Helen Mirren

  • F9 aka Fast and Furious 9 (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on-Demand, September 2019) Regular readers will remember that I’m an undying devotee of the Fast and Furious series of vehicular action movies: Even after ten movies in twenty years, they remain one of the most dependable experiences you can have at the movies, with an ensemble cast of characters enduring death-defying stunts in service of evermore-ludicrous stories. While I have a feeling that the series may have peaked around instalments 5–7, ninth mainline entry F9 is still operating in the same vein, with the same cast and top-line crew at the helm. Ludicrously powerful (and selective) magnets power the film’s last-half action sequences in a fender bender of practical effects and unapologetic CGI. Oh, and two characters go to space aboard a rocket-powered Pontiac Fiero, but that’s almost to be expected considering the style of the series to date. Once again, F9’s plotting brings a new episode’s worth of melodramatic soap-opera-worthy revelations, this time resurrecting another character from the dead and uncovering a long-forgotten brother who proves to be a match for the protagonists. Never mind the late-sequence revelations — the fun here is in believing that Vin Diesel and John Cena can play halfway convincing brothers without the rest of the crew cracking up. Not that the film is that far away from self-commentary, as it dawns upon one character that far too much has happened to them without serious harm that they must be freakishly invincible. One of the keys of the series has to be the cast — not necessarily in terms of fine acting (even with Helen Mirren showing up for a brief and delicious car heist-and-chase sequence with her at the wheel), but in terms of sheer likability. As much as I like Nathalie Emmanuel’s usual curly bob, for instance, she here looks adorable with twin Dutch braids… but best of all, she gets a lead role in an action scene of her own playing off the series’ presumption that every character is a superior driver. Cena is his usual charismatic self — there’s never any doubt that he’s meant to join the family by the end. Meanwhile, Diesel looks a bit off, perhaps as a side effect of making the series too much about him. Fortunately, F9 is the kind of film that just keeps getting better and better. I would have been disappointed at the halfway mark (too much soap opera, not enough action), but the ending sequence redeems it all. It’s amazing that we’re ten films in a series at this point, so I’m inclined to be lenient about the creakiness of the “revelations” at this point. Let’s face it — as long as we’re having fun in the action scenes, this series still has plenty of miles left in it.

  • Caligola [Caligula] (1979)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (YouTube Streaming, August 2021) Even in the vast universe of wild movies in cinema history, there has never been and will never be anything quite like Caligula. Produced at the end of the 1970s by pornography mogul Bob Guccione with the intention of bridging the mainstream movie world with the “porno chic” movement of the permissive decade, this is a film that has both well-known actors (Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren) and pornographic footage. Even knowing all about Caligula’s reputation, I still blinked whenever the X-rated material showed up on-screen, gradually pushing back the familiar limits of what we’re used to seeing on-screen: Nudity: Yes. Erect phalluses: Yes. Graphic Oral Sex: Yes. Full penetration: Yes. Ejaculation: Yes. And that’s not even getting into the far less entertaining gore and violence. But wait, because the film’s production is one for the history books as well. Offering perhaps the purest example of how movies are written thrice, we here have a script by Gore Vidal (!) meaning to explore the concept of total power leading to total corruption, being handed over to exploitation director Tinto Brass meaning to show luridly how a corrupt individual becomes even more corrupt once powerful, being handed over to producer Guccione, who shot the X-rated footage that was then added after the main actors had left the film, blending everything into a bizarre mash-up of sex, violence and some remaining satire. Caligula is fascinating, but it’s not a good film: The many hands that rewrote the film just end up producing an incoherent historical drama with jolts of hard-core sex. On the other hand, it does offer the irresistible trivia that Mirren once starred in a film with unsimulated sex — and she still to this day seems amused by it, which is appropriate considering that her character is probably the most appealing in the film. Still, it’s a surprisingly dull movie, and its length is made even worse by the way the film repeatedly stops to highlight hardcore sex with no relationship to the plot. A unique viewing experience and a wild filmmaking history don’t always end up equalling a good film. The idea that there will never be another film like Caligula is frankly more of a relief than something to mourn. Fun fact: Midway through watching Caligula, the police came knocking at my door… but the explanation (it turns out that leaving a fully-lit garage door open at 1:30 AM in my quiet neighbourhood will get the police to come knocking to ask if everything is all right) is not quite as satisfying as the fun fact itself.

