Reviews

  • Dream Horse (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) While Dream Horse ends up being a very familiar, suspiciously contrived feel-good comedy, I frankly expected something much duller. Hurrah for low expectations, I guess—but those expectations were set by an underwhelming opening sequence in which we’re stuck in a small English town alongside a protagonist going through the repetitive motions of a boring life. Her job is unfulfilling, yet still more interesting than her marriage. The town is sleepy and the neighbours are dull. The spark comes as she hears about a racing horse syndicate—the idea being to sell shares into a racehorse, and hopefully benefit from its winnings. Before long, a large cast of eccentric characters joins in, the mare gives birth to a promising foal and (time-skipping forward to the good parts) the horse starts winning race after race. Dream Horse is adapted from a true story, but the dramatization dictates that something bad is about to happen and indeed we’re soon asked to consider whether the injured horse should be put out of his misery. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? this isn’t, though, as the third act goes for a comforting arc that sees everyone get some money and the horse retire quietly to the good pasture. Toni Colette is the anchor here, as the godmother of the syndicate and the one who experiences the most personal growth along the way. There’s something a bit weird and convenient is showcasing a story about winning against incredible odds without spending much time talking about those odds—as if anyone could come up with a race-winning foal, and find contentment in winning money (recast as “being part of something great” and “finding fulfillment in life”) from gambling. But such questions are beyond the intent of Dream Horse, which is meant to make viewers happy without asking too many questions. It does work as such—and as mentioned, I expected much worse. Who doesn’t like a winning horse?

  • The Hating Game (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) It’s easy to be swept up in The Hating Game. While it starts with interpersonal dynamics that feel contrived for the requirements of the plot, its fast-paced dialogue, likable leads and contemporary direction from Peter Hutchings do much to hook us in, at least long enough for the film to make good out of the finer elements of its premise. Lucy Hale and Austin Stowell make great romantic foils to each other as career-driven overachievers competing in the same publishing office, an enormous amount of sexual attraction hanging over their petty sniping while sitting at their facing desks. The film definitely takes a two-steps-forward, one-step-back approach to plotting, as nearly every significant move forward (a torrid elevator kiss, a passionate hotel-room tryst) is immediately set back by some other obstacle. The rip-roaring motormouth dialogue brings to mind screwball comedies of the 1930s, while the structure underpinning of the romance harkens back to Austen. (The Hating Game pairs up exceptionally well with Modern Persuasion if you’re looking for a great contemporary romantic comedy dual bill.)  The script, based on a novel, is hardly perfect: there’s no time to tie up some of the loose narrative ends, and much of the climax is predicated on the kind of stupid plotting (she overheard something! He never told her something! Also: Everyone conspired not to set her straight for kicks and giggles!) that feels considerably below what the film achieves elsewhere. But it all works out in the end: the weird setup, the episodic progression, the silly third act all lead where it should have led, and by the time The Hating Game wraps up, it’s a good enjoyable romantic comedy, the likes of which aren’t as frequent as they should.

  • Shershaah (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Amazon Streaming, February 2022) For those used to the war movies of the Anglosphere, taking a look at other conflicts can be interesting in its own right. So it is that Shershaah drops us on the Indian side of the 1999 Kargil war, and uses that as the flashpoint to tell us about the story of real-life hero Vikram Batra. This is, to be clear, a propaganda film. It’s utterly uninterested in being even-handed in its depiction of the conflict, and equally uninterested in anything but a hagiography of its lead characters. You can get swept up in it, though: despite the lengths (135 minutes!) and tangents typical of big-budget Indian productions, Shershaah tells a familiar tale of a man becoming a hero, and illustrates it spectacularly with action sequences that aspire to the Hollywood standard. (They don’t quite get there due to substandard CGI, but they clearly get the point across even when they grossly overdo the explosions.)  Sidharth Malhotra is credible when it counts as the heroic lead, and few expenses have been spared to deliver a credible war movie from the Indian perspective. It’s hardly perfect with a largely useless framing device, a slow first hour and other assorted quirks—I suspect that its appeal falls sharply the moment you go beyond the Indian diaspora. Still, I had a better time with Shershaah than many other recent Indian films, so its popularity is not a mystery.

