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X-Men: Days of Future Past Outstanding #1 Worldwide & in Singapore!Posted on 27 May 2014 |
SYNOPSIS: South is the foreman of Sunk Creek Ranch and a feared enforcer for the cattle baron Judge Henry, who took him in after his parents were killed by rustlers. As part of his duties he is to look after a writer from the big city, Owen, who has come out West to research a novel. Owen is appalled at the savagery of the land, in particular the way cattle rustlers are treated. As South tells him, rustling cattle in Wyoming is worse than shooting a man in the back. There's a rash of rustling that is decimating Judge Henry's operation and South is trying to get to the bottom of it and find the rustlers. Along the way he romances the new schoolteacher in town, Molly, who takes a liking to South until she learns what his job entails. She urges him to avoid bloodshed. As South seeks clues as to who is doing the rustling he finds answers he wishes he hadn't.
MOVIE REVIEW:
Country music star and occasional actor Trace Adkins plays the title role of North dubbed The Virginian by his long-time friend. He works for Judge Henry (Ron Perlman) as sort of an enforcer making sure his ranches are well taken care of and free from cattle rustling.
Troubles brew for North when Judge Henry hires a sleazy helper Trampas (Steve Bacic) to assist in cases of missing cattle. Fortunately for North, he has the helping hands of New York writer Owen Walton (Brendon Penny) who has arrived in town to research for his book. Justice, corruption and deception rules the day as North begins an investigation behind a spate of mysterious killings.
Apparently, the source material of The Virginian is quite a big deal. It’s based on a 1902 first ever-Western novel and has been notably made into movies and television series over the years. Much of the time, the plotting establishes North as a no-nonsense character. He lives by a code, grants no mercy to rustlers and he only answer to Judge Henry who treats him as his future successor in the ranch business. Well, he does have a romance partner in the form of Molly West (Victoria Pratt), a schoolteacher being coaxed by North to teach the children in the town.
Trace Adkins’ performance as North is rather impressive not bad for someone whose day job is a country singer. Ron Perlman can easily beat the crap out of any monsters and his presence is certainly felt as the dubious Judge Henry.
The Virginian is not the sort of Wild West adventure that features lots of action, spectacle and stunts. While definitely not in the league of Lone Ranger and 3:10 to Yuma, this budgeted TV-like western is a genuinely well-told effort to sit through.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
NIL
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The audio and visual aspects are serviceable for this title.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
SYNOPSIS: EVERYBODY’S BUSINESS is the story of one people, one nation... When twenty-two people fall victim to a widespread bout of food poisoning, everyone- from the people on the street to the higher echelons of government office is asking "How?". John Lu, a hygiene inspector from the Ministry of National Environment is tasked with finding the answers. He traces the source of the contaminated food to an old-school coffee-shop run by the cantankerous Mr and Mrs Wong Fei and in the process uncovers an even larger national issue- dirty public toilets. John and his colleague Winston put in a report to the head of their department who realises that in order to overcome this problem, a new ministry must be formed. Thus, the Ministry of Toilets is formed, handling any business to do with Singaporeans' business- big business, small business, all business. However, it is through the collective experience of trying to achieve a common goal that everyone realises a simple truth- that nobody's job is really easy; that the grass is not always greener on the other side and that sometimes people shouldn't stop at just identifying a problem but also become part of a solution. Your Business...is Everybody's Business.
MOVIE REVIEW:
It’s hard to produce a good satire comedy let alone one that pokes fun at the rather delicate Singapore’s political scene.
From the creative minds of Jack Neo, Lee Thean-Jeen (Homecoming), Boris Boo (Phua Chu Kang the movie) and journalist Ng King Kang comes Everybody’s Business, a not-as-bad-as-you-initially-thought kind of local movie. Sure it has Lee at the helm but the flick sure has stamps of Jack Neo all over it.
