Netflix And Chill: Leave The World Behind (2023)

Based on a novel by Rumaan Alam, Leave The World Behind is arguably just as well-known now for being produced by Barack and Michelle Obama as it is for being written and directed by Sam Esmail. It proved quite divisive when released just over a month ago, but I'm going to say that it's definitely worth your time, if only for the fact that none of the main cast members put a foot wrong with their performances.

The premise is quite simple. Amanda and Clay Sandford head away for a peaceful vacation, two teenaged kids in tow. Things soon start to get a bit strange though, particularly when some time at the beach is interrupted by a huge ship crashing into the shore. They get even stranger, and more tense, when G. H. Scott and his daughter, Ruth, turn up on the doorstep of the holiday home, claiming to be the owner in need of shelter after a major incident has caused havoc in the city. Clay is quite welcoming and easygoing about the whole thing, but Amanda immediately has her guard up.

If there's one major criticism I could directed at Leave The World Behind it's the fact that nothing seems as interestingly ambiguous as it could have been. The first half is much more interesting than the rest of it, although there's plenty of decent individual moments to still make it worth the 138-minute runtime. Of course, some of that may be down to my response to the casting, and the way that Esmail is happy to have certain characters be so cold and spiky that you automatically hope for others to prove their misanthropy wrong.

Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke are the Sandfords, and their children are played by Farrah Mackenzie and Charlie Evans. Everyone is perfect in roles that allow them to have a number of fun and interesting interactions with others onscreen, even if Mackenzie's character is motivated most of the time by a surprisingly understandable need to find a way to watch the final episodes of Friends, something familiar and comforting as the situation around her grows more chaotic and alien. Evans has the least to do, although even he gets to make an impact in the third act with the journey that his character goes on, but both Hawke and Roberts are as watchable as ever, with the latter seeming to relish a role that allows her to retain a cool and spiky demeanour for most of her screentime. As the Scotts, both Mahershala Ali and Myha'la are brilliant, dealing with a spiralling situation that they know is going to be exacerbated by the attitudes and prejudices of people acting rashly while driven by fear. Ali's character really knows the value of keeping people calm and pro-active, but he struggles to keep others on the same page. There's also a good little turn from Kevin Bacon, delivering one of his best performances in a while as someone else preparing for what he sees is a major storm brewing, to put it mildly.

The first big project from Esmail since his huge TV success (and I encourage everyone reading this to check out the brilliant and thought-provoking Mr. Robot), Leave The World Behind is enjoyably ambitious and messy. It's a melting point of talking points, with at least one scene sticking in your mind because of it being impressively terrifying for the cinematic strangeness and horrific implications, but doesn't ever really turn into something completely satisfying. I started to suspect that would be the case at about the halfway mark though, and I'm not sure of any other way the film should have ended. 

It may make you a bit more anxious than the latest world news and ongoing daily dumpster fires going on around us already do, but I still think people should give this a go. It doesn't ever become more than the sum of its parts, but some of those parts are simply brilliant.

7/10

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Mubi Monday: Before The Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)

Writer Kelly Masterson may not have a long list of credits to their name, but they certainly provide quality ahead of quantity. I have enjoyed everything I have seen from him so far, and there are one or two of his screenplays that I absolutely love. Including this one.

Things pretty much start with a botched robbery. Gunshots are fired, and people are wounded, in potentially fatal ways. We then start to jump back and forth in time, watching both the planning for the robbery and the many loose ends that need tied up in the aftermath. At the heart of everything stands Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Hank (Ethan Hawke), two brothers trying to seize an opportunity. Both need a large cash injection to improve their lives, and both have feelings for the lovely Gina (Marisa Tomei). Both also find themselves way out of their depth as soon as their plans go awry, but one of the brothers may have more determination to do whatever is necessary to turn their mistakes into an opportunity.

