Butterfly on a Wheel.

I do like a film with a twist - especially one you’re not expecting. Directed by British director Mike Barker, best known for his TV work on series like Outlander and the second series of Broadchurch, and shot mainly in Canada with Vancouver filling in nicely for Chicago, Butterfly on a Wheel (2007), or as it’s known in the USA Shattered, certainly has a grand twist.

 

Will the perfect couple complete their tasks on time to save their child?

We have what would appear to be the perfect American couple, man and wife Neil and Abbey Randall (Gerard Butler and Maria Bello) and their young daughter Sophie. They reside in a large comfortable modern house in Chicago and are obviously quite well off. Their American dream world is turned up side down when Sophie is suddenly kidnapped by Tom Ryan (Pierce Brosnan). Our middle class marrieds are then put through a series of twisted tasks by a cold and calculating sociopath to keep their child alive.

 

or will Tom Ryan excerpt his justice?

Certainly not an earth shattering movie, excuse the pun, but an entertaining 90 minute mystery thriller in which Brosnan pulls out all the stops as the ‘villain’ and one which will keep you guessing right up until the end. A film for a wet afternoon and if you don’t leave it to long can be seen on the BBC’s iPlayer. 

Beowulf and Grendel

Beowulf and Grendel get to know each other better!.

I must admit to a lack of familiarity with Anglo-Saxon literature, so when I get a chance to see a movie loosely based on an epic poem called Beowulf by an anonymous author I’m intrigued! Apparently according to the poem this Beowulf is the hero of the Geats who were a North Germanic tribe inhabiting what is now Gotaland in Sweden. The king of the Danes, a chap called Hrothgar, summons our Scandinavian warrior to help him out with a wee problem he was having with a nasty piece of work called Grendel, seemingly a monstrous character who attacks and kills people with his bare hands. According to the poem Beowulf slays Grendel and then proceeds to slay his mother after which he returns home and becomes King of the Geats. After ruling the Geats for fifty years up pops a dragon, which he manages to slay but he is fatally wounded and dies from his injuries. You would think that at his age he would have left it to a much younger man?

Gerard Butler as Beowulf.

Right, after this wee history lesson I’d best get back to the film, as I said Beowulf and Grendel (2005) is loosely based on this ancient poem. Filmed in Iceland and directed by the Canadian film director Sturla Gunnarsson the films narrative does indeed deviate from the poem, the monster is now depicted as a Troll, played by the Icelandic actor Ingvar Eggert Sigurosson you may have seen in Jar City (2006) and there are some additional characters including a rather attractive witch called Selma portrayed by Sarah Polley (Splice 2009) and by the way your be pleased to know I have not given away the ending because it’s different from the one I described. Also included on the cast list are Gerard Butler, who seems to appear all over the place at the moment, as Beowulf and Stellan Skarsgasrd as the Danish king Hrothgar.

This historical curiosity has some well-staged action sequences, but it’s bleak and cold looking mainly due to the inhospitable landscape and Iceland’s unrelenting weather. The main problem is the dialog, which is very difficult to understand at times. There’s a certain amount of madness about the whole thing, so much so you could imagine Werner Hertzog directing it!  

Machine Gun Preacher.

Poster.

Sometimes the name of a film can be completely misleading, Machine Gun Preacher (2011) sounds like a grindhouse movie similar to Hobo with a Shotgun (2011), Death Proof (2007) or perhaps Machete (2010) but its not. Marc Foster the German-Swiss filmmaker responsible for such diverse work as Monsters Ball (2001), Finding Neverland (2004), The Kite Runner (2007) and the last James Bond film Quantum of Solace (2008) has based his latest feature film on the life story of former outlaw biker turned Christian, Sam Childers. Up until he was 30 years old Childers was a violent drug dealer, drug addict and alcoholic until he saw the light in the summer of 1992 and converted to Christianity. Following this transformation, in 1998 he made the first of many trips to Sudan and along with his American based wife founded the Angels of East Africa, building a children’s orphanage in Southern Sudan in the middle of Joseph Kony’s Lords Resistance Army’s (LRA) territory. The Children’s Village currently houses over 300 orphans and has rescued over a thousand children since its inception.

Sam Childers.

As well as its unfortunate title the movie has other problems. Childers’s conversion from criminality to self-righteous preacher and businessman is not totally convincing because of the speed that it’s portrayed in the movie. Gerard Butler’s portrayal as the Rambo of the Christian Right is not very compelling; I’m aware he can act, because of his performance as the vicious warlord Tullus Aufidius in Coriolanus (2011). The supporting actors are certainly not used to their full potential, Michael Shannon as Childers lifelong friend Donnie and Michelle Monaghan as the ever-dutiful wife are played out as formulaic clichés. The script is far from perfect and the direction leaves a lot to be desired but it has the basis of a cracking good yarn and I feel it could have been done far more interestingly as a documentary, going by the real life clips that accompany the credits. 

Coriolanus

We are in a modern day city called Rome, the people are on the streets demonstrating because of lack of grain and food shortages, there are military threats to the counties borders and the government is ineffectual. General Caius Martius crushes the food riots by inflicting severe force on the populace. He’s then forced to lead a campaign against the Volsians whose leader Tullus Aufidius threatens the very fabric of Rome, hand to hand fighting ensues. For his part in winning this bloody battle Martius receives the honorary title of Coriolanus and a nomination for the consulship, much to the joy of his mother Volumnia………..

A career defining performance from Fiennes.

Shakespeare’s play Coriolanus (2011) has never been adapted for the cinema, until now. Ralph Fiennes has played the part of Coriolanus in a stage play before, but this cinematic version is not only his directorial debut but he also takes the main lead and has a hand in the production. The film is shot in Belgrade and magnificently photographed giving a convincing and bloody feel to the war torn zones by cinematographer Barry Ackroyd who has a long pedigree including ten Ken Loach movies and two recent conflict films 2009’s award winning The Hurt Locker and the Green Zone (2010). As well as a career defining performance from Fiennes the support is superb with Gerard Butler playing the vicious warlord Tullus Aufidius, Vanessa Redgrave as Coriolanus proud and defiant mother, Jessica Chastain, who I last saw in the magnificent The Tree of Life (2011) as his subservient wife with Brian Cox as the senator Menenius.

The film is about modern day warfare, the type of which you see on the BBC News channel every night, and the pitiful world that we all now inhabit. It fact newsreader Jon Snow is actually seen on Rome’s news channel, Fidelis! Fiennes and his scriptwriter have turned the Bards play into an engaging political drama, admittedly devoid of humour but one that reverberates into your subconscious.  

We told you to turn off the mobile phone!!!!!!!