  • Penelope (1966)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) I’m always amused at how you can gauge the popularity of an older movie shown on Turner Classic Movies just by its image quality. Pristine resolution, colour and sound? We’re probably talking about a well-known, widely-seen, big-budget film that has earned significant restoration work, making it look even better than what audiences saw in theatres at the time. Muddy picture with fuzzy sound? Well, then we must be watching something like Penelope, which was good enough (or rather—starred actors bankable enough) to be worth a perfunctory rescue from the archives during the standard-definition era of TCM broadcasts, but has not been revisited since then. It’s easy to see the film’s mixed impact. On one hand, you’ve got a very attractive Natalie Wood as a banker’s wife running around robbing banks and rich people out of sheer boredom, and Peter Falk doing an early run in the Columbo mould as a dogged police investigator. That, by itself, is enough to rescue the film from obscurity. On the other hand… it doesn’t do much with the rest. Despite taking place in mid-1960s Manhattan, having Wood looking her best and playing around with heist plot elements, director Arthur Hiller struggles to make something out the premise’s strengths. The more it delves into the psychology of the protagonist, the uglier the comedy gets, and the film makes surprisingly little use of the irony of a banker’s wife robbing from her husband’s bank. (Although there’s a cute moment late in the film when insurance payouts trump honesty.) Penelope simply doesn’t spark into anything worth remembering (especially considering the existence of several much stronger mid-1960s heist movies) and there’s a lack of focus on the comedic potential of it all. No wonder it’s still considered with the same lack of enthusiasm that greeted its initial release. So, yes, the next time you see Penelope on TCM and squint at the fuzzy picture, remember that the alternative isn’t as much a crystal-clear restoration as the film sitting unseen in the archives.

  • The Last Duel (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Disney Streaming, February 2022) I haven’t felt this bored during a Ridley Scott film since Exodus: Gods and Kings (and before that, Kingdom of Heaven), and I suspect that it’s my own problem. Taking us back to medieval France for a story of two men, a woman, and a judicial duel meant to settle a case of rape, The Last Duel is a sumptuous production… and frequently a dull one. As usual, Scott delivers quite a visual atmosphere—unfortunately, he goes for a monochrome presentation with flashes of cold blue, playing far more on contrast than palette. This doesn’t do much to make the dirty, rough atmosphere of the medieval era any more palatable. The subject matter isn’t any less ugly, with three characters’ perspectives outlining systemic misogyny and a rigid hierarchy. There’s really no reason to spend any extra minute in this terrible setting, but at 153 often-interminable minutes, The Last Duel clearly doesn’t get that message. There are, to be fair, a few good points. The meticulous detail in which the film is assembled is impressive, and does justice to a true story. A heavier, radically-coiffed Matt Damon looks like a trucker transplanted in the medieval era, while Adam Driver does well as his opponent—and Ben Affleck shows up as an impish lord over them both. (Damon and Affleck also co-wrote the screenplay with Nicole Holofcener—all three also co-produced.)  In no way is The Last Duel bad—but it feels overlong and far too grimy for its own good, giving ample excuses to audiences to start looking for the exit.

  • Spin (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Disney Streaming, February 2022) As far as Disney Channel original movies go, Spin is an amiable blend of familiarity, different cultures, hip music and not-quite romance. It features the likable Avantika Vandanapu as a young American woman of Indian ethnicity working in her family’s restaurant, who picks up DJing and a boyfriend, then spends the rest of the film trying to combine those new interests with her more traditional family… and her abandoned friends. Pleasantly enough, the romance angle doesn’t last long: After a perfunctory second-quarter subplot, the boyfriend becomes a rival, only to be evacuated from the happy ending in a nod to empowerment. (Less happily, the film’s structure minimizes the other romantic subplot featuring Kyana Teresa, who should have been more of a presence in the film.)  While Spin doesn’t stray too far from typical narrative structure and remains hampered by some convenient plotting choices and a limited budget (something best shown during the otherwise quite good “Festival of Colors” scene), it doesn’t do too badly for its target audience. The bright cinematography is audience-friendly, and its values are in the right places. The combination of influences makes the result more interesting, and the actors do well—with special notice to Meera Syal as the supportive matriarch. I can confirm that the film was a hit with this household’s target audience—and led us to some Indian cuisine.

