TIFF FILM REVIEW: Morten Tyldum’s ‘The Imitation Game’

Posted on September 15, 2014 by admin

TIFF 2014 'The Imitation Game' Cliff

By Ray Bennett

TORONTO – Morten Tyldum’s engrossing drama “The Imitation Game”, about World War II codebreaker Alan Turing, gives Benedict Cumberbatch another complex character to explore and the result is a film that will please audiences and collect major awards.

The picture will screen at the London Film Festival on Oct. 8 and it will be released in the UK on Nov. 14 by StudioCanal. The Weinstein Co. will release it in the US on Nov. 21.

Screenwriter Graham Moore’s adaptation of the 2012 book “Alan Turing: The Enigma” by Andrew Hodges tells how the mathematics wizard ended up as the leader of the Ultra team at Bletchley that aimed to break the secret Nazi code called Enigma, why their race against the clock mattered to the war, and what happened to the man after the conflict ended.

It is an enthralling story about an arrogantly confident individual who emerged from a bullied childhood to achieve a mastery of mathematical computation with a ferocious drive that made no friends and angered authority.

Cumberbatch captures the man’s complexities with the skill and depth now expected from an actor who specialises in such roles. Turing’s encounters with rigid Commander Denniston, played by Charles Dance, and the others on the Ultra team including suave chess champion Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode), are abrasive and not promising. The stress is doubled with the revelation that there is a Soviet spy in their midst. Only when he adds to the group a brilliant young woman named Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley) does he find someone who can match his intellect and mesh with his prickly personality.

The film goes back and forth between the extraordinarily difficult struggle at Bletchley and the time in the 1950s when a break-in at his home causes the police to take interest in the fact that all reference to the top secret Ultra endeavour has been stricken from the records and so Turing’s past is a mystery.

The police do, however, have evidence of his homosexuality, which at the time was a crime punishable by imprisonment. Rory Kinnear does well as a bluff detective obliged to follow the letter of the law despite his increased sympathy for the now tortured codebreaker.

Norwegian filmmaker Tyldum, whose “Headhunters” (2011) was nominated as best foreign language film at the Bafta Film Awards, gets the pace just right as the tension mounts at Bletchley with scenes at home, at sea and on the battlefield that show how vital it is to break the code.

Maria Djurkovic’s production design appears authentic and Oscar Faura’s cinematography is both artful and accessible while composer Alexandra Desplat invokes echoes of music from the period with the required urgency at times and pleasing subtlety at others.

Along with the film itself, Cumberbatch is bound for awards contention and possibly Knightley too as she shows an increased warmth and maturity in what could have been a decorative role. Mark Strong is suitably sinister as an all-knowing MI6 man and the rest of the cast is solid.

The film casts Turing as the father of the modern computer and it makes a clear case for him as a hero of the war. It also underscores how wretchedly he was treated by authorities along with many other unfortunate men at the time.

It touches movingly on the dilemma that became clear the minute the Enigma code was broken … that to use it too often to save lives would alert the enemy and make things worse. That horrifying fact adds depth to a drama that is already bittersweet as it portrays both Turing’s enormous success and his miserable treatment.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival. Screens at the London Film Festival Oct. 8; Opens: UK: Nov. 14 (StudioCanal) / US: Nov. 28  (The Weinstein Company)  / Canada: Dec. 19 (Elevation Pictures); Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Mark Strong, Rory Kinnear, Charles Dance, Allen Leech, Matthew Beard, Alex Lawther; Director: Morten Tyldum; Screenwriter: Graham Moore, based on the book “Alan Turing: The Enigma” by Andrew Hodges; Director of photography: Oscar Faura; Production designer: Maria Djurkovic; Music: Alexandre Desplat; Costume designer: Sammy Sheldon Differ; Editor: William Goldenberg; Producers: Nora Grossman, Ido Ostrowsky, Teddy Schwartzman; Production: Black Bear Pictures, Bristol Automotive Productions; Not rated, running time 114 minutes.

