LAKEVIEW TERRACE (2008) - Neil LaBute

Neil LaBute was once known as a director who made gritty, misogynistic films that definitely weren’t family fare. His films were dark and menacing. So when it came to an unnecessary remake of the classic Wicker Man, LaBute seemed like a choice that may bring that menace to the film. Unfortunately for all involved, The Wicker Man remake was a complete disaster, widely derided for it’s unintentionally hilarious moments and ridiculously over the top performance by Nicholas Cage. LaBute needed a film to redeem him, and thus, we have Lakeview Terrace.

Chris and Lisa Mattson are a recently married couple. They buy a house in a part of Los Angeles that is well-off but infamous for the Rodney King incident of 1991. The couple move in next door to Abel Turner, widower and father of two. Turner is a Los Angeles cop by day and neighbourhood watchman and less than ideal neighbour by night. Turner is incensed when he oversees Chris and Lisa having sex in their backyard pool. He’s not angry at their antics. It’s the fact that Chris and Lisa are an interracial couple that causes his consternation. And so Turner embarks on a campaign of intimidation in an attempt to drive the couple away from the neighbourhood he has lived in for twenty years.



Lakeview Terrace could easily be seen as a pretty average thriller. The premise has been done before and is pretty familiar. However, the protagonists and their motivations are different here and that’s what sets the film apart from other similar films. In Lakeview Terrace, the antagonist is Samuel L. Jackson. And thus, the film raises questions that wouldn’t have been too easily derided had Turner been a white man. We now live in a world where the United States has it’s first elected black president, so Lakeview Terrace’s timing couldn’t be better. It’s just a shame for the film that it isn’t a widely-seen film. The film plays on the notion of white man’s guilt, which really emasculates Chris’ character, played by Patrick Wilson. He’s almost helpless to defend his home against Turner, who sees his anger not as intimidation but as righteous indignation.

The film draws it’s strength from a wonderfully creepy performance by Samuel L. Jackson. When it comes to roles, Jackson is bit like the man from Del Monte. He say yes... to literally every role. His performances can sometimes be flat and dull. But when a film requires more, Jackson can deliver. And he does so here. Turner’s definitely not someone I’d like to mess with. He’s creepy, intimidating and cold, and has the muscle to back it up. Jackson literally seethes with anger and looks like he’s ready to explode at any given moment. Compared to Turner, Wilson’s Chris Mattson is even meeker than he would seem against a regular guy. But Wilson’s got the meekness maintained at the right level. You know he’ll stand up to you. However, he won’t get violent. It’s something that Turner exploits throughout the entire film. Kerry Washington plays Lisa Mattson. It’s not an exceptional role, but Washington does enough to play the wife who loves her husband, but still recognises the difference in their cultures.



The film isn’t perfect. In the last act, it does resort to the conclusion you’d expect from a thriller like this. It’s a shame because you hope throughout the film that it won’t go down that road. Having said that, it’s not a bad thriller. Had it been another actor in the role of Abel Turner, I don’t think the film would have worked. Jackson does elevate it to something more than it should be. For LaBute, it almost makes up for the incredible disaster that was The Wicker Man. Almost.


7/10

JUMPER (2008) - Doug Liman

It gives me great pleasure to introduce a new contributor to the blog. He's a man with impeccable taste, and even better dress-sense. Hopefully this will be the first in a long line of reviews, so enjoy. Jumper, destined to be a classic will be the first of Fran Johnston's reviews. Fran, take it away-

Those crazy cork indie rockers The Sultans of Ping FC once asked the question where"s me jumper? well if their jumper was anybody like Hayden Christensen's character David Rice in the new Doug Liman film Jumper, He was off teleporting himself to far off places like Rome, Egypt, Paris, London or Fiji because that's what good Jumpers do! This might sound like a sweet deal. Being able to pop to anywhere in the world in the blink of an eye. Unfortunatly some people think its a feat that only God should be able to perform. Not least of whom, the righteous leader of a group know as the Paladins, Roland ( samuel L Jackson ), who wants to wipe the Jumpers from the face of the earth. And so begins, with the help of another Jumper named Griffin ( Jamie Bell ), David's fight against the Paladins for his life and the lives of the people he cares about especially his love interest Millie ( Rachel Bilson )

You might think this sounds like a great recipie for a movie. Especially coming from the man who brought us The Bourne Identity. But, even before I sat down in my seat the first bad omen appeared to me in the form of the panpipes version of Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On blasting out of the cinema speakers. Ok. Fair enough that was nothing to do with the movie but the second bad omen came as the film stared. A monolouge from Hayden Christensen's character David. I thought this was added to save us time by letting the character give us the history of the Jumpers as we drifted in to the begining of his story but it wasnt. It was just a few choice sentences about how great it is being a Jumper. The monolouge then ended never to be heard from again. awww!



The story of David Rice is actually put together pretty well. His relationship with Millie and the discovery of his powers cemented down very early on. His home life living with his deadbeat father and the absense of his mother established solidly and also giving him the perfect platform to run away and enjoy his new found powers.
It is when the grander scheme of the tale enters in the form of Roland though that things start going pear shaped. The basic plot of the movie is Paladins vs Jumpers but we are never given a reason why the Paladins are out to exterminate them. They mention that some Jumpers have gone bad but never say why and their hatred of the Jumpers just seems to stem from nothing. Roland himself coming accross as a near hitleresque character and claiming a divine right to murder these people who, for the record, are mostly just kids.
This massive hole in the history of the players in this movie just leaves you caring less and less about the characters and the story as the movie goes on which is a pity because you do get the feeling that the people behind the film were aiming to be original and not trying to make a no plot no problem movie.



