Mubi Monday: Calm With Horses (2019)

Let's be completely honest from the start here, Calm With Horses is nothing that we haven't already seen done, and done well, in dozens of other dramas from the UK and Ireland. Thankfully, this has atmosphere and performances that make it very much worth your time.

Cosmo Jarvis plays Arm, an ex-boxer who now works as the muscle for a notorious local family. He's often alongside Dympna (Barry Keoghan), and the family appreciates that he will do whatever is asked of him. Until he becomes hesitant about dealing with Flannigan (Liam Carney), a man accused of a transgression that gives him a death sentence. Stuck between his employers and his own morality, Arm is also struggling to be a good father, and trying to accept that his ex-partner, Ursula (Niamh Algar), is ready to move away from the area to somewhere that could be much better for their young son.

While I have seen Jarvis in a number of different movies over the years, I have not singled him out for praise, although he was been consistently good, and great in Lady Macbeth. This is probably his best performance yet though, strong and ready for violence, but also aware of how much better life can be when people can be softer and peaceful with one another. Everyone else here is very good (Keoghan and Algar just as you'd expect, and Carney, David Wilmot, Ned Dennehy, and Anthony Welsh all perfect in their respective roles, whether they're acting scared, scary, or slightly oblivious to the violent world that is just one side-step away from them), but the film belongs to Jarvis.

This might be the first feature directed by Nick Rowland, but he helps himself enormously by trusting Joe Murtaugh to adapt Colin Barrett's short story, as well as assembling a cast of superb talent. Getting Jarvis in place was probably the most important part, a solid anchor point that everything else can be attached to, but everything is treated with due care and a faith in the material.

It may not be the most cinematic work, and there isn't anything I want to highlight, but everything is in service of the script and the acting in a way that is reassuring. Everyone behind the camera has done their job in a way that doesn't call attention to their valuable contributions, and that is sometimes a lot harder to do than it might seem.

Grim stuff, but not without a fleeting ray of sunshine breaking through the gathering clouds, Calm With Horses is a film I would happily recommend to anyone after something moving and powerful. There are one or two moments that come close to being too uncomfortable to sit through, but Murtaugh and Rowland know just how far to take things, and how to keep the central character riveting as he tries to hold in the anger that is constantly beating him up internally.

9/10

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Netflix And Chill: Baghead (2023)

I'm not accusing anybody here of plagiarism, we all know that creative film people can have similar ideas that end up suffering when released too close to some other, superior, outing, but if I told you that Baghead is a horror movie based around the idea of people being able to talk to the dead for a very limited amount of time, as long as they follow certain rules, then you may well think of another film that was released in the past couple of years. And if you haven't seen Talk To Me yet, I recommend that ahead of this one. I recommend many films ahead of this one, but Talk To Me is the one it most closely resembles, superficially.

Based on the short film of the same name, written by Lorcan Reilly, this is the tale of Iris (Freya Allan), a young woman who ends up taking over a pub from her estranged, and no-longer-on-the-mortal-coil, father (Owen, played by Peter Mullan). She isn't supposed to be the new owner though. It contains something dark and dangerous underground, an entity that can apparently channel the spirits of the dead, becoming them for a limited time. Iris and her friend, Katie (Ruby Barker), are wary, of course, but also think there's a way to make some money when someone (Neil, played by Jeremy Irvine) offers to pay them for a chance to speak to a deceased loved one. I am sure everything will work out well, as long as people abide by the specific rules that they're told about and don't have any dark secrets to be revealed.

Directed by Alberto Corredor, his feature debut after helming the short back in 2017, this is a competent and serviceable film. It's also tiresomely dull, especially when things play out in the finale in a way that feels completely unoriginal and unsurprising. Lorcan Reilly has continued to work on short movies, which leaves the full screenplay for this in the hands of another first-timer, Christina Pamies, and Bryce McGuire (who gave us the inexorably dull Night Swim in the same year, oh dear). Pamies and McGuire are not good enough to turn the central idea into something worthwhile, which leaves the cast adrift in a cold sea of mediocrity.

Allan is a good lead, although she already has a knack for picking projects that don't make good use of her talent. She gamely struggles through this, despite the writers giving viewers very little actual character development aside from how she has been defined by the fates of her parents. Barker is also better than the material allows, and both actresses deserve much more than the slop they're served here. Mullan, only in a few scenes, is always a welcome presence, and Ned Dennehy is a good fit for the solicitor who helps the pub transition from one owner to the next. Jeremy Irvine, on the other hand, isn't very good. He struggles to play his character as required, and his discomfort as he wrestles to do good work, contributes to the weakness of a finale that everyone involved probably thought was a fantastic, clever, and satisfying ending. 

