The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1

For F*** Magazine

THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY - PART 1

Director : Francis Lawrence

Cast : Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore, Natalie Dormer, Willow Shields, Woody Harrelson, Evan Ross, Elizabeth Banks, Sam Claflin, Robert Knepper, Gwendoline Christie, Donald Sutherland, Jena Malone, Stanley Tucci

Genre : Fantasy/Adventure

Rating : PG13 (Some Violence) 

Run time: 123 mins

It’s time to raise the three-finger District 12 salute and whistle that four-note motif again because another Hunger Games movie is in theatres. Following her actions in the Quarter Quell, Katniss (Lawrence) has been whisked away to the secret stronghold of District 13. Her best friend Gale (Hemsworth), sister Prim (Shields) and mother (Paula Malcomson) are among the survivors from the Capitol’s bombing of District 12 taking refuge in 13. President Alma Coin (Moore), along with Plutarch (Hoffman), is in the midst of staging a revolution, calling on Katniss to become the face of the uprising. Despite being reluctant to after the trauma she experienced in the arena, Katniss assumes the role of the symbolic “Mockingjay”. Peeta (Hutcherson), who couldn’t be rescued, is held in the Capitol and forced by President Snow (Sutherland) to make televised appearances exhorting a ceasefire. Because of this, he is branded a traitor by the revolutionaries, but it only strengthens Katniss’ desire to rescue him and the other victors even more.

            Mockingjay – Part 1 has followed in the footsteps of the Harry Potter and Twilight franchises by going the “last book adapted into two movies” route. Both Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Breaking Dawn – Part 1 did a lot of treading water in padding things out. While Mockingjay – Part 1 fares far better than Breaking Dawn thanks to its denser plot, there’s still a degree of disappointment to be had from sitting through two hours of set-up, even if it is pretty good set-up. Introducing audiences to the subterranean District 13, there is the credible sense that this revolution is coming to a head. Moving past the Games themselves, we get to see more of the other districts, including the lumber-producing District 7, and power-generating District 5 with its massive hydroelectric dam. There is an increased sense of scale without it feeling like bloated and empty spectacle. There’s also more of the helicrafts in action, two of which Katniss shoots down with her bow and arrow.

            The film still is character-driven, Jennifer Lawrence returning to her star-making role with more of the drive, indignant determination and just the right amount of vulnerability she brought to the first and second films. Unlike a number of young adult novel adaptations, Mockingjay – Part 1 does a good job at establishing that there is much more to the story and the world than the protagonist’s personal struggles and heartache, without downplaying the importance of that. The premise of the franchise is televised bloodsport in which teenagers kill each other for the entertainment of the elite and to keep the masses in line. The role of media manipulation in shaping the perceptions of the public gets further explored here with the introduction of Natalie Dormer’s Cressida, a Capitol film director who defects to District 13. That the resulting propaganda films or “propos” end up looking like movie trailers is a sly, effective touch without having it go all Starship Troopers on us.

            The politics of The Hunger Games is one of the key components that gives it an edge over other film series aimed at a similar demographic. Julianne Moore retains her stern exterior (looking more than a little like Ysanne Isard from the Star Wars expanded universe) but plays a warmer, kinder authority figure than moviegoers are used to seeing her as. Both skilled actors, she and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman make for believable collaborating revolutionaries – this marks their fourth time co-starring in a movie. The film is dedicated to Hoffman’s memory and while he completed shooting all his scenes for Part 1, some of Plutarch’s scenes in Part 2 will have to be distributed to other characters.

            Much of the emotional content of the first two films was derived from the relationship between Katniss and Peeta and director Francis Lawrence uses the fact that the two characters are separated to generate a good amount of tension and anguish. Peeta being used as the Capitol’s new mouthpiece in his interviews with Ceasar Flickerman (Tucci) is contrasted and compared with how Katniss takes up the mantle of the Mockingjay for District 13. The role of Liam Hemsworth’s Gale is also expanded. It seems director Lawrence is all too aware that there are still detractors who dismiss this series as mopey teen romance, so scenes in which the love triangle is addressed appear sparingly.

            If Catching Fire was analogous to Empire Strikes Back, then Mockingjay – Part 1 is like if Return of the Jedi ended right after the escape from Jabba’s clutches. Perhaps this is an exaggeration, but there’s no denying that the climactic sequence, which director Lawrence has said was inspired by Zero Dark Thirty, feels like in belongs in the middle of a movie. Still, fans of the first two films are most likely more than willing to wait a year for the series’ conclusion and there is enough that takes place here to enticingly set the stage for the finale.