Directed by Sidney Lumet, a man who has directed more classics than I could list here (just check out his filmography and start working your way through them all, you won’t be disappointed), Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead is a classic neo-noir structured to draw viewers closer to the main characters before showing everything falling apart around them. Every extra detail revealed works to compound the initial error in judgement that set everyone on a path to somewhere predictably dark and unpleasant. Lumet isn’t interested in making things overly stylish or slick, and I don’t think he ever is, as he once again makes his life easier by marrying up a perfect cast to an absolutely brilliant script. There’s a sadness and desperation to the leads that stops them from ever feeling too entertaining or too cool, and each performance feels built wholly around a kernel of authenticity that makes it so much easier to watch the events unfold without feeling held back by a layer of cinematic artifice.

Hoffman and Hawke absolutely nail their onscreen sibling relationship, with both delivering superb performances that complement one another beautifully. Hoffman is the man with the plan, and the one who actually needs everything to work out as intended, while Hawke’s character is much more nervous, and much easier to push around than his brother. Tomei is an excellent choice for the role of Gina, a believable motivator for the men who want to keep her in their lives, and Albert Finney has a role that becomes more and more integral to the film as we watch things come to a head. On top of that, you have some screentime for Michael Shannon, Amy Ryan, Alexsa Palladino, and Leonardo Cimino, all doing excellent work, whether onscreen for just the one scene of a few different moments.

Carter Burwell’s score is a beautiful accompaniment to the changing pace of the writhing plot, and the very end of the film has both Masterson and Lumet making a couple of strong choices that I think were absolutely the right ones, delivering a finale that is impactful and satisfying.

I don’t know why I didn’t ever make time for this before, but I am glad I finally got around to it now. Slot it into your own viewing schedule as soon as you can. I cannot imagine anyone being disappointed by this.

9/10

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The Black Phone (2022)

Based on the short story by Joe Hill, The Black Phone is a tale, not entirely unlike some other Hill stories, that feels VERY much like something his dad would write. You get a nice feeling of Americana from the past (it's set in the late 1970s), you get one main character imbued with some magical power, there are horrible bullies, a parent who likes the bottle more than anything else, and the main villain constantly tries to act as if he is working in service of a higher power. I can't see anyone who liked It, or the stories in Different Seasons, finding too much to dislike here.

Ethan Hawke plays 'The Grabber', a masked kidnapper of children who has been reducing the population of a small part of Denver. He meets his match when he grabs young Finney (Mason Thames), but he doesn't realise just how much help Finney is going to have when it comes to staying alive. Finney has a sister, Gwen (Madeleine McGraw), who has been having scarily accurate dreams, which means she may be able to locate her brother. And Finney also has the titular phone, attached to the wall of the relatively bare room he is trapped in. It occasionally rings, something that 'The Grabber' puts down to static electricity, but Finney soon becomes the first person in some time to hear voices through the receiver. Those voices are the previous victims of 'The Grabber', and they have some advice to offer Finney.

Directed by Scott Derrickson, someone who has been delivering solid entertainment for about two decades now (with his last feature being the first Doctor Strange movie), The Black Phone is a supernatural-tinged thriller that works as well as it does thanks to those involved not looking to give themselves any kind of get-out clause. The thriller aspect is solid, and there are moments of tension in between the more predictable plot beats, but the supernatural aspect is equally solid, and it's never dropped in favour of some attempt to tidy everything up in the final scenes. 

The script, written by Derrickson and C. Robert Cargill, effectively delivers all of the information required within the first 20-30 minutes to then really focus on the tension for the remainder of the movie. There are some obvious points made that will be referred back to, but there are also some more subtle details. The 103-minute runtime speeds by, but underpinning the basic thrills and chills is a pleasantly unexpected comment, deliberate or not, about giving victims a voice, and keeping their names more relevant and recognisable than the name of their abuser. You get to learn the names of a number of kids as the movie plays out. You don't learn the real name of Hawke's character, unless I missed one quick mention of it anywhere.

