jantriska-63546 Reviews

Frontier (2016–2018)

Trying to make Canadian history more dramatic...than it was

[6/10 · 1 November 2017]

There are some good points to this show, so let's get them out of the way first. It's half-decent acting, scenic locations, an intriguing plot twist that sends the protagonist - by accident - into the New World and straight into a nasty conflict on the colonial frontier. It's also the fact there aren't that many shows about the Canadian fur trade and the rough-and tumble era of early colonization....and this show tries to elevate the profile of our country, so to speak.

OK, onto the flaws and problems. The history, as is depicted on film here, was never this interesting or this violent, this 'sexy". It is hard to find actual accounts of armed confrontations between different fur traders or these episodes of almost guerrila warfare in the boreal bush. So, 'Frontier' is using some seriously creative licence here. Also, lot of the characters are cast as inept, drunk, corrupt or morally deficient...or combination of all. They steal and kill, almost at will. I understand that the show's creators were keen on portraying conflict; let's at least try to portray conflict realistically. One had to be competent to stay alive and prosper on the frontier. Things like trying to kidnap a chief's son (in order to force a tribe to negotiate) would have been exceedingly stupid. And the folks who ruled the colony still ruled it...by a rule of law. The setting looks like it's supposed to be somewhere in the northern Laurentians in Quebec but could also be northern Ontario...but is actually Newfoundland. We are not told at the onset as to what year it is. Big mistake in my opinion. Doing a period piece requires an attention to detail. For instance, an English officer in a redcoat, even in the wilds, would have worn longish hair in a pony-tail or perhaps a wig, and no beards would have been seen on any of these men, in the late 1700s and very early 1800s. The French Canadian and Metis trappers and fur dealers would have had a very specific look to them, as well. A woman running the bar at the company fort would not have worn trousers - maybe for riding a horse but never for work in a public place. Also, no matter how much a governor of a fort would have screwed up, he would not have been murdered/summarily executed by another big official. It's too outlandish. At worst, they would have been sent back to England and 'retired' with some kind of a pension and told to shut up. Anyways, a lot of creative license is at work here, with trying to make the Hudson's Bay Company and its times seem more interesting and more dramatic than it really was.

Anvil (2008)

A very human portrait of barely known metal legends

[9/10 · 30 October 2017]

This is a great little documentary. It works as an exercise in telling a story of the humans behind the act - very ordinary Canadian guys who happen to be in a viable but commercially unsuccessful metal band - as well as a story about an industry, the music industry. It's a fun, weird, wild ride and there's genuine humanity in it, no grandstanding or manipulation of the central characters. You meet the guys, get in their heads, see them go through various tragic-comedic struggles.In one sense, this may be the best recent "reality" documentary about a rock band. (Please be warned that there is a partial 'spoiler' in one of my last sentences...)

Sometimes, failure is a more intriguing subject than a smashing success. The guys in Anvil may have inspired many other metal bands in the early 80s but, as the documentary goes on to show, utterly failed to harness the raw talent and energy in a direction of dollars and fame. Theirs is a compelling story because it contains this central mystery: why not Anvil? Why Metallica, Slayer, Judas Priest, Saxon, Anthrax, Accept...or, for that matter why Guns n'Roses, Alice in Chains or Motorhead? Why did all those other heavy metal and hard rock acts of the 80s and early 90s succeed so thoroughly while a seminal band like Anvil managed to fail so thoroughly?

Anvil are the ultimate slackers, that is slackers in all other areas of their lives except for crafting their music. Musically, they are shown to have the chops, the skills, the energy, the will and the stage presence. Doesn't matter if they're playing to 10,000 screaming fans or to an audience of 50. They deliver. As for any other aspect, they are a continual slow-moving train wreck. It's almost as if the band remained a supremely important but low-key side project, for 32 years. That alone is an amazing thing.(Think of a professional quality, polished artistic gig you'd carry on for 32 years, without receiving adequate compensation....)