  • The Long Good Friday (1980)

    The Long Good Friday (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Criterion Streaming, March 2021) As with many gangster films, The Long Good Friday doesn’t do anything new, but it does it with some style and period flourish. Definitely a product of the late 1970s, it’s a gangster narrative set in London, featuring intrusions by the IRA and prescient ideas about the place of London as the financial capital of Europe. The standout performances here are from Bob Hoskins as a gangster trying to transform himself into a respectable businessman, as well as a young and attractive Helen Mirren as his girlfriend. Barrel-shaped Hoskins is well-suited to the role in all of his charm and inherent menace. Mirren doesn’t have as much to do in a more conventional role, but it’s a welcome reminder of the stone-cold fox she was in her early years. The gritty atmosphere of the film fits well with the New Hollywood aesthetics of the 1970s, even though The Long Good Friday isn’t above a few spectacular sequences when it feels like them — most notably a sequence near the end where a shootout leads to several car crashes in a lunatic comedy of errors. It does feel like a British Scorsese film at times, which is probably the best compliment we can give it nowadays. The period atmosphere is all-enveloping and the narrative moves steadily forward. In other words — The Long Good Friday may be unsurprising, but it’s a really good viewing experience made even better by Hoskin’s command over the film.

  • Anna (2019)

    Anna (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Amazon Streaming, December 2020) Every storyteller has their favourite archetypes, and based on the evidence I’m sure that writer-director Luc Besson’s go-to is that of a female assassin. (Also one much younger than he is – and that’s been known for a while.) Anna is something like the seventh dip into that kind of character after, …let’s see…, Nikita, Point of No Return, Leon (split archetype), Bandidas (somewhat), Colombiana and Lucy (sort of). It’s probably the dullest of the lot, too. Our heroine is a product of the Soviet assassin training program who finds herself in Paris living the life of a supermodel by day, assassin by night. Turning to become a double agent, she really is fighting for her freedom to disappear. The rest is action sequences, tough-person posturing, an enjoyable turn from Helen Mirren, some standard spy fiction tropes, and reasonably energetic direction. Anna is an unobjectionable time killer, although the tortured timeline filled with flashbacks and skip-forwards is better suited to mathematical exam questions than casual watching. I’m not that susceptible to Slavic blondes like Sasha Luss, but she does generally well, and is supported by the likes of Luke Evans and Cillian Murphy. Besson-as-director can deliver the strict minimum (and occasionally a bit more, like the restaurant scene) but I’m not seeing any evidence of trying to become any better. (And with recent affirmations of his terrible behaviour, it’s not clear if he’ll get to direct another film any time soon.) If he does write something else, let’s hope he tries to do something different than another female assassin.

  • The Clearing (2004)

    The Clearing (2004)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, September 2020) In between the dark scary forest of genre crime thrillers and the featureless plains of straightforward drama, there is a zone that is neither—a place where crime stories can be used to illustrate human concerns without necessarily becoming genre stories nor completely fall in the vast expanses of straight drama. The Clearing is in such a zone, as the kidnapping of a rich person becomes more of a dramatic vehicle for a good cast than a conventionally satisfying story. In this case, the cast is a trio of legends: Robert Redford plays the kidnapped, Willem Defoe the kidnapper and Helen Mirren the wife who must deliver the ransom. But writer-director-producer Pieter Jan Brugge (directing his first film after a long producing career) isn’t really aiming for a visceral thrill-a-minute kind of film. Instead, he spends his time ambling along with the characters, and even misdirects the audience’s attention to stretch the story for even longer than it is. The result of such shenanigans is not what he had hoped for: The Clearing, in the end, feels like a trick more than a movie. The misdirection hides an unsatisfying ending, and distances audiences from the characters. Neither ends up being a winning move considering the coldness of the film. Despite good work from the actors, The Clearing is not only a disappointment, but something that’s likely to fade away from memory far quicker than a conventionally entertaining genre piece would have.

