Reviews

  • Jai Bhim (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Amazon Streaming, February 2022) It’s uncomfortable to be against films that espouse virtue. Jai Bhim is, at its core, not that different from a long tradition of Hollywood films in which a lawyer goes to fight against injustice in a system designed to marginalize the oppressed. Here, Suriya plays an idealistic lawyer who takes on a case in which a tribe member is falsely accused of theft by an upper-caste woman, and then disappeared by the police. At its best, Jai Bhim gets deliciously overdramatic in portraying its protagonist in slow-motion going through the halls of justice, tirelessly fighting for justice and equality. It may all be a bit too much, but at least they’re entertaining moments of too much in a film that vastly overstays its welcome at two hours and 44 minutes. Despite the crisp images, slick direction and heartfelt intention to denounce a social problem, Jai Bhim feels interminable, repetitive and obvious. I did like Suriya and many moments of the film, but in total it all becomes overbearing—and that’s all without mentioning the de rigueur musical numbers that kill the pacing of the film even more. This assessment won’t go over very well in some corners of the Internet, as IMDB votes for the film appear to have been subject to an organized campaign to make this the highest-rated film on the site. This kind of organized brigading is frequent for Indian films on the platform—but in doing so, they expose flawed films to greater scrutiny—I expect the ratings to go down significantly over time. In the meantime, Jai Bhim ends up recommended to anyone trying to keep track of highly-rated Indian films… but even that may be putting expectations far too high.

  • Blades (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2022) There’s a long and strong tradition of horror comedies going for a parody of horrifying plot devices while trying to be funny about it. The trick, however, is making it funny—when that doesn’t work, you can be stuck in a film that doesn’t seem to do anything right. There is, notionally, something amusing about Blades—trying to transform Jaws into a golf-course horror film by way of an autonomous killer lawnmower. You can even see how using protagonists best known for being golf professionals would be somehow amusing. (Although, as a Canadian, my pick would be hockey players spending the summer on the links.)  But Blades simply and continually flubs the most elementary condition of horror comedies: it’s not funny, and it’s constantly pulling its punches as so not to be an extreme horror film. What remains isn’t much of a film. Coming from Troma, it’s surprisingly toothless and, well, safe: it’s as if writer-director Thomas R. Rondinella thought so much of the premise that he stopped putting in any effort after that. The result is a failure of execution built on a very thin foundation. A disappointment if you were expecting anything… which isn’t necessarily absurd considering the number of horror comedies that at least got a few smiles out of their audiences.

  • Weary River (1929)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) From a contemporary perspective, the most striking thing about Weary River is how it straddles the frontier between silent films and the earliest sound era—parts of the film are silent, whereas others have sound and music. It doesn’t work all that well—the sound segments overpower the silent passages (especially given how the title song is so predominant toward the end), and there’s not that much of an artistic justification for the passage from one medium to another. (There’s obviously sound whenever the characters are singing, but there’s not as big of a structural justification as would have been, say, the protagonist leaving prison behind to take up a music career.)  At 86 minutes long, it still feels long—one of the underappreciated impacts of sound film was a more consistent narrative rhythm, but this too is only partially achieved here. There’s some visual innovation from director Frank Lloyd (including a shot taking us “inside” a radio to the studio—fancy!) and some of the gangster/prison material prefigures what Warners would churn out throughout the 1930s. Otherwise, though, Weary River remains more a curio for students of the transition between silent and sound film—it’s not completely dull, but there’s an artificiality to the way it transitions from one paradigm to the other that calls attention to both.

  • I Walk Alone (1947)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2022) As far as film noir headliners go, it’s hard to do better than Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas (even if Douglas here plays a supporting character—he would get top billing later in his career). In I Walk Alone, Lancaster is a gangster coming out of prison after 14 years, and finding that his old partner (Douglas) has built a successful nightclub. Getting him to honour an agreement to share past criminal proceeds, he’s met with a frosty reception. A nightclub singer becomes involved and soon transfers her affection from one man to another. It’s all crunchy noir, with nightclubs, singers, criminals, characters slapping each other, revenge and a finale that makes sure to resolve matters. The film originally attracted some controversy for not quite sticking to the Hays Code and leaving the main character profit from his crimes… which works rather well today. Lancaster fully uses his bulk for implicit menace here, with Douglas playing a meeker character. Lisbeth Scott is in-between them as the nightclub singer/girlfriend. As with other late-1940s films, there’s a touch of melodrama underscored by the insistent soundtrack, but it all works rather well in the end. I Walk Alone remains a solid noir, even if Douglas doesn’t quite occupy the space he would later in his career.

