Killing Them Softly

This is a film that is concurrently simple and complex, the basic story is where the simplicity comes in, as we witness the robbery of a card game and the fallout as the culprits try to survive and the organized crime community look to find those responsible. Where the complexity comes is from some of the characters and the very political message and it’s comments on America as a society, which gives one of the best closing lines in a film, as it sums everything about the film, it’s characters, world and message. I won’t spoil it here; it’s worth witnessing for yourself.

This is a film that is primarily about characters and violence, more often than not, one or more characters performing an act of violence against another. Starting with the violence, the majority of it is bearable, but there is one ‘beating’ that is genuinely hard to watch, but not because it is over blown or exaggerated. It is played as real as I can imagine this kind of thing looking like, which is probably why it is so hard to watch. The other moments of violence are committed with weapons, almost entirely firearms, and are done with more discretion and efficiency, the act isn’t played out in some grandiose way, it happens and then we move on.

The characters in Killing Them Softly are the big selling point of this film, with a cast led by Brad Pitt, who gives a charismatic yet very understated performance, who plays hitman/enforcer Jackie Cogan who is the men sent to find out what happened and kill those responsible. While he doesn’t immediately arrive in the film, he appears about ten or fifteen minutes in, he quickly establishes himself as the centre of everything as he plans how best to safely get rid of everyone. He switches from frustrated and charming, to manipulating and finally into a merciless cold blooded killer.

The rest of cast has many highlights, two in particular stand out, Ben Mendelsohn as the borderline crazed Russell and James Gandolfini, the aging New York hitman who Cogan brings down to take one of the hits. Mendelsohn gives real life and mannerisms to a characters who could have been just comic relief in other actors hands, but here we get a man who wants to try and get out of the rut and life he is leading at the moment and move to the next echelon in the criminal world, but for reasons I won’t give away, just can’t seem to make it.

Gandolfini as the New York hitman plays the role in a similar way to that of Tony Soprano, but here we get a man, who through two monologues, who is all to aware of his vices and what he has done and that is taking a serious toll on not just him, but also his wife. He knows he is on his last chance, but can’t resist the pull of the work he does, or the rewards that come with it.

Andrew Dominik, in what is only his third feature film (the other two were Chopper and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) gives the film an interesting look, one that represents the world these characters inhabit, it’s dirty dark and almost completely devoid of any glamour, we spend most of our time in cars, bars and motel rooms. But still the film is shoot beautifully by Grieg Fraser, letting the camera explore this wonderfully horrible places and crimes. The only slight negative that I can say about this film is that one or two of them scenes go on a bit too long, usually they play on long after the point and subject of the conversation has been achieved. A bit more prejudicial editing may have benefitted the films pacing.

This isn’t a film for the faint hearted; it goes in deep with violence and the effect of those actions of the people connected. While the plot is simple, it’s for the characters and the ideas behind it that is the real attraction and payoff to the film.

Total Recall

I never had a strong attachment to the first film, or the short story it was based on, Phillip K Dick’s We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, so I wasn’t against the idea of doing another film and one that is similar to the other at the original.

As with other films based on Dick’s writings, there are a lot of ideas, or at least potential ideas and a far bit of scope in which to ask various questions. In Total Recall the questions are most commonly dealing with identity and memory, a vast area in which ideas can be put forward and questions asked. Such as Blade Runner, which dealt with what is was to be human or Minority Report, which deals with the ideas of fate or chance and controlling/sensoring the future.

The basic story, I will try to avoid spoilers, is that Quaid (Colin Farrel) is a worker in a factory and pretty unhappy with how his life has turned out so far, so he goes to Rekall, a company that can give you the memories of being whatever you wanted to be. However when Quaid goes, it triggers something in his mind and he is suddenly capable of doing many things, the first being killing an entire police unit who have come for him. From there we follow Quaid as he tries to find out who he is, avoid being killed and being part of a large conspiracy.

After the first act, which is where the majority of the character work and story is told we are quickly taken at break neck speeds through the rest of the film to the climactic battle. We move from action sequence to action sequence, broken up with a short set of scenes that tell us something that just about moves us forward. Only when Cohaagen (Cranston) appears in the flesh, do we get any kind of extended dialogue scene that adds to the characters or the plot, this occurs at the start of the third act and serves mainly to set up the finale.

