Wild Card

For F*** Magazine

WILD CARD

Director : Simon West

Cast : Jason Statham, Michael Angarano, Dominik García-Lorido, Milo Ventimiglia, Hope Davis, Stanley Tucci

Genre : Action/Thriller

Run Time : 92 mins

Opens : 12 March 2015

Rating : M18 (Some Nudity & Violence)

If we were rich and famous and had our pick of any contemporary action star to be our bodyguard, we’d probably go for Jason Statham (if Dwayne Johnson were unavailable). In Wild Card, the Stath plays Nick Wild, a Las Vegas “security consultant” for hire. Young self-made millionaire Cyrus Kinnick (Angarano) procures Wild’s protection while he has a night on the town gambling. In the meantime, Wild’s ex-girlfriend Holly (García-Lorido) is dumped outside a hospital, having been beaten and raped and left barely alive. Wild somewhat reluctantly goes after the man responsible, gangster Danny DeMarco (Ventimiglia). Wild loathes Vegas, feeling trapped within the seedy confines of the city, and hopes to win big at the tables so he can cash in and move away to Corsica, leaving sin city behind.

            Wild Card is based on the book Heat, by nigh-legendary novelist and screenwriter William Goldman, whose credits include Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All The President’s Men. The book was the basis for a 1986 film starring Burt Reynolds. Goldman’s involvement seems to suggest that this just might be more than your run-of-the-mill Statham action vehicle. It’s different enough from typical Statham action fare, but not in a good way. Here’s the Catch-22 – most audiences are tired of the Brit playing the same character over and over again and yet, there’s also the comfort of knowing what you’re getting when you go to see a Jason Statham picture. Even if it’s mediocre – which they often are – at least there’ll be some cool stunts. Despite being marketed as an action movie, the fights in Wild Card are few and far between, with no big set-pieces whatsoever. Zero explosions, nobody hanging off the side of a hotel balcony, not even a car chase.

            Wild Card purports itself to be “character-driven”, which is becoming something of a buzz-phrase for action movies. There just isn’t enough to the Nick Wild character to help him stand out from the “cool heroes with impossibly awesome names” pack. The film stays purposely ambiguous on his backstory – he was probably in the military in some capacity, not that it really matters. There are glimmers of character development in that he’s the man about town and knows everybody in every corner. There just isn’t anything really distinctive to Nick and at the end of the day, audiences want to see Jason Statham wrestle bad guys, not wrestle with a gambling compulsion.

            There have been several disposable action flicks where the saving grace is a memorable, scenery-chomping villain. No such luck here. Instead, we get Milo Ventimiglia trying his best to be some shade of intimidating, which he doesn’t succeed at. As the tagalong kid, Michael Angarano is the dweeby semi-comic-relief, a sheltered rich kid who looks up to Nick for his toughness and swagger. There is an attempt to develop the relationship between the two characters but it fails to truly become anything interesting. There are several recognisable actors who pop up, but they do so for one scene each. Hi Sofia Vergara; bye Sofia Vergara. Hi Jason Alexander; bye Jason Alexander. Hi Stanley Tucci; bye Stanley Tucci. Of course, it is Tucci who makes the most impact, playing big-time Vegas crime boss “Baby” with his usual charisma.  The female characters don’t amount to very much either: Anne Heche plays a waitress and Hope Davis plays a croupier. Dominik García-Lorido is the victim-turned-Black-Widow, adding a dash of noir to the proceedings. There is one scene that will make all the men in the audience subconsciously cross their legs.

            Wild Card reunites Statham with Simon West, who directed him in The Mechanic and The Expendables 2. West is known for his bombastic action films and his forays into dramatic thriller territory such as The General’s Daughter are not well-regarded. There are many moments in Wild Card that made this reviewer think “this could make for a really cool TV show”. West consciously shies away from depicting Vegas as shiny and glamorous, instead embracing the seedy underbelly - and yet, he is obviously not the first director to give the town this treatment. There is one moment of striking symbolic imagery, with close-ups of a sewing needle piercing a cross-stitch Holly is working on as she recounts her sexual assault at Danny’s hands. Still, West can’t salvage this Jason Statham action movie that wants to be a Jason Statham drama but half-heartedly throws in a few punches and kicks just because it has to.

Summary: Wild Card is an episodic crime drama focusing on an uninteresting character instead of the action flick it’s advertised as. By the time Jason Statham takes on a bunch of thugs armed only with a butter knife and a spoon, it’s too little too late.  