  • This Christmas (2007)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2022) Considering the all-Christmas-movies-all-month-long nature of the BET channel in December, it’s worth asking why this Christmas would find a spot on its January schedule. Aren’t we satiated until at least mid-November after such an overdose of Christmas cheer? The BET channel, after all, believes in quantity more than distinction in scheduling its holiday films: anything goes as long as Christmas is somewhere in there. Part of the suitability of this later scheduling can be found in This Christmas’ pedigree: Compared to the usual “BET original” Christmas movies, This Christmas has a budget at least a magnitude larger, with competent cinematography, decent technical credentials, a successful theatrical release and a roster of well-known actors. No, Loretta Devine doesn’t count—she’s practically a BET original mascot at this point. But Delroy Lindo, Idris Elba and Regina King are something else, and so this Christmas aims to be a well-crafted Christmas film with theatrical aspirations, at least one or two levels of quality higher than the channel’s original films. The difference is mostly in execution: the cinematography is fine, the actors are good and the film feels lived-in. The plot, unsurprisingly, isn’t that much better: yet another story of a fractious family finding peace at Christmas. Not that it matters all that much: Christmas movies, more than perhaps any other subgenre, rely heavily on comfort and reassurance that everything is going to be all right in time for the end of the big holiday get-together. Familiarity and predictability are key. No matter the budget or the pedigree.

  • Skymaster Down (2022)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2022) Now here’s an interesting hook for a documentary: In January 1950, an American military transport plane with 44 passengers went down over the Yukon, triggering a massive search for survivors and then the wreckage. Even 70 years later, no trace of the 1950 Douglas C-54D disappearance has ever been found—even if dozens of other smaller plane crash sites have since been located in the area. Skymaster Down deliberately aims to popularize this near-forgotten incident in three ways—by presenting an overview of the 1950 events with historical documentation, by giving voice to the surviving relatives of the missing, still haunted by the lack of closure, and by following the efforts of those people still trying, seventy years later, to find the wreckage. It’s difficult to dislike the result—it’s a fascinating story, and the lingering mystery takes us in the wilds of the Canadian North, in a very special environment of forests, mountains and lakes that could hide much. Some of the most evocative footage in the film approaches known identified wrecks to show us what a downed plane looks like from up close—whether in the forest, or scattered on a mountainside. Following the efforts of the modern wreck-hunters is also fascinating—but the film is equivocal that even modern technology is no match for the limited resources and difficult weather conditions of the area. But even as good as it is, there’s a sense that writer0director Andrew Gregg’s Skymaster Down doesn’t quite reach the greatness it could aspire to. Reading about the historical events confirms the film’s version of events but also suggests ways in which the film could have been better presented. (The hunt for the wreckage throughout 1950 ended up uncovering other wrecks… and causing a few more.)  The low-key presentation of the film is too restrained at times, and a bigger budget with better use of drone cameras may have allowed for better, more sweeping shots. Still, it’s an unusual topic… and it may be destined to remain as such: As of this writing (February 2022), the film isn’t listed on IMDB nor Wikipedia. I should probably do something about that. [2023: I wrote to the producers, and the film now has an IMDB page—but I don’t claim causation between the two]

  • Way Out West (1937)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2022) When it comes to Laurel and Hardy, I’m in the largely indifferent camp. Yes, they are funny—even I recognize that. But I have a hard time whipping up any enthusiasm for the pair. Some films are funnier than others and some routines work while others don’t. Way Out West is a piece of their filmography, but not one of the most often mentioned ones. It has the distinction of parodying 1930s westerns, which may please viewers who overdosed on the genre, but otherwise feels like a string of middle-grade gags strung together. The ending is fortunately a bit more spirited than the opening, but otherwise it’s a somewhat average entry for the pair—not terrible, not hilarious, usually amusing without being all that memorable. I’ll take it—there’s much worse out there.

  • Night Unto Night (1949)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) You don’t have to scratch all that deeply to find plausible excuses to watch Night unto Night, even if they may leave you unsatisfied. It’s an early effort from director Don Siegel, who would go on to have a long and significant career up to the New Hollywood era. More amusingly, it stars Ronald Reagan as a scientist (!) grappling with issues of faith and spirituality in the face of impending death and developing romance. Broderick Crawford shows up in a supporting role, bringing his comforting gruffness to the role. There’s some supernatural melodrama, with the (unsatisfactory) mushy-spiritualism conclusion never being in doubt, considering the usual ideological alignment of major studio films in Hollywood history. The cinematography (helped along by some audacious special effects) is more interesting than the humdrum plot and its dull flights of philosophy. Released two years after its production, Night unto Night does have the mark of a disappointing film—not exactly bad, but nowhere near what could have been, and viewers even today will feel the lack of satisfaction.

