Reviews

  • Hatari! (1962)

    Hatari! (1962)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2019) There are a number of very entertaining stories about the making of Hatari! and the most believable of them is that the script was practically written during shooting, given that so much of the movie depended on the unpredictable actions of wild animals. It certainly shows in the herky-jerky nature of the film, in which wild animal catchers in deep Africa alternate game-hunting sessions with quieter drama back at the camp. In a way, the haphazard plot doesn’t really matter: we’re left in an unusual environment, with a director focused on entertainment and big-name stars seemingly having fun. Considering that Hatari! is directed by then-veteran Howard Hawks and stars none other than John Wayne, it’s no surprise if it harkens to the 1940s with its square-jawed male roles and subservient female roles. Making heroes out of big-game catchers working to supply zoos with wild animals ensures that both their methods and goals are reprehensible by modern standards. Then there’s John Wayne in his usual borderline-repellent persona—it’s astonishing to see the movie present him as a romantic lead to an actress nearly thirty years his junior. As a result, I can’t say that I like Hatari! as much as most of the other movies in Hawks’ filmography—but even I have to admit that the hunting footage is nothing short of spectacular, and that the film does an intriguing job in creating a plot to go around the actions of the animals. Elsa Martinelli is captivating in the lead female role, but the best reason to watch the film is to see a well-oiled Hollywood production run against the vagaries (and dangers) of filming alongside wild animals and then figure out how to deal with that captured footage. Amusingly enough, this is the movie for which Henry Mancini’s famous “Baby Elephant Walk” was written.

  • Stegman is Dead aka The Hitman Never Dies (2017)

    Stegman is Dead aka The Hitman Never Dies (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2019) Following the success of Pulp Fiction in 1994, the late 1990s and early 2000s saw a glut of Tarantino imitators that eventually led to a critical backlash. Despite the major talents that emerged through these dark criminal comedies (Guy Ritchie’s Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects, Doug Liman’s Go, and Paul Anderson’s Hard Eight had enough similarities to Pulp Fiction that they made it easier to put those filmmakers on the map), there were far many more filmmakers looking for projects and taking the Tarantino route for easier financial backing. It’s now been more than twenty years since Pulp Fiction, but filmmakers are still working in the same sandbox—as Stegman is Dead/The Hitman Never Dies clearly shows. With a script that seems assembled in a blender from extremely familiar subgenre elements (pornographic film producer, Asian girl, one neurotic hitman, a second competitive hitman, a precocious kid, convoluted plotting), the film becomes a muddled example of what happens when someone goes Tarantino crazy without quite understanding the level of craft that goes into making the entire thing work. As a mixture of the genre’s best hits, Stegman is Dead never manages to become anything other than a familiar rework of overdone elements. The black criminal comedy is not good for earnestness when it’s handled so carelessly: Nothing is to be taken seriously when everyone’s got a gun in their purse and when child endangerment is treated so casually. There are attempts here at big strong character, but they don’t really work and the plot is so convoluted that only makes sense in its own logical frame of reference. Oh, I could watch Berenice Liu all day, but that’s not the point—the point is that even despite my best intentions in liking a crime comedy shot in Manitoba, I’m still left disappointed at the final result. Stegman is Dead is not that bad (I did watch it to the end, which is more than I can say about some other Canadian movies), but it’s underwhelming partly because I can see far more potential in here left unrealized.

  • La sacrée [The sacred] (2011)

