The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT'S COMING?)

[The last of the long delayed draft posts, this bust was prompted by a fantasy sequence from another movie, in which Ben Stiller imagines himself and Kristen Wiig enacting a confused scene from this movie, despite their not having seen it. You just know when comedians make a joke about not having seen a movie, there's something worth busting there ;)

Unfortunately, it's another example of a film that presents the problem of how best to refer to characters when they're portrayed by various actors, at different stages of their lives. On this occasion I've decided to fudge the answer, because the principals are so iconic, by performing an ultra-bust.]

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) is an American fantasy drama film directed by David Fincher, starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett.

In the end, a hospital bed-bound, former dancer mother, Cate Blanchett, gets distraction from an approaching hurricane and the end-of-life care she is receiving, by persuading her daughter to read to her from a hand written manuscript, stuffed full of postcards, letters and mementos, that recount what is either a very tall tale or the extraordinary life-history of her real father, Brad Pitt, a man the daughter once met briefly and who apparently lived his life growing younger.

Always on the periphery of landmark American events spanning the end of the Great War, to the devastation of hurricane Katrina, it is the Grim Reaper's ever-presence that overshadows Pitt's life, begun as a prematurely geriatric foundling, after his mother dies in childbirth, raised by a woman with the motto "you never know what's coming", amongst the residents of the elderly care home she runs, and ending with him shuffling off this mortal coil, despite the appearance of a perfectly healthy infant, in the very same home, some eighty years later, in the arms of his first love and eventual wife, Blanchett, who he met there as a "man-boy" when she was a girl, many years before.


It's hard not to read this allegorical muse on the fleeting nature of human existence, as one of a few, so far rather unconvincing attempts, on David Fincher's part, to prove that he is more than just a thrill-master par excellence.

Bookended by the story of a blind clockmaker (surly a reference to an argument against the existence of God) who constructs a municipal time-piece that runs backwards, strangely mirroring the inverted life of the eponymous hero, perhaps not since the Bible, has there been a narrative so packed with stuff that just doesn't make sense, even overlooking the story's central conceit of a man who ages in reverse, and seems strangely apart from his surrounding, despite award winning special effects and make-up. And it's not just the set that Pitt is detached from, perpetually out of step with the changing times around him.

Okay, Pitt does learn life lessons from a succession of colourful characters, including a womanising pygmy, a self-tattooed boozing tugboat captain, the loose-knickered wife of a British spy, and a seven-time victim of lightening strikes fellow care home resident. But none of them amount to much more that "life's short, make the most of it." And all that in just a minute over two and three quarter hours!

Clearly, however you care to slice it, what's coming is death!

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_Walter_Mitty_(2013_film)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curious_Case_of_Benjamin_Button_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blind_Watchmaker

Source Code (2011)

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW IF THE GUY GETS THE GIRL?)

[Now for a bust of a movie that isn't quite what it says on the tin.]

Source Code (2011) is a French-American science fiction/thriller/romance film directed by Duncan Jones, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, and Jeffrey Wright.

In the end, the concious remnants of an American military helicopter pilot, declared dead-in-action, Jake Gyllenhaal, escapes the confines of the repeatedly reconstructed events of a terrorist attack, with one of its victims, Michelle Monaghan, who he has become romantically attached to.

Unwitting participant in a secret US military experiment designed to investigate the circumstances immediately preceding terror incidents using the afterglow of brain activity of their victims, Gyllenhaal, whose last memory is of flying a mission in Afghanistan, wakes to find himself on a Chicago bound morning commuter train, opposite school teacher, Monaghan, who is under the impression that he is a friend and colleague, minutes before it is destroyed by an explosion.

Alone and disoriented, Gyllenhaal finds himself trapped inside an unfamiliar capsule, receiving confusing instructions via a video link with a command centre, from a uniformed controller, Vera Farmiga, who explains that he is on a mission to find which of the train passengers is responsible for the bombing, as they have apparently threatened to carry out further attacks.