The documentary offers some answers as to the 'why', such as unprofessional management, but it ultimately leaves other question marks. For instance, with this documentary being a kind of a ticket to newfound exposure and much-deserved fame for Anvil, how are the band members now doing? (We know they are playing better, bigger, properly paid gigs, and we know that Steve Kudlow and company have gotten overdue acclaim because this film hit such a note.) It almost deserves a follow-up because the story of Anvil didn't stop in 2008...no, it continues and there is an upward trajectory. Including the main fact that they finally could quit their day jobs! I highly recommend, even if you're not a fan of this kind of music.

Sand Castle (2017)

A good try at a realistic drama but needs accuracy

[7/10 · 25 September 2017]

My initial reaction to seeing this low-key but powerful film was along the lines of "wow, that's some intense stuff...and fairly well acted". I also liked the premise of it, the basic plot line. However, there are a number of issues with the film.\

First off, since it is supposedly set in the very early phase of the Iraq occupation (2003), there would not yet have been this open Sunni-Shiia hostility and the well-organized guerilla resistance/terrorism by local malcontents. These incidents were only starting to crop up in 2004 and really came to the fore in 2005, 2006. Second detail is the low level of security that the US soldiers seem to deploy while trying to work with random locals. For example, there's no way that a suicide bomber with a cooler full of explosives would have smuggled himself into an actual construction site.

I was also left wondering why the main protagonist was sent back to the States and effectively relieved of duty, as opposed to the other guys. It may have been left undefined for the artistic purposes but in a real army setting, there would have been a debrief. Is he seen as suffering from a kind of PTSD or as having gone a bit rogue, or is it a case of "mission not well handled"? The feeling it left was one that army cadres were feeling a bit sorry for this college kid and were shipping him to where he could do no harm or come in harm's way. There is this kind of a rush to wrap up the script and end the story, which rubbed me the wrong way.

As an allegory or a stylized cautionary tale, though, this is powerful - and intimate - film because it does get inside the heads of some characters and because the characters are compelling. The difficulties of working with the Iraqis and generally in an alien cultural environment were portrayed in an interesting way.

This is not a fast-paced, high body count war action flick. But some of the action sequences are intense. Lots of mixed feelings about this one.

Bone Tomahawk (2015)

A weird thrill ride

[7/10 · 10 January 2017]

Saw this, finally, and I was intrigued but also impressed...and yet a bit disappointed, by the time the film ended. It is a mix of a classic Western, a buddy movie (or, rather, a movie about dynamics of a small group), a kind of a slowly unfolding disaster movie, and a horror film, with a 'creature feature' aspect to it. The acting I found to be solid. The characters were somewhat developed but kind of left half-finished. The sheriff's and his posse journeying into the eventual lair of cannibalistic cave dwellers is well depicted; there's tension, as well as entertainment. It does drag on too long. The cannibal troglydotes are freaky - but quite unbelievable. The viewer doesn't learn anything about them or their origins expect for the fact they're damn good at killing, butchering and eating humans (and maybe a few other animals). And, of course, the good guys win, overpowering and outsmarting the cave-dwelling baddies. So, let's talk about the cave-dwelling baddies. Are they some strange clan of white settlers gone totally astray? Are they a forgotten and ostracized sub-tribe of Native Americans? Are they mutants or aliens? Not much of a hint here. I would have preferred even a short backstory about them. As some other viewer has remarked, if this is the 1890s, why are the man-eaters not cleverly using guns instead of spears, bone tomahawks and clubs? Why are they so Neanderthal instead of maybe being simple inbred rednecks who munch on the occasional fellow Wild West traveler? (Here, I am thinking IF there were cannibals on the American frontier then, they would have resembled the bad rednecks from 'Deliverance' rather than some creature from 40,000 years ago). Anyhow, the director tried to make a mash up of two or three genres and produced a kind of a cult film. I like my Westerns straight-up and I like horror movies like 'Alien' where it's more of a reptilian or some completely non-human creature, so it didn't appeal to me on that level. It did appeal to me as a journey film and as a statement on how far people are willing to go. Kurt Russell is continuously appearing in movies these days, being basically Kurt Russell- wouldn't it be great to be him?

