Friday’s Film Reviews: 22 Jump Street, Grace of Monaco, Fruitvale Station
At approximately 9.15am on January 1, 2009, 22-year-old Oscar Grant III died on the operating table of Highland Hospital in Oakland, California.
Several hours earlier, the young black man and his friends were detained by police at Fruitvale Station on the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system that serves San Francisco.
During chaotic scenes on the platform, one of the officers shot Grant in the back as he was being detained face down on the ground.
Footage captured by witnesses on mobile phones and cameras sparked protests across the city.
‘Fruitvale Station’ dramatises the final 24 hours in the life of Grant (Michael B Jordan), recounted in chronological order except for a single emotionally devastating flashback in which the young man recalls a visit from his mother Wanda (Octavia Spencer) to San Quentin Correctional Facility to hammer home the damage he is doing to his young daughter Tatiana (Ariana Neal).
Jordan is terrific in the lead role – charming and volatile, cocksure yet desperately unsure how he will pay next month’s rent.
Diaz is luminous and Oscar winner Spencer is mesmerising, staring at her boy’s lifeless body and sobbing, “I told him to catch the BART. I didn’t know they were gonna hurt him.”
Cooger opens with footage of the actual shooting and he retains the gritty realism in acutely observed scenes of family life.
His script speaks from the heart and touches and rends ours with every word.
4/5
95%
With a knowing wink and a profusion of expletives, ‘22 Jump Street’ abides by the conventions of a sequel and condemns its dim-witted yet loveable protagonists to relive the plot of the original on a vastly inflated budget.
That’s no bad thing.
Tongue-in-cheek, self-referential playfulness abounds in Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s uproarious action-packed comedy, which adheres unabashedly to a winning formula and gleefully colludes with us for various in-jokes and sight gags.
Thus when Deputy Chief Hardy (Nick Offerman) tells officers Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) they must return to undercover duties, the latter cutely asks, “What if we went to the Secret Service and had to protect the White House?”
Tatum stops short of holding up a DVD copy of his 2013 blockbuster ‘White House Down’ and flashing an impish grin to camera.
Wonderful on-screen chemistry between the leads powers the picture through the occasional lull and the scriptwriters have a ball increasing the homoerotic undercurrents of the central bro-mance into an unstoppable flood.
‘22 Jump Street’ is as preposterous and laugh-out-loud funny as its predecessor, engineering new perils for the dunderhead double-act as they solve the case with characteristic toe-curling awkwardness.
Plot twists aren’t entirely unexpected but predictability doesn’t spoil our enjoyment one bit as we marvel at Hill and Tatum’s willingness to endure bruising physical pratfalls for our amusement.
Of course, there is a smattering of raunchy gags involving sex toys and male appendages but the script’s sweetness always trumps crudity.
Hilarious cameos are peppered throughout, even in an extended end credits sequence that suggests Schmidt and Jenko might have a couple more undercover cases in them yet.
3½
94%
Olivier Dahan’s fictionalised account of a turbulent year in the life of Hollywood actress Grace Kelly begins with newsreel footage of the Oscar-winning star’s lavish wedding to Prince Rainier III.
Grainy black and white images are complemented by effusive voiceover, which glowingly predicts the blonde starlet is “destined to live happily ever after with her charming prince”.
Alas, the fairytale doesn’t deliver a happy ever after for ‘Grace Of Monaco’, which must have required several blood transfusions following the barrage of razor-sharp critical barbs that greeted the film’s premiere in Cannes last month.
Undeniably, Dahan’s picture lacks substance and some of his directorial choices are misjudged such as photographing the porcelain features of Nicole Kidman in soft-focus close-up for every pivotal scene of emotional turmoil.
His camera drifts woozily between her bloodshot eyes and puckered lips as she delivers Arash Amel’s melodramatic script.
It’s hard to muster sympathy for anyone in ‘Grace Of Monaco’ – not the self-serving bureaucrats nor the privileged social set, who savour the trappings of wealth, birth right and celebrity.
Kidman attempts to capture Kelly’s vocal patterns but she’s poorly served by the script when it comes to layering her breathy delivery with emotion.
Roth is lacklustre and Langella lends gravitas to an endless supply of hoary sermons (“At some point, every fairytale must end!”)
For its myriad failings, including an infuriating inability to address Kelly’s relationship with her children, which is supposedly the catalyst for her inner turmoil, the film has fleeting pleasures.
Gigi Lepage’s costumes are gorgeous, allowing Kidman to change attire with dizzying frequency, and when juicy dialogue is scant, the supporting cast merrily chew on scenery.
It’s a toss-up between Robert Lindsay’s portrayal of Aristotle Onassis and Ashton-Griffiths’ jowly take on Hitchcock who leaves the deepest teeth marks.
2/5
3%
Shot in just five days, writer-director Jamie Adam’s low-budget comedy charts the vacillations of a folk duo, who are ill-prepared for the pressures of fame.
Songwriter and guitarist Benny (Craig Roberts) and singer Jolene (Charlotte Ritchie) are rising stars of the music scene, who face the cameras for the first time for an interview on breakfast television.
During the interview, Benny admits to having a crush on Jolene but she is unsure of her feelings.
Ditzy PR girl Nadia (Rosamund Hanson) and the duo’s manager (Keiron Self) attempt to manage the emotional fall out as Benny and Jolene wrestle with their emotions and their meteoric ascent, which could mean sacrificing some of their ideals and authenticity in order to achieve chart glory.
Craig Daniel (Pat Healy) is struggling to make ends meet.
His wife gave up work to care for their son and now Craig, who earns the minimum wage at a local garage, has just been laid off.
Unable to pay next month’s rent, Craig heads for a local bar to drown his sorrows where he crosses paths with his old friend Vince (Ethan Embry), who chose a very different path in life and makes his money by threatening to break people’s arms if they don’t settle their debts.
The two pals reminisce over booze and they encounter 30-something hipster Colin (David Koechner) and his wife Violet (Sara Paxton), who are in the same bar celebrating her birthday.
As the night progresses, a seemingly innocent game of bets and challenges exposes Craig and Vince’s greed and both men must decide how far they are willing to go for money.
Subtitled ‘A Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets’, Florian Habicht’s documentary follows Jarvis Cocker and his chart-topping band as they prepare to mark 25 years together with a concert in their hometown of Sheffield.
Footage from the concert is interspersed with interviews with local people and fans, who have been inspired by the group, as well as revealing conversations with band members and Cocker’s mother.
Through this patchwork of talking heads and rousing performances, the film explores the rise of a group that attempted to keep it real in a cut-throat industry, which measures success by the sales of your last single and album.
100%
Writer-director Matt Johnson’s debut feature was produced by Kevin Smith (Clerks) and charts the efforts of two teenage boys to wreak revenge on bullies at their school.
Shot in a documentary style, the film centres on best friends Matt (Johnson) and Owen (Owen Williams), who are prime targets for a group of vicious classmates at their high school, who they have nicknamed “the Dirties”.
The lads decide to make a film, in which they can realise outlandish and violent fantasies of getting their own back on the bullies.
At first, the film project is merely a way for Matt and Owen to channel their frustration and aggression but as shooting gets underway, it becomes apparent that one of them is treating the idea of revenge with deadly seriousness.
79%
