'True Grit.' Directed by The Coen Brothers.

‘True Grit.’ Directed by The Coen Brothers.

Produced by: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Scott Rudin and Steven Spielberg.

Written by: Joel and Ethan Coen. Based on a novel by Charles Portis.

Starring: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Hailee Steinfeld, Barry Pepper and Elizabeth Marvel.

Music by: Carter Burwell.

Cinematography: Roger Deakins.

Editing by: Roderick Jaynes.

Distributed by: Paramount Pictures.

Run time: 110 minutes.

Budget: $38 Million.

Gross Revenue: $139, 992, 042.

The Coen Brothers are an English major’s best friend. Their films are deeply filled with theme and philosophical ponderance, but at the same time they are bad-arse in ways that fill one with a morbid glee. Remember that scene in ‘No Country for Old Men’ where Anton Chigurh finally catches up with Llewelyn Moss in the hotel? Josh Brolin sits on the bed, cautiously watching the shadow move under the crack of the door. He reaches over and grabs his gun, gets it ready to fire, and then FFFNNTT! The lock of the door is blasted out by Chigurh’s crazy air-compression gun, hitting Llewelyn in the chest. Llewelyn takes the hit and fires back, starting one of the greatest shoot-outs to appear in cinema in the past ten years.

This moment of suspense and action is suitably juxtaposed with the muted, stoic ponderings of Tommy Lee Jones’ Ed Tom Bell, who ends the film as a retired sheriff ruminating over a dream of his father, who died on the job at an age that Ed Tom Bell has surpassed by two years. 2009 has been the only year in recent memory that I have been completely satisfied with the Academy’s choice for best picture. No Country for Old Men is a modern classic that I try to watch at least once a year.

So, you can imagine my jubilation when I heard that the latest Coen Brother’s film was to be a Western, starring none other than Jeff ‘The Dude’ Bridges. When I first saw the trailer on YouTube, I tried not to get too excited. Part of why I loved ‘No Country’ so much was because I went into the theatre having never seen a Coen Brothers movie before (I am ashamed of this, I assure you.) I just filed True Grit in the back of my mind and focussed on other things. Finally, the Australian release date for True Grit creeped around and I attended the film last night.

First off, True Grit does not share the same thematic content as No Country For Old Men. It follows that the two films are almost incomparable. Whereas the latter was a tale about the absurdity of life; namely the role of chance in determining who gets to live and who has to suffer, the former is more concerned with disentangling the romance that many of us associate with the American wild west. Josh Brolin’s Tom Chaney is romanticised throughout the film to the point where you believe he is going to be a methodical, cold blooded killer, much like Anton Chigurh. However, when the young Mattie Ross finally encounters him, he is nothing more than a bumbling idiot. When she confronts him at gunpoint and says “You’re going to come over here and walk in front of me up that hill.” He grins moronically and says “And suppose I turn and walk the other way; what then?” So much for an Angel-Eyes type gangster; this guy possess the same dumb ignorance that haunts us whenever we look into the eyes of a chicken and wonder what it is thinking.

Indeed all the characters are depicted unromantically from the beginning. We have Jeff Bridges’ as U.S. Marshall ‘Rooster’ Cogburn, an alcoholic of questionable moral fortitude; Matt Damon as Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, who seems more concerned with his own macho image than anything else; and finally, we have the young Mattie Ross, who is played by new-comer Hallie Steinfeld. Ross is a fourteen year old girl who demands justice for the killing of her father. Though her bravado is initially impressive, eventually we begin to suspect that she may be too naive and therefore utterly incapable of committing the grave act that she so proudly aspires to.

The myth of the Hollywood Western is almost completely unravelled by the time we catch up with Brolin’s character. However, the film takes an inspiring turn in the third act when Mattie Ross gets captured. After ‘Rooster’ gets shot up in a shoot-out with the gang, he further risks his life to retrieve Mattie Ross from a snake-filled cave only to ride with her for miles and miles to the nearest settlement so that she won’t die from a snake-bite. It appears the Coen Brothers don’t exactly share a full black armband view of American history, where altruism has no place. They seem to be saying that there are good people in any historical period; you just have to look hard to find them.