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TIFF FILM REVIEW: ‘This Is Where I Leave You’

Posted on September 13, 2014 by admin

TIFF 2014 'This Is Where I Leave You' Cliff

By Ray Bennett

TORONTO – Shawn Levy’s empty comedy “This Is Where I Leave You” has the same premise as last year’s “August: Osage County” as a family gathers reluctantly upon the death of a father but it replaces hateful characters with dull and uninteresting ones. Sort of, “June: Osage County”.

A fine cast is wasted on the usual contrivances in which four siblings have secrets in regard to their marriages, relationships or jobs but they cannot compare with the secrets of their parents.

The interplay between the four, played by Tina Fey, Jason Bateman, Corey Stoll and Adam Driver, is contrived with clichéd back-stories. The clunky device used to keep them together in their suburban family home is that their atheist Jewish father’s dying wish is that they sit shiva for seven days.

Jane Fonda appears strangely over-eager as their WASP mother and her secret when it is revealed is a surprise only because it is completely implausible.

Rose Byrne makes an attractive appearance as the inevitable beauty who never left town and Connie Britton impresses as the only real grownup in the picture.

The dearth of anything amusing, however, means the film relies for feeble laughs on a young rabbi who grew up with the males of the family, who call him Boner, and an infant boy who lugs around his potty and empties its contents every so often. It pretty much sums up the movie but it’s not enough.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival. Opens: US: Sept. 19; UK: Oct. 24, Warner Bros.; Cast: Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda, Adam Driver, Rose Byrne, Corey Stoll, Kathryn Hahn, Connie Britton, Timothy Olyphant, Dax Shepard, Debra Monk, Abigail Spencer, Ben Schwartz; Director: Shawn Levy; Writer: Jonathan Tropper, based on his novel; Director of photography: Terry Stacey; Production designer: Ford Wheeler; Music: Michael Giacchino; Costume designer: Susan Lyall; Editor: Dean Zimmerman; Producers: Paula Weinstein, Shawn Levy, Jeffrey Levine; Production: Spring Creek, 21 Laps. Rated: US-R, UK-15, running time 104 minutes.

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TIFF FILM REVIEW: ‘The Riot Club’

Posted on September 12, 2014 by admin

POSH Directed by Lone Sherfig

By Ray Bennett

TORONTO – Lone Scherfig’s pedestrian film “The Riot Club” follows 10 rich hooligans as they act out the delusion that they have class, style and taste as they gorge on excessive food and drink at a gastropub, deride the staff and trash the place.

Adapted by Laura Wade from her West End play “Posh”, but lacking that production’s reported comic insights, the film takes its inspiration from a club at Oxford called Bullingdon from which privileged posh boys graduate on their way to positions of power in UK government and business.

Scherfig, the Danish filmmaker who directed the equally lame “An Education” (2009), simply observes the young men as they preen and posture and proceed to do exactly what you expect, which is to utter nonsense, treat people badly, over-eat, get drunk, vomit, break things, commit craven violence and expect to be able to buy their way out of everything.

Like buttocks from the same bum, the boys are indistinguishable while Holliday Grainger, as a northern girl who mistakes one of them for a decent sort; Natalie Dormer, as a hooker too wise to be intimated by a group of callow toffs; and Jessica Brown Findlay, as the publican’s savvy daughter, all appear brighter than the boys by a mile.