So Gyllenhaal is forced to re-experience events on the train a number of times in order to search for clues, during the course of which, it becomes apparent that there is no hope of his surviving beyond the life support system of the experiment and its disconnected existence.

Realising the grim prospect of his situation, Gyllenhaal exacts an undertaking from the program's architect, Jeffrey Wright, that he be detached from the system and allowed to die, should he meet with success.

However, when Gyllenhaal eventually tracks a mobile phone attached to the bomb he discovered hidden above a wash-room ceiling, to a man he sees deliberately planting his wallet in a carriage compartment to cover his tracks, before alighting at a station in order to collect a van containing what he describes as a dirty bomb that he intends to detonate in the city, Wright reneges on the deal.

Reasoning that Gyllenhaal is too valuable an asset to discard now that he has proved the program works, Wright orders Farmiga to wipe his memory, in preparation for his next mission.

But Farmiga, recognising Gyllenhaal's despair at being unable to effect the outcomes of the lost commuters and the future torment he is likely to suffer as a continued part of the program, defies the order, agreeing to allow Gyllenhaal one last pass through the event, before switching the system's life-support off.

This time Gyllenhaal has all the information he needs to quickly disable the bomb, restrain the bomber, and alert authorities to his intentions.

Then, with the time he has left, he leaves Farmiga a text message, consoles his estranged father by cellphone, and, paying a stand-up comedian to entertain the other passengers, embraces Monaghan in a passionate kiss, something she has clearly been anticipating, just as Farmiga pulls the plug on him, and against all expectations, Gyllenhaal and Monaghan's alternate reality persists.

The commuter train arrives at its destination, and they decide to ditch work for the day and enjoy a long promised coffee together, as Farmiga receives Gyllenhaal's message predicting the thwarting of the bomb attacks and his part in the top secret project on which she is engaged.


The cod-science underpinning the premise of this movie doesn't bear up to even the most cursory examination. But never mind that, what we have is a Groundhog Day (1993) for geeks, science fantasy romance, that plays to all of Gyllenhaal's guy out of his depth trying to solve complicated puzzle and catch the bad guy while sweeping the princess in peril off her feet strengths, even winning the heart of his let's keep this professional operator. Once again, Duncan Jones demonstrates a talent for successfully balancing mystery, drama, and emotion, with the occasional flash of humour. There is much to enjoy. Though this might very well prove to be the last good movie he is responsible for, having taken up the poisoned Warcraft chalice. Let's just hope he hasn't drunk too deeply from it. (A whole year after this post was originally penned, and there's still no sign of it. (Apparently the release has been pushed back not to compete with J.J. Abrams's Star Wars! Like that was ever possible :P))

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_Code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Force_Awakens

Mean Girls (2004)

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO HIGH-SCHOOL STUDENT DESPOTS.)

[Now for a bust of a breakthrough movie for a couple of stars whose careers have since seen wildly divergent fortunes.]

Mean Girls (2004) is an American teen comedy film, directed by Mark Waters, starring Lindsay Lohan and Rachel McAdams. The screenplay was written by Tina Fey, who also co-stars.

In the end, high-school queen-bee contender, Lindsay Lohan decides there is more to school life than teen machinations (maybe.)

Recently repatriated to the States after a sheltered upbringing in remote Africa, intelligent but socially naive sixteen year old Lohan is thrown into the deep-end of American teenage life when she attends school for the first time.

Totally unprepared for both the demands of education and teenage (mostly female) social cliques, she is offered a lifeline by a pair of student outcasts, in the form of a map that lays bare the prevailing high school pecking order.

As a result of suffering the unwanted innuendo laden attentions of the boyfriend of its leader, Rachel McAdams, Lohan finds herself unexpectedly welcomed into the circle of girls at the pinnacle of the hierarchy.

