed off any narrative pace. It made the film feel much longer than four hours.

Although Kenneth Branagh has won an Oscar, it was for writing Belfast and not acting. Having seen Hamlet, I understand why. I was not impressed by his performance. It was so over-the-top.

I'm sure if you're a Shakespeare lover, you would love Hamlet, but I hated it.