Prime Time: Get Duked! (2019)

Get Duked! enjoyed a good festival run last year, if my memory serves me right, but I didn't catch it. It was then titled Boyz In The Wood (which I think is a better title) and I just didn't fit it into my schedule when it was a potential viewing choice back then. I'm glad I finally got to it now though.

Rian Gordon, Lewis Gribben, and Viraj Juneja are, respectively, Dean, Duncan, and legend-in-his-own-lunchtime DJ Beatroot. They're all in a bit of trouble, which leads to them being signed up to the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme. They'll be dropped into an area of Scottish countryside and left to make their own way to a pre-determined point, with a number of factors being rated during their experience. One of those factors is teamwork, which looks a lot less likely when they're joined by Ian (Samuel Bottomley), an eager young man who actually volunteered for the scheme. In fact, getting to their destination at all starts to look very unlikely when the teens start to be hunted by a gun-toting "duke" (Eddie Izzard) and his wife (Georgie Glen).

Written and directed by Ninian Doff, Get Duked! is a fantastic feature debut from someone I'll now be eager to see more from. Doff has built up a decent selection of music videos in his filmography, having worked with the likes of The Chemical Brothers, Kasabian, Miike Snow, and Run The Jewels, and he delivers a film that crackles with energy, genuinely great humour, a smattering of hip-hop, and class warfare.

Funnily enough, as light and disposable as the film may seem, in some ways, it's that last element that separates this from many other riffs on The Most Dangerous Game. The people doing the hunting here are the ones we have seen in the news more and more lately, usually for all the wrong reasons. People that have everything they want, take whatever else they fancy, and don't think the rules apply to them. They're not breaking the law. They're helping to maintain a natural order.

The script is sharp and witty (there's a monologue here from a scene-stealing Alice Lowe, talking about a bread thief, that is one of the funniest things I have enjoyed in years), the soundtrack is very enjoyable, and the very end scenes bring everything together in a way that is both ridiculous and yet also absolutely satisfying, and bound to make you smile.

It also helps that every single cast member is doing top work. The young leads are about as perfect as you could want them to be. Gordon and Gribben are very standard . . . idiots (certainly in how quick they are to just try whatever idea first comes into their heads), Juneja keeps having an opinion of himself that doesn't seem in line with his rapping abilities, until he discovers an unlikely fan base, and Bottomley is the kind of young man you just know has a favourite Thermos flask. Izzard and Glen are suitably menacing as they stalk their prey, more so in the way they really don't seem to try and hide their homicidal intent, and Jonathan Aris is the teacher responsible for dropping the teens off and leaving them to their own devices. You also get some Highland police officers (the two main ones played by Kate Dickie and Kevin Guthrie), their quest for the aforementioned bread thief nicely juxtaposed with a more dangerous potential threat, and a farmer (James Cosmo) who ends up being gifted a DJ Beatroot CD. Cosmo has given many great performances over the years, but the sight/sound of him driving his tractor while singing along to some juvenile penis-centric lines of rap should be high on any list of favourite Cosmo moments.

This would double-bill nicely with Attack The Block if you want to see both urban and rural adventures of youths being hunted by dangerous predators. I'd argue that the enemy here is much more dangerous than any alien entity. And I'd also argue that this is the better of the two films, but there's not much in it, and let's revel in the fact that the past decade gave us both.

9/10

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Vivarium (2019)

The last time director Lorcan Finnegan worked with writer Garret Shanley, on their debut feature after collaborating on a fine short, Foxes, they gave viewers a film about someone finding strangeness and potential insanity in an isolated wooded area. This time around they give us a couple finding strangeness and potential insanity in a picture-perfect suburban home.

Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg are Gemma and Tom, a young couple looking for their ideal home. They meet a strange agent, Martin (Jonathan Aris), and are then taken to a home in a street of identical homes, in an area full of identical streets. Martin then disappears, leaving Gemma and Tom to find their own way out of the neighbourhood. They can't manage it, and it soon becomes clear that they are somehow always fated to end up back at the front door of what is now their new home. No matter how hard they try to escape, they keep finding themselves back home. And then they receive a child.

