Horns (2013)

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHO "DONE" IT AND WHETHER DANIEL RADCLIFFE NEEDS TO GET A BETTER AGENT?)

[Now for a bust of a movie that takes quite a few liberties with the book on which it is based, having seemingly been held back for a Halloween release.

The bust is another example that demonstrates how some deliberately jumbled time-lines must be unravelled, in order to effectively reveal the plot.]

Horns (2013) is an American-Canadian darkly comic supernatural mystery film directed by Alexandre Aja, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Max Minghella, Joe Anderson, and Juno Temple.

In the end, radio station disk jockey, Daniel Radcliffe, uses supernatural powers to uncover and exact revenge upon his childhood friend, Max Minghella, as the real murderer of his true love since they were children, Juno Temple, a crime for which he himself had almost unanimously been held responsible, by his local community.

When a young Radcliffe returns a broken crucifix necklace dropped by a young Temple, that she had been using to attract his attention in church, after first getting a young Minghella, to mend it for him, in exchange for a cherry-bomb explosive, he won in a dare, that almost lead to his drowning, had Minghella not dived in to save him, the pair become an inseparable couple.

As Radcliffe and Temple grow up and ever more in love, neither suspects that Minghella secretly carries a torch for Temple, wishing he had never saved Radcliffe, only for him to win her heart instead of him.

However, when a grown up Temple discovers that she has developed the same incurable hereditary cancer that killed her mother, she hides the fact from Radcliffe, sure he is about to propose marriage, in order to spare him the pain she saw her mother's death cause her father.

Pretending she has been unfaithful, Temple uses the news that she intends to move away as an excuse to break up with him, on the very night Radcliffe intends to present her with a ring, prompting a heated exchange in the diner he had chosen for the deed.

Angry and confused, Radcliffe drives off, alone, into the night, passing his elder brother, Joe Anderson, who had hoped to join the engagement celebrations.

Instead, Anderson offers to drive the distraught Temple home, only for her to insist she be let out near to an abandoned tree-house, she and Radcliffe had adopted as their special place, as children.

Unhappy that Temple is heading into the woods alone, at night, and in the rain, Anderson promises to wait for her by the side of the road, setting into the booze he had brought with him.

Minghella, who was also expecting to join the party, misinterpreting the argument he witnesses from the diner car park, having seen Temple leave with Anderson, catches up with his parked car and, discovering Anderson passed out, sets off after Temple, convinced she has broken up with Radcliffe, at long last, in order to be with him.

But when Temple rebuffs his advances, explaining that Radcliffe is the only person she loves or will ever love, Minghella, in a fit of jealous rage, crushes her skull with a large stone, that he then plants on the unconscious Anderson.

Panicking when he discovers Temple's dead body, the next morning, at the foot of the tree-house, Anderson secretly disposes of the bloody evidence he wakes up with, so that when Radcliffe is found by police not long after, asleep in his car, parked in a lonely spot, his hungover and confused references to the fight he feels responsible for with Temple the previous night are mistaken for a confession of murder.

Unaware of Minghella's guilt, but certain of his own innocence, Radcliffe is adamant that his friend, now the town's public defender, should represent him, despite his wealthy parents' offer to fund his legal defence.

Constantly hounded by an accusing media and shunned by an angry citizenry, Radcliffe seeks drunken solace in the pair's adopted tree-house, overhearing the angry accusations of Temple's father, during a prayer session lead by the local priest, at an impromptu shrine, set up near to the scene of the crime.

Enraged that God should have allowed someone as righteous as Temple to meet such a brutal end, Radcliffe, witnessed by another childhood friend, who secretly carries a torch for him, desecrates the shrine, after he thinks all the mourners have left.

Determined to offer the inebriated Radcliffe comfort of a more intimate kind, the friend takes him home with her.

Waking up the next morning in her bed, Radcliffe is alarmed to discover that overnight his forehead has sprouted a pair of painful, gnarly horns, that seem to have a weird effect on those around him, rendering them highly suggestible, unable to resist revealing their deepest, darkest secrets and desires, while being strangely unconcerned by Radcliffe's extraordinary appearance.

Initially disturbed by the affects the horns are having, Radcliffe soon realises their potential for uncovering the truth behind Temple's murder.

His first significant discovery is that the prosecution's mystery witness is a vain, publicity seeking waitress from the diner who, as it turns out, is providing false evidence against Radcliffe in the hope that it will make her a television celebrity and lead to fame and fortune.

His brother's role in events is revealed by chance when Radcliffe realises that if he touches someone's bare skin, he instantly experiences any recent event that person might have been trying to withhold from him.

Finding he can command snakes, that suddenly seem drawn to him, Radcliffe uses this and his power of persuasion to punish both the waitress and Anderson, whose unwillingness to come forward with what he knew, Radcliffe sees as a betrayal.