    La sacrée [The sacred] (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, February 2019) There’s something not quite right in my claiming Montréal-shot movies as “practically local”—after all, my “local” is Ottawa (ish): Specifically, I grew up in a francophone town forty kilometres east of Ottawa. So I started watching La sacrée as a bit of a novelty—it is, after all, the first Franco-Ontarian comedy, shot entirely in Eastern Ontario, using government grants to cover a meagre $1.2M budget. Its dialogues are entirely in colloquial French-Canadian with an Ontarian blend of French peppered with English (played for laughs in one character’s quasi-bilingual speech patterns and then again in a training montage). I was ready to fast-forward through the film just to catch glimpses of familiar sights and homegrown details. To my surprise, I actually started enjoying the film early on—never mind seeing a downtown Ottawa street doubling for Montréal, the initial hook of the film is director Dominic Desjardins’s ease behind the camera. La sacrée looks significantly more expensive than it cost, and the slick mainstream-comedy direction of the film helps get past the initially repellent protagonist. Our so-called hero is nothing more than a professional con artist, projecting airs and seducing a rich heiress while subsisting on nothing more than a ratty apartment and flashy suits. Things start to change once he’s called back from Montréal to his native Ontarian village, where he’s seen as the rich ingrate who refused to help his now-dead parents a few years before. There are complications, and before long he’s using his flimflamming talents to try to revive his hometown through the establishment of a microbrewery in the local church. There’s clearly a familiar city-slicker-learns-better aspect to La sacrée that’s in line with other French-Canadian comedies à La grande séduction, but it works more often than not. The film is a great deal easier to watch than some far bigger-budget films, and considerably funnier as well. La sacrée is not always equally enjoyable, but it’s more than occasionally witty (such as cutting from a love scene to church bells toiling in error) and even the rote romance works well enough. The protagonist predictably sort of redeems himself by the end of the film. It doesn’t aim higher than a mainstream small-town comedy, but it succeeds quite well at that. La sacrée is, in other words, a perfectly charming homegrown production that actually acts as a representative example of a familiar kind of Franco-Ontarian existence: the small town, the church, the childhood friends… I liked it quite enough even with my built-in biases … although I really wonder what non-French-Canadians would make of the very specific patois used in the film!

  • They Found Hell (2015)

    They Found Hell (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2019) With a title like They Found Hell, you would be forgiven to think that it would be a metaphor for the horrors of war or genocide or something along those lines. But as a look at the film’s TV-Guide description shows, They Found Hell actually means what it says in its title. It’s about a few students who actually literally open a portal to hell, step in and have to find their way back. Of course, there’s a catch: This is low-budget SyFy filmmaking at its most prototypical, meaning that we’re going to spend a lot of time watching characters run through disaffected Bulgarian factories at night, being chased by a burly costumed six-foot-something guy. On the menu for our characters: Going to hell, spooky pursuits and predictable deaths. As a made-for-TV film, They Found Hell does what it can with its budget and very obvious commercial break fadeouts: Its vision of hell has to do with backlit forests, a colour filter, random fires, some CGI and a few hanging bodies for ambience. The structure of the film isn’t sophisticated: Once our so-called-brilliant students are in Hell, they quickly split up and are killed one after another. It does get really boring really quickly as we look, usually in vain, for anything that would rise up to the level of the film’s gonzo title and premise. Eventually, there’s a mad-scientist riff because, at that point, why not? The individual levels/sequences of the film usually bring to mind the much better movies that They Found Hell rips off incompetently. The ending seems cheap even in a cheap movie during which we’ve hungered for anything more interesting than obviousness. Still, despite the easy potshots that one can take at anything coming from SyFy (have they ever produced a good film?) and the obvious limitations of They Found Hell, I actually found myself watching the thing until the end, which is more than I can say about other efforts. It’s certainly not good, but it’s not that terrible either.

  • A Passage to India (1984)

    A Passage to India (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2019) I’m on a quest to see all the movies nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and unfortunately this means that I have to make my way through movies such as A Passage to India. Considering that’s it’s a long movie (2h44m!) that feels even longer due to its slow narrative pacing, you may want to book a holiday before you embark on seeing the movie. It’s long. It’s so unbelievably long. It’s David Lean-class long, which makes sense considering that he wrote, produced and directed it. The production design is sumptuous, evoking the atmosphere of 1920 India … but it’s long. If you do manage to dig into the material (or if this is your kind of thing), there’s a lot to like in the film’s depiction of British Raj India, racism and class distinction against a visually refined backdrop. But the marathon-like pacing of a rather simple story makes it a sometimes-punishing viewing. Lean’s approach here is interesting in that he draws back from the wide-scale vistas of his previous epic films to deliver a well-visualized smaller story … but he could have gone further in being more efficient, bringing the length of the film to one more appropriate for the story being told. This being said, A Passage to India is the kind of atmospheric film where I suspect that many factors (including mood and personal preference) will influence an overall assessment.

  • Ferdinand (2017)

    Ferdinand (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2019) Considering that I’m usually game to watch any kind of animated movie, I took a surprisingly long time to make my way to Ferdinand, a talking-animal comedy about a bull destined to a matador bout. That’s not exactly the most heartwarming premise for a film, but it does work. The key is in making the title character as nonviolent a protagonist as possible, and surrounding him with oddball characters. By the time we have a car chase throughout Spanish highways and city streets, we’re in very familiar, very funny territory. The film may be by-the-numbers in overall plot terms, but what makes it shine are the comic details and supporting players. Who cares if the formula is followed as long as we get plenty of chuckles along the way? (I’m still giggling over the arrogant horses calling Ferdinand a “silly moo-moo”.) John Cena is featured as the title bull, but Kate McKinnon predictably steals the show through her hilarious goat character. It may not be a great, classic or groundbreaking movie, but Ferdinand is up to what we’ve come to expect from contemporary animated movies.

