Red Sparrow

Tonight we go see Red Sparrow, a spy thriller which has attracted a lot criticism. This allegedly perverse ‘15’ certificate film has been accused of being both violently and sexually perverse with woman beaten and raped seemingly at will by powerful men.

I must admit that I have been a little surprised by this reaction but then I think I was possibly too busy being annoyed at how they'd made a complete hash out of a decent book which was written by former CIA operative Jason Matthews.

Perhaps I need to re-watch it to see what I missed but I do remember they’d left out the hair brush scene (thankfully). That would have caused even more of a stir.

The story goes like this. Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) was a ballerina at the Bolshoi whose promising dancing career was ended by injury. Sadly her dancing also funded the care for her ailing mother.

Not to worry, her uncle Ivan (Matthias Schoenaerts), who works in Russian intelligence, offers her work to help her get by. It is just a small favour he requires, for her to be the honey in a trap that is to be sprung on a Russian politician. She does the favour and does a rather good job, although it probably goes a little bit further than she would have hoped. Then just as the politician is having his way with her, he is murdered.

Unfortunately she’s now in a bit of a pickle because she’s seen too much. She is told she can either die or start working for Russian intelligence herself. Tough choice that.

So her uncle sends her off to Sparrow School where Matron (Charlotte Rampling) teaches the recruits to use the skills of sexual seduction to get what they want from the enemy.

Once graduated, Dominika is sent to Budapest to meet her target, Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton), who works for the CIA and knows the identity of a Russian mole known as Marble. However, Nash quickly sees through her and the long and short of it is that he persuades her to become a double agent.

I was a fan of the book even though it was at times convoluted and hard to follow, so a simplification was required for it to work as a film and that doesn't happen. In fact what we have here is an even more convoluted plot.

The other problem is where is the seduction? There’s a total lack of chemistry between the two agents. For someone supposedly trained in seduction, Dominika doesn’t pull any tricks out of the locker for him. In the book they have a conflicted relationship due to the nature of their jobs but a relationship nonetheless, here they eventually have a quick bonk. It's not quite the same and where was the swimming race? That was one of my favourite bits.

Instead the script seems to demand that all the Russians must be portrayed as ice men and ice maidens. So Lawrence goes through the entire film wearing only one expression, one of indifference, while Edgerton goes about attempting to be the all American hero.

In fact Lawrence seems hugely miscast in this but then so too are the likes of Charlotte Rampling, Jeremy Irons, Joely Richardson and Ciaran Hinds. Were there no genuine Russian actors available the weekend that they did the casting?

There is also no back story to the Russian mole which was pivotal to the original story, instead the film just seems overloaded with violence. It’s all deeply disappointing.

This would have made a wonderful independent flick or even a mini series but Hollywood completely wrecked this one.

The Woman In Black

Tonight we settle down for the latest Harry Potter.

Something is wrong though. Harry’s ditched the glasses, gone for contacts and grown some stubble. Ah, this must be ‘The Woman in Black’ then, a ghost story from the once great Hammer Films. It is based on a book by Susan Hill from 1983. There is also a popular stage play and a TV movie, made in 1989.

It grabbed my attention immediately when three children leapt unexplained to their deaths from a window in perfect synchronisation. From walking in with not very high expectations, I'm already slightly impressed. Nicely morbid does it for me every time.

Arthur Kipps (played by Harry), who lost his wife (Sophie Stuckey) during childbirth, works for a law firm. His firm, not very impressed with his recent efforts, ask him to travel to the remote village of Crythin Gifford (wasn't that one of the houses at Hogwarts... perhaps not) to find out if the recently deceased Mrs Drablow has left any unknown wills. His employer warns him that it's his last chance to prove his worth to the company.

When he gets there, after a long trip north, there's suddenly no room at the Inn, despite booking, and there’s also something not quite right about the whole village, whose residents clearly don't want him around. It could be connected to the mysterious deaths of a lot of children and the sightings of a woman in black.

That is, apart from one man, Simon Daily (Ciaran Hinds), a man with a car, a rare thing at the turn of the last century. He too has lost a child, his son, and his wife (Janet McTeer) has gone slightly crazy. She also has two dogs, how more crazy can you get?

The late Mrs Drablow lived at Eel Marsh House, which is your standard horror film rundown mansion, which lies at the end of long winding road that is impassable when the tide is in. Like Lindisfarne or Amityville on sea. I'm not sure how long the woman has been dead but the house is already very dilapidated but then the process of law can be pretty slow or perhaps she just wasn’t into cleaning.