But unable to divine events beyond his brother's drunken stupor, Minghella's guilt is only finally revealed, when Radcliffe removes what he recognises to be Temple's crucifix from around Minghella's neck, that had been protecting him from the effect of the horns.

Furious at his friend's ultimate treachery, and with Minghella's murderous jealously fully enabled by the horns, the pair engage in a vicious fight, that leaves Radcliffe incapacitated, allowing Minghella to bundle him into his car, which he douses with gasoline and sets alight, before Radcliffe somehow manages to start up the engine and drive off the quayside, to quench the flames.

Then, while Minghella releases a statement claiming that Radcliffe, consumed with remorse, confessed his guilt before taking his own life, Radcliffe, hauling his horribly burned body from the river, seeks answers from Temple's father, who has a key for him, that leads to a letter in which Temple explains her real reason for forcing the break up.

The full protective nature of her necklace, originally Temple's late mother's, becoming apparent when her father insists Radcliffe wear it, and it magically restores him to hornless good health, Radcliffe, after making peace with his brother, who is recovering in hospital from the drugs binge he compelled Anderson to indulge in, persuades Minghella, oblivious to their recent clash, as a side-effect of the horns' influence, to accompany him to the scene of the murder, in the hope that it will trigger repentance and an admission of guilt on Minghella's part.

It does neither.

But when a shotgun wielding sheriff, lead to the tree-house by Anderson, reasons that if Minghella lied about the suicide, his assertion of Radcliffe's confession must be equally in doubt, Minghella panics, injuring Anderson and killing the officer with his own weapon, forcing Radcliffe to cast off the protective charm, transforming him first into a winged angel, that is immediately consumed by flames, until he finally assumes the fully horned form of a lava-skinned demon, as which he fights Minghella, who he eventually finishes off with the help of more summoned snakes.

However, mortally wounded during the struggle, the radiant heat of Radcliffe's glowing body gradually fades away, until, turning to stone, Radcliffe departs to join Temple in a blissful after-life.

To describe this bowdlerized film version of Joe Hill's best-seller as "Horny Potter and the Devil's Necklace" does Radcliffe a great disservice, as he manages to breath life into a character that couldn't be further from his most famous previous incarnation. It is a great shame, then, that when the producers were wielding the surgeon's machete, they didn't think to remove the snake-charming aspects of the story that are so quintessentially associated with the boy wizard.

Where the film excels, though, is in the depiction of Radcliffe's supernatural powers, the laugh-out-loud comic potential of which are fully realised, once again demonstrating the actor's considerable breadth of talent.

But excised of much of the source material's religious belligerence and lacking the original story's Donnie Darkko'ish symmetry, having traded in the novel's Rolling Stones rock and roll roots for Bowie new wave romanticism, what remains is a rather preposterous melodrama, the fantastic elements of which don't make a whole heap of sense, let down, in the end, by a saccharine sweet Hollywood happy ending. It would undoubtedly have been much better served by a suitably dark resolution.

[Shia LaBeouf reportedly passed up on the lead role, that, if not Radcliffe, then "Harry Potter" was surely destined to play. Whether Radcliffe should have accepted the part, despite being, along with Temple, the best thing in the movie, is something he might want to take up with his agent.]

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horns_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horns_(novel)

The Babadook (2014)

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHY MOTHER KEEPS THE DOOR TO THE BASEMENT LOCKED AT ALL TIMES?)

[Just in time for Halloween, a bust of a spectacularly scary movie, that doesn't rely on teenage nit-wit cannon-fodder for its thrills.]

The Babadook (2014) is an Australian horror film written and directed by Jennifer Kent, starring Essie Davis, and Noah Wieseman.

In the end, widowed single mother, Essie Davis, confines to her basement, a malevolent entity, emanating from the pages of a terrifying children's book her conjuring obsessed son, Noah Wieseman, insisted she read to him before bed one night, that had threatened both their lives.

When troubled and disruptive seven year old Wieseman is caught bringing an improvised dart gun into class, his mother, Davis, decides to withdraw him from school rather than accept the special measures the principal insist be imposed, that would further isolate him from other children.

Constantly seeking his mother's reassurance, convinced that something intends to steal her away, Wieseman is eventually able to put a name to his fear when he finds a strangely incomplete popup book that introduces a darkly menacing figure, with a monstrous mouth and blade-like hands, one would hope never to meet.

So disturbing is the book, that Davis hides it from Wieseman, who nonetheless becomes obsessed with the story's top-hat sporting subject, attributing several unexplained and upsetting events to its influence, despite his mother's insistence that the character is not real, until Davis finally decides she has had enough and the book must go.

Disposing of it, however, has little effect on Wieseman, who suffers a fit in the back of his mother's car while returning from a party, trying to convince her that the dark figure is travelling with them.

At her wit's end, unable to cope with Wieseman's deteriorating behaviour, Davis finds herself increasingly fearful and anxious, especially after finding the book that she had torn apart before throwing away, re-assembled and left on her front step.

