May 12, 2005
Alison delays Part II of the Hong Kong Triad Picture until next column in order to tell you about....
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Recent British Film
British film. Is it suitable for International Intrigue? Why not. It's foreign. Although still in English. There is certainly a national film scene in Britain, but only a handful of films ever seem to cross shores. British film got some attention in America in the mid-90s with TRANSPOTTING, which has been so ripped off since I almost wish they didn't make it, and THE FULL MONTY. While there's certainly a good amount of filmmaking going on over there, only a few films have really trickled to our shores since -- and few with similar success. They tried to entice us with FULL MONTY look alikes -- the Irish WAKING NED DEVINE and the nudey women comedy CALENDAR GIRLS -- but with less success. The kinds of British movies getting distribution in the US divide into four categories -- the comedies, the TRAINSPOTTING-esque crime films, the auteur pictures and films that can hardly be called British. And to note, I'm throwing a bunch of Irish film in here too, so let's just say UK film.
The comedies seem to do the best. THE FULL MONTY and it's imitators have been mentioned but BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM was also a sleeper hit in the US. And also BILLY ELLIOT which did some good business. Also, anything that involves Richard Curtis, but lately, most of those fall into hardly British. Not all British comedy translates well to America, but certain things are universal.
The TRAINSPOTTING-eque includes any hip crime film which encompasses anything from the Guy Ritchie pictures to the recent Irish release INTERMISSION. This genre gets more and more stale every time it's redone.
Then there are the auteurs. The respected, artistic British filmmakers who often get distribution on name recognition alone. This distinguished group includes Mike Leigh, Michael Winterbottom, Ken Loach and Peter Greenaway. While not quite an auteur, Danny Boyle, director of TRAINSPOTTING has gotten distribution for almost all of his films which display an eclectic mix of genres -- A LIFE LESS ORDINARY (Musical), THE BEACH (from the genre of boring? I don't know what this is -- a thriller?), 28 DAYS LATER (Horror) and most recently MILLIONS -- a light story about a child who accidently finds quite a lot of money.
And then there are certain British films, which are usually co-productions, that star so many Hollywood actors that you don't even think of them as British. These include Richard Curtis movies such as LOVE ACTUALLY and BRIDGET JONES' DIARY as well as ELIZABETH, VANITY FAIR, etc... And of course, Britain's biggest mainstream output -- HARRY POTTER.
There are a few British releases, especially in the past few years, that don't fit into these categories -- but they do all seem to have casts that are easily recognizably to the moderately movie savvy. They range from the very good like DEAR FRANKIE (starring Emily Mortimer and Gerard Butler), the pretty good like YOUNG ADAM (starring Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton), to the pretty bad like THE RECKONING (starring Paul Bettany and Willem Dafoe). Also, British directors who have gone Hollywood have a tendency to go back every now and then and it's usually a treat. Stephen Frears (HIGH FIDELITY, DANGEROUS LIAISONS) recently made the fantastic DIRTY PRETTY THINGS. But even a lot of these films are co-productions. The 'British' film WILBUR WANTS TO KILL HIMSELF was financed by no less than 4 countries.
There's no doubt that the biggest smaller British films since THE FULL MONTY and TRAINSPOTTING have been the Guy Ritchie films which has found a steady cult following in the states. The popularity of LOCK, STOCK and SNATCH among Americans has only recently been eclipsed by the cult phenomenon known as SHAUN OF THE DEAD.
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LAYER CAKE
But some of the most well known modern British films continue to be those of Madonna's darling hubby, Guy Ritchie. LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS went over well in the States and SNATCH, bolstered by a Brad Pitt appearance, did even better. The man behind these films, as producer, was Matthew Vaughn. And he now makes his directorial debut with LAYER CAKE. And this film has taken on a life of its own. It's now known as 'that film directed by the guy who's directing X3', 'the film starring that guy that might be Bond' and 'that film that has Jude Law's girlfriend in it'. None of this could have been expected when the film was made but has all taken place before the film ever made it to our shores. So there's a lot of interest in it -- but not as much in the film itself. But let's start at the beginning...
How Vaughn got involved with this story is a story in itself. He relates, "I had a phone call from a friend saying there's a great book called LAYER CAKE and you would love it. You have to read it and it would make a great movie and this was a Friday morning. I was trying to go to Belgium to watch the soccer match between England and Germany and I was sitting on the train. The guy next to me was John Connolly who started pitching saying I've just written a book called LAYER CAKE. And I was like Wow -- someone just rang me up about that this morning. I just couldn't believe it. So I read it and I liked it and bought the rights." Then Vaughn was developing the screenplay with the writer, John Connelly, for Guy Richie. But "it took us so long to get the script right that he (Ritchie) had written his own screenplay and he basically decided to do that and wanted me to put this on ice for him. But I was so sort of emotionally involved in the project I just thought, you know what? Now's the time. I'm gonna have a go directing it."