While he's not onscreen for that long, Hawke is excellent, and chilling, in his role. His character casts such a long shadow that I never really felt his lack of physical absence to be a problem (although I have seen some mention that they were surprised by how few main scenes he was in). Thames is the one who carries most of the film, giving a performance that marks him out as someone to keep an eye on. The same goes for McGraw, who makes a strong impression as the feisty and gifted Gwen. The other child actors, most often seen depicting their characters as The Talking Dead, also do well. James Ransone is a highlight, playing a coked-up armchair detective who ends up closer to the truth than the people who are officially on the case. The only person who didn't work in their role was Jeremy Davies, stuck with portraying the drunken father who has to deliver some unnecessary clunky backstory that I initially through was going to set up some extended Hill/King cinematic universe.

I really liked this. It's a simple premise that is executed pretty perfectly (it probably helped that most of the film is set in one room, allowing Derrickson and co. to optimise the use of the budget elsewhere), it doesn't run overlong, and it doesn't feel as if the ending is setting up a sequel. None of those things should be so rare in modern cinema, but watching a film getting everything just right serves as a reminder of how rare they are.

8/10

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Mubi Monday: The Truth (2019)

After the absolute brilliance of Shoplifters, I was willing to see anything that director Hirokazu Koreeda would do next. I'm sure many others felt the same way. Not that Koreeda hasn't been delivering great movies now for decades, but Shoplifters was so good that it just put him right back in my mind as a bit of a master of cinema. And I'm sure others feel the same way.

Anyway, The Truth is Koreeda's English-language debut. And it's mostly in French. Catherine Deneuve plays a famous actress, Fabienne Dangeville, who is being visited by her daughter (Lumir, played by Juliette Binoche), her son-in-law (Hank, played by Ethan Hawke), and their child (Charlotte, played by Clémentine Grenier). The timing coincides with the release of Fabienne's autobiography and her latest role that has her playing . . . a mother. And the truth is ripe for exploration at this time, especially as Lumir calls into question so many things in the alleged autobiography that didn't actually happen the way they are described.

I think it's fair to say that The Truth may well disappoint a lot of people after Shoplifters. It's nowhere near as good as that film, and it doesn't seem to make any of the main points as effectively and beautifully as we're used to seeing these things done by Koreeda, who once again takes on both the directing and writing duties (although Ken Liu is credited for a short story used as the basis for the film that Fabiene is working on).

The weakness of the material, however, is at least partly compensated for by the quality of the leads. Deneuve is a grand dame of cinema, of course, and I can't think of any role she's had that I've disliked. This gives her some great moments, showing a woman so invested in her acting career that she will move from a moment of honest emotion to figuring out how best to use those feelings in a specific scene in her movie. Binoche is a perfect "opponent", staying strong enough to wrestle things back to the truth that the title of the movie promises. Hawke is very good in his role, although his character feels quite unnecessary for most of the runtime, and Grenier is just fine as the beloved child of the group. Manon Clavel does well in a supporting role, and Roger Van Hool helps to mix things up a bit when he appears onscreen.

What you end up with, ultimately, is a character study that steadily turns into a mood piece. But the mood never really feels like one worth giving so much time to. The core of the film is a standard family confrontation, and the dressing around it all never seems vital. It all infuses the core, undeniably, but a few tweaks could have left a lot of things the same without the extra layering that doesn't add enough to make it all worthwhile.

It's a very enjoyable film, full of moments that will impress fans of the main cast. It's just not a great film. And, perhaps a bigger contributing factor to my opinion on it, it's just not close enough to being as good as Shoplifters.

7/10

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Juliet, Naked (2018)

Chris O'Dowd plays Duncan, a middle-aged man who runs a website dedicated to a musician named Tucker Crowe. He's also in a relationship with Annie (Rose Byrne) but it quickly becomes clear that the two of them aren't in the best place. They have stagnated. But things liven up when a package is delivered that contains an unreleased, stripped-down, version of the most famous album by Crowe. Annie and Duncan disagree over the album. Annie writes a negative review on Duncan's site, and that honesty leads to Crowe (Ethan Hawke) getting in touch with her by email. Things get messy, emotionally speaking.

