Noah (2014)

Russell Crowe gets drunk on a beach, Logan Lerman has the shortest relationship in cinema history and Anthony Hopkins goes on an epic quest to find his favourite berries.

Noah is a 2014 film directed by Darren Aranofsky and starring Russell “I’m finally in an epic not directed by Ridley Scott” Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone and Anthony Hopkins.

Darren Aranofsky is one of those directors critics fall over themselves to praise. It’s like they’ll lose their status as ‘important’ if they fail to use words like ‘artist’, and ‘visionary’ when describing his films. Ever since his debut, Requiem for a Dream (which is a terrible film) he’s become one of those directors that can do no wrong. Every film he makes is ‘bold’, ‘unconventional’, or in some cases yes even a ‘masterpiece’. But aside from The Wrestler, which has some merit (and coincidentally is considered his most ‘conventional’ film), his movies are fucking awful. Requiem for a Dream is not a savagely realistic portrayal of drug use and its consequences. It’s a pretentious director’s view of drug use and its consequences. Likewise, Noah is not thought-provoking. It’s a confusing mess of bad acting and clichés masquerading as a film featuring great acting and unexpected twists.

I did enjoy Russell Crowe’s performance. He spends most of the film going increasingly insane, and I always enjoy an actor that can pull this off. He plays Noah like a delusional zealot, utterly convinced his ‘Creator’ has entrusted him with this vital mission to save the innocent creatures of the Earth from a cataclysmic flood. In fact I would have enjoyed the film far more if it had of all been in his head, with him building this giant ark only to have no animals show up and no flood and then just descend into complete insanity. It would have been far more enjoyable.

As it is, the film is played deadly serious by all concerned and it ends up being fairly unbearable, clocking in at close to two and a half hours. I often refer to films as the cinematic equivalent of migraine headaches (pretty much any Baz Luhrman film). Noah is more like the cinematic equivalent of constipation. It’s uncomfortable, even painful at times, but you know that eventually, inevitably, it will come to an end.

And for a film about saving all the animals on the planet, it’s odd that the animals are pretty much an afterthought. There’s only really two scenes featuring them – the first showing all the birds arriving at the ark, the second all the land animals. But once they’re on board, Noah and his wife put them to sleep with some sedating herbal concoction and they’re never heard from again.

Besides Crowe, the performances are all pretty average. It’s like he’s the only one who realised he was in a bizarre film so adapted his performance accordingly. Jennifer Connelly, who I normally really enjoy, seems to spend half the film looking morose, the other half in hysterics. Her whole performance is just off. And Ray Winstone, another actor I really like, couldn’t be hammier if he were covered in a cherry glaze. But far from that making his performance enjoyable, he just comes off as irritating whenever he is on screen.

My biggest gripe though is simply that everything about the film is incredibly dull. The story is just as drab as the colour palette and the whole mess just drags on way too long. A pretty rotten way to spend two and half hours.

Lone Survivor (2013)

Training to be a Navy SEAL looks really freakin hard, Eric Bana pretends to be American again, and Mark Wahlberg misses a golden opportunity to kill a guy with a duck.

Lone Survivor is a 2013 war film directed by Peter Berg and starring Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch and Ben Foster.

Since the American wars in the Middle East began in earnest way back in 2001, Hollywood has regularly churned out films reminding us of just how heroic American soldiers are and what Terrible, Evil Monsters those Muslim extremists are. It’s no giant secret that the US military provides funding support to Hollywood films it believes will act as effective recruitment ads. In the same way that Navy enlistments went through the roof in 1986 after Top Gun, I reckon it’s a fair bet that Lone Survivor will have beefed up young guys falling over each other to become Navy SEALS.

However.

When I take my Pretentious Armchair Cynic glasses off, Lone Survivor is one hell of a good film. It’s got solid performances, a fantastic score, and balls to the wall action scenes that pull no punches. Once it gets going the tension level doesn’t really let up until the final frame.

Lone Survivor is the true story of the doomed ‘Operation Red Wings’, during which a four man SEAL team’s mission to whack a Taliban commander went horribly wrong because of a herd of goats. I’m always amazed when reading true war stories at how random, seemingly harmless things can throw enormous spanners in the works of intricately planned military operations.

