Change Your Image
Mark Harrison
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Manifest (2018)
Wooden acting
The idea for the story is quite a good one, a plane arriving five years late but that is as far is to went unfortunately. The bad news started after the first episode. The acting is just awful, I don't know if the casting couch still exists but I can think of no other reason for such an awful actress as Melissa Roxburgh being given the part of Michaela Stone. She is just not credible as an NYPD detective, when she turns up at a crime scene wearing a silly NYPD woollen hat that tourists buy she just looks like a tourist wearing a silly NYPD hat and not anything like a real NYPD detective. She is lucky that the other cast members are just as bad so she doesn't stand out too much.
The plot doesn't really help. It's like the writers had a good idea and then didn't know what to do with it. It meanders around in a confusing malaise which never seems to provide any answers to the audience. The awful acting and incredible weak plot line make it rather like an afternoon soap opera. I find myself looking at the clock waiting for each episode to end, the only thing keeping me going is the forlorn hope of an explanation. The only reason it gets five stars from me is that it had potential, pity it came to this.
Alistair1918 (2015)
Inventive low budget film
I was expecting the usual American rubbish with the fake British accents thrown in for good measure but I was pleasantly surprised. OK it was unrealistic but all time travel films are unrealistic (how could you go back if you could kill your own parents etc.). However having overlooked this and the fact a British soldier transported from WW1 happens to land in LA and not outer Mongolia, where presumably there are no audience dollars, it is almost credible. The Yorkshire accent is good and the reactions of the Americans he meets are just about believable too. I also liked the concentration on a good plot rather than special effects and furthermore give the producers credit for mostly eschewing the woke agenda and not risibly shoe horning in some fictitious ethnic minorities from WW1 to appease the BLM crowd (as the film 1917 did).
Angel of the Skies (2013)
Totally unrealistic
I just started laughing at this film about half way through and after that I just couldn't take it seriously. The flight of bombers without fighter escort gets jumped by about twenty Me 109s and they can't shoot down a single bomber, in fact a couple of 109s get shot down instead. Total BS, in any engagement if this kind the bombers would be lucky not to lose half their squadron. Then when they crash and take refuge in the barn the German woman they find goes over to their side. Hint Director, they are in Germany not France. You have just been bombing her country and she is suddenly pro British. I can't go on further because at this point I switched off. Complete waste of time. If you are going to make a war fim at least get the audience to believe that it possibly could happen. This was the equivalent of someone falling from a tall building and saving himself by grabbing the ledge two floors below. That kind of thing is for five year olds.
The acting was also awkward and stilted, on the one side they tried to reproduce the attitudes and culture of the time but then threw in swearing which belonged in a Vietnam era film. On the whole I thought it was total nonsense and a waste of time.It belongs in the 99c bin at K Mart.
13 Steps Down (2012)
Thirteen steps down from mediocre
The story centres around a guy who is obsessed with a model and a serial killer who lived near to his address. The plot basically goes nowhere but the predictable. He stalks the girl and in doing so murders a couple of people then finally gets caught. Seriously that's it! This takes all of two hours to tell because most of the time is spent on making sure the boxes are ticked on political correctness. We have to endure the obligatory and unnecessary four letter swear word and a few interracial relationships because hey that's what cool people who write TV drama these days insist on feeding us. Maybe in order that we don't go off and vote for Donald Trump or something. The result is a badly acted cobbled together and disjointed piece of social propaganda written around a poor plot which makes almost no sense. Unless you really have nothing to do I would miss it.
Fifty Dead Men Walking (2008)
Somewhat biased and adjusted for the North American audience
I will not summarise the film as many people have already done that here. What want to do is comment on some of the inaccuracies and bias in the film.
1 Firstly as someone else pointed out Martin was never shot in Canada
2 In one part of the film KIngsely says that the IRA are terrorists and Martin replies that he is discriminated against by the British who act like terrorists. This is never challenged and its never mentioned that the security forces contain Northern Irish people too. The film acts almost as if protestants are not legitimate citizens on Northern Ireland. It seems to want to reduce the conflict to the facile level of a British army occupying Ireland which is what ignorant Americans always claimed. So in this way it panders to ignorance.
3 For the information of the film makers people in 1980's Northern Ireland referred to parking lots as car parks, called hoods, yobs or hoodlums, and did not used the sentence construction 'get to' as in 'I get to have a new car...'. The attempt to Americanise the English language (presumably so that ignorant people can understand it better) detracts from its realism.
4 At the beginning of the film Martin runs from a police/ Army checkpoint and is chased until he is caught. I can assure the film makers that in Northern Ireland at that time anyone running from a checkpoint would have been shot. Ohh but then we would have had no film, so that can't be allowed to happen can it?