True Grit is a delight to watch, I was particularly moved by the sequence at the end which depicts a poisoned Mattie Ross slipping in and out of consciousness, catching glimpses of the untouched American country-side on a horse ridden by ‘Rooster.’ The sequence perfectly encapsulates the only way in which we can experience the Old West; through a haze of truth and untruth, represented to us through romanticised versions of old America, and through historical evidence that suggests such romantic views weren’t real.

Four and a half stars:

'The Kids Are All Right.' Directed by Lisa Cholodenko.

Produced by: Jeff Levy-Hinte, Gary Gilbert, Jordan Horowitz, Celine Rattray, Daniela Taplin Lundberg and Philippe Hellmann.

Written by: Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg.

Starring: Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska, and Josh Hutcherson.

Distributed by:  Focus Features.

Release Date: July 30^th, 2010.

Budget: $4 Million.

Gross Revenue: $29, 365, 490.

Despite being about two gay women and their family, this struck me as a very conservative movie. The overall theme seems to be the importance of the family unit. As I struggle to determine what the dominant message of the film was, I’m actually pretty convinced that maybe it was to unravel some of the taboo associated with homosexuality: To show us that it doesn’t matter whether you are gay or straight, that it’s the solidity of the family unit that matters most. Of course it’s true, but I think I was expecting something edgier from The Kids Are All Right. If both the parents were straight, I think you’d be hard pressed to call it anything other than a well acted soap-opera. By making the main characters gay, it seems that Cholodenko is almost trying to convince conservative people that gay people are just as capable at raising a family as straight people. If this is the point of the movie, and I could be wrong, I think it’s sad that we still need a movie like it. I thought we all got over homophobia in the 90s.

Needless to say, The Kids Are All Right is really well made. Julianne Moore is divine as always. Although I’m not a huge Annette Benning fan, she was good in this movie. Mark Ruffalo plays the bumbling slacker really well, and all the performances captivate in the right places. When Jules (Julianne Moore) starts her affair with Paul (Mark Ruffalo), I really did feel the tension deep in my gut. You feel simultaneously sympathetic and angry at her, and you really do get the sense that these are really people, and that this is a scenario that could actually happen. There is also an admirable shot that occurs when Nic (Annette Benning) finds out about the relationship that her wife is having with Paul. The entire cast is sitting at the dinner table, and the camera focuses on Nic as the sound completely drains away. Without any dialogue, we get a sense of her heartbreak and discomfort. It’s the kind of shot that hasn’t been used in movies for a while, and I thought it made a welcome return in this flick.

You could make the point that the film also discusses the fluidity of human sexuality, something that you wouldn’t get in a traditional soap opera. Though both Nic and Jules are gay, they watch male homosexual pornography. There is a delightfully funny scene where the couple try to explain why they do so to their son. As the hippy Julianne Moore awkwardly explains:

“Well you know, sweety, human sexuality is complicated. And sometimes desire can be counter-intuitive, you know, for example women’s sexual responsiveness is internalised. Sometimes it’s exciting for us to see responsiveness externalised. Like with a...with a...penis.”

This is really nice scene that sets up Jules’ character and also introduces some more conservative audience members to the concept of a fluid sexuality. All that half-baked gender theory aside, the film is really enjoyable. As far as contemporary human relationship dramas go, it’s the best of the year. I just hope that a lot of us get over this tacky homophobia thing sooner rather than later so that we can start seeing more unique homosexual perspectives.

Three and a half stars:

 

'The Social Network.' Directed by David Fincher.

Produced by: David Fincher, Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca, Ceán Chaffin, and Kevin Spacey

Written by: Aaron Sorkin. Based on ‘The Accidental Billionaires’ by Ben Mezrich.

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Brenda Song, Rooney Mara, Rashida Jones, Armie Hammer, Max Minghella, and Joseph Mazzello.

Distributed by: Colombia Pictures.

