hansdewolff Reviews

The Caretaker (I) (2008)

The most un-scary wannabe horror movie that I've ever seen!

[2/10 · 28 January 2010]

So they wanted to make a teenage slasher horror movie, and when they were done they actually believed that they had, since that's what they suggest all over the cover of this DVD. Did they watch the result themselves?!? Are they blind or stupid or did some higher power make them cut out the better half of all the supposed scary scenes, apparently to make it also watchable for tender-hearted infants??

The place where all the evil things happen must be the most uninspiring horror-setting ever! It's a dull dilapidated shed-like little house with nothing sinister whatsoever.

The supposed ferocious and relentless killer is the least frightening person of the whole movie - the limo-driver and especially the over-sexed Jennifer Tilly character are 10 times more frightening! The killer looks like a nice old Victorian land-owner mending his orchard, with a Hobbit-like hat and a scarf hiding his face (arghhh!). He never talks or interferes with anyone, except when he kills every person in exactly the same, uninspiring way.

The killer's instrument is some sort of orchard-rake or fork with sharp teeth. He swings with it over his victims and that leaves bloody scars. They die instantly. Of what?? We don't know, because we never get to see any of these killings, they take place off-screen. Imagine a modern (2008!!) slasher horror movie that does NOT show the one thing that the movie should be all about! It's like a porn movie where every intended sex-scene stops the moment that someone starts to take off his or her clothes. It's plain silly!

The bunch of teenagers is totally interchangeable: the three girls are almost imitations of each other, and two of the three boys also. No (obligatory to the genre) variation like: a bimbo, a goody-two-shoes, a pot-smoking airhead, a jock, etc. etc., but just some vague group of kids that you couldn't care less about. The one kid that survives, didn't do anything to deserve that, like in other movies: she doesn't fight or comes up with some heroic plan, she's just overlooked (with a far-fetched reason, as we in the end learn!).

As I said, the killer doesn't look very intimidating, but in the encounters with the young jocks (who we see at the start of the movie pumping iron, so they're pretty well trained!) he overpowers them like a wolf puffing down some piglets.

So are we to take this seriously? Well, there was some humor intended in this movie with the oversexed teacher (Tilly), but it's way too much over the top and as a result falls down flat, and it's totally out of sync with the rest of the movie where nothing remotely funny or even tongue-in-cheek happens.

The result of all this is a strange, uninspired, totally un-scary, un-graphic and un-funny, sad excuse for a horror movie. The big question is: why did they bother?!

Horsemen (2009)

Enjoyable but too predictable!

[6/10 · 28 January 2010]

Predictability in a movie doesn't necessarily mean that it is not well-made or can't be enjoyable, and this movie proves that. It's got an involving (albeit in the end somewhat elaborate and far-fetched) plot, it's fast-paced, well-acted and absolutely entertaining. But on the other hand: we've seen it all a thousand times before. The tired and frustrated detective, who's always troubled by some private family-issues, while in his work he sees himself confronted with a series of hideous ritual murders and a killer that leaves puzzling clues. The first half of the movie he's two steps behind the killer, until by some lucky chance he solves the riddles and then he tries to out-wit the killer. In the finale the killer always turns on the detective's own family, and in a sizzling climax the detective saves his besieged relative, solves his family-troubles in the process and either kills the killer or the killer escapes to give room for a part II, III, etc. It's all here and you can more or less predict the whole movie scene by scene.

So to distinguish such a movie from all the others you would expect some extra's: a particularly terrifying killer, a gruesome graphic display of the murders, some mind-boggling plot-shifts, a cast that acts the stars out off the sky. Well, we didn't really get all that. Although we get to see some mutilated bodies, it somehow didn't really succeed in making my hairs stand up, possibly thanks to the rather clinical approach that very much resembles your average CSI-episode , with computerized views of how the inside of the body has been effected. We never see the killer, in fact, there isn't one killer, we gradually get to understand that there is a whole bunch of killers, a sort of complicated conspiracy of killers who use the text of the bible book Apocalyps to give clues to the investigators, but why they do that and to what purpose is beyond me, it gets more and more cloudy with every new discovery that our hero does.