I feel a bit unkind here, but maybe that is the way it has to be. While not terrible in any way, this is dull. And, as many people have said many times over, being dull is one of the worst things for a movie to be. Give me something to love, give me something to hate, but don't give me something to shrug off and forget about within a minute of the end credits rolling. That inability to make any strong impression makes the good work done by some of those involved simply redundant. Am I going to praise the score by Suvi-Eeva Äikäs, the cinematography by Cale Finot, or the production design and makeup? No . . . because they've faded away from my mind quicker than the serious and unbreakable rules faded from the minds of the main characters in this tale.

3/10

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Mubi Monday: The General (1998)

Directed by the great John Boorman (who has also given us a number of not so great movies, but his wins far exceed his losses), The General tells the story of the life of Martin Cahill, an Irish criminal who spent a long time avoiding and frustrating the Garda throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. The fact that he is played here by Brendan Gleeson ensures that viewers are unlikely to hate him.

Things start off well enough. After being in and out of trouble from a young age, Cahill is shown steadfastly refusing to move from a site that has been scheduled for demolition. His reasoning? He wants a better choice of alternative accommodation, and he gets it. Good for him. But we soon see the other side of Cahill, the man happy to rob, threaten, and beat anyone he views as a target. He will depositing thousands of pounds into a bank account and then visit a local police station to have an alibi while his cronies rob the bank and get his money right back to him. He will wave guns under the noses of people, he will plant bombs to potentially kill professional witnesses, and he will even nail someone to a snooker table if he thinks they have been skimming profit from him. Meanwhile, his home life is a non-traditional, but happy, set-up with Frances (Maria Doyle Kennedy) and her sister, Tina (Angeline Ball), as well as the children he has fathered with each of them.

Although black and white when it was shown in cinemas, I saw it presented a visual palette so muted that it often seemed as if it was in black and white anyway, but the occasional patches of colour managed to catch the eye (particularly the aforementioned snooker table). Not being utilised for any big “wow” moments, the cinematography and colour (or lack of colour) simply keep viewers more easily in the time and place alongside the characters.

Boorman, adapting the book by Paul Williams, as well as including a reference to the time he himself was robbed by Cahill (a gold record stolen from his home), does a decent enough job at showing the criminal operation, as well as showing the continuing efforts of the police trying to get their man. Where he falls down is in the tone of the film, making Cahill a loveable rogue for most of the runtime, instead of the callous and opportunistic criminal that he was. I am all for any kind of “Robin Hood” character, but that’s not what we see here, although maybe those romanticising his life want to see him that way.

Gleeson surely relished this role, a perfect fit for him and one of his best lead roles (which is saying something). Whatever problems I may have with the material, Gleeson is faultless. He’s given great support from Kennedy and Ball, who are both allowed to feel like more than just “daft wee wimmen”, and there are good performances from Adrian Dunbar and Sean McCginley, as crooks, and Jon Voight, as the main cop butting heads with Cahill. Yes, Voight’s accent is far from perfect, but it’s surprisingly not all that bad for most of his scenes. Not bad at all.

It’s really hard to rate this. There were so many moments I really enjoyed, partly BECAUSE Boorman and Gleeson work hard to keep Cahill such a cheeky charmer, but the moments that troubled me, moments of violence and nastiness that were moved past all too quickly, helped to build up a bitter taste that I couldn’t rinse away, even hours after the film had finished. Maybe many people view Cahill the way that Boorman depicts him, and maybe I would be feeling different if this was some Scottish criminal I had grown up knowing, and viewed as a bad person who also did some good things, but the film errs in maintaining an apparent lack of judgement.

As a film, it works brilliantly. As a film about Cahill, it doesn’t do so well.

7/10

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Prime Time: Guns Akimbo (2019)

If you want to see a prime example of how to completely derail your new movie, career, and any feelings of goodwill that people may have for you then do check out the story of Jason Lei Howden, writer-director of Guns Akimbo. He has delivered a fun, frenetic, film here. I don’t think anyone is holding their breath for his next one though.

With that noted, let’s move to the actual content of the film itself. Daniel Radcliffe plays Miles, a young man who seems to be the definition of “a bit of a loser”. He spends his days working for a company that creates mobile phone games, has separated from his girlfriend, and spends a lot of his free time getting drunk and trolling people online, especially those who comment while watching Skizm, a videogame that takes real people and puts them against one another. His latest antics get him notices by Riktor (Ned Dennehy), the crazy boss of Skizm. That leads to Miles being caught, drugged, and waking up with a gun bolted to each hand. He has 50 bullets in each gun, no great shooting skills, and very low odds of surviving against the reigning champ, Nix (Samara Weaving).