The film notes that these ineffectual and repellant louts know they are bound for well-rewarded sinecures as adults but it does not attempt to account for why that should be or what might be done about it.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival. Released in the UK on Sept. 19, Universal Pictures. Cast: Sam Claflin, Max Irons, Douglas Booth, Sam Reid, Ben Schnetzer, Jack Farthing, Matthew Beard, Freddie Fox, Josh O’Connor, Olly Alexander, Jessica Brown Findlay, Holliday Grainger, Natalie Dormer, Gordon Brown, Tom Hollander; Director: Lone Scherfig; Writer: Laura Wade, based on her play, “Posh”; Director of photography: Sebastian Blenkov; Production designer: Alice Normingtom; Music: Kasper Winding; Costume designer: Steven Noble; Editor: Jake Roberts; Producers: Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin; Production: Blueprint Pictures, Film4; Sales: HanWay Films;

UK rating: 15, running time 106 minutes

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TIFF FILM REVIEW: Jon Stewart’s ‘Rosewater’

Posted on September 12, 2014 by admin

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By Ray Bennett

TORONTO – U.S. comedian Jon Stewart took leave from “The Daily Show” to write and direct “Rosewater” and he has turned out an intelligent and gripping story about a newsman who is incarcerated in Iran as a spy.

The man in question, British-based Iranian-Canadian Newsweek correspondent Maziar Bahari, played by Gael Garci Bernal (pictured), falls afoul of authorities in Tehran when he covers Iran’s controversial presidential election in 2009.

Admitted to secret places run by the opposition thanks to a spirited young man (Dimitri Leonidas) who runs him about the city on his motorcycle, Bahari also appears on “The Daily Show” where in typically absurd fashion faux reporter Jason Jones refers to him as a spy.

The Iranian authorities do not get the joke. In no time, he is rousted from his mother’s home and placed in solitary confinement where for the next 118 days he is blindfolded and interrogated by a stern and threatening man (Kim Bodnia) who smells of rosewater, hence the title.

Stewart tells the tale straightforwardly as Bahari leaves his pregnant wife (Claire Hoy) in London for a few days to cover the election. His concerned mother (Shohreh Aghdasloo) watches anxiously as her son, an experienced reporter, takes his video camera to meetings and marches, and covers incidents in which security officers display their willingness to open fire.

Bernal is persuasive throughout and Leonidas adds lively colour to his daredevil driver. Things slow down inevitably when the reporter is incarcerated and the dance begins between prisoner and interrogator. The threat in these scenes is tangible, though, as Bahari becomes desperate enough to agree to confessions. Bodnia adds layers to his interrogator, who is overseen closely by a superior, and finally Bahari begins to sense a weakness. He begins to make up tales of what it’s like for a man to live in freedom with the emphasis on sexual escapades with pliable women and he knows he has his jailor’s number. This is where Stewart’s satirical skills really come to bear

Just at the point when the thought occurs as to what’s happening on the outside world, Bahari is allowed to phone his wife and Stewart uses a succession of clips, onscreen headlines, texts, headlines and news bulletins to show that there has been a massive campaign on the reporter’s behalf. It’s a clever device as is an earlier sequence in which background information and personal details about the reporter are conveyed as he makes his way through busy streets in which people and places appear on shop windows and the walls of buildings.

It makes for a thoughtful and timely film as many reporters are in harm’s way around the world. Cinematographer Bobby Bukowski captures the bustle of the first half and claustrophobia and dread of the second while composer Howard Shore mixes musical styles effectively between east and west.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival. Screens at the London Film Festival Oct. 12; Cast: Gael Garcia Bernal, Kim Bodnia, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Dimitri Leonidas, Claire Foy, Nasser Faris, Miles Jupp; Director: Jon Stewart; Writer: Jon Stewart based on the book “Then They Came for Me” by Maziar Bahari; Director of photography: Bobby Bukowski; Production designer: Gerald Sullivan; Music: Howard Shore; Costume designer: Phaedra William Dahdaleh; Editor: Jay Rabinowitz; Producers: Scott Rudin, Jon Stewart, Gigi Pritzker; Production: Open Road Films, OddLot Entertainment. No rating, running time 104 minutes

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TIFF FILM REVIEW: Jake Gyllenhaal in ‘Nightcrawler’

Posted on September 10, 2014 by admin

eOne Nightcrawler 1 x650

By Ray Bennett

TORONTO – From his first appearance – cadaverous, unblinking and unctuous – Jake Gyllenhaal holds your attention in Dan Gilroy’s disturbing thriller “Nightcrawler” as a nocturnal creature that has emerged from under a rock fully formed as a nightmare.

