MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

Mad Max: Fury Road is one bold film. It's directed, like all Max films, by George Miller, who starts with a simple, audacious hook — the entire film is one extended chase sequence — then somehow manages to build it up into a surprisingly complex piece of storytelling and comes out with a masterpiece of boom. A mad, surrealist cavalcade of rock and roll carnage aiming a fat middle finger at every big budget faux-action epic of the last decade.

That hook would kill many other directors who don't know how to handle the pacing, but Miller knows how to rev-up and downshift carefully, mostly moving too fast to get bogged down in the kind of extended exposition dumps that often kill intricate fantasy worlds before they get out of the gate. Instead Miller, who radically reinvents the Mad Max universe with every new installment, has the confidence to throw us into the deep end after a brief grounding voice over reminding us that the Wasteland is a post-apocalyptic world and Max (Tom Hardy) is its Man With No Name, before we're off and running, watching Max get chased down and imprisoned by a band of mutant freaks called the War Boys.

But despite being the title character, Max has always been more of an inciting incident than a full-tilt protagonist. The film's real hero is the awesomely named Furiosa (Charlize Theron), a worn-out one armed courier for irradiated despot Immortan Joe. Furiosa quickly goes rogue, speeding away from the citadel in a Hail Mary caper to smuggle Joe's five sex slaves to safety in her War Rig. Joe gets wind of this and goes after her with his entire of war boys, among whom is a joyously enthusiastic soldier named Nux (Nicholas Hoult) who brings Max along for horrifying reasons I'll leave you to discover.

A few bits of business and some shifting alliances aside, that's really about it in terms of plot. The film is focuses on pure kinetic action. Miller throws us into the middle of lightning tornado, BMX bombers, buzzsaw trucks saboteurs and chainsaw jugglers. The hyper-fast quick rhythm borders on abstraction at times, but never loses an ounce of cohesion or clarity. Miller and Cinematographer John Seale (The English Patient) often frame multiple things at once. Consider the moment where Furiosa is firing a gun off camera when behind her, a motorcycle jumps into frame and she turns and shoots the driver in mid-air. The film has a dynamic sense of balletic movement and timing that at once feels grounded and also recalls the kinetic motion of a Chuck Jones short. It's an understatement to just say that the action is clear, it has style, showmanship and a lot of daring in its superb stunt work. It's not just that the film has explosions – many films have explosions – it's that this film has some of the greatest explosions ever detonated, and it has a lot of them.

While all the booming unfolds, the world is being impressively built up the background. Miller has long had a talent for comic-book sensationalism that is also telling detail work. With the aid of an unlimited budget, and comic artist Brendan McCarthy as a "co-writer," the world of the Wasteland has never felt more fleshed out. The film rarely pauses for exposition, or dialogue of any kind, but it tells us a lot to see how Joe brainwashes people while controlling access to vehicles by distributing steering wheels at a religious alter. It tells us something about Furiosa when we notice the brand on her neck and the wrench on her robot arm. When Joe calls for reinforcements from neighboring fiefdoms, we get a sense at the power structure of the world. Joe himself is played with epic relish by Hugh Keays-Byrne cutting an imposing figure with a mask made from a human jawbone and if there was any doubt that Miller means to depict him as a symbol for corrupt patriarchy, showing us his pale, tumorous torso being clad in translucent vacuform muscles should settle it.

The film's handling of its sexual politics are quite refreshing. Furiosa is a kick ass character who more than steals the show, and alows the film to avoid the tired 'damsel' trope. It's a minor disappointment that the wives (Rose Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Zoe Kravitz, Abbey Lee and Courtney Eaton) aren't fleshed out just a bit more as individuals, but as a group, they're quite compelling as a group of emotionally damaged abuse survivors, trying to work together to escape, while having doubts about the agency they've just claimed for themselves. Too many action films deal with sexual violence as something that happens to women's bodies to motivate a man to fight back. But in the midst of all its mayhem, Miller actually engages with this issue in a genuine way.

This progressiveness isn't new for the series: Road Warrior used mankind's dependence on oil as pointed subtext. Fury goes further, not just substituting oil for sex-slavery and human trafficking but also water and all the things that come with it. Miller's Wasteland has expanded to show us a world where everything we take for granted is commodified by dictators to make people into slaves. The film isn't subtle about this (Joe refers to his water as Aqua-Cola) but Miller and his writers do all this in passing, and are thankfully never interested in preaching. It allows us to keep our attention on what we came to see – the 10,000 righteous, brain scrambling explosions the film delivers.
  
