Reviews

  • Mr. Soft Touch (1949)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2022) While the notion of a Christmas film noir romantic comedy may seem improbable, there’s Mr. Soft touch to assert its existence. Here, Glenn Ford plays a veteran who, upon returning from WW2, sees that his partner has stolen his share of the nightclub he helped create, and decides to steal back all he’s owed. The robbery goes so well that it’s off-screen, but the troubles start when he attempts to leave town in the days before Christmas and finds his boat escape delayed. Trying to stay low until departure, he ends up under the care of a kind social worker (Evelyn Keyes, very likable). There’s romance and mobsters tracking him down and the Christmas spirit and plenty of other things—Mr. Soft Touch is as much a case study in blended genres as it’s a demonstration of how many tones can co-exist in a single film. The San Francisco scenery is not bad, but the fun here is in watching the film go in all sorts of directions without becoming completely incoherent, or losing some of that muted Christmastime spirit. It’s not that good, but it is surprising and when combined with many of the stylistic touches of noir, it does make for a good-enough viewing experience.

  • The Ice Road (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, December 2022) Little known fact: As a prototypical seven-year-old boy, I really wanted to become a truck driver when I grew up. Decades later, I’ve never handled anything bigger than a moving van, but the appeal of big trucks never faded away in the abstract. So, the prospect of The Ice Road, a Liam Neeson thriller featuring him as a truck driver braving the ice-covered driving routes north of Winnipeg is, shall we say, irresistible. Of course, expectations must be pared down: anyone familiar with Neeson’s post-Taken career knows that while some Liamsploitation movies are more fun than others, none are exactly cinematic gems. Accordingly, The Ice Road hits its stride on the road, and isn’t quite so good when the trucks aren’t moving. The plot is built to justify a three-truck convoy going out late in the spring, defying common sense to roll over lake ice roads that are dangerous by that time of the year. So far so good: but then the film fires its biggest guns early on, losing a few trucks far too soon and going on to less impressive showpieces to round up the film. A better movie would have relied on practical effects, but Liamsploitation films are made on medium budgets, and so we get far too much CGI to care. (Compare and contrast with such solid steel films as Le salaire de la peur to see the difference that practical effects can make.)  Some aspects of the film I liked—seeing the truck convoy roll out of Winnipeg’s vast trainyard was a throwback to my visit over there, and having the film delve into First Nation issues feels appropriate considering the films’ setting. (Although the script’s portrayal of how the Canadian government would intervene is not as convincing.)  In the end, The Ice Road is a disappointment where it counts: There’s scarcely any weight to some of the action sequences that feature trucks rolling over (and under) a thin layer of lake ice. Furthermore, the film moves too quickly away from frozen lakes to more standard thrills, missing out on many possibilities and inverting the climactic succession of set-pieces. Neeson is not bad (although his “action credentials” here are limited) and Lawrence Fishburne is also quite enjoyable, but it’s Amber Midthunder who distinguishes herself in a prickly role. I still kind-of-liked The Ice Road for what it managed to deliver, but I try not to dwell on what could have been possible had the film benefited from a larger production budget and a better screenwriter at the helm. Big truck goes vroom-vroom and then sploosh, and part of me is happy just with that.