Horrified to discover its story has been completed, depicting Davis not only killing their pet dog but also Wieseman, before cutting her own throat, she wastes no time in burning its restored pages.

Convinced by its reappearance and a subsequent weird phone-call, that she is the victim of a stalker, Davis seeks help from the police, who, without the book as evidence, are reluctant to act.

But while in the police station, Davis is alarmed when she spots something that reminds her of the figure's menacing outfit.

And she continues to catch glimpses of the dark figure all evening as she flicks between television stations, finally falling asleep, only to dream of her dead husband ominously entreating her to join him and bring their son with her.

Chronically sleep deprived, disturbing visions continue to plague Davis, culminating in a nightmarish apparition that crawls across her bedroom ceiling in the middle of the night before swooping down to consume her.

Davis's attitude towards her son and their pet Westy takes a sudden and drastic turn for the worse, that so scares Wieseman, especially after Davis kills the dog, that she catches him desperately phoning their kind but frail elderly neighbour for help.

Flying into a rage, Davis starts threateningly brandishing a kitchen knife, before she is interrupted by their concerned neighbour calling at their front door.

Assuring her son that she means him no harm and promising that they are going to spend the night in the safety of their neighbour's home, Davis instead attacks Wieseman, who is forced to stab his mother in order to escape.

Chased down to the basement, Wieseman succeeds in knocking his mother out using another of his improvised weapons, and with her partially tied-up, manages to exorcise whatever has possessed her, once she regains consciousness.

But when the two try to flee the house, Wieseman is dragged upstairs and flung about by some unseen force.

Determined to deny the looming entity, that again initially takes the form of her dead husband, its prize, Davis uses all her rage to steadfastly protect her son, defying its threats and reducing it to a pathetic whimpering heap, that eventually takes flight, retreating to the basement, where Davis is subsequently seen to care for it.

A plot bust can never properly convey the extreme dread and threat that writer/director Jennifer Kent manages to conjure up on screen. But what really makes her terrifying tale stand head and shoulders above the crowd are not the things she has go bump in the night, but the fear of the desperate things those bumps might drive one to do to one's nearest and dearest, or even to oneself.

If you aren't properly petrified by this spine chilling movie, then you should probably get a friend to check you for a pulse.

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Babadook

Nightcrawler (2014)

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT IT TAKES TO SUCCEED IN ENTREPRENEURIAL AMERICA?)

[Hot off the press. Busts don't come much fresher than this.]

Nightcrawler (2014) is an American crime thriller film written and directed by Dan Gilroy, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed, and Bill Paxton.

In the end, extreme loner and opportunistic criminal, Jake Gyllenhaal, carves out a successful new career for himself, gathering footage for glamorous yet raddled local television news executive, Rene Russo, by engineering the death of his assistant, Riz Ahmed, and sabotaging his main business competitor, Bill Paxton.

Unperturbed by being correctly identified as a thief by a scrap metal dealer who declines to hire him, quick witted, motor-mouth Gyllenhaal is intrigued when he witnesses a freelance videographer, Paxton, recording the grizzly aftermath of a freeway accident for television news.

Unable to persuade Paxton to give him a job, Gyllenhaal, using the proceeds from a stolen racing cycle, sets himself up with a cheap camcorder and police scanner, which allow him, through a naive willingness to get uncomfortably close to the injured and dying, on his first night, despite a very hostile reception from both emergency services and other news stringers, to capture graphic scenes that news editor, Russo is more than happy to buy.

Soaking up every detail he hears from those he encounters, self-educated Gyllenhaal applies himself to the task of learning what sells in the news business and how best to get it, in the process, taking on the shambolic and desperately unemployed Ahmed, as a barely paid assistant, chiefly on account of his phone's GPS capability.

Unfortunately, under the pressure of Gyllenhaal's maniacal driving, Ahmed proves to be a less than effective navigator, causing them to arrive late to the scene of one particularly promising house shooting incident.

Unwilling to accept that he has missed his chance, Gyllenhaal ignores police lines to obtains shots, without permission, from within the victim's home that, despite her colleagues' reservations, impress Russo considerably.

Buoyed by Russo's encouragement, Gyllenhaal manages to secure an increasing number of sales to her station, permitting him to upgrade both his equipment and his ride.

Complete with top-of-the-range scanners and navigation aids, the high performance car eventually enables Gyllenhaal and Ahmed to reach the site of a fatal country road smash, well before emergency services, giving Gyllenhaal, out of Ahmed's view, the chance to improve the staging of the scene for the benefit of the camera.

Emboldened by what he sees as his increasing importance to Russo's station's output, Gyllenhaal asks her out for dinner, to which she only agrees after Gyllenhaal makes veiled threats to take his footage elsewhere, and which proves to be an embarrassingly awkward miscalculation on Russo's part, as, with little regard for her feelings, Gyllenhaal employs hard-nosed business arguments to blackmail his way into her bed.

