Skip to main content

Cinema Film round-up: January 16, 2020

MARIA DUARTE and ALAN FRANK review Just Mercy, A Hidden Life, Midnight Traveller, Weathering With You, Waves and Bad Boys for Life

Just Mercy (12A)
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton
★★★★★

THE CLAIM by US lawyer and academic Alan Dershowitz that “the American justice system is built on a foundation of not telling the whole entire truth” is strikingly confirmed by this powerful and cumulatively nerve-wracking true story of black lawyer Bryan Stevenson’s history-making battle for justice.

After graduating from Harvard, he ignored lucrative job offers and instead headed for Alabama to defend African-American Walter McMillan who, despite lack of genuine evidence, faced execution after being convicted of murdering an 18-year-old white girl.

That Stevenson, who founded Alabama’s Equal Justice initiative, ultimately won an “unwinnable” case that lasted years is a powerful tribute to his refusal to accept the legal and endemic racial discrimination that sentenced McMillan to die in the gas chamber.

The narrative, vividly bought to life by screenwriter director Destin Daniel Cretton, who co-wrote the screenplay with Andrew Lasham, surgically dissects the pungently septic Southern justice system. McMillan was finally cleared by a superior state court and released to return home to his family.

Cretton’s focussed storytelling racks up nerve-scraping suspense, showcasing powerful performances by Michael B Jordan as Stevenson and Jamie Foxx as McMillan, with Brie Larson adding sterling support as Stevenson’s legal advocate.

A Hidden Life (12A)
Directed by Terrence Malick
★★★

TERRENCE MALICK'S eclectic work is an acquired taste but this is the most relatable and watchable film he has made to date.

It's based on the real-life story of an unsung hero, the Austrian peasant farmer Franz Jagerstatter (August Diehl) who refused to take the oath of allegiance to Hitler during WWII.

A devout Catholic and father of three young girls, he also refused to fight for the nazis, preferring to lose his own life rather than kill for the Third Reich.

The film draws on the actual letters Jagerstatter and his devoted wife Fani (Valerie Pachner) wrote to each other while he was in prison. It was these, and his love for her and their children, that kept him going through the beatings and torture he suffered at the hands of the nazis.

Though visually stunning, Malick's signature style of inscrutability, soporific voice-overs, choppy editing and scenes of people saying very little, sucks the power and the emotion out of such an incredibly moving and tragic story about love, sacrifice and a crisis of faith.

What the three-hours-long film crucially fails to reveal is that Franz was declared a martyr and was beatified by the Catholic Church in 2007 for his unsung act of heroism.

Maria Duarte

Midnight Traveller (15)
Directed by Hassan Fazili
★★★★★

IN 2015, after the documentary Peace played on Afghan national television, the Taliban assassinated the film’s protagonist and put a price on the head of film-maker Hassan Fazili, forcing him, his wife and his young daughters to flee their home.

The refugee documentary he went on to produce of their lengthy and gruelling journey to Europe seeking safety, is vividly summed up when, hearing her father say: “Hell is other people,” Fazili’s eldest daughter Nargis disagrees.   

“The road of life winds through hell,” she responds and her words frequently ring true during the family’s often nightmare odyssey.

I found it increasingly difficult, and ultimately impossible, to recall seeing a film imbued with as much genuine emotional truth as Midnight Traveller, whose extraordinary protagonists overcame everything from people-traffickers, aspirant abductors and unhelpful officials before they finally achieved safety.

Even more extraordinary, perhaps, this riveting story was filmed on three mobile phones.  

Eat your heart out, Hollywood.

AF

Weathering With You (12A)
Directed by Makoto Shinkai
★★★

FROM the creators of Your Name comes another gorgeously animated and engaging anime feature with a mystical and supernatural edge.

It centres on high-school boy Hodaka Morishima, who runs away from his island home to move to Tokyo. After landing a job as a writer for a shady occult magazine he meets and befriends a young girl called Hina Amano, who has special powers. She can manipulate the weather by stopping the rain and making the sun shine.

Another captivating but surreal film by writer-director Makoto Shinkai, it stormed the Japanese box office. Highly  reminiscent of Studio Ghibli, it feels just as long and complex, and may lose you towards the end.

But it's a definite must-see for anime lovers.

MD

Waves (15)
Directed by Trey Edward Schults
★★

HIGH-SCHOOL wrestling champion Tyler (Kelvin Harrison Jr) lives the teen dream, partying with friends and enjoying girlfriend Alexis (Alexa Dermie), despite his domineering father pushing him to be better.

But when Alexis tells him she is pregnant, Tyler’s life implodes. Murder and a life sentence ensue  and, in writer-director Trey Edward Schults’s overlong and overwrought melodrama, the story segues into another teenage romance between a white boy and an African-American girl.

Sunlit Florida locations are a considerable asset in adding much-needed realism to a slew of increasingly over-the-top and unconvincing plot, summed up by the line: “This is taking too long,” during a gruelling hospital death scene.

Schults extracts strong leading performances despite, notably in the Tyler sequences, muffled dialogue and serves up just enough plot to fuel a long-running TV soap which, in the ultimate analysis, Waves all too persuasively resembles.

AF

Bad Boys for Life (15)
Directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah
★★★

TWENTY-FIVE years since the first film, and 17 years after the sequel, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence reunite as the odd couple of Miami cops Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett in another hugely entertaining, non-stop action-packed high-speed ride.

It's like they have never been away and it's a sheer delight to watch them back in action, with their fast-talking banter, constant bickering and priceless on-screen chemistry. Their characters are now battling middle age and new-school policing involving drones and young tech-savvy detectives.

While Burnett (Lawrence) embraces retirement after having become a grandfather, Lowrey (Smith) feels he is still at the top of his game. Refusing to admit he has slowed down, he drives around in a Porsche yet secretly dyes his goatee.

But when Lowrey discovers he is being hunted by a ruthless and relentless assassin, Burnett comes out of retirement to help him stop the killer.

Directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the film contains breakneck car chases, elaborate shootouts, massive explosions and a high body-count, in keeping with Bad Boys I and II.

Although it loses the plot somewhat towards the end, you can't help but care for these two ageing but lovable characters. Smith and Lawrence are on formidable comic form and Bad Boy fans won't be disappointed.

MD

 

OWNED BY OUR READERS

We're a reader-owned co-operative, which means you can become part of the paper too by buying shares in the People’s Press Printing Society.

 

 

Become a supporter

Fighting fund

You've Raised:£ 13,288
We need:£ 4,712
3 Days remaining
Donate today