  • The Sight (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2022) Director Paul W. S. Anderson gets a lot of flak for his low-brow action movies (having produced-directed-written a series of Resident Evil movies will do that) but there are interesting exceptions in his filmography. Made-for-TV The Sight may be one of the lesser-known ones. Meant as a pilot for a series that was never picked up, it follows an American architect as he travels to London and discovers that he’s been chosen as the human representative for a group of ghosts trying to right injustice. While not the most original of premises, there’s something to the execution of the film that makes it halfway interesting. Andrew McCarthy is moderately likable as the lead, but the prime role goes to the City of London, and the idea of a fellowship of ghosts trying to effect positive change on the world. This is the first time I’ve seen a well-known Londonian architectural distinction (the replacement of WW2-bombed buildings with more modern ones) used as part of a plot, and the not-entirely-negative repercussions of ghostly influences is something that would have been interesting to see play out. Visually, the film is audacious for 2000, which means that some of the material will definitely look dated today—whether the poor image quality of the version I saw is an artefact of its TV origins or a result of the older French dub shown on a channel known for poor image quality is something I don’t know. Still, I was expecting the very worst of the film and was pleasantly surprised at a few ideas, set-pieces and moments. For Anderson fans, this is worth tracking down. For horror junkies, The Sight has something slightly better than the average to offer.

  • The Bribe (1949)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) I suspect that The Bribe is far more remarkable to post-1980s audiences as the film that provided much of the re-used footage for Dead Men Wear Plaid’s last act. That makes sense in that it’s a film noir that dares escape the metropolitan streets to get to a slightly more exotic locale: down the west coast to a Central American island where corruption runs rampant. Visually, it’s got something different to offer, and once you add in all of the featured marquee names (Ava Gardner, Robert Taylor, Vince Price, Charles Laughton), then it becomes an irresistible destination. Alas, the film itself—while certainly watchable—is a bit of a mess. Produced by MGM at a time when the studio was riding high on expensive prestige productions and film noir was the province of smaller studios with smaller budgets, The Bribe feels like insincere slumming. The plot has small stakes executed in confusing fashion, but it does allow Price and Laughton to chew some delicious scenery along the way, and have Gartner in a low-cut blouse. If that’s not entertaining enough, there’s the flywheel-dominated finale to give a big send-off to a small story. Despite the big-budget aura of MGM’s production, The Bribe ends up being only a middling noir—a middle-tier pick at best, and then again only for the actors and being quoted by a spoof of the genre.

  • Stunts (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) I keep wondering why there aren’t more movies about stunts, but there have been a few in the past, and Stunts is clearly one of the more earnest. Taking place during the production of an action film with dangerous set-pieces, it’s both a murder mystery and a look at stunt industry and the kinds of characters it attracts. Our protagonist is the brother of a stuntman who dies in the film’s opening sequence, highly motivated to find the truth and escape alive. Few genres are best-suited to the exploration of a subculture as the murder mystery, especially if the investigator gets to explore relevant aspects of the subculture. It’s in that context that Stunts finds its true calling, featuring characters and details to give enough of a flavour to larger audiences. The result isn’t perfect—in trying to marry the requirements of a murder investigation with those of an action film aping the shooting of an action film, Stunts often plays hard and fast with credibility versus convenience. It’s not completely successful at maintaining tonal consistency (where the tragedy of euthanasia co-exists with the obvious comedy of shotgun affair discovery) nor all that good at realism. But director Mark L. Lester makes it watchable, even entertaining if you lean into its origins as a B-movie thriller with a focus on behind-the-scenes material. It pairs up really well as an opener to the similar Reynolds/Needham comedy Hooper if you want some more stuntman fun. Were the later-1970s the high point of films about stunts? Maybe… but it doesn’t have to stay that way.

