The Ides of March.

The 15^th day of March in the Roman calendar is known as The Ides of March. This date in 44 B.C. is best remembered for the death of Julius Caesar who was stabbed 23 times in the Roman Senate (painful) by a large group of conspirators. It is alleged that a seer or prophet had foreseen Caesars assassination and warned him to ‘beware the Ides of March’. I suppose the equivalent today would be the Prime Minister David Cameron being stabbed by his backbenchers on the floor of Parliament: televised of course. The soothsayer? Probable Nicholas Clegg.

George Clooney and Ryan Gosling.

Which brings me to George Clooney’s return to form after the rather disappointing The Descendants (2011) Actually released before this film, The Ides of March (2012) as you may guess from my wee ramble above, is a political conspiracy thriller/drama that touches very nicely on the dark side of a political campaign. Clooney not only plays the part of Mike Morris Governor of Pennsylvania and a Democratic presidential candidate but directs his 4^th film, produces and co-writes this intriguingly pacey adaptation of Beau Willimons 2008 play called Farragut North, which in turn was loosely based on the 2004 Democratic primary campaign of Howard Dean who served six terms as the 79^th Governor of Vermont!  

This strong story is about the power and corruption involved in politics and the back room staff involved.  Exceptionally acted by an ensemble cast of the highest calibre led, not by Clooney but by the splendid Ryan Gosling, who gets better every time you see him, as Stephan Meyers, deputy campaign manager for Morris, Philip Seymour Hoffman, as Paul Zara Stephan’s boss, Paul Ciamatti the rival campaign manager and also Evan Rachel Wood, Marisa Tomei, Jeffrey Wright and Max Minghella.  A well made movie for film lovers of intelligent cinema that respect a director of integrity who in turn treats his audience with respect. 

The Descendants

Alexander Payne is one of my least favourite American directors, having sampled two of his films About Schmidt (2002) and Sideways (2004). In the first film Jack Nicholson plays a cantankerous widower who senses that life has passed him by, and makes a cross-country trip in a large motorised camper van to visit his daughter. In Sideways two friends embark on a tour of the California vineyards prior to one of them getting married. Both are comedy dramas but I’m afraid neither where particularly funny nor dramatic. Maybe it’s more a reflection on my sense of humour and dramatic sensibilities than the fault of the director, but his latest Honolulu filmed comedy drama The Descendants (2011) is no better! It stars George Clooney, a role I’m sure he could play in his sleep, as Matt King a very wealthy and powerful Hawaiian lawyer with a wife in a coma, two daughters, the youngest living at home the other with a drink and drug at a private school. The story is basically two fold; our lawyer is the sole executive trustee of a huge piece of naturally beautiful land, which the local Hawaiians do not want sold to an unscrupulous land developer, an act that will make an already wealthy family dynasty even wealthier. The main crux of the story is about his wife Elizabeth who is on a life support machine following a speedboat accident. It turns out that dear Elizabeth has been cheating on poor Matt and before her life threatening mishap was planning to leave her husband and abandon her two children.

The Family.

The emotional strength tied up in Kaul Hart Hemmings story should have been enough to pin you to the back wall of the cinema and not let you go for two hours but this subdued overindulgent movie did nothing of the kind. Why it won Best Adapted Screenplay at the disappointing 2012 Academy Awards for something that was afraid to show feeling? Can’t help but wonder what a superior job Thomas McCarthy would have made of it, now there’s a man who can direct a heartfelt comedy drama.

The American

Anton Corbijn, Dutch film director and photographer, describes his second feature film, the first being the black and white biographical film Control that told the tragic life of Ian Curtis lead singer with the 70s band Joy Division, as having a western structure and watching The American (2010) you can see where he’s coming from. Killings are carried out by a handsome stranger during a gun fight; he becomes a fugitive and hides out in a small town. This obvious outsider hooks up with the local priest and a beautiful hooker. Clearly the past catches up with him and the classic showdown takes place in the centre of town, you can’t go wrong with a plot like that!

The Hit Man.

Set in modern day Italy, the stranger is played by George Clooney, part hitman, part gunsmith who while holidaying with his girlfriend in the bleak snowy wilderness of Sweden is forced into a fire fight with opposing agents and ends up killing them along with his girlfriend. Instructed by his handler to travel to the small town of Abruzzo he is given an assignment to build an untraceable rifle to be used in a killing. While there he meets and forms a relationship with the local priest, who seems to understand the stranger, and the gorgeous Clara, a prostitute played by Violante Placido who subsequently falls in love with our gunsmith.



and the Hooker.

 Adapted by Rowan Joffe from A Very Private Gentleman by a British novelist Martin Booth and shot in sumptuous colour and picturesque locations by Martin Ruhe which cleverly competes with the harshness of the subject matter. What we use to call a slow burner, the film never allows us to get inside the Clooney character and the viewer has to make his own assumptions and that’s the strength of this immensely enjoyable thriller. Highly recommended to these capable of enjoying a slice of American New Wave Noir without the normal signposts.

Up in the Air

Jason Reitman (Thank you for not Smoking 2006, Juno 2007) adapted his latest movie Up in the Air (2009) from Walter Kirn's 2001 novel of the same name and turned it into a razor-sharp view of modern corporate America. George Clooney is at his smooth-taking best as Ryan Bingham, a middle-aged ‘career transition consultant’ a man who fires people for a living on behalf of management that have not got the balls to do the job themselves, a man whose only ambition in life is achieving ten million air miles which will reward him with a platinum card and a quick chat with a pilot! Two women arrive in Ryan’s life and challenge his relationship free existence. The first is Alex Goren (Vera Farmiga), much the same age as Ryan and living a similarly fancy-free airborne life, with whom he has an affair. On the surface an ideal couple. ‘Think of me as yourself with a vagina’ she tells her fellow corporate traveller. The other women is 23 year old Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) who threatens the very existence of Ryan and his colleagues when she persuades their boss Craig Gregory (Jason Bateman) that firing people impersonally via a computerised video link would save the company a fortune in air fares and hotel bills. Ryan is to take one last trip to show the young and inexperienced Natalie the ropes. Reitman black comedy is full of sharp dialogue and great one liners, ‘a feel good film for feel bad times’ as Philip French described it. Not to be missed, highly entertaining.