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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 28 July 2010

Killers is (insert negative adjective here).  It’s been made solely for us to enjoy the beauty of Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl.  That’s what it felt like.  We get to see his bulging abs while shirtless in a lift.  We get to see her bulging breasts while standing around in her underwear.  I only wish as much focus went into the script.

The film begins in Nice with Spencer (Kutcher) and Jen (Heigl) bumping into each other at a holiday resort.  Next thing you know… they’re married.  Three years have passed and all is blissfully well.  What Jen doesn’t know is that her husband is an ex assassin.  He killed bad guys for some secret government organisation.  Those days are behind him however.  Spencer has hung up his gun and now works in the construction industry.

Well, I guess I’m not quite correct when I say he “hung up his gun”.  Firstly, he actually has several guns.  Secondly, he didn’t really get rid of them – he’s just hidden them around the house in case of an emergency.

Lo and behold, that situation is about to present itself.  Spencer is approached by his ex-boss and he quickly learns there’s a $20m bounty on his head.  Everyone’s out to kill him – friends, neighbours and work colleagues.  It doesn’t make much sense to me but apparently all of these people have been stringing him along for years… just waiting for the right moment to pull the trigger.  What a waste of time and effort.

Jen freaks out of course but once she calms down, she finds herself caught up in the mayhem and trying to fend off her husband’s attackers.  There are the obligatory car chases, gun fights and furniture throwing.  If this whole concept sounds familiar, perhaps you saw Knight & Day with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz a few weeks ago.

Australian Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde, The Ugly Truth) is the film’s director but he didn’t leave much of an impression on me.  There’s nothing special about the fight sequences and I didn’t believe for a second that Ashton Kutcher’s character could pull off some of his moves.  He’s just too goofy.

The film has one redeeming quality and that’s the performance of Catherine O’Hara as Jen’s mother.  She’s a humorous alcoholic and whilst the same joke is used again and again, she’s a lot funnier than Kutcher and Heigl.  That’s not just my opinion.  I base it on the audience’s reaction at the preview screening I attended. 

It’s trying to be funny and it’s trying to be cool but Killers doesn’t quite get there.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 20 July 2010

His character is Roger Greenberg.  He’s a guy from New York who describes his job as being “a carpenter for money”.  I don’t think business is going too well.  He’s accepted an offer from his brother to come out to Los Angeles and housesit while the family goes on vacation.  Roger has promised to build them a nice dog house for their loyal pet.

It’s probably an opportune time to mention that Roger is a very neurotic person.  He’s just spent time in a mental hospital and struggles to interact with other people.  It’s as if writer-director Noah Baumbach had written the character with Woody Allen in mind.  Roger isn’t quite as witty as Woody but he can certainly find the negative in any positive.

Roger’s life is about to derail once again when he falls for his brother’s personal assistant, Florence (Gerwig).  She’s a wanna-be singer with extremely low self esteem.  They’re an odd match but they do find an awkward comfort in each other’s presence (if that makes sense).  Some of the scenes they share together will leave you both laughing and cringing.

As a backdrop to the main story, Roger’s trip to Los Angeles has forced him to catch up with old friends he has long avoided.  They include his former best friend, Ivan (Ifans), and his one-time girlfriend, Beth (Leigh).

I’ve called it a drama but there are elements in Greenberg which step into black comedy territory (my favourite genre).  Roger and Florence are an interesting duo and I wasn’t quite sure what to make of them.  How would their semi-relationship pan out?  I was intrigued.  On the flip side, I wasn’t too concerned with the other players.  Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character felt unnecessary.

Worthy of a mention is the performance from Ben Stiller.  When you see his character and the way he acts, you’ll find it hard to picture him as the comedian from films such as Night At The Museum, Tropic Thunder and Zoolander.  He’s glum, he’s depressive, he’s moody.  Some viewers will be turned off by this non-Stiller role but I think he’s great.  He also gets a few quotable lines thanks to writer-director Noah Baumbach (The Squid And The Whale).

Greenberg is a strange film…. but I think that’s why I liked it.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 25 July 2010

I knew this film was in trouble after about 30 minutes.  Nothing was happening.  I started to ask myself questions like – “how could a movie like this get funding?”  Sadly, things didn’t improve.  I hate sticking the boot into local product but this is the most boring Australian film I’ve seen in a long while.

South Solitary is set in the 1920s and is about a 35 year old woman named Meredith (Miranda Otto) who has travelled with her uncle George (Barry Otto) to a remote island off the east coast of Australia.  George has been appointed as the new lighthouse keeper following the death of his predecessor.

There’s George, there’s Meredith, there’s a family, and there’s some other guy named Fleet (Csokas).  That sums up the inhabitants of South Solitary.  As you can imagine, it’s a bundle of excitement.  Meredith has a bath.  Meredith milks a cow.  Meredith chases a sheep.  These scenes left me shaking my head with disbelief.  Who could possibly find this interesting?

If you think that’s bad, try enduring the endless arguments that George has with those who help him man the lighthouse.  He’s a stickler for procedures and protocol.  While atop the lighthouse, he spends hours perusing through log books trying to find any evidence of poor performance.  It’s riveting stuff.

