A Knight's Tale (2001)

I never loved A Knight's Tale. I figured that I should start with that confession, mainly because I have always found it slightly bewildering to be reminded of how beloved it is by many. I'm really not sure why. There are things that work very well (the main cast members being a big plus), but many other things reflect some poor decision-making from writer-director Brian Helgeland.

Things start with a death. Despite winning his latest joust, a knight has succumbed to some mortal wounds. There's still some money on the line, however, and that leads one of his squires, William Thatcher (Heath Ledger), to don the armour and do well enough to win the much-needed prize. Getting a taste for it, and knowing he could become very good, Thatcher decides to maintain his charade, travelling between tournaments with Roland (Mark Addy) and Wat (Alan Tudyk). They pick up a couple of strays on their travels, in the shape of the verbose Geoffrey Chaucer (Paul Bettany) and a female blacksmith named Kate (Laura Fraser). There's a fair maiden to impress (Jocelyn, played by Shannyn Sossamon) and a mean nemesis to be conquered (Count Adhemar, played by Rufus Sewell). That's about all you need to know. Oh, and the soundtrack was/is praised for being enjoyably anachronistic.

Ledger is the main selling point here, providing a lead performance that is charming, adorable, and impossible to be impressed by. Poised on the very edge of greatness throughout the 1990s, this 2001 feature allowed him to fully showcase his charisma and presence in a way that declared him a fully-fledged star. He's helped by the fun performances from Addy and Waltz, but things step up a notch when Bettany joins the fun, the actor relishing the opportunity to deliver such great dialogue with a consistent selection of theatrical flourishes. Fraser doesn't get to do as much, but she's a good addition to the team in time for the third act. Sewell makes a fine villain, really just in that position because of his talent for jousting, as well as his attitude to the rules and rigid social hierarchies that he prefers to rigidly adhere to. The only one who doesn't really work is Sossamon, who remains one of the very worst model-turned-actress individuals to have ever been given big roles in some big hit movies. She's absolutely awful here, although admittedly not helped by the screenplay not knowing how to best treat her character. Imagine this film as it is though, but replace Sossamon with someone like Rachel Weisz, and tell me it isn't immeasurably improved.

For as much as he gets right, Helgeland must also be held responsible for what he gets wrong. The use of a huge Queen hit at the start of the movie works really well. The rest of the song choices aren't as good, due to them being less attuned to a primal beat, and also not incorporated quite as seamlessly. There's also that big failing when it comes to the romantic element, messed up by the casting and the writing. Last, but not least, it's worth considering that, unless you're at a live event, jousting . . . isn't really that exciting, certainly not in a cinematic sense. It's two people covered in metal trying to hit one another with pointy poles. And if they aren't fully in your vision at all times, as happens when a film sequence is edited, then you might just struggle to remember who you're supposed to be rooting for.

And yet, despite the mis-steps, and despite the convenience of plot points converging in time for the expected final battle (thanks, in no small part, to a very enjoyable performance from James Purefoy), I enjoy A Knight's Tale more nowadays than I ever used to. It feels more old-fashioned and cute now, a film based around a simple enough concept and one star turn, and I can see why many would happily revisit it when they want a sweet escape from the wild world around us. I still don't understand ALL the love it gets, and I don't think I'll ever view it as a great movie, but I am pleased that I gave it a rewatch after all this time (I'm pretty sure my first, and only, viewing of this was on a VHS copy rented from my local Blockbuster). It may not rock me, but it's worthy of being more than just a one knight stand.

7/10

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Grimcutty (2022)

The first full feature written and directed by John Ross, someone who seems to have been learning his craft over a number of years spent directing TV episodes and short films, Grimcutty is a horror movie that shows a manifestation of fear created while kids and teenagers become more and more engrossed in an online trend.

Our lead character is Asha (Sara Wolfkind), a young woman who spends some of her free time making ASMR videos for her YouTube channel. She isn’t reaching a huge audience, but she likes to think she is making progress. Like many other teens, her phone is her everything, whether it is for communicating with friends or making and uploading her videos. But there are times when her parents (played by Shannyn Sossamon and Usman Ally) try to spend time as a family without any distractions from mobile tech devices. This becomes even more of a priority when they hear about Grimcutty, a social media trend that has children pretending they see a strange creature before then attempting to harm themselves. Except . . . They’re not pretending. Not sure they trying to harm themselves. Grimcutty is out to get them, but the parents can’t see it.