  • Seuls (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) A seldom-discussed aspect of movie adaptions is what to do when the source material is ludicrous. Sure, filmmakers change source material all the time, but there’s presumably a limit to what you can do if the original is insane—does it remain an adaptation if you take all of the bugs out? This is relevant to any discussion about Seuls in that while the film benefits from an intriguing beginning, it gets dumber the closer it approaches its conclusion, and that’s squarely because of the source material: As a comic book series now counting 20 volumes, Seuls gets progressively loopier with its contrived mythology, sloppy afterworld-building and convoluted drama. I only discovered this after watching the film and being increasingly dumbfounded at the way it closes. The opening moments are richer in possibilities, as four teenagers discover that they’re the only people left alive in a French city (not Paris, for once). Trying to piece the elements of what happened only gives unsatisfactory answers, especially if you’re coming to the movie unaware of the original series. Much of the film consists of seeing the characters going through the same motions and not learning much. Things suddenly start to get crazy in the concluding stretch, as they discover that there are dead and (in the film’s last few minutes, instead of a conclusion) that there’s a war going on for the control of the afterlife. Or something like that. Without some awareness of the source material and specifically the 15+ volumes that follow the events loosely summarized in writer-director David Moreau’s Seuls, there’s no way to be happy with the way it ends. There will, of course, never be a sequel to the film: having not done terribly well at the French box-office nor travelled overseas (not much of a surprise considering that ending). Anyone wondering what happens next will need to switch back to the comic books and swallow whatever nonsense it’s ready to throw up. Which brings me back to my original question: If a film adaptation remains too faithful to a bad original, where’s the fault for a terrible film?

  • The Bigamist (1953)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2022) The Bigamist has a few things going in its favour, but twenty-first century audiences will focus on how the film was star-director Ida Lupino’s sixth film (of seven), and the first in which she directed herself in a lead role. (To reiterate the obvious: women directors were exceptionally rare in Classic Hollywood.) Much of the plot has to do with an unwitting matrimonial triangle in which a man has separate lives with two women. It all leads to a courtroom retelling of how the affair came to be—a distant wife, a business-trip fling, an unintended pregnancy. Straight-up dramas seldom age well, but this one still has a spark of interest to it. What twenty-first century viewers may miss is some of the off-screen material that preoccupied viewers at the time, most notably how co-stars Lupino and Joan Fontaine had, in real-life, been involved in drama involving the same man, Collier Young (who wrote the film’s screenplay!), who divorced Lupino in 1952 and married Fontaine immediately after. (I don’t have the space here to summarize how that happened, but it’s a classic case of plans blowing up and filmmakers reacting quickly through friends and acquaintances.)  All of this means that, refreshingly for a film of the period, The Bigamist remains less-than-absolute about the morality of what happened. While the conclusion clearly states that the man in that sorry triangle has much to answer for, the depiction of what happened is not unsympathetic to him and his intentions. It’s not quite the same heavy-handed condemnation that other films of the era would have maintained throughout, and that helps The Bigamist remain unusually watchable today even if you don’t know anything about its remarkable production history.

  • Pulp (1972)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) I swear there’s a much, much better film locked inside Pulp, struggling to get out. What we get instead is barely an aperitif, a taste of how different a better film could have been. The off-beat opening is intriguing, as it introduces a pulp thriller writer (played by Michael Caine, no less) with the talent to seduce an entire room of typists, suddenly asked to ghostwrite the autobiography of a mysterious figure. Murder and mystery soon reach the writer, as people around him die violently, and he’s asked to make sense of it all. That’s a great premise! Unfortunately, writer-director Mike Hodges seems content to wallow in the worst of early-1970s refusal to provide any kind of closure, and soon starts messing with the essentials of murder mysteries. The conclusion clearly falls short of satisfaction. The rather grim final scenes are made the more curious by the film’s otherwise lighthearted tone, as it features a writer confronted with something out of his own imagination. The film appears to begin in one genre and end in another one, a meta-comedy gradually slipping into conspiratorial thriller with no happy ending. Caine is compelling as usual (with none other than Mickey Rooney to provide some support), but the rest of the film doesn’t measure up to his presence. Pulp all amounts to a substantial disappointment—a case of a promising beginning unravelling into a terrible conclusion.