Indeed, so confident is he of his own potential, that when Paxton approaches him with an offer to team up, Gyllenhaal refuses in very insulting terms to even consider working in partnership, something Gyllenhaal seems incapable of doing, with him.

It's not long before Gyllenhaal has to pay the price of the animosity he generates, when Paxton gloats over beating him to the scene of a light aircraft crash, denying the incandescent Russo a story she felt her continuing sexual favours towards Gyllenhaal should have guaranteed her.

In private, the humiliation and disappointment Gyllenhaal feels over his failure, cause a complete loss of his usual unnaturally calm composure, prompting him to tamper with Paxton's news truck, resulting in a horrendous accident that sends Paxton to intensive care.

Their chief rival out of action, Gyllenhaal and Ahmed immediately follow up reports of a home invasion in an affluent neighbourhood.

With Ahmed keeping a lookout, Gyllenhaal witnesses the final moments of what turns out to be a brutal drug related family slaying, the explosive footage from which he uses to bargain his way further into Russo's station's organisation.

Unable to resist the opportunity to advance his soaring ambitions, Gyllenhaal deliberately withholds footage from both Russo and authorities that allows him to identify and track those responsible, waiting for the perfect moment to inform the police, so maximizing the impact of the ensuing arrest story they capture for Russo.

But in confiding his intentions beforehand, Gyllenhaal unwittingly put Ahmed in a position to demand better employment terms and an equal share of any eventual bounty, which, though Gyllenhaal reluctantly accepted, prompts him to deliberately betray Ahmed, who is shot dead by one of the killers at the end of the terrifying police chase they film.

Though convinced that Gyllenhaal is responsible for instigating the whole incident, investigators lack evidence of wrong doing, and are forced to release him, after questioning, allowing Gyllenhaal to expand his operation, which was precisely what Paxton had been hoping to achieve for himself with his original offer of partnership.

In portraying this weird Travis Bickle-Raymond Babbitt hybrid, Gyllenhaal joins a long list of distinguished Hollywood leads to have embraced either psychiatric disability or the dark-side of sociopathology, in order to widen their acting credentials, though not usually in the same role.

Certainly Dan Gilroy's combination of Forrest Gump'ish naivety, and Rupert Pupkin'esque ambition makes for arresting viewing, were chocolate box philosophy and chat show insincerity are replaced by motivational sound bites and beguiling corporate business-speak.

So it is perhaps unfortunate that Gyllenhaal's character is so undeniably a monster as to eclipse the monsters of television news he serves.

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightcrawler_(film)

Fury (2014)

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHETHER A LONG-SERVING TANK CREW MAKE IT THROUGH THE WAR?)

[I have a few more historic busts waiting to be posted, but here is a bust of a much more recent movie that may very well clean up, come this award season.]

Fury (2014) is an American World War II film, written and directed by David Ayer, starring Brad Pitt and Logan Lerman.

In the end, having fought together from North Africa all the way into the heart of Germany, with barely weeks of the war in Europe remaining, a tank commander, Brad Pitt, and his tight-knit crew are wiped out, when their immobilised tank is overrun by an SS counter-attack, the only survivor of which is their inexperienced and ill-prepared recent replacement machine-gunner, Logan Lerman.

With Allied tank numbers dwindling from the hammering they are taking from technically superior German counterparts, Pitt and his tank, sole survivor of a recent engagement that cost the life of one of his crew, is ordered to join up with another group, tasked with the relief of a contingent who ran into fierce resistance, en route to capturing a nearby town.

Dismayed by being assigned a recently enlisted private, trained in typing, Pitt is furious with his new machine-gunner, Lerman, for hesitating during an ambush, when confronted by a German child soldier, that results in the loss of the column's lead tank and the unit's only officer.

Lerman's refusal to pull the trigger, even in the heat of battle, is further confirmed when Pitt, having assumed command, fails to bully him into shooting a German captured wearing an American soldier's overcoat during the fight to relieve the pinned down troops.

In fact, the only time Lerman seems willing to fire on the enemy, is to dispatch a group of them suffering terrible phosphorus burns from an incendiary shell fired during the assault on the forces defending the nearby town. Seeing this as, at least, a start, Pitt tries to further impress upon Lerman the desperate nature of the enemy they face by showing him a room full of Nazi suicide victims, discovered in the town they have taken.

Pitt then confounds the brutal impression he has made on Lerman as a rabid German hater, when, instead of assaulting a pair of frightened women they find hiding in an apartment, he offers them food and persuades them to cook a meal for them, even defending the women against the drunken advances of the other members of his crew, who show up uninvited.

Tragically, just as the tank crews are being called away to secure a vital crossroad under threat, enemy shelling demolishes the apartment, killing the women, plunging Lerman into despair.

Racing to their objective, Pitt and his crew are lucky to survive a deadly encounter with a much more powerful German tank, that lays waste to all three of the others in their company, before they finally manage to destroy it.