In his first film as director, Gilroy, whose writing credits include “Freejack” (1992), “Two for the Money” (2005) and “The Bourne Legacy” (2012), has fashioned a scary tale set in the underbelly of Los Angeles as viewed through the eyes of the ambulance chasing video reporters who service local TV news.

Cinematographer Robert Elswit and production designer Kevin Kavanaugh make vivid contributions in a film that captures the shiny and shadowy streets of L.A. at their most sinister. Composer James Newton Howard’s score adds subtly to the sense of dread.

Gyllenhaal plays Louis Bloom, a scavenger of iron and copper who is not fussy if he has to beat up a security guard in order to make off with some scrap and take the man’s watch in the process. Bloom stumbles upon his true métier when he talks to a video reporter (Bill Paxman) at a crime scene and grasps immediately that with a camcorder and a police scanner he could do that too.

Devoid of compunction, Bloom gets up close and nasty shots of the victims of crashes and crimes and peddles them to the easiest market – the news director at the lowest rated TV channel in town. Played with equal gusto by Rene Russo (pictured below), Nina has not the slightest qualm about airing blood and guts on her station’s early-morning news show.

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The film doesn’t bother with police barriers or press credentials and it doesn’t really account for Bloom’s sudden wealth when he buys better equipment and a fancy car, and hires an assistant, an innocently eager Latino named Rick, played effectively by British actor Riz Admed.

It’s enough that Bloom’s shots of broken bodies have kick-started a ratings rise at the channel and he exploits his position blatantly as his relationship with Nina becomes professionally and personally co-dependent. It’s a dance of death in a way as the man pursues an unblinking devotion to his chosen craft in terms expressed in the formulaic jargon of a workplace team builder.

Gyllenhaal’s weight loss and relentless stare combine to create a memorable monster whose callous determination is bound to cause someone great harm before long. Russo hasn’t had a role this good in a long time and she delivers beautifully for her director husband, who has kickstarted his directing career with an assured sense of how a good thriller gets under our skin.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival; Opens: Oct. 31 (UK: eOne / US: Open Road Films / Canada: Elevation Pictures; Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed, Bill Paxton; Director, writer: Dan Gilroy; Director of photography: Robert Elswit; Production designer: Kevin Kavanaugh; Music: James Newton Howard; Costume designer: Amy Westcott; Editor: John Gilroy; Producers: Michael Litvak, Jake Gyllenhaal, David Lancaster, Jennifer Fox, Tony Gilroy; Executive producers: Gary Michael Walters, Betsy Danbury; Production company: Bold Films; Rating: UK: 15 / US: R; running time 117 minutes.

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TIFF FILM REVIEW: Gemma Arterton in ‘Gemma Bovery’

Posted on September 10, 2014 by admin

TIFF2014 'Gemma Bovery' Cliff 1

By Ray Bennett

TORONTO – Anne Fontaine’s “Gemma Bovery” is a witty Gallic fable with a sting in its tail that combines a celebration of glorious femininity with merciless mockery of men who are beguiled by it.

Gemma Arterton stars as Gemma, a freckle-faced English rose who moves into a rickety old house in a small town in northern France with her husband Charlie, played by Jason Flemyng.

Upon espying Gemma, their neighbour – a married middle-aged baker named Martin Joubert, played by Fabrice Luchini – is captivated instantly as he reflects that his first sight of her marks the end of  “10 years of sexual tranquility”.

The couple’s last name is Bovery, so Jouvert, a cultured Parisian who has escaped the capital’s financial rat-race to take over his late father’s bakery, projects upon them the fate of Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary”, a woman who has adulterous affairs and ends up deep in debt.

Fontaine (“Coco Before Chanel”) and Pascal Bonitzer’s clever screenplay is based on the graphic novel by Posy Simmonds, who also created “Tamara Drewe”, which Stephen Frears made into a film in 2010 also starring Arterton.