  • The Good Liar (2019)

    The Good Liar (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2020) Some movies are best appreciated without narrative, but for the longest time it feels as if The Good Liar won’t be one of them. As it clearly establishes itself as a suspense film in which an elderly conman sets his sights on a wealthy widow, we can anticipate the coming twists and turns: cons are only as good as their terrible targets and, since she’s not, then there will be a counter-con. It’s in the movie genre lexicon. We’re just along for the ride until she springs the trap. Until that point, we’re left to enjoy Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren as they go through the plot, make their way through the set-pieces designed to show off their duplicity (or ruthlessness) and just appreciate the atmosphere provided by director Bill Condon, once against working hard at providing slick entertainment for older audiences. It’s all good fun according to the unspoken rules of the genre, and despite a weird detour through Berlin, by the 80-minute mark we’re ready for the last revelations to be put in place. They are. The twists happen. The charming widow isn’t what she presented herself as—but we knew that all along. But then the film keeps going, adding more and more layers of personal revenge to the story until we’re left shaking our heads at how unnecessary those last twists were, how they come out of nowhere, and how they take away from the film’s well-worn charm. It doesn’t change much to the overall telling of the tale, but it does push the film firmly from “fun” to “not-fun” territory, which is a significant miscalculation for a con film. I still enjoyed most of The Good Liar, but I could have done without much of the last 15 minutes, so at-odds they seem to be with the remainder of it. Still—McKellen and Mirren playing off each other certainly isn’t to be dismissed lightly.

  • Excalibur (1981)

    Excalibur (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Google Play Streaming, December 2019) Coming at the intersection of Arthurian legend and the early-1980s fantasy film boom, Excalibur chooses to hold nothing back in presenting the knights of the round table in a decidedly fantastic context. Helmed by John Boorman, the film goes for maximal rule of cool—even limited by the special technology of the time, it’s meant to be spectacular with shiny armoured suits, grander-than-life soliloquies and a strong magical element. The cinematography makes great use of its Irish location, and the local casting means that this is not only one of Liam Neeson’s earliest screen credits, but also an early big-screen showcase for Gabriel Byrne, Ciarán Hinds and Patrick Stewart. Nigel Terry does well as Arthur and so does Nicol Williamson as Merlin, but it’s Helen Mirren who looks simply spectacular as Morgana Le Fay, eclipsing even Cherie Lunghi as Guenevere. The result is more impressive as a collection of nice scenes and images than a coherent plot—although my lack of enthusiasm for the Arthurian myth-making may be showing here. Still, I had a reasonably good time watching Excalibur in its overblown grandeur—it has its own strengths that manage to overcome many of its limitations.

  • The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014)

    The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, June 2019) In keeping with the times, it’s been a great decade for food-themed movies from 2007–2016 (ish). Suddenly, from No Reservations to Chef and Burnt, we had at least a dozen movies about professional chefs, restaurants and everything else peeking behind the scenes of the foodie scene. With only five years’ worth of perspective, The Hundred-Foot Journey certainly fit in the subgenre. Here we travel to rural France, as a family of Indian immigrants settles in a small town to open their own restaurant … right in front of a Michelin-star haute-cuisine establishment. Definitely approaching food as a sensual, romantic endeavour (the slow motion starts as soon as someone picks up a utensil and a bowl), director Lasse Hallström blends a feel-good mix of cultural acceptance, character growth, power-of-food homilies and straight-up romance. Helen Mirren headlines the cast, but the film rests on Manish Dayal’s likable performance, with some assistance from Charlotte Le Bon as the love interest, and Om Puri as the patriarch. There aren’t really any surprises here—the ending is almost exactly what you can imagine. But it’s a fun trip, even though the film may be a touch too long and almost certainly a bit too ponderous for what it could have been in more impatient hands. There’s a specific audience for food movies, and The Hundred-Foot Journey will deliver what they expect.

