Posts Tagged ‘Eddie Marsan’
Monday, September 18th, 2023
OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE is the first of two Guy Ritchie films released in 2023. They came out so close together because this one was delayed more than a year for reasons reportedly including the pandemic, the bad luck of featuring Ukrainian gangsters right when Ukraine was invaded, and restructuring of distributor STX. I swear I heard it was going straight to video at one point, but then it suddenly hit theaters pretty much out of the blue, with predictably poor response.
It’s another Ritchie-Statham collab (their fifth), but not a gangster movie. Instead it’s a light-hearted spy caper, not an all-out comedy, but very jokey. It’s got the usual spy stuff: planting trackers, facial recognition software, meeting with buyers, pulling people into vans. And their mission takes them into the world of the super-duper rich, on yachts, in mansions, private jets, charity parties, bodyguards, art collections, jewelry auctions. A team of crafty good guys have to earn the trust of billionaire arms dealer Greg Simmonds (Hugh Grant, CLOUD ATLAS) before he sells a dangerous device called The Handle. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Aubrey Plaza, Bugzy Malone, Carey Elwes, Eddie Marsan, Guy Ritchie, Hugh Grant, Jason Statham, Josh Hartnett, Lourdes Faberes, Max Beesley, Peter Ferdinando, spy
Posted in Reviews, Action, Comedy/Laffs | 26 Comments »
Monday, January 23rd, 2023
VESPER is a unique 2022 sci-fi movie that just came out on video. I never heard of it before but it looked cool, so I rented it. And my hunch was right – it was cool, so now I’m telling you about it. That’s how it works.
It’s a gloomy but hopeful small scale post-apocalyptic tale in an interesting reality. It features dystopian wealth disparity in the tradition of LAND OF THE DEAD, ELYSIUM or FURY ROAD, but in a world that seems a little more influenced by NAUSICAÄ OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND. At some point in the past there was an ecological crisis, and scientists tried to stave it off with genetic modification, but that backfired. Man-made viruses and plant species spread across the world, wiped out many people and animals, and made the earth useless for growing edible crops.
No problem. Word is oligarchs get to live comfortably in strange structures called citadels, even having manufactured clones called “Jugs” as their loyal servants. But we stay with the poor as they try to survive out in the mud, trading scarce commodities to the citadels for seeds that the fuckers genetically modified to only yield one harvest. Like copy protection. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Brian Clark, Bruno Samper, Eddie Marsan, Kristina Buozyte, post-apocalypse, Rafiella Chapman, Richard Brake, Rosy McEwen
Posted in Reviews, Science Fiction and Space Shit | 3 Comments »
Monday, September 13th, 2021
WRATH OF MAN is a pretty different type of Guy Ritchie movie. It certainly shows some of his interests, his directorial chops, and his long relationship with filming Jason Statham. And okay, it also has some of that lightning quick snappy banter between the fellas, some of which I couldn’t follow at all. And it has Josh Hartnett playing a character called “Boy Sweat Dave.” I’m not sure I can picture that being in somebody else’s movie. Guy Ritchie is the Boy Sweat Dave type.
And yet this is a different style (a more calm and controlled type of flashy) and tone (less flippant, more foreboding, and even mythical) than what we expect from him. It doesn’t have freeze frames with character’s names as they’re introduced, but it does have four sections with pretentious chapter titles. A trend I very much approve of.
It’s a remake of a 2004 French film called LE CONVOYEUR (or CASH TRUCK), which I could only find on VHS with no subtitles (update: I got to see it on a Region B blu-ray so here’s my review). But this seems to me like it’s playing off of two American traditions: pulp crime novels, and movies that try to be like HEAT. I can enjoy both. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Eddie Marsan, Eli Brown, Guy Ritchie, heists, Holt McCallany, Jason Statham, Jeffrey Donovan, Josh Hartnett, remakes, Scott Eastwood
Posted in Action, Crime, Reviews | 16 Comments »
Thursday, August 3rd, 2017
Our Lady of the Swaddledog, Academy Award winner Charlize Theron, stars in her first post-Furiosa ass-kicking movie, and holy shit it’s from JOHN WICK co-director David Leitch and the 87Eleven action team. ATOMIC BLONDE, based on a 2012 graphic novel called The Coldest City, is a twisty Cold War spy thriller set in Berlin right before the wall came down. Theron plays Elaine Broughton, a beaten and bruised MI6 agent recounting a disastrous mission to obtain “The List,” a document listing all the spies active in the Soviet Union (similar to the NOC List in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE), and to kill whoever stole it.