Vaughn has an interesting life story himself. He was thought to be perhaps the son of actor Robert Vaughn, hence the last name. But is in fact the son of George De Vere Drummond, an aristocrat who is a godson of King George VI. All that and Vaughn is currently married to supermodel Claudia Schiffer. Not bad. So he set out to direct this film. And he found it to be quite easy saying "I don't think directing is as hard as everyone makes it out to be." And also found that he liked it. And he will seemingly continue to do it for the foreseeable future (Sorry Guy Ritchie, you're on your own).
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LAYER CAKE is the story of an unnamed main character played by Daniel Craig who is a drug dealer in middle management -- he's not the guy at the top nor is he the guy on the street. He's very comfortable with his life until some things happen to upset his comfortable balance. His boss, Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham), throws two difficult and possibly dangerous tasks at him -- finding the missing daughter of fellow drug kingpin Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon) and arranging a buy of ecstacy from an unpredictable character, The Duke (Jamie Foreman). Of course nothing goes as planned and some people are not as they seem and he gets himself in quite a bind. While his life is on the line and craziness abounds, he still finds time to start a romance with a young woman, Tammy (Sienna Miller), who entrances him in a club.
Vaughn attempts to achieve a tenuous balance with this film. While it is a gangster-heist film, along the lines of Ritchie, it's done in quite a different style. Vaughn says, "LOCK, STOCK and SNATCH are quite cartoony and capery and fun. I wanted to something a little more serious and a bit more epic and more cinematic." Yet like a Ritchie movie, there are many characters, each with enough quirks to tell them apart and there are any number of twists, turns and coincidences. But Vaughn's unnamed main character is an understated man, so the movie is understated. Vaughn says, "I wanted to show that there were different type of criminals out there who are also legitimate business who dabble in the world of crime." And this character is certainly a business man. This film could easily be about corporate mergers and takeovers as drug dealers. But subsequently, the understated film lacks the energy of a Ritchie picture. And it lacks the showy style, which makes the understated style seem bland at time.
But this film isn't trying to be Ritchie and doesn't have to be Ritchie. And frankly it's refreshing to see a crime film that doesn't just rehash the PULP FICTION/TRAINSPOTTING style. But how to deal with an understated film, with understated style and unsympathetic characters and still make it interesting? Well the intricate twists and the turns of the story will keep you interested in the film all the way to the end even if the lack of energy or sympathetic characters will not. You'll wonder who will screw who next and how it will all pan out. Seeing the unnamed main character get deeper and deeper into trouble and then see him try to dig himself out of it is pretty enjoyable fare. And it's worthwhile to note that the whole film isn't so entirely serious. A few of the smaller roles have the cartoonish, outlandish characters. The Duke (Jamie Foreman) could have been as easily at home in SNATCH as in LAYER CAKE.
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LAYER CAKE explores some regular underworld themes -- when you want to get out they pull you back in. But what is best is that the unnamed main character thinks he has it all figured out, he's very comfortable in his world, but it turns out nothing is as he thought and life is actually more complicated. He may think of himself as a business but can only ignore that drugs are an illegal, dangerous business for so long.
The unnamed main character has a regular group of folks he works with who stick with him when the times get tough. Gene (Colm Meaney) is the main character's connection to Jimmy. And Morty (George Harris) is the main character's partner who brings a certain street legitimacy since he's done time. They also have a couple lackeys Clarkie (Tom Hardy) and Terry (Tamer Hassan). But they stick by him when he gets in trouble and sort of end up following him although he is reluctant to lead.
Daniel Craig who plays this main character, may not be immediately recognizable at first, but I realized later I had seen him in a number of things -- from the assassin in ELIZABETH, to the inattentive husband of Gwyneth Paltrow's SYLVIA to Paul Newman's betraying son in ROAD TO PERDITION. He acquits himself well in this film but admits of his character, "you kind of root for him but actually he's kind of asshole as well." Which is a difficult thing to portray. It makes the character unsympathetic and cold. But I can't fault him as an actor if that's what he was trying to portray.