  • Playtime (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Criterion Streaming, December 2022) If my growing awareness of film history has taught me something, it’s that while film formulas have been with us for a long time, you can still find plenty of examples of sui generis movies—titles that did something so specific and so well that there’s still scarcely anything else like it. I would defy anyone to find anything quite like Jacques Tati’s Playtime, for instance—a film so ambitious in scope that Tati had a mini-city (“Tativille”) built expressly to film it. Tati wasn’t a neophyte by then—his previous films had been commercial and critical successes, and he could almost ask for a blank check. Of course, you can guess what happened—Playtime became the most expensive French film up to that time, and the very expensive set became the centrepiece of a very long shoot exacerbated by Tati’s ambition and perfectionism. At the time, Playtime’s critical success did not translate into box-office returns. Considering the expensive nature of the film, it led to Tati’s bankruptcy and essentially ended his career. I mention this not merely as anecdote, but to give you an idea of the no-expenses-spared nature of the film. Tati, for better or for worse, got exactly what he wanted with that film: he attained near-godlike powers on how to attain his creative vision, and that vision carries through to the day. A typical shot of Playtime has Tati’s “Monsieur Hulot” alter ego wandering somewhere in a vast yet austere white-black-and-gray frame of ultramodern glass and concrete. He is looking for humanity in an increasingly mechanical world, and the frame lingers long enough that loitering becomes one of the film’s themes. Striking compositions abound, but the camera seldom moves. The colours are those of glass-and-steel architecture, but there’s usually a flash of bright colour (usually red) somewhere in the frame. Wittier critics than I have called the aesthetics of the film similar to “Where’s Waldo?” books, and that’s a striking comment. It will eventually influence your viewing experience: Make sure you can see Playtime on the biggest, most high-resolution source you can find. I initially started watching it on a slightly blurry “High Definition” (1080) TV channel, and was so annoyed by the lack of resolution that I switched halfway through to a 4K streaming source and was struck by the improvement. Playtime, in fitting with its scattershot critique of modernity, is not a plotted film: Hulot ambles in and out of the frame, letting the film play its episodic gags. There are roughly six major sequences in the entire film, the longest of which is a near-real-time description of an upper-class restaurant’s opening-night self-destruction. Calling Playtime a comedy is accurate and yet insufficient: it’s a viewing experience like no other. I can’t say that I liked it a lot (philosophically, I cast my lot with the modernists, and I think that Tati’s lack of restraints revealed his self-indulgence), but my admiration for the result is considerable. Like it or not, Playtime remains a cinema landmark.

  • Playing by Heart (1998)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2022) Some movies definitely appreciate over time, especially those featuring multiple generations of actors in one sprawling ensemble. Such is the case for Playing by Heart, an ensemble romantic drama that has everyone from Sean Connery to Angelina Jolie (plus Gillian Anderson, Ellen Burstyn, Jay Mohr, Ryan Phillippe, Dennis Quaid, Gena Rowlands, Madeline Stowe and—wait, what? —Jon Stewart.)  A loose summary of the film’s preoccupation would be something like “love in late-1990 Los Angeles,” as roughly six subplots jockey for attention and loosely come together by the end of the film. While the screenplay was written for the big screen, its dialogue-heavy nature almost feels theatrical at times. Since it’s all character-based and dialogue takes precedence over action, don’t expect much in terms of plot: the typical scene has two characters talking about love while sitting or walking. Still, it’s an interesting showcase for a bunch of actors that you wouldn’t necessarily put in the same movie (post-stardom Connery, plus pre-stardom Jolie? That’s worth a trivia question somewhere), and that distinction has only grown in the nearly twenty-five years since the film’s release. I wouldn’t want to oversell it: Playing by Heart remains a modest, gentle, unassuming Thirty-Miles-Zone kind of movie. As such, it may occasionally feel dull and manipulative, but it usually picks up in the following scene.

  • Lady on a Train (1945)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2022) Hovering at the edge of mystery and comedy, Lady on a Train is a lightweight suspense that pokes fun at far more serious material. It gets going once a debutante visiting Manhattan (the ever-beautiful Deanna Durbin) looks outside the train window before arriving at Grand Central Station and witnesses a murder. Not being taken seriously by police, she eventually enlists the help of a murder mystery writer and they both get involved in a sombre succession drama involving a rich family. More light-hearted than overly comic, Lady on a Train starts with a decent mystery and adds in a few comic situations, being self-aware enough to have both a murder-mystery fan and an author of such fare to undergo the kinds of things they only approached at a distance. It works—this is not a great movie, but it’s fun enough to watch. Fans of 1930s–1940s murder mysteries, which were often cranked out quickly with few big expectations but often surprisingly good results, will feel right at ease.