Bringing his fond of jabbing at social and political issues to another level, Everybody’s Business talks about the problems faced by government officers John Lu (Gurmit Singh) and Winston Lee (Mark Lee) who works at the newly setup Ministry Of Toilets after a major outbreak of a food poisoning case in a coffeeshop. Together with appointed Minister Kumari Kuppusamy (Kumar), the Ministry is in charge of handling Singaporean’s businesses in the most efficient and cleanest way. Encountering a pair of problematic coffee shop owners, Mr and Mrs Wong (Wang Lei and Liu Ling Ling), the officials realized it’s never easy to put words into actions and convinced the people on the ground.
In typical Neo fashion, the jokes usually consist of local hot topics that will appeal to the man on the street and with plenty of snappy Hokkien-peppered dialogs courtesy of Wang Lei, Liu Ling Ling and Marcus Chin, it sure make the exchanges far more interesting than it ought to be. There are plenty of exaggerated moments mostly a chance to showcase an endless slew of defecating and fart gags such as the bursting of a sewer, which caused massive toilet chokes islandwide. But still, there’s never a dull moment and amidst all the silliness causes one to laugh and reflect at oneself.
Gurmit and Mark pairs up again after Taxi! Taxi! and their chemistry is undeniable. Kumar, Singapore’s best know drag queen deserves more screentime in his role as Minister. Liu Ling Ling and Wang Lei practically chew up the screen whenever the two is together. In short, while Everybody’s Business is merely a touch-and-go exercise on the local politics arena, it generates enough fun for a single viewing. The older folks might relish it because of Ling and Lei.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
The DVD comes with a Music Video and Trailer
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The audio aspect is serviceable and the visual as good as a TV feature.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
SYNOPSIS: Written and directed by Vincent Kok, Hello Babies will tell how members of the older generation, eager for the arrival of a grandson on whom to dote, find ways to urge the younger generation to bear children. Lei Ming (Raymond Wong Pak Ming), a Malaysian businessman, is disappointed to discover that his sworn enemy, Yang Awei (Eric Tsang), is expecting a grandson. As a result, Lei Ming pushes his grand-nephew to carry on the family line, threatening to cut off his living funds if there is no progress. He even hires a “superstar midwife” (Sandra Ng) to supervise the couple’s love life.
MOVIE REVIEW:
With the exception of Ip Man, famed filmmaker Raymond Wong hasn’t produced a decent memorable production in the last decade. Once again rodeoing his way into the Lunar New Year circuit is Hello Babies, another run out of the mill festive offering from Wong’s now frequent go-to-man Vincent Kok (Hotel Deluxe, Love Is Pyjamas).
It’s the Chinese belief that every family needs a son to carry on the family line. Uncle Lui Ming (Raymond Wong) is a rich tycoon/Datuk who has a married brat of a nephew Scallop (Ronald Cheng) and his wife Cher (Fiona Sit) that are feeding on his wealth. Desperate to have a grandchild, Ming hired a superstar midwife Gong San (Sandra Ng) to assist in the couple’s childbearing or faced their allowances being cut off. The problem is Mr and Mrs Scallop has no wish to have any babies because they themselves behaved liked two rambunctious kids.
A total of four writers are credited for this mediocre flick including Kok himself. To work out the Math, each of them probably contributed less than 25 minutes of material. As usual, there are plenty of misses than hits for example a yoga workout scene seems it’s ripped off from the 2009 comedy Couples Retreat and Uncle Lui Ming’s supposedly suffering from Alzheimer hardly raises a chuckle except watching Wong in drag. Though I must add, there’s one scene that parodies The Grandmaster which I termed as pretty well done.
It’s no surprise Wong’s Hello Babies offer a generous amount of stars as per tradition. This time round he even roped in his old rival Eric Tsang for a role. Fresh face includes singer George Lam’s son Alex and the usual culprits, Ronald, Fiona, Karena Ng and Lynn Xiong. Hey even Jan Lamb, Miriam Yeung, Raymond Lam (Karena’s beau) and Louis Koo dropped by for some entertainment to fill up the 90 minutes flick.