The acting is overall good, and I really liked Dennis Quaid, he gives a fine performance as a scrupulous detective and as an affectionate but awkward single father who doesn't know how he can combine his work with the care for his two somewhat estranged teenage sons. Lou Taylor Pucci, who played the eldest son, was also pretty convincing in the short (but important) screen-time that he got. But on the other hand, Ziyi Zhang, who plays a key-role as a little girl version of Hannibal Lector, was too much for my taste, she went totally over the top trying to give the impression of a sensual Ueber-intelligent machiavellistic bitch, she twists and turns her body like a snake and irritated the hell out of me.

The obligatory plot-twist couldn't fail to turn up in the end, and I must admit that I didn't see this one coming, but the way it was worked out was disappointing and seemed to serve an annoying moralistic message: parents, stop neglecting your children or Something Very Bad will happen (like they will join an international conspiracy of thousands of ritual killer & suicidal kids)! So you can imagine that Dennis Quaid sobs that he will never do so again and that's the end of the movie. Okay, this message MAY make this movie stand out among the great mass of comparable movies, but alas in a very wrong way. A disappointing end of an entertaining but otherwise too predictable movie.

Hindsight (I) (2008)

A very original and clever movie!

[9/10 · 20 January 2010]

This movie was a big surprise! The premise is very original and the script, the direction and the overall acting is actually very good.

It's about two couples. There's this vagabond and petty-criminal couple that all of a sudden is confronted with an unwanted pregnancy and come up with the plan to make some money out of it by offering to sell the baby to as much high bidders as possible, with the obvious intention to cheat them all by running off with the down payments. And then there's this counterpart couple, very well to do yuppies that are desperately in need of a baby and are ready to do anything to get it. Both couples meet, and what starts off as a friendly and business-like confrontation eventually deteriorates into a psychological and physical battle to the death.

The story is hung up on an afterwards "confession" that the woman of the first couple does to a stranger (Peter) who picks her up at the start of the movie as she is seen hitch-hiking along a deserted road in the middle of nowhere. She tells him her side of the gruesome story (which we see illustrated in flashbacks) and he comments on it in a more or less moralistic and stern, but on the other hand open-minded way, by which she is forced to reflect on her own deeds. Hence of course the title "Hindsight".

After the movie I was a bit puzzled by this chosen form. What did they mean by it? A sort of catharsis for this woman? A moral judgment? Problem was, that the woman could hardly have survived the deadly attack on her that we witnessed in the last flashback. So how come we see her walking safe and sound along the road? Well, I like to see myself as an intelligent and experienced movie-watcher, but I had to read some of the comments here on IMDb to see the light: the woman was already dead and while she was on her desolate way to afterlife she was picked-up by Peter (!) who gave her the opportunity to relief herself of the burden of her bad deeds and choices. Wow, I felt so dumb and instantly I liked this movie even better for this very subtle twist!

The movie is made with an obvious low budget, with only four actors (five, if you count the Peter character in), and most of the action takes place within the confinement of the second couple's house in the period of one and the same evening, so it's more or less like you're witnessing a theatre play. This feeling is enhanced by the sparkling and very clever dialogues between both couples.

I was impressed by all actors. Leonor Varela is stunningly beautiful but at the same time a solid actress with perfect timing and a great feeling for subtle comedy. Jeffrey Donovan was very convincing as the young yuppie: self-assured and condescending, protective of his wife and wealth and ruthless when things got out of hand. Waylon Payne was equally convincing as the slightly psychopathic con-man, charming and full of bravado but also dangerously impulsive and rough. About Miranda Bailey much has been said in the comments here, and I can understand the reservations: she is not a beauty and her role is the least sympathetic of all, so as an audience it's almost impossible to relate to her and her motives. But in my opinion she played her character very well: in her "hindsight"-dialogues she's the unappealing, street-wise and cocky white-trash bimbo who doesn't give a damn, yet her self-reflections on the comments of Peter impress as genuinely sincere. And when, at the start of their meeting with the other couple, she tries to win them over with a performance of a sweet mother-to-be, she's equally convincing; and likewise when she later on in the movie is under heavy attack and has to fear for her life, so to me it proves that she's a great actress too.

