Netflix And Chill: Prisoners (2013)

Another day, another film that I delayed watching for over a decade, despite strongly suspecting that I would love it. Prisoners is written by Aaron Guzikowski, directed by Denis Villeneuve, and stars Hugh Jackman, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Viola Davis, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Melissa Leo, and David Dastmalchian in a number of main roles. That's a hell of a cast, and Prisoners is a hell of a film.

A dark and downbeat crime thriller, this is the story of two girls (Anna, played by Erin Gerasimovich, and Joy, played by Kyla-Drew Simmons) who disappear. Their parents obviously fear the worst, but there may be a chance for a good result with Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) on the case. It doesn't take long for the police to haul in a prime suspect (Alex, played by Paul Dano), but things are complicated by the fact that he has the mental age of a small child. He's clearly guilty though, at least according to Anna's father, Keller (Hugh Jackman). Which leads to him coming up with his own plan to get information when the police have no choice but to release Alex back into the care of his guardian (Holly, played by Melissa Leo). Keller has an empty building available to him, a hankering for some violent retribution, and a variety of ideas that he think will force Alex to tell him where his young victims are.

The first thing worth noting here is that this isn't quite as great as it could have been. Guzikowski's screenplay leaves characters repeating themselves too many times, and it feels heavily indebted to a couple of crime thrillers helmed by David Fincher. Mind you, if you're going to be influenced by other art then you may as well be influenced by some of the best, and that is certainly the case here.

Villeneuve is happy to go along with the same mindset. This is a dark world, with almost every scene accompanied by a heavy downpour once the young girls have gone missing. Making important decisions about what to show and what to heavily imply, Villeneuve keeps things riveting for those who can handle the subject matter, helped by the fact that the direction and screenplay seem to keep a tiny portion of hope dangling in front of our faces like a carrot to help us avoid being beaten with the stick.

In terms of the acting, it's hard to be critical of those doing fantastic work with what they're given. It's just a shame that some of what they're given isn't the best material for them. This applies especially to Gyllenhaal, who is made to repeat one or two playbook lines in a way that I know is supposed to show him just wanting to de-escalate situations and get him away from emotional victims as quickly as possible, but is then shown so committed to his job that it feels at odds with that robotic "auto-pilot" mode we've seen elsewhere. Jackman is allowed to go to level ten righteous anger and stay there for the duration, Bello starts to medicate, and both Davis and Howard are used well to show the complex emotions of loving parents wanting answers about their child, no matter what it might take. Dano is absolutely fantastic, even if he doesn't say much, and Leo ends up stealing one or two scenes, while Dastmalchian comes along later in the movie to deliver another reframing of the whole narrative (this happens two or three times throughout the film, with Villeneuve and Guzikowski as interested in making viewers question themselves as they are in the journey of the characters onscreen).

It falls short of greatness in a couple of small ways, but Prisoners is very good stuff indeed. It's basically what you'd expect from a director as good as Villeneuve working with a cast of this calibre on a story about grief, pain, well-honed detective skills, and revenge.

8/10

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Dune: Part Two (2024)

The film that fans of Dune: Part One were forced to wait an extra five months to see in cinemas, that delay seems to have done nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of those eager for more visually gorgeous sci-fi on the big screen. It certainly gave me time to FINALLY watch the first instalment and join those who were eagerly awaiting the concluding part of the tale. Except, and I feel it’s important to say this somewhere in this review, this isn’t really a conclusion to the tale. It’s another lengthy chapter, and I was disappointed as the end credits rolled after an ending that didn’t feel like a proper ending. It might be in line with the source material, and there is certainly more to come from Denis Villeneuve working in this world, but that didn’t help me when I was underwhelmed by the way in which things just started to move towards the next part of the epic tale.

