The Debt - film review

The Debt is a recent American remake of an earlier Israeli film, and it boasts a wonderful cast - Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, Jessica Chastain and Marton Csokas, to name a few. It's an espionage film, but although there's plenty of exciting, and sometimes chilling action and suspense, there's also an attempt to deal with important issues such as when it is better to tell the truth rather than sticking to a lie that has saved people from harm.

The early scenes need to be watched very carefully, as the action zips around and two different periods of time are involved. Mirren plays Rachel, a woman who in 1990s Israel enjoys a considerable reputation for courage, whose adoring daughter has just written a book about her past exploits in espionage. Wilkinsoon is her ex-husband, a spy who has become an important political figure, but who uses a wheelchair (we learn that this is because he had been blown up by car bomb.)

Various scenes flash back to a time, 30 years earlier, when this pair, along with another young man, go to East Germany during the Cold War, trying to capture a brutal former Nazi medic - the Surgeon of Birkenau. We see early on an apparently conclusive scene explaining what happpened, but later on, it turns out that we have been misled.

The tricky storytelling rather appealed to me. Playing games with story structure is something that is fascinating when it is well done, and here it is very well done. There are some very dark moments along the way, and I'm not entirely sure why Rachel made her final choice. In fact, I'm not absolutely convinced it was the right choice, but this is a consistently gripping movie, which made quite an impact on me. A good example of a strong story that is something more than just a straightforward thriller.

Dream House - film review

Dream House is a 2011 American movie starring three British actors and a New Zealander, and a sense of contrariness persists throughout the film. It starts in a fairly conventional way, veers off in a new direction at the half way stage and ends with a mixture of dramatic violence and mawkishness. Interesting, but rather odd.

At the start, we are introduced to Daniel Craig as Will, who has given up a top job in publishing to downshift with his wife Libby and their two adorable daughters. They have moved into a new house in an idyllic setting, but something is amiss. Who has left flowers on the doorstep? Who is the mysterious character hanging around the house at night? What is going on in the cellar? It turns out that murder was done in the house five years earlier, but when Will tries to investigate what happened to the killer, he is given shocking news.

Libby is played by Rachel Weisz (now Mrs Craig) and their glamorous neighbour by Naomi Watts. Marton Csokas, who impressed me very much when playing the Spanish cop Falcon in the TV versions of Robert Wilson's books, is the neighbour's estranged husband. They are all very talented performers,and their quality makes the film watchable.

Overall, however, I had reservations. I would not say Dream House is formulaic, but it felt rather like a blend of several formulas, an unevenness of tone and treatment persisting throughout. My impression was that the scriptwriter had a very good story idea, but nobody was quite sure how best to execute it. The Rotten Tomatoes rating of the film is abysmally low,but I think it's rather better than the basement ranking suggests. One thing is for sure, however. Skyfall it ain't.

Falcon: The Silent and the Damned -TV review

Falcon continued with the first episode (of two) of the adaptation of Robert Wilson's The Silent and the Damned. I haven't read the novel, so I don't know whether its events follow on three months after those of The Blind Man of Seville, as in the telly version. But one thing is for sure - the entrancing photography has made me want to visit Seville as soon as the opportunity arises!

In the previous story, the first victim's eyelids were removed. This time, it was the victim's tongue that was cut out. To an extent, therefore, it seemed rather as though this was an entry in a "mutilation of the month" competition, but generally, I thought this was a good crime show, pacy and yet at times thoughtful. Marton Csokas continues to excel as Falcon, and Hayley Atwell continues to appeal in the role of his potential love interest.

The storyline this time was rather less clear and crisp than in The Blind Man of Seville,but one reason why that didn't matter too much was the excellence of the cast. It included Bill Paterson (who didn't make much of an effort to hide his Scottish accent when playing a Spanish character, but somehow his charisma meant it didnt' really matter) and Robert Lindsay. I've often been asked who I would, ideally, cast as Harry Devlin, and Lindsay has always been very high on the list,even though now he'd be just a little too old for the part. He really is an attractive actor, with a terrific range. I've enjoyed his work ever since he first appeared, long ago, in that breezy sitcom Citizen Smith.

I finished this episode not really clear what was going on, far less having a clear idea of the culprit's identity and motive. Never mind. Falcon is, at present, proving to be rather addictive television, and it's certainly done Seville's tourist industry no harm at all.

Falcon - TV review (episode 2)

The Blind Man of Seville, the first story in Sky Atlantic's new series Falcon, came to an end last week and I've just caught up with the second of the two episodes. I mentioned in my review of episode 1 that the source of the story is a book by Robert Wilson, but I should add that the screenplay is by Stephen Butchard, and even though I haven't read the book, I thought Butchard did a extremely good job in producing an entertaining and watchable show.

I've touched before on the thorny issue of what length works best for a TV cop show. The truth is that (as was depressingly stated on the cover of one of my student law books) there are no "right" answers, but it can be argued that the Morse/Lewis/Vera formula of two-hour stories is more appealing than two parts of one hour each. But the latter format seems to be gaining popularity (DCI Banks is another example) and as long as the screenplay holds the attention throughout, with no sagging (or rushing to cover all the plot elements) in the second episode, it can work very well.

Butchard succeeded so well that I found the second episode even more gripping than the first, despite the unlikely nature of the plot. Suffice to say that the eponymous Falcon was confronted with some unpleasant truths concerning his family, and especially his late parents, as he battled to find the truth about the murderer of three men, two of whom he was close to.

It was all a bit of an endurance test for poor old Falcon, but Marton Csokas performed the role with aplomb and plenty of charisma, and he did have the considerable consolation that one of the suspects, played by Hayley Atwell, fell for him big style. I was amazed, by the way, to discover that Csokas is a New Zealander. It was as much a surprise to me as the solution of many a whodunit!