Broughton has the qualities we look for in a larger-than-life movie spy: three steps ahead, improvisational when necessary, hyper-fashionable, sexy. When less experienced French agent Delphine Lasalle (THE MUMMY herself, Sofia Boutella) follows her, Broughton immediately makes her and beds her. The movie could get away with treating this like a conquest, but instead they start helping each other – spies with benefits – and you get to like Delphine.
The same cannot be said for David Percival (James McAvoy, THE POOL), the goofy, shifty contact who shows her around but might be the Russian double agent known as Satchel. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: 87Eleven, Berlin, Charlize Theron, Cold War, Daniel Bernhardt, David Leitch, Eddie Marsan, James McAvoy, Kurt Johnstad, Sofia Boutella, spies, Til Schweiger
Posted in Action, Reviews, Thriller | 45 Comments »
Wednesday, September 12th, 2012
In the story of Snow White, if you remember, the huntsman is the guy who the evil queen sends to bring Snow White out into the woods and murder her. He’s gonna do it, ’cause work is work, but then he looks at her and falls in love with her beauty or is touched by her innocence or what have you and he just doesn’t have the stomach to, you know, cut open her stomach. (If she was ugly this would be a shorter tale). The Queen wants to know for sure the girl is dead but probly thinks it would be rude to make this guy haul back the whole body, so as a compromise she asks him to bring back some organs (lungs and liver in the original, heart in the Disney version) so he carves up a pig and brings her impostor parts.
In this new movie-fication of the story the huntsman (Chris THOR Hemsworth) has to go find Snow White (Kristen PANIC ROOM Stewart) in the woods and bring the heart back to the Queen (Charlize Theron) because she needs it to magically stay young forever. He doesn’t know who the girl is and there’s not much tension like he’s really gonna kill her, he just doesn’t do it and then they travel on one of those slow, boring fantasy journeys occasionally enlivened by monster appearances. No pigs are harmed.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Bob Hoskins, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Eddie Marsan, fairy tales, Ian McShane, Kristen Stewart, Nick Frost, Ray Winstone, Toby Jones
Posted in Fantasy/Swords, Reviews | 95 Comments »
Friday, February 3rd, 2012
Steven Spielberg’s WAR HORSE is the story of a horse named Joey. He is distinguishable because he is brown with a white mark on his head and above his hooves. Otherwise I’m not sure I could pick him out in a lineup. He’s just a horse. Doesn’t talk or do math problems or anything.
The story begins with Joey’s birth and ends with his ascension to the stars like E.T. (note: some facts have been altered) and in between he goes through a harrowing journey in turnip farming, WWI, etc. His primary equine-human relationship is with a youth named Albert (Jeremy Irvine), who is there at his birth and later becomes his owner and trainer. Despite going way beyond anyone’s expectations in his indentured servitude, the purchase of non-plow-ready pretty boy Joey financially ruins the family, their lives are destroyed and they have to sell him for cheap to the army for even more cruel and unusual treatment by different noble, handsome Englishmen. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: David Thewlis, Eddie Marsan, Emily Watson, horses, Steven Spielberg
Posted in Drama, Reviews, War | 60 Comments »
Monday, April 25th, 2011
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ALICE CREED is a simple story about two kidnappers and their hostage. And it’s not one of those stories where they become friends. It’s a simple, well-executed thriller and especially before the plot starts thickening this thing is deeply unsettling.
It had me right from the great opening scene: a montage of these two nefarious individuals (Martin Compston and Eddie Marsan) shopping at a hardware store and then preparing an abandoned house as a kidnapping hideout. It just goes through step-by-step as they add locks, cover windows, soundproof the walls, put together a bed with chains on it… it’s like a sinister version of one of those home makeover shows.
(read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Eddie Marsan, Gemma Arterton, J Blakeson, Martin Compston
Posted in Crime, Reviews, Thriller | 20 Comments »
