FILM: RE VIEWS
DECOY BRIDE HUNKY DORY
For viewers of a certain age, Hunky Dory offers a nostalgic premise. Set in south Wales in the sweltering hot summer of 1976, it centres on the efforts of drama teacher Viv (Minnie Driver) – a free-spirited educator stuck in a comprehensive school seemingly frozen in the 1950s. She is mounting a production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, but it’s one that features the music of chart acts of the time, such as David Bowie, Electric Light Orchestra and Nick Drake. Most of the kids are enthused to take part, but many of her older colleagues view the production with suspicion. Around this central plot, the kids in Viv’s cast fall in and out of love, explore their sexuality, and make that awkward, gawky transition from childhood to adult life. In short, it’s Grange Hill meets Glee, with a dash of Grease and the Old Grey Whistle Test. Unfortunately, if those are its main ingredients, the resulting creation is a disappointedly deflated cinematic soufflé. Director and writer Marc Evans (My Little Eye) has made a film that’s nicely evocative of its era, from the dusty, beige atmosphere of the school gymnasium in which the kids rehearse to the sun-dappled country lanes of south Wales. However, dialogue is flat and the predicaments predictable… with characters stumbling from one orchestrated conflict to the next. The normally engaging Driver sleepwalks through the role of Viv, inexplicably raging against colleagues one minute and then kissing a pupil the next, while plot turns are thrown into the mix for no apparent reason. The focus ricochets between too many of the younger characters, and by the end of the film you’ll find yourself struggling to remember names. “I think I’ve bitten off more than I can chew,” says Viv at one point, contemplating the scope her ambitious school production. The same criticism could be levelled at the makers of Hunky Dory. DH Out: 2 March
THIS MEANS WAR
Don’t be fooled by the title – This Means War is not an action movie. With its A-list love triangle, it’s a romcom to its back teeth, even if it does contain the odd, expensive-looking explosion. The premise is simple. Undercover agents Foster (Chris Pine) and Tuck (Tom Hardy) are ‘grounded’ after a disastrous
mission gets the attention of the national media. Desk-bound and bored, they take it upon themselves to fight (quite literally) over bubblegum bombshell Reese Witherspoon, whose job is to unwittingly choose a victor. Meanwhile, a terrorist B-plot – barely even worth mentioning for all the weight it carries – plays second fiddle to the romantic shenanigans, and merely functions to provide intermittent pyrotechnics. The real fireworks, though, are to be found between Hardy and Pine, who share a sizzling chemistry that borders on the homoerotic. No surprise that This Means War was co-scripted by Simon Kinberg, who also penned Robert Downey Jr.’s
first Sherlock Holmes outing. The same bubbly bromantic banter is evident in War, and is the film’s main strong point. What is surprising is how flat the action scenes are. Director McG previously helmed both Charlie’s Angels films and T
erminator Salvation, which means he knows a thing
or two about action flicks, yet the handful of combat sequences are War’s limpest – in particular the opening high-rise segment, which feels like a deleted scene from a really bad Bond film. Happily, McG keeps the fisticuffs to a minimum, allowing the spotlight to shine firmly on Pine and Hardy. With these two firing off razor-sharp one-liners, This Means War
takes a sitcom premise – what if Bond and Bourne were dating the same girl? – and turns it into a smorgasbord of blokey one-upmanship. JW Out: 2 March
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Like this month’s other Brit-flick (see Hunky Dory), homegrown rom-com Decoy Bride offers a promising gambit. Top Hollywood star Lara Tyler (Alice Eve) is set to marry English author James Arber (David Tennant), but – infuriated by the constant hounding of the paparazzi – the duo decide to get hitched on the tiny Hebridean island of Hegg: the setting of Arber’s debut best-selling novel. Even here, they are duly pursued by scoop-hungry photographers, and in an attempt to shrug them off the scent, Tyler’s PA, Steve (Ugly Betty’s Michael Urie) hatches a plan to stage a wedding between Arber and a heavily-veiled decoy bride – local girl Katie (Kelly Macdonald) – before he can actually go ahead with marrying Tyler as planned. What’s unplanned is the fact that Arber should be quite so taken by the humble and unassuming Katie. From a story by Sally Phillips (Smack The Pony) – who is cast as Urie’s assistant – Decoy Bride is basically an attempt to mash up Four Weddings And A Funeral with Notting Hill (its premise is weddings and a fictional, A-list movie star involved with an Englishman). Unfortunately, that’s where the similarity ends, as it’s neither romantic nor funny, save for its laughable plotline, which goes beyond ‘madcap’ and settles firmly into ‘ludicrous’ territory. In short, most of the characters, and the situations in which they find themselves, are unconvincing and embarrassingly contrived. Both Macdonald and Tennant work hard to inject some authenticity into their characters but even they cannot compete against a script that shouldn’t have made it to the small screen, let alone the cinema. Tellingly, it’s released to cinema on 9 March, before being released to DVD just three days later. DH Out: 9 March
REVIEWS: JOSH WINNING AND DAVID HUDSON
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