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Why do Hollywood actresses do British characters so badly
First I want to say that I thought the movie was quite good, in fact I gave it a 7. Why only a 7? Well I judge by the standards of movies I have seen and I travel a lot. Its not really as fantastic as 'Unbearable Lightness of Being' or 'Moscow does not believe in tears', but that is the price we pay for living in a society where Hollywood hype dictates what people go and see. Audiences rave about the sizzle and not the steak, which I feel is the case with many reviews here. Not only this film.
One irritation I would like to comment on is why o why when Hollywood actors do a British character they ruin it by Americanizing their speech. Minnie Driver's character says 'guy' all the time not 'bloke' as a British girl would. Here's a wake up call for Americans: Hollywood is condescending to you! Yes, they think you are so thick (sorry dumb) that you will not understand unless a British character says fries and not chips. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, it makes us squirm in our seat and detracts from what would otherwise be a very good film. A further note on language, I am not sure what kind of people producers mix with, but my friends from University don't use obscenities in every sentence and I went to an Ivy league University. This comes over as sensation seeking and cheap and again it detracts from the impact of the film in my view.
View of Terror (2003)
Very watchable cable fodder
This move helped me take a break from a frustrating maths PhD problem. Its the kind of thing you can watch when you have your mind on something else, or out of the corner of your eye while doing some household chores. The film is Canadian but the story is supposed to be set in New York, which doesn't come over too well because the streets are too clean and Celeste (Shannen Doherty) can afford a great apartment with an average job!
This not withstanding plot is not too difficult to follow and flows smoothly. While being somewhat two dimensional the characters didn't bore me. On the whole I found it above average for the material my cable company pads their lineup with. Definitely a good way to spend a rainy afternoon, 6/10.
The Sum of All Fears (2002)
Sum of all BS
This movie has some good action sequences but its spoiled through being unbelievable. There are just too many stereotypes. The evil South African, the Austrian Nazi. It seems to be aimed at the mentally challenged. The fact that right wing parties in Europe are gaining so much support is overlooked and why the US helped the middle east go nuclear are not dealt with here. This is fast food for the mind. Well packaged, lacking in substance and not very nutritious.
Spoiler:
The biggest danger to world peace in this film is actually the USA who in this account are the ones that give the bomb to Israel in the first place. The Israelis are perfectly prepared to use it and by chance it gets into the hands of some unlikely villains. The film implicitly assumes that Israel and the USA can do no wrong of course, which is irritating but par for the course these days.
Enemy at the Gates (2001)
Good but some holes in the ending
I really enjoyed the film, special effects at the beginning were good and it was nice to have people speaking in something other other than American accents (although paradoxically they still used American idioms). Not withstanding this comment I agree with others that Russian accents would have been the most appropriate here.
Acting was above average and I found the story gripping. Although I might add that I am not the kind of person that has to constantly have car chases and shoot outs to hold my attention.
SPOILER
Where I found the film failed was in the credibility of some details in the plot. For example at the end how did the Russian sniper Vasily get around the side of the German Koenig, when the German was watching his position like a hawk? How could Koening make a clumsy mistake, walking out in the open and exposing himself to attack when he had been so clever earlier? Why was he so slow catching on that the boy he knew was a Russian spy?
In addition I have been told that the ending was changed from the book so that Vasily's girlfriend Tania lives, to give the typical Hollywood happy ending. True to form the Germans are stereotyped as very bad, as in Schindlers list. But then given the ethnic origins of many in Hollywood it would be hard to expect objectivity in this regard.
Postmortem (1998)
Signs of life
This was a nice try at doing something different from the typical American serial killer flick but unfortunately it ended up being only the setting that changed. Its a pity that in true Hollywood tradition an American had to show the Scottish police how to solve the murder (yawn). Not only that but the makers of this drama had Scottish actors speaking in American idioms. This might go down well in the mid west but anyone from Scotland will probably squirm a few times.
The acting is not too bad, but Sheen mumbles his lines and Ivana Milicevic's Scottish accent sometimes drifts into the mid Atlantic. Having said all that though I certainly enjoyed the film and was happy that in choice of actors and setting there had at least been an attempt to move away from the formula serial killer movie.
The Patriot (2000)
Playing to the gallery
I suppose if you like action and do want to think too much then this film might be your cup of tea (or, ahemm, perhaps coffee would be more appropriate) However as a Brit living this side of the Atlantic I Frankly found this film offensive. As far as I have been able to determine none of my ancestors murdered women and children in Churches and infact many of them were on the receiving end of some pretty nasty post independence atrocities themselves and left to make Canada in the process. So the character of Francis Marion is whitewashed to be all sweetness and light, no mention of his racism, and brutality. In contrast the British are heartless, war criminals just too incompetent and wicked to be believable. Infact if it wasn't for the French and some luck they might have won, but you would never believe it from this film. Oh well I suppose the Russians are gone now and nobody could demonise the Americans God forbid. Whatever next, Tom Cruise escaping from Colditz?