  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935)

    A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2019) I’m done apologizing for the way I can’t process Shakespearian dialogue. Fortunately, there’s enough in the 1930s version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to get us into a surprisingly detailed early example of a fantasy film. As my attention wandered from the dialogue and plot, I was left to admire nearly everything else: The great sets and costumes, as well as the vivid imagination on display. Remove Shakespeare’s name from the credits, and there’s still enough here to make this a modest masterpiece of early fantasy filmmaking. Clearly, the filmmakers saw in Shakespeare the license to go wild (comparatively speaking) in terms of fantastic creatures, wondrous realism and other tropes of the genre what would be developed decades later. If tracing the evolution of fantasy moviemaking isn’t your thing, then maybe you’d be interested in a very early role for Mickey Rooney, or seeing Olivia de Havilland and James Cagney once more. Still, I’m more appreciative of the fantasy filmmaking aspect: there weren’t that many big-budget fantasy movies at that time, and this one fills an early slot in the development of the subgenre.

  • Upgrade (2018)

    Upgrade (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2019) Now here’s a movie that pleasantly surprised me. A lean, efficient mis-mash of conventional SF devices used remarkably well, Upgrade showcases the go-for-broke aesthetics of writer/director Leigh Whannell, playing in a futuristic sandbox without letting go of his usual horror instincts. Here, a man paralyzed by a crime that also left his girlfriend dead ends up the recipient of an experimental treatment: a computer chip that allows him to take control of his limbs … until it decides what to do. Part revenge thriller, part cyberpunk nightmare, part belated entry in the “Artificial Intelligence” wave of SF movies that peaked around 2015, Upgrade is also a blend of science fiction, action and horror with a strong dash of dark humour. It’s needlessly ultra-violent, yet exhilarating in the unusual technique in which its action and fights are captured. The commentary on technology feels familiar yet on-point, and the film is wrapped in an eerie overall atmosphere of off-kilter choices—such as the audio introductory credit sequence. Despite the use of familiar devices, it meets contemporary audiences at their level and proves hugely enjoyable along the way. Giving a substantial role to Betty Gabriel certainly helps. Even at 100 minutes, Upgrade feels like a breeze: I was actually disappointed when it ended, because I wanted a bit more of that good stuff.

  • The Prince of Tides (1991)

    The Prince of Tides (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2019) There are plenty of reasons why I shouldn’t like Barbra Streisand—her diva behaviour is legendary, leading to enough tabloid stories to make her legendary in her lifetime and cemented for the younger generation with “The Streisand Effect”. Even from a strict filmgoer’s perspective, she’s often the strangest part of any movie in which she’s the uncontested star—far too young in Hello, Dolly!, unconvincingly male in Yentl, showboating in The Way We Were, self-indulgent in A Star is Born, etc. But even knowing all of this, there is a magnetic star quality to her screen presence that compensates for a lot. Call it sex appeal, or sheer talent or most probably a mixture of both. In The Prince of Tides, she stars and directs and, perhaps miraculously, keeps her most outlandish tendencies to herself. She looks amazing in glasses and white nylons, directs with a nice narrative flow and lets Nick Nolte take the spotlight that his character deserves. Nolte is terrific as a damaged man with deep-seated trauma, far too quick to parry probing questions with jokes but intensely damaged nonetheless. Streisand has a comparatively easier role as his therapist. In the grand tradition of romantic drama, a major professional breach of ethics soon follows. The character-based drama is handled effectively, although the film is too long at nearly two hours and a quarter—and by “helping” the characters get over their trauma, it sands off nearly everything that was interesting about them out of the story. By the end of the film, Nolte’s character is psychologically healthier but also completely uninteresting. Still, The Prince of Tides did exceed my expectations: It’s quick to create narrative interest, and even a weaker third act can’t quite erase the goodwill created by the early scenes in which patient and psychiatrist are engaged in a ferocious game of wits. I liked it well enough, and have another movie to use as an example when asked about my uncharacteristic liking of Streisand.

