Reviews

I loved Animal Kingdom from the start - sure, it was a big trashy at times, but it was compelling. Smurf in the early seasons was an ambiguous character - we knew she was manipulative and cruel, but saving the extent of her cruelty until after her death really robbed the climax of the its potential. Imagine J plotting an elaborate scheme to take it all and Smurf being the target, compared to three brothers who were just as much victims as anyone else. That would have been perfect.

Early on, Baz's theft from Smurf seemed possibly too harsh - we didn't know then what we know now. If they'd run the flashbacks parallel from early on, and kept Smurf around until the end, perhaps over fewer seasons, it would have perfect. It feels like they didn't really decide what exactly Smurf had done until she was already dead, and I wish we'd had the chance to learn all this about Smurf while she was still on screen in the present. It felt like far too harsh an ending for Deran and Craig, particularly Deran who'd been trying to get out from under Smurf's control throughout.

I honestly believed J was faking his feelings for Penny so his distress at her death made little sense when we've never seen him like that before - they barely knew each other.

While I enjoyed this series a lot, you can see how much better it could have been with a bit more planning starting earlier.

This film was powerful and compelling, but the overwhelming feeling was that it's incomplete in many aspects. I dislike films that spoon-fed the audience and telegraph their punches, but there were so many elements that needed further exploration.

For example, the character of Carla left me feeling disturbed, not because of her behaviour but because her character was so under-developed. All we know of her background is that her father is a suicidal inmate of a mental institution and that she is sleeping with her mother's boyfriend. Why is this girl so damaged? Her behaviour is alarming - as a viewer, I need something in order to see her as a person rather than a freakish collection of traits. Daniel wants to save her life desperately in the end - why? The film does not show there to be any genuine connection between the two of them - it seems she's increasingly seduced by Judaism and he's increasingly disinterested in her.

This flaw is present in every aspect of the film - we see Danny as perhaps a 13 year old intelligent student with controversial thoughts on Judaism, and next as a twenty-something neo-nazi. Why? Perhaps the writer/director could say that it's more interesting to leave this open but to me this is a cop-out since it's a difficult journey to chart in such a short time. I believe this arc is more than possible, but the details of his journey are important. Perhaps they could explain away other flaws: such as why he is willing to blow up a synagogue but cries when his fellow Nazis desecrate the Torah. There are issues like this throughout - he is clearly conflicted, but neither the writing nor the direction let us in to his mind.

One thing that is clear throughout is that Judaism is deeply entrenched within him - his hatred and anger is towards the Jewish people for what he perceives to be their weakness. From the start of the film, he is desperate for them to fight back, to take a stand against their repeated and constant persecution. His desire to kill a Jew is another interesting point - does he want to kill Jews or put them into a scenario where they can fight back? It's interesting that he sees them as weak when the Jews within the film are frequently portrayed as being strong for precisely the same reasons, especially in the scene with the holocaust survivors. This scene, along with the opening and the initial synagogue scene were enormously unsettling: the film provoked a strong physical reaction in me, leaving me sickened by much of the dialogue and action. However, I did not feel mentally challenged as, without elaborating on many important issues, it felt somehow vacuous.

The ending fulfils two of Danny's prophecies: that he will kill a Jew, and that he will kill himself if his background is publicly revealed. Danny kills only himself and directs his hatred to its ultimate source: himself. This would be far more powerful if we understood his reasons for hating his religion and himself. As it stands, the only reason I felt anything was Gosling's exceptional performance which manages to strike a balance between vitriol and deep sadness.

I can only conclude, or hope, that the film has been heavily cut. The meat of an excellent film is here, but it's missing the skeleton that would make it great. There are many comparisons here to American History X - The Believer is perhaps a more honest, and certainly a more complex, film in that it avoids the easy resolution (Danny does not reject his entire ideology but succumbs to his own confusion). However, it's not the better film - this is a shame, as it could have been, with improvements to the script. Gosling's performance is powerful and believable, the content is intelligent and thoroughly researched, the outlook is risky and unflinching. The problem is, we don't ever get to really understand the protagonist as we must in order to be deeply affected.

Therefore, this film - which could have been a 10 with some attention - barely scrapes a 6, and I'd say Gosling is responsible for the majority of that, alongside an interesting premise and some excellent, highly intelligent dialogue. It's definitely worth watching, but be prepared for some problems.

Christopher Walken's delivery of this line at a pivotal moment is perfectly done and so apt. I've just watched this film, completely captivated throughout and I desperately want to watch it again. It certainly does have layers.