Fifteen minutes before the end two lads behind me started to natter at overly audible levels. Normally I'd care but this time I didn't because you see we had something in common. The film wasn't holding our attention anymore. And as I sat there listening to people rummaging for the jackets they had stuffed under their seats I realised that we wern't the only ones.
Jumper seemed to promise so much but just couldn't deliver and in the end I just came out disapointed. It was like asking for a Transformer for your 10th birthday and getting a Gobot instead. The worst thing about it though was that normally I know if I have really enjoyed this type of film when I jump out the cinema doors wanting to be the main character. For example walking down the street flapping my coat about after seeing V for Vendetta or trying to memorise licence plates while looking like a moody bastard after seeing The Bourne Ultimatum. In this case though I didn't want to imagine I was teleporting out the doors or down the street while making my own sound effects and looking like a mental asylum escapee, I just felt like walking to the train station looking like a man who had just seen a very mediocre movie.
In saying that though as I climbed onto a rush hour train and had my head squashed against the armpit of a tall, overweight man, I did start to wish I could jump to a deck chair on top of the sphinx's head.


4/10

1408 (2007) - Mikael Hafstrom

There have been a great many of Stephen King's books and short stories that have been adapted into movies. Some have been great, like The Shining, The Shawshank Redemption and Carrie. And some have been, well, crap. Needful Things, Children of the Corn and, um.... The Lawnmower Man (shudder). Certainly, when it comes to adaptations, King must be one of the most adapted of authors. Over the years, I've enjoyed a great many of these adaptations. So it was with a certain amount of excitement that I went to see his latest adaptation, 1408, directed by Swedish director, Mikael Hafstrom.

John Cusack plays Mike Enslin, an author who specialises in the paranormal. As the film opens, we meet Mike as he researches his latest book, a kind of tourist guide to haunted hotels. It quickly becomes apparent that Mike was once a legitimate novelist. However, over the years he's become disillusioned, and while researching and documenting paranormal phenomena has become his job, he maintains a stark cynicism towards not only the spiritual world, but also the existence of god. After an accident while surfing, Enslin receives a post card from the Dolphin Hotel in New York City. The postcard reads only 'Don't enter 1408.' Naturally, Enslin's interest is piqued and he sets about booking a night in the Dolphin's 1408. There, he meets Gerard Olin, the manager of the Dolphin. Olin is vehement that Enslin does not stay in 1408. Over the years, the room has seen many bizarre deaths, and Olin does not want to clean up another. But Enslin is adamant, and gets his wish. He books into the room and begins a night that will test his sanity to it's limits.



Having grown up on a strict diet of horror movies, I've become very disillusioned with Hollywood's treatment of the genre over the last few years. I guess in a way, that disillusion is somewhat misplaced, as the horror genre has always been on the fringes of the mainstream. The great horror movies have been made by unknown directors (some of whom forged very successful careers in the industry), passionate about creating films to terrify audiences. But over the last few years horror has simply become a place where film makers can chuck buckets of blood at the screen, causing audiences to squirm with disgust rather than terror. So it's nice to see there are still, occasionally, films made that rely on psychology and good old fashioned camera and editing tricks (and a bit of CGI for good measure) to get scares out of the audience. 1408 isn't the scariest film I've seen. But it's still pretty good.

To be honest, 1408 is more of a psychological thriller than a horror movie. Parallels can be drawn between it and a previous (and much better) Stephen King adaptation, The Shining. They're both about authors. They're both about hotels. They're both about a father's relationship with his child. But that's where the similarities really end. 1408 is pretty much a one man show. Cusack is alone in the hotel room for almost the entirety of the film. The room is pushing him to the limits of his sanity. It wants to torture his mind to the point where he will kill himself. Cusack's performance is what the film really rests on. He has nobody to work off. He has to create the tension and drama pretty much alone. And it's to his credit that he does this quite successfully. Cusack's one of the most likable actors working (who doesn't like Cusack, honestly?!) and while Enslin isn't a particularly nice guy, you do find yourself sympathetic towards the guy. Samuel L. Jackson's role as Gerard Olin is little more than a cameo, but it's a pivotal cameo, as he sets the scene for Enslin and the audience and he does this very well.



Halfstrom's direction is pretty good. He sets up the scares pretty well. He keeps the film focused on Cusack's battle of wits with the room and occasionally throws the odd CGI moment in without making them too jarring. If there's any fault in the film it's that, after a very good first hour, the last act sort of loses it's way a little. It's a shame really, because if it had stayed as taught and smoothly flowing as the first half of the film, 1408 could have been a classic. It's nice to finally see a horror (or psychological thriller to the more pedantic of readers) that doesn't go for tired, repetitive, hackneyed blood and guts garbage that's about as scary as a teddy bear... unless that teddy bear gets up and walks towards you. And it's good to see a pretty decent Stephen King adaptation. But I still wait for one of those rare movies that literally terrifies me to my core. Not since Hideo Nakata's Ringu have I experienced it, and it didn't happen with 1408. An excellent John Cusack performance, and a pretty good if not great film.


7/10