RATING: 2 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

            

Grace of Monaco

For F*** Magazine

GRACE OF MONACO

Director : Olivier Dahan

Cast : Nicole Kidman, Tim Roth, Milo Ventimiglia, Parker Posey, Paz Vega, Frank Langella, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Derek Jacobi

Genre : Biography, Drama

Opens : 22 May 2014

Rating : PG

In his song “Grace Kelly”, Mika proclaimed “I’ve gone identity mad!” Grace of Monaco attempts to portray the crisis of identity the real Grace Kelly (Kidman) underwent. In marrying Prince Rainier III of Monaco (Roth), Kelly left her life as a Hollywood actress behind, but she was constantly reminded that the people of Monaco would not recognise the daughter of a Philadelphia bricklayer as one of their own. As France threatens to tax and possibly annex Monaco, resulting in a heated dispute between Rainier and France’s Charles de Gaulle (André Penvern), Kelly, now a wife, mother and princess, is tempted to return to acting.  Director Alfred Hitchcock (Ashton-Griffiths) comes calling with the script for his new film Marnie and with the whole world watching (and judging), the princess must decide what role she will play in the future of the principality.

            Many biopics have been criticised for taking a “cradle to the grave” approach, attempting to condense the entire lives of their subjects into two and half hours or so. Grace of Monaco instead focuses on a short, specific period in Grace Kelly’s life, which the actual royal family of Monaco claims has been highly fictionalised and is filled with factual inaccuracies. The film’s post-production process has also been turbulent, with director Olivier Dahan and distributor Harvey Weinstein feuding over the final cut and the release date being shuffled multiple times. The film ends up being overripe and uneven, hokey and melodramatic, if still watchable and somewhat palatable.

            Grace of Monaco is a pretty film to look at, cinematographer Eric Gautier dousing the movie in soft fill light. There are elegant costumes and sets galore, but one can’t help but feel a sense of artifice – at its worst, the movie evokes a movie-of-the-week affair, a pity given the marvellous La Vie En Rose, which Dahan also directed. The central conflict with its almost-intrigue and kinda-stakes just doesn’t feel as weighty as it needs to be, the film instead generating moments of overwrought emotion that despite Nicole Kidman’s best efforts, fail to ring altogether true. There’s even a montage that feels straight out of something like The Princess Diaries in which Grace Kelly takes elocution and history lessons in order to become a better princess.

            Nicole Kidman reportedly beat out the likes of Charlize Theron, Jessica Chastain, Amy Adams, Gwyneth Paltrow and January Jones amongst others for the coveted title role. She’s certainly not a terrible Grace Kelly, mustering up all of her glamour and, well, grace to play the part but there isn’t a lot of depth to the portrayal beyond “being a princess isn’t the fantasy it’s cracked up to be.” One would think that given the narrower scope of the film compared to a conventional biopic, we’d get more room for meaningful characterisation and Kidman tries, but ultimately doesn’t deliver a well-rounded depiction of Grace Kelly. We hear many frustrated exclamations, including “why must everything be so complicated?” and “Ah! So difficult!” At no point does “Nicole Kidman the actor” disappear for “Grace Kelly the person” to take her place. She does have her moments though, that climactic speech she delivers at the end is sufficiently moving. She’s also a good deal taller than her onscreen husband; something Kidman is probably used to.

Tim Roth is careful not to turn Prince Rainier into a stiff, stern caricature and while he doesn’t have much chemistry with Kidman, he is believable as the Prince pushed into a tight spot. Frank Langella is the requisite kindly father figure as Father Francis Tucker, one of Rainier III’s closest friends and most trusted advisors, warm and wise even when saddled with platitudes such as “at some point, every fairy tale must end”. Roger Ashton-Griffiths is a decent, convincing Alfred Hitchcock, playing the legendary director as a gruff but well-meaning uncle.

            Grace of Monaco is far from subtle – we get an ominous car/driving motif (of course) and some clumsy, on the nose cues in the score. It’s difficult to take the film entirely seriously, but perhaps there’s a charm in the kitsch and the silliness – it’s unlikely that it was what director Olivier Dahan intended, but for what it’s worth, Grace of Monaco is far from detestable or brazenly divisive. Sensationalised? Sure. More than a little awards-baity? You bet. But is it trash? Nah.

Summary: At one point, Princess Grace tells her husband “Rai, it’s just a movie”. Go into Grace of Monaco with that mindset and perhaps you might enjoy yourself. As a dramatic, insightful exploration of the life of the screen legend though, it mostly misses the mark.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong