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TIME TRAVELING MOONSHINERS
Nov. 6th, 2012 09:43 amAnother weekend at the cinemas for me means more half-assed movie reviews for you.
Brought to you by the letter "L".
Looper
Time travel thriller set in a dystopian 2044, in which time travel will be invented in 30 years time, outlawed and used by crime syndicates to get away with murder by sending victims back to 2044 to be killed by “loopers”. The twist is that when a looper’s contract is done, their last victim is their older self, after which they've got until 2074 to enjoy their wealth. Joseph Gordon-Leavitt is one such looper who fails to kill his older self (Bruce Willis), who it turns out has his own agenda.
Writer-director Rian Johnson makes the most of the premise – at least as far as action thrillers go. It doesn’t delve too much into the dramatic possibilities of meeting yr future self and altering history – on the other hand, Johnson’s smart enough to leave that to audience members to discuss in the pub afterwards. Indeed, he manages to avoid all the head scratching that comes from most time-travel films (even good ones) by giving his characters bigger things to worry about.
Looper isn’t perfect – there are a few holes here and there, and like most near-future movies, the “future” is vaguely conveyed by dystopian violence and a handful of gadgety things (cars with solar panels bolted on, plexiglass cell phones, and the inevitable hover-bikes) – but otherwise looks exactly the same. But those are small gripes. The story is solid and told well, and the action intense without being overblown (mostly). Highly recommended.
Lawless
From director John Hillcoat and screenwriter Nick Cave (yes, that one), it’s the more-or-less true story of the Bondurant brothers, who bootlegged moonshine in Virginia in the 1930s and made an enemy of Charlie Rakes, a crooked cop from Chicago looking for a cut of the action.
I haven’t seen Hillcoat’s previous work, but I have to say I liked this. It’s probably not for everyone – reviews have been mixed – and Lawless doesn’t add anything new to the gangster genre (or the bootlegger subgenre). Still, I found it to be pretty compelling viewing.
A central reason for that is Tom Hardy’s performance as Forest Bondurant – few people could spend a film mumbling and still make have a powerful presence. That, coupled with Guy Pearce’s psychotic take on Rakes and Nick Cave’s script, gives the story a kind of mythological feel. That may throw off people who expect more realism from something based on a true story, but I thought it suited one of the narrative themes of the film – Bondurant’s legendary reputation for being indestructible, and the price he paid for believing his own legend.
Breakin’ the law,
This is dF
Brought to you by the letter "L".
Looper
Time travel thriller set in a dystopian 2044, in which time travel will be invented in 30 years time, outlawed and used by crime syndicates to get away with murder by sending victims back to 2044 to be killed by “loopers”. The twist is that when a looper’s contract is done, their last victim is their older self, after which they've got until 2074 to enjoy their wealth. Joseph Gordon-Leavitt is one such looper who fails to kill his older self (Bruce Willis), who it turns out has his own agenda.
Writer-director Rian Johnson makes the most of the premise – at least as far as action thrillers go. It doesn’t delve too much into the dramatic possibilities of meeting yr future self and altering history – on the other hand, Johnson’s smart enough to leave that to audience members to discuss in the pub afterwards. Indeed, he manages to avoid all the head scratching that comes from most time-travel films (even good ones) by giving his characters bigger things to worry about.
Looper isn’t perfect – there are a few holes here and there, and like most near-future movies, the “future” is vaguely conveyed by dystopian violence and a handful of gadgety things (cars with solar panels bolted on, plexiglass cell phones, and the inevitable hover-bikes) – but otherwise looks exactly the same. But those are small gripes. The story is solid and told well, and the action intense without being overblown (mostly). Highly recommended.
Lawless
From director John Hillcoat and screenwriter Nick Cave (yes, that one), it’s the more-or-less true story of the Bondurant brothers, who bootlegged moonshine in Virginia in the 1930s and made an enemy of Charlie Rakes, a crooked cop from Chicago looking for a cut of the action.
I haven’t seen Hillcoat’s previous work, but I have to say I liked this. It’s probably not for everyone – reviews have been mixed – and Lawless doesn’t add anything new to the gangster genre (or the bootlegger subgenre). Still, I found it to be pretty compelling viewing.
A central reason for that is Tom Hardy’s performance as Forest Bondurant – few people could spend a film mumbling and still make have a powerful presence. That, coupled with Guy Pearce’s psychotic take on Rakes and Nick Cave’s script, gives the story a kind of mythological feel. That may throw off people who expect more realism from something based on a true story, but I thought it suited one of the narrative themes of the film – Bondurant’s legendary reputation for being indestructible, and the price he paid for believing his own legend.
Breakin’ the law,
This is dF
