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Film REVIEWS
DRAMA 360 (15) 110min ●●●●●
In spite of a high-visibility, award-laden personnel – the writer of The Queen and Frost/Nixon, Peter Morgan; the director of City of God and The Constant Gardener; Anthony Hopkins, Jude Law and Rachel Weisz among the cast – this weighty worldwide web-of-life met with a lukewarm response at its Toronto premiere last year, and was slow in finding UK distribution.
Clearly it suffered from the fact that this sort of structure – multiple lives that touch and then split off in ways that emphasise both our separateness and our deep connections – has become a cliché, and an unsatisfying one at that. Looked at coolly, 360 has its successful elements and sequences. Law, Hopkins and Weisz, playing characters variously troubled by historical and current sexual indiscretions, are all unusually underplayed, and all good. The cinematography, by Adriano Goldman, is supple and elegant. The problem is that there is way too much going on, and limited depth. Morgan piles sub-plot on to sub- plot – infidelity! Eastern European sex traffic! Alcoholism! Blackmail! Rehabilitation of sex offenders! – as if he’s simply set himself a personal challenge to out-web Guillermo Arriaga (writer of Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel). The consequence of this dubious ambition is that no
character has time to develop, and crazed coincidences are required to keep them all in the required loop of interconnectedness. Morgan’s dialogue, meanwhile, is yet more clunkingily expositional than usual. The global success of The Queen was doubtless partly down to Morgan’s style of spelling things out for the benefit of the dullest-witted viewer; but in a film that affects to embrace complexity, his literalism is an awkward fit; and people are too prone to the sort of dramatic personality conversions that only happen in the movies. (Hannah McGill) ■ Selected release from Fri 10 Aug.
THRILLER JACKPOT (15) 85min ●●●●●
ACTION THE BOURNE LEGACY (12A) 134min ●●●●● DANCE FILM STEP UP 4: MIAMI HEAT (PG) 97min ●●●●●
The Jo Nesbø phenomenon shifted from publishing to cinema with the unexpected box-office and critical success of this year’s drama Headhunters. Following quickly on its heels, director Magnus Martens has adapted an original story by Nesbø to create a blackly comic thriller that plays in the cheerfully morbid style of the Coen Brothers’ Fargo. Oscar Svendsen (Kyrre Hellum) seems doomed
to a downtrodden existence in a Christmas tree factory populated by ex-cons but the tables are turned when Oscar’s workmates gather at his flat to watch a football match, and discover that their joint syndicate has won the pools. Amicably splitting the loot is not on the cards, and soon the dishonour amongst thieves leads to sudden death.
While lacking the glamour of Headhunters, Jackpot doubles the measures of comedy and violence, with a squirm-inducing emphasis on the incompetent ways in which the criminals attempt to dismember each other’s corpses. While not a game-changer, Jackpot is the kind of sprightly low- budget import that is likely to reward fans of the Nordic crime genre. (Eddie Harrison) ■ Selected release from Fri 10 Aug.
From the opening shot of a man swimming in the water to the closing sounds of the franchise’s signature song, Moby’s ‘Extreme Ways’, The Bourne Legacy feels like a Bourne movie in every way – with one exception. No Matt Damon. So how do you make a Bourne movie without Bourne? If half as much attention was paid to story and character as it was to dance choreography then Step Up 4: Miami Heat might be something worth shouting about. Sadly, the latest entry in the seem- ingly interminable franchise offers more of the same contrived scenarios.
Tony Gilroy, who penned all three previous Once again the plot sees a boy from the wrong
episodes, has come up with an elegant solution. Rewinding to the last episode, The Bourne Ultimatum, Gilroy’s script weaves a new story around old events and characters.
For his first Bourne directorial assignment, Gilroy marshals the action impressively. And in Renner, he has the perfect star. One of many jaw-dropping stunts Renner takes on sees him run up the side of a house – Spider-Man eat your heart out.
If there’s a problem with the film, it’s that, unlike the amnesiac Bourne, Renner’s character knows exactly who he is and why he joined up – which fatally removes the mystery that drove the original trilogy. In the end, The Bourne Legacy is a survival story, albeit a sleek and sophisticated one. (James Mottram) ■ General release from Mon 13 Aug.
side of the tracks (Ryan Guzman’s Sean) falling in love with a misunderstood rich girl (Kathryn McCormick’s Emily). Pitted against them is her developer father (Peter Gallagher), whose desire to redevelop the corner of Miami where Sean and his crew reside places a strain on their relationship. As with most movies in this genre, the film comes
alive whenever the talking stops and the dancing starts but even then director Scott Speer lets his performers down by coming over needlessly flashy in the editing room. Amanda Brody’s script, mean- while, is rife with clichés, cheesy dialogue and pre- posterous lapses in logic while the acting is mostly poor with Guzman and former So You Think You Can Dance reality show finalist McCormick provid- ing a bland central presence. (Rob Carnevale) ■ General release from Fri 10 Aug.
9–16 Aug 2012 THE LIST 117