STACK #160 Feb 2018

CINEMA REVIEWS

visit stack.com.au

THE POST

RELEASED: Jan 11 DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg CAST: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Paulson RATING: M Before the Watergate scandal made headlines, the incendiary Pentagon Papers – revealing the US government knew that the Vietnam war was a lost cause yet still allowed soldiers' lives to be lost – were leaked to the press and published by The New York Times in 1971. Consequently, the Nixon administration sought and won an injunction to prevent further publication of the damning evidence, citing a threat to national security. Determined to uphold the First Amendment is Washington Post owner Kay Graham (Meryl Streep) and her executive editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), who have obtained the top secret Department of Defence document and regard its publication both as a means to maintain the freedom of the press and elevate the newspaper to the journalistic big time. But with the legal minefield the exposé will create, and the company poised to be floated, they are faced with an almost impossible decision. Steven Spielberg's effortless direction, with a focus on character and procedural detail, is the same no-fuss approach to historical drama he applied to Munich and Amistad . You could be forgiven for not recognising The Post as one of his films. This is a bold print newsroom drama in the tradition of All the President's Men (1976), Zodiac (2007) and Spotlight , and although not as gripping as the latter Oscar-winner, Spielberg builds tension through a race against the clock to meet a looming deadline. However, some ponderous pacing and a heavy reliance on exposition frequently threatens to stop the press. Scott Hocking THE COMMUTER RELEASED: Jan 18 DIRECTOR: Jaume Collet-Serra CAST: Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Sam Neill RATING: M Liam Neeson once again makes the gradual – and inevitable – transition from everyman to action man in his fourth collaboration with director Jaume Collet-Sera ( Non-Stop ). He's a 60-year-old ex-cop turned insurance guy, who makes the long daily train commute from the 'burbs to NYC. After learning he's been fired, his day gets a whole lot worse when he receives a cryptic offer from a mystery woman (Vera Farmiga) on the trip home: find a specific traveller who doesn't belong on the train, in exchange for $100K. With no job, two mortgages and a kid bound for college, naturally he agrees. But after breaking the rules of the deal, his family is threatened and he's plunged into a convoluted conspiracy orchestrated by the usual omnipresent "they". The Hitchcock allusions – The Lady Vanishes, Strangers on a Train – aren't exactly subtle, and there's even a corny reverse zoom to ram the point home. A blatantly obvious clue is dropped early, red herrings abound as to the identity of the mystery passenger, and there are plot holes you could drive a locomotive through. Then things go completely off the rails and the film turns into a Die Hard clone. Neeson can play this kind of role in his sleep now, but The Commuter is no snoozefest. It's paced like an out of control express, and despite being wildly implausible, it's highly enjoyable – in a guilty pleasure kind of way. Scott Hocking

RELEASED: Jan 18 DIRECTOR: Guillermo del Toro CAST: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Octavia Spencer RATING: MA15+

THE SHAPE OF WATER

A sweet, inter-species romance – GDT style.

T he Shape of Water is a sweet fable about two lonely souls who make a connection. That one of them happens to be a fish man is almost incidental. This is a Guillermo del Toro film after all, and the Mexican master is a specialist when it comes to idiosyncratic genre-splicing. His homage to The Creature from the Black Lagoon is a whimsical romance and a cold- war monster movie, steeped in a passion for cinema that's reflected in the exquisite production design and sprinkling of vintage clips from Hollywood's Golden Age – everything from Shirley Temple and the Land of the Pharoahs , to Mister Ed . Its mute protagonist, Elisa (Sally Hawkins), lives above a grand old theatre in Baltimore and works the night shift as a cleaner at a secret government facility, where a mysterious new "asset" has just arrived from South America. It's an amphibious humanoid

man with an electrified prod and losing a couple of fingers in the process. The Russians also want to get hold of it, and when Elisa discovers her new friend is in danger, she hatches a plan to liberate the creature with the help of her neighbour (Richard Dawkins) and feisty co-worker (Octavia Spencer). This inter-species romance reflects del Toro's own passion for monsters. It's a daring concept for a Hollywood film and executed with aplomb; even moments that should come off as schlocky and absurd feel perfect in context. The Shape of Water is sentimental, but it still possesses the bursts of violence and grotesquerie that are a GDT trademark, just like his meticulous eye for detail which captures the rhythm of Elisa's daily ritual and the steampunk design of the lab. If there's a complaint to be made, it's that the story plays out exactly how you expect it to. Pan's Labyrinth remains del Toro's evoking the former film's fusion of real world drama and the fantastic, with an innocent "princess" caught in the middle and finding escape in the company of a fantasy creature. As unconventional as an unconventional love story can be, del Toro's bold vision restores a sense of magic and wonder to the movies. Scott Hocking masterpiece and The Shape of Water runs a close second,

RATING KEY: Wow! Good Not bad Meh Woof!

(resembling Hellboy 's Abe Sapien and played by seasoned creature performer Doug Jones), and while cleaning the lab, the curious Elisa forms a bond with the beast using eggs, music and sign language. Sadistic military man Strickland

(Michael Shannon) is less empathetic; torturing the gill-

FEBRUARY 2018

016

jbhifi.com.au