  • Peace by Chocolate (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2022) Canadian immigration is a tough topic—it will never be as fair, quick or easy as its proponents want it to be. By a significant majority, Canadians want to feel good about the immigration process—but there will always be problems with it, no matter where you are on the political spectrum. So that’s why, sometimes, it’s good to get a fairytale about it. Surprisingly enough, I was familiar with “Peace by Chocolate” well before the film—the eponymous chocolate boxes made their way to my local grocery store, and it was impossible not to glance at the box while eating their content and learn the story of Syrian immigrants fleeing the civil war, being welcomed in Canada and founding their own chocolate company. This is all true. Peace by Chocolate, on the other hand, takes a few liberties with the facts. Slickly dramatizing real events in an audience-friendly format, writer-director Jonathan Keijser blends cross-cultural comedy (as the Syrian family lands in, of all places, snowy Antigonish, Nova Scotia), tolerance melodrama (as the newcomers aren’t necessarily welcome), coming-of-age bildungsroman (as the protagonist is called to decide between taking care of his family or going to medical school), and inspiring business fable (as the company grows from handcrafted chocolate in a small shack to a real business-with-a-factory). Schematic, sure, but it works—this is exactly the film it wants to be, and it fits within a very optimistic Canadian vision of how immigration should work. As proof, I offer Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cameo, re-creating a real-life media event. Cinematically, Peace by Chocolate is as functional as its script—a straightforward delivery of its material without too much fuss. I liked it well enough—but the film is a lot like a box of chocolate: what kind of monster wouldn’t enjoy it?

  • Cinderella (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Amazon Streaming, December 2022) The more I see remakes or serial adaptations of the same work, the more I tend to think of them as falling into one of two categories: attempts to portray the original version as faithfully as possible (but better) and conscious departures from the original in order to make specific points. It’s clear, for instance, that writer-director Kay Cannon’s 2021 live-action Cinderella is meant to be a take-off. While it springs from the same fairytale, it quickly goes for its own thing both in execution (by taking the form of a jukebox musical) and soon enough in its plotting by going out of its way to “fix” the traditional Disney-influenced story archetype. This film is far more a parody of the two Disney versions than an attempt to work from the Charles Perrault tale, but that’s to be expected. For much of its duration, it’s a lot of fun—as a fan of musicals, I was in my element as the cast sung and danced their way through exposition, with such notables as Minnie Driver and Pierce Brosnan in supporting roles. Cannon’s sense of humour, honed and demonstrated in the Pitch Perfect trilogy and Blockers (among others), is on full display here and scores a few hits as it takes aim at just about everything in the familiar takes in the story. Heck—I knew that the film had received “mixed” reviews, and I was wondering if people were overreaching to the musical bits. But no—I soon figured out the problem. At some point, Cinderella overreaches—in its zeal to take a progressive chainsaw to the traditional interpretations of the fairytale, it ends up in a narratively strained place. The messages get bigger and bigger until they undermine the fundamentals of the story, leaving a parody that may hate the original. Sure, Cinderella can become the breadwinner in a couple with the dethroned prince while his sister takes his place on the throne but, um, what? It doesn’t help that Cinderella, in being so bluntly portrayed as a girlboss, becomes far less likable than her traditional portrayals. The female-empowerment thing becomes overly pandering, and undoes the charm of the film’s first half—not to mention sabotage Cinderella’s dramatic arc. It also places the film in a position to be criticized for not being as smart, innovative or progressive as it thinks—a common failing of overly self-satisfied criticism. (And I should know.)  This Cinderella also comes on the heels of many other Cinderella adaptations, many of them either more faithful to the original, or more satisfying in their adaptations. So, while I rather liked the first two thirds of Cinderella, this one becomes increasingly (progressively, even) more irritating. Not quite enough to take away some of its strengths (fairy godfather, yay!) but enough to blunt its initial charm.