My only little and rather practical piece of criticism as to the script is: how come that the yuppie-couple didn't have or use a cell-phone?!? They are so well-to-do and modern, that it's totally unbelievable that at least the guy wouldn't have walked around with a cell in his pocket, so that they could have sent for help.

Anyway, this movie gives a very convincing and in many ways disconcerting image of four intelligent people who try to act as if they care for each other, but in the end let themselves only be guided by greed, suspicion and selfishness. And don't bother too much with the moralistic setting, if that's not your cup of thee, just see it as an interesting extra, that at least is equally clever done as the rest of the movie.

I rank it 9 out of 10.

The Cry of the Owl (2009)

An almost perfect Highsmith adaptation!

[8/10 · 8 January 2010]

"The Cry of the Owl" is a scrupulous adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel with the same title. The novels of miss Highsmith are generally considered as crime-novels, but in my opinion they're more like psychological thrillers. Apart from her famous Tom Ripley novels (a series with a slightly different approach), the rest of her work is set up around pretty much the same theme in every novel: a man (almost always a man!) gets into trouble by a death for which he somehow is (or feels) responsible, either trough accident or by an impulsive act. The rest of the novel is spent on how this man deals with his mounting feelings of guilt and remorse, and whether he will turn himself in, or get caught, or succeed in wiggling himself out of the mess he's caused. The main character is usually a friendly but slightly neurotic, pondering kind of guy who means well but seems to make one wrong decision after another. Miss H's novels are also always (and rather surprisingly!) a bit misogynous: women play a dark role, they are unreliable to say the least, sometimes air-headed or at other times downright conniving and vicious. In many cases they not only are the cause of the initial crime but they enhance the ultimate downfall of the main character.

"The Cry of the Owl" is about a man who's in the middle of a messy divorce and who accidentally witnesses a (supposed) marital bliss when he peeks through a window in his neighborhood. When the woman catches him spying on her, she asks him in, and all of a sudden the tables are turned: she starts to stalk him and he gets to deal with her jealous dumped boyfriend.

This film has much to say for it. It seems to be pretty true to the book (I checked the ending with my copy of the novel, it almost fits literally!) and the typical Highsmith-atmosphere is captured flawlessly: the slow pace, the tentative communications between the protagonists, the unglamorous, almost dull settings, it's all quintessential Highsmith. I very much liked Julia Stiles here, she's totally convincing as the subdued but inwardly resolved Jenny who turns the quiet life of recluse Robert upside down. She's lovely and compelling in an unobtrusive way and her acting is great with only few words but a very subtle use of expressions of her beautiful face.

On the other side I did have some trouble with Paddy Considine as Robert. Sure, he played the dull, neurotic, passive and slightly cowardly character to perfection. Yet something was amiss. All of miss H's anti-heroes have to be handsome in an all-American way, they have to look and behave like someone's ideal son-in-law. It's partly this contrast between their outward charm and their inward neuroses that's responsible for the troubles they get themselves into. So it should be the same in this story, where it's even more important that the main character is a nice and charming guy, to make it believable that there's this very sexy and debonair ex-wife who still lusts after him and that he can have at the same time such an appeal on this pretty Jenny. It's also important for us, the audience, to have enough reason to sympathize with him. With Considine unfortunately this is rather very hard and his supposed attractiveness is totally unbelievable. He looks old, ragged and worn out, drags himself around, speaks in a slugged, drawling voice and more or less looks like an escaped convict the whole movie through. This only fits in the parts where he looses his cool and beats the hell out-off someone, but in the rest of the movie it's just not enough in sync with the premise of a charming guy who's sought-after by two beautiful women.

The other main parts are well covered: James Gilbert is convincingly menacing as the dumped boyfriend and Caroline Dhavernas is the perfect counterpart to Jenny, as the sexually aggressive, vindictive but still caring ex-wife.

All in all, I compliment director (and writer!) Jamie Thraves in capturing Highsmith so well on screen, where so many others in my opinion have failed in this (like the terrible "Ripley's game" with John Malkovich!). Apart from the casting of Considine this is an excellent movie. I rank it 8 out of 10.