Sensing an opportunity for revenge against their principle tormentors, Lohan's outcast friends persuade her to sabotage McAdams's group from within, but in the process Lohan becomes just as superficial and venal as the girls themselves.

However, realizing Lohan's treacherous betrayal, McAdams uses the Hoover-esque dossier she has compiled to frame Lohan as the source of all rumour and scandal against everyone at the school, leading to a complete breakdown in order.

Authority is only restored during an assembly when the plot against the universally derided McAdams is confessed by the students, after which a fleeing and distraught McAdams is run down and almost killed by a school bus.

Atoning for the responsibility she feels, the guilt-ridden Lohan gradually manages to recover her sweet personality and shake off her pariah status.

And after triumphing in an inter-school math competition, is sufficiently rehabilitated to be elected end-of-year dance queen, clearing the way for a new intake of wannabe queen-bees, who she fantasizes will also be hit by a bus.

Much of the comic enjoyment on offer here is, perhaps, more easily appreciated by those, like writer Tina Fey herself, with some age perspective on proceedings. For those still ducking the psychological crossfire raking eleventh grade trenches, Mean Girls can read very much more like its self-help survival guide inspiration. Nevertheless, even if the eventual message is a bit pat, there is more than enough sweet badinage to help the teenage medicine go down.

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

The Tree of Life (2011)

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHETHER THE EMPEROR IS NAKED?*)

[Now for a bust of a movie so critically acclaimed, you might even be tempted to watch it for yourself. Just don't say I didn't warn you.]

The Tree of Life (2011) is an American existential narrative film written and directed by Terrence Malick, starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and Jessica Chastain.

In the end, middle-aged grown-up eldest son, Sean Penn, of religiously observant parents, Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain, experiences a dream-like, shore-line encounter with the people he knew as a child, one of whom, his younger brother, died aged nineteen.

Scenes depicting the creation of the universe, the formation of the stars and planets, and the emergence and development of life on Earth, are inter-cut with those of a young Christian couple struggling to stay together while raising three sons, confused and frightened by the abuse their loving and compassionate mother, Chastain, suffers at the hands of domineering and disillusioned father, Pitt, in what appears to them to be an arbitrarily cruel world.

This movie is crammed full of symbolism, some of which even I needed Wikipedia's help spotting!

Partly raised and currently resident in Texas (where they like to do things differently) Terrence Malick has spent a career making movies that are more art than entertainment, loved by the critics and loathed by practically everyone else. That he is held in such high regard by those either in the film industry or engaged in reporting on it, probably says more about their desire to demonstrate sophistication and erudition, than it does about Malick's work.

Don't be fooled by the Malick's courtiers, though. The best that can be said for this, and his other movies, is that they look good on the big screen, because he does have an eye for a pretty picture. Or rather, in this case, the people who he got to do his potted histories of creation and evolution special effects have.

When left to his own devices, Malick's tendency is to use unusual camera angles, wide-angle lenses and uncomfortably extreme close-ups to fill the screen with actors or objects he finds interesting. Whether you find them interesting probably depends on whether you enjoy watching other peoples' home-movies, which is exactly what this film feels like, albeit one with Hollywood stars and production values.

What Malick does manage to achieve, though, with a combination of image and sound, is a sense of what it feels like to be alive. Whether you need a film maker to tell you what it feels like to be alive, is another matter.

Wikipedia describe this film as an "experimental drama". I'm not sure whether that's because they don't know what a drama is, or can't spell existential or are just being polite? Whatever, if you approach this movie hoping to be entertained, be prepared for disappointment. Unless, that is, your idea of being entertained is a two hour, twenty minute tour of an art gallery filled with someone else's holiday snaps.

*[The spoiler alert refers to the Hans Christian Andersen tale of The Emperor's New Clothes. You can decide for yourself, if you really want to, but, for me, the Emperor is definitely starkers ;)]

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tree_of_Life_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes

Stardust (2007)

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHO LIVES HAPPILY EVER AFTER?)