Now what we get is a good old fashioned haunting as Kipps looks through a mound of the old lady’s paper while bumps, bangs and creaking floorboards happen around him. Kipps copes admirably. He possesses an uncanny stupidity/bravery in the face of it all but then I guess when you’ve seen off one shady figure you can see off them all and the Lady in Black is no Lord Voldemort.

She is though a wronged woman on a mission and we all know to steer well clear of those. They cannot be appeased. Kipps discovers the back story, how she lost her child and it appears now that she’s determined that everyone else will lose theirs too. The bad news for Kipps is that his own son is coming up to visit in a few days time.

I rather enjoyed this. Whereas most modern horror films just pile in loads of blood and gore, this is a real throwback, old school horror, with plenty of scenes that keep you on the edge of your seat. It's just you, a creepy old house and Mr Radcliffe. Oh and the dog. I was worried about the dog.

It's even sort of scary. You see them coming but the scares are still quite effective. They probably overdid it a bit at times and stuff like murky liquid leaking from a faucet has never been scary but overall, I loved it.

Plus Daniel Radcliffe is actually rather good. They handled brilliantly and didn’t ask him to do anything he couldn’t. Just stand there and look moody, which he did well.

So does it all end happily ever after? We'll I'm not saying but I left the cinema with a spring in my step but then I do love a good death.

Tinker Tailor Solider Spy

Now I remember the 1970’s BBC TV Series of John le Carre's 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy'. I vaguely recall it at the time but have re-watched it since, although even that would have been some time ago. I found the series fascinating but it also baffled the hell out of me and that was a seven part series that had over five hours to tame the meandering plot. The new film version however intends to do this in just over two hours...

So perhaps they’ll cut out those long pregnant pauses of unspoken dialogue and those lingering meaningful stares that didn’t convey very much... Nope.

Like the TV series the film nonchalantly tosses little bits of raw information or ‘hints’ at it’s largely unsuspecting audience and says make of that what you will. It is not big on explanations. In fact so little is made of the revelation of some vitally important points that you’re likely to miss them. So concentrate, don’t blink. Don’t even think about going to the toilet.

Essentially there is a double agent, a mole, amongst the heads of British intelligence, known here as the ‘Circus’. At the time all this was very current affairs, now it’s a 1970’s cold war history lesson. Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) is sent to Budapest by boss man ‘Control’ (John Hurt), to bring in a Hungarian General who wants to defect to the west and will reveal the mole's identity but the meeting is a set-up.

The meeting at a Budapest cafe ends with Prideaux shot and taken away to endure months of vicious interrogation, cue a particularly shocking scene, before he is eventually returned to Britain where he is ‘retired’ to live in a tatty caravan and to teach at a public school. Which is very 1970’s, these days even public schools don’t employ shady men who invite young boys into their caravans.

Back at the Circus, Control has died and his deputy George Smiley (Gary Oldman) has been forced to retire in shame at the botched operation. Yet the investigation is reopened when agent Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), a loose cannon if ever there was one, turns up with pillow talk corroboration of the mole theory gleaned from a love affair with the wife of a Russian intelligence officer he was tracking. Smiley is subsequently drawn out retirement to track down the mole.

Tarr promises to help Smiley, if he can reunite him with his Russian blonde, a promise he cannot possibly keep. Smiley’s suspicions fall on four men:- Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), who is now head of the Circus and three other top ranking officials, Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds) and Toby Esterhase (David Dencik).

I’m giving a more linear version here, which the film does not, instead relying on the dreaded flashback. You soon lose count of how many times we end up back at that Lenin themed staff Christmas party.

Assisted by Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), Smiley investigates. Talking to the increasingly bitter Prideaux and the sacked head of research Connie Sachs (Kathy Burke) who suspects that the Soviet Cultural Attaché in London is really a spy. Smiley discovers that pages have been removed from the duty officer's log book for the night Jim Prideaux was shot. So he speaks to the duty officer himself, who tells him who was the man in charge that night...

The Circus's Russian intelligence source ‘Merlin’ is looking increasingly dodgy as indeed is the entire operation coded name ‘Witchcraft’. Now who was the man responsible for that, and could the same man simply be shagging Smiley's wife to make any accusations levelled at him by Smiley look like sour grapes.

Having gleaned enough, Smiley set a trap and catches the traitor. If you’ve not blinked the mole’s identity is no great shock and perhaps that’s part of the problem with the film. I think perhaps the film makers knew it too and jazzed up what happened next.

Some say this is a masterpiece. So you're supposed to describe it as compelling, tense, absorbing, involving etc etc and in some ways it was. Some would say dull. In reality, it's probably somewhere in between. It’s well made with strong performances all round. Gary Oldman's portrayal of Alec Guinness, sorry Smiley is excellent. Just gen up big time before you see it.