Disastrously blowing off one of their tank's tracks on a mine, at the deserted crossroad, Pitt sends Lerman ahead to spot for enemy, only for him to return, before the crew are able to effect a repair, with a panicked report of a large company of well armed and motivated SS troops, bearing down on their position.

Unable to radio for support, and knowing that their stricken vehicle is all that lies between the enemy and essential Allied supply lines, Pitt and his crew reluctantly elect to remain with it and hold off the Germans for as long as they are able, even though they cannot possibly survive.

Doing their best to disguise the tank as an abandoned wreck, the crew nervously hunker down and prepare themselves for the coming storm.

Waiting until the very last moment before opening fire, the tank's gunner manages to take out the enemy's armoured supply vehicles, while the whole crew set about mowing down as many of the troops swarming round them, as possible.

Eventually running low on ammunition, the crew is forced out of the relative safety of the tank's interior to search for weapons with which to continue the fight, including Lerman, who has at last found his fighting legs. But inevitably the enemy's overwhelming numbers begin to take their toll.

First the tank's loader is caught by a bullet, as he scrambles for cover through a turret hatch. Then the driver is forced to throw himself on a live grenade he drops after being hit.

Finally the gunner is killed, when he unexpectedly lunges out of his hatch, by a sniper's bullet meant for Pitt, who has been operating the turret mounted machine-gun, but who is forced back inside the tank after taking several hits.

Now completely out of bullets, the terrified Lerman confesses to Pitt that he is scared and contemplating surrender, something Pitt advises him would be a very bad idea. Rather Lerman should use the tank's escape hatch, when they are finally overrun, which Lerman duly does, narrowly avoiding the blast from German stick grenades that kill Pitt.

Cowering in the mud, Lerman is only saved when a very young SS soldier, searching beneath the tank with a flash-light, decides not to give him away.

The next morning, Lerman is declared a hero, by the American troops who discover him to be the tank crew's sole survivor, amongst a wasteland of dead German soldiers.


Too often in war movies, the enemy are presented as faceless devils, who are only getting what is coming to them. Certainly writer/director, David Ayer takes every opportunity to paint the eventual recipients of his heroes' fury blacker than black, at pains to distinguish them from the regular German army, and the women and children forcibly co-opted into taking up arms. So that by the time Pitt and his crew, who are, after all, by then only fighting to save the lives of others, start cutting the enemy down, like so much wheat, the audience never gives the massacre they are committing a second thought.

In truth though, there is never any doubt that war has turned Pitt and his men into repellent blood-thirsty killers, perhaps at last only getting what they themselves deserve. Even the initially reluctant Lerman eventually agrees with them than killing Germans is the best job in the world. Then again, the mercy he is shown does remind us that not everyone who wore the SS uniform was necessarily blacker than black.

But, when all is said and done, no doubt, with his portrayal of Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009), Jewish revenge fantasy's swastika carving, comic-book Nazi hunter, to mind, Pitt does deliver a compellingly realistic power performance, as a brutally conflicted, murderous warrior, desperately anticipating the end of hostilities, which is sure to receive award recognition. Indeed, any of his co-stars could find themselves similarly honoured, as should Ayer. For not since Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot (1981) has the incomprehensible savagery, claustrophobic fear and random tragedy of warfare been so unflinchingly rendered.

Unmissable.

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fury_(2014_film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inglourious_Basterds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Boot

Four Lions (2010)

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW IF ISLAMIC IDIOTS MAKE EFFECTIVE JIHADI TERRORISTS.)

[I'm pretty sure I wrote this "way back" bust after watching the movie on the small screen. I can't imagine what cinema goers made of it!

Sometimes the hype surrounding a movie is so misleading that the only decent thing to do is plot bust it, so that others need not suffer, just to find out what all the fuss is about.

By the way, this is the first time I've ever posted anything on the internet that might conceivably raise a red flag with the security services. So, if you're reading this, girls and boys, "ha, ha!" You come out of it even worse than the jihadis!]

Four Lions (2010) is a British satirical black comedy film co-written and directed by Chris Morris, starring Riz Ahmed, Kayvan Novak, Nigel Lindsay, Arsher Ali and Adeel Akhtar.

In the end, disaffected young Muslim father, Riz Ahmed, is reduced to detonating his suicide bomb in a shop near the route of the London Marathon. (No, it really is supposed to be a comedy!)

Forced to return home to England early from Pakistan after unknowingly killing Osama Bin Laden in an accidental rocket attack on a terrorist training camp at which he had hoped to receive guidance from a senior Jihadi, Ahmed and his simpleton friend, Kayvan Novak, find their angrily demented co-conspirator, a white English convert to Islam, Nigel Lindsay, has recruited a new member to their supposedly underground cell, Arsher Ali, an equally publicity hungry protester against perceived Islamic oppression by Western culture and society.