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A lot of the minor roles shine, such as Colm Meaney (who has been in every smaller British film I've seen lately) and Michael Gambon, who took a few days off the HARRY POTTER set to film this. It's especially satisfying to see STAR TREK's Chief O'Brein and HARRY POTTER's new Dumbledore be so badass. And if you look carefully, STAR TREK fans, you will notice one of Craig's lackeys is Tom Hardy, aka Shinzon, in the first role I've seen him in since NEMESIS.
As an aside, I did find the use of 80s pop songs distracting and it had convinced me the movie took place in the 80s because why else would they intentionally play this music? Duran Duran's "Ordinary World" is too well known to be used as background music and not be distracting. I hope I don't see the X-Men running around to "Hungry Like the Wolf".
This is not a great movie but it's a good movie. It makes sense, it's competently done and it's enjoyable. I would recommend it to certain people. But not to people looking for Guy Ritchie gags and style or to anyone looking to get emotionally involved in a story. It's a serious adult drama with lessons to be learned and it's not stressful to watch. It's surprisingly easy to keep track of the many characters. And I really believe some audiences will be happy to see an adult film that doesn't have the cartoony aspects and flashy style that is supposed to appeal to the young.
And because you've all been very good, I will also relate to you what Vaughn had to say about X-Men and what Craig had to say about Bond.
X-MEN 3
First Vaughn explains his pro-active approach to getting involved: "I just read on IMDB that they didn't have a director and I was looking for something to do actually. So I just got in touch and they watched the movie and they liked it." He notes he's currently working with the writers and it's "it's meant to be filming in August" but also that "they want us to come out next May and that's a problem. That's a hell of a lot to get done in 12 months."
He also talks about his vision of the film: "I have plans to put my stamp on it. The studio's been incredibly supportive and I thought when I pitched them the way I wanted to make the movie they'd run a mile. I think they understand. I think they knew X-men were very much movies of the 90s. I think it's time for them to toughen up a bit.....I think fantasy should all be based in reality and then it becomes believable. You have to be able to relate to the characters and X-men was pretty good because you saw the flaws and the conflict they're going through but I think that conflict needs to be expanded on and I want the villains to be less -- what's the word -- I think there's been a lot of mustache twirling happening in the last films and I want to get rid of that. Make the villains really scary and more realistic." To put it in terms that X-Men fans can understands he explains, "I like what Joss Whedon did -- I think that's more my sentiment."
While he was not talking about any of the new characters he had this to say about one of the old ones, "As far as I know Halle's doing the film. She's seen the script and she's got a lot to do. I have a lot of experience dealing with a lot of characters in a film. Multi-character movies don't scare me at all and I think I know how to get that balanced. So that should be one of the easier parts of it all." And lastly, he admits that it won't be a CGI-heavy affair, "I hate CGI, I'm trying to do everything in camera. Sometimes you have to use CGI but I want to do as much in camera as possible." And when talking about films that have too much CGI, Matthew Vaughn also promised to steal my analogy, which is that you feel like 'you are watching someone else play a video game' -- so if you hear him say that, he got it from me.
Bond, James Bond
Before telling you about what Daniel Craig said about possibly being Bond, here's what Matthew Vaughn said about possibly directing. He says he was offered CASINO ROYALE and that "it was a strange situation. Truth of the matter, I was offered it by MGM but not by the Broccolis." He says that at the time there was no Bond attached but that "it was a surreal time to have a studio ringing up saying you have the job and then the Broccolis saying nothing." In the end he "just let it go" because "if they want you, you don't want to fight, you want to all be on the same page from the beginning. I think I would have been a bit too radical for it."
Daniel Craig admits that "there's a lot of rumors flying around. It's not a bad position to be in if even half or a third of them are true." He says he was shooting another movie when he started receiving text messages saying "Congratulations" and he didn't know what was going on. But he's been one on a list of many considered for the role, and he's well aware of this saying, "I won't lie to you, there's been some sort of move in my direction but there's been a move in a lot of people's direction. I think it's possibly a way to try to raise debate. They throw out some names and people start discussing it so they can make a decision." And he says his agent and manager are "constantly talking and doing work for me." And also admits, "I know Barbara Broccoli socially so it's not like some big sort of myth going on over there. I do know these people. We'll see. I don't know what the deal is." And for the curious he says that Goldfinger's his favorite Bond movie and Sean Connery is his favorite Bond.
Craig also commented that he will be involved in Spielberg's Munich Olympics movie and that it will begin shooting at the end of June. But when probed further about what role he'd be playing and anything about the movie he simply replied, "Can't tell you" and then adding "They're listening now."
LAYER CAKE is being released in NY and LA on May 13th.
IN TWO WEEKS: Back to Hong Kong, Triad Pictures Part II -- The In Between Years.
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