  • 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)

    2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) The most common criticisms of 2010: The Year We Make Contact usually compare it to its illustrious predecessor and find it wanting. This, of course, is damning a film with excessive expectations: While 2010 is no transcendental experience like 2001: A Space Odyssey was, it’s a terrific science-fiction adventure with one heck of a send-off. It has the joy of the kind of nuts-and-bolts hard Science Fiction that I used to read by the truckload a decade or two ago—starting with the Arthur C. Clarke novel from which the film is adapted. Even the mid-1980s visual sheen to the film, grimy and realistic in the tradition of somewhat realistic Science Fiction, is a welcome sight. The plot takes a while to get going and usually operates at half-speed, but it does blend a delicious mixture of mystery, suspense, Cold War stakes and mind-blowing concepts. I particularly enjoyed the suspenseful sequence midway through in which two astronauts board the deserted Odyssey from the first film, their breathing setting the pacing of the action. The special effects are still good, even incorporating early photorealistic CGI in portraying the transforming Jupiter. The lead cast is star-studded, from Roy Scheider as the protagonist scientist, Bob Balaban as an AI expert of dubious loyalties, John Lithgow as an engineer pressed into service as a space traveller, and the timelessly beautiful Helen Mirren as a Soviet commanding officer. Writer-director Peter Hyams is near the top of his filmography here, keeping action going at a slow burn. The film’s science is not bad at a few gravity-related exceptions, but then again those effects were nearly impossible to do convincingly in a pre-CGI era. All in all, I really enjoyed 2010—it’s not 2001, but then again only one movie is 2001. This is an entirely acceptable follow-up, and a solid space adventure in its own right. There are even no less than two Arthur C. Clarke cameos!

  • Collateral Beauty (2016)

    Collateral Beauty (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2017) It’s hard to accurately gauge whether an actor is smart from their screen performances alone. The best ones can play characters completely unlike themselves and we’d never know. But I have a growing suspicion that you can tell a lot about an actor by the roles they choose to play. Now, I won’t make any accusations about Will Smith (whom I still rather like a lot), but looking at a filmography that includes Seven Pounds and After Earth and now Collateral Beauty, I have to ask—is he even reading those scripts? Replace After Earth by the more respectable The Pursuit of Happiness and you would have an instant trilogy of manipulative faux-inspiring dramas that are so melodramatic as to court unintentional hilarity. So it is that Collateral Beauty is so ill-conceived from the start (something about a grieving man writing to Death, Time and Love, and then scheming co-workers hiring actors to play Death, Time and Love) that the first half hour plays as a farce despite itself, ridiculous while insisting otherwise. Things really don’t improve much during the last act of the film, in which two bigger revelations are dropped upon the audience, unfortunately earning nothing more than two big collective shrugs. Collateral Beauty is convinced that it has something profound and poignant to say, but it has forgotten to check whether audiences agree. I suspect that reactions will vary widely—as for myself, I’ve seen too many of those movies to be impressed. Now, I won’t make too much of Smith’s talents for script-picking considering that the cast also includes reliable performers such as Hellen Mirren, Edward Norton, Michael Peña and (to a lesser extent) Kiera Knightley. They may all have gone insane, but then again maybe I’m out to lunch on this particular film. Either way, I can only report that the result feels like a falsely profound tearjerker attempt. The premise seems so flawed that I’m not sure anything could have been done to rescue the result from unintended laughter. The twists won’t matter so much when it’s established early on that the movie stems from an inane place.

