Man on Fire review

 Number 546 on the top 1000 films of all time is Tony Scott's action thriller Man on Fire.

John Creasy (Denzel Washington) is an alcoholic former CIA officer with PTSD. When his friend Paul Rayburn (Christopher Walken) convinces him to become a bodyguard for the Ramos family in Mexico, he is initially reluctant. However, he soon forms a close relationship with Lupita 'Pita' Ramos, (Dakoto Fanning) daughter of the Ramos.' When she is abducted by a kidnapping gang, Creasy promises to rain down hell on her kidnappers.

By their very nature, action films tend to be cliched and formulaic. You get the handsome, physically fit hero with a troubled past and plot armour, lots of explosions and guns, gratuitous violence and a simplistic plotline. Man on Fire had all of this in spades. The only thing was missing was an attractive female lead whose only function would be as a sex object for our rugged protagonist. Man on Fire was pretty cliched as far as action films go. Creasy is haunted by an unexplained past which is never really fleshed out. And that certainly didn't make him anymore three dimensional. 

Upon finding out information about Pita's kidnappers, he resorts to violently torturing members of the gang. And some of his methods were so violent that they bordered on silly. He sticks an explosive up a corrupt policeman's rear and detonates it when he has the information he needs. His plot armour was ridiculously thick. How many gunshot wounds does he survive? 

I also think the villain of the film was cliched. Roberto Sosa plays Daniel Sanchez who is otherwise regarded as 'the Voice.' But we don't see enough of 'the Voice' or his motivations to really make him a threatening enough villain. He's the one giving the orders but he doesn't have enough screen time to make him particularly scary. And there was also too much slow-motion and in really strange places too. Why did we need to see Creasy help Pita out of the pool in slow-motion? 

Lastly, Radha Mitchell plays Pita's mother and while she was good enough her accent was not. Radha is Australian and her character was supposed to be Texan. However, Radha's accent was very inconsistent. At time it sounded Texan and at others it just sounded generic American.

Despite all that, it was still an entertaining and, most importantly, a thrilling film. Washington and Fanning had a great chemistry and it was lovely seeing their relationship develop. Creasy starts off as morose and grumpy, but Pita helps to bring him out of his shell. They were very cute together. And I also enjoyed the gritty, visual style. Apparently it was a homage to the brilliant film City of God. The two films also shared a similar cast. 

I'm not sure whether I would count this as one of the top 1000 films of all time. But as an action-thriller film, I think it was very good.

What's eating Gilbert Grape review

Number 525 on the top 1000 films of all time is Lasse Hallstrom's coming of age drama 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape?'

Gilbert Grape (Johnny Depp) is a grocery store clerk working in a small Iowa town. When he isn't taking care of his morbidly obese mother Bonnie (Darlene Cates) or intellectually disabled younger brother Arnie (Leonardo Dicaprio,) he is navigating all the obstacles of his life.

One of the biggest running jokes of the millennium was how Leonardo Dicaprio, despite being nominated multiple times, has never won an Oscar. You could argue this is where it all starts. At nineteen-years old, he was nominated for the Best Supporting Oscar for the role of Arnie. He became the seventh-youngest nominee. True, he was up against stiff competition like Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List or Pete Poselthwaite in the Name of the Father, but he would have been well-deserving of the Oscar. Dicaprio was great in this film. He played Arnie with humanity and vulnerability. He wasn't a cliche or a caricature, but a  real, breathing human being. Many of the character's trademark tics were all Dicaprio's choice. Reportedly he was so convincing as Arnie that at the film's premiere many people were surprised to find out that he wasn't intellectually disabled in real life.

However, Dicaprio can't take all the credit. All the cast were great. Let's start with Johnny Depp who wasn't even nominated for the Best Acting Oscar. And he would have been a very deserving winner. He takes Gilbert Grape through a great story arc. His inner conflict is so clear. Despite caring deeply for his mother and brother, the pressures of being a carer soon get the best of him. At Arnie's birthday party, he ruins things by eating his cake early. Gilbert snaps and hits him. The guilt of this sends him soul searching until he finally returns home and apologises. Depp played this role with great sensitivity. Having been a carer, I am fully aware of how stressful it is.

And lastly we come to Darlene Cates, as Bonnie Grape, who was a little bit of a dark horse. This was her first acting role and she received critical acclaim and rightly so. Just like with Arnie, there was the danger of making this character a cliche or a joke, but she portrayed Bonnie brilliantly. She was such a tragic character, but never a pathetic or pitiful one.

