Susan Hated Literature

Dir: Edgar Wright
Writ: Simon Pegg & Edgar Wright

• Simon Pegg - Sergeant Nicholas Angel
• Nick Frost - PC Danny Butterman
• Bill Bailey - Sergeant Turner
• Tim Barlow - Treacher
• Jim Broadbent - Inspector Frank Butterman
• Olivia Colman - PC Doris Thatcher
• Timothy Dalton - Simon Skinner
• Paddy Considine - DS Andy Wainwright

Basically, if you didn’t like Shaun of the Dead you probably won’t like this film. Okay, so there are no zombies here, but the style of humour remains the same. Personally I loved it.

Pegg plays the role of Nicholas Angel, a tough city cop transferred to the countryside because his fellow police officers (never policemen, that’d be sexist), not to mention his superiors, think that his excellent work is damaging morale and statistics. In comparison to him everyone else looks crap. Moving to the country is not exactly ideal for Angel, and village life doesn’t really seem to suit him. On his first night there he ends up arresting half the village, mainly for under-age drinking, he also locks up fellow police officer, and future partner Danny. Because this is a cop buddy movie, and we all know that they have to start with conflict between our two heroes.

I thought the film opened a little on the slow side, not dull or anything, but smiles rather than laughs. However once it got started it made for great viewing. And the editing was fantastic. It is a parody of a cop/buddy movie, so expect plenty of references to action films, Point Break and Bad Boys 2 especially. If you haven’t watched at least a few of these films you’ll be missing out.

Nick Frost was really great in his role, I’ll admit that I saw him as “just the sidekick” type in Shaun of the Dead, and although he plays the same sort of role, supporting Pegg, he does a great job. You’ll also want to watch out for a host of comedians and actors that show up.

A great night’s entertainment.

IMDb | Hot Fuzz video diaries | Damien G | Write’n'wrong | Obsessed with film | Stainless Steel Droppings

Related posts

• Sideways (0)
• War (0)
• The Third Policeman (4)
• The Squid and the Whale (0)
• The Guardian (5)

Writ & Dir: Joe Carnahan

• Jeremy Piven - Buddy ‘Aces’ Israel
• Ryan Reynolds - Richard Messner
• Ray Liotta - Donald Carruthers
• Ben Affleck - Jack Dupree
• Andy Garcia - Stanley Locke
• Alicia Keys - Georgia Sykes

You know I really wanted to enjoy this film. The trailer promised gunfights and bullets and blood and gore, but all in a flashy, enjoyable way. The film didn’t deliver.

It was far too much of a muddle, and it seemed as though it wasn’t really sure what sort of a film it wanted to be. Was it a serious crime film? A buddy-cop film? A flashy film heaving with comedy and violence? It tried to be all of them, and failed, ending up as a mess of a wannabe stylish flick.

Don’t get me wrong, it had some good scenes, some laughs and some style, it just didn’t work as a whole. If only it had decided whether it wanted to go dark and serious or violence and fun.

The Aces of the title is Buddy ‘Aces’ Israel, who knows a hell of a lot about the workings of a crime family that the FBI would love to put away, so when they hear about a hit on him they go to work in an attempt to protect him and get him to give evidence. But agents Messener and Caruthers aren’t the only ones after Aces. There are the bail bondsmen determined to track him down, and then there is a whole host of assassins out to collect the bounty on his head. We all know this won’t end without a lot of bloodshed.

Blood there is in bucketloads, but very little else.

IMDb | Director’s blog | Moview reviews for greedy capitalist bastards | Confessions of a film critic

Related posts

• War (0)
• Pathfinder (0)
• Miami Vice (4)
• Curse of the Golden Flower (5)
• We Own the Night (7)

Dir: Andrew Davis
Writ: Ron L. Brinkerhoff

• Kevin Costner - Ben Randall
• Ashton Kutcher - Jake Fischer
• Sela Ward - Helen Randall
• Melissa Sagemiller - Emily Thomas
• Clancy Brown - Capt. William Hadley

Grizzled old veteran teaches impudent new pup how to be a rescue swimmer.
And that is about it.

But if that was all I said it’d make for a pretty short review, so I’ll just bullshit away here for a few minutes. The Guardian is a pretty crap version of Top Gun only instead of planes and war you get oceans and rescues. But the rest is fairly similar; elite training camp, male bonding, token females, death of team-members, training montage etc etc. But all in all it isn’t terrible.

It is however full of very cliché in film history, so there are no surprises at all, everything happens exactly as you might expect. Even the “cool slow-motion shots” occur when you think they might. The only thing surprising about this film is the length. It does drag towards the end. And the beginning. And the middle isn’t too well-paced either.

But it is still watchable, laughable yes, but also watchable.

IMDb | Reason To Believe | PopDVD | The Renaissance Man

Related posts

• Orcs (1)
• Ladder 49 (0)
• Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (9)
• War of the Worlds (2)
• War (0)

Dir: Alexander Payne

* Paul Giamatti - Miles
* Thomas Haden Church - Jack

Thank God, a good film. A great film even, and seeing as the films I saw before this were stinkers, what a relief.

Jack and Miles are best friends, Miles is Jack’s best man for his upcoming wedding. So they head off for a least week of freedom. So far, it could be any buddy film, with all the horrors that might entail. But don’t worry, this is no gross-out film, instead it is a character driven comedy.

Its hard to try and summarise the plot of this film, because this film is so involved in the characters rather than the plot. Miles, an unpublished author is hiding a drink problem behind his “wine-tasting”, while Jack just wants to sleep with anything that moves.

It may take a little while to get into, we have to be introduced to the characters afterall but don’t be put off by that. This is a fantastic comedy that, while full of subtlety and small moments, also has some great laugh out loud moments. All I’ll say is lovely bobble hat. If you see the film you’ll understand

Related posts

• Juno (7)
• Hot Fuzz (9)
• The Third Policeman (4)
• The Squid and the Whale (0)
• Step Brothers (1)