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Animal Kingdom, a review by Jon

Animal Kingdom
4 out of 5



One of the things I appreciate most in cinema is when someone takes an genre story and strips it bare, right back to a basic character piece. It doesn’t happen often, but can be very special. Animal Kingdom at least aspires to this and despite any criticism I may have, it is substantial and memorable. Sadly, I was still largely disappointed.

You can’t please some people, eh? I’d be the first to bemoan the state of the Gangster film, a genre that had slipped into self-parody so far that even the best examples of recent years were still predictable and desperate. Animal Kingdom‘s approach is so refreshing that I wanted to like it very much. And up until about halfway, I really did.

The story follows J, a docile teenager who has just lost his mother to a heroin overdose. He’s literally numb to the situation and turns to his grandma, who he hasn’t seen for years. She takes him to live with her and her sons, who are all career criminals. He joins the family as they are starting to implode, with too much police attention frustrating them. The most notorious of the brothers, Pope, is in hiding, but he soon returns and that’s when the trouble really starts. So it’s an interesting twist on a dumb, impressionable teenager, surrounded by a hedonistic outlaw lifestyle, leaving him with a choice of glory or normality? Actually it’s better than that. Far more subtle. Nowhere near as much fun either.

It would be easy for any potential viewer to read that and second-guess the plot and I’d bet they’d be wrong. You could also try and imagine which stereotypes the characters fit into and you’d still be wrong. Well, “ish”. The plot is very indistinct and the acting naturalistic, largely humourless and quiet (which is a good thing) and some early moments are very powerful. There’s a noticeable and welcome lack of irony, another staple ingredient of the genre. The title as a metaphor for the world J is trying to fit into is about the most obvious thing about the film. There is an incredible early scene where J is persuaded to threaten someone with a gun and he does so, terrified and silent. Of course, he wins the stand-off. He’s the guy with the gun.

I wish the film could have built on that, but it seemed to just tread water from then on. Despite that fantastic moment, J remains passive and emotionless (a twist on a typical teen, I suppose!) for almost the entirety of the film and I found it numbing. Also, a lack of plot is one thing, and that really supports the idea of this family who can’t move in any direction, but a couple of developments felt very contrived to force something to happen. Add to this too many attempts to catch the audience out (including the ending, which is so obvious it might as well have been narrated) and suddenly it felt unfocused and disappointingly obvious. That was especially frustrating in a film so fresh as I certainly didn’t expect it to be predictable, if you pardon the expression.

While I found J monotonous, that was clearly the intention and James Frecheville is perfectly cast. Only time will prove if that’s a back handed compliment! All the brothers are good with their own personalities, especially Ben Mendelsohn as Pope. I wish he’d had more to do and wasn’t given such a weak last act, but more than once he’s the best thing on screen (see the simmering tension as he watches the ‘All Out of Love’ music video!). If there was any reason at all to watch this film again, it would be for him and Jacki Weaver as Janine, the mother. Hers is the most well written and satisfying role, which you might assume is similar to Billie Whitelaw in The Krays, but Weaver’s is a more interesting perspective. Best of all though, despite having the least screen time of the main characters, is Guy Pearce as Leckie, the detective. He really is superb, working the scene for all its potential while seemingly doing nothing. A late moment between him and Weaver is a brilliant one.

As a debut, as a film-making achievement, this is a great piece of work from David Michôd. I really enjoyed his balanced approach and I wish it could have been sustained for the full running time, but for me it collapses in the middle quite badly. There’s no rule to say you must like or hate a film absolutely on first viewing, but I wonder if such seemingly fundamental issues can be smoothed over by time? Despite the hugely positive reaction (97% on Rotten Tomatoes? 2010 Sundance winner?) I find I appreciated it more than enjoyed it. It pales significantly against other recent examples of dialled back raw film-making, such as Monsters or especially the wonderful Winter’s Bone. Still, Animal Kingdom is indicative of a thoughtful, measured style of film I hope takes a stronger hold.

