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hestia8Well. Today I watched a very, very odd film. So odd that I'm actually posting about something I've watched twice in two days. It's like it's 2009 or something.
(as per usual, this is not a review but more a ramble)
Blitz is a film adaptation of a Ken Bruen novel. I have tried to read a Ken Bruen novel in the past - possibly this one - but did not finish it as I just could not get on with the style. It stars Jason Statham as DS Tom Brant, who is a massive cliche. MASSIVE. CLICHE. It's amazing how many stereotypical tough, gritty London copper elements are packed into this one guy.
Also in the cast are Paddy Considine, David Morrissey, Zawe Ashton and Aiden Gillen.
Spoilers beyond the cut...
I tweeted a lot at the beginning of this film because it was just far too ridiculous to take seriously. At the start of the film, Brant finds some youths trying to break into his car or something and he then beats them up with a hurling stick. AS YOU DO. Then the scene changes to a psychiatrist's office where he's a git and the shrink says he has issues and blah blah blah tough guy.
And then he's at his desk his boss comes in and it's all the usual 'you can't do this, we're under pressure, media storm etc etc' and Brant is all pointless gruffness in return. I nearly gave up at this point, honestly.
So there's a bunch of this rubbish set-up (honestly, at one point I thought I'd got it wrong and it was a parody), but then the plot kicks in. There's someone going about killing police officers in cold blood, and the murders are shot effectively and shockingly (although the first murder looks daft when it starts pouring with rain as soon as the officer died - maybe it worked better in the book?).
There's some odd police procedure that leads to DS Porter Nash (Paddy Considine) becoming Acting Inspector on the murder investigation because the Chief Inspector (who is played by Mark Rylance, which completely passed me by) is off on compassionate leave after the death of his wife. But we will gloss over the ranking stuff because Porter Nash is a completely unexpected delight. He starts off looking like the usual by-the-book, suited and booted cop who's going to have to put up with Brant's jeans and sunglasses rebel nonsense throughout the film and then Brant will be proved right and rules are for morons etc (I hate that plot), but then it turns out there's a bunch of different stuff going on.
He's openly gay (and therefore obviously has the most chemistry with Statham of anyone in the film*) and despite the initial set-up of his character, he turns out to be just as brutal as Brant, and actually slightly smarter. And although there are a fair few homophobic comments from other police characters, the film and the plot really love Nash and let him shine. Like I said, an unexpected delight.
There's a wonderful scene - the point where I realised I was going to have accept that I was actually going to enjoy this film and probably talk about it later - where Brant goes round to Nash's flat, and against all expectations of the genre he tells him how he feels. And then Nash says yes, that's burnout, and here's what happened to me. And from then on, it gets better and better.
There are other surprises where the film's working against the genre. Although there were only three female cops onscreen (I think), two of them were actually pretty well-rounded characters and neither of them ended up being there for the hero to sleep with (the third wasn't onscreen for long). Zawe Ashton's subplot was really nicely done, and I'd have watched a whole film about her character and what she was going through.
Aiden Gillen has a lot of fun playing the villain - it's an excellent performance from him, and his character turns out to have a pretty understandable backstory (yes, he's a psycho and was beating up someone in a billiards hall, but then Brant turned up and beat and humiliated him, so eventually this got built up into a massive revenge plot**).
(Oh, brief note, Luke Evans - who I've never seen before - plays a minor character who again is excellent and contrasting my genre expectations had an excellent relationship with Zawe Ashton's character).
It pains me to say that Statham is one of the weaker points of this film. Maybe not weak so much as simply adequate. The high points as I've mentioned are Zawe Ashton, Aiden Gillen and Paddy Considine especially, so it's a shame that Statham spends most of the film being so flat by comparison. I am a massive Statham fan and usually I find he's worth watching even if the rest of the film is a duff. Having said that, his chemistry with Paddy Considine was great and if this turns into a film franchise I'd watch the next film for more of their relationship (sadly I don't think it will).
I think the really impressive thing about this film is how it all hangs together in the end. It had an immensely satisfying ending for all the characters I was bothered about, and the plot was rather neatly tied up.
* it is practically a rule of Jason Statham films that he will have lots of chemistry with the men but bugger all with the women. See The Transporter 1 & 2 for shining examples of this.
** NB as far as I could tell, although Brant figured this out during the film he didn't actually feel like he'd done anything wrong by beating the guy up instead of arresting him.
So, all in all, I would recommend this film. The first part of the film was over the top gritty nonsense, but once the film gets over needing to establish Statham as the lone cop with no limits blah blah blah and just gets on with the plot it improves massively and actually does some unexpected things with its characters. I'm also tempted to give the book another try...
ps I thought this Mark Kermode review made some very good points: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaiNU-1wMA8
pps just realised in this whole thing I haven't mentioned the action scenes: the film is fairly violent and the Statham fighting is not quite as good as in The Transporter (which is fair enough), but the action scenes are nicely put together and there's only one point where I thought it got too violent. Actually on the whole there are some really good shots where things are implied rather than shown full-on.