  • Eye in the Sky (2015)

    Eye in the Sky (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, July 2016) As a fan of the under-appreciated Good Kill, I feared that the similarly themed Eye in the Sky would feel stale and dull. How many movies about military drones and their ethical consequences do we need? But, as it turns out, Eye in the Sky runs almost entirely parallel to Good Kill (to the point where the two operators in the first film could become the protagonists of the other with very few modifications) and feels more successful at putting together a suspense thriller rather than a character drama. Helen Mirren stars as a British general at the centre of an operation that ends up reaching more and more people around the world. As western agents get closer to wanted terrorists in Kenya, efforts to confirm the target’s identity and minimize collateral damage become thornier and thornier, spanning the simultaneous actions of specialists scattered all over the planet. (At the film’s widest moment, I counted seven different groups of characters from Kenya to London—twice—to Hawaii to Las Vegas to China to Singapore) As a portrait of modern warfare, Eye in the Sky can become dizzying, and its suspense is real—especially when Barkhad Abdi’s on-the-ground agent tries to influence events near to proposed strike site. Meanwhile, Alan Rickman turns in a dignified last performance as a general who leaves humanity at the door of his briefing room. As suggested by the emphasis on drone warfare and global decision-making, Eye in the Sky is an unusual thriller, and director Gavin Hood manages to strike a good balance between drama, suspense, ethics and straight-up entertainment. Some of the technology is a few years away, but much of the film’s cerebral considerations are real and the result is a modern war movie that feels quite unlike any other—including Good Kill. Both are worth seeing, perhaps even in a single evening.

  • Woman in Gold (2015)

    Woman in Gold (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2016) Ryan Reynolds tends to play comic motormouths or action heroes, so it’s not surprising if part of Woman in Gold’s interest in seeing him in the strikingly different role of an earnest and nebbish lawyer who discovers his conscience while helping an elderly Jewish woman recover long-seized family belongings. That the belongings in question are Gustave Klimt painting confiscated by Nazis isn’t immaterial, and enable the film to play in various modes, from historical drama to art appreciation to legal drama to family history. The star of the film isn’t Reynolds, but rather Helen Mirren, revisiting painful family history when she becomes aware that she could reclaim part of her family legacy, abandoned when they fled Nazi Austria. Much of the film’s first half is entirely hers—Reynolds’ character only develops later on. While Woman in Gold feels too long, and derivative in the way it portrays the flashbacks to 1930s Austria, it does build quite an amazing true story and should appeal to an interesting variety of audiences. For Reynolds fans, it’s a reminder that he can act beyond his usual charm, and hold his own against a veteran such as Mirren.

  • Red 2 (2013)

    Red 2 (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, December 2013) The original Red dared to combine aging action stars with quirky comedy and strong action sequences to deliver a film that wasn’t entirely successful, but remained distinctive enough to distinguish itself in a crowded field.  This sequel is slightly improved by a better understanding of how to combine humor with action, and it can dispense with the tedious work of introducing its main characters.  Bruce Willis plays his familiar world-weary tough-guy role, quipping when he’s not exasperated at being thrown once again out of retirement.  Among the returning cast, Helen Mirren is as much fun as ever as a top assassin, while John Malkovich is a bit less crazy (but more sympathetic) this time around, even as Mary Louise Parker furthers her transition from adrenaline junkie to rookie operative.  There’s a fascinating “throwback to the cold war era” atmosphere as the action goes well beyond the borders of the United States and to Europe, with Anthony Hopkins bringing new laughs as a crazed weapons designer and Catherine Zeta Jones earning a few chuckles of her own as a once-fatale assassin.  While the CGI works gets a bit tiresome by the end of the final chase sequence, most of the other action scenes are good enough.  Red 2 doesn’t work on a particularly high level, but it’s adequate and in some ways moves past the whole “retired action heroes” shtick into a post-Cold War plot that seems to grow organically out of the characters’ age.  It works just fine as an unassuming action film, and even a little better as a sequel.

