The Writers' Resource

Saw 'The International' the other evening and felt that Mr. Twyker let me down somewhat by the scripting of this so-called thriller.  I was bored stiff.  This, despite a killer world cast (Clive Owen, Naomi Watts for starters and Danish star,  Ulrich Thomsen ('Festen' 1998) and German star, Armin Mueller-Stahl ('Shine' 1996).

It was clear that Naomi's role was 'pasted on' to  redress the balance of males and females in some tokenistic way and her part made little sense at all.  A real red herring. 

The script was littered with amazing platitudes, 'Sometimes you find your destiny on the road you took to avoid it' being just one of them.  The rest I have erased from my mind already but they had me yoicking in my seat.

It felt, frankly, like the typical 'euro-pudding' so often complained about in these years of complex funding deals.

Clive's back-story (the usual gibberish of a wife and child killed by some mystery man) sucked as it had no bearing on the plot except to give a reason for his 'driven' character and motivate him to carry out one of Tom's trademark runs.  The music also wasn't up to the usual Twyker standard.

This film is a real mess.

Better by far in handling the tale of banks going power-hungry is that modest little offering 'The Bank' starring David Wenham (Dir. Robert Connolly, 2001) which actually has a cleverly worked-out method in the bank's procedure.  THis is what is missing in 'The International' - some understanding of how these bank deals are done at high level and a feeling that the writer had done any research into the complexity of financlial deals (which are actually quite fascinating, though the vision of someone on the phone or on a computer is quite boring).   THe other question is how the protagonists achieved their international travel so fast, getting guns across borders and TSA guard, never having to take off their shoes at airports etc. etc..  'The International'seems to ahve been written fifteen years ago and could do with a freshen up.

It would have been so much more interesting to avoid the fat-cat African General  altogether and look at machinations of his wife behind the scenes in a Lady Macbeth kind of way.

Very disappointing but great tourist shots of Istanbul. The Bond franchise would have handled it so much better andI jsut didn't buy into Clive Owen's character at all.  Or Naomi's (but that was not her fault but down to the crappy script.)

In theatres now on General Release.

Eric Bana is one of Australia's most loved actors.  He comes from a long pedigree of having worked around the traps, been a jobbing comedian and actor and rolling his sleeves up when there is work to be done.  An all round nice bloke, not given to throwing tanties or fits on set.  You won't find anyone in the industry bad-mouthing him because, well, there's just no need to.   He is a good bloke.

His hobby has been his old Ford card, 8 cylinder, souped up with more money than you could imagine spent on the hotting-up process (restoration over the top!).  The resultant road beast is almost unrecognizable from the Bathurst wannabe when teenaged Eric's Dad - Ivan -  let him buy it for a song. Ivan was semi-passionate about cars, but Eric and his mates made it an art-form.  This is the journey of the faded green car to shiny red and then to a heap of crush bits and pieces when Eric suffered a prang.  Unfortunately it is a pretty boring trip.  There's something structurally wrong with the doco overall.  There's no spice at the start to kick off the tale.  I think if it had have been my doco I would have started with the Jeremy Clarkson grab from 1:05:00 and worked my way back and forth around the story elements, the characters and their journeys which may have some interest. Because Jeremy's charisma really wakes up the narrative and that was needed early.

Don't think I know nothing about cars and tyres.  Hell, I worked on enough of them in the corporate sector and my challenge was always 'how to make this message, largely composed of Bat Excrement, something rivetting?' Mostly I succeeded.  But it was from playing with the elements to find their inner quirkiness and charm and I don't think Eric has been at all successful in 'Love the Beast'.  It would have, for instance, been nice to hear exactly in a nutshell what the rally nav's jargon meant even if that had been a super.  I liked the fact that mates had names supered more than once as it was important to short cut their involvement to feel some kind of kinship.  Dr. Phil was boring and perhaps there could have been someone taking a totally opposite view which, only too late, Jeremy Clarkson had a small bash at, as did Jay but these grabs were kind of tossed away.

The Voice over script was totally a wasted opportunity for some wry comment.  Far too heavy-handed and serious.  Where was the whimsy that makes 'Top Gear' so much fun?  This was all really another example of why Aussies just can't do intelligent comedy.  Slapstick, yes.  Parody, sort of.  But smart, themed wit.  Not IMHO at all.

But I do love Eric, his family and friends for being nice chaps.  It's just that this bond, thoroughly crapped on about by Dr. Phil, didn't quite make it to the screen.  Maybe Eric is so close to it that he through it  DID and there may have been a case for getting someone else to take over the directorial reins.

 In theatres right now, but I don't see people bashing the doors down to get a front seat though if you are a revhead, you may like to buy a copy of the DVD for the sparkling footage of the car (which, incidentally, was not showcased, stylised and celebrated nearly enough to make this a creative undertaking).