This is another film that I forgot to review when I watched it the first time around, and the only reason for that was time and scheduling. Having seen many other people dismiss this, I was pleasantly surprised by something that tried to make the most of a fairly silly premise. It gets straight into the Grimcutty scares, and the creature is an interesting sight, not a million miles away from Death Note’s Ryuk, before the plot takes one or two interesting tangents on the way to a horribly disappointing final act. I wonder if it is the finale that soured many others on it, or if it was just too tame for those looking for some better scares.

Working well enough within certain limitations, Ross convincingly shows some teens in terror and numerous parents succumbing to overwhelming fear and a need to protect their children at all cost. A couple of key scenes help to show how the Grimcutty issue is affecting local citizens, but you it would have been nice to see a much bigger picture (either within the same zip code or possibly even nationwide). Considering some of the central ideas, Ross does a pretty good job of presenting some disturbing/potentially triggering content with a lack of ambiguity around the main characters. Nobody here actively wants to harm themselves, we viewers always know that Grimcutty is making it look that way.

The cast are a mixed bag, but Wolfkind is excellent in the lead role. She is believable and easy to root for at all times, and I even enjoyed the small clips showing her ASMR work (not my thing, but I am sure fans of that content can take that as a small extra plus point). Sossamon and Ally are generally fine as the parents, although the latter has to spend most of the second half of the movie becoming twitchy and harmfully obsessed in a way the viewers know could endanger the lives of those he is wanting to keep safe. It’s a real shame, and I think keeping him more ignorant and helpless could have been a much better decision. Others do what they need to do, whether they are helping or hindering our lead, but the only other person I will namecheck is Callan Farris, playing the younger brother who makes up the endangered central family unit. Farris isn’t overused, and he feels just right for his role, and the fate of his character really helps to make the finale better than it otherwise would have been.

There are a number of different directions that this could have gone, and most of them seem better than what we ultimately got, but I still enjoyed this for what it is. There is at least one great idea at the very heart of it, a really good lead, and a central creation that sits perfectly between fanciful silliness and very real threat. While the flaws become more obvious as I keep thinking on it, I had a perfectly good time with this while I was watching it. 

6/10

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Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)

Written and directed by Shane Black (the man responsible for the Lethal Weapon movies, The Monster Squad and more), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is everything that you hope it will be and a little bit more. A couple of things stop it from being perfect, there are some scenes that just feel overly indulgent and the razor-sharp script constantly teeters on the edge of being too smart and smug for its own good, but it's a mix of action, thrills and comedy from a man who has shown mastery of this kind of material.

The plot is as follows - a petty criminal (Harry Lockhart, played by Robert Downey Jr.) ends up accidentally auditioning for a movie role and getting the part. He is then put on assignment with a detective (Gay Perry, played by Val Kilmer) and quickly finds out that being a detective isn't all that it's shown to be in the movies. Things soon move from the mundane to the intriguing, however, when the two men see a woman's body being dumped in a lake. The plot quickly thickens, Harry also tries to impress a girl that he's held a candle for all his life (Harmony, played by the beautiful Michelle Monaghan) and bullets start to fly, fingers are removed from hands and dead bodies start to pile up around the two main characters.

Although it's a small movie that more and more people need introduced to every week, I count Kiss Kiss Bang Bang as one of the big contributing factors in the grand resurrection of Robert Downey Jr's career. There had been other roles, of course, but 2005 was the year that showed he could still mix it up in a number of different genres and he still had bucketloads of charisma to spare. Am I overestimating the appeal of the movie? Watch it and then tell me.

Of course, the film isn't just the Downey Jr. show and everyone else puts in equally good performances. Val Kilmer is at his very best in the role of Gay Perry and Michelle Monaghan is absolutely adorable. Solid support comes from a mix of people: Corbin Bernsen, Larry Miller, Shanny Sossamon, Angela Lindvall and more.

It's not action-packed from start to finish so if you're after a new Die Hard or Lethal Weapon movie to love then this won't be it. If, however, you're after even more brilliance from the man who helped create some of the best, and coolest, action films of the last few decades (including the brilliance of The Last Boy Scout and The Long Kiss Goodnight) then this is the film that you must watch, purchase and then watch again and again. It's up there with the very best of Black's writing and he proves himself to be no slouch in the directing department either, putting it all together perfectly and moving from start to finish with a constant supply of his usual wit, insults and zippy plotting.

If you've somehow missed this movie so far then do yourself a favour and get to it ASAP.

9/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kiss-Bang-Blu-ray-Region-Free/dp/B000KC86JK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357051470&sr=8-1