  • The Believers (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, December 2022) There’s a big grab-bag of stuff in The Believers that works against and for the film and sometimes both at once. Coming from the decade that brought us the satanic panic, it starts with a police psychiatrist (Martin Sheen) fearing that his son is the target of a voodoo cult, and escalates all the way to Manhattan elites having sacrificed children to ensure their wealth and power. There’s clearly something interesting there—and seeing the way satanic panics are still very much with us (always politicized by political agitators), this material is still unnerving in some way. The film even showcases a pretty good (if not all that original) sequence in which insects come out of boils on the lead female character’s face. But something about the lack of energy in the execution, lack of originality in the premise, and lack of interest in the proceedings ensures that the film itself remains curiously inert. It doesn’t quite fall to the level of being unwatchable, but it’s limp. Despite a spirited envoi, The Believers doesn’t leave much of an impression, so close it is to other, better movies revolving around those same plot elements. At best, it’s going to bring you back to late-1980s Manhattan… but there’s not much more here once the credits roll.

  • Thunderbirds (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, December 2022) I understand but can’t quite justify the decision to make Thunderbirds live-action rather than with puppets. Yes, of course, the state of the art has moved on to actors and CGI, while puppetry is now more associated with comedy than action thrillers. Still, even today, the original Thunderbirds TV show remains so well-known because of Supermarionation: remove that and what’s left? If you’re wondering, the 2004 live-action remake will tell you. Director Jonathan Frakes does what he can with what he’s got, which is a medium budget, some interesting actors (Ben Kingsley, Bill Paxton, Vanessa Hudgens, Sophia Myles) and decent production design. Alas, what he doesn’t have is a good script—While you can forgive this Thunderbird for aiming low at the family market, it doesn’t get the screenwriters off the hook for a juvenile, dull and charmless result. Despite some fun vehicles and a utopian concept with potential, the film fails to engage and can’t justify its existence. It’ll do in a pinch as family viewing if, somehow, all other options are exhausted. But that in itself is a disappointment.

  • Glass Onion (2022)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, December 2022) Considering the all-out success of writer-director Rian Johnson’s 2019 murder mystery Knives Out, expectation ran high for follow-up Glass Onion—especially since we seem to be in the middle of a rather pleasant spate of copycats. Fortunately, this second adventure starring detective Benoit Blanc clearly measures up to the example set by its predecessor. Once again, we get an ensemble cast of characters, a compelling murder mystery, some delicious screenwriting and an exceptionally engaging protagonist as played by Daniel Craig. Still, the star here is Johnson, who crafts a meticulous, funny, deceptive and satisfying script from which he’s able to do much as a director. Glass Onion fires on all cylinders and keeps things absorbing from beginning to end, going crazy with foreshadowing, connecting strands, ingenious double-backs (a lot of essential information doesn’t get communicated until the third quarter) and a conclusion that brings it all together. The welcome billionaire criticism seems oddly prescient, but is hardly the only element of the film that seems to fit all too well with the news as of December 2022. (Accordingly, Glass Onion got its share of the popular zeitgeist upon release… but I’m sure it’s going to age fairly well.)  Confident execution backs up the witty conception of the film, with a bunch of great actors making up the cast. It’s hard to pick favourites, but Edward Norton is in fine form as a billionaire who doesn’t deserve the respect of wealth, and Janelle Monaé is also quite good in a surprising role. Others such as Kathryn Hahn, Kate Hudson and Dave Bautista also make a good impression by playing what are often bad characters. It’s all zippy, densely detailed, self-aware (“Have you seen this?” it asks at one point, and then, “Are you sure?”) and a constant breeze to watch even at 139 minutes. Glass Onion quickly shot up my list of favourite 2022 films, and I am very much looking forward to a follow-up, because it seems to be doing everything well. If it further brings back the murder mystery genre, then that’s a bonus!

