STACK #155 Sep 2017

CINEMA REVIEWS

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LOGAN LUCKY

RELEASED: Aug 17 DIRECTOR: Steven Soderbergh CAST: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig, Katherine Waterston RATING: M Steven Soderbergh emerges from his self-imposed retirement from filmmaking with something he can direct in his sleep – a heist movie. But unlike the unlucky Ocean’s Thirteen , this character-driven caper comedy isn’t a phoned-in job. The Logan brothers, Jimmy (Channing Tatum) and Clyde (Adam Driver), plot to fleece the local NASCAR speedway via the system of underground tunnels where Jimmy worked in construction, giving him an insider’s view on the vacuum tube system that carries the track’s loot. Mention of a Logan family curse suggests their plan is doomed to failure, but this seemingly dim-witted duo could just be sharp enough to pull it off, especially with the help of explosives whiz Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) and their getaway driver sister (Riley Keough). The mechanics of the heist prove secondary to the enjoyment of spending two hours in the company of a bunch of redneck misfits for whom John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads is an anthem, Fast and the Furious is a family film, and a daughter must be spray tanned prior to competing in a kiddie talent contest. Casting against type is the film’s major windfall, with Tatum as an oafish single dad, Driver as a deadpan amputee barman, and Craig as a bleached-blonde Bondshell with a southern drawl – who steals scenes while the rest are stealing greenbacks. With a convenience store figuring into the heist, a throwaway line succinctly sums up Logan Lucky – “it’s like Ocean’s 7–11.” Scott Hocking The Lost City of Z features Charlie Hunnam’s best film performance to date. That might sound like faint praise – especially after the excess of King Arthur: Legend of the Sword – but there’s not a trace of Jax Teller in his portrayal of real-life British Army Colonel turned Amazon explorer, Percy Fawcett. He gets to keeps his English accent and his shirt on for the entire running time! Fawcett’s adventure begins in the early 1900s on a border mapping mission to the Bolivian Amazon, where he discovers evidence of a lost civilisation hidden deep within the rainforest. This two year assignment turns into a lifelong obsession, and despite the dangers that come with the territory (tribal hostility and a bit of Cannibal Holocaust nastiness) and a recall to duty during World War I, Fawcett returns to search for the lost city of Z (Zed in the film, but Zee has more of a ring to it), spurred on by the discovery of Machu Picchu in 1911. Director James Gray, best known for his urban dramas The Yards and We Own the Night , is more at home on the streets of New York, and this ambitious adaptation of David Grann’s non-fiction best-seller never manages to capture the excitement and intrigue of Fawcett’s story. Alternating between period drama and jungle adventure, and with decades to cover at a rather sluggish pace, The Lost City of Z is dreamily captivating but frequently patience-testing. Audiences could find themselves catching up on some lost Zzzzs. Scott Hocking THE LOST CITY OF Z RELEASED: Aug 24 DIRECTOR: James Gray CAST: Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller RATING: M

RELEASED: Aug 24 DIRECTOR: Doug Liman

AMERICAN MADE

CAST: Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Caleb Landry Jones RATING: MA15+

More risky business for Tom Cruise.

D oug Liman seems to have a knack for taking Tom Cruise out of his controlled comfort zone to get the best out of him. In Edge of Tomorrow he was a coward doomed to die every day, and in American Made he's a drug runner who flashes his butt and staggers from a plane covered in cocaine. Not the sort of behaviour you associate with Hollywood's most polarising star, and that's one of the reasons why this is one of his less grating performances. Needless to say, American Made is a better fit for Cruise than The Mummy . He's much more at home here; back in the cockpit and aviator sunnies as Barry Seal, the real-life TWA pilot turned CIA courier turned drug runner and eventual

smile and cocksure mien, Cruise turns Seal into an all-American antihero – think Top Gun 's Maverick sporting a layer of grime, sweat and sleaze. Seal's reputation as a pilot and smuggler of contraband cigars precedes him, leading to clandestine CIA work supplying arms to Central American freedom fighters, and cocaine to the US for the Medellin cartel during the 1980s. He's "the gringo who always delivers." Operating on both sides of the law with apparent impunity, the opportunistic Seal quickly builds an empire in Arkansas, amassing a cash stash to eclipse Walter White's and counting Pablo Escobar, Manuel Noriega and Oliver North as friends. The film matches Seal's brio; snappily edited, self-consciously cool, and channelling the perky period vibe of Boogie Nights and The Nice Guys. It's the kind of incredible-but-true story of a larger-than- life character (see also Frank Abagnale Jr. in Catch Me if You Can ) that's often so implausible, you'd need to suspend disbelief if it was fiction. Liman acknowledges this by presenting Seal's story as a briskly paced and freewheeling comedic jaunt that's consistently entertaining and amusing, even if it does get stuck in a repetitive loop after a while. A bolder than usual Cruise helps to seal the deal. Scott Hocking

RATING KEY: Wow! Good Not bad Meh Woof!

pawn for the Reagan administration. With his thousand watt

SEPTEMBER 2017

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