  • All This, and Heaven Too (1940)

    All This, and Heaven Too (1940)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2019) There is, in many ways, something comforting in the kind of domestic costume melodrama that is All This, and Heaven Too: As the story of a French governess who ends up being at the centre of a rollicking story of lust and murder, it’s clearly meant to thrill audiences. It would have been significantly better if it had been shorter—there isn’t that much plot here, and the film clocks in at a punishing 141 minutes with plenty of repetition along the way. I’m also not entirely convinced about Bette Davis as a young innocent romantic heroine—she’s a terrific actress, but her uncanny ability to play evil characters is wasted here in a role meant to be almost angelic. The framing device isn’t too bad in allowing a Paris-based story to be literally told to an American audience, although it does add even more length to a film already overstuffed with tangents. (Including a gothic Halloween interlude that’s actually not too bad.) Even today, the expensive nature of All This, and Heaven Too’s production is obvious: the lavish sets, costumes and re-creation of late-Nineteenth century Paris is quite successful. Modern viewers will still have something to watch in between the increasingly lurid story, and Bette Davis in a strong (even if miscast) performance.

  • The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)

    The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, In Theaters, February 2019) Considering the unexpected, almost miraculous success of 2013’s The Lego Movie, it’s not such a surprise that the inevitable sequel would turn out to be far closer to the average. Unable, almost by design, to recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle nature of the first film, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part nonetheless manages to turn out a pretty good family film, poking and prodding at as many narrative tropes as the first one, except without the element of conceptual surprise. Moving forward in time, our kid protagonist has become a Teen Fan of Lego more interested in radical postapocalyptic builds, and his Duplo-loving sister has become more ambitious in girly minidoll creations. This sequel tackles sibling rivalry, clash between styles of Lego play and certainly toys with the idea of an imaginary doppelganger. Once again, the plot is more than complemented by complex fantastic visuals, whether it’s the post-apocalyptic Bricksburg, the expansive Sistar system or another bout of animated/live-action integration. There’s a lot of fun here both for kids and adults (“Now I understand Radiohead”), as well as a message of family reconciliation and collaboration. As a confirmed Lego fan, I can testify that the density of specialized Lego jokes here isn’t as impressive than the first film, even if the result is decent. A handful of bouncy songs helps, as does a Maya Rudolph live-action cameo. Of course, what this Second Part doesn’t have is the novelty effect—in between the two mainline Lego movies, we’ve had a fairly decent Batman film, and a rather average Ninjago one released the same year. That was a bit too much for such a distinctive property, and now we’re faced with an extended drought of Lego movies. Too bad—I rather liked them.

    (On Blu-ray, December 2019) A second viewing at home doesn’t do much to make The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part better or worse—it’s pretty much what I remembered, and what it presents itself to be. The jokes are funny, the character evolution is satisfying, the real world interacts just fine while the animated segments and the Lego creations are eye-popping. Nothing wrong here, but nothing new either.

  • Candyman (1992)

    Candyman (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2019) I remember some of the marketing for Candyman back in 1992, but for some reason had almost forgotten about the film until now. I’m almost glad I did, because it allowed me to discover something that, under the garbs of a horror movie, is quite a bit more than a standard supernatural slasher. In addition to a villain that almost qualifies as original, Candyman does delve quite a bit into themes of urban decay, social injustice and black mythology as presented through urban legends. From a gripping opening, the film develops a specific visual style made of overhead shots of Chicago slums, bee imagery and askew camera angles. When combined with the fantastic screen presence of Tony Todd as the titular boogeyman and a rather good turn by a young Virginia Madsen (plus Kasi Lemmons in a supporting role), Candyman is significantly more interesting than most horror films of the early 1990s. Unusual plot developments keep our attention, and the well-executed sense of alienation of a white woman plunged into urban black myth leads to an effective descent into hell. Writer/director Bernard Rose cleverly adapts a Clive Barker story to an American setting, throws narrative curveballs and manages an effective atmosphere of dread making judicious use of its slum setting. It’s a much better film than you’d expect from its era. My biggest (minor) qualms are not the film’s fault—I happen to think that 1990s Virginia Madsen doesn’t look as good as 2010s Madsen, and catching the film in French deprived me of Todd’s distinctive voice. All the better reasons to rewatch the film again at some point. Considering the renewed interest in black-themed horror with social relevance, Candyman seems almost perfectly placed for a remake and whaddaya know—one is being planned right now.