This was a great film. I really enjoyed watching it. Yes, it kickstarted Leonardo Dicaprio's career, but let's not forget Johnny Depp as well. He might be best-known for eccentric characters like Edward Scissorhands, Captain Jack Sparrow and Sweeney Todd, but this film proved  that he can play more conventional roles roles just as well too.

The Goonies review

Number 519 on the top 1000 films of all time is the adventure-comedy the Goonies.

The Goonies are a gang of misfits in Oregon. They are led by the asthmatic Mikey Walsh (Sean Astin) and consist of "Chunk" (Jeff Cohen,) the poison-tongued "Mouth" (Corey Feldman) and amateur gadgeteer "Data" (Jonathan Ke Huy Quan.) When they find a treasure map in their house, they set off to find it, but little do they know that the Fratelli crime family is also looking for the treasure.

This had all the hallmarks of a coming-of-age drama - a pre-teen cast, adult villains, a magical plot and lots of practical effects, but it lacked all the comedy, soul and charm of its contemporaries. Stand By Me, also starring Corey Feldman, is one that comes to mind. Even though, it was billed as a comedy it just wasn't that funny. A lot of humour seemed juvenile and billed toward a much younger audience than myself. You had Chunk doing a silly dance to gain entry to the clubhouse or literal toilet humour when a jet of water from a toilet lifts a man into the air.  

Much of the dialogue seemed very contrived and forced especially from the female characters "Andy" (Kerri Green) and Stef (Martha Plimpton.) Andy is the love interest of Mikey's older brother and Stef is her best friend. But neither girl did little more than scream or give snide comments to the boys. And many of these problems stem from Chris Columbus' script and Richard Donner's poor direction. It really seemed like the kids had little direction other than to talk over one another. I am reminded of critic Colin Greenland's assessment of the film: "The Goonies I was unable to enjoy because of a bunch of kids yelling and screaming all the way through. Not the audience, the actors." The constant screaming became tedious after a while and it made things difficult to follow.

This was a shame as there is some big acting talent in this film. Corey Feldman was great in Stand by Me and Sean Astin went onto star in the Lord of the Rings Franchise. Despite Ke Huy Quan taking a break from acting, he starred in the one of the biggest films of 2022: Everything Everywhere all at Once. 

Another big problem of this film was that the villains had no menace at all. Kiefer Sutherland made a great villain in Stand By Me, because he was scary. We see him play mailbox baseball, chicken with other road users and he even threatens our heroes with a flick knife. Conversely, the Fratelli family sing opera and squabble amongst each other. Joe Pantoliano played one of these villains, but he is also known for the traitorous Cypher in the Matrix and the slimy Ralph Cifaretto in The Sopranos. He is great in both these roles, so it was a shame his talent was squandered so much here.

But the biggest problem of this coming-of-age drama was that there was no maturation. The characters didn't grow or change at all. They start and end in the same place. It doesn't matter what genre your film is, but your characters need to progress by the end of it. That didn't happen here. The Goonies start as misfits and they end as misfits. All of the characters in Stand By Me have traumatic backstories, but their collective experience helps them to overcome this trauma. However, this wasn't the case here. Granted, the asthmatic Mikey casually throws away his inhaler at the end of the film, suggesting his condition was all in his mind, yet we didn't see enough inner conflict to justify such a decision.

If I were to compliment the film for anything it would be its great use of practical effects. I loved seeing all the imaginative and ingenious inventions from Data's cute gadgets to the Indiana Jones-esque booby traps even to the fancy contraption that allows entry to the Goonies' club house. They were all great.

It's safe to say that the Goonies was one of the biggest cult films of the eighties. But it's safer to say that I am never going to become part of this cult.

Apocalypto review

 Number 497 on the top 1000 films of all time is Mel Gibson's epic action-adventure Apocalypto.

Set during the Mayan empire with the dialogue being entirely in Yucatan, Apocalypto focusses on Jaguar Paw (Rudy Yungblood.) Jaguar Paw is the son of a tribal chieftain and is married to his wife Seven (Dalia Hernandez) and they have their own son Turtles Run. All is looking well until they are attacked by a rival tribe who capture Jaguar Paw and the other males who kidnap them to become human sacrifices.

Firstly, let me say the cinematography was beautiful. Every shot was gorgeous and conveyed the true splendour of Veracruz where the film was shot. We sat the vibrant green of the forest and the rich colours of the sunset. The Eyipantla waterfalls looked spectacular.