Farrell definitely gives a more rounded and confused performance than Schwarzenegger did in his portrayal, but this new version of the character lacks the wit, be it intentional or unintentional (for both films) and it does take the fun out the film at times, as we move from action scene to somber down time, with little build up or variety as the gears change. Farrell certainly comes off as more of a normal guy in the beginning, who is confused about where all this knowledge and the abilities are coming from and handles the transition well with the little, as mentioned before, character developments that happen during the second act.

The two female characters played by Jessica Biel and Kate Beckingsale seem for the most part to mere story devices, one Quaid is running from and the other he is running to, serving as a motivation and an antagonist. The roles aren’t forgettable, but the actresses do their best with fairly limited characterization. It would have been nice to have given them more than one note to play throughout the film, as neither one shows any doubts or sign of questioning what is going on around them.

Wisemans direction is good and does well with what he has, the action scenes, while long, are not interest killing, but it would have been nice to have seen more variety in them, than just chase scenes, especially earlier on. The world that these characters inhabit has a clear Blade Runner feel to it, not that it is a criticism, it looks great and the idea of the floating or different levels of the city adds and interesting look to the city, although there are one or two obvious nods to Scott’s film, specifically the running through the glass scene, which after the initial smirk is quite enjoyable.

If you liked the original one and it’s wit and humour, you may not like this slick and efficient version, which focuses more on its plot and the large visuals. But for a bit of entertainment that doesn’t ask too much, that being my only real criticism of the film, then it’s certainly worth two hours of your time. Whether you remember it in a week, who knows.

Sequel Bait

They largely dominate the cinemas between late April and early September, filling the large screen with another instalment in a series that made a lot of money or was very well received, sometimes even both, but more often than not it comes down to the previous films box office.

The biggest criticism with sequels is that they show a lack of originality and imagination, for the most part this is a fair arguments, a fair majority of them exist solely to cash in, such as the Saw series or the later Terminator films. It’s true that these films do take away from the more original summer films that come along every couple of years, or the smaller films that populate awards season, taking up screens and distributors or studios money, because these sequels are a safer bet.

But not all sequels are purely money grabbing, vacuous rubbish, one of the greatest films of all time is a sequel, I am talking about The Godfather Part II, which carried on the story of Michael Corleone from the first film, building upon it whilst also bringing back decisions and plot threads from the first film, mainly the answer he gives to his wife at the very end. Also 2010’s Toy Story 3 was a fitting finale to that great series, taking us and it’s characters on an emotionally draining and simultaneously uplifting journey, completing the story of these loveable toys.

But in recent years we have seen further instalments in a film franchise move backwards into a prequel such as Prometheus or Hannibal Rising or sideways into a sidequel(?) such as The Bourne Ultimatum, both of which have their own good points and bad points. The prequel offers the chance to go back and spend time with characters who stories either finished, were left ambiguous or died. But the risk is that something has to be changed, or a something omitted that could damage the original.

With a sidequel you face a similar scale of problems, the good points are that it allows you to add to the world that was already created in the first film(s), and bring in new characters and even show the affect that the original had on the wider world. But the problem is that you may not have the main characters from the original and risk the audience asking why they should bother to see it, when they have no emotional attachment to these people.

A film that did the prequel idea well(at least in my view) was Prometheus, choosing to go back and focus on the Space Jockey, a character that is only seen briefly in Alien, but which forms the basis for this film. Going back thirty years before the original, we know we aren’t going to get to see Ripley or Dallas, most of them haven’t been born or are very young, so we meet a new cast of characters and follow them as they search for these Engineers/Space Jockeys. The film is also careful not undermine anything from the original, instead only loosely linking it with Alien through one outcome of the finale, while the main conclusion sets up to take a sequel into a different place entirely.

A film that attempted the sidequel was the very recent The Bourne Legacy, the review of which should be just below this article, which showed the affects that The Bourne Ultimatum had on this world. It was a good idea and attempt but never seemed too linked with the other film, which some people may like, but it would have been good to see even more of the affects of what Jason Bourne, especially with the political side and what conversely affects Aaron Cross’s actions had on that world going on, as that side of story never really felt developed enough.