[Busting justice can sometimes seem tough, especially when the innocent line up alongside the guilty.]

Stardust (2007) is a British-American romantic fantasy film directed by Matthew Vaughn, starring Charlie Cox, Michelle Pfeiffer, Claire Danes, and Robert De Niro.

In the end, unwitting heir to a magical kingdom, Charlie Cox, lives happily ever after, shining brightly for eternity, next to fallen star, Claire Danes, returned to her home in the night sky, after a long and happy reign together, once she saved both herself and him from dreaded witch, Michelle Pfeiffer, who, along with her two scheming sisters, intended to consume the star's heart for the immortality and supernatural power it would confer on them.

Menial shop boy, Cox, learns how to be a hero from a reputedly blood-thirsty closet cross-dressing captain of a flying lightening trawler, Robert De Niro, and in the process, falls in love with a star knocked from the heavens, Danes, his recovery of which, from within an enchanted realm, contested over by seven princely sibling, he hoped would prove his devotion to a girl he mistakenly thought he loved, eventually discovering he is the only son of the rival princes' long-lost sister and, therefore, rightful heir to the throne.


This perfectly demonstrates the short-comings of busting a movie that represents more than the sum of its parts, as much of the pleasure of the dense and entertaining plot-line is lost, because it involves characters who only affect the eventual outcome indirectly. So the contribution of the excellent ensemble players hardly gets a mention, compared with that of the principals, two of whose casting represented such a colossal miscalculation as to have almost sunk the whole endeavour.

Though convincing as a naive, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed pretty boy, Cox's transformation into a hero and resulting romance with Danes, that lie at the heart of the story, could not have been less convincing.

Even so, his short-comings in that role pale into insignificance, when compared to the un-believability of De Niro as a mincing aesthete.

Rightly renowned for his portrayals of psychopaths, and for the comedy roles in which he sends up such portrayals, he completely fails to sell the role of reluctant pirate, in which he just embarrasses himself and all those around him, required to pretend he is doing a good job.

Fortunately, Pfeiffer, Danes and everyone else do such good work covering for these two, that the result is well worth the price of admission, especially to anyone who enjoys revisionist fairy-tales.

Perhaps George Lucas might be persuaded to work some of his digital-replacement magic on a print?

Fingers crossed ;)

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stardust_(2007_film)

The Judge (2014)

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHETHER PAST DEMONS CAN EVER BE SLAIN?)

[Now for a "never mind the quality, feel the heft" movie bust.]

The Judge (2014) is an American drama film directed by David Dobkin, starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Robert Duvall.

In the end, seemingly invincible hard-ball, conscience-free defence lawyer of the guilty rich, Robert Downey, Jr. is reconciled with his estranged, disapproving, hard-ass small-town provincial judge father, Robert Duvall, after unsuccessfully defending him against a hit-and-run manslaughter charge, which sees Duvall briefly incarcerated, before compassionate parole allows him to die on a fishing trip, in the company of Downey, who Duvall now recognises to be the best lawyer he has ever met.

Returning to his home-town for his mother's funeral, Downey is forced to defend the most uncompliant and self-incriminating client of his career, when his terminally ill father is accused of the murder of a recently released felon he had once shown uncharacteristic leniency to in court, only for the man to then commit brutal murder, immediately on his release.


Of course, there is considerably more detail decorating David Dobkin's A Few Good Men (1992) in Steel Magnolias (1989) clothing (with a dash of Rain Man (1988)) concoction than this plot bust would suggest, no doubt meant to invest characters with the audience. Backers and actors, alike, may have even got a whiff of award potential from the dis-functional family scenario, and the serially re-written script's surfeit of crackling one-liners. But Downey and his spouse's production amounts to little more than daytime television viewing, albeit with a stellar cast. In the end, though, it is Thomas Newman's jauntily incongruous incidental music that sucks the tension out of Dobkin's first dramatic outing, which could have done with a few more good men and a lot less rain magnolias.