  • Mother’s Day (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, February 2022) There are good reasons why many people don’t like horror, and Mother’s Day feels like a distillation of those reasons in one handy package. It’s bleak in cinematography and dark in outlook. That, in itself, isn’t that unusual, but where this film takes it one step further in some exceptionally mean-spirited structure that, in the end, doesn’t lead to anywhere but a bleak ending. Building from a home invasion story (itself a rather tired cliché for needlessly dark horror), Mother’s Day occasionally shows glimpses of interest in the way it justifies its conceit. But that’s a very brief moment in a much longer-feeling package that delights in being pointlessly cruel. Our home invaders seem to style themselves after wannabee-jokers of sadistic choices. A repetitive tic of the film is for armed people asking unarmed people to do bad things to each other. It wouldn’t be as bad if it actually gave the impression of leading somewhere, or having some thematic depth to justify it. But there doesn’t seem to be—the best thing one can say about the film is that Rebecca de Mornay is thoroughly detestable as a domineering psychotic mother—but again, the character is so mean-spirited that her transgressions feel like a cheap trick with no point. Director Darren Lynn Bousman has a hit-and-miss filmography, but Mother’s Day doesn’t impress much. It’s basement-level horror without anything that makes the genre interesting.

  • For the Defense (1930)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) I do like William Powell’s screen persona a lot, but much of the interest in his early-1930s film is seeing that persona gradually being honed, from the villains and cads he played during the silent era to the droll, suave and clever leading man from the mid-1930s onward, with The Tall Man being the yardstick against which the rest of his career was measured. For the Defense sees Powell in one of his many lawyer roles, but less-typically as a slimier sort of character playing fast and loose with the law, and being willing to be the patsy for a criminal act committed by someone else. It’s both similar and not similar to his later roles, and that’s what makes it perhaps more interesting than some of the same films of the period, even if it doesn’t end up being as satisfying as his other films. Cinematographically, there’s not much to say—For the Defence fits within the aesthetics of the early-sound era, with a plot that has its moments (such as a nitro-fuelled courtroom confrontation) but degrades as it goes on to a perfunctory conclusion that won’t make anyone particularly happy… although it does make good use of the latitudes allowed in a Pre-Code film. The judicial technicalities feel ludicrous and subservient to the melodramatic requirements of the script. Kay Francis shows up in one of her earliest frequent pairings with Powell, but there’s not much to say about her character or her acting: she’s nowhere near what she’d do in later films. For the Defense is, in many ways, a typical early-Hollywood courtroom melodrama elevated (and overshadowed) by Powell’s presence and later filmography. It’s for completists.

  • Burden of Dreams (1982)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) Ask any knowledgeable cinephile which films had the most difficult, tortured, accursed production and I guarantee that Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo is going to be on the list. After all, simply watching the film is cause for amazement, as its characters drag a boat over an Amazonian mountain and the film clearly shows how it was done for real. How do you get to that point where it’s a good idea? How do you execute such a thing? Fortunately, there’s Burden of Dreams to tell us all about the making of Fitzcarraldo, and it turns out that the boat-over-a-mountain thing is a rather minor and straightforward episode in a hellish production. If it was just about the logistics of dragging a boat over a steep hill, Herzog could laugh about it—but the production simply looked cursed at times. The original stars, Jason Robarts and Mick Jagger, were replaced early in production when Robarts suffered severe medical problems and Jagger had to go on tour. Undaunted, Herzog went to Klaus Kinsi (further adding to his problems) and ended up in the middle of a small-scale war between two tribes. Weather problems exacerbated a shot that went on and on, eventually stopping for several months until conditions on the ground became better. Throughout the ordeal, Herzog sounds like a mad philosopher king, increasingly expounding on philosophical tangents inspired by his experience. The analog period feel of early-1980s filmmaking creates a distinct atmosphere, and director Les Blank does his best to assemble the location footage, historical material and interviews create a narrative, even if it’s not smooth all the way through. It’s good that Burden of Dreams exists, though, because this is the kind of troubled production that would seem too unbelievable if there wasn’t at least some shred of evidence to suggest that it all really happened.

  • Quai des Orfèvres (1947)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) Solid crime thrillers can feel timeless, and Quai des Orfèvres is a very competent take on familiar plot elements. Written and directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot (who reportedly adapted a novel from memory, which is wild enough), it quickly throws in a lovely singer (Suzy Delair, very cute), a bickering jealous husband, a creepy admirer, a lesbian photographer with a crush on the heroine and who herself becomes a crush of the police inspector asked to investigate the murder that soon follows. The police procedural aspect of the film is reinforced by some very solid dialogue (better in the original French than in the functional English subtitles) and cleverly sketched characters. Quai des Orfèvres is a decent genre exercise that gives us a good glimpse at the uneasiness of post-war France, executed in a straightforward but polished style. Not a bad pick for students of French cinema, perhaps as another piece of evidence to inform the idea that poetic realism influenced much of film noir and then the French New Wave.