  • Warning Shot (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) There’s something very contemporary about a film exploring the repercussions of a police shooting, but don’t go into Warning Shot expecting much in terms of police contrition: this is one of those movies in which deadly force by the police is not just explained and justified, but repeated in time for the finale. There isn’t much to see in cinematographic terms either: the film was shot by a TV production unit and it shows through the flat lighting, close-up framing, limited locations and generally unimaginative colour cinematography. Still, there’s a nicely-handled plot throughout, as our policeman protagonist must defend himself against accusations of having shot a noble doctor for no reason, and finds himself ostracized by everyone except by a ratings-seeking media personality. There are plenty of elements that have become far more familiar over the past few decades, and one wonders if a more stylish take on the story (race-flipped to make it more interesting) would do well these days. A few known names (including Lillian Gish, Eleanor Parker, George Sanders and Joan Collins at very different stages of their careers) pepper the supporting cast. Warning Shot doesn’t have much of a profile these days (I happened to see as it was featured as part of TCM’s “neo-noir” series, which feels like a stretch) and it’s easy to understand why—aside from a few known names in supporting roles, there isn’t much here that’s distinctive. But it can still be readily watched.

  • Booty Call (1997)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2022) As its title suggests, there’s nothing particularly subtle about Booty Call, but it has some discipline in presenting the misadventures of two men and two women as they hook up for the night… or rather have trouble trying to. Jamie Foxx and Tommy Davidson carry most of the comedic load as two best friends wooing their dates and then having to venture out in order to purchase condoms so that the rest of the night can go forward—their simple plans are complicated by being too ambitious, running into an armed robbery, or having to walk a dog. Meanwhile, Vivica A. Fox and Tamala Jones also seem to have fun playing their dates—another pair of friends with strong personalities. (Fox is funnier, but Jones does have a splendid lingerie scene.)  Booty Call impressively manages to keep its action tied to a very short timespan, roughly beginning when the sun goes down and ending as it comes up. The third act ventures a bit farther afield both in location and in comic methods, but the script manages to fit its episodes within a solid framework with recurring gags. Production values are decent, and the script generally knows how to be naughty without being vulgar, which is something that’s not necessarily obvious in less-skilled hands. It all combines into an amusing sex comedy that is sometimes even insightful about gender roles and expectations. Catch it if you’ve missed it.

  • Tension (1949)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) Now here’s an intriguing film noir, even if it’s completely ludicrous at times. After an ominous voice-over opens from the film’s detective character (“The only way to solve a case is to apply tension until someone snaps”), Tension features a mild-mannered bespectacled man (Richard Basehart) who, upon being left by an ungrateful wife, creates a second glasses-less identity in preparation for a nefarious goal and is eventually involved in the murder of his wife’s new boyfriend. There are many complications, including a good girl played by Cyd Charisse in one of her most sympathetic turns of her pre-stardom 1940s. Meanwhile, Audrey Totter plays the deliciously quasi-caricatural evil wife with some devilish relish. Still, Tension is a pretty straightforward film noir with a lead character turning to the dark side and not being sure of getting away from it. Not all of the pieces of the film work together: the opening voice-over suggests something harder than what follows, and the transformation of our protagonist into some other personality (complete with a new apartment!) stretches a great deal of credibility. Still, there’s a pleasant atmosphere coming from Tension that makes it worth a look, especially if you’re looking for some sunny California Noir that straddles the line between 1940s formalism and slight ludicrousness.