Release date: October 1^st, 2010.

Run time: 120 minutes.

Budget: $40 Million.

Gross revenue: $203, 012,  320.

This is one of those movies where not a single lead character is really likeable. I interpreted it as a cautionary tale about the existence of a certain type of person in this world: The kind that subscribes to the philosophy that if you’re not actually making a profit, you’re not worth the time of day. I guess after completing my degree I sort of forgot about those people, but this movie really reminded me that they do indeed exist, and are in fact running the modern world.

In my poli sci days, I did a course on the social ramifications of modern advertising. Half the class were marketing majors, the other half social science majors. The arguments were frequent and serious, with the social science majors demanding that advertisers acknowledge that advertising has contributed to some horrifying social trends like alcoholism and smoking, and the marketing majors refuting with the typical “It’s not up to us to play nanny to the world” argument.

The Social Network seems to be populated with characters that are all marketing majors. These people usually have no experience of poverty or real emotional hardship and feel they shouldn’t be expected to consider what effect their ideas might have on society. They go through life in a type of constant tunnel vision, seeing only the next big thing, remaining oblivious to their privileged standing in life, and reluctant to do anything that doesn’t result in them making ‘bank.’ These are the type of people who misinterpreted Wall Street, claiming that Gordon Gecko was the reason that they got into stock trading.

I guess the key concern of the movie is the effect that Facebook has had on eroding our sense of connection with other people. Fincher is especially qualified for this: For many, his Fight Club was an introduction to nihilism and also the idea that consumer capitalism is not a sufficient method of personal identity formulation. The characters of The Social Network, specifically Zuckerberg, all end up rich and friendless, which is pretty ironic considering their invention was about social interaction. They are also cold characters, who you wouldn’t want to be friends with.

The first scene in the The Social Network depicts Mark Zuckerberg getting dumped by his girlfriend and subsequently posting a derogatory comment on his blog about the size of her breasts. He just goes online and posts about her breasts as if he were writing it in his personal journal. She finds out of course and when he later tells her that he didn’t mean what he wrote and that he was angry, she says: “You called me a bitch on the internet. As if every thought you ever have is so clever it would be a crime for it not to be shared.” This line pretty much sums up the character of Zuckerberg, and the audience knows that it’s all going to be downhill from here.

The internet was supposed to be this huge democratic medium where people could share ideas about social justice, science and philosophy, and instead it has led to a freaky kind of socialisation where all the awkwardness of meeting someone new is almost completely removed. It is no wonder that Zuckerberg blogged about his girlfriend’s breasts; his interaction with women up to that point in time probably consisted of pornography and chat rooms. He probably didn’t know that women didn’t like men talking about their breasts on the internet, because he never actually sat down and had a conversation with a woman before.

The Social Network is one of those socially relevant movies that the Academy tends to love. I wouldn’t be surprised if this movie won Best Picture and Best Director for Fincher. He certainly deserves the recognition. However, something about this movie didn’t really sit right for me. I didn’t get to sleep for hours after I finished watching it. The selfishness of all the characters was really disturbing. The movie is technically competent, and it does raise some interesting philosophical issues about how the internet has changed social interaction, but it’s not a nice movie. It’s a dose of medicine that is good for us, but that doesn’t stop it from tasting bad going down.

Four stars:

Film Buffs by Director.

So I stole the idea for this little article from a blog that I love dearly called ‘The Best Little Bookshelf in Texas.’ It is written by Jia Tolentino, a member of the Peace Corps working in Kyrgyzstan. Jia writes about every book that she reads and she is brilliant. 

Anyway, back to the article: Have you ever run into a self-anointed film buff who just won’t shut-the-fuck-up about a certain director? Sure you have. You’ve been to one of those borderline hipster parties where you end up cornered by a Tarantino fan trying to convince you that Reservoir Dogs is about ‘...men reclaiming their masculinity in a world dominated by the social narratives of free-market capitalism.’


Well this is a little list of what to expect from people who are be obsessed with particular directors. And if your favourite director is on the list, don’t get mad, just laugh it off. Hey man, I’m just some punk who thinks his opinion means somethin’.