Having previously given us the excellent Deathgasm, Howden has shown that he has a talent for comedy. While that film blended horror with the comedy, this is an action film that never strays too far away from absurdity. Even the first main sequence showing Miles trying to adapt to life with guns bolted to his hands provides some chuckles as the threat of accidentally shooting himself becomes immediately apparent while he tries to get dressed. The action is enjoyably over the top and some of the moments that highlight the difference between being a videogame player and being capable enough to handle any confrontation in the real world work really well.

Radcliffe is a lot of fun in the main role, absolutely useless for most of the runtime until he finds the courage to embrace his new form. Weaving is as good as she has been in most movies over the past few years, given a makeover here that makes her look even more badass and scarier than usual. Dennehy is good fun, Natasha Liu Bordizzo is just fine as the ex-girlfriend seeing a new side of Miles, and there’s a hilarious cameo from the brilliant Rhys Darby.

The big problem that Guns Akimbo has is the lack of proper focus. The action scenes are shot well, but they’re also deliberately stylised and unbelievable, putting them at odds with the level of development needed for Miles to stay alive. The comment on videogames and the ease with which we can find and pick fights online is potentially interesting, but dropped quite quickly (or, at least, buried by the rest of the plot and the gunfights). And the way the plot unfolds should be easy to predict if you have watched any action thriller made since the 1980s.

It’s definitely still worth your time though, very easy to watch and enjoy when you want something funny and violent that won’t cause you to overthink anything or delve into a period of introspection. The fact that it is a bit of a mess doesn’t matter as much as it rushes from one set-piece to the next, and everyone involved at least knows exactly what kind of film they’re participating in. 

7/10

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Mubi Monday: Mandy (2018)

Something a bit different this week, and something that keeps me on track with the horror element for the month. MUBI now has a MUBI Go feature, offering subscribers a cinema ticket to one film per week, subject to availability at your local cinemas. And this week they offered up Mandy. Well, it would have been rude to refuse the offer.

Panos Cosmatos made quite a name for himself with his feature debut, Beyond The Black Rainbow. I still haven't seen that film, despite all the praise heaped upon it, but I couldn't resist the pull of Mandy when it was sold to me as, essentially, Nicolas Cage angrily battling demons.

Cage lives with the woman he loves (Mandy, played by Andrea Riseborough) in a cabin in the woods. It seems to be an idyllic life they lead, with Cage working hard during the day so that he can relax and watch Nightbeast with his loved one in the evening. But that is all spoiled when an evil cult member spies Mandy and decides that he has to have her. So he sends some demon bikers along, which is when things start to get completely insane.

The first reason to see Mandy is the glorious visual style of Cosmatos. Almost every frame is painted like the lurid cover of some pulp sci-fi or fantasy novel. This is a landscape that feels like someone has blended the works of Michael Moorcock and Piers Anthony and then poured them directly onto the screen. It's a truly stunning feast for the eyes. Based on this, and from what I had heard already, I really do need to see Beyond The Black Rainbow ASAP. Cosmatos may not have churned out many movies but his quality over quantity approach means I can be fully caught up very quickly.

The second reason to see this movie is Nicolas Cage. The rest of the cast all do a good job (Riseborough is always pretty great, Linus Roache and Ned Dennehy are two of the main cult members, and you get fantastic small turns from Richard Brake and Bill Duke) but Cage is the one going through a transformation here, from simple man living in contentment to grief-stricken victim to, well, a weapon-wielding kind of demi-god. The shooting style helps to show this, as Cage becomes stronger and stronger on his quest for vengeance, culminating in some final scenes that I won't detail here. Let me just say that I would love to see his character able to reappear in some future film that develops him further.

Other reasons to see the movie include the lush score by the late Johann Johannson, a crazy Cheddar Goblin advert (a turning point for the whole movie, created by someone who helped make the viral hit "Too Many Cooks"), a sparse script that still manages to contain a number of chilling lines, and the fact that it's the best Hellraiser movie in almost two decades, even if it's not ACTUALLY an instalment of that franchise.

Well worth seeing on the big screen, you won't believe your eyes and ears. And you may well find yourself, as I did, eagerly awaiting a repeat viewing. It's an audio-visual experience that I can see myself wanting to have again and again and again.

9/10

A lot of people may want to buy the soundtrack here.
Americans can buy it here.