Perhaps it would be different if I developed some sort of emotional attachment to these characters.  I might have actually cared.  Alas, it was not to be.  The only glimmer of something “real” was an exchange between Meredith and Fleet in the film’s final moments.  I had other issues with this scene but at least there was an attempt to create a meaningful exchange between two characters.

Ok, so you get the point.  I hated this movie.  I realise there's an audience for every film but I'm struggling here.  Are there enough people to make this succeed at the box-office?  I don't think so. 

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 12 July 2010

It’s the story of Fiona (Mitchell) and Ben (Edgerton), an Australian couple who have travelled to India to adopt a child.  They’ve been waiting a long time and on arriving in India, they learn that their wait is going to continue for a few more days.  There’s a delay with the paperwork and they’re forced to sit in their hotel room while waiting for news.

You’d think this would be a happy time for Ben and Fiona but not so.  Their relationship is showing signs of strain.  The Indian heat and Fiona’s lost luggage are doing little to help the situation.  You’ll start to wonder if adopting a child is the best thing for this couple.  Are they doing it because they think it’ll bring them back together?

To its credit, the film goes down some paths that you might not expect.  I do like a movie which offers a few surprises.  I’m sure many will be affected the spiritual elements which come through in the final third.  I also enjoyed the developing friendship between Fiona and an Indian porter (Chakrabarti) who works at their hotel.  They come from completely different backgrounds but they have much to share.

On the flip side, I struggled to understand what point writer-director Claire McCarthy is trying to make when it comes to adopting children from other countries.  There’s one part of the film where she travels to her adopted child’s home village but nothing really comes of it.

I asked Radha Mitchell about this while hosting a question and answer session at the Brisbane premiere.  Her stance was that it’s better to have a mother than not have one.  She’d rather these children find a home in Australian than forever remain in an orphanage in India.  It’s a valid argument but it doesn’t come through strongly enough in the film.

As I continue to point out, films like The Waiting City have a non-existent marketing budget and need all the help they can get to find an audience here in Australia.  This isn’t the best Aussie film of the year but with strong performances and a distinct setting, it warrants your attention.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 21 July 2010

Inception may be the most intelligent action film you will ever see.  I’ve always believed that you cannot sum up the plot of a great film in a single sentence.  It’s proven true once again.  I’d need reams of A4 paper before even attempting to dissect this storyline.  It’s a stunning achievement - one that has been ten years in the making for writer-director Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Dark Knight).

So how do I describe the story?  I need to give you all something.  Essentially this film is about dreams.  What if we lived in a world where we had the power to share dreams?  What if we took this a step further and people were able to manipulate you in these dreams?  I know we’ve seen films about this subject before (Strange Days springs to mind) but it’s Nolan’s vision which makes this so impressive.

To use his own words, Nolan “wanted to create a film that would allow the audience to experience the limitless realities that only in dreams can we realize.”  The key word there is “limitless”.  It has given Nolan full reign to create some amazingly artistic sequences.  There’s a fight scene involving Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a hotel hallway which left me shaking my head with disbelief.

There are many players in this intricate tale but the central character is Dom Cobb (DiCaprio), a master in dream extraction.  He is paid to infiltrate people’s minds and coerce them into revealing their deepest secrets.  This is an incredibly powerful ability but as you can imagine, it’s also highly illegal.  Wanted by the authorities in America, Cobb was forced to flee the country and leave his young children behind.  All he wants is to find a way to clear his name and return home.

A wealthy businessman (Watanabe) is about to provide Cobb with that opportunity.  If he can pull off one final job, he will use his connections and allow Cobb safe passage back into the United States.  Their target is Robert Fischer (Murphy), the heir to a billion dollar energy business.  This is a very different assignment though.  Cobb will not be stealing memories.  He will be implanting them.  With the help of his team, he will be taking on this extremely risky process known simply as “inception”.

Legendary film critic Roger Ebert aptly described Inception as “a movie immune to spoilers: if you knew how it ended, that would tell you nothing unless you knew how it got there."  I must say though that the film does end on a perfect note.  Like everything that precedes it, it’s designed to leave you thinking and to leave you talking.  I just love movies like this.  I can picture the wry smile on Christopher Nolan’s face when he finally finished his first draft.  He must have known this was something special.

There’s not a lot of background to the story (such as how the dream extraction technology evolved) and some viewers may be critical of this fact.  I didn’t have a problem with it.  You must take your brain into the cinema but you can rightly leave your sense of reality at home.  It’s the only way you’ll be able to completely surrender to Nolan’s world and what he is trying to achieve.

The cast is a who’s who of my favourite actors – Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine and Cillian Murphy.  I’d pay to see any of these people in a movie but to have them all together is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  The cinematography, visual effects and editing are all wonderful but I want to make specific reference to Hans Zimmer and his intense film score.  He’s one of my favourite composers and this represents some of his best work.

You must see this film.  It is a film that cannot fully be described – it can only be experienced.  On that note, I must retire for the evening.  I wish you all sweet dreams.