Making trailers these days seems to be more about tricking viewers into seeing a film they wouldn't otherwise watch - and this film is another victim. The trailer is for an American Lock Stock with dogs. Perhaps they felt this would pull in more viewers than the truth but in reality it leads to the disappointed reviews listed here (from people who clearly didn't follow the complex narrative) and at the same time deters the viewers who would love this film.

I went into the film with certain expectations. About ten minutes in it became clear that this was the case and I went with it. It's honestly an astonishing film but I can understand why some don't it. It's original, self-referential, deliberately oblique at times - but when the pieces slot together, it's hugely rewarding. Applying so many of the discussions about the screenplay to the unfolding film is a gripping technique, and allows for just enough insight into what's coming next. For example, I knew that the Quaker story couldn't be entirely unconnected, and the reveal was a shocking moment (although we are left to assume that this story originated with Billy telling Martin, this is never made entirely clear - the fact that the important details aren't spoon fed to the audience is what makes this exciting, and also the reason that so many reviewers have failed to connect all the dots in this and many other instances).

I loved the hat-tip to Boardwalk Empire in the opening scene, a scene which sets up the film nicely if you pay close attention to the content of the conversation. Most of the acting was exceptionally good - Walken and Rockwell are unsurprisingly incredible - but I wish McDonagh would get over his crush on Colin Farrell. Seeing him in scenes with such accomplished actors only highlights how dreadful he is, and his eyebrow acting pulled focus too many times for comfort.

Nevertheless, it's still a wonderfully unique film and, I'm sure, one which will improve with repeated viewings - I feel I've missed so much this first time.

So yes, another case of mistaken trailer identity - forget that and go with it. Provided you can follow it, which clearly not everyone here can, you're in for a rare treat. It certainly does have layers.

I really enjoy a clever courtroom head-scratcher, but all too often the scriptwriter lacks the intelligence to resolve their ideas in a clever way. Unfortunately, Fracture falls head-first into this trap. Whilst watching the film, I came up with several ideas for how things might resolve - the reality being far more banal.

I watched the film as part of a Ryan Gosling double bill on Film 4 - I think he's a promising actor from what I've seen, so I was interested to see more. Hopkins is usually great - the fact that his preparation is merely reading the script a few hundred times and arriving on set is a great middle finger to the high-maintenance antics of the method bunch. However, I find the fact that his accent changes at least four times per sentence increasingly irritated, and he pulled off some bizarre changes here (Texan to Irish to Indian in five words). Since the film focuses so heavily on these two characters, the rest are sketched broadly and supremely forgettable.

The set-up is promising (spoilers ahead): we're watching Hopkins like a hawk whilst he cleans up after the attempted murder of his wife, trying to figure out how he's going to play this, since his wife has conveniently pointed out how clever he is (a nice telegraphed scene of painful exposition precedes the shooting). When it becomes clear that his wife's lover is the hostage negotiator, things become problematic.

What if he hadn't been on duty? Although I can understand his initial shock and attack of Hopkins, why wouldn't he immediately recuse himself from the investigation? To be present during the confession is something a professional cop would never do - to then neglect to tell the DA of his involvement with the victim is simply unbelievable. Gosling's character gets a lot of abuse for losing the case, but the blame would have been placed with the lying cop.

I was hoping for a mind-blowing explanation for the missing gun, to make up for the film's other flaws, but I'd dismissed the explanation within five minutes of his arrest as being too simplistic. Boy, was I wrong. We're constantly being shown a large piece of engineering created by Hopkins purely to transport marbles - these scenes implied some involvement of this device in the plot, but as far as I could tell it was entirely irrelevant (although by this point I was busy discussing how ridiculous the plot was becoming with my husband, so I may have missed something there). He made a smaller version for Gosling's character - why? I was honestly hoping that Hopkins has constructed a gun from small parts and taken it apart and carried the pieces amongst his belongings - that's how desperate I was for something more interesting than a swap.

Moreover, we're expected to believe that Gosling would go into the house of the murderer to inform him that he had him - we're also expected to believe that this highly-intelligent villain would offer a full and graphic confession to the prosecutor without checking whether the conversation was somehow being recorded (the fact that he wasn't recording the conversation is also ridiculous, not that the conversation would ever have happened, so I suppose this is moot).

Lastly, what was the point of adding the final scene, showing the start of the new trial before cutting to the credits? Ending with the arrest would have been far more powerful.

Having said all that, Gosling is excellent and really holds his own against Hopkins (and he manages to maintain one accent, which is a bonus). He alone made it watchable, so I've given it 6/10. Don't expect to be blown away, but I suppose there are worse ways to waste a couple of hours.