[Best line in the movie is delivered by Denis O'Hare: [to Downey] "Wow, it's not just an act. You really are that unpleasant."]

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Judge_(2014_film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Few_Good_Men
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_Magnolias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_Man

'71 (2014)

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHETHER A RAW ARMY RECRUIT SURVIVES HIS FIRST DAY OF ACTIVE DEPLOYMENT)

[Another of the number of past-their-sell-by-date busts languishing in this blog's drafts folder, this time of a movie plot that proves you don't need big budgets or trick Hollywood endings to write compelling thrillers.]

'71 (2014) is a British recent history action drama starring Jack O'Connell, Sean Harris, David Wilmot, Richard Dormer and Paul Anderson, directed by Yann Demange.

In the end, rookie private, Jack O'Connell is rescued from the hands of murderous republican gunmen by the British Army unit that accidentally left him behind during a riot on the streets of Belfast.

Fresh out of boot camp, on his first day of deployment on the streets of Belfast, at the height of Northern Ireland's "Troubles", O'Connell finds himself abandoned by his unit, along with another soldier, as they try to recover rifles snatched by a mob of republican sympathisers during a street riot following an arrest operation that quickly escalated out of control.

O'Connell takes flight when the soldier with him is shot in the face at point blank range by a pair of gunmen who appear out of the crowd.

Chased through the back streets and alleys, O'Connell eventually gives his pursuers the slip by sheltering in a little used outhouse.

Returning to the body of the dead soldier, the gunmen are rebuked by republican king-pin, David Wilmot, for carrying out the shooting. Despite this, and against Wilmot's specific instructions, their dissident gang leader (Killian Scott), decides they should continue to hunt O'Connell.

Under cover of darkness, O'Connell ventures out, covering his uniform with a knitted pullover, stolen from a washing line.

Lost in the unfamiliar streets, O'Connell runs into a young masked loyalist petrol bomber, but is initially reluctant to accept the boy's offer to lead him back to his barracks.

On the way, though, the boy and O'Connell call at a loyalist bar, interrupting a British Military Intelligence officer, Paul Anderson, as he briefs a pair of would-be loyalist bombers.

Telling O'Connell to wait for him at the bar, Anderson leaves to consult with his senior colleague, Sean Harris, waiting in a nearby car.

But, before Anderson has a chance to return for O'Connell, the bar is blown to bits by the hapless bombers, O'Connell only surviving after momentarily stepping outside to see where Anderson had disappeared to.

Dazed and confused, the injured O'Connell staggers through the streets, before collapsing against a wall, in which state he is found by a young woman and her father, Richard Dormer.

Mistaking him for an injured republican, Dormer carries O'Connell to the flat he shares with his daughter in a republican stronghold, where, realising their perilous error, the pair patch up O'Connell's wound, before Dormer seeks help from Wilmot in smuggling him to safety.

The bombing of the loyalist bar, however, has only intensified the factional struggle between Wilmot and the dissident leader, each of whom blames the other for the attack, leading both to decide that the other must die. And when Wilmot visits Dormer's home to see O'Connell for himself, he unwittingly leads the dissidents to the location of their quary.

Spooked, after Wilmot leaves, by an overheard argument between Dormer and his daughter, O'Connell slips out, unseen, only just before the dissident republicans force their way into the flat and demand to know what business Wilmot has there.

With a gun pointed at the head of her father, Dormer's daughter breaks down, revealing that Wilmot was there to help return O'Connell to his unit. But finding O'Connell gone, the dissidents decide to search the vicinity, leaving a single gunman behind to watch Dormer and his daughter while waiting for Wilmot's return.