Based on a novel by Nick Hornby, which should come as no surprise as you realise how self-centred and obsessive some of the central characters are (in different ways), Juliet, Naked is a fun and engaging romantic comedy that is more about characters finding happiness within themselves than finding it with other people, although that's not what they're thinking about in the earlier scenes.

Director Jesse Peretz handles everything comfortably enough, keeping everything light enough even as it threatens to descend into darker territory. The first act break-up of Duncan and Annie is bad enough for anyone who was expecting a different kind of film, but when Crowe comes into the picture and describes his turbulent life to Annie, in some frank emails, it becomes clear that he has a lot of baggage that may end up weighing down those within his immediate vicinity. He initially seems to be the weakest of the main characters but that changes when you realise that he might be able to offer Annie something she cannot find elsewhere. Or maybe Annie already has everything she needs.

The script, written by Evgenia Peretz (sister of Jesse), Jim Taylor, and Tamara Jenkins, does enough to entertain anyone who has enjoyed other Hornby novels/adaptations. It manages to make the more selfish moments seem easy to point and laugh at while making the sweeter moments quite effective without being too sickening. There are some good individual lines, although it could have done with a few more scattered throughout.

O'Dowd is a lot of fun in his role, which turns out to be a supporting one. He's an asshole, but he gets away with playing one because, deep down, O'Dowd is a likeable guy. Hawke does very well in his role, one that seems to both embrace the cliches and somehow veer away from them, not through any doing of his own but from the actions and reactions of the others around him. And Byrne is excellent, seeming to make the most of a lead role that doesn't require her to act too silly or have her life endangered by demonic forces. Elsewhere, you get good little turns from Lily Brazier and Phil Davis, among others, but it's the central trio who remain the focus throughout, even when more and more characters threaten to crowd them off the screen.

Overall, a very enjoyable film. Not great, not unmissable, but very enjoyable, especially if you're a fan of the main stars.

7/10

You can buy the DVD here.
Americans can get a disc here.

Netflix And Chill: 24 Hours To Live (2017)

Ethan Hawke stars in this action thriller, the kind of slick, violent fare that you would be forgiven for assuming had Luc Besson in a producer role. It's generic stuff, but it's fairly well put together and has a very small role for Rutger Hauer (always welcome).

Hawke is a top assassin named Travis Conrad. He wants to enjoy a holiday but is pestered back into the field by his colleague, and friend, Jim (Paul Anderson). It's an important job, and the pay available for it reflects that. Despite his skills, Travis is shot and killed. But that's just a temporary setback, and the company soon have him back on his feet and ready to finish the job. For 24 hours anyway (hence the title). Travis quickly realises that there's more to this job than just taking out someone who deserves to be dealt with. There's something not right about the whole thing.

Directed by Brian Smrz, 24 Hours To Live is fast-paced and full of decent action moments. Considering the premise of his previous feature, Hero Wanted (his directorial debut), it would seem that Smrz has an affinity for movies in which guys drag themselves out of hospital beds to head off and kill lots of people. Nothing wrong with sticking to what you know, and as I have yet to see Hero Wanted I cannot say if there are many other similarities.

The plotting, although obvious, is perfectly acceptable in the way the premise is set up and played out. Writers Ron Mita and Jim McClain (who have been writing together for a few years now, judging by their filmography), and Zach Dean keep everything at just the right level of enjoyable silliness. This is not a film designed for anyone who wants to overthink things, but it manages to avoid seeming completely unbelievable, even during some of the bigger set-pieces (with a sequence showing Hawke trying to keep his "target" safe from various sharpshooters being a definite highlight).