I will give a brief, and very poor, summary of the plot. After the events of the first film, Paul Atreides (Tinothée Chalamet) and his pregnant mother, Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), are living with the desert-dwelling Fremen on the planet of Arrakis. Powerful people still want to destroy the Fremen, all to control the spice and become even more powerful, but Paul may well be the secret weapon that helps to end the ongoing battles. Or he may well cause even more destruction and bloodshed. There are strong bonds forged, and broken, there is a prophecy that many start to doubt, and there is a need to learn how to walk without rhythm in order to stay safe from the giant sandworms.

Although a visual feast from start to finish, as well as an aural feast too (thanks to Hans Zimmer and everyone working in the sound department), Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts have once again done a magnificent job of compressing an epic tome into a digestible and entertaining movie. It has a slightly different tone from part one, mainly due to the fact that we are witnessing Paul exploring his true potential, but it’s often the equal of the first film.

The cast are perfect, as many of them already proved last time around. Both Chalamet and Ferguson get to be a bit stronger and meaner this time, which is an interesting change to their characters, Javier Bardem has a bit more fun in his role, and Zendaya gets to do a lot more than just be some mysterious woman in a vision. Christopher Walken and Florence Pugh are sorely underused, as is the wonderful Léa Seydoux, while the likes of Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, and Josh Brolin are given just time to stay involved in the ongoing plotting and scheming until Austin Butler comes onscreen and threatens to steal the entire movie away from everyone.

I have less to say about this than I had to say about Dune: Part One, but only because it is so perfectly in line with the groundwork set out a few years ago. Villeneuve is arguably one of the best directors around when it comes to creating an entire world in which to immerse viewers (imagine the worlds we could see if he ever worked alongside Guillermo del Toro), and this is incredible stuff. It’s grandiose, it seems to emanate dry heat from every frame, and the prospect of getting to spend more time in this world is the silver lining to the small cloud that is that non-ending.

Much like the spice featured at the heart of the tale, this is pure and powerful stuff. And that’s without even mentioning how depressingly it parallels events in our reality that have been ongoing for decades. 

8/10

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Prime Time: Dune (2020)

It's a bit of a running joke sometimes, but I tend to mention the fact that I've not yet read the source material in a lot of my movie reviews. Films and books are two very different mediums, of course, but knowledge of one can inform your opinion of the other, which is why I try to let people know the full context of my opinion. And it feels even more important than ever to mention it here, considering how many sci-fi fans seem to love the franchise kick-started by Frank Herbert back in 1965.

With the memory of the 1984 film still looming large in my subconscious, I kept delaying a viewing of this film for as long as I could. The cast seemed good enough, the visuals looked great, and I hadn't yet been disappointed by director Denis Villeneuve. I just couldn't bring myself to give it 2 1/2 hours of my life though. Until I could.

Timothée Chalamet plays Paul Atreides, the son of Lady Jessica Atreides (Rebecca Ferguson) and Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac). This noble family are sent to the planet Arrakis, a hostile environment that also happens to be the home of the most valuable resource in the universe, spice. Spice makes interstellar travel possible, among other things. Arrakis has some hostile native inhabitants, in the shape of both humanoids and the huge sandworms, but the House of Atreides hope to use diplomacy and respect to make the best of their situation, ignorant to the fact that they have been set up for failure. Aside from the political manoeuvring, Lady Jessica spends time helped Paul develop his power, known as "The Voice", and preparing him to fulfil his prophesied potential.

Adapted for the screen by Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts, and Eric Roth, the latter two with very mixed filmographies that wouldn't necessarily lead you to think of them as first main choices for this, Dune is a dense viewing experience that admirably does enough throughout to keep viewers up to speed with the developing intrigue and treachery. It's part one of two, and that was definitely the right choice. In fact, the more of the source material that comes through in each main scene, the more you realise what a fool's errand poor David Lynch was on when he tried to pack everything into one feature back in the mid-1980s.