(as per usual, this is not a review but more a ramble)
Blitz is a film adaptation of a Ken Bruen novel. I have tried to read a Ken Bruen novel in the past - possibly this one - but did not finish it as I just could not get on with the style. It stars Jason Statham as DS Tom Brant, who is a massive cliche. MASSIVE. CLICHE. It's amazing how many stereotypical tough, gritty London copper elements are packed into this one guy.
Also in the cast are Paddy Considine, David Morrissey, Zawe Ashton and Aiden Gillen.
Spoilers beyond the cut...
I tweeted a lot at the beginning of this film because it was just far too ridiculous to take seriously. At the start of the film, Brant finds some youths trying to break into his car or something and he then beats them up with a hurling stick. AS YOU DO. Then the scene changes to a psychiatrist's office where he's a git and the shrink says he has issues and blah blah blah tough guy.
And then he's at his desk his boss comes in and it's all the usual 'you can't do this, we're under pressure, media storm etc etc' and Brant is all pointless gruffness in return. I nearly gave up at this point, honestly.
So there's a bunch of this rubbish set-up (honestly, at one point I thought I'd got it wrong and it was a parody), but then the plot kicks in. There's someone going about killing police officers in cold blood, and the murders are shot effectively and shockingly (although the first murder looks daft when it starts pouring with rain as soon as the officer died - maybe it worked better in the book?).
There's some odd police procedure that leads to DS Porter Nash (Paddy Considine) becoming Acting Inspector on the murder investigation because the Chief Inspector (who is played by Mark Rylance, which completely passed me by) is off on compassionate leave after the death of his wife. But we will gloss over the ranking stuff because Porter Nash is a completely unexpected delight. He starts off looking like the usual by-the-book, suited and booted cop who's going to have to put up with Brant's jeans and sunglasses rebel nonsense throughout the film and then Brant will be proved right and rules are for morons etc (I hate that plot), but then it turns out there's a bunch of different stuff going on.
He's openly gay (and therefore obviously has the most chemistry with Statham of anyone in the film*) and despite the initial set-up of his character, he turns out to be just as brutal as Brant, and actually slightly smarter. And although there are a fair few homophobic comments from other police characters, the film and the plot really love Nash and let him shine. Like I said, an unexpected delight.
There's a wonderful scene - the point where I realised I was going to have accept that I was actually going to enjoy this film and probably talk about it later - where Brant goes round to Nash's flat, and against all expectations of the genre he tells him how he feels. And then Nash says yes, that's burnout, and here's what happened to me. And from then on, it gets better and better.
There are other surprises where the film's working against the genre. Although there were only three female cops onscreen (I think), two of them were actually pretty well-rounded characters and neither of them ended up being there for the hero to sleep with (the third wasn't onscreen for long). Zawe Ashton's subplot was really nicely done, and I'd have watched a whole film about her character and what she was going through.
Aiden Gillen has a lot of fun playing the villain - it's an excellent performance from him, and his character turns out to have a pretty understandable backstory (yes, he's a psycho and was beating up someone in a billiards hall, but then Brant turned up and beat and humiliated him, so eventually this got built up into a massive revenge plot**).
(Oh, brief note, Luke Evans - who I've never seen before - plays a minor character who again is excellent and contrasting my genre expectations had an excellent relationship with Zawe Ashton's character).
It pains me to say that Statham is one of the weaker points of this film. Maybe not weak so much as simply adequate. The high points as I've mentioned are Zawe Ashton, Aiden Gillen and Paddy Considine especially, so it's a shame that Statham spends most of the film being so flat by comparison. I am a massive Statham fan and usually I find he's worth watching even if the rest of the film is a duff. Having said that, his chemistry with Paddy Considine was great and if this turns into a film franchise I'd watch the next film for more of their relationship (sadly I don't think it will).
I think the really impressive thing about this film is how it all hangs together in the end. It had an immensely satisfying ending for all the characters I was bothered about, and the plot was rather neatly tied up.
* it is practically a rule of Jason Statham films that he will have lots of chemistry with the men but bugger all with the women. See The Transporter 1 & 2 for shining examples of this.
** NB as far as I could tell, although Brant figured this out during the film he didn't actually feel like he'd done anything wrong by beating the guy up instead of arresting him.
So, all in all, I would recommend this film. The first part of the film was over the top gritty nonsense, but once the film gets over needing to establish Statham as the lone cop with no limits blah blah blah and just gets on with the plot it improves massively and actually does some unexpected things with its characters. I'm also tempted to give the book another try...
ps I thought this Mark Kermode review made some very good points: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaiNU-1wMA8
pps just realised in this whole thing I haven't mentioned the action scenes: the film is fairly violent and the Statham fighting is not quite as good as in The Transporter (which is fair enough), but the action scenes are nicely put together and there's only one point where I thought it got too violent. Actually on the whole there are some really good shots where things are implied rather than shown full-on.