Hello Babies is yet another stale offering that unabashedly appears to net some angpow money before you spent it on the next Hollywood blockbuster. Just remember whenever there is a Lunar New Year, they will always be Raymond Wong.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
NIL
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Audio is presented with the option of the original Cantonese and Mandarin tracks. Visual is brimming with clarity.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
People have often mistaken the heart thumping theme used in the trailer for Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) as an original composition from the film. Nope, that piece of music (which we have often heard being used in trailers on our national TV) isn’t the “LOTR theme”. Fans of English composer Clint Mansell would tell you, it’s a specially rearranged track from the soundtrack of Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (2000).
Fourteen years later, Mansell has created another memorable score for Aronofsky’s first blockbuster epic (and for the record, every one of the visionary filmmaker’s works). Like his previous works The Fountain (2006), Moon (2009) and Stoker (2013), the 51 year old composer has again impressed us with another must own score.
The album producers are generous with this CD, including 78 minutes of minutes for film score lovers. Mansell collaborates with American string group The Kronos Quartet to bring listeners on a swirling, brooding epic experience. The album is divided into four sections: Wickedness, Innocence, Judgement and Mercy. Each section is thematic not only by the track titles, but also the mood the talented musician creates to bring us through this tale of darkness, melancholy and hope.
Kicking off the CD is the ominous “In The Beginning, There Was Nothing”, a foreboding tune featuring electronic percussions, keyboards and cellos. Moving on, things get gloomy and forlorn with “The End Of All Flesh Is Before Me”, before “Make Thee An Ark” brings about a rousing tone. Emotions are peaked in “Every Creeping Thing That Creeps”, an almost operatic cue that closes on a stirring finale.
Things become dark in “By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed”, an action cue that is signature Clint Mansell – full of tension and drama without resorting to repeated electronic beats (a certain Hans Zimmer he is not). Before the somewhat dim “Mercy Is” performed by Patti Smith kicks in, Mansell soothes your senses by calming the storm down with “Day and Night Shall Not Cease”.
By then, you would have been brought on a whirlwind musical journey. While this soundtrack may not go down well after one listen, it is a score album worthy of our highest recommendation because it is rare we get gems like this these days. We’re looking forward to the next Clint Mansell work already.
ALBUM RATING:
Recommended Track: (8) Every Creeping Thing That Creeps
Review by John Li
Genre: Drama
Director: David Frankel
Cast: James Corden, Alexandra Roach, Julie Walters, Colm Meaney, Mackenzie Crook, Valeria Bilello
RunTime: 1 hr 43 mins
Rating: PG
Released By: GVP
Official Website:
Opening Day: 1 May 2014
Synopsis: The true story of Paul Potts, a shy, bullied shop assistant by day and an amateur opera singer by night who became a phenomenon after being chosen for -- and ultimately winning -- "Britain's Got Talent".
Movie Review:
Before Susan Boyle became a household name from her participation in ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, there was a chubby cell-phone salesman from Wales named Paul Potts who blew the judges away on the programme with Puccini's aria “Nessun Dorma”. As unlikely as the possibility of the son of a steelworker performing a pitch-perfect rendition of the operatic tune may sound, the talent show sensation who grew up a misfit in an industrial steel town wiped the smirk off Simon Cowell’s face with his gorgeous performance, eventually going on as one of the judges predicted to win the first season of that reality show.
Produced by none other than Cowell himself, ‘One Chance’ is the dramatisation of Potts’ rise from obscurity as he overcomes a litany of misfortunes - a disastrous audition for his idol Pavarotti, a ruptured appendicitis, a car accident, financial woes - to realise his dream of being an opera singer. That’s not all. Potts also has to contend with an incessant childhood bully, a less-than-supportive father, and a severe lack of confidence on his journey to embrace his love for opera - though he does find comfort and encouragement in a girl he meets in an Internet chat room and subsequently falls in love with.