The film’s target is the fallible male imagination as four men find Gemma’s ineffable allure irresistible. Cinematographer Christophe Beaucarne (“Coco Before Chanel”) bathes the Kent-born actress in lambent shades and she proves to be as provocative in a simple dress and Wellies as she does in fancy duds.

Gemma is a decorator and Charlie refurbishes antiques so they soon fit in with the locals as she adapts quickly to the language and adores all things French. That comes to include the handsome young heir to a grand local estate, a boy named Hervé (Niels Schneider), as her marriage flounders, and Joubert’s Flaubert theory begins to unfold as she is drawn into an affair. The baker is moved to intervene with an untimely letter that disrupts events and will lead to betrayal and tears.

It is a comedy, however, although it becomes quite black at the end even amid laughter. The film makes it clear that Arterton’s striking beauty and zaftig figure are male ideals and pokes fun at a skinny Frenchwoman who pinches a little flesh on Gemma’s hip.

TIFF2014 'Gemma Bovery' Cliff 2

Her command of French is a source of humour as she orders breadstuff and when she is stung by a bee and stumbles over the French words to ask Joubert to suck out the poison.

Her unabashed love of France compares to the French woman and her British husband who rave about French wine and cheese but order all their other food from London.

Joubert has much to say on this and similar topics and he is keen to share with Gemma the pleasures of bread-making in a sensuous scene that Arterton plays artfully while Luchini’s baker hovers in suspended desire.

In scenes with the young heir, the actress is seen déshabillé but the director wisely does not have her disrobe fully even as she is surprised in flagrant delicto with tousled hair and honeyed limbs. Arterton gives an assured and winning performance as Gemma’s confidence wavers while Luchini’s comic delivery is deft and entertaining.

Beaucarne’s cinematography gives the whole thing a pleasing glow and the score by Bruno Coulais adds wit and substance to a very satisfying film.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival. Cast: Gemma Arterton, Fabrice Luchini, Jason Flemyng, Isabelle Candelier, Mel Raido, Niels Schneider. Director: Anne Fontaine; Writers: Pascal Bonitzer, Anne Fontaine from the graphic novel by Posy Simmonds; Director of photography: Christophe Beaucarne; Production designer: Arnaud de Moleron; Music: Bruno Coulais; Costumes: Pascaline Chavanne; Editor: Annette Dutertre; Producers: Philippe Carcassonne, Matthieu Tarot; Production: Albertine Productions, Cine@, Cinéfrance 1888, Gaumont. Running time 99 minutes.

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TIFF Film Review: ‘Pawn Sacrifice’

Posted on September 7, 2014 by admin

TIFF 'Pawn Sacrifice' Cliff

By Ray Bennett

TORONTO – Fast-paced editing, pumped-up music and an assortment of visual textures and styles serve to make a world chess tournament exciting for the uninitiated in Edward Zwick’s sprightly drama “Pawn Sacrifice”.

The director, who has made several exciting films from “Glory” (1989) to “Courage Under Fire” (1996) to “Blood Diamond” (2006), uses every trick in the book to recreate the tension that surrounded the 1972 World Chess Championships as it was experienced by devotees of the game.

Tobey Maguire produces and stars as American prodigy Bobby Fischer who was the great American hope against the Soviet-era giants of chess led by grandmaster Boris Spassky, played by Liev Schreiber.

It helps that the clash became the focus of worldwide attention as chess vied for the first time with World Cup soccer as a source of global patriotism and fervour and players were treated like rock stars.

The film tracks Fischer as a little boy whose skill and devotion to the game are positively scary through teenage victories to his emergence as a top player. It also tracks his increased mental instability although it wisely does not attempt to analyse it.

Born into a New York Jewish community with an absent father and a mother Bobby (Robin Weigert) who was a fervent communist involved deeply in politics, he was raised in an atmosphere of secrecy and suspicion, which later bloomed into extreme paranoia.