One of the best scenes is early on. Two of the SEALs, (played by Taylor Kitsch and Emile Hirsch) challenge each other to a foot race. It’s a small, almost throwaway moment in the film, but it’s one that stayed with me. The music during this scene is beautiful, and the scene shows, without using any dialogue, the camaraderie between these men and the way they push their bodies to the limits without hesitation. It sets up how tough these guys really are for later, when we see the real punishment begin to be inflicted.

Another great scene is a little later. After the SEALs’ mission has been compromised by a bunch of goat herders stumbling across them, they are desperately trying to contact their commanding officer to get advice on what to do. They can’t reach the base on their secure radio so they try an unsecured satellite phone, but it keeps dropping out. What I love is that it’s another example of something minor becoming a major problem for these highly trained and supposedly technologically advanced warriors. A secret mission that probably took months to plan and cost millions to execute comes undone because of a lousy phone connection - it’s because they can’t reach their commander that the SEALs make the decision that will ultimately kill three of them – they let the goat herders go.

Another great scene comes shortly after this. Because their mission has been compromised, the SEALs need to get the hell out of there. They hike to the top of a mountain to try and get a better phone connection to call for evacuation, but find it’s a ‘false summit’ and they still can’t get the phone to work. It’s too late anyway as they are surrounded by Taliban fighters, so they dig in and wait. I love that they try and delay the inevitable for as long as they can. They know that once the first shots are fired they are pretty much fucked. It’s an incredibly tense scene. I like the claustrophobic way Berg uses the SEALs looking through their gun scopes to show the Taliban fighters closing in. There’s a fantastic little moment right before Mark Wahlberg’s character fires the first shot, where the Taliban whose head he is aiming at appears to look right at him for a split second. I was literally holding my breath.

I also love how quickly the situation then descends into chaos. The SEALs do their best to go for precision head shots as they are faced with a barrage of fire from all sides. They fire a few shots and then quickly move to try and keep their location hidden for as long as they can. It’s an amazing scene and shows why these guys are considered the cream of the crop of the US military; they’re not guys you want to fuck with.

But this doesn’t last long as the Taliban fighters close in and the SEALs find themselves backed up against a cliff.

This leads to another amazing scene as they realise they have no choice but to jump. The following 30 seconds are a brutally effective piece of stunt work. We feel every cracking bone and thudding skull as they tumble down a rocky hillside, smashing into trees and rocks and each other. This is such an effective stunt that I wasn’t surprised to read that Mark Wahlberg’s stunt double ended up in hospital with a punctured lung.

Not surprisingly though, it’s when the film begins to do away with realism in favour of drama that it begins to falter. After Mark Wahlberg’s character is rescued from certain death and taken in by some Afghan villagers, we get some fairly cheesy scenes where he befriends a young boy (who eventually saves his life again by handing him a knife as he’s being strangled by a Taliban fighter) and becomes the inspiration for the ‘good’ Afghan guys to engage in a prolonged firefight with the ‘bad’ Afghan guys. None of which apparently really happened. He was indeed taken in by the villagers but there was no dramatic show down and last minute US army helicopters to the rescue. It’s exciting film making, but it rings a little false given that the rest of the movie leading up to it is so damn brilliant partly because it sticks very close to the facts.

Although this bit does contain a scene that is hilarious, and is a much needed comedic respite after the emotionally draining brutality that makes up 90 per cent of the film. As Mark Wahlberg is resting in the village, he asks the young Afghan boy for a knife so he can remove some shrapnel lodged in his leg. The boy nods enthusiastically and runs off, only to return holding a duck. It’s a wonderfully absurd little moment made even funnier when the boy’s father comes in and mistakenly thinks that Wahlberg is asking for a knife so he can kill the duck so the guy goes to cut its head off. I love the way Wahlberg frantically yells at them not to kill the duck.

But what the hell is with Hollywood making actors who play Middle Eastern characters wear black eyeliner? It’s really weird. The guy who plays the boy’s father wears so much eyeliner he looks like the pharaoh from The Mummy.

Anyway, this is a really solid film and I’ll definitely watch it again. The final moments are particularly good – a short montage showing the real Navy SEALs the film’s story is based on. It’s a visceral reminder that this film is based on real guys who died far too young and left families behind. Two emotionally draining hours well spent. And I’m really glad the duck survived.