If all that sounds like material ripe for a typical Hollywood feel-good underdog tale, it is. At the helm of this crowd-pleaser is ‘The Devil Wears Prada’s’ David Frankel, working from a script by ‘The Bucket List’s’ Justin Zackham, and just by that pedigree alone, you can probably guess that Hollywood may have some influence over how this against-the-odds tale of triumph is told. And true enough, some details have been changed in order to fit a more conventional storytelling formula - most glaringly, that the real-life Potts was in fact a city councillor in Bristol where he lived before moving to Port Talbot.
Despite the creative liberties, there is no denying that Frankel’s retelling is a funny and immensely appealing heart warmer that, like ‘The Full Monty’ and ‘Billy Elliot’, tugs at your heartstrings with its story of characters who overcome adversity and low self-esteem to become more than their blue-collar environments would allow them to. You’ll find yourself rooting for Potts no sooner than he stands up in front of a local pub full of hecklers dressed like a clown to perform Pagliacci in order to win himself the prize money of a talent competition to pay for opera school in Venice; and even more so when he returns home after crashing and burning his all-important audition, as his father proclaims that he’s had his great adventure and proceeds to sign him up for a job at the local steel mill.
As the likeable loser who refuses to let his circumstances get the better of him, Tony Award winning actor James Corden gives a thoroughly winning performance from which much of the film’s charm derives. The British comedian best known for his stage appearances in ‘The History Boys’ and ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ is effortlessly likeable in the lead role, and he receives warm support from the adorable Alexandra Roach as his delightful wife Julz as well as Colm Meaney and Julie Walters as his working-class parents; in particular, some of the most heartfelt bits of the film are found in the unassuming relationship between Potts and Julz - played with winning chemistry between Corden and Roach - whose marriage is put through the wringer in tandem with the ups and downs Potts faces in the pursuit of his dream.
So even though it does hew closely to formula, ‘One Chance’ is sweet, funny, poignant and inspirational stuff that reinforces the possibilities that passion and perseverance may bring. Call it schmaltzy mush if you may, but there is genuine heart in this true story of one man’s triumph against adversity from both within and without. And right at the centre of this uplifting story is a love story, a romance that begins with one of the most disarmingly affecting meet-cute encounters that we have seen in recent times and transforms into a moving reaffirming model of true love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.
Movie Rating:
(It’s crowd-pleasing stuff all right, and formulaic though it may be, also sweet, funny, heartfelt and ultimately winning)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: John Stockwell
Cast: Gina Carano,Cam Gigandet, Danny Trejo, Luis Guzmán, Stephen Lang, Treat Williams
RunTime: 1 hr 48 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Violence and Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/IntheBlood
Opening Day: 5 June 2014
Synopsis: MMA star Gina Carano (Haywire, Fast and Furious 6) stars as Ava, a trained fighter with a dark past in this intense action/thriller from director John Stockwell (Blue Crush, Crazy/Beautiful). When her new husband (Cam Gigandet, Twilight) vanishes during their Caribbean honeymoon, Ava uncovers a violent underworld of conspiracy in the middle of an island paradise. Armed with a deadly set of skills, Ava sets out to discover the truth – and to take down the men she thinks are responsible for her husband’s abduction, one by one.
Movie Review:
On their Caribbean honeymoon, Ava (MMA fighter turned movie star Gina Carano) finds that her husband Derek (Cam Gigandet from Never Back Down) who came from a rich background is mysteriously missing after he is injured in a ziplining accident. The ambulance carrying him never reaches the hospital and the local police (played by Luis Guzman) instead of investigating the crime believe Ava is actually responsible in staging Derek’s disappearance so as to collect his insurance payout.
Obviously one, we know this is not the case. Two, Gina Carano is ready to kick balls and by balls, we mean many of them. Thus Ava went on a Taken-style rampage on the island, rounding up suspicious characters and beating the crap out of them, sometimes applying a little torturing. Carano is more than believable in serving huge amount of butt-kicking moves, it’s a pity however there isn’t any significant set pieces to justify her presence.