Hawke is fine in the lead role. He's surprisingly believable as a shooter who can also win out in hand-to-hand combat, especially when the odds are stacked against him. Andersdon does okay in his role, although he's hampered by some of the more predictable script elements, and Liam Cunningham has a lot of fun in his limited amount of screentime. Xu Qing (playing a guard of the main target) should have been given more to do, instead of becoming the main motivator for Hawke's character, but she fares better in the first half of the film, when actually given some of the action, than in the second half.

I doubt this is going to be a film that will be remembered years from now, and it's not one that anyone should rush out to make their top priority, but it's a decent way to spend 90 minutes. And if they found a way to extend the lifespan of Hawke to give him Another 24 Hours To Live then, yes, I would be up for watching that.

6/10

The disc is available here.
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Netflix And Chill: Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets (2017)

A variety of things can save movies from being terrible. There could be one great performance, there could be an enjoyable twist in the third act, there could be some screentime for Diora Baird (what? each to their own, don't you judge me). Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets manages to avoid being a terrible movie because of the sheer abundance of visual gorgeousness and design creativity on display. There are also a couple of great supporting turns, but it's the visuals that help to make the 120+ minute runtime much more bearable than it otherwise would be.

Dane DeHaan is Major Valerian, an agent who works alongside Sergeant Laureline (played by Cara Delevingne). He's also in love with her, but she is wary of his long list of past loves signifying a fear of commitment. More importantly, the two are tasked with a mission that will take them into the city of a thousand planets, hence the title. There are moments of action, many different lifeforms on display, and a race against the clock. That's all you need to know.

Written and directed by Luc Besson, based on a comic book series by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mezieres, this is a film that could have been great. Besson is on good form here, obviously in love with the material and pulling out all of the stops to realise as many vibrant and fully-textured different environments onscreen as he can. He takes time to let the camera soak up plenty of details, but is equally happy to zoom and spin around while following characters through a number of chase sequences. He doesn't do as well with the script but it's standard pulpy sci-fi stuff, and fans of this kind of fare will have endured much worse.

The problem really comes from the leads, who just aren't anywhere close to being charismatic enough to cover over the weaker parts and sell the shenanigans. I like both DeHaan and Delevingne, the former is especially good in the right roles, but neither of them work here. It's not that they're terrible, they're just not a fit for the roles, nor do they work well off one another. That just becomes more and more obvious whenever we get fun turns from Clive Owen, Ethan Hawke, and even Rihanna (yes, she's very good in her small role). Herbie Hancock is a standard, gruff, authority figure, and he's fine in his role, but it's the others who get to look like they're actually enjoying themselves whenever they're onscreen.

There are other problems. The score by Alexandre Desplat doesn't feel right for the visuals (and I know that I don't mention music in films as often as I should, mainly because when it works it's easy to notice it less, like great CGI). It lacks any sense of grandeur or magic, often bringing it to your attention by being so relentlessly . . . flat while the visuals dazzle. It's also too busy at times, in terms of both characters and plot points. An action sequence in the first act never works as well as it should for this reason, although it is still a lot of fun. Last, but not least, you have the same problem that affected the unfairly-maligned John Carter. We've seen a lot of this stuff before, but that's down to the source material being around since the late 1960s, which is some time before many of the movies and stories it may have subsequently influenced.

If you're looking for some smart sci-fi then look elsewhere, but if you're looking for some easy sci-fi entertainment full to the brim with imagination and a sense of fun then this should hit the spot. It's just a shame that it didn't do enough in the other departments to complement the style and visuals.

6/10

Here's a shiny disc available for you.
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Predestination (2014)

A sci-fi thriller that only really livens up in the final third, Predestination is a fun head-scratcher from the Spierig brothers, the men who also gave us Undead and Daybreakers (both fine films).

There are more than two people in the cast, but the focus of the film remains on Sarah Snook and Ethan Hawke. The latter is, as we learn in the opening scenes, a time-traveller who has been trying to catch a killer for a number of years. The former? Well, Snook plays someone who may just lead Hawke right to his prey. But not before telling him a tale, one that describes a fairly unique, and interesting, life.