  • Travelling avant (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2022) You could make Travelling avant a silent or dubbed film, and viewers would still recognize it as an ineluctably French film. Writer-director Jean-Charles Tacchella clearly goes after a certain nostalgic flavour in describing how three cinephiles in post-WW2 Paris (two men, one woman—you know where this is going) make their lives revolve around watching movies, and even start making plans to launch a cine-club. At the time, this means renting a theatre and charging admittance to show specific films… and why not go from there to making their own movies? The story is not headed for glory, but there is clearly something very pre-Nouvelle Vague in the way the story is structured around love and movies—as if Tacchella was mythologizing the environment in which a specific generation of filmmakers grew up. (The end title card even explicitly links unseen follow-ups to the film’s events to Truffaut, as if this was a Nouvelle Vague Cinematic Universe prequel.)  The frank discussions of sex and love and cinema can get a bit long (especially how they reveal the self-destructive tendencies of the trio), but there’s still some almost-naïve charm to the way the young characters have grand plans that blow up in their faces given their inexperience. There are a ton of cinematic references here, spanning both sides of the Atlantic. While I wouldn’t go as far as calling Travelling avant compelling, it’s a small treat for those who are conversant both in American and French cinema up to 1947, and who have a good idea where French filmmakers would go afterward.

  • Noël en boîte (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, December 2022) I want to be kind to Noël en boîte. After all, it’s a rare Franco-Ontarian film, and as a temporarily exiled Franco-Ontarian myself I’d love to champion my own breed of underdogs. There’s only one problem, though: the film is an utter clunker. Taking its cues from Hallmark Christmas specials, it features a modestly successful actress being fired from her daytime soap and going back to her Northern Ontario hometown for a break… while being followed by an annoying (yet somehow bilingual) paparazzi. But those of us who thought the Hallmark Christmas formula was foolproof have something to learn from Noël en boîte because it can’t even deliver satisfaction from such a clichéd premise: the plot beats that take us from one act to another are completely botched and incomprehensible with our current understanding of human psychology and storytelling. Things happen for no reason in order to get to the next plot beat anticipated by the script, and even a considerable amount of indulgence can’t square the film’s plot with what it proposes along the way. No one will be surprised to find out that the clunkiness carries over to nearly every other area of the picture: the acting is functional at best, the set design and staging are hampered by a visibly low budget, and the dialogues are almost terrible. One crucial aspect of Franco-Ontarian life—the casual switching between French dialogue and specific English expressions—feels incredibly unnatural and further adds to the artificiality of the result. It brings me no joy to be so critical: writer-director Jocelyn Forgues means well; there are a few chuckles along the way; I can recognize my specific reality in bits and pieces of the result; and Noël en boîte is so obscure that there are very few reviews of it on the web. (I even had to submit a correction on IMDB to make sure the film title’s accents were properly recorded and displayed.)  But there’s no way around the blatant awkwardness of the result. If you’re curious about Franco-Ontarian films, the baseline remains 2011’s La Sacrée.