Hiding the failure of his and Novak's mission, Ahmed pretends that the group has received the go-ahead to conduct a terrorist attack. So the group set about turning their stockpile of peroxide hair bleach, naively bought wholesale by fifth member, Adeel Akhtar, into explosive, despite being unable to agree upon a suitable target for their action.

Fearing that their cover has been compromised when Ali unwittingly invites a neighbour into their bomb making safe house to enjoy some bhangra rap, the group are forced to hurriedly relocate the materials they have so far prepared to Lindsay's allotment shed. Tragically Akhtar is blown to bits during the move when he stumbles and falls on the volatile material he is carrying.

Devastated by the loss of Akhtar and exasperated by the ineptness of the others, Ahmed abandons the group to Lindsay's false flag proposal to blow up a mosque, intended to radicalise the moderate Muslim majority.

Realising that the discovery of the remains of Akhtar's blown off head may lead authorities to the group, and inspired by a work colleague's request for an outfit from his family's fancy dress business to wear for charity while running in the London Marathon, Ahmed relents and persuades the others that the event and costumes present the perfect target and cover for achieving their ambition of martyrdom.

Unfortunately, when the costumed and bomb laden group eventually arrive in London, Ali loses his nerve and attempts to surrender himself to a policeman they encounter, prompting the determined Lindsay to remotely detonate Ali's explosives.

In the ensuing chaos, not only are a couple of innocent bystanders gunned down by the police, but both Lindsay and Novak's explosives are detonated, one accidentally and the other deliberately, before Ahmed resigns himself to targeting a high-street pharmacy, a suggestion originating from Akhtar that Ahmed had previously dismissed as unworthy of consideration.


To answer the original question posed, of course idiots can be just as terrifying as those that know what they're doing. But, a movie like Chris Morris' debut feature is bound to raise a whole raft of other questions. What motivates people to religious extremism? Is it possible for good people to do bad things? Does unwittingly doing something good during the course of your actions justify your evil intentions? Is it possible to make a comedy about suicide bombing? The movie only really provides an answer to the last of these. Because there are plenty of laughs to be had from the bungling incompetence and ignorance of these would-be terrorists, right up until the moment they start blowing themselves and the innocents around them to smithereens. At which point the movie reveals its true colours as those of a tragedy dressed up in a comedy disguise.

Perhaps another question that Four Lions unintentionally manages to answer is "is it possible to make fun of Muslim terrorists without incurring their wrath?" Well, yes it is. You can portray them as ignorant and as stupid as you like, as long as at the same time you paint the authorities and society ranged against them as corrupt and intolerant, persecuting the innocent and pious alike, while divorcing those perpetrating the violence from the religion that drives and informs them. Oh, the cleverness of Morris!

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Lions

Troll Hunter (2010)

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU'LL FIND IF YOU GO DOWN TO THE NORWEGIAN WOODS, TONIGHT?)

[Another long lost bust found languishing in my freemail inbox, written contemporaneously with the movie's cinema release. I watched an English subtitled print.]

Troll Hunter (Trolljegeren) (2010) is a darkly comic Norwegian fantasy spoof documentary film, written and directed by Andre Ovredal, starring Otto Jespersen, Hans Morten Hansen and Glenn Erland.

In the end, anonymously received footage shot by a student film crew, of which no trace can be found, seems to confirm a throw-away remark made by the Norwegian Prime-Minister that his country has a problem with trolls.

While covering a bear attack story, student reporter Glenn Erland, his cameraman, and their sound recordist decide to track down a mysterious man, Otto Jespersen, reputed to be an illegal hunter.

The trail leads them to a caravan park where they lie in wait for Jespersen to return to his dilapidated travel trailer. Despite Jespersen's insistence that the trio leave him alone, they spend several days following him and his heavily scarred land-rover, trailer in tow.

Stalking Jespersen during one of his night-time excursions, the students are lead down an increasingly narrow forest track, eventually being forced out of their compact car to continue on foot.

Passing Jespersen's abandoned land-rover, the sound recordist is increasingly disconcerted by strange noises her equipment picks up, until the group are panicked into fleeing when Jespersen suddenly appears out of the darkness bellowing the warning "troll!"

Before they can reach the safety of Jespersen's vehicle, Erland's shoulder is badly mauled by some unseen creature, though he seems more upset to discover his car has been wrecked with its tyres apparently chewed off, prompting Jespersen to agree to letting the trio tag along for an explanation of what caused the car damage and the injuries to Erland.

The next night, however, the trio have almost convinced themselves that Jespersen is staging an elaborate prank, before they are confronted by a shrieking, fifty foot, three headed troll he flushes out of the woods in their direction, and which chases them all back to Jespersen's vehicle, where a bank of roof-mounted ultra-violet flash lights turn the creature to stone.