There are always films that wish had sequels, so that we could either spend more time with the characters or just enjoy the world that they live in. For me, a few examples of this would be Inception, The Departed and Blade Runner. The reasons for choosing these three, is that they all left me with the same question, “What happens next?” One of them offers a fairly ambiguous ending, the other a very traditional type of ending and the last asks one of the most fiercely debated questions in cinema.

What is the likelihood of seeing any of these films get a sequel? Well at least one in three at the moment, as Ridley Scott (along with original screenwriter Hampton Fancher) are working on a sequel to Blade Runner. While there were rumours of sequel to The Departed (that in it’s self based on the Infernal Affairs trilogy from Hong Kong) about a year after it’s release, nothing has happened in the last five years and it looks less likely that it will. Finally, the closest we will probably ever get to a sequel to Inception from Christopher Nolan at least, is going to be in a video game, something he himself has talked about doing.

With the difficulty of producing a sequel for these films becoming evident, it highlights the completeness of the films themselves, whereby a second film is not necessary as everything we need to know plays during the film. But for the sake of a bit of fun, let’s try and imagine a sequel to each of these films. Spoliers from here on out. With Blade Runner, I will detail the few bits and pieces of news that have come out (believe at your risk). Firstly, it will feature a female protagonist and that Deckard may or may not appear, but Scott has said that he would like Ford to return, how likely that is to happen, I don’t know. If they go this way they will probably have to answer the “Is Deckard a replicant?” question, which I would prefer not to have answered.

For my own idea, a film focusing on the Tyrell company would be interesting, especially considering how powerful it is and the state that it would be left in after the climax of the first film. Blade Runner offers us a complete world, one that is full of ideas and people that could be developed into a film that is as interesting as the first. One suggestion would be to minimise Deckards role (if they do use him) and set it shortly after the originals end, so we don’t have to answer that question.

I know that The Departed is based upon the first film in trilogy, but as I haven’t seen any of the original trilogy I will try and put forward a reasonably interesting idea of my own. At the end of the first film, all but two or three of the significant characters are dead, so this poses an interesting problem as you are faced with carrying over the story, but with hardly anyone left to continue the plot threads on. The storylines left were about Dignum (Wahlberg) and what he does after he kills Colin (Damon), there is also Madolyn (Farmiga) and her child. While the child storyline is nothing more than secondary plot thread, following Dignum, especially in the way he was portrayed would certainly be engaging, but a man on the run, which is presumably what he would be doing, can only fill so much time. But I would like a film that looks at the fallout of the events of the first film, as no doubt a lot of questions would be asked after everything that happened and someone would have to go in and sort out the mess and with only a few people who knew the truth alive that would prove difficult, but with those characters also having done questionable things and possibly not wanting to come forward, there is a lot of conflict to get through both in terms of plot and character.

With Inception, the final shot asks us to make our own mind up about where Cobb (DiCaprio) is and it was a great way for Nolan to end the film. So how do you get another film out of this world? I have two, or albeit brief ideas. The first is a prequel, not based around Cobb or any of the team from the first film, the only character who could appear is maybe Miles (Caine) but played by a younger actor, which would follow the development and breakout of the dream technology and the PASIV machine in particular from the military where it was developed. As the technology is still new at this point, faults and weaknesses with the technology would play into the use of it and as a result create the danger for someone using the machine.

The second idea would act as a sidequel, another job in the same world, but completely unrelated to the first film. One criticism of the first was that the dream world was too real, a pointless criticism when the team are trying to ensure that the mark doesn’t know he is dreaming initially, as well the world being two rigid and filled with hotels and skyscrapers, all solid structures, but again that is linked to the mind of the mark, a businessman. To change this, the mark could be someone of a creative disposition, whose mind would be more fluid and potentially Salvador Dali-esque.

Only brief ideas explained in broad strokes, some are not as interesting as others and more than likely, none will ever happen. But we will still be left with the entertaining and enjoyable originals that built worlds that we can continue on in our minds.