The motive of the kidnapping when revealed is hardly compelling and the flimsy backstory of Ava which concerned her deceased outlaw father (Avatar’s Stephen Lang) dispensing advice and combat moves to her is pure rubbish. Amaury Nolasco (Transformers, A Good Day to Die Hard) plays the main villain Silvio, a role which requires him to be pretty busy in the movie’s unnecessary prolonged finale. One of VOD favorite stars Danny Trejo (Machete) also pops by for a role as an ambiguous crime lord, Big Biz.
To their credit, the scriptwriters and director John Stockwell (Into the Blue, Turistas) makes good use of their leading star and the $20 budget to shoot a relatively serviceable action pic, which at times looks pretty awkward on the big screen I must add. The editing looks coarse, bad lighting surfaces and a number of the shots seem to be captured on someone’s smartphone.
It’s alarming to see Carano’s career diverging into the straight-to-DVDs territory that quickly despite her much applauded debut in Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire and a stint opposite Dwayne Johnson in Fast & Furious 6. The lady sure deserved better than this cheap VOD release and we really wanted her to be the next female Stallone or Schwarzenegger.
Movie Rating:
(Carano kicks ass but the movie sure isn’t)
Review by Linus Tee
Genre: Romance/Drama
Director: John Woo
Cast: Zhang Ziyi, Song Hye Kyo, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Huang Xiaoming, Tong Dawei, Masami Nagasawa, Hitomi Kuroki, Lin Mei Hsiu, Jack Kao
RunTime: 2 hrs 9 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Battle Scenes)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website:
Opening Day: 4 December 2014
Synopsis: In the year 1945, the Chinese army led by General Lei Yi Fang (Huang Xiaoming) defeats the Japanese troops. Tong Da Qing (Dawei Tong), a signaller from the army, successfully captures Yan Ze Kun (Takeshi Kaneshiro), a Taiwanese doctor working for the Japanese army. After the Japanese surrender, the three embark on different paths. Lei returns to Shanghai and marries Zhou Yun Fen (Hye-Kyo Song) who comes from a rich family. Yan returns to Taiwan only to find out that his lover, Noriko (Masami Nagasawa), has been repatriated to Japan. As for Tong, he falls in love with a nurse, Yu Zhen (Zhang Ziyi). Life seems peaceful for awhile until the Chinese civil war breaks out and changes the lives of many. In fear of political changes, many rush to board the Taiping, a Chinese steamer that is heading for Taiwan. A last ray of hope for the people, the ship departs...unfortunately, it meets with an accident and capsizes. Is all hope gone or will there be a chance of survival?
Movie Review:
Four years after making waves in Chinese cinema with the ambitious and yet immensely satisfying ‘Red Cliff’, John Woo has taken that metaphor literally in yet another expensive historical epic diptych. Widely dubbed as China’s answer to Hollywood’s ‘Titanic’, it is built around the sinking of the steamer Taiping after its collision with another vessel while en route from Shanghai to Taiwan’s Keelung Harbour on January 27, 1949, leading to the deaths of about 1,000 refugees fleeing the rule of the Communists at the height of the Chinese Civil War. But to set expectations right, you won’t even get to see the start of that doomed voyage by the end of this movie, which really is meant to establish three different sets of characters whose fates converge on board the Taiping.
Given the historical context, Woo has chosen to ground this opening half against the backdrop of the conflict between the Nationalists and the Communists that gripped China at the turn of the half-century. Indeed, each of these characters find their stories set in motion by the revolution – on one hand, the stoic and honourable General Lei Yi Fang (Huang Xiaoming) of the National Revolutionary Army fighting a losing battle at the frontlines, his beautiful socialite wife Zhou Yun Fen (Song Hye-Kyo) waiting for his safe return in Taiwan, and his comrade-in-arms Tong Da Qing (Tong Dawei); and on the other, the nurse Yu Zhen (Zhang Ziyi) searching for her long-lost lover by volunteering at a makeshift hospital in Shanghai for the wounded as well as the Taiwanese doctor Yan Ze Kun (Takeshi Kaneshiro) also looking for his long-lost Japanese lover Noriko (Masami Nagasawa).