Fury Road is a blast, the kind of masterclass of visceral filmmaking that doesn't come along very often. Elements of this film will be imitated for years, and I suspect that its iconography will seep into the public consciousness much in the same way that Road Warrior did. Miller has said that he would like to make more films in the series but I wonder if the very things that made this film work so well may also make it unique. Miller is a master, but a series of delays going back 15 years allowed him and his collaborators to carefully craft every small element of the films world. At any rate, it's certainly one Hell of springboard.

Grade: A

Note: The film is availible in post-converted 3D. The quality of the conversion is adequate but the effect is minimal. See it in bright, clear 2D.

LAWLESS

In the late 20's and early 30's the mountains of Franklin County, Virginia where so rife with bootleggers that at night the fires from the stills lit up the mountains like fireflies. This is the setting for John Hillcoat's new film Lawless. It centers on the area’s most infamous moonshiners, the three Bondurant brothers.

The leader is Forrest (Tom Hardy), a hulking man who, in Goodfallas parlance, doesn't have to move for anybody. Jason Clarke plays Howard, the muscle of the group. When Forrest says "sick 'em," Howard sicks 'em. Sometimes he does it when he hasn't been told. I guess stump whiskey does that to a man. The youngest is the put upon lookout, Jack (Shia LeBeouf). Over the years, a legend has grown up around the three boys, particularly Forrest, that they are invincible.

Of course, the problem with being invincible is that people are going to want to test that. In comes a special deputy named Charlie Rakes (Guy Pierce). Rakes is an odd man with his shaved eyebrows and a 3 inch gap in his hair part. His goal isn’t to stop the bootleggers but rather to extort a toll from them. The Bondurant’s refuse and face an all out war with Rakes and his small army of cops and hired thugs.

This all plays out predictably right down to the “look how well we’re doing” montage of the Brothers solidifying their rural empire. Still, Hillcoat and screenwriter Nick Cave (he also provides the soundtrack) create a striking sense of immediacy here. This isn’t some generic, homogenized vision of the late 20’s, this feels like the real thing. The roosters fighting in the yard, the fog rolling in over the giant willow trees, and the Bell brand jars the Bondurant brothers use to store their White Lightning whiskey are all little details that help the film live and breathe.

The ensemble do a mostly commendable job. Hardy’s mono-syabic performance is menacing and weirdly warm at the same time. Jessica Chastain does some nice work with her underwritten character, and Guy Pearce’s is a very cartoonish villain, but holds back just enough to keep from going off the rails. Shia LeBeouf on the other hand is just okay; he’s made leaps in his acting ability, but not bounds. It looks as if we're going to be stuck with LeBeouf as a leading man for a while, but he's yet to demonstrate that he's earned that privilege.

The absolute best thing about the film is the exquisite soundtrack put together by Cave and Warren Ellis. The two rockers have provided moody instrumentals for several of Hillcoats other movies but here the pair have put together a house band, The Bootleggers, and have created one of the best roots soundtracks since O Brother Where Art Thou. The band, with the help of guest stars like Ralph Stanley and Emmylou Harris, cover a wide array of songs by Link Wray, John Lee Hooker and even The Velvet Underground, while throwing in a few originals too. It’s a slam-bang soundtrack that oozes personality form every note.

Lawless is a solid crime film held back by it’s own formula and a mediocre lead performance. However the verisimilitude with which the period, not to mention the violence, is portrayed coupled with a fantastic soundtrack help balance out the flaws. At the very least you should pick up the album.

Grade: B

Here's a sample of The Bootleggers cover of Link Wray's "Fire and Brimstone"

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES AND THE TRILOGY BELT

For many The Dark Knight Rises the most eagerly awaited film of the year. Its predecessor was one of the most well liked action films of the last decade and everyone want’s to know if Christopher Nolan has done the impossible and topped The Dark Knight. In part one of this series, I theorized that a trilogy that measurably topped itself with each entry would win a sort of trilogy belt. We’ll get to that, but first lets talk about the film itself.

It’s been 8 years since the catastrophic events of The Dark Knight. Hero district attorney Harvey Dent is dead, and Batman has taken the fall for his crimes. A law passed in the wake of all this has rendered Gotham essentially crime free, but for our heroes, things are not so good. Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) is racked with guilt that he’s had to protect the legacy of a man who tried to kill his family. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is even worse. He’s got a bum leg and wanders around his once great mansion in a Howard Huges like solitude. Bruce is going to need all the help he can get because a new enemy named Bane (Tom Hardy) has moved into Gotham’s sewers with a secret army of mercenaries and one of the most diabolical evil plans to come along in a long time.

