list.co.uk/fi lm Reviews | FILM
DRAMA CAFÉ SOCIETY (12A) 96min ●●●●●
COMEDY DRAMA CAPTAIN FANTASTIC (15) 119min ●●●●● CRIME DRAMA THE INFILTRATOR (15) 127min ●●●●●
The clockwork-like regularity with which Woody Allen turns out his movies is comforting to a degree, but he’s more hit-and-miss than ever these days. Café Society is a beautiful-looking 1930s-set romance that feels like a film of two halves. Offering Allen a reunion with Jesse Eisenberg, who starred in 2012’s wayward To Rome With Love, the actor takes on exactly the sort of role the director would have played in his youth – a wide-eyed Jewish New Yorker named Bobby Dorfman.
Arriving in Hollywood, where his uncle Phil (Steve Carell) runs a top-level talent agency, Bobby is soon being shown round town by Phil’s spiky secretary Vonnie (Kristen Stewart). But as he begins to fall for her, there’s a hitch: Vonnie is also seeing the married Phil.
While Café Society feels like a 45-minute short that never develops properly, it is visually stunning. Allen is collaborating with the legendary cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, who conjures some arresting images amid the mansions and swimming pools of LA’s glitterati. But, ultimately, it’s a glistening confection that falls some way behind the likes of Midnight In Paris and Blue Jasmine. (James Mottram) ■ General release from Fri 2 Sep.
Viggo Mortensen finds one of the best roles of his career in Captain Fantastic, a quirky, crowd-pleasing ode to the joys and pitfalls of unconventional parenting. His bearded, mountain man patriarch Ben Cash has raised a family of six off the grid in the Pacific Northwest of America. Home schooling may have its virtues but it leaves the family ill-prepared for the real world they are obliged to confront on a cross-country trip to New Mexico. The road trip carries echoes of Little Miss
Sunshine, and the film doesn’t entirely escape the soft-hearted sentimentality of more commercially minded American indie fare. Ben is presented sympathetically, but there is no acknowledgement that he seems closer to a cult leader than a fantastic dad. Even when tensions grow and he is accused of having turned all the children into freaks, it never feels like a blinding revelation.
Captain Fantastic is contrived and contradictory as it champions rugged idealism without really challenging the practicalities of non-conformity. On the other hand, it is undeniably entertaining, with Mortensen a delight as an uninhibited free spirit. (Allan Hunter) ■ General release from Fri 9 Sep.
Adapted from the memoir of Robert Mazur, a US Customs official who apparently wormed his way into the most notorious drug cartels, The Infiltrator talks us through the Reagan administration’s mission to take down Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar via the international bankers happily laundering his cocaine-dusted millions.
What have become the clichés of the Donnie Brasco and co mini-genre make you sigh wearily at times. Pity, for example, Juliet Aubrey playing the resentful wife and having to deliver the usual set speeches about hubby neglecting his family, putting them in danger, getting too chummy with his female partner and his criminal targets. Sundry interchangeable, exaggeratedly Latino villains impulsively blow people’s brains out. And so on.
Bryan Cranston carries the movie as Bob, at
home in guises from bowling alley sleazebag to slick mafioso accountant and sympathetic throughout. Director Brad Furman (The Lincoln Lawyer) lulls us with character study rather than delivering a sharp jab, violent twist or shock you didn’t see coming in a generally unremarkable screenplay credited, in what may be a first, to Furman’s mum, Ellen. (Angie Errigo) ■ General release from Fri 16 Sep.
DRAMA AMERICAN HONEY (15) 164min ●●●●●
This is British director Andrea Arnold’s Wizard of Oz, taking the form of a vibrant and epic journey across America that sees a young woman named Star (impressive newcomer Sasha Lane) attempt to find a place to call home. It’s a rite of passage road trip that is incredible to behold, utterly transportive and packed full of wickedly alluring choreography and tunes. When 18-year-old Star spots a rowdy group of teens in a
supermarket singing and dancing to Rihanna’s ‘We Found Love’ she’s intrigued. She meets Jake (powerful work from a deliciously gross Shia LaBeouf), who asks her to come to Kansas City and join his crew of door-to-door magazine sellers. She’s hooked by his cocky attitude and starts falling for his charms, because anything seems brighter than her present state of affairs: living in an abusive home as a stand-in mother for two kids who aren’t her own.
On the road, Star learns to take risks and let loose. Her
relationship with Jake is portrayed as a heady romance, with the two exploring one another in sun-dappled fields and convertible cars. There’s a grimy ambience to it all which recalls the films of Harmony Korine and Larry Clark, and the music videos of Melina Matsoukas. The group of youths Star travels with are a mix of pot-smoking, vodka-swilling lost boys and girls who work hard and party hard, and the performances are suitably naturalistic. The pumping, almost continual blast of music is turned up to the max and includes songs from Lady Antebellum, E-40, Kevin Gates and Fetty Wap. Accompanied by the evocative cinematography of Robbie Ryan (who worked on Arnold’s three previous features, Red Road, Fish Tank and Wuthering Heights), it creates a spine- tingling and uplifting tale of untamed youth and rebellion. This is passionate and ambitious filmmaking. (Katherine McLaughlin) ■ General release from Fri 14 Oct.
1 Sep–3 Nov 2016 THE LIST 55