That's pretty much everything about Vivarium, and the main plot is fully set up within the first 5-10 minutes. Although I would be hesitant to compare it to something like Blue Velvet, it certainly uses the fantastical concept to illustrate how much the dream of suburban contentment can soon sour and become a nightmare for those who are trapped in it (which, in this case, is a very literal situation).

Visually, you get an excellent exaggeration of most typical modern street layouts. All of these new homes look the same, the streets are the same, and every home even has one fluffy cloud-shaped cloud (you know what I mean) resting just overhead. Finnegan really does all he can to create a vision that is both uniformly mundane and also very creepy.

Shanley's script is a bit less satisfying, but I also admired the fact that he didn't set out to provide any answers for the non-stop string of oddities that make up the various plot points. The child alone (played mostly by Senan Jennings) is one major part of the movie that you never get an explanation for, which doesn't stop him being incredibly creepy and disturbing, but you also get no extra information about the motivation of certain characters, about the logic and physics of the environment, or even how certain things are always worked out (such as deliveries and repairs). Viewers are as bemused as the main characters.

Poots and Eisenberg are very good in the main roles, with the latter becoming more angry and aggressive than the former. They adjust to their new life quite quickly, but that's when they realise they have no choice in the matter. Jennings is excellent as the child, one of the most loathsome little people I have had to endure onscreen, and Eanna Hardwicke does a decent job as the grown-up version of the same character.

I'd recommend Vivarium if you're after something far removed from the norm. Just don't expect answers to any of the questions it puts forwards.

7/10

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Sightseers (2012)

If there's one thing you can say about Ben Wheatley it's that he's an interesting, and pretty fearless, director. Moving between genres with ease, although most of his movies certainly have elements that comfortably sit within the realm of horror, he has established himself over the past few years as someone always worth keeping an eye on. Strangely enough, I've always seemed to slightly disagree with people over his movies, tending to enjoy them without loving them, but I would always recommend him to people seeking out something a bit different from the norm.

Sightseers is, as you might suspect, a bit different from the norm. It's a very British version of Badlands, with any ruminations on the thin line between notoriety and fame replaced by items of knitwear and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . caravans. Alice Lowe and Steve Oram are Tina and Chris, a couple who are very much in love. It's been a bit of a whirlwind romance, but Tina and Chris start off the movie secure in the knowledge that their love is strong. And Tina is very keen to get away from her manipulative mother (Eileen Davies). Once they're on the road and enjoying their holiday, it's not long until the fun is overshadowed by some unexpected death. Yes, a tragic accident looks as if it might spoil things for the holiday, but it turns out to be just the beginning. Chris has a bit of a habit of leaving corpses in his wake, and Tina isn't as shocked by it as she should be.

The best thing about Sightseers is the script, from the two main stars (with additional material by Amy Jump). It's not a consistently great piece of work, but almost every scene has at least one great one-liner, even amongst the darkest moments. The other big plus for the movie is the acting, with Oram and Lowe just delightful from start to finish. Eileen Davies also does some great work in her supporting role, and there are solid performances from Jonathan Aris, Monica Dolan, Richard Glover and Richard Lumsden AKA potential victims, one and all.

Unfortunately, and I seem to be in a minority as few others have been bothered by this, the movie is undermined by one big oversight. The fact is that Chris and Tina are rarely ever justified in their actions. Okay, okay, I get that murder is never justified, but when a movie asks you to accompany people who may end up acting a little bit psycho - understatement - then that journey is always easier when there's a teeny tiny bit of wish-fulfilment added to the mix.

The fact that there is no such moral muddying of the waters here is, most likely, a very deliberate thing, and Lowe and Oram deserve even more praise, in some ways, for still making the characters two people that viewers try to keep liking, but it's an ultimately unsatisfying journey, especially during the middle of the movie.

Sightseers is very funny, it's thought-provoking, and it's never boring, but it's also not as good as it could have been. Although there are many people who will be quick to disagree with me.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sightseers-Blu-ray-Alice-Lowe/dp/B00A37SHPU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1389612206&sr=8-2&keywords=sightseers