RED (Rob Schwenkte, 2010) - 2 stars

RED stars Bruce Willis as retired CIA analyst Frank Moses, now deemed Retired and Extremely Dangerous by his old employers, who now hunt for him and his old colleagues, played by Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren and John Malkovich, all during the first few days of Moses meeting the woman with whom he has fallen in love, Mark Louise Parker’s Pension Office customer service assistant Sarah.

Frankly, witnessing Dame Helen Mirren pulling the trigger on a semi automatic weapon, or John Malkovich screaming and chasing after agents with a bomb attached to his chest, is as soul destroying as it is hilarious. A high percentage of great actors and actresses get to certain age and start taking jobs that are far beneath them and this film just appears to be that gateway epitomized, the realisation that things for these four may never be the same again. Granted, it is not as black and white as that- Bruce Willis jumped the fence years ago with the likes of What Just Happened in 2007 and also Cop Out just months before RED, and this is not to say that we will never see Mirren at her best again, but with a collection of eleven Academy Award wins and nominations between just three of the four leads, this is a clear sign that the good days may well be over for this bunch. Throw 60’s and 70’s Hollywood heavyweights Ernest Borgnine and Richard Dreyfuss into the mix, and the outcome is a blatant list of aging, out of work ex-A-Listers attempting to ruin years of solid work and back catalogues.  

The fact is that this is not an exciting film. It is indeed amusing in places, mainly because of Mary Louise Parker’s deadpan comments, but the action is silly and incomparably ludicrous. I am, in particular, referring to Willis standing up out of a spinning car and the ease in which the characters can infiltrate CIA headquarters with the help of a little fancy dress. The heavily stylised cinematography and use of special effects is fairly mentionable, but I fear the mention should probably go to the artists of the graphic novel, which will in no doubt have been used as a pre-existing set of storyboards, a technique many lazy directors now fall back on with adaptations of this genre.

The makers were onto something, but took it too far. I would much rather have seen a film inspired by the graphic novel instead of based on it, one that tells the story of a retired CIA agent now trying to cope with pensions, dressing gowns and the woman on the end of the phone he has fallen in love with. The romance element between Willis and Parker is fun to watch, enticing and engaging, but unfortunately the action, which takes up most of the running time and energy of the film, is simply run of the mill stock action.

The result is not necessarily a bad film, just a highly disappointing one, which, in my eyes, is worse. Frank Moses and his crew may well be Retired and Extremely Dangerous, however the actors themselves, after this less than dangerous display, should seriously think about retiring before it gets too much worse.

The Great Gatsby (Baz Luhrmann, 2013) - 3 stars

This year’s adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby has been long awaited. Aside from being one of the most famous novels of all time, it is directed by the glitzy and visual director Baz Luhrmann, and with Leonardo DiCaprio starring, it certainly had a lot of hype to live up to.

DiCaprio steals the show and, like Gatsby, keeps the film afloat when other elements seem doomed for the seabed. He is a joy to watch from his intriguing and captivating introduction to his desperate and destructive finale. Seemingly appearing out of thin air, with a past shrouded in mist and with, on the surface at least, an enviable demeanor and lifestyle, he pleasantly evokes Fight Club’s Tyler Durden. Luhrmann has said his casting of Gatsby had to be a great actor and a star, and in a world where the star persona is regrettably being overshadowed by overnight celebrityism, DiCaprio is one of the last good guys standing, and the perfect choice for the role.

Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan is also worth noting, in a role that really allows to her to use her innocence and natural beauty to great value, but unfortunately Joel Edgerton’s performance wavers, while Tobey Maguire, hazy-eyed and naïve as Nick Carraway, seems to have unfortunately not yet grown out of his red and blue spandex from a decade ago. His voiceover becomes tiring very quickly, which unfortunately devalues scenes and takes centre stage when the audience would much rather be allowed the luxury of seeing a scene play out rather than have Maguire paraphrase for them. A strange and incomprehensible decision to bookend the film with a vignette of Carraway writing the story from a sanitarium distances the audience and adds another unnecessary layer to keep cutting back to.

We know Luhrmann is a fan of mixing contemporary music with period pieces- remember the rendition of Smells Like Teen Spirit in his 2001 film Moulin Rouge!, but despite the great use of a Jay-Z soundtrack, in conjunction with the depiction of drinking and partying, it sometimes feels like Project X has gone back in time, and this cheapens an expensive, lavish piece. Gatsby’s own parties are full of the grandiose extravagance we are expecting, but if only we hadn’t been in the 1920s frat-style party ten minutes before, the effect would have been so much greater.

With pushbacks and a marketing budget bigger than Gatsby’s annual spending allowance, there was obviously a lot of hype and anticipation surrounding the film. Unfortunately I’m not sure it has succeeded in fulfilling this expectation.

As I left the theatre, I was unable to put my finger on how I felt about it. Did it tell me the story of Gatsby? Yes. Did I enjoy it? Yes, partly. Did it make me feel anything? No, not really. And therein lies the problem. There is enough flamboyancy and large-scale magnificence for any Luhrmann fan to be fulfilled, but in a story of character and depth, this is not enough. The special moments in the film were burdened with a wearisome voiceover, and as much style as Luhrmann brought to the table with this offering, it seems he sacrificed substance. DiCaprio is certainly The Great Gatsby, but the film is simply The Gatsby.