Having struck a deal to help Harris and Anderson recover O'Connell in exchange for their murdering the dissident who has been challenging his authority, Wimlot leads the Intelligence officers and a contingent of soldiers from O'Connell's unit, to Dormer's flat, where they shoot their way past the waiting gunman, only to find O'Connell gone. But Wilmot claims that if the dissidents have O'Connell, he knows where they will have taken him.

The dissidents have indeed captured O'Connell, despite him killing one of his pursuers, the murderer of the soldier earlier that day, and take him to a nearby derelict bar, where the leader urges a teenager who had failed to shoot the cornered O'Connell during the original pursuit, to execute their unarmed captive.

Again the boy hesitates, giving Wilmot enough time to lead the British soldiers to the bar, which they storm, allowing Anderson to shoot the teen while Harris goes after the fleeing dissident leader.

Harris then betrays Wilmot by revealing the deal he made for the dissident leader's murder, before allowing him to escape in return for the dissidents dispatching Wilmot on behalf of the British.

And in a second betrayal, having saved O'Connell from execution, Anderson then attempts to strangle him, before he himself is shot by the teenager, who Anderson failed to finish off, only for the teenager to be then shot by O'Connell's squad leader, who happened upon Anderson as he attempted to finish off O'Connell.

An invalided O'Connell is discharged from the army under a cloud, after his senior commanding officer dismisses his and his squad leader's accusations against Anderson.

Disillusioned, O'Connell returns to the mainland to collect a young boy he refers to as "our Darren" from a secure children's home, he himself had spent time in.

The pair are seen riding off into the sunset on a coach.


Despite a plot that includes a few too many improbable coincidences, with his first big-screen feature outing, Demange manages a white-knuckle ride of tension and emotion, that grabs its audience from the get-go (right up until the somewhat laboured and slightly corny ending) and puts recent American offerings, in the same genre, with ten times the budget, to shame. (Indeed, since this bust was first penned, O'Connell has gone on to star as the lead in one such production, to much less effect.) Look and learn, Hollywood. Look and learn.

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/'71_(film)

Gone Girl (2014)

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHO DID WHAT AND WHETHER THEY GET AWAY WITH IT.)

[There are still a few more much delayed busts from my time-capsule yet to be posted. Here, at least, is one of more recent ones; an example of a thriller that starts with a bang, only to end with a whimper.]

Gone Girl (2014) is an American mystery thriller film directed by David Fincher, starring Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, and Carrie Coon, adapted for the screen by author Gillian Flynn from her 2012 novel of the same name.

In the end, cheating husband Ben Affleck is trapped in a loveless marriage to his controlling, murderer wife, Rosamund Pike, for the sake of the unborn child she claims to be carrying for him.

On the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary, after downing some liquid courage at the bar he runs with his twin sister, Carrie Coon, in the Missouran town of their birth, Affleck returns home to find his wife, Pike, from whom he intends to seek a divorce, missing and their living-room in disarray.

Summoning the police, Affleck's cool and at times glib demeanour soon raises suspicions in the investigating detective, who orders a full forensic search of the property, which uncovers an increasing amount of circumstantial evidence that suggests Affleck may know more about his wife's disappearance than he claims.

The inspiration for a universally loved children's literature block-buster creation of Pike's author parents, it's not long before the media-savvy pair has the whole community involved in the search for their missing daughter, the story being picked up by tabloid television reporters, who have Affleck tried and convicted in the public eye, even before the luminol sweeps for blood in the couple's kitchen have had a chance to dry.

Most damning for Affleck is a diary discovered by the investigating detective while following a series of clues, part of an anniversary treasure hunt tradition of Pike's, in which she documents the gradual decline of their relationship from its fairytale romance beginnings, through disappointment, doubt, distrust and even fear, on Pike's part. And when Coon discovers her brother ushering a strange young woman out of her home, that he is obviously involved with and who has spent the night there with him, even she begins to doubt her brother.

Worse still, when a claim emerges that the missing Pike was pregnant when she disappeared, the candle-lit vigil held to publicise the search for her turns on Affleck, forcing him to bolt for the cover of a police squad car.

