Prime Time: The Usual Suspects (1995)

An astonishingly accomplished second film from director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie, who had previously worked together on their debut, Public Access, The Usual Suspects holds up as well today as it did when it was first released. Almost.

The story concerns five criminals who end up brought together by the police during an investigation. They are Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), Hockney (Kevin Pollak), McManus (Stephen Baldwin), Fenster (Benicio Del Toro), and Verbal (Kevin Spacey), and all five end up working together on a job that seems quite simple and profitable. Things soon become more complicated, however, when they are all informed that they have unwittingly crossed paths with a major criminal figure known as Keyser Söze. They now owe Söze, and he has a big job planned for them. This is all told to the viewer through flashbacks, with us hearing the tale as Verbal tells it to a tenacious cop named Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri). What starts off as the investigation of a heist gone wrong soon turns into a determined quest to uncover the real identity of Keyser Söze.

There's still a LOT here to enjoy, if you're a film fan or a noir fan, but rewatching The Usual Suspects is a way to savour many little details (mainly the nuances in the great performances from the ensemble cast) and pick apart a number of threads that don't seem to make sense. McQuarrie's script puts the emphasis on cool ahead of believability, but that's not a terrible thing when the dialogue is as crackling with energy as this is.

Singer directs with an assured hand, but he has such great source material to work with. The script is matched by the cast, and everything is lifted up by the editing and score from John Ottman. As much as I have enjoyed many films from Singer, he helps himself a lot by often combining the best cast with a good script (and we've subsequently seen the messy result when one of those elements isn't as strong as it could be).

Spacey is excellent as the figure at the centre of the spiderwebbing plot, a man forced into telling a tale to authorities that he hopes to use to avoid major jail time. Keaton lends weight to the central motley crew, the most serious figure forced to work alongside a group of skilled crooks who are more likely to land themselves in hot water than a big payday, and Pollak, Baldwin, and Del Toro are all excellent, with the latter having particular fun as he delivers his lines as unintelligibly as possible. Palminteri is enjoyably stern and tenacious, the cop probing even further as he feels himself getting increasingly closer to the full truth of the situation, and there are fun turns from Dan Hedaya, Peter Greene, Giancarlo Esposito, and Pete Postlethwaite, as well as one or two others (Suzy Amis is one of the few female characters, but she's given very little to work with).

Very rewatchable, and a lot of fun from start to finish, this remains a pretty great film. It just loses some power when you know what's coming, and when you can some time mulling over some of the more improbable plotting. Still highly recommended though, and certainly one that you need to watch if you've somehow not yet got around to it.

8/10

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Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

Okay, I cannot really formulate my thoughts on this film in a way that makes sense, but I'm going to try my best to explain myself. A lot of Bohemian Rhapsody is quite rubbish. It is laughable that the film won an Academy Award for best editing, especially when you can highlight some key sequences that wouldn't look out of place in a Paul W. S. Anderson movie. It is a "greatest hits" version of the history of Queen, and the life of charismatic frontman Freddie Mercury. It's a family-friendly rock opera, in a way, with the mix of humour, tragedy, and elation you can expect from such a thing. And yet . . . that doesn't stop it from being a bloody good time. The highlights are absolutely goosebump-inducing, and easily impressive enough to make up for the weaker aspects.

Rami Malek is Freddie, in a performance absolutely deserving of all the praise heaped upon him, as well as his win at the 2019 Oscars. He becomes the lynchpin of Queen, with the talent of Brian May (Gwilym Lee), Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy), and John Deacon (Joe Mazzello). He also develops a life-long relationship with Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton), constantly astounds the band manager (Aidan Gillen) with his vision, and his ability to make that vision into a fan-pleasing reality, and enjoys gently mocking the lawyer that they have in their corner, Jim 'Miami' Beach (Tom Hollander). And, as the start of the film makes abundantly clear (as does the advertising imagery and any trailers you may have seen), it all leads to a legendary live performance at Live Aid in 1985.

Directed by Bryan Singer (but with the whole thing finished in the last few weeks by Dexter Fletcher after Singer had gone AWOL for a while), Bohemian Rhapsody is almost exactly what you want it to be. As long as you want it to be a fun time in the company of Queen. The screenplay, written by Anthony McCarten, is more concerned with keeping viewers entertained and in high spirits than it is with providing a story that feels grounded in the truth. Even the moments that really happened just feel so unreal, so apocryphal, that it never allows the film to feel like anything more than a rocking fairytale.

