In The Line Of Fire (1993)

There was a lot of love given to The Fugitive last year, tied to the fact that it was 30 years since it was released and it received the 4K disc treatment, and I am one of many people happy to see it. I have always loved that film, but seeing all the praise it was receiving last year kept making me wonder why In The Line Of Fire wasn’t getting the same treatment. Although a very different movie in many ways, it also feels like the other great all-star thriller from 1993.

John Malkovich plays a man who intends to assassinate the President Of The United States. He is smart, he has a background that helped him form a particular set of skills, and he is very determined to see his plan through to the very end. Things get more interesting for him when he realises that he can engage in a battle of wits with a Secret Service agent named Frank Horrigan (Clint Eastwood). Frank has spent his time in the service of numerous Presidents, and he was there on the day that JFK was assassinated. Did he hesitate at the moment he was supposed to act selflessly? He may just get a chance to live through that moment again, a chance to figure out if he can take a bullet for someone under his protection.

Written by Jeff Maguire (that’s it, just Jeff, no need for a team of writers interfering with the work), In The Line Of Fire is just top-tier entertainment from start to finish, plotted well enough to keep viewers from overthinking the implausibilities, making use of a great cast of characters, and maintaining a brilliant game of cat and mouse that has you wondering if you will get a happy or downbeat ending.

Director Wolfgang Petersen proves to be a great choice to steer the ship. In fact, you could easily argue that Petersen had an amazing little run between the early 1980s right up to the year 2000 where he basically did no wrong, although I say this without having rewatched Outbreak since I owned it on VHS. He mixes the old-fashioned star casting and interplay with set-pieces that benefit from his ability to step up the tension, and there are one or two scenes that wander very close to outright horror territory.

Eastwood is frankly superb in a lead role that allows him to both be the tough guy and remember that he is no longer a spring chicken. It’s a performance full of wry humour, worldly wisdom, and inherent courage. Malkovich, always an intense screen presence, gives us one of the villains for the ages, someone who is smart and determined and also not entirely in the wrong to have such a major axe to grind. Every scene that has Malkovich talking on the phone with Eastwood is much more electrifying than any moment simply depicting people on the phone should be. Rene Russo is a welcome addition, playing another agent who catches the eye of Oor Clint, and Dylan McDermott is the typical trope of the younger partner who ends up in a lot more danger than he can handle. Others who get some screentime include John Mahoney, Gary Cole, Fred Thompson, John Heard, and both Tobin Bell and Steve Railsback appear for a few minutes.

After my latest rewatch of this, I facetiously stated that In The Line Of Fire jogged alongside a Presidential motorcade so that Se7en could run. I still think there’s a grain of truth in that, considering how Clint’s character becomes such an important part of Malkovich’s endgame, but the best thing about this film is that it makes use of so many familiar elements while very much being its own thing. When it comes to smart and entertaining mainstream thrillers, this one really hits the mark.

9/10

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Shudder Saturday: The Clovehitch Killer (2018)

Relationships between children and parents can often go through periods of turbulence. Rebellious years, growing pains, suspecting that your father is a serial killer. All of these things can cause some strain. That last issue may be a rare thing indeed, but it is what the lead character here ends up dealing with. 

Charlie Plummer is Tyler, a well-behaved young man who tries to stay on his best behaviour around his parents (Samantha Mathis and Dylan McDermott). His worst behaviour is sneaking out with his dad’s truck to meet a date. Which starts off a horrible chain of events, all because a small pornographic photo is found in the truck. This piques Tyler’s curiosity about the local deaths caused by “the clovehitch killer” (someone so named because of their favoured knot). Tyler teams up with Kassi (Madisen Beaty), a young woman who is slightly obsessed with the case, despite the fact that no murders have been committed in years. Things soon get more worrying when evidence starts to point to Tyler’s dad as the main suspect. 

Boosted considerably by the pairing of a great cast doing some of their best work and a finely-tuned script by Christopher Ford, The Clovehitch Killer is a great slow-burn thriller that sits nicely right in between the believable and the . . . cinematically believable (so not too believable, but there's enough done to help you enjoy and believe it all while things are playing out). Director Duncan Skiles allows everything to be sold by the acting and the structure of the screenplay, and knows when to show more and when to keep things hidden away. Things seem very obvious at certain points, but the twists and turns are all done in a way that allow you to consider how the characters may still find certain things plausible, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Plummer is an excellent young lead, very believable as he starts to lean into some behaviours that his parents would frown upon in his quest to get to a truth he may not really want to accept. Beaty is a great co-star alongside him, a teenager who happily treads her own path, and someone with a very understandable reason for digging deeper into the case of "the clovehitch killer". Mathis and McDermott are both just as good as the younger cast members, and McDermott gives a performance that easily ranks up there with anything else he's done over the years. He's almost unrecognisable at times, and every interaction he has with his family members, and particularly his son, is played absolutely perfectly.