Not until Affleck solves the final treasure hunt clue that leads him and his sister to an incriminating cache of up-market purchases he is supposed to have run up huge credit debts buying, hidden on her property, along with a taunting note and Punch and Judy toy from Pike, does Coon realise it is her brother who is the victim of Pike and not the other way round.

In reality, Pike's diary is mostly fiction, part of an elaborate revenge plot after Affleck's infidelity, designed to put him on death row. However, the scheme falls apart when Pike is robbed of the large amount of cash she is carrying while on the run, the final part of her plan to stage her own murder.

Broke and desperate, Pike turns to super-wealthy former Ivy League suitor, Neil Patrick Harris, who is delighted to take her back and use his huge fortune to save her from her, as she says, abusive husband.

Daunted by the case his wife has fabricated against him, Affleck seeks the help of notorious wife-murder defence attorney, Tyler Perry, who, while admiring Pike's Machiavellian brilliance, cannot resist the challenge of representing someone in such a tight spot as Affleck.

Perry's advice is that he should immediately confess his marital sins on national television, and throw himself on the mercy of the court of public opinion.

Watching Affleck's contritious chat show performance, while safely tucked away in Patrick Harris's remote and luxurious cabin in the woods, Pike convinces herself that, having learnt his lesson, Affleck is at last ready to become the perfect husband she always hoped she could transform him into. Unfortunately for Patrick Harris, who is keen for Pike to reveal her survival, he now forms the means by which Pike intends to return from the dead.

After secretly brutalising herself and staging a one woman show of supposed incarceration for the benefit of the cabin's security cameras, Pike completes her framing of Patrick Harris for her abduction by murdering him with a box cutter, before "escaping" in blood soaked lingerie, for a dramatic re-union with her husband, broadcast live by the national news channels camped out on their front lawn.

So relieved is the public by Pike's miraculous return, that not even the F.B.I. question the inconsistencies in her story that seem obvious to Affleck, Coon, Perry and the investigating detective who (for no apparent reason) has (conveniently for Pike) been taken off the case. And despite Affleck's adamant misgivings, Pike still manages to persuade him to continue with their marriage, on account of some fertility treatment chicanery that she has managed to pull off, while all this was going on.

Or, perhaps more briefly...

Psychopath wife frames husband and murders ex-boyfriend to save marriage and gets away with it.


Fincher has such an enviable reputation for producing edge of the seat rides that it is hard to imagine him ever putting a foot wrong on the big-screen thrill-o-meter. Sadly, with Gone Girl, we no longer have to imagine.

Not that there isn't much to admire and enjoy in the first act mystery scene setter, which is 24 caret Fincher, worthy of the film's promotional references to his classic Seven (1995).

Neither can the blame be laid at the feet of his excellent cast, who do their very best as the plot shifts gear into second act soap opera, then slides, unbelievably, into pantomime farce (even the characters laugh at the implausibility of the plot, at times) for the final third of a movie that, despite being a whole hour longer than most Hollywood fare, seems in a rush to wrap things up before anyone notices the sink-holes appearing in its plot.

Only the under-used and under-rated Patrick Harris, who seems to have drawn the short-straw of portraying the one-dimensional rabbit required by the story to be pulled out of its get-out-of-jail-free trick ending hat, struggles to breath believability into his character.

So disappointed was the audience at the screening I attended that there was a collective groan of resignation when the closing scene played. It's the exact same scene that opens the movie. Only our perspective is supposed to have changed, based on what we've learned.

All I learned was that even the considerable talents of Fincher cannot fashion a silk purse movie out of a sow's ear script. To misquote a famously misquoted quote "the fault, Brutus, lies not in our stars. But in our author."

