Prime Time: The Trust (2016)

Part dark comedy, part crime thriller, The Trust is a very odd film that deserves to be seen by more people. The fact that it gives another starring role to Nicolas Cage may have put some people off, this was released before his latest renaissance (although *cough* some people have always enjoyed Cage onscreen, no matter the majority opinion), and maybe the fact that it's a hard film to pin down, tonally.

Cage plays Stone, a cop who comes up with what he thinks is a great plan to deliver a huge payday for himself and Waters, a friend and colleague (played by Elijah Wood). Stone has figured out the location of what could very well be an overflowing safe, one that has been filled up with profits from criminal activity. If Stone and Waters can break into it then it's a win-win, because they end up rich and the only immediate victims are the crooks. But it doesn't take long for things to start going . . . a bit wrong.

Directed by Alex and Benjamin Brewer, the latter also having co-written the script with Adam Hirsch, The Trust is an enjoyably slippery film, moving from something close to a buddy cop film to a riff on the “heist gone wrong” movie. The central characters are easy to like, even as circumstances start to push them to act more unpleasantly, and the third act is an enjoyable storm of bad luck and confusion.

Cage and Wood are both very enjoyable in the lead roles. Cage plays his character in a very controlled, and slowly deliberate, manner. Wood, on the other hand, is a bit more antsy, and his character is really only willing to go along with everything if he can keep convincing himself that it is risk-free. There are a few other supporting cast members, including Sky Ferreira, Ethan Suplee, Steven Williams, and Jerry Lewis (given a cameo that pops up at just the right time to remind viewers to keep paying attention).

Although everything is well put together, the easy rapport between Cage and Wood is the main reason to watch this, and your opinion of the film will depend on how you feel about the two stars. They are bad cops, but good bad cops, if you know what I mean, and it is fun to see them put more energy and effort into their plans for robbery than they put into their standard workdays. There’s also a very enjoyable score from Reza Safinia, which I have to mention here because of the feeling I had that I’d heard it elsewhere (it turns out that parts of it were reminding me of the remix of “Radioactivity” by Fatboy Slim).

Maybe a difficult one to recommend, the comedy is very dark and the crime/thriller side of things is played lightly in between sudden bursts of violence, but I will recommend it anyway. It’s good to watch something occasionally that is quite hard to place neatly in any pigeonhole.

7/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

Lords Of Chaos (2018)

As unfamiliar with the Norwegian black metal music scene as I am, I either have to take Lords Of Chaos as truth or take it as an attempt to present a sketch of the events of the early 1990s that led to both tragedy and infamy for some of the key players. Considering how often film-makers have to take liberties with the truth in order to turn it into cinematic entertainment, I am going with the latter. Don't take Lords Of Chaos as an attempt to deliver the truth, take it as an exploration of attitudes, lifestyles, hype, and lies that became muddled up and interchangeable in the minds of some young men who started to feed on an unwise diet of their own flesh and blood. They started devouring themselves more and more vigorously at a dining table that would stretch to accommodate more and more acolytes, creating a self-destructive cycle that would inevitably only end one of two ways, eventual overstuffing (metaphorically speaking) or disappointment and hunger.

Rory Culkin plays Euronymous, the lynchpin of a Norwegian black metal band named Mayhem. When Mayhem recruits a new lead singer, Dead (played by Jack Kilmer), Euronymous is alternately impressed and irritated by his macabre antics, which often involve dead animals/flesh and self-harm. The irritation disappears, however, when Dead shows how committed he is to his lifestyle choice by blowing his brains out with a shotgun. From that moment on, Euronymous moves from being a band member to being a record store owner and the manager of a record label. And that is when his life starts to fully intertwine with a young man named Kristian (who goes by the name of Varg), which is when conversations start to get darker and more extreme, followed up by ego-driven actions.

Directed by Jonas Åkerlund, someone I wouldn't really consider myself a big fan of (I like some of his music videos, really disliked his debut movie, Spun), Lords Of Chaos is a fantastic mix of moments that are filled with dark humour and moments that depict violence in a way that is grim and difficult to watch. Every wound, every moment of pain, every death comes with a serious amount of weight attached. This is all thanks to the script, co-written by Dennis Magnusson and Åkerlund, that takes viewers on a journey that starts with childish bravado and inexorably slides towards life-shattering consequences. There's also something to be said for the energy levels in each scene, with things always feeling busy and energised until any fatal violence occurs, at which time the film slows down, almost as if matching the slowing breath/heartbeat of the victims.