The Last Kingdom (2015–2022)

A good period drama - from a period we don't know much about

[8/10 · 12 August 2016]

I was prepared to be entertained by this but being a fan of solid historical fiction, I was also prepared to not like some of the liberties that directors take with historical subjects from the Dark Ages. Having said that, this series, the entire story, is better than I had expected. What do I like about it? The cinematography, the casting (some good actors in key roles, the overall pace of storytelling. I also like the attention to available historical details including really good costumes and early medieval battle recreation. What don't I like about it? The plot gets a bit too convoluted to be believable. For one, Uther walks such a dangerously fine line between the Danes (who had adopted and basically raised him) and the Saxon king-to be (who is his employer, his boss, to be blunt)...at some points, either side, no matter how they like and respect him, would have assassinated him for being a suspected traitor, or for simply being too dangerous. This is ironically what keeps the story rolling forward. One looks forward to the hero's progress and the many twists and shenanigans along the way. And a good sword fight or two, or the next scene where the Saxons outfox their Viking invaders. Truth be told, we just don't know much about the 9th century in England. The Vikings just emerged out of their own unwritten phase of history and are known in crude and simplistic terms, mostly as the bad guys. The Saxons are just starting to have a semblance of a state and 'civilization' but one senses there was a large amount of infighting and rivalry. These are all the contextual things that are hard to adequately portray in a TV series. But the director tried, so kudos to that!

The Drop (2014)

A good, slow moving drama

[8/10 · 26 July 2016]

I finally got around to watching this - and liked it a lot. The characters are compelling and they evolve, which is more than one gets in most crime thrillers. Gandolfini's 'Cousin Marv' is a complex, brooding man, who actually turns out to be a bad guy, worse than one would have thought. Bob is surprising and oddly likable; good choice to cast Tom Hardy in this role, as Hardy tends to do well in roles where he plays quiet types. (No one sees him coming, as the detective puts it, in one scene.) The Chechen gangsters are appropriately menacing but not over-the top, and appear to have some sort of a code of honour...again, a realistic portrayal of their kind. I liked the slow moving build up and the unrolling of the side stories (the dog rescue, the awkward friendship, maybe a hint of romance between Bob and Nadiya) and the almost complete lack of sensational scenes that seem to pervade many movies depicting organized crime. No car chases, no explosions, no epic shoot-outs. But the little bits of violence are pointed enough and scary enough to underscore the narrative. It almost feels like some of the British or continental European art films about a 'gritty' character in a bad neighbourhood, as opposed to the standard American fare about these subjects. Last but not least, even if I am not sure about the very premise of this film - not sure that the "drop bars" really function like this, in this day and age - I am ready to go with it, for the sake of a story well told.

The Duellists (1977)

One of the best character driven films

[10/10 · 25 August 2015]

I rarely go out of my way to write an unabashedly positive film review. With Ridley Scott's classic here, I have to say that it hit all the marks of excellence I can possibly think of: a) It is interesting, suspenseful and entertaining; b)It combines action, adventure, quiet philosophical moments and a great portrait of an era, without being a simple period piece; c) It had created compelling and somewhat mysterious main characters who are thrilling to follow, through the entire story; and d)although it doesn't preach, it contains a moral and offers a commentary on life. In short, it is a complex, thoughtful and yet fun film. It is also violent, on a certain level, but the violence isn't gratuitous but rather there to illustrate a way of life.

'The Duellists' is set in a fascinating era, the Napoleonic wars, and in the professional soldier class. These guys were extremely capable and were a kind of an elite, in their own way. Because it is an exploration of the concept of 'honour' and one can say a commentary on those who perhaps pervert or take honour too far, the film cannot avoid making a detour into somewhat socio-political matters...and yet it stays away from politics (no questioning whether Napoleon was good, bad, etc). It is refreshing to see this.

The characters are what really drives the story here. They are both developed well, presented in a setting that's always evolving, and even though it's mostly a story of their intense rivalry, the story feels believable and the characters seem like men of flesh and blood (not mere caricatures, which is a trap many historical films fall into).

Last but not least, this film is visually very appealing, with interesting angles, imaginative, artistic use of light, and very serious attention to detail like uniforms, manners, the look and feel of the early 1800s, and the nice, pastoral French landscape. So it was very easy on the eyes.

There are so many newer films and so many blockbuster-type movies that failed to make a lasting impression on me. The Duellists is in the opposite camp - I could watch it three or four times and still appreciate it.