It's a film with very few surprises, and one that could have been made as a short with some adjustments, but this is one of many movies about the journey, rather than the destination. And that journey is a hugely satisfying one, thanks to the efforts of everyone involved. Not flashy, not gory, not exploitative, what you have is simply the result of a group of talented people who all have faith in the material that they're working with. And the end result shows that they were right to have that faith.

8/10

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The Perks Of Being A Wallflower (2012)

Written and directed by Stephen Chbosky, adapting his own novel, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower is a good film with moments of greatness, helped enormously by a winning central performance from Logan Lerman as the main character. The fact that it ends up not as good as it could be stems from some tired cliches of quirkiness being trotted out, and also from one or two complete mis-steps (like having the cool kids who love cool music not be able to recognise the song "Heroes" by David Bowie - watch the film and you'll probably have the same expression of puzzlement and disdain that I had during that moment).

Lerman plays Charlie, a sensitive young man who doesn't really fit in with those around him at school. He enjoys reading and writing, and quickly finds out that he'll at least really enjoy listening to his new English teacher (Paul Rudd). He's also had some mental health problems, but whatever caused them is obviously going to be held back for viewers to discover as the movie builds to its finale. Anyway, Charlie starts to enjoy life a LOT more when he befriends Patrick (Ezra Miller) and Sam (Emma Watson). That also leads to him becoming friends with a few of their friends, and it soon gets easier for Charlie to keep the good days outnumbering the bad days. But the situation probably can't stay so stable, especially when Charlie has such strong feelings for Sam.

Chbosky does fine with the structuring and feel of the movie. There are details teased out as things build up to the climax, and there's fine line between the comedy and the dark tension always running underneath it. He's helped by a good cast, but few of the supporting actors are as good as Lerman. Watson tries hard, and I suppose does a pretty good job, but I just can't accept her as the sexy, cool, free spirit that she's portraying here because, well, I've never found her sexy or cool. She may be both of those things, and I know that she's certainly the former to some people, but she doesn't ever seem that way to me, therefore her character is bearable but unconvincing. Miller does a lot better, but his character is another cliche, alongside Watson's quirky object of desire. Miller is the exuberant gay male, spreading around enough love for everyone while hiding a lot of his personal pain deep inside. Mae Whitman is great for almost every moment that she's onscreen, Johnny Simmons adds another good turn to his CV, and Dylan McDermott and Kate Walsh play Charlie's parents, the two may not have much screentime but still do well with what they're given. And horror fans will be delighted by the small role that Tom Savini has in the movie.


There's nothing new here, and that may be the biggest problem that The Perks Of Being A Wallflower has, but a lot of what IS here is done well, and I can't praise that central turn from Lerman enough. But, honestly, the other big problem is . . . . . . . . . what kind of cool kids don't recognise a great David Bowie song when they hear one?

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Perks-Being-Wallflower-Blu-ray/dp/B008OQ037W/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1391897925&sr=8-4&keywords=the+perks+of+being+a+wallflower

The Campaign (2012)

A political comedy starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis as two very different men running against one each other to see who will become the congressman for their hometown.  Ferrell is Cam Brady, the more experienced and ruthless of the two. He's been unopposed for a long time, able to get away with pretty much anything he likes (including some obvious infidelity and lewd behaviour). Galifianakis is Marty Huggins, a simple man who doesn't realised that he has only been picked because a couple of immoral businessmen (played by John Lithgow and Dan Aykroyd) think that he will do whatever they ask of him once he's in a position of power. When Marty first steps forward it seems like some kind of joke, but thanks to some help from Tim Wattley (Dylan McDermott) and the courage of his convictions, Marty soon turns things around to make Brady and his advisors more and more concerned.

While it may lack the big laughs of Tin Men or Used Cars, this is a film very much in that ilk. It may favour dumb fun over smarter gags, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable. In fact, Ferrell and Galiafanakis both get a chance to play characters close to many that they have played before, with the former being an ass, with arrogance only matched by his stupidity, and the latter being mistakenly written off as nothing more than a dim-witted schlub. They're helped by a great supporting cast, including Brian Cox, Jason Sudeikis, Sarah Baker and Katherine LaNasa, as well as those already mentioned. Baker and McDermott are the standouts, in two very different performances, but everyone does a great job, and it was especially good to see Aykroyd in a role not a million miles away from that of the two conniving businessmen in Trading Places.

The script, by Chris Henchy and Shawn Harwell, laces all of the easy laughs with some salient points and observations, both in general terms when it comes to the world of politics and in relation to specifics that show up what uneasy bedfellows big businessmen and politicians make. It's no surprised to see that Adam McKay helped to come up with the story, considering what he and Henchy were able to come up with for The Other Guys.

Director Jay Roach has been helming comedies for a long time now. Even if he doesn't quite elevate this to comedy gold, it's clear that he knows what he's doing, and the end result is a film deserving of more fans. If you like either of the leads, or if you like comedies that remind viewers of just how childish things can get in the political arena, then this is definitely worth your time.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Campaign-Blu-ray-Copy-Region-Free/dp/B0083SEZV6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1388242910&sr=8-2&keywords=the+campaign