I can understand people being annoyed that the cast isn't made up of more Norwegian actors in the main roles but I'm sure that Åkerlund had to balance out ways to get the film made with potential candidates who would be a great fit in their roles, and he's assembled a fine selection of actors. Culkin is easy to travel alongside, even when he's being selfish and horrible to others around him, and Emory Cohen is impressive as Varg, the one person always willing to take things further and prove that he doesn't just talk the talk. Sky Ferreira does fine in her rather thankless role, Kilmer makes a strong impression with his limited screentime, and you also get a solid supporting turn from Valter Skarsgård.

While this looks at a very particular time and place, a lit fuse that exploded a powderkeg, it's worth praising the fact that Åkerlund and Magnusson don't ever glorify the whole scene being shown (indeed, there's an air of mockery throughout that fans definitely won't appreciate). They also manage to remind you that the main characters involved here are still barely adults, despite their posturing and attempts to act as if they know exactly what they are doing, despite making the basic errors of mistaking infamy for fame, and striving to be creative while embodying a philosophy that is nihilistic and destructive.

A very difficult, at times excruciating, watch. It's also very much worth your time, even if it does nothing more than serve as a springboard to further exploration of how things got as bad as they did.

8/10

You can order the movie here.
Americans may want to check out this book.

The Green Inferno (2013)

Please note, this is my same review as it originally appeared over at Flickfeast. But f you didn't see it there then please enjoy it now.

Expectations have been high ever since Eli Roth announced that he was working on a cannibal movie. The fact that it was titled The Green Inferno – a title that was originally going to be used for Cannibal Holocaust (and ended up being the title of a cash-in “sequel”) – clued most horror fans in to the fact that this should be a goodie. It should be intense, gory and slightly disturbing.

Thank goodness, then, that The Green Inferno is intense, gory and slightly disturbing. It may well be the best film that Roth has directed so far, and it’s certainly the best, full-on, cannibal movie that I can think of since the heyday of the subgenre. It takes time to put everything in place, but viewers are then rewarded with a second half that moves from gruesome set-piece to gruesome set-piece.
The plot sees a bunch of young activists travelling from America to Peru to protest against the destruction of the natural habitat by a nasty corporation with nasty, big bulldozers. That’s dangerous enough, thanks to the armed guards on the site, yet it’s nothing compared to what happens after the protest. The small plane that they’re travelling in crashes, leaving them in the middle of the jungle. However, they’re not alone. It’s not long until some jungle inhabitants drug the youngsters, take them back to their village, and start to plan lunch.

It’s hard for me to think of any major flaws here. The characters, despite being potential menu courses, are all quite well-written, and certainly all get enough moments to mark themselves out from the group. This was a pleasant surprise, as I really expected a bunch of unlikable and interchangeable victims, but that wasn’t the case. The first half might be slow for some, yet Roth rewards everyone with a second half that starts to deliver the goods and doesn’t really let up until the end credits. Even the humour, so often an easy source of criticism in his previous movies, is perfectly pitched here. The movie doesn’t provide a lot of obvious laughs, although there are some, but the sly wit of the commentary here is probably the furthest that Roth has ever moved away from his comfort zone of “Jock talk”. Cannibal Holocaust was about people meddling where they had no right, and different forms of savagery, from the visitors and from the local inhabitants. The Green Inferno is about people meddling where they have no right, and also pretending to do more, and be better, even while operating within a protective bubble of privilege and ignorance.

The cast all do well, with Lorenza Izzo really easy to root for as the nominal leading lady. Ariel Levy, Daryl Sabara, Aaron Burns, Kirby Bliss Blanton, Sky Ferreira, Magda Apanowicz, and Nicolas Martinez all make their characters feel like proper individuals, as opposed to “potential victim #2″ or “shrieking white girl”, for example. They’re all helped by the script, which Roth wrote with Guillermo Amoedo, and it also helps that a few of the people involved will be familiar to fans who saw Aftershock. They’re vaguely recognisable, yet not so famous to be exempt from any of the ordeals that the cannibals may have planned for them. Richard Burgi also does well with his few minutes of screentime, although he gets to avoid the jungle madness.

With some lush cinematography, an appropriate score by Manuel Riveiro, and a real feeling of authenticity to the whole thing, The Green Inferno manages to cram in all of the obvious homages that fans of the cannibal movie subgenre will expect while also standing proudly as a new leader in the ravenous, though admittedly sparse nowadays, pack. The screen may not be dripping with gore at every opportunity, which only makes it all the more powerful when it’s put front and centre (kudos to the special effects guys for such moments of visceral brilliance).

Roth is a master of hype, and it seems as if he’s been building up The Green Inferno for a long, long time. That will inevitably lead some people to view the film and feel disappointment. Hell, this review will also help to do that, so I apologise for getting your hopes up. I won’t apologise too profusely, however, as I feel that, on this occasion, you CAN believe the hype. The Green Inferno is a modern horror classic . . . . . . . . . . . . for those who have the stomach for it.

9/10.