  • Phil Spector (2013)

    Phil Spector (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2013) Given how little TV-as-TV I watch, I never expected to mark an entire Emmy category as “complete”, but in-between HBO’s Behind the Candelabra, Parade’s End, The Girl and now Phil Spector, I’m all caught-up with the 2013 “Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie” category even before it’s awarded.  There’s certainly no finer reason to watch Phil Spector than to see good acting from Al Pacino and Helen Mirren, facing each other down as, respectively, a powerful music industry executive accused of murder and one of his defense lawyer.  It’s based the true story of Spector’s first trial (although not really, as the opening disclaimer sort-of-clarifies), but it’s perhaps best appreciated as a standalone court drama, featuring a pair of highly unusual characters.  Al Pacino is his usual intense self as Spector; he even gets a change to indulge in his signature rants late in the film.  Meanwhile, Mirren is in a class of her own as a hypochondriac but steel-nerved lawyer with an uncanny ability to defend her client no matter the circumstances.  (Phil Spector’s look at a high-priced defense, with war room and expert-driven strategies, is worth a look by itself.)  The film may indulge in showing the most eccentric aspect of Spector’s personality, but it’s also somewhat sympathetic to him, creating reasonable doubt that he may not have actually committed the murder for which he was accused.  Phil Spector remains a made-for-TV movie, but with David Mamet writing and directing for HBO, it features high-quality dialogue and decent production values: if nothing else, it’s a good way to enjoy good actors playing interesting people.  Al Pacino as Phil Spector?  That’s always worth watching.

  • Hitchcock (2012)

    Hitchcock (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, March 2013)  More than thirty years after Alfred Hitchcock’s death, the influence of the director over the thriller genre still reigns supreme, so it makes sense that a biography would seek to present the man to a contemporary audience.  Taking the making of Psycho as its narrative hook, Hitchcock stars a heavily made-up Anthony Hopkins as the celebrated director, stuffing a romantic comedy and a study of Hitchcock’s entire career and quirks into a handily convenient narrative.  If you’re wondering about the fidelity of the film to real events or even its literary inspiration (Stephen Rebello’s Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho), you may as well avoid digging too deep: Hitchcock is a heavily-fictionalized take loosely inspired by real events, but the film’s romantic theme is nowhere to be found in the book (where Hitchcock’s wife, Alma Reville, barely gets a role and Danny Huston’s Whitfield Cook is not even mentioned), and nearly every scene contains material that only makes sense if you’re aware of Hitchchock’s legacy.  It does feel a bit artificial and pat, exactly as if the screenwriters were cramming everything worth saying about the director into a comic film covering a small part of his life, and including a modern take on spousal collaborations just to provide a romantic arc to the film.  But such are the conveniences of dramatized biographies, after all: the point isn’t in faithfully presenting reality as much as it is to provide an entertaining capsule summary of a complex person.  In this regard, Hitchcock fares better: The script feels as if every detail is in its place, the humor is used effectively (“That’s why they call me ‘The Master of Suspense’”) and its structure is clearly meant to leave viewers elated at the success of Psycho, Hitchcock and his renewed sense of matrimonial partnership.  There are a few clever sequences here and there, whether it’s Hitchcock listening to his audience’s reaction, or the way the mechanics of filmmaking are brought to life.  Not everything works –the interludes in which Hitchcock converses with his fantasy of a murderer are distracting and suggest a fantastical quality to the film that it did not need.  Still, as filmmaking homages go, this is straight-up Hollywood: The actors are all doing good work (Other than Hopkins-as-Hitchcock, Hellen Mirren is remarkable as Alma Reville), the cinematography is clean and everything wraps up neatly.  Who cares, then, if Hitchcock takes frequent liberties with historical events?