The film starts off a bit slower than its predecessors, taking a wider view of Gotham city. The slow burn nature of the plot feels necessary after the anarchic chaos and implication heavy ending of the last film and while not all of the plot’s multitude of moving parts work (the McGuffin is introduced very messily), the slower buildup gives us a better idea what Gotham, this city Bruce cares so much about, is like. We meet a young beat cop John Blake (Joesph Gordon Levett) who does a lot of the legwork putting the mystery together. We also meet Selina Kyle, A.K.A. Catwoman (Ann Hathaway), a mysterious cat burglar who knows more about what’s going on than she lets on.

Ultimately things get really dark. Without giving too much away, Gotham eventually becomes a dystopia of sorts. There is massive social upheaval and class warfare, but it’s not Occupy being invoked so much as the Reign of Terror, complete with kangaroo courts. The films have always had some sort of political subtext but it’s a shift in away from the Bush era Ends vs. Means undertones of the last few films. The second half of the film still plays out like the worst nightmare of the War on Terror generation. As such the film looses some moral ambiguity but surprisingly, it isn’t missed too much.

The actors all do a nice job. All the major supporting characters return and do a fine job even though some of them have less screen time. People who are bothered by Christian Bale's bat-voice will still find no relief. The new players acquit themselves well. Ann Hathaway is the best new addition and plays Catwoman as something of a female Han Solo. Tom Hardy was the perfect choice to play Bane. Hardy is an actor with excellent control over his physicality which is useful here as he needs to imbue a character who’s face is completely covered with a cold intellect.

Ultimately this is a better film than then it’s predecessors. It succeeds where Dark Knight stalls. There are no clunky action scenes and it seems that Nolan has, at long last, truly arrived as an action filmmaker. The film is full of beautifully done, lip biting sequences. The mid-air extraction that opens the film may be the greatest Bond style prologue ever captured on film. The siege of Gotham sequences at the end of the film make for some incredible, silent movie epic level spectacle that makes Avengers look like a mid-budget indie film.

Beyond showing us that Nolan has finally, unquestionably nailed his action scenes, Nolan has also grown as a dramatic filmmaker. The first half of the film has some legitimate issues, but Nolan builds to one of the best constructed third acts he’s has ever done. More importantly the film has an earned emotional resonance that hasn’t been present in his work since Memento and perhaps The Prestige. The tragic elements in this film work on an emotional level where as the same elements of the last film felt a little too “thesis statement” for my taste.

As for whether or not Rises is better than Dark Knight and earns the so-called trilogy belt I theorized about in part one of this series, the answer is a firm, absolute “debatable.” Rises is a better film than Dark Knight, but ultimately I’m not sure I like it more. The antagonism between Batman and Bane isn’t as intense as it was between Batman and Joker. That said, I don’t think it was meant to be. Joker’s plan was to expose Batman and his allies as frauds. For Bane, Batman is a minor concern. Someone to be gotten out of the way and that has a massive impact on the dynamic of the film. It’s not that the later approach is worse, but it’s different and it reveals that the city of Gotham is the real main character in the film. Then there is the ending. Without spoiling it, the finale takes a few unexpected directions. They are not bad directions and they are set up very well, but your satisfaction levels may vary.

The more I sit with this film, the more I like it, but I don’t like it enough to award it a Trilogy Belt, but that’s okay. The trilogy goes out with a bang and brings the series to a memorable and satisfactory conclusion. The Dark Knight Rises isn’t the film we wanted, but it’s the film we deserve. 

 Grade: A- 

Note: About 70 minutes of the film was photographed in IMAX and undisclosed percentage of the remainder was shot on traditional 70 mm film and the results are breathless. Seeing the film in the format, to the extent that Nolan uses it is a great treat that should be enjoyed by anyone who can. In an age where the industry is shifting towards lower resolution digital photography, it's reassuring to see Nolan moving the other way towards sharper, brighter, bigger images.

Be sure to check out our page on Facebook and to read parts one and two of this serries:

Entries in this series:

Intro /Batman Begins

The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight Rises 

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY

There are six of them. They meet in a soundproof room and discuss whatever small pieces of information they have about the enemy. They are Control (John Hurt), Alleline (Toby Jones) Haydon (Collin Firth), Bland (Ciaran Hinds), Esterhouse (David Dencik) and George Smiley (Gary Oldman). Together they are the braintrust of early 70's era British Intelligence, known as "The Circus." Once of them is a mole.