(From Animal Kingdom **** on February 9th, 2011)

Rest Stop: Dead Ahead , a review by addicted2dvd

Rest Stop: Dead Ahead (2006) Warner Home Video Director: John Shiban Writing: John Shiban (Writer) Length: 85 min. Rating: Unrated Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78:1 Audio: English: Dolby Digital: 5.1 Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

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Stars:
Jaimie Alexander as Nicole
Michael Childers as Father
Jennifer Cormack as College Student
Gary Entin as Twin #1
Edmund Entin as Twin #2
Joey Lawrence as Deacon

Plot:
Unrated/Uncut terror ahead - don't miss the off-ramp! En route to Hollywood, runaway lovers Jess and Nicole make an unscheduled pit stop into the lair of a madman who has his ripping, slashing, drilling tools at the ready. Stop awhile, but don't expect rest as director John Shiban (writer/executive producer of Supernatural) keeps the shocks and twists coming in Rest Stop: Dead Ahead (Side A). There's no rest for the wicked as more unsuspecting young travelers exit into the killer's domain in Rest Stop: Don't Look Back (Side B). The roadtrippers are not alone. The roaming RV of living corpses is back, and the vengeance-seeking ghosts of Jesse and Nicole show up too!

Extras:

• Scene Access
• Feature Trailers
• Bonus Trailers
• Deleted Scenes
• Gallery
• Closed Captioned

This movie is pretty good. It was enough to keep my interest through-out... and proved to be an entertaining way of wasting an hour and a half. There is a bit of decent gore... but not a whole lot. I think most people would be able to handle it without any problems. There is a family traveling in an RV that were just plain weird. While it didn't explain it fully... it did show that they were at least somehow involved. I also checked out the alternate endings. They added 3 alternate endings on the disc. The first alternate wasn't bad... would have been a satisfying ending at least. The other 2 alternate endings I didn't care for at all... but in the end they definitely used the best ending for the movie.




(From Weekend Movie Marathon: Unseen Horrors on July 24th, 2011)

Smallville Marathon #2, a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis: A girl hypnotizes Clark and he subsequently breaks up with Lana. He (unwillingly) reveals all his abilities to her and does whatever she wants. What he doesn't know is, that she was hired by Lex, but luckily for Clark she double-crosses Lex and doesn't expose him to Lex but instead tries to kill him (Lex). But Lex has other things on his mind, too. He's located Milton Fine in Honduras and he believes that Milton is a government agent.

My Opinion: Spike Milton is a hard-to-kill kind of guy. It's good that he's back, that means that the Krypton arc is back in the game.
I am sorry and relieved at the same time that the relation of Lana and Clark is over. Sorry for obvious reasons and relieved because that entire hide-and-seek was getting tiresome. Of course it won't completely stop but the amount of lies can go down to normal Clark-level.

Synopsis: With the help of a Kryptonite drug, Lana dies and comes back from the dead. But while she's dead she can talk to her parents. The problem is that one can only die so many times before one stays that way. Both Clark and Lex try to help her and get killed in the process.

My Opinion: This is my third attempt to write this paragraph. I don't know why, but somehow it didn't felt right. I've never been religious, yet I've never had any problem with the concept of an afterlife in a fantasy show. Xena has been to several places for the dead (the Elysian Fields, Tartaros, the Amazon afterworld), Buffy was in Heaven and there were several hell dimensions and still I didn't like the idea that Clark could talk to his dead father and that he could give his son a warning. Sorry, I can't really explain why, but that's how I feel.

Synopsis: Maddie is the foster daughter of Martha's chief of staff. Then her foster mother gets killed and she lives at the Kents's until new foster parents can be found. But Maddie is special, she can control glass with her mind. Has she killed her foster mother?

My Opinion: The actress of Maddie (Emily Hirst) strongly reminded me of Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) in the first Harry Potter movie. I also found it interesting how they managed to make her the prime suspect just to reveal that her father (Callum Keith Rennie, Leoben in Battlestar Galactica) has the same abilities. The concept of second generation meteor freaks has been mentioned before but it was still interesting.

Synopsis: Lionel nearly gets killed when his limo is rammed by a train. But this was no accident, someone has made a game out of the attempts to kill Lionel. But soon it's not only Lionel's life that is endangered, it's Martha's as well.

My Opinion: Everytime I watch that episode, I am sure that Ian Tracey has had a previous appearance on the show, that I've seen him there before. But IMDb tells me, that he hasn't.
While I found the tasks to be interesting I nonetheless recognized the obvious television/movies errors, such as a train that doesn't even stop after it has hit a car or Clark catching a falling elevator without hurting the occupants, even though they've just fallen several hundred feets.

(From Smallville Marathon #2 on June 14th, 2008)