Summary: Despite suffering from “Part 1-of-a-two-parter-adaptation-itis”, the politics of Mockingjay and the turning gears of the revolution make this an intelligent, absorbing entry in the series.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

The Counsellor

For F*** Magazine

THE COUNSELLOR

Director: Ridley Scott
Cast:    Michael Fassbender, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Brad Pitt, Dean Norris, John Leguizamo, Natalie Dormer, Rosie Perez, Richard Cabral, Sam Spruell
Genre: Thriller, Drama
Run Time: 118 mins
Opens: 28 November 2013
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scene, Violence and Coarse Language)

Why do people swim with sharks? After all, sharks have a long-standing reputation as fearsome creatures, nature’s perfect predator, and the self-preservation instinct in all of us dictates that we stay as far away from them as possible. Perhaps some have nerves of steel, others wish to face their fears; some are drawn to the allure of living on the edge, others convinced that the circumstances are controlled and safe and that sharks are largely misunderstood.



Here, our “swimmer” is the Counsellor of the title (Fassbender), otherwise unnamed. He seems to have everything: he’s handsome, wears lots of Armani and is very much in love with his girlfriend Laura (Cruz). He has, however, run into money troubles and decides to enter into an illicit drug deal with eccentric kingpin Reiner (Bardem). Within Reiner’s circle are his vampy love Malkina (Diaz) and middleman Westray (Pitt). The Counsellor is also the court-appointed lawyer to convict Ruth (Perez), mother of a high-ranking cartel figure (Cabral). Of course, things go awry, as things must, the Counsellor’s existence crumbling apart as the days go by, all he holds dear at stake.



The Counsellor is directed by Ridley Scott, from a script by nigh-legendary novelist Cormac McCarthy, author of No Country for Old Men, The Road, All the Pretty Horses and Blood Meridian. The Counsellor is the veteran writer’s first screenplay, and what an unfortunate clunker this is. The dialogue consists almost exclusively of endless strings of platitudes, opaque threats and nauseating anecdotes of violence and sex. Cringe-worthy, faux-portentous lines like “I think the truth has no temperature” crop up repeatedly. The shootouts and a car chase seem like very perfunctory insertions, as if they’re there only to fulfil some unwritten requirement about a thriller film involving the drug trade.



Yes, Ridley Scott has earned his reputation as a well-regarded director and does stage some shocking moments of graphic violence fairly effectively. There’s a bit with a motorcycle and a trip wire, and a scene involving the deployment of a “bolito”, a nasty motorised garrotte. The problem is, the material isn’t very cinematic and it seems even he finds it hard to make two people talking to each other look interesting or dynamic.



In addition to the pedigree behind the camera, the film’s mostly solid cast also contributes to how ultimately disappointing it is. Seeing all those names on the poster should whet the appetite and admittedly, these actors aren’t bad. Michael Fassbender’s Counsellor seems to be caught in a moral dilemma and he does have some moments of gut-wrenching emotion – but we barely get to know the character at all and he’s a somewhat smug guy whose troubles are of his own making, making it difficult to sympathise with him in spite of Fassbender’s best efforts. He was a lot more interesting as the android David in Scott’s previous film Prometheus.



Real-life husband and wife Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz are in this, though they do not share the screen together. Both are alumni of Cormac McCarthy film adaptations; Bardem having starred in No Country For Old Men and Cruz in All the Pretty Horses. Bardem appears to be having fun with the role, flamboyant and equal parts affable and shady and carrying hints of his Bond villain Silva from last year’s Skyfall. Cruz’s Laura is very much “the girlfriend”, doing nothing actually of note through the whole film beyond a roll in the hay with the Counsellor and some poolside flirting with Malkina. Brad Pitt in his supporting role will make moviegoers go “oh hey, it’s Brad Pitt in a supporting role” and that’s about it.



Of course, there’s one performer who absolutely pulls the whole thing down with her every time she’s on screen: Cameron Diaz. The name conjures up images of ditzy blonde characters clapping their hands and squealing in delight. She is far from the first person who comes to mind when one thinks “femme fatale”, and she amply demonstrates how inept she is with stilted line delivery and laughable posturing. In fact, she attempted to affect a Barbadian accent, but test audiences found it so distracting that she was forced to re-dub all her dialogue in post-production. Angelina Jolie was attached to the role for a time and there’s no question that she would have been a better fit. Looking at Malkina’s character poster, it seems the poster designer’s brief was “make Cameron Diaz look as much like Angelina Jolie as possible.” We can tell the difference, we really can. Even looking past Diaz’s performance, the character is written as a man-eating, wicked wildcat, followed everywhere by two pet cheetahs and sporting a cheetah tattoo. It’s a caricature that beggars belief.



The Counsellor comes off as one of those films that imagines itself to be far cleverer than it actually is, appearing daring and edgy but ultimately hollow, unpalatable and unsatisfying. Its top-tier cast are given pages of drivel to spout; a pity since Cormac McCarthy’s first screenplay was an eagerly-anticipated work. More alienating and off-putting than thrilling and absorbing, The Counsellor flounders even under Scott’s direction and will leave audiences drowning in a miasma of highfalutin excess.

SUMMARY: The Counsellor lays down the law, crushing its illustrious cast, prolific writer and celebrated director flat.

RATING: 2 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong