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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 25 April 2002

I’m not a war historian but this battle in Vietnam took place at the Valley Of Death on November 14, 1965.  It effectively began the involvement of the United States in the war and Lt. Col. Hal Moore (played in the film by Mel Gibson) led 400 inexperienced U.S. soldiers into battle against 2,000 of the enemy.

If you need some juicing up, here’s a quote Gibson spouts early in the film - “We are moving into the Valley of the Shadow of Death where you will watch the back of the man next to you, as he will watch yours, and you won’t care what color he is, or by what name he calls God.  We are going into battle against a tough and determined enemy.  I can’t promise you that I will bring you all home alive.  But this I swear... when we go into battle, I will be the first to step on the field and I will be the last to step off.  And I will leave no one behind... dead or alive.”

I wasn’t even slightly stirred by the above speech.  We Were Soldiers does lack passion despite the war scenes being very brutal and graphic.  Black Hawk Down had an added dimension in that it was a film about war but also a film about commradery.  This just felt like just a plain old war flick.  The purpose of battle was lost and it became a movie where the Americans must “win” at all cost.  I’d love to see Americans make a film where they all get butchered by the enemy and see if it makes the same gross at the box-office.

There’s too much melodrama with the film crossing back and forth from Vietnam to a military base in America where the wives are left waiting.  We see their painful reactions on learning that their husbands have been killed but these scenes are too small to be significant.  They weren’t needed.  Further, the ending is too long and unnecessarily drags out the battle’s aftermath.

The film still has a lot going for it.  Director Randall Wallace has had an interesting career.  He was nominated for an Oscar in 1995 for writing Braveheart.  He was also nominated for a Golden Razzie in 2001 for writing Pearl Harbour.  I guess the two kind of cancel each other out - one good for one bad.  Wallace also directed 1998’s The Man In The Iron Mask.  It seems Wallace likes to avoid modern settings in making his movies.

Mel Gibson puts up a good show and was recently in Australia to promote the film for its Anzac Day release.  Performances are hard to appreciate in that there’s so much noise and camera movement but Chris Klein also stood out.  Of the camera work, I liked the nice touch of the blood drops splattering on the camera lens - a small and effective technique.

We Were Soldiers is worth a look but I think instead of being shocked and horrified, we’re starting to yawn when confronted by repetitive violence and Yank-themed storylines.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 18 April 2002

On paper, Dark Blue World is a simple story set against World War II.  When Czechoslovakia was invaded by the Germans in 1939, Czech pilots fled the country and went to England where they could be used to fly English planes in the war effort.  Following the war, many returned home only to be imprisoned by Germans in concentration camps until released in 1951.  This film tells both stories concurrently but the emphasis is placed on the 1939 era.

The experienced Frantisek (Vetchy) and inexperienced Karel (Krystof) are two Czech pilots living and helping out an at English air force base not far outside London.  They’ve had some close calls and seen close friends plummet to their death after being shot down by German planes but they’re still alive and hanging in there.  Their friendship is shattered when both fall in love for the same woman, Susan (Fitzgerald) and Karel’s confidence is betrayed.

The love story doesn’t work and has parrallel’s with the rubbish offered in Pearl Harbor.  Refreshingly however, the film keeps Americans in the background.  This is about the English, the Germans and the Czechoslovakians.  Most war films these days show Americans as the high almighty and I’m proud to see a fresh interpretation of events offered by a different country with a different culture.

There’s some wonderful scenes shot in the air and the aircraft battles are the highlights.  Due to a lack of budget and the inability to find some of the old style aircraft, models were used but having seen the film, it’s almost impossible to discern what is real and what isn’t.  There’s some great cinematography too - the film was shot entriely in Czechoslovakia despite much of it being set in England.  The music score was also note worthy.

I’d only see a handful of foreign language films each year and this is nothing special but it’s nice to see something made in a different style from what we are accustomed.

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 25 April 2002

Matt’s brother, John (Trese), happens to be a priest and on the verge of lent, he indirectly gives him an idea to solve his sexual problems.  No sex of any kind for 40 days and 40 nights.  And that’s not all.  No kissing, touching, biting, no fooling around, and no masturbation of any kind.

The journey begins and early on, he meets the alluring Erica (Sossamon) at the local laundromat.  They develop an instant connection and even spend a day together but Matt finds himself having to withdraw from what would have been a very intimate kiss and Erica is left confused.  At the computer company where Matt works, his colleagues have created and marketed a web-site where people from all over the world can bet on what day he will crack and the pot is now in excess of $15,000.

40 Days & 40 Nights spirals downhill at a monumental pace.  Hartnett was solid in his dramatic leading role in Black Hawk Down but this comedic performance highlights his limitations.  It’s such a stupid character and he looks like a drug addict during the final 10 days as he struggles to keep his hand off it.  The effects of his quest for denial seem to be just a little exaggerated.  The rest of the screenplay follows like clockwork and everything happens as you would expect.

The film has been made by Working Title Films.  I love their films as they have an intelligently comedic class and don’t usually lower themselves to toilet-like humour.  Previous Working Title comedy credits include The Big Lebowski, Billy Elliot, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Fargo, Four Weddings And A Funeral and Notting Hill.  As additional evidence that this film doesn’t match the quality of the above mentioned productions, 40 Days & 40 Nights has struggled at the box-office with a lukewarm $37m after being belted by We Were Soldiers during its opening weekend.