Someone once told me that by the end of a John Le Carré novel, you are likely to know the characters better than some members of your immediate family. Indeed, one of the great pleasures of Tomas Alferdson's new thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, based on Le Carré's 1974 novel, is realizing how complex the plot has become despite seeming so simple. Here is a spy movie that is neither a slamb-bang action spectacle, nor a talky gabfest. Most importantly, this is a film that understands the mindset of espionage. It's hero, George Smiley, doesn't shoot anyone, he barely talks to anyone. He's turned being inconspicuous into a life pursuit.

As the film begins, there is a screw-up in Hungary. An agent is killed while trying to convince a general to defect. It seems that the whole thing was a Russian trap. The consequences of the debacle shake up the Circus. Control and Smiley are forced out, and the egotistical Alleline takes the top chair. A year later Control is dead. His untimely death came before he was able to find the mole. The investigation falls to the retired Smiley, who accepts with something approaching mild annoyance.

There are many, many details to the plot. Many involve Smiley interviewing several operatives, including a disgraced courier Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), and the still active supervisor Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch). The interviews play out almost like therapy sessions. Smiley doesn't say much, he points in the direction he wants with open-ended questions (more frequently, open-ended nods), and lets them talk. As a result, we learn a lot about what makes these people tick, particularly Tarr, but nothing is extraneous. There is tragedy and pathos but emotion is not overplayed. In fact, it's often very, very repressed. This is after all, a British film.

Aferson, who made a splash with the Swedish vampire movie Let The Right One In, has made a film for people who are paying attention, and a film to watch more than once, of small details. Aferson isn't concerned with flash, but still demonstrates one of the best visual eyes on the planet. The performances are, across the board, fantastic. There isn't one weak link to be found. Oldman is excellent with his minimalist performance. The rest of the ensemble is uniformly great, particularly Tom Hardy (Bronson, Warrior) and Mark Strong (Kick-Ass, Sherlock Holmes) who has a small, but pivotal role. This is a clean, efficient film. See it. Ruminate on it, then see it again.

Grade: A

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is currently in limited release, it expands to more theaters January 6th.

BRONSON

Sometimes a movie depends so squarely on a lead performance that it's casting becomes the film. Nicolas Winding Refn's 2008 film Bronson is just such a case. Bronson tells the true tale of Englands most violent prisoner. Michael "Bronson" Peterson. Bronson is played by Tom Hardy (Warrior, Inception), and the film follows him throughout his hyper violent life.

Tom Hardy IS the film. Without Hardy as Bronson, there is no film. Period. And there in lies the problem. Hardy is fantastic and fearless in the role, but there isn't very much else going on here. The film is essentially 92 minutes of Bronson hitting things. There is some variety to be sure. Sometimes he's hitting things while in jail, sometimes in an insane asylum, sometimes in underground boxing matches. Near the end of the film he abandons the whole 'hitting' part and tries his hand at being an artist, but it doesn't feel right so he goes back to hitting things and the movie pretty much ends.

To be fair, you can't have the movie without the hitting. Bronson was and remains Englands most violent criminal. He is a difficult character. He's spent time in 120 prisons and logged over 30 years in solitary confinement. He takes joy in causing pain, loves being in prison, and nothing else. He's not quite human. But where as other directors, such as Scorsesse, might find some sort of thesis or point to Bronsons life, Refn just presents it. Perhaps he's saying that there is no point, that some people are just violent sociopaths and that's that. If that is his point, it is a depressing one. I honestly don't think the film is really trying to say anything. It's as if script-development stopped when the lead role was cast and that is simply not enough. If anyone can make any sense out of this film, this man, please post your ideas in the comment section.

The real story here is Tom Hardy as Bronson. He is a force of nature, and he is unlike anyone else working in the buisines. He's built like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he moves like Charlie Chaplin. The way he moves and uses posture is lightyears ahead of most other actors. Even his shoulder-blades give a great performance in this film.

Refn is a good director and this is a very stylish film. A dangerous drinking game can be made out of spotting Stanley Kubrick references. You get the feeling that Refn will one day make a great film, but this is not it.

Grade: C+

"Bronson" is currently streaming on Netflix Instant. Hardy is currently appearing in the MMA drama "Warrior," and will play the villain in The Dark Knight Rises. Refn seems poised to break into big time too with "Drive," which opens today.