Review: Trust

This is a difficult movie to watch for anyone, but in particular parents of young children. Fourteen year old Annie (Liana Liberato) is from a good family, yet is also a little attention-starved, which is why she is so quick to enter into an internet relationship with a sexual predator pretending to be a teenage boy. Her desperation to believe someone out there could love her means she ignores all the warning signs and agrees to meet up with Charlie (a chilling Chris Henry Coffey). Charlie rapes her and when Annie confides her awful experience to a friend the police are notified. She is led away away from school by two uniformed officers who come to investigate, and here and in countless other details we are reminded how victims can suffer almost as much from the investigation as they do from the crime itself. We also learn that Charlie is a wanted sexual offender.

Annie’s loving family, particularly her father Will (Clive Owen) struggle to come to terms with what has happened to their innocent, happy and well-rounded daughter. Will becomes obsessed with getting justice for Annie, but his anger over the incident is made even murkier by his disappointment in her lack of judgement and his own failure to protect her. Will ends up hurting Annie more than he actually helps her because he prioritises vengeance over healing.

Director David Schwimmer (the former Friends star) does an excellent job in highlighting the trauma of post-rape for victims, especially when family and friends allow their own issues to get in the way. But Schwimmer does an even better job in bringing out the best in the two lead actors, Clive Owen and young Liana Liberato, who are both quite simply superb. Schwimmer steers away from conventional wrap-ups that are often not truly reflective of life, but he is also more than a little heavy-handed. Just one example is the fact that Will is a marketing executive who specialises in using sex to sell. The irony is a little heavy here. Schwimmer adds in so many other ‘heavy’ signals of societal enabling sexual misdemeanours that it begins to feel a little mishandled.

Nevertheless, Trust is a brave and emotionally provocative movie. As one of the bylines describe, it is the movie no parent wants to watch but every parent should see.

Three (and a half) stars out of five. Rated R for disturbing material.

The First Grader

The First Grader is an average movie based upon an inspiring story rather than being an inspiring move, if that makes any sense. Kimani N’gan’ga Maruge (Oliver Litondo), is an 84-year-old Kenyan tribesman who takes advantage of the Kenyan government’s 2002 decree of free public education for all. This former Mau Mau freedom fighter who was tortured during the Kenyan war for independence, now wants to become literate but finds he has to face another battle of an entirely different kind to do so. At first head teacher, Jane Obinchu (Naomie Harris), is one of those resisting him but she gives in to the endearingly persistent old man and becomes his biggest supporter. Maruge then has to battle his way past other opposition including parents and school officials protesting the diversion of precious educational resources, not to mention the propriety of an octogenarian studying with little children.

In real life Maruge has become an international celebrity, and a poster boy for the power of education. In 2005, Maruge was asked to address the United Nations on the importance of free public education. Director Justin Chadwick filmed in Kenya, and did a great job in getting the best out of his actors, particularly Litondo who had virtually no experience before this. The children as Maruge’s fellow classmates are a real bright spot. Their facial expressions and natural behaviour in front of the camera is enthralling. Chadwick used flashbacks to details Maruge’s experiences as a resistance fighter and these scenes are heart-rending, especially his imprisonment and torture at the hands of the British. Maruge’s fight for his country’s independence is used to underline his fight for the right to be educated.

Sadly, this movie, while competent enough to be interesting and affecting, does not quite do justice to Maruge’s story. Poor character development and a stilted script restrict the entire enterprise. It just misses something, the x-factor needed to rise above being a better than average Hallmark type production. It is the opposite of meeting your favourite public personality and being disappointed to find out they seem so much smaller in real life. Maruge is bigger than he is shown here.

Three stars out of five. The First Grader has scenes containing obscenity, brief nudity and images of violence.

Crazy Stupid Love

I am so bored by romantic comedies and the ‘paint-by-numbers’ predictable plots that lame-stream Hollywood churns out. To its credit, Crazy Stupid Love tries its best to be different. It starts by steering away from the formulaic cute-meet intro followed by boy and girl falling in love, followed by boy and girl fight, followed by boy/girl chase each other down at airport/bus terminal to be tearfully reunited while trendy pop song plays. Instead, we are introduced to a couple at the other end of the spectrum. Steve Carell is Cal, a 50-something suburban dad who is horrified when his wife Emily (Julianne Moore) announces after 25 years of marriage that she wants a divorce. Apparently, she is bored and has been having an affair at work.

Cal falls apart and starts moping around in the same bar every evening where he indulges in bitter monologues and gets rejected by every woman he tries to hook up with. Eventually, local playboy Jacob (Ryan Gosling) takes pity on Cal and decides to improve his chances by changing his image and teaching him a few tricks of the trade. Cal starts sleeping around but soon realises the playboy lifestyle is not all it’s cracked up to be. Meanwhile, ex-wife Emily is trying to find fulfillment with her work fling David (Kevin Bacon) who is turning out to be just as boring as Cal. Their son, played by Jonah Bobo, is also struggling with love as he has fallen for his 17-year old babysitter (Analeigh Tipton), who herself has a crush on the older Cal. Then, the love story expands even further to include the playboy Jacob who falls in love when he meets Hannah (Emma Stone), the first woman not to fall for his smooth tricks.

Crazy Stupid Love is refreshing because it doesn’t tell the story of first-love, but rather embraces the bigger cycle of love. A once crazy-in-love couple have lapsed into taking each other for granted, and need to rediscover what it means to care for a significant other. Any couple who has been with each other for a length of time knows how easily relationships stagnate without hard work. More than that, Crazy Stupid Love examines why lasting love is worth fighting for. Cal discovers the playboy lifestyle is unfulfilling and so develops the courage to fight for the one he truly loves. Jacob is influenced by Cal's greater maturity without realising it and when he discovers his love for Hannah, he is ready to make changes and journey down a whole new life avenue.