Jespersen then sets about demolishing the evidence using a sledgehammer and explosives, reducing the troll to a pile of rubble just in time for his boss, government official Hans Morten Hansen, to show up with a van full of Poles delivering the corpse of a dead Russian bear that Hansen hopes will explain away all the damage to livestock the troll has in reality been responsible for.

Appalled to discover that Jespersen is allowing his secret work as the country's only troll hunter to be documented by the students, Hensen's threat to relieve them of the material they have so far shot, does not deter the students from following Jespersen as he tries to discover why trolls are straying from their secret government reserves.

Investigating another supposed bear attack, an iron armour clad Jespersen is forced up close and personal with his next troll victim in order to collect blood for a veterinarian colleague who shares what she knows about trolls with the students and who seems to have more than just a professional relationship with Jespersen.

Traumatised by a previous incident where authorities required him to massacre an entire troll community, the increasingly disillusioned Jespersen is convinced that Hansen is mistaken in his belief that the problem is confined to the local population of woodland trolls, and that the fact of the existence of trolls should no longer be kept from the general public.

Further reports of unexplained livestock attacks lead the group to investigate a disused mine Jespersen thinks is being used as a den by a group of trolls.

Finding themselves trapped when what turn out to be displaced mountain trolls return unexpectedly, their cameraman has a sudden panic attack, demanding more of the evil smelling "troll stink" Jespersen insists the students wear to disguise their presence from the big nosed creatures, as the cameraman is, unknown to the others, a god fearing christian, a fact he had initially hidden from Jespersen and which costs the cameraman his life when the group decide to make a break for it.

Arranging for a replacement camera and operator, the group head north onto an ice-bound plateau, ringed by power-lines that contain the trolls, where Jespersen receives the blood analysis results by phone that reveal the straying trolls are infected with rabies.

Realising what this means for the injured Erland, the students plead with Jespersen to break off the hunt for an enormous, earth-shaking troll that has appeared over the horizon.

Unswayed, and with dawn fast approaching, Jespersen sets off after the troll in his land-rover, complete with recently applied spike armour. However, the batteries powering his roof mounted search light fail before he can deliver a lethal dose, and he is forced to retreat, picking up the students and a lone seismologist they meet by the roadside.

Jespersen decides to use the vehicle as bait, hoping that the chasing troll will tire itself out sufficiently for him to finish off. But the injured troll still manages to catch and wreck the land-rover, forcing Jespersen out on foot to destroy it with a shoulder mounted rocket launcher, just as Hansen shows up to confiscate the students' footage.

They make off on foot, the rabid Erland, being the last one seen heading towards an approaching convoy of articulated trucks, just as filming breaks off.


America has its super-heroes. Britain has its super-spies. And Norway has... its troll hunter! In truth, Ovredal's idea makes a much better trailer than it does feature film. Although, without doubt he has managed to do for trolls what Danny Boyle did for zombies in 28 Days Later: make them seem more than objects of faint amusement. So, despite a script packed with humour, you're never going to stand there laughing, if you ever have the misfortune to encounter one of these creatures in life, after seeing this film. Just remember to keep your "troll stink" handy ;)

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troll_Hunter

A Lonely Place to Die (2011)

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHO ENDS UP DYING IN A LONELY PLACE AND WHO SURVIVES.)

[No, I haven't just been released from prison, or escaped a soul crushingly loveless marriage... but I have found a number of long forgotten draft busts that deserve a better home than my freemail inbox. I'm pretty sure this bust was written at the time of the movie's cinema release, though it's bound to be available on other media, by now.]

A Lonely Place to Die (2011) is a British action-thriller film directed by Julian Gilbey, starring Sean Harris, Melissa George, Karel Roden, Eamonn Walker and Ed Speleers.

In the end self-confessed child murderer Sean Harris meets a sticky end at the hands of an infamous Balkan war criminal, turned businessman, father of a girl Harris has kidnapped for ransom, but who is accidentally discovered and freed from a secret underground chamber dug into a remote Scottish hillside and lead to safety by ambitious young climber Melissa George.

While trekking through woods on a Highland mountaineering trip, George and her latest climbing partner Ed Speleers, together with their mountaineering guide and a pair of thirty-something parents taking a break from family life, are horrified to discover a young girl imprisoned in a hidden underground chamber.

Only the thirty-something mother is able to coax the terrified girl, who is hungry, dehydrated and unable to speak english, from her prison.

Realising that they must get the girl to the authorities as soon as possible, their guide decides that the best course of action is for the group to split up. While the couple and Speleers lead the young girl down the mountain, the guide and George, the best climber of the group, will take the shortest route, involving an abseil down a notoriously dangerous cliff face, to the nearest town where they can arrange for a mountain rescue team to meet the others.

Without a sufficiently long rope, the pair are forced to make the decent in two stages. However, perched precariously on a ledge halfway down the cliff face, George is horrified to see their guide plummet past her to his death on the rocks below, taking their only rope with him.

