bradley-tepper Reviews

Harry Brown (2009)

Get Carter meets Gran Torino

[7/10 · 6 April 2010]

Ask any septagenarian what they like doing on a rainy evening and chances are they'll tell you it's got summat to do with pipes and slippers. Not our Harry though: vigilante-style he decides to clean up his putrid wasteland of high-rise poverty, a world inhabited by grim violent young men with nothing to do but terrorise anyone who gets in their way.

Slow-burning at times, Michael Caine as the title role is highly convincing as the old man with a past who decides to take on the world after his old friend is butchered in a public tunnel.

Infinitely less 'Hollywood' than 'Gran Torino', Caine is less of a hero than a sad reminder of the blight that affects run-down areas of major cities, but he's excellent nonetheless.

The female police chief (emily Mortimer) looks somehow out of place: she's pretty, slim and smart, but a little docile for an inner-city cop.

Overall I think this is worth a view: it's good social comment.

Green Zone (2010)

Intelligent thriller from the Greengrass/Damon school of Bourne

[8/10 · 6 April 2010]

Perhaps the final twist was not quite what would have happened in a Bourne movie, but Matt Damon gets a shoe-in as tough but taciturn Roy Miller, a mid-ranking Gulf War soldier tasked with finding WMD in a defeated Iraq.

The realisation that there are no WMD in Iraq touches on a number of conspiracy theories that have already been bandied around in the media: what this movie does well is keep you on the edge of your seat as you watch a Bono-like Jason Isaacs (a special ops 'baddie') chase Miller around a highly realistic mock up of Saddam's old country.

Brendan Gleeson plays the CIA operative who befriends Miller and he is one of the best things in the film, although sometimes you feel that the characters around the Matt Damon tentpole are always going to be variations on a theme - not caricatures, because they;re too good for that - but recognisable types.

Hell - the story is well-done, the shooting style that shaky 'modern' follow-me-everywhere jump-cutty stuff that works for this: I also really liked the night-shooting without lights which made the picture truly grainy and even more 'gritty' and real. Compared to Hurt Locker, this pic looks dirty, which fits the story well and was a well-chosen desired effect.

Definitely one to watch for fans of Bourne, Hurt Locker or Matt Damon: it's a prize chunk of a movie and it kept me on my seat-edge 100%.

The Reeds (2010)

Solve the enigma

[7/10 · 30 March 2010]

This movie could've been called enigma - in a positive way - a supernatural low-budget horror that takes thought to work out what's happening to who and why once past the half-way mark.

The story?

Five or six guys and gals from London go on a jaunt on the canals and watery inlets of Norfolk - think Everglades without the crocs - and slowly discover that as the movie straplines go, 'there's something in the reeds' and 'they can play tricks on you.'

Re what it is and why the guys & gals need to be worried we keep guessing, guessing some more, and the blood just keeps flowing.

Maybe there's too much guesswork for some but the lead girl pulls off the plot-moves passably well and the others make it a totally bearable experience, specially the first half of the movie.

My humble analysis is that 90% of people will like the first half of the movie, and only 50% will like the second: I liked it enough to comment and give a review but then I don't like movies with stars and nothing to say. This had something to say and even though it may have tied itself up in Gordian knots it's worth a 6 or 7.

District 9 (2009)

A classic

[9/10 · 29 March 2010]

I cannot begin to tell you how this movie totally re-affirms one's belief that you don't need stars or 100m dollar budgets to make something fantastic. This movie succeeds on so many levels that I cannot add much to the reviews already written so am not even gonna try.

Neil Blomkamp has created a completely watchable character study with a plot as simple as it is brilliant. Take one nerdy, Steve Carell in the Office kinda dweeb who's been overpromoted as a result of nepotism and stick him in a job that involves clearing out disgusting aliens from District 9.

Shot in a docu-style, we follow the 360 journey of a character who undergoes more changes than almost any other lead in any other movie ever shot.

Watch this and if you've got even half a brain and a sense of humor then you will love the dark message.