Crazy Stupid Love is not a perfect movie, it is clumsy in parts, and a little silly in others, but employs a far more realistic view of love than your average rom-com. Love is good, but has to be constantly and self-sacrificially worked at so that it can grow into something even better.

Three stars out of five for Crazy Stupid Love (PG13 for coarse humor, sexual content and strong language).

Movie Review: Horrible Bosses

“Horrible Bosses” is another of Hollywood’s factory production line of comedies that seek to shock. It faithfully follows the formula of films like ‘The Hangover’ and ‘Bridesmaids’ with lots of gross-out, non-pc humour, but adds its own special twist of dark.

Three long-time ‘boy-men’ type buddies (are there any other sort in comedies these days?) played by Jason Batemen (Nick), Charlie Day (Dale) and Jason Sudeikis (Kurt) all suffer daily under the world’s worst bosses. Nick is an office drone constantly taunted by his sadist boss (Kevin Spacey), a tyrant who delights in dangling opportunities under Nick's eyes only to whip them away. Spacey is so effective in this psychopathic role that frankly I would lock my door at night if I lived in his street. Dale is a dental assistant who is sexually harassed by his boss, Jennifer Aniston. Aniston does and says things in this role that would have had Rachel Green running for the hills. And finally, Kurt works for a coked-up, degenerate Colin Farrell who appears in this role complete with a pot belly and combover.

The long-suffering trio are pushed to the limit and beyond by their horrible bosses, and eventually decide to kill them. What makes this unlikely premise somewhat believable is the absurdity of the characters. The bosses are such complete maniacs, and the three men are so bumbly and downtrodden, that their disconnection from reality make the plot a little more plausible. The ending was unsettling because it was such a sudden shift from dark humour to standard Hollywood it-all-works-out. If you are going to use black humour, then at least have the courage of your convictions.

The acting is pretty good, asides from a few over-the-top moments and director Seth Gordon provides cheerful energy but the dark premise - essentially, we are invited to find murder, sadism and sexual harassment funny - means the film cannot help but delve too often into bottom-of-the-barrel slapstick. Here we see the ghosts of gross-out past as many of the jokes have been done in some form before. There were a few laugh-out-loud scenes, but strangely enough, they were the cleaner moments such as an amusing car park mix up.

If you are looking for something new then don’t bother with 'Horrible Bosses', but if you loved ‘Hangover 2’ then this will be right up your (dodgy) alley. It is R-rated for a reason, containing plenty of crude, sexual content and bad language.

There are one or two clever moments, but not enough to save it from the stink of unoriginality. Two stars out of five.

Someone hand me the banana-flavoured popcorn!

RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES specialises in super-smart apes, and not one of them is a human. The best actors are all chimpanzees. The script has dialogue so lame it could have been written by a thousand typing monkeys battering away at a keyboard. This is not to say ‘Rise’ is not a fun movie, because it is! It is just not, shall we say, highly evolved.

No, ‘Rise’ is mostly about special effects and action and these are good enough to keep you entertained. James Franco plays a scientist named Will who develops a cure for Alzheimer’s. When tested upon chimpanzees, it makes them highly smart. Franco’s test subject is a chimpanzee named ‘Bright Eyes’ who one day goes berserk and attacks her keepers. The drug is blamed and she is put down, but subsequently Will finds out she was actually protecting her baby. He adopts the chimp, names him Caesar and finds the little guy has inherited his mum’s smarts. In the meantime, Will secretly gives the drug to his dad (a wonderful John Lithgow), who not only recovers from Alzheimer's but actually grows smarter himself.

A misunderstanding with an angry neighbour leads to Caesar being forcibly placed into a zoo, where he is routinely abused by Draco Malfoy of all people (I kid you not). Caesar escapes and returns to Will’s place to steal the drug and begins handing it out like peanuts to his fellow apes. He leads a revolt of super-smart simians against the human overlords resulting in several scenes with the potential to become iconic. The one of leaves falling on a sunny suburban street as the ape army marches through the foliage above is chillingly evocative.

‘Rise’ is one of those movies that seems equally divided by good and bad. Monkeys good. People bad. The finest acting performance is put in by Caesar, who is played by the CGI motion capture specialist Andy Serkis (you know him as Gollum). Franco, in contrast, is used to woodenly explain things that are really obvious. He is lucky compared to Freida Pinto, who is given the thankless task of playing Will’s obligatory cardboard-cut out girlfriend, Caroline. The other notable humans are marked by being unpleasant to an unlikely degree (neighbour, zoo keeper and corporate executive). When threatened by a mutiny of chimps and gorillas, the stupid humans run for their guns, and not for the drug that could make them smarter than super-smart so they could figure a way out of this mess. Frankly, the monkeys give them the whupping they deserve.

The final climatic scene sums up the movie perfectly. It is full of vim, vigour and spectacular CGI-enhanced action. But instead of simultaneously delivering a powerful human message like the Charlton Heston original did, it settles for shamelessly setting up a sequel. This may all seem a little harsh, because you certainly won’t feel like you have wasted the cost of your ticket-price with ‘Rise’, but at the end of the day it doesn’t want to be taken too seriously - it just wants to have fun. And that it does.

Three stars out of five. Rated PG-13 (for violence, terror, some sexuality and brief strong language).