I’m behind the curve on David Cronenberg’s Russian mobster tale of sin and redemption, so I’ll make this short. At any rate, I can’t discuss the narrative slights-of-hand I admired most without spoiling the film — so let’s just say that the acting by Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassel, and Armin Mueller-Stahl is top [...]
Posts Tagged ‘violence’
Free Jimmy
A computer-animation from Norway featuring a junkie elephant, a gang of rabid animal rights activists, hapless stoners, and the Lappish mafia on choppers, with the voices of Simon Pegg, Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton, and Kyle MacLachlan? Sure, I’ll go see that. Too bad that everything that’s even remotely funny or interesting about Free Jimmy [...]
This Is England
After transforming the bucolic English countryside into a site of horror with the nasty revenge tale Dead Man’s Shoes, Shane Meadows turns to Maggie Thatcher’s England with a skinhead coming-of-age story. This is England starts out as well-acted and superbly designed mid-eighties time-capsule but degenerates to a formulaic conclusion that cheapens everything that went before.
This [...]