Part of that was down to Gibson's choice to write the dialogue in Yucatan. He thought it would create a more immersive world for the viewer, emphasise the visuals, as well as adding more historical accuracy. Although Gibson has received plenty of criticism for his historical accuracy or lack thereof. But at the end of the day this is Mel Gibson we're talking about. He made Braveheart - a brilliant film that is definitely more fiction than fact. You should know you're looking for if you're watching a Mel Gibson film.

I also loved the music. Rather than using a contemporary soundtrack, all the music was period specific with traditional singing and instrumentation - or what sounded authentic to me, at least. This added another layer of realism and ramped up the dramatic tension.

Having said that, the film is far from perfect. Of the two halves, I much preferred the first half, because it felt like we were going somewhere. The stakes were high and so was the dramatic tension. We get our scene-setting showing the close-knit community of Jaguar Paw's tribe. This peace is shattered by a group of marauders who sell the women into sex slavery and take the men to be sacrificed. This was tense as I was wondering how Jaguar Paw would get out of this. Fortunately, an eclipse disturbs proceedings and instead Jaguar Paw and the others are allowed to run to freedom.

I say allow as the marauders are playing a cruel game by using the escaping captives as target practice. Jaguar Paw is the only one who escapes alive and he is pursued by his captors. The second half of the film descends into a chase sequence. We see Jaguar Paw use his skill and strength to outwit the hunters, as well as a jaguar and a snake who appear at just the right moment. This would have been fun to watch if it had only gone for ten or fifteen minutes rather than a whole hour. I kept wondering where this was heading and what the next obstacle would be. But instead it was an extended chase sequence. And that did kill some of the dramatic tension.

However, this was all part of Gibson's vision. He wanted to take the traditional chase sequence, strip out all the glitz and glamour and reduce it to its most primal core. I get that, but he over did it. The excess slow-motion did nothing to help things either.

Although this was a technically beautiful film, the storyline does fall apart in the second half. But if you can get past that, it's well worth a watch. 

Fantastic Mr Fox review

 Number 496 on the top 1000 films of all time is Wes Anderson's animated comedy Fantastic Mr Fox.

Based on Roald Dahl's 1970 story, Fantastic Mr Fox follows Foxy Fox (George Clooney) who regularly thieves from three farmers: Boggis (Robin Hurlstone,) Bunce (Hugo Guiness) and Bean (Michael Gambon.) These farmers swear revenge on Foxy Fox endangering him, his wife Felicity (Meryl Streep) and his family and friends.

This was a stop-motion film and the animation was absolutely gorgeous. I loved the rich Autumnal colour schemes. The colour truly popped. All the different animals looked adorable too from Foxy Fox to his badger lawyer voiced by Bill Murray to the villainous rat voiced by Willem Defoe.

However, this star-studded cast and lovely animation wasn't enough to stop this ultimately being a film made for kids. I was hoping that it would be a family friendly film that would appeal to children and parents alike a la Monsters Inc or Toy Story, but this really was meant for little children. And that did hurt its watchability factor. Maybe I'm just a grumpy old man, but maybe it was seemingly obvious that this film was always meant for kids. Children would love the bright colour scheme and the adorable animal characters.

Nevertheless, the conflicts were very juvenile such as the subplot of Mr Fox's son Ash Fox and his rivalry with his cousin Kristofferson. Ash feels threatened and jealous of his seemingly perfect cousin. This is a subplot that would be obviously appealing to little kids but not grumpy, old curmudgeons like me. All the violence bordered on cartoonish, like Mr Fox and his oppossum sidekick climbing up an electric fence. With every climb, the electric shocks x-ray their entire bodies. 

And a lot of the dialogue was contrived. It didn't seem natural and I think that some of that was down to George Clooney himself. I noticed that in a lot of conversations Mr Fox had with his son there were these strange hesitations at the end of each line. You could argue that, at first, this signifies their strained relationship. But their relationship fixes throughout the film, so why are there still the strange hesitations?

I think if I was twenty years younger I would have loved this film, but, now,  I'm far too much of a grumpy old man. It was good as far as it went, but that wasn't very far at all.

The Experiment review

 Number 487 on the top 1000 films of all time is the thriller the Experiment.

An American remake of the German 'Das Experiment' and based on the real-life Stanford Prison Experiment, the Experiment sees two men try to survive in a brutal scientific study. Travic Cacksmackberg (Adrien Brody) is a pacifist hippie who gets laid off from his job. He needs money to travel to India with his hippy girlfriend Bay (Maggie Grace) so he takes part in his experiment. He and twelve other men become prisoners in a specially designed prison. Six other volunteers become guards. They have to survive two weeks while maintaining order and following the rules. But things quickly go wrong when the guards led by Michael Barris (Forest Whitaker) become power-mad.