Forced to attempt to free-climb her way down, George is knocked off the treacherous rock face by one of several rocks that have started falling from above. Very luckily, not only is her potentially lethal fall broken by several tree branches, but she lands in the water of a river running at the foot of the cliff.

Hauling herself out of the water, beside where the guide's body has landed, George passes out momentarily and experiences a frightening vision of waking up trapped inside the young girls underground prison. When she does eventually regains consciousness she discovers that their rope had been cut deliberately. Looking up she catches a fleeting glimpse of someone at the top of the cliffs.

Realising the danger that they are all now in, she heads off downriver at speed, managing to catch up with Speleers and the others who have stopped on the far riverbank to take on water.

George's vain shouted attempts over the noise of the river's rapids to warn the other of the situation are suddenly interrupted when the 30-something mother topples into the fast running water, dragging the young girl in behind her, having been shot in the head by Harris and his accomplice using high-power hunting rifles, only just stolen from a pair of illegal deer hunters they have jumped and murdered.

Trying to keep up, as the body of his wife and the young girl are swept downstream, the husband, George and Speleers all have to dodge bullets, until one near miss unbalances George, sending her into the water from which she eventually manages to drag herself and the girl.

Now all on the same side of the river, the group somehow manage to keep one step ahead of their pursuers, but not without Speleers seriously injuring his leg in a fall, which prompts him to start questioning the wisdom of their decision to rescue the girl in the first place, a suggestion that appals George.

Realising that Speleers injury threatens their escape, and reasoning that their pursuers are only interested in the money that the girl represents, the bereaved husband decides to act as a decoy, making off in the opposite direction carrying a bundle dressed in the girl's clothes.

The ploy works because in the time it takes Harris and his accomplice to chase down and callously murder the decoy, George, Speleers and the girl manage to abseil down a second rock face and reach the main road that will take them into the nearest town.

Despite the loss of their hostage, Harris decides to try to bluff his way though the ransom exchange that is scheduled to take place in a local bar that evening while the town is full of tourist visitors to a fire and fireworks festival.

Unfortunately for Harris, the man posing as the child's father, Karel Roden, her father's right-hand man, has been strictly briefed by Eamonn Walker, one of two armed private security specialists escorting him to the drop, not to, under any circumstances, hand over the ransom without first seeing the girl.

The street festival celebrations are in full swing by the time George, Speleers and the girl show up at the local police station to report the discovery of the girl and the murders of their companions. But when the lone officer at the station seems unable to summon help from a neighbouring force nor contact his assistant who is out in their patrol car, and has, in fact, already had is throat slit, paranoia overtakes Speleers who persuades George that waiting for help to arrive is a mistake.

Unsurprisingly, the police officer will not allow George and Speleers to leave with the girl. But, before he can stop them, he is gunned down by Harris's accomplice shooting from a rooftop across the street, who then proceeds to go on a shooting spree pursuing them through the streets.

Managing to down Speleers, the accomplice draws the attention of the second security specialist there to cover the exchange, who recognising the girl and despite being mortally wounded himself, still manages to alert Eamonn and Roden to the bluff that Harris is trying to pull off.

Realising that he has been rumbled, Harris makes a grab for the money, and although being injured in the ensuing struggle manages to make off with it. He doesn't get far, though, as a tracking device attached to the money leads Eamonn directly to him.

Meanwhile Harris's shotgun wielding accomplice, now sporting a boar's head mask snatched from one of the fire festival street performers, follows George and the girl into the home of a villager who has offered them shelter and who the accomplice shot-blasts in the stomach before setting fire to the place.

Pursuing the pair upstairs into a bedroom, he struggles with George, but is stunned by a bash over the head from the girl, and pushed through a window, falling to his death.

Trapped by the flames rising from below, George manages to throw the girl to safety, but has herself to be rescued by the fire-brigade after almost succumbing to the smoke.

Seeing George and his employer's daughter both being safely driven away in an ambulance, Roden and Eamonn drive deeply into the forest where they deliver the severely beaten Harris into the hands of the girl's father, who demands his henchmen strip and bind Harris, before asking for his "tools" to be made ready.


Without question the stars of Gilbey's action movie are the villains; callously psychotic kidnapper, Harris, and his menacingly sadistic accomplice, Stephen McCole, who manage to raise the threat level to fever pitch whenever they are on screen. That the movie fails to maintain this level of tension is chiefly the result of a script that contains far too much spoken exposition which sounds rather more like the screenwriter trying to explain the plot to himself, than the characters figuring out what's going on for themselves.

Having said that there is much good use of misdirection aimed at wrong footing the audience, who are repeatedly required to reassess the situation. Unfortunately, the film-makers also pull a couple of unforgivably corny "gotcha!" tricks that only devalue the unease that the uncertainty generates. All in all, not a bad movie that includes all the elements required of a good survival thriller. They just weren't executed well enough to make it a really great one. My advice, employ a better script editor.

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Lonely_Place_to_Die