It's a good job that Malek is uncannily good in the main role, and that you have Gillen and Hollander to look out for, because none of the other main cast members do anything worthwhile. Well, none of the cast members portraying members of Queen anyway. Lee, Hardy, and Mazzello are poorly treated in a storyline that serves as nothing more than a testament to someone they obviously loved. The sad thing is that you get the feeling that everyone deserved something a bit better, even if that meant showing more of the low points and exploring just what would drive the band, individually and together. Boynton is the other person who actually manages to make an impact, thanks to both her performance and the fact that she is the only character in the film given any hint of depth.

Please believe me when I say that I am not being snobbish (and people who know the wide variety of films I watch will know I am no film snob) by saying that this is quite rubbish, and quite rubbish in oh so many ways. Yet, despite the myriad flaws, it's easy to see why it's a crowd-pleaser. You get all of those familiar Queen songs, you get a number of great moments, and you get a finale that is up there with the best I can think of, in terms of making you want to stamp your feet, throw your fist in the air, and vicariously join in with one of the greatest live performances of all time.

6/10

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X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014)

For anyone mad enough to care about such things, my reviews of the previous X-Men movies can be found here (the first), here (the second), here (The Last Stand) and HERE (First Class). I've also reviewed X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Wolverine. Sadly, I've still not read any of the actual comics, but I've enjoyed, to varying degrees, every cinematic outing for the superhero squad.

Bryan Singer returns to the director's chair for this instalment in the X-Men movie franchise and it's not long until he reassures fans that they are back in safe hands. A lot of people enjoyed X-Men: First Class, but I was a bit disappointed by it. It was entertaining enough, sure, but really felt lacking in the action department. Five minutes into X-Men: Days Of Future Past and the action is thick and fast. Mutants are being wiped out by giant robots, called sentinels, that can absorb mutations and add them to their formidable arsenal of weaponry. Many have died, with a small group staying alive thanks to the unique gift of Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page). If an attack begins, and they can save some precious time for themselves, Kitty can send the consciousness of someone back to an earlier time, that person can then warn everyone, and the attackers arrive to find nobody around. Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen) want to end the war, and they think that Kitty could be the key. Unfortunately, she would need to send someone back decades, not just hours or days, and the mind can't handle that. Unless it's a mind that can repair itself almost as quickly as it's being broken to pieces. Yes, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) ends up being the one chosen to travel back in time. He has to find the young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), and the young Magneto (Michael Fassbender), and he has to ask them both to help him find Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence). She doesn't know it yet, but it's her blood that could lead to the death and destruction of all mutants.

Although rooted in a darker storyline regarding the planned extermination of all mutants, this remains a surprisingly light and upbeat film (something that Singer also managed with the first movie - both started with scenes featuring a holocaust). This is thanks, mainly, to the large ensemble cast all clearly enjoying themselves, and also to the pacing of the movie, with at least four fantastic set-pieces helping to make the 131-minute runtime just fly by. When the action kicks in, it's almost as if everyone involved is so relieved to not be explaining "the science part" that every set-piece is taken up a notch thanks to the additional exuberance of all involved.

Jackman is the star of the show once again, after his fleeting appearance in the previous movie, but there's plenty time to enjoy the performances of McAvoy and Fassbender. Lawrence would have benefited from more screentime, but that's more a comment on how great she is onscreen than a criticism of Simon Kinberg's script. Nicholas Hoult gets to Beast out, impressively, on a few occasions, and Peter Dinklage is enjoyable as the potential villain of the piece. As well as Stewart, McKellen and Page returning to their roles, we get Halle Berry back (stuck with her character, Storm, being as useless in the movies as she has been from the beginning), Shawn Ashmore reprising his role as Iceman, Josh Helman portraying a young Maj. Bill Stryker, Evan Peters stealing a few scenes as Quicksilver, and Bingbing Fan making a great first impression as Blink (seriously, she's probably the coolest one that I was previously unaware of). There are many, many more, old and new, but I don't want to spend more time just reeling off the names.

Because of the time travel element, there's plenty of room here for references, in-jokes, and plot holes. Having said that, I never once sat and thought about any major mistakes in the developing timelines. The movie may (in fact, probably does) have the kind of errors/paradoxes that most other time travel movies also contain, but it's so polished and consistently entertaining that it doesn't matter. You also have to admire the skill shown in ret-conning the franchise so effectively. By the time the end credits roll (and wait for the post-credit tease, of course), fans can leave the cinema happy with the way things have been set up for the cinematic future of this franchise.

It may not be the best of the series, I still think 1 and 2 are a pretty unbeatable double-bill, but this is a return to great form for the X-Men. In fact, it's almost impossible to think of any fans who will dislike this one.

8/10

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