  • Dragon Seed (1944)

    Dragon Seed (1944)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2019) Oh boy—at a time when we talk a lot about cultural appropriation, it’s worth remembering that once upon a time Hollywood had no qualms about using the whitest of white actors to play other ethnicities, and so I suspect that Dragon Seed will forever live in infamy as the movie where Katharine Hepburn plays a Chinese peasant. That’s right: New England exemplar Hepburn as an Asian woman, in grotesque makeup. Oh boy. Beyond sharing a common literary origin in Pearl S. Buck’s novels, there’s a clear line from The Good Earth (with similar Caucasian casting) to Dragon Seed, and the film is trying to make heroes out of its Chinese characters … just as much as it’s trying to make despicable villains out of its Japanese antagonists occupying the village. But do remember that the film was made at the height of WW2, and designed to be a propaganda piece as to why the United States should fight Japan. Still: the miscasting here is astonishing, and while the black-and-white of the film makes it just slightly more convincing … it’s still incredibly gauche. There’s a small consolation in that this allowed Chinese characters to be made accessible to American audiences and in that light the idea to use a strong-willed actress such as Hepburn to present a female character with a strong agenda feels just a bit more acceptable. But there’s no denying that the film takes and gives racism—this is a war film, and it’s meant to whip up anti-Japanese fervour. The wartime focus of the film does make it more interesting than the similar The Good Earth, but also more offensive as well: while some scene do offer a warm and sympathetic portrayal of Chinese couples in love, it also makes for an infuriating portrait of the Japanese occupation. Dragon Seed is clearly a film of its time, but I feel better knowing that it would be unacceptable these days.

  • Revolt (2017)

    Revolt (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2019) Despite knowing better, I’m game to try just about any Science Fiction movie on Cable TV listings, which is how I ended up watching Revolt. In terms of concept, it comes to the whole alien invasion subgenre about seven years too late, what with its protagonists fighting against alien invaders entrenched on Earth. What saves the film from ennui is, at least initially, its setting: Taking place in Kenya, the film certainly looks different from most other entries in the subgenre. (I wonder how much of this had to do with shooting location incentives, constraints and lower costs?) The other surprise her is seeing Lee Pace as the lead, a soldier with amnesia trying to piece together what happened and what makes him special in resisting some alien attacks. The special effects are decent, which is increasingly the case even on cable TV originals. Alas, much of the story feels recycled, from overall plot structure to the way characters are introduced and then disposed in fairly short order. Bérénice Marlohe looks nice as the female lead, but the film becomes steadily more conventional as it goes on—by the time the last act takes place at night in an urban setting, we’re back to pretty much where nearly every other similar-themed film has landed as well. Despite going for the whole “triumph of the human spirit, even a small victory can create an avalanche” kind of thing, it doesn’t offer much in terms of victory. Still, while Revolt does rise to the level of a watchable film, it can’t quite meet the next level of a memorable one—you’re liable to forget almost all about it moments after watching the end credits.

  • The Spirit of St. Louis (1957)

    The Spirit of St. Louis (1957)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2019) Considering Hollywood’s enduring love affair for American heroes (even if we have to scrub a bit of their non-heroics along the way), it was inevitable that sooner or later, Charles Lindbergh would be brought to the forefront with The Spirit of St. Louis. And while James Stewart was far too old at 49 to play Lindbergh (who was 25 at the time of the film’s event), you have to take into account Stewart’s obvious enthusiasm and technical qualifications to play the role of an experienced flyer—as a draftee and then a reserve officer, he flew bombers from WW2 to the Vietnam War. The script focuses tightly on Lindbergh’s trip and not so much on the less heroic aspects of his later life, but as co-written by Billy Wilder The Spirit of St. Louis becomes a fascinating aeronautical procedural as Lindbergh works to develop the plane that will carry him from one side of the Atlantic to the other, and then wait patiently for a good weather opportunity even as others are also racing to make the trip. Director Howard Hawks is in his element here as he describes the relationship between Lindbergh and his plane during the gruelling transatlantic flight. Even the film’s length and overused voiceovers help us feel the isolation and experimental nature of the solo trip. The predictable shout-outs to divine power become annoying, but the film’s clever structure keeps things more interesting than a strictly chronological approach would have done. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the film is how it manages to create suspense out of a story that everyone knows, with a foreordained conclusion. The Spirit of St. Louis is certainly not a perfect film, but it does create something very entertaining out of three legendary creators (Wilder, Hawks, Stewart) and a landmark historical event.