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_Girl_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_(1995_film)

Spectre (2015)

(SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHETHER THERE'S STILL LIFE IN THE OLD DOG, YET or IF HELL HATH NO FURY LIKE A STEP-SIBLING SCORNED)

[It's been a while, but here's a bust fresh off the digital projection presses.]

Spectre (2015) stars Daniel Craig and Christoph Waltz, and is director Sam Mendes second contribution to the long-running British espionage action movie franchise.

In the end, licensed-to-kill super-spy Daniel Craig spares the life of cornered step-sibling rival and global super-villain Christoph Waltz, before driving off into the sunset with Lea Seydoux, the daughter of a deceased former enemy assassin.

Following secret instructions from his late former boss, Craig causes an international incident at the height of Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico City, while tracking down and spectacularly murdering a notorious Italian criminal plotting a terrorist outrage.

Suspended from duty on his return to London, Craig nevertheless persists with his secret mission, clandestinely travelling to Rome in order to seduce his victim's widow into revealing the location of the latest assembly of the criminal network for which her husband worked.

Using the man's stolen signet ring to gain access to the gathering, Craig witnesses the murderous induction of his victim's replacement, before being exposed by the organisation's head, Christoph Waltz, the grown up son of Craig's childhood guardians, who Craig thought had perished as a youth with his adoptive father.

Craig is chased from the building by the new chief henchman, racing through the streets of Rome, before being forced to crash the one-of-a-kind Aston Martin super-car, stolen from his MI6 quartermaster, into the Tiber.

Piecing together clues, with the unofficial help of his new boss's secretary, Craig tracks down a former adversary, holed up in an isolated alpine lodge, who confirms, on the brink of death, the existence of the overarching organisation of which he was a part, before being poisoned for leaving their criminal employ.

Seeking further clues, Craig inadvertently leads the organisation's henchmen to the man's daughter, Lea Seydoux, and is obliged to rescue her from them, after making a death-bed promise to her father.

Sceptical of his ability to keep her safe, Seydoux is eventually convinced to take Craig to a north African hotel, long frequented by her parents, where, after interrogating a local rat or unclear allegiance, he uncovers a hidden cache of intelligence that points to an unmarked destination deep in the desert.

As the pair travel by train towards the mystery location, Seydoux demonstrates some of her father's skills, helping Craig dispatch the surviving chief henchman, who has caught them up. Their shared exertions lead to a passionate encounter.

Despite alighting unannounced at an abandoned train stop in the middle of nowhere, the couple are collected and chauffeur driven to Waltz's soon-to-be operational global surveillance hub contained in an ancient meteor crater.

Jealous of the attention shown the adopted Craig, Waltz admits responsibility for his own father's death and reveals his ambition for revenge, proceeding to torture Craig in front of Seydoux. But with the help of an exploding wristwatch, the pair escape and destroy the facility.

Returning to London, Craig is in the process of uncovering Waltz's inside man, the head of a new joint intelligence body that has subsumed Craig's new boss's responsibilities, when he is abducted and delivered to the derelict former MI6 Thames-side headquarters.

There, a now badly scared Waltz presents him with a stark choice of saving either himself or Seydoux from the building's demolition explosion which he is about to trigger.

Searching desperately, while Waltz departs by helicopter, Craig only manages to find and flee with Seydoux in the nick of time, while his boss confronts the traitor, who is killed by a fall, after a struggle.

Firing wildly with his revolver as the couple make chase by boat along the river, Craig damages the helicopter's engines, forcing it to crash-land on Westminster Bridge, where Craig, Seydoux and the authorities catch up with an even more badly injured Waltz, who now wants to be known by a name derived from his maternal bloodline.


If Spectre doesn't quite match the achievement of its immediate predecessor, then perhaps that is to be expected from what could only be described as Bond's Greatest Hits: Volume 2. Even so, Mendes second offering stands head and shoulders above all but his first. Maybe if he gets the chance to do a third there'll be a villain motivated by something other than personal revenge :P

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(2015_film)