So here it goes:

Woody Allen: Hopeless romantics disappointed that they haven’t found someone to talk sarcastically about literature and world events with.

Wes Anderson: Saul Bellow fans that secretly wish Bill Murray was their father.

Michael Bay: Young men that are only a few IQ points above full-blown mental retardation.

Tim Burton: Angsty teenage girls and boys who are openly bisexual just because they know it will annoy their parents.

Kenneth Branaugh: People with Ph.D’s in medieval literature who think that modern re-tellings of Shakespeare are for stupid people.

James Cameron: Scientists who like Aliens the best out of all those movies because it gave them a greater glimpse into xenomorph biology.

The Coen Brothers: People who have been clinically depressed and realise that Creedence Clearwater Revival and marijuana is a way better antidepressant than Prozac.

Francis Ford Copolla: Fifty year old men who go to fancy dress parties only in full Marlon Brando garb, complete with cotton balls (even though their wives would never let them put them in).

Sofia Copolla: Women who seriously consider committing suicide as opposed to spending another day in their stupid office cubicles at their meaningless jobs, only to go home to a marriage that didn't turn out like they expected it to.

David Cronenberg: People who hate the Star Wars prequels because there weren’t enough puppets in it.

Cameron Crowe: People who cried when Orlando Bloom cried on his road trip in Elisabethtown but who would never admit it to their friends.

Clint Eastwood: Moderate republicans who own guns and are still suspicious of minorities even though they know that Gran Torino should have taught them better.

David Fincher: Male Brad Pitt fans who tell you they’ve dabbled in nihilism, over a decaf soy latte at Starbucks.

Mel Gibson: People like Carrie’s mother.

Terry Gilliam: Slightly eccentric but brilliant math teachers who love Lewis Carroll and don’t think that ‘English Literature’ is a real subject.

Alfred Hitchcock: People who read Agatha Christie novels and get mad at movies that don’t have conventionally linear plots.

Peter Jackson: Fans of the British Office who are willing to forgive The Lovely Bones because Jackson cast Martin Freeman as Bilbo.

Stanley Kubrick: Film Theory majors who only buy DVDs if they come with hundreds of hours of bonus behind-the-scenes featurettes.

Sergio Leone: Budding male film-makers who get high and talk about how every one of Leone’s shots is “...just so fucking beautiful, man...”

George Lucas (pre 1996): People who, when they were kids, got their mothers to write fake notes so they could get out of P.E. (that’s Gym to you Americans) and draw their own sequels to Star Wars in comic book form. People like me.

George Lucas (post 1996): Children who think that the puppet Yoda in ‘Empire Strikes Back’ looks fake. Adults who are in denial that the Ewoks in ‘Jedi’ were a bit lame.

Baz Luhrman: Women who haven’t had enough of silly love songs. Men who secretly want to design just one fabulous gown without seeming gay. 

David Lynch: People who smoked a lot of pot up until they were in their thirties and had to quit because their thoughts were becoming too hellish. They replaced pot with transcendental meditation, but know deep down that it just isn’t the same.

Christopher Nolan: People who name drop famous authors even though all their books are book-marked at chapter 2.

Ridley Scott (pre 2000): People who sigh on the inside whenever someone says they prefer the cut of Blade Runner that has a voice-over.

Ridley Scott (post 2000): Working class fathers that get every ‘History’ question in Trivial Pursuit right, and understand why Russell Crowe needs to throw a phone at someone every once and a while.

Martin Scorsese: Fifty year old Rolling Stones fans who traded in gangster fantasies for down-lights and fiscal responsibility.

M. Night Shyamalan: People who have a profound respect for traditional horror film-making, but whispered ‘fuck off’ when they saw the ending of The Village.

Steven Spielberg: People who thought the best thing about having a pet mouse growing up was thinking of ways to torture it.

Quentin Tarantino: Men secretly wish they could beat the living fuck out of someone they hate and say something really cool before, and after, they do it.