Known for his precise demands regarding where and when he would play and for how much, Fischer knew how important he was to American propaganda in the Cold War and he played the eccentric diva to a tee. Maguire grasps these complexities and conveys with brief smiles and distant gazes the notion that Fischer often knew exactly what he was doing. There are hints of illness too and the actor smiles rarely so that when he does it’s not clear if he’s marked a small victory or it’s a confirmation of his inner fears.

Schreiber plays Spassky with steel and charm speaking almost entirely in Russian. Michael Stuhlbarg is slyly effective as Fischer’s major supporter whose connection with the inner sanctums of power are just a bit sinister while Peter Sarsgaard is warm and convincing as the chess-playing priest who becomes Fischer’s second.

Supporting players are all effective and James Newton Howard’s propulsive score gives way frequently to the music of the time from acts such as Jefferson Airplane, Credence Clearwater Revival and the Spenser Davis Group.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival. Cast: Tobey Maguire, Liev Schreiber, Michael Stuhlbarg, Peter Sarsgaard, Lily Rabe, Robin Weigert; Director: Edward Zwick; Writer: Steven Knight, story by Stephen J. Rivele & Christopher Wilkinson, Steven Knight; Director of cinematography: Bradford Young; Production designer: Isabelle Guay; Music: James Newton Howard; Costumes: Renée April; Editor: Steven Rosenblum; Producers: Gail Katz, Tobey Maguire, Edward Zwick; Production: Mica Entertainment, Material Pictures. Not rated. Running time 114 minutes.

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TIFF 2014: A tale of three Equalizers

Posted on September 7, 2014 by admin

'The Equalizer' Edward Woodward Cliff

By Ray Bennett

File under “it’s a small world”: I’m at my old pal Ron Base’s place in Milton for a Sunday brunch chatting with another guest, Hans Gerhardt, who ran the Sutton Place Hotel in Toronto when it was a showbiz mecca.

Ron, a former newspaperman and screenwriter turned novelist, who writes the popular “Sanibel Sunset Detective” yarns, has known Hans for years and he edited the colourful hotelier’s memoirs, titled “Hotel Biz”.

Gerhardt mentions in conversation that his friend Michael Sloan will be at TIFF for the world premiere of “The Equalizer”, in which Denzel Washington stars as a former special-ops agent turned vigilante named Robert McCall, a character that Sloan created in the 1980s with his then partner Richard Lindheim.

Michael Sloan

Michael Sloan

Now, it happens that I interviewed Sloan back then for a story in TV Guide Canada about Edward Woodward (pictured with William Zabka, who played his son, and Dana Barron) who starred as Robert McCall in Universal TV’s “The Equalizer”. It ran on CBS in the US for four seasons from 1985 and on ITV in the UK from 1987.

I had brought a copy of that issue of TV Guide with me as I intended to write about it. Gerhardt asks Base to scan it and he sends it to Sloan. Cut to the Four Seasons Hotel in Yorkville on Saturday afternoon and I’m enjoying a very expensive glass of Chardonnay or two with Hans and speaking to Michael Sloan for the first time in 28 years.

'The Equalizer' by Michael Sloan book jacket x300It turns out that not only does Sloan have a producer credit on the new film but he has just published a novel titled “The Equalizer” that is separate from both the original series and the Washington picture although the central character remains Robert McCall.

That’s possible because Sloan owns all rights to the character except for TV, which are held by Universal. When he began to think about “The Equalizer” as a film almost 10 years ago, he went first to the Weinsteins but he says they had in mind a gadget- and effects-filled James Bond approach.

After four years, he’d had enough and took the project to Escape Artists at Sony who agreed it should be more character-based. Richard Wenk (“16 Blocks”, “The Expendables 2”) wrote the script and it landed with Washington. The star chose the director, Antoine Fuqua, who made “Training Day” for which Washington won his best actor Academy Award in 2002.Network 'Callan' The Definitive Edition' x300

Sloan says he is very pleased with the film and he hopes along with Sony that it will become a franchise for Washington. He plans more novels, too, if the first one does well.