Over the course of two hours, Woo’s screenwriter Wang Hui-Ling (of ‘Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon’ and ‘Lust, Caution’ fame) plots the intersecting paths of these characters with varying results. Of the three characters pining to be reunited with their loves – Yi Fang, Yu Zhen and Ze Kun – the last gets the shortest shrift, despite having potentially the most interesting arc. Ze Kun’s mother’s objections to his relationship with Noriko is only given cursory mention, and doesn’t go much further beyond the fact that Noriko is of the same race as the Japanese imperialists who had before occupied the island. Yu Zhen’s determination to be reunited with her lover at the frontlines of battle at least resonates in parts because of the extent that she is willing to go to search for him, even sacrificing her ‘body’ so she can save enough money to buy a ticket to Taiwan where he may be.
But the bulk of the screen time is dedicated to Yi Fang, or more precisely, his frustration at being made to wait out for weeks with hundreds of starving troops in the cold snowy mountains while his superiors consolidate their positions in much better environments. Much to our relief, Yi Fang spends most of the second half of the movie apart from his wife Yun Fen, the latter of which settles in a quiet house in the lush Taiwanese countryside trying to write a tune that ultimately forms the backbone of Tarô Iwashiro’s score. Ironic as it may be, their time spent apart from each other is more moving than that spent together, which consists of four utterly cringe-worthy scenes of Yi Fang meeting the vivacious Yun Fen at a dinner party, falling wildly in love with her (and her with him) while dancing the waltz barefoot, and promptly marrying him after a brief (reckless) drive in a jeep in the woods.
Notwithstanding that Woo has consciously made this film in the vein of ‘Casablanca’ or ‘Gone with the Wind’, it is precisely the romance at the heart of each of the three overlapping stories that is its weakest link. If you need good reason why Woo should stick with machismo, then look no further than the clumsy exchanges or the ham-fisted melodrama between the couples that is supposed to demonstrate just how much they can’t bear to be apart from each other. Woo doesn’t so much romanticise the proceedings than drench them in syrup, and let’s just say if you had goosebumps from what passed between Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack and Kate Winslet’s Rose, then you’ll be literally breaking out in cold sweat here. The only relationship that doesn’t come off hokey is strictly speaking only half a romance, and that is of Da Qing’s yearning for Yu Zhen, with whom he paid off to pass off as his wife in a photo so he can get more rations.
Those hoping for the sort of grand battle sequences in ‘Red Cliff’ will probably be sorely disappointed as well. As much as Woo doesn’t shy away from portraying the carnage of war, be it spurts of blood when bullets go through flesh or bodies being blown apart, there is none of the thrill that comes simply from a properly choreographed sequence. There’s no doubt war is a messy affair, but there is too little semblance of continuity between the gratuitous shots of scores of soldiers charging at each other or vehicles getting eviscerated from underneath. The fact that too many of them happen in slo-mo is even more ingratiating, exacerbated by the blatant framing of some shots meant as feeble justification for the higher 3D price in selected theatres.
No doubt for commercial reasons, Huang spends more time onscreen than any other character, but the actor is either too stoic in his scenes with Song or too expressionless as that of a commander forced to watch his men starve, freeze and eventually die. Zhang fares much better as the devoted lover willing to sacrifice all to be reunited with the man she loves; hers is unequivocally a more nuanced performance balancing determination and vulnerability. Kaneshiro is sorely wasted in a role that is acutely underdeveloped, and even the lesser-billed Tong is given a more substantive character to work with. The other actors barely register, except for Korean actress Song’s impressive ability to deliver her lines in Mandarin.