  • Cutting Class (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, January 2022) I bet Brad Pitt doesn’t mention Cutting Class all that often these days. A cookie-cutter high-school slasher film in which Pitt plays a bland boyfriend role, this is the kind of movie that would be practically forgotten today if it didn’t happen to star him. (Not that it’s all that popular even with his name on the marquee.)  As a product of the late 1980s, it’s clearly aware that it has to go a bit beyond the obviousness as a slasher, but the way it goes about it is terrible: it skirts toward comedy but isn’t really good at it, meaning that you’ll watch most of the film dumbfounded at its idea of what’s funny. I strongly suspect that Pitt aside, the film probably plays worse today than upon release—the move of slasher films toward being whodunnits is now de rigueur, and so is the use of comedy to defuse the tension of horror films made for teenagers. No matter the datedness of tis intentions, though, Cutting Class still doesn’t work: even when you can see where the filmmakers were going, it’s simply too misguided to get its intended effect. You would have to be a dedicated 1980s slasher fan to even want to watch this.

  • Campus Code (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) It doesn’t take more than fifteen seconds of footage to understand that Campus Code scrapes the bottom of the barrel of cinematic competence. Obviously shot with a low budget, a quick schedule, bare-bones special effects and a half-comatose cinematographer, it’s the kind of sub-sub-cinema that makes Razzie nominees look good. That ultracheap look doesn’t necessarily work against the film—if you can somehow manage to convince yourself that this is a student project made on a threadbare budget, you may even start feeling sympathetic to it all. Heck, there’s even one impressive shot that has a character jumping out of a window. But then Ray Liotta shows up as a bartender and Martin Scorsese has two scenes as a doctor and you may feel as disoriented and unsure of reality as the film’s protagonist. In order to ground yourself again, look up the name of the film’s director: Cathy Scorsese, daughter of the other Scorsese. That should explain the cameos, but it won’t do much to explain the deliberately confusing plot in which four characters discover that they have superhuman powers and that their campus is filled with oddities. If you’re thinking “computer game!” after a few minutes, give yourself no pat on the back—it’s rather obvious from the title. But you may want to stop thinking about the premise beyond that, because it’s increasingly obvious that the screenwriter hasn’t either: After Campus Code throws up all sorts of strangeness on-screen as prelude to a laborious revelation that “we’re in a game!”, the film stops right there. No payoff, nothing beyond a twist so obvious that it barely qualifies as one. The additional red herrings are not justified and in fact, the more you think about the explanations, the less it makes any kind of sense. But all too often, that’s ultra-low-budget filmmaking for you, no matter the parents of the filmmakers. Digging deeper into Campus Code’s production history suggests that the film is a mash-up of an attempt at non-traditional filmmaking for a now-defunct website—it was patched together from webisodes meant to follow an ensemble cast of characters. But while this explains a few things, it doesn’t excuse the very disappointing result. If you feel that it’s going to be a long slog only a few moments in the film, then stop there: Campus Code never gets any better.

  • Ripoux 3 (2003)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2022) If you thought that resurrecting long-dormant franchises was purely a Hollywood problem, then I’ve got bad news for you: it’s a worldwide issue, as Paris-set Ripoux 3 illustrates. Picking up twelve years after Ripoux contre RIpoux, this third instalment does acknowledge the passing of time in the series’ very loose chronology: Our younger crooked cop has become a senior officer and hasn’t seen his mentor in corruption for a decade. That mentor has fallen on hard times—living on a boat and still gambling beyond his means. When a score goes wrong, the two meet again briefly, then spend the rest of the film pushed and pulled by a fake death, younger protégés, enmity from the mob, a growing police investigation and one last score. At least both Philippe Noiret and Thierry Lhermitte are in fine form here, easily slipping into familiar characters. Less heavy on police corruption but more insistent on traditional comic devices, Ripoux 3 only makes a middling argument in favour of its existence. It comes as a relief that it doesn’t try to repeat the same things as its predecessors, but it’s not clear why that story deserved to be told. In keeping with that thought, writer-director Claude Zidi’s film itself is watchable but not overly impressive—a comedy that ends up as a heist film, with both characters passing the torch to the younger generation. Hardly essential, but not the worst scenario if you were looking for one more quick lap around the track with those two lead characters.