Meanwhile, the Woodward version of “The Equalizer” is available on DVD and Fabulous Releasing in Region 2 has a box-set with all 88 episodes, which feature an astonishing number of big-name guest stars including Robert Mitchum, Kevin Spacey, Sam Rockwell, Telly Savalas, Robert Lansing and Richard Jordan.

Acorn Media in the US has Woodward’s earlier British show “Callan” on DVD and Network Releasing in the UK has plans to release “Callan” with the pilot, all the remaining black-and-white episodes from the first two seasons and all the colour shows from Seasons 3 and 4.

Sloan says that while the studio would have preferred an American star such as James Coburn to play McCall in “The Equalizer” it was Woodward’s performance in “Callan” and Bruce Beresford’s 1980 Australian film “Breaker Morant” that convinced him the British star was perfect for the role.

 

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Here’s the original ‘Equalizer’, Edward Woodward

Posted on September 7, 2014 by admin

Equalizer.TV Guide Cover x650

As Denzel Washington steps into the shoes of Robert McCall in “The Equalizer”, here’s what the original TV Equalizer told me about it in 1986. Edward Woodward died in 2009 aged 79.

Hey, instigator! Hypnotizer! Extricator!

No matter what you call him, Edward Woodward gets the job done – as The Equalizer

By Ray Bennett Continue reading →

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TIFF FILM REVIEW: Tom Hardy in ‘The Drop’

Posted on September 7, 2014 by admin

Fox 'The Drop' Cliff

By Ray Bennett

London-born actor Tom Hardy cements his increased movie stardom as a slow-burning tough-guy on the fringes of organised crime in Michaël R. Roskam’s vivid Brooklyn-based noir tale “The Drop”.

“Nobody sees you coming, do they,” a cop tells Hardy’s character and the actor’s ability to hide his intelligence behind slow movements and considered silence adds greatly to the movie’s suspense.

Adapted from his own short story titled “Animal Rescue” by crime writer Dennis Lehane, the atmospheric and tense little thriller tells of a nondescript New York tavern that is required at random to be the drop for the daily takings of a band of Chechen criminals.

Grim and moody with a score by Marco Beltrami and Raf Keunen that pulses with foreboding, the film follows events that will lead to a raid on the bar in question when its secret stash is at a peak on the day of the Super Bowl.

Hardy plays Bob, a taciturn guy who works at the bar run by his cousin Marv (James Gandolfini) but owned by Chechen mobsters. Bob is the kind of guy who will adopt a beaten puppy he finds in the trashcan of a woman named Nadia (Noomi Rapace) who lives in the neighbourhood. They also begin a tentative relationship.

A robbery at the tavern brings the threat of retribution by the mobsters and interest from the police as Nadia’s brutal ex-convict boyfriend Eric (Matthias Schoenaerts) shows up to claim the woman and the dog.

Belgian director Michaël R. Roskam sets a deliberate pace and builds a sense of increasing dread as Bob and Nadia grow closer, Marv begins to prove unreliable, Eric becomes more menacing and the grip of the Chechan gangsters tightens.

It’s rainy nights and gunplay as an old-fashioned film noir should be and “The Drop” should earn it’s way smoothly into the affections of fans who like their heroes on the quiet side.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival. UK release date Nov. 14, 20th Century Fox. Cast: Tom Hardy, Noomi Rapace, James Gandolfini, Matthias Schoenaert; Director: Michaël R. Roskam; Writer: Dennis Lehane; Director of photography: Nicolas Karakatsanis; Production designer: Thérèse De Prez; Music: Marco Beltrami, Raf Keunen; Editor: Christopher Tellefsen; Producers: Peter Chernin, Dylan Clark, Mike Laroca; Production: Chernin Entertainment, Fox Searchlight Pictures. Running time 106 minutes.

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