It would be easy to write of Anne Hathaway as a lightweight as she ticks all those boxes of 'celeb on the red carpet' but you just wait till you see her performance in 'Rachel Getting Married'!  Right from the start, the script nails you to your seat and takes you on a flight to family land, forcing you to watch every painful manipulation of parental, filial and partner love and a bit of the kindness of strangers on the way.  There are many 'eeeeew' moments but they are all so real that I was looking for my Dad over my shoulder for most of the film.  

Written by Jenny Lumet from a very real place, it has a production pedigree as long as your arm and the directr, Jonathan Demme, waalks a faultless line that never once falls into soapie or kitchen sink drama.  This is not a spoiler as it is in the logline, but Ann Hathaway's character, Kym, is actually only out on a weekend's leave from her rehab facility.  She is clearly not well as evidenced by the confrontation at the start of the story and the anxiously repeated 'Good luck' handed our by her gentle carer. Self-destruct packed in her overnight bag, she goes home to relive the neuroses of each individual in her family and gradually the unresolved root cause of her problem is brought to the fore.

Yet, hilarious  moments abound in amongst all this angst. Not slapstick as in 'The Royal Tenenbaums' (Dir.Wes Anderson, 2001 bloody heck, was it really that long ago????) which had Owen Wilson's heavy-handed zaniness occasionally getting in the way of what was a tragedy, 'Rachel Geting Married' features the most ingenious wedding you will ever see (I hope).  The chanting at the start of the aisle procession (and the rehearsal prior) MUST have happened to Lumet in real life.  The families involved are well-educated, successful and somewhat snobbily high-brow and this adds to the fun and Lumet and Demme and all the cast have a ball with giving these societal strata their place in filmic history.

Now adding to my list of people I want to have for dinner - Jenny Lumet and Jonathan Demme as I could have a long, private Q & A (which I am sure would bore them to death as they must be onto the next big thing by now). 

The meticulous quality of Anne Hathaway's performance makes her a sure bet for the Oscar this year but I suppose it will go to one of the others.  It is a teary ending, especially if you have had any substance abusers in your close circle.  But go for the ride and thank heavens that this is one wedding you don't have to shell out for a present, a hairdo, new outfit, spray tan etc. etc..

Sneak previews of RACHEL GETTING MARRIED starring Anne Hathaway in her Academy Award nominated performance, will take place at participating cinemas in Melbourne Friday 6 to Sunday 8 February. RACHEL GETTING MARRIED opens 12 February.

Run, don't walk to get your ticket and do see this before the Oscars and send out good vibes to Ms. Hathaway for her brilliant performance.

Now I can totally understand Bryan Singer deciding that to give Tom Cruise a Colonel Klink accent would not be a good decision in this true story of a German resistance fighter in the second world war, but somehow, hearing the American accent and watching the pretty-faced Tom just deflects from the story.  The rest of the cast is awash with Brit Rep stars (Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy etc.) and they too, confuse the identity of the gang that sought to knock off Hitler and thus, end the suffering of the German people.  It really becomes annoying despite the fact that Cruise opens the movie in his best German accent.  I checked with a German mate whosaid that his German accent was acceptable but to my ear it sounded very soft and not convincingly clipped.

Having said that, this is a terrific war thriller and even though I knew the story, it was involving from the start. Real 'edge of the set' material. Bill Nighy again trotted out his party piece - insert fading rock star performance here - and there was one burst of hysteria from his lips that almost had me rolling on the floor laughing. Sorry, Bill, but you need to re-orient your style.  Add to this the fact that I had just seen 'Underworld' and I was set.  What made this more confusing is that the 'driving through the pine forest' music was almost the same in both movies.  Hmmm, those Japanese drums are very trendy at the moment.

The story is great and Tom Cruise's effectiveness as an actor is easily seen - he can sustain a role perfectly and builds his character well.  Sadly, the motivation for his action and passion is not really established.  We don't see the starving German populace.  We don't see the angst in which those people also lived nor the paranoia that thrust many of them into labour camps along with the people they tagged as pariahs.  Like the French Terror, the people who supported the war eventually suffered greatly. But this is not shown.  Instead we see Stauffenberg's wife played by the lovely Carice van Houten as an elegant and wealthy woman living as if there were no war except for an inconvenient occasional air-raid. 

Strange note:  the German version was on SBS on the same night as I previewed Bryan Singer's version!  And it starred Sebastian Koch, the current squeeze of Carice van Houten and totally brilliant German actor.  It was a far preferable role and the glass eye actually gets to go down the sink at one stage.  Rivetting!

On general release open 22 January 2009.