If you haven't heard about the Stanford Prison Experiment, I would highly recommend looking into it. It was a fascinating if unethical study into authority and power dynamics. This film highly exaggerates the events of the study, but it is interesting nonetheless.

Much of that is down to the storyarc of the two leads. Travis is a moral compass. It's established early on that he deeply cares about social issues when he attends an anti-war rally. It is only believable that he galvanises the prisoners into standing up to the tyrannical guards. Conversely Michael Barris is a mild-mannered forty-two year old man who still lives with his domineering mother. Egged on by the more sadistic guards, the power goes to his head. Outside of the prison, he is nobody. But in prison he is the boss. And Whitaker's performance was menacing.

However, the Experiment was deeply let down by its ending. The Experiment is stopped on the sixth day after a full-on riot breaks out; the prisoners and the guards begin fighting with another. The catalyst? Travis demands to be let out, having grown tired to the abuse from the guards. Barris forcibly restrains him and a scuffle breaks out. When another prisoner intervenes on Travis' behalf, Barris kills him. Yet everybody is allowed to go back to their old lives. Nobody faces any legal or even moral ramifications for their actions within the prison. 

One particularly sadistic guard attempts to rape a prisoner, but he faces no consequences. Travis almost beats Barris to death, but in the next shot we see him in India with Bay. On a side note, Bay was a poorly-drawn female character. She was little more than a sex object.

And despite Barris killing a prisoner, he still receives his full payment as does everybody else. It was so strange that an experiment that focussed on respecting authority would reward disloyalty and disobedience. The most we get is the experiment's lead researcher being arrested for manslaughter, but this is too rushed to have any impact. 

Having said that, the real life researcher, Philip Zimbardo, faced severe criticism about the ethical nature of his study and he did pay his subjects properly, so the film was being true to life.

This did have the potential to be an interesting film about the nature of obedience and the power of roles, but it was severely let down by its rushed ending and its poorly written female character *cough cough* sex object.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button review

 Number 459 on the top 1000 films of all time is David Fincher's 2008 fantasy romantic drama 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.'

Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) is a man who ages in reverse. Abandoned at birth due to his seemingly elderly appearance, he is adopted by the kindly Queenie (Taraji P.Henson) and Tizzy Weathers (Mahershala Ali.) As he ages chronologically, he appears to look younger and younger. Cate Blanchett stars as his love interest Daisy Fuller.

I would argue this film marked a maturation for both Brad Pitt and David Fincher. Fincher is primarily known for his thrillers like Fight Club, Se7en  and the Game. Yet this film marked a coming-of-age for him. A thriller is completely different game to a romantic drama - there's a whole new set of rules and Fincher played it well. I think you can argue that Fincher isn't a subtle director. His thrillers like Se7en take an unflinching look into the darker aspects of the human mind. However, here, he was far more nuanced and understated. None of the characters ever come across as two-dimensional or cliched. Thomas Button (Jason Fleyming) could have easily been the archetypal, neglectful father who abandoned his son, but you can see how guilty he feels about his actions and how he tries to make things right. 

Daisy Fuller could have been little more than a scorned woman. Her affections for Benjamin are initially rebuffed. Later on, he leaves her after they have a child together as he doesn't want to become a burden. However, Daisy later reconnects with Benjamin after he has regressed into a teenager and takes care of him as a baby. It is her diaries. detailing the nature of her and Benjamin's relationship, that fuel the narrative along. 

Fincher also balanced the drama and the comedy well. I certainly enjoyed the running joke of the man who was struck by lightning seven times.

And Brad Pitt is great in the leading role well-deserving of his Oscar nomination. Having starred in Fincher's Se7en and Fight Club and better known as an action movie star, he might not be your first choice for dramatic roles. But he plays Benjamin Button well. Benjamin could have been a caricature - a freak that everybody points and laughs at or he could have been a self-pitying victim. But he was neither of those things. Rather than being self-pitying, Benjamin Button takes pride in his appearance. He doesn't see it as a disability and refuses to let it get in his way of living his life. And he lives a great life from fighting in WW2 to travelling to India and Southeast Asia. He is an inspiring character to watch and a lot of that is down to Brad Pitt's great portrayal.

This film did surprise me. Based on their reputations, I certainly didn't expect David Fincher or Brad Pitt to be able to pull it off, but, boy, oh boy, did they prove me wrong.