  • Black Adam (2022)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2022) There’s definitely some overlapping fatigue going on in taking in Black Adam—not necessarily about superheroes as much as the intensely specific way superhero movies are built, and also the Dwayne Johnson persona as it interacts with the Black Adam character presented here. While it feels wild to call a big-budget blockbuster film lazy, Black Adam feels like a very unambitious film—an origin story film structured along very familiar lines, almost incapable of original thought. Whatever could have been interesting—namely the character’s dubious moral alignment—is not really explored in any depth, except insofar as the character is apparently presented as a serious threat to Superman itself. Half of that seems to stem from Johnson’s ego, which seems to have blossomed and consumed everything in its event horizon as part of the film—with the result that neither Black Adam nor Johnson comes out of the film looking any better: they both feel as if they think far too highly of each other. Other issues abound—the nondescript Middle Eastern location, lacklustre special effects, some really wonky material about non-superheroic non-interventionism, and at least one late-movie “revelation” (no way, it was his son!) that’s so unnecessary and meaningless that its inclusion distracts more than entertains. The plot is intensely familiar yet annoying at once. The only ones who do well are the supporting characters: Pierce Brosnan is aging really well in general, but his turn here is more enjoyable than the lead actor himself. Noah Centineo and Quintessa Swindell are fine in supporting roles: no one will blame them for the mess. Veteran director Jaume Collet-Serra is adept at orchestrating the technical aspect of a special-effects heavy film, but the result bears virtually none of his usual signature—except for action scenes that usually work better than the rest of the film. Still, the Black Adam itself is mixed and unsatisfying—tortured between a family-friendly rating and a protagonist supposedly willing to go darker, stuck at a time when it has scarcely anything new to suggest to the genre, and when Johnson himself is overexposed to the point of becoming unbearable. One of the benefits of watching the film weeks later at home rather than opening-day in theatres is that I can talk about the fallout: Black Adam being merely a modest commercial success (i.e.: not enough by current standards), Johnson covering himself in ridicule (and outright lying) throughout the promotion of the film, the current DCU being completely rebooted and mooting everything planned along the way. So, yes, Black Adam feels even more useless now than upon release, being at the dead end of yet another dead DC cinematic universe. Johnson himself may be humbled by the experience, and that would be an achievement more superheroic than anything he was portrayed doing in the film itself.

  • Fais pas ci, fais pas ça : Y aura-t-il Noël à Noël ? (2020)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, December 2022) The self-imposed challenge in watching Fais pas ci, fais pas ça : Y aura-t-il Noël à Noël?, I realized after a few minutes, is that it’s a Christmas special movie from a long-running French TV show. Without any prior knowledge of the said show, the film becomes more difficult to decipher than for show fans. Still, the script does an acceptable job at introducing the two families at the heart of the series, the characters in broad strokes and the amusing-without-being-funny tone. Since Fais pas ci, fais pas ça apparently depends a lot on humiliation comedy, it’s not such a surprise to find most of the film’s subplots going through the local police station as many characters are arrested or go provide bail. The comic highlight of the film, however, is unintended—one of the characters launches into an impersonation of Céline Dion, and her mock French-Canadian accent is so grotesquely weird it barely registers as an attempt at one. As far as Christmas movies go, writer-director Michel Leclerc’s Y aura-t-il Noël à Noël? ends up being tough to assess: it’s a touch too cynical to be entirely dedicated to that syrupy “spirit of the holidays” thing, while the focus on the show’s mythology is liable to have non-show-viewers think that this must be a treat for those viewers who are familiar with the show. On the other hand, this running-start approach at chaotic multi-strand plotting with established characters brings some welcome chaos and unpredictability to the film if you compare it to more traditional holiday fare. By this time in December and the onslaught of Christmas movies, I’m placing a lot more emphasis on being surprised than being completely up to speed on everything going on. From that angle, Y aura-t-il Noël à Noël ? can be potable even if you don’t have a clue about Fais pas ci, fais pas ça itself.

  • Eaten Alive (1976)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, December 2022) Conventional Wisdom is that writer-director Tobe Hooper was great until a certain point, after which he was a terrible filmmaker. That’s not quite true, though… with Eaten Alive being an example of an earlier not-so-good film. It’s a bit early in the chronology of the horror genre to call it a real slasher, but it feels very much like a slasher: psychotic killer with an unusual weapon (a scythe and crocodiles), a structure that murders a character every few minutes, a dark and foggy atmosphere… sure, there are a few final survivors rather than just one, but the spirit is there. (Plus, Hooper was familiar with such tropes from 1974’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre.)  The result isn’t quite bad, but it’s not as good as you may expect at that stage of his career. Add it to the list of “last stops for classic Hollywood stars” horror movies, with none other than Mel Ferrer as a father tracking down his missing daughter. Still, the film has an atmosphere of sorts, some mildly effective moments and a rather disarming low-budget approach. It ends up being something not really worth seeking out (unless you’re piecing together Hooper’s filmography), but not necessarily something to shut off if your expectations are accordingly low. But it’s nothing like the movies Hooper did before or immediately after.