Packed with gorgeous visuals from start to finish, Villeneuve makes sure to once again build a completely believable and fully-formed environment for the characters to inhabit. The production design, make up, wardrobe, etc, are all absolutely stunning, and displayed beautifully by cinematographer Greig Fraser, and there's a superb Hans Zimmer score to accompany the flawless visuals.

While Chalamet plays the lead role, it's an extra delight to have the rest of the cast so stacked with great performers and familiar faces. Not that Chalamet is bad, but his character is, certainly in this first half of the tale, a bit weak and passive, for the most part. Ferguson and Isaac are effortlessly impressive though, and they have a couple of reliable advisors/warriors in the shape of Jason Momoa and Josh Brolin (both excellent, the latter disappointingly under-used). Stellan Skarsgård is almost unrecognisable, at first anyway, as the repugnant and cold-blooded Baron Harkonnen, Dave Bautista turns up just long enough to play his nephew, and there are excellent contributions from Chang Chen and Sharon Duncan-Brewster. You also have small roles for Javier Bardem and Zendaya, both playing different Arrakis natives who could end up helping our lead to fulfil his promise.

This is the kind of big-budget sci-fi that fans deserve. It feels more mature and intelligent than the usual mainstream releases, it has been crafted with a real care and attention to detail, and Villeneuve and co. have taken care to punctuate the ethereal and meditative mood with enough livelier set-pieces to ensure that the lengthy runtime doesn't feel like an unendurable slog. Many fans will have already seen this, and been won over by it, but I recommend it to anyone else who has been as hesitant as I was. It's worth your time, and I hope everything comes together for a satisfying concluding instalment.

8/10

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Mubi Monday: Enemy (2013)

Sitting in between the less mainstream, but no less interesting, films from director Denis Villeneuve, Enemy is a dark and strange film that boasts a fantastic dual performance from Jake Gyllenhaal, some interesting themes being explored, and a head-scratching ending that feels much more surreal and nonsensical than it actually is.

Gyllenhaal plays Adam, a teacher who seems to enjoy his quiet life. His weekdays are taken up with work and he usually sees his girlfriend (Mélanie Laurent) at weekends. His world changes, however, with the discovery that he has an exact double in the form of an actor, Anthony, and he decides that they should meet. But that may just makes things stranger, and may lead to a spiralling chain of events that include mistrust, anger, and arachnid-infused nightmares.

Based on a novel by José Saramago, Enemy is a dark and compelling psychological drama that rewards multiple viewings, and also retains enough ambiguity to allow viewers to have their own interpretation of events. There are clues, probably even pointers, generously sprinkled throughout the first half of the film, but they still don't point to any one, definitive, conclusion. Well, not in my mind.

Villeneuve knows exactly how far to push things, working with a fine script by Javier Gullón that takes time to observe the main character in between a number of defining moments. Everything has an air of menace and foreboding about it, emphasised by the dark visual style (not murky, but this feels like a film with a hell of a lot of dark brown used in the colour palette), and that doesn't disappear as you realise that a number of the external cues may just be representing the state of mind of the main character.

Although he has many performances that could contend for the title, Gyllenhaal once again proves why he's one of the most watchable actors of his generation as he portrays Adam and Anthony here, two men who may be physically identical but certainly seem poles apart when it comes to personalities. Laurent and Sarah Gadon (playing Anthony's partner, Helen) both do great work in roles that could have easily been further sidelined in favour of more screentime for Gyllenhaal. They're not big roles, or handled as well as they could be, but both actresses do excellent work, reminding you at all times that these are very important characters in the story, even when they're not onscreen. There's also a cameo from Isabella Rossellini, who provides more information that could help sway you towards one definite conclusion, yet once again proves far from definitive.

Enemy is a film I have thought about often, since I first saw it a couple of years ago. It's not one I will revisit often, but I WILL revisit it. And I doubt I will ever stop appreciating the little touches throughout - the character beats, the dialogue, the design work, etc. I recommend others seek it out, if you haven't seen it already.

8/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.