Brown | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Rampart

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Darren

Rampart features a powerhouse central performance from Woody Harrelson as corrupt Los Angeles Police Officer Dave Brown. Harrelson manages to take a character who should be (and is) reprehensible, and yet manages to imbue him with the faintest sense of tragedy. However, the problem is the movie that takes place around Brown. Brown’s story is an inherently tragic one, a relic of a by-gone era trapped in his own self-destructive pattern. He’s not dynamic or proactive, and so reacts to the world around him. While director Oren Moverman populates the film with any number of iconic and recognisable character actors, the film can’t help but feel a lot too sterile, a little too inert. We’ve seen this story before, and while Harrelson’s performance is compelling, the film around him is not.

He’s got this police thing working gangbusters for him…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Brown, California, Counties, film, Harrelson, los angeles, Los Angeles Police Department, Movie, non-review review, Oren Moverman, Rampart, review, sigourney weaver, steve buscemi, United States, woody harrelson | 5 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Reservoir Dogs

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Darren

I had the pleasure of attending the Jameson Cult Film Club screening of this film.

Reservoir Dogs is my favourite film amongst Quentin Tarantino’s accomplished filmography. It seems a strange choice, as most film fans would concede that it’s pretty great, but would readily point to Pulp Fiction as the definitive Tarantino film. However, I think that Reservoir Dogs has an elegant simplicity that elevates it, allowing Tarantino to demonstrate his unique skills in an environment where he isn’t too confined or too rigidly structured. In a way, it’s that wonderful structure that makes Pulp Fiction so exceptional, but Reservoir Dogs has a relatively modest scale that makes it a lot easier to appreciate Tarantino’s deft mastery of form.

Whiter than White?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Brown, Cuba Gooding, film, harvey keitel, harvye keitel, jasonreitman, madonna, Movie, mr blue, mr. blond, mr. blonde, mr. orange, mr. pink, mr. white, neo-noir, noir, Orange, pulp fiction, quentin tarantino, quentintarantino, Reservoir Dogs, revie, Robbery, steve buscemi, tarantino, w non-review review, White | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Jo Nesbø’s Headhunters

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Darren

While Jo Nesbø’s Headhunters might get a little bit too crazy and twisty in its final third, but it’s a brilliantly dark Norwegian thriller/comedy, headlined with considerable style by Aksel Hennie as corporate recruitment expert Roger Brown, a sleazy yuppie living well beyond his means to keep his wife in the style two which she has become accustomed. As the movie puts Brown through a sequence of painful and humiliating encounters, it is consistently entertaining, managing to walk the fine line between making sure we dislike Roger enough to be amused by his misfortune, but invested enough that we want to see the little (“1.68 metres”) bugger manage to escape the movie relatively intact.