It’s no secret that ‘The Crossing’ is Woo’s passion project, which the veteran Hong Kong director has chosen to make in two parts presumably so that his audience can develop a certain attachment with his characters before they meet their tragic end on board the Taiping. Unfortunately, Woo has chosen to make this first part by way of a wartime romance, and while Woo has shown he can be good with the former, he proves here for the first time that he is quite inept with the latter. That clumsiness has unfortunately crossed over to his portrayal of the former, which frankly lacks persuasion or poignancy. Seeing as how different the concluding chapter will likely be from the first, we hope Woo will pick up the pieces and forge a more compelling voyage come six months later.
Movie Rating:
(Shockingly inept whether as a war movie or as a wartime romance, ‘The Crossing’ sees John Woo stumble out of the gate with one of the least additions to his pantheon by far)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Comedy
Director: John Turturro
Cast: John Turturro, Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Vanessa Paradis, Sofia Vergara, Liev Schreiber, Max Casella, Bob Balaban, Eugenia Kuzmina
RunTime: 1 hr 30 mins
Rating: R21 (Some Sexual Scenes and Nudity)
Released By: GV and MVP
Official Website: http://fadinggigolo-movie.com
Opening Day: 15 May 2014
Synopsis: Fioravante decides to become a professional Don Juan as a way of making money to help his cash-strapped friend, Murray. With Murray acting as his "manager", the duo quickly finds themselves caught up in the crosscurrents of love and money.
Movie Review:
The premise is titillating and sexy – A man decides to become a gigolo after his friend tells him that someone is looking for a male body to be involved in a ménage a trios (if you are a young reader who aren’t sure what this means, go check it up with Google). Of course, things aren’t that superficial with the storyline. This was done with the aim of helping a friend who is in need of money. Ridiculous sounding? Yes. A potential human drama? That’s a yes, too.
Given a R21 rating with consumer advice “Some Sexual Scenes and Nudity”, we wouldn’t blame you if you paid good money for a ticket, hoping to see some action. But a closer look at the two leading men of this American production will tell you this is not “that kind” of film.
On one end we have John Turturro. For the mainstream audience, you’d identify him as Agent Seymour Simmons in MichaelBay’s Transformers movies. For fans of arthouse cinema, he is a cast member of films like The Big Lebowski (1998) and O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000). Did you know that the 57 year old is also an established writer and director? A past nominee at Cannesfor his directing efforts in lesser known films like Mac (1992) and Illuminata (1998), Turturro is a versatile artiste who makes his presence felt in many areas.
It is no wonder then, that fellow filmmaker Woody Allen said yes to starring opposite Turturro in his latest work, playing a down and out old man who decides to take on a new “career” as a pimp (you weren’t expecting Allen to be the one taking off his clothes for “business”, were you?).
The two men have wonderful chemistry in this 90 minute feature, which explores nothing really groundbreaking if you seriously think about it. The usual themes of true love and how money can be a threat is told through Turturro’s script, and these are nothing new you haven’t heard before. What makes this film work are the scenes showcasing the two men’s casual banter and exchange. Allen and Turturro appear to be real friends chatting about life, giving each other ideas on what to do about certain situations. It does not seem like they memorised anything from any pre existing script, and it is a pleasant watch seeing the two men talk.
Where are the scenes warranting the R21 rating then, the concerned paying “customer” may ask. Well, there are a few fleeting sexual scenes alright, but they are not as titillating and sexy as you may expect a movie with the title “Fading Gigolo” to be. Sure, the filmmakers decided to throw in names like Sharon Stone (Casino) and Sofia Vergara (TV’s Modern Family) to excite the audience, but their involvement in the film isn’t what you’ll expect from Basic Instinct and Machete Kills. The supporting cast also includes French singer model actress Vanessa Chantai Paradis (Dubai Flamingo) and Liev Schreiber (The Last Days on Mars).
To sum it up, this is not a film you go to excite your senses. If you’re looking for a laid back movie experience without superheroes, explosions and monsters, then this is the one you’d go for.
Movie Rating:
(A simple and straightforward film featuring winning chemistry between John Turturro and Woody Allen)
Review by John Li
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BOB HOSKINS (1942 - 2014)Posted on 01 May 2014 |
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