Kill List (2011, Ben Wheatley)

This is a pretty trippy film. An independent British production and largely self funded, Kill List is a dark, brooding insight into the extremeties of how vilolence breeds violence, and the consequences.

Kill List appropriates a not too radical set up with flashes of symbolic intrigue; two ex-army assassin pals come out of retirement for one last high-paid job, involving three hits. As the film gathers momentum, contrasting the volatile and somewhat mysterious domestic situations of Jay (Neil Maskell) and his partner Gal (Tyres*), Kill List starts to get a bit more sinister, as they are teased with a reveal of something a lot more freaky going on under the surface of the otherwise banal and standardly average brutal murder spree...

Stylistically Kill List's dark underbelly is served well by the Sheffield locale, inviting immidiate and somewhat too easy comparison with Shane Meadows' gritty and run-down anaesthetic portrait of Northern England. Edited and shot with some real ingenuity; Kill List incorporates some interesting and unique uses of jump cuts, editing and camerawork, all adding to a very vicseral, close knit, fluid feel. These methods all give Kill List a controlled, hyperrealism edge that envokes an arthouse persona hidden within a glossy, blood soaked horror/thriller.
The extreme graphic violence is focused on constantly, never pulled away from, uncomfortably so at some points. Not glamourised at all, the violence in Kill List is very realistic and rightly so. The before and after; the staking out and the clean up, all add to the relentlessness and ambiguity of the effect of the violence on the inflictors.

Anyway, shit starts to go pear for the two when their second victim gives a little more insight into what's going on... 'Thanking' jay for every rebuke with a hammer, he envokes the two to take on some morally crusading extra curricular activity, bringing down a torture-porn ring...

It's after this point Kill List takes a dramatic and unexpected turn, entering the realm of The Wicker Man and Rosemary's Baby, with a pretty commendable and shocking ending.

Kill List for me says some interesting things about violence, in whatever capacity. It studies how the weight of human morality involved eventually infects your personality. Like a disease or an addiction, it highlights the price of that momentary grasp of power over something, anything can cost you, with a fate worse than death.

Kill List finds an interesting balance for me between various styles and substantial generic qualities, dipping in and out of each across every scene. Overall this maybe detracts from the effectiveness of the film, and can seem a little confusing and hard to stick with but it is unique and does purvey some interesting readings. I did enjoy watching it and the narrative keeps you engaged but the ending, however interesting and suprising, didn't really tie in enough with the rest of the film leading up to it.

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The Yellow Sea (2010, Hong-jin Na)

South Korean cinema is kicking off in a BIG way. A notable film industry for many reasons, output in the last ten years has seen the countries visual exports gaining international recognition across the generic board with phenomenonal domestic and global success after success.

Chan-wook Park's 2003 global smash Oldboy arguably elevated South Korean cinema's action films to a massive new audience and has given rise to some of the most intense, violent and densely packed films I've ever seen.

South Korea is also one of the only countries where domestically produced films regularly out-gross their Hollywood rivals, and after watching a film like The Yellow Sea it's easy to see why...

Hong-jin Na's first film The Chaser was exactly that: a massive game of cat and mouse and hunted and hunter and vice versa with his second feature being no different; a never ending onslaught of intensity for two and a half hours, cut constantly on a heartbeat with intertwining narrative strains, shitloads of characters, tied up with a bow of ultra graphic realistic violence.

Narratively it's incredibly dense. Slightly broken up by a reasonable four chapter system, The Yellow Sea takes it's name from the georaphical location which borders North Korea, China and Russia. We follow North Korean born Josean taxi driver, Goo-nam as he attempts to earn some cash to pay his gambling debts by performing a hit in Seoul for a dodgy geezer. His wife is also missing, apparently last seen in Seoul... So off he goes.

His plans of assassination blatently fall through and the onslaught begins... The shit realy hits the fan when Goo-nam is being hunted by the police, the guy who ordered the hit (who turns out to be a mob don), and a rival cartel boss who's thugs bungled the hit but still want the bounty... Arrgghhh!

These three characters all come to knife-weilding loggerheads and represent different approaches to primal violence and the actual reasoning behind the chaos is relatively insignificant. There is only small amounts of money involved and the sheer weight of violence and death just seems incredibly unnecessary. The whole thing is absolutely mental and just doesn't stop until the end. Incredibly high octane carnage, it shits on every single comic-book-action-hero-franchise of late.

Influences are clearly cyclical here, there's a fantastic The Shining homage with a maze of buses and a hatchet and some of the car chase scenes scream contemporary Hollywood, but to be honest everything is taken to the next level. Furthering the cause and effect chain, some big Korean directors have their first Hollywood features in production now, Jee-woon Kim director of I Saw the Devil and A Tale of Two Sisters is working on Arnie-helmed action flick The Last Stand due out in 2013...

There is no doubt in the near future we're going to see more of the same high-standard, seat tipping stuff from the Koreans. Major Props.

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Our Idiot Brother (2011, Jesse Peretz)

It's hard to know where to start with Our Idiot Brother.

I guess the obvious place is by saying how this film FUCKING RULES as a contemporary comedy with suprisingly dramatic and emotional undertones.

I found the film to be extremely well written, constructed and played out by it's actors, and for me, it managed to find a perfect balance of the two generic strains; between genuine and simple comedy, and the dramatic tensions and prejudices that threaten to disrupt a family unit.

This aspect of the film and how it approached it, really reminded me of Woody Allen's more decent, family focused works like Hannah and her Sisters, exploring some serious existential issues of life and relationships, whithout trivialising them and at the same time successfully creating a lighthearted narrative arch full of lovable characters who learn to love each other dispite their differences.

However cheesy that sounds, it's the way the film goes about that catharsis which deserves commendation and LOADS OF ENJOYMENT. The cheese factor could have been overwhelming and there are some slight whiffs emenating, but the idiot brother in question, Ned (Hollywood-nice-guy, Paul Rudd) manages to be so damn comfortable in this role that he carries it along without too many crippling doubts.

The film follows Ned as he is let out of prison and tries to get back to his relaxed old ways, living off the fat of the land with his best friend Willy Nelson. Unfortunately his baron-von-girlfriend doesn't want to take Ned back and has found someone else to order around. She even denies Ned his best friend Willy Nelson (who is a dog BTW) forcing Ned to become a sort of family nomad, flitting between his sisters abodes, gently fucking up their lives one by one.

Ned never means to fuck anything up of course, but his overly nice qualities end up being his downfall... One of the more notable loose lipped mistakes involves Ned ruining his oldest sisters marriage by catching her husband, Steve Coogan (who plays a massive bastard) in the act of adultery and blabbing about it... Oh Ned! You silly sausage!

The film does get quite dark and unnerving at some points when the seriousness and gravity of his mistakes threaten Ned's happy go-lucky attitude. Does Ned give a shit? No he doesn't, he has a shout and gets on with it. Kudos.

Ned's philosophy is to give people the benefit of the doubt. He thinks that more often than not, people will suprise you with their trustworthyness if you only give them a chance. This really shines through to me. Ned doesn't change his ways, he's not going to be what his uptight, narrow minded sisters want him to be. He's going to be Ned and they're going to love him and you'll love him too.

(N.B. Our Idiot Brother has no UK release date, WHY? They probably don't think we'll be able to handle it's immenseness)

9/10

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