I usually find it difficult to harness the energy to write something decent for such an ordinary film so there you have it.  It’s the best your going to get.  Lent may have already passed but that still doesn’t mean you can abstain from seeing 40 Days & 40 Nights.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 11 April 2002

Aside from the script, Panic Room is a beautifully crafted picture.  Meg (Foster) is a recently divorced woman who just purchased a luxurious house in New York to make a new home with her young daughter, Sarah (Stewart).  The master bedroom has a rather unusual secret compartment known as a “panic room”.  It’s a room to hide in should the house ever be penetrated by intruders.  The room contains every resource one would need to survive as well as video cameras to monitor every room in the house and a separate telephone line to call for help.

On their very first night in the house, three burglars arrive - Burnham (Whitaker), Junior (Leto) and Raoul (Yoakam).  Believing the house to be unoccupied, they soon realise there are two residents sound asleep.  Locked in a safe within the panic room is $3m left by the house’s previous (and now deceased) owner.  Meg awakes and realising they are not alone in the house, she locks herself and Sarah in the panic room.  We now have a stalemate situation.  Meg and Sarah want out of the panic room, the burglars want to get into the panic room but neither can figure out a way to do it.  

The film is directed by David Fincher, the same creative individual who brought us Seven, The Game and the under appreciated Fight Club.  It has all Fincher’s stylings and is directed with thrilling precision.  The dual cinematography work from Conrad Hall (American Beauty) and Darius Khondji (Evita) is incredible.  Cameras go where cameras are not supposed to go and the assistance of visual effects make it all so seamless.  Cameras slide between levels of the house in a single shot and sneak down tiny holes and through narrow gaps.  How do they do it?  The open credits are really cool too - proof that computers can do almost anything.

Jodie Foster is a great actress who doesn’t usually bow to studio pressure.  This is only her third film in the last five years (Contact, Anna And The King) and you’d think a two-time Oscar winning actress would appear a lot more.  I’m sure she gets plenty of offers but being a true professional, she doesn’t work for the sake of working - she’s prepared to wait until the right script comes along.  So is this the right script?

No.  It is conventional, unoriginal and uninspiring.  The holes are so deep that you can’t even see where they end.  What am I talking about?  Here’s some frustrating plot developments that are just too difficult to believe.  Meg knows how to hot-wire a telephone.  Sarah knows Morse code.  The burglars can hear Meg cough and yet they can’t hear anything else they talk about.  The burglars come up with ridiculously inventive plans to flush Meg and Sarah out and yet are dumb enough not to deactivate the cameras.  Every character seems to be able to accurately preempt what the other will do.  I won’t go on (because I want to keep the review under 10,000 words) but the far-fetched ending is laughable and predictable.  An insult to a good thriller.  Anyone who buys it, is a sucker.

I’m disappointed by the film but even more disappointed by having it associated with David Fincher.  Fight Club was such a ground breaking effort.  Why would one of the world’s leading directors choose a screenplay that should have been used as toilet paper?  So if you’re in a hurry to believe the hype and see this film ASAP, don’t “panic” because there’s no reason to justify your attendance.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 18 April 2002

The best example I can recall was a nerve racking experience on January 9, 1998.  The film was Spice World.  I sat in the second front row in an audience of teenage girls who were left spellbound by this cinematic masterpiece.  For me, I couldn’t crawl deep enough into my chair.

Now, four years later, I find myself once again at a similar “crossroad” in my life.  The terms Britney Spears and actress do not belong in the same sentence.  Having seen the trailers, I can already conclude that Crossroads will comfortably be one of the great debacles in movie history.  The film was created solely a vehicle for Spears.  Realising her marketing potential, Paramount Pictures crafted this crap just to get her on screen for 90 minutes and bring in the bucks.  In an era when independent filmmakers are struggling to get quality films released, one studio is willing to spend $12m on a film revolving around a 20-year-old girl who has never acted before in her life.

To help people appreciate the stupidity of the “story”, here’s the plot summary from the film’s actual website - “Crossroads in the story of three childhood friends, Lucy, Kit and Mimi, who after eight years apart, rediscover their friendship on a cross-country trip.  With barely a plan, practically no money but plenty of dreams, the girls catch a lift with Mimi’s handsome, mysterious friend Ben in his ’73 Buick convertible.  Along the way they not only gather experiences that will change their lives forever, but they also discover how important it is to hold onto their hearts’ desires.”  Does that make you feel as sick as I do?

Am I alone in doubting this film?  I think not.  The public can give any film a score out of 10 at the Internet Movie Database and with over 2,000 votes received, the average score for Crossroads is 2.5 (and that includes 14% of the die-hard votes giving the film a score of 10).  Maybe they also feel reluctant at having a teen pop star who has lived on easy street her whole life preach us lessons about how tough life can be.

The problem now is that I have to find the courage to see this film.  I was thinking about a Monday morning 10am session but even at that time of the day, am I safe from been seen?  Being a film critic isn’t all it cracked up to be.

Footnote:  I have now seen the film.  I was given free tickets and offered them to a bum on the street who promptly spat in my face.  I deserved it.  All I want to add is that Britney looks like plastic, the audience laughed during all the emotional scenes and yes, this is the worst film of the year.