I'm loath to criticise Predestination, because in many ways it is everything that I want from my dark sci-fi fare. It IS interesting, it has some great ideas being thrown around, and the acting is pretty good. There are characters here that you become genuinely interested in, making you more invested in the twisty climax.

Yet there are also a number of big mis-steps. The biggest hurdle that the film can't quite overcome is the fact that about an hour of the movie, or possibly even a little bit more, is essentially nothing more than everything being set in place for the finale. Yes, many movies could be described that way, if you break them right down, but it's a much bigger problem here, especially during some scenes that may test the patience of viewers.

The other big problem that the film has is predictability. The Spierigs may think that they're always one step ahead of the viewer, but they're not. To be fair, there are a couple of times when they ARE (and these times raise up the whole film). It just doesn't happen as often as they think, with at least one major reveal completely robbed of any power due to how easy it is to see coming a mile away.

Hawke and Snook give good performances here, with the latter given the more difficult role and working even harder to make it consistently authentic (within the context of the rather outlandish premise). Noah Taylor has a small role, and does what's required of him, and that's about it. There are other people acting onscreen, but they're always background details for the story being told between the two main stars.

You could never accuse the Spierig brothers of a lack of imagination. While this may be their weakest movie yet, it's still an enjoyable experience. I will continue to look forward to seeing their names appear onscreen, whatever they decide to serve up next.

6/10

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Boyhood (2014)

Boyhood is a film that took around twelve years to make. Written and directed by Richard Linklater, the central idea IS that timespan. But if that was the only thing making the film worthwhile, a central gimmick that could have just as easily gone horribly wrong, then it wouldn't have been quite as well-received as it was. Thankfully, Linklater assembled a fine cast, came up with some interesting obstacles for his characters to overcome, and ended up creating something that runs for 165 minutes while never outstaying its welcome.

Ellar Coltrane plays Mason, the boy whose life viewers are invited to watch over an extended period of time. He's living with his mother (Patricia Arquette) and sister (Lorelei Linklater), enjoying occasional visits from a father (Ethan Hawke) who was AWOL for a sizable chunk of time, and finding out about life. That's really all there is to it. As the title lets you know, this is about boyhood.

Linklater has always been a writer-director able to create entertaining movies around a core of recognisable truths. That talent is invaluable here, helping the movie to stay far away from the pile of navel-gazing pretentiousness that it could have been. Boyhood pretty much allows you to take away from it as much, or as little, as you want to. There's plenty of drama, and many scenes that people can accuse of having "nothing happen", but there's also plenty of humour, plenty of warmth, and a number of key moments that people will be able to identify with.

Coltrane does well in the central role, which is essential for a film revolving so much around his character. He's not the best actor in the world but, crucially, he always seems quite at ease and natural in front of the camera. Lorelei Linklater isn't quite as naturalistic, although she's perfectly fine in her role. Arquette and Hawke both seize this unique opportunity with both hands, delivering performances that serve as great reminders of their considerable talents. Marco Perella and Brad Hawkins have the unenviable task of portraying flawed men who end up in Mason's life, and Zoe Graham is a young girl who provides him with his first bout of heart trouble (in terms of love, not any medical issue).

I could go on and on about this film. Almost every scene provides some kind of cinematic pleasure. Is it perfect? No. Some of the characters are slightly overdone (especially the one played by Perella), the last half hour feels disappointingly, although perhaps also inevitably, anti-climactic, and the soundtrack, as good as it is, often makes each song feel like what it is - a marker for the passage of time. Of course, those minor failings become even more insignificant when considering the ambition of the film. I'm sure most people will consider me picky for even bringing them up.

This is one of the best movies of the year, I have to agree with the many others who have already said the same thing. It's just not THE best.

9/10

http://www.amazon.com/Boyhood-Blu-ray-DVD-Digital-HD/dp/B00MEQUNIW/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1419694445&sr=1-2&keywords=boyhood