Lars Von Trier: People who have undergone terrible emotional hardship in their lives and find it really hard to bite their tongue at family functions when a distant right-winged relative talks about how good The Dark Knight was.

The Wachowski Brothers: Misunderstood teenage boys who wear faux-leather trenchcoats to high school parties and think that knowing a few MSDOS commands constitutes being a 733t hacker.

John Woo: Twenty-something men who, at their first ever paint-ball session, attempted one sideways shoot-jump before hurting their ankle and hiding behind a barrel for the rest of the game. 

'The King's Speech.' Directed by Tom Hooper.

Produced by: Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Gareth Unwin, and Geoffrey Rush.

Written by: David Seidler.

Starring: Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, and Helena Bonham Carter.

Distributed by: The Weinstein Company (USA), and Momentum Pictures (UK).

Edited by: Tariq Anwar.

Cinematographer by: Danny Cohen.

Country: United Kingdom, and Australia.

Budget: $15 Million.

Gross revenue: $64, 704, 237.

I’ve always been reluctant to see historical pictures about British royalty. I did enjoy ‘The Queen’, but the whole time I watched it I found it hard to drum up sympathy for the matriarch. I had the same problem with this film. The biggest deal for this guy on the onset of WWII was whether or not he could deliver a speech without stuttering. Give me a break. I’m pretty sure that there were a few people with bigger problems leading up to WWII, namely all those young men that had the troublesome little quandary of avoiding death at the hands of someone they didn’t even know. 


There are undoubtedly monarchist Brits and Australians out there that will point to the importance of the symbolism behind King George VI’s speech, but I’m certainly not one of them. There is a lot to be said about the importance of an authority figure that obtains power solely by birthright. The whole ‘worship of the individual’ thing that some Brits have going on for members of their royalty might be cool if it hadn’t been historically flavoured by calls to commit to wars that resulted in the deaths of thousands. I know you can say that Hitler was a really bad guy and was going to take over the world, and I’m not arguing against that, I just get the heebie-jeebies when masses of people adore people they’ve never personally met before. Anyway, now that I have that out in the open, we’ll stay away from the anarchy nugget that I seem to bring to a lot of my reviews.

As reluctant as I was entering the film, I was surprised at just how much I warmed to these characters. Indeed, the movie is largely a character piece. Though I half expected Helena Bonham-Carter to overact atrociously, I was pleasantly surprised by her performance. As the Duchess of York, she is simultaneously charming and heart-warming, a refreshing break from all her turns in Tim Burton films. You really get the sense that she cares deeply for her poor stammering husband; she plays each emotional scene with commitment, without descending into sentimentalism. I would not be surprised if she won an Oscar for this.

The movie really belongs to Colin Firth however, who nails his part on every level. Talk about guaranteed Oscar win material; Firth’s stammering is authentic, and his confession to Rush of his treatment as a child really gives depth to a character that is so reserved for the whole movie. After we see him stutter, we begin to wonder just what exactly it is that is causing it. When he tells us, it is all the more moving because the depth of his character gives the revelation weight. The private life of Royalty will always be fascinating in an odd sort of way, and by the end of the film we are so connected with him on an emotional level that he truly does ‘...cross our threshold’ as if he were speaking with us face to face. As much as I wanted to discount him as a rich, whinging wanker in deep need of some perspective, the movie really delivered the feeling that he didn’t have a choice in becoming what he was. You do start to feel sorry for him in the end, and you do genuinely hope that he will overcome his speech impediment. However, the fact remains that he is still going to remain absurdly comfortable during WWII. You can imagine him practicing his elocution with Rush while young men get ripped apart by MG42 machine guns on a continent right next door.

I know a lot of people are raging about Geoffrey Rush’s performance here, but I could take it or leave it. It was such an easy role to play really: The cooky non-comformist with a heart of gold. It’s a role that we’ve seen a hundred times over and though Rush doesn’t descend into cliché, his character is certainly not the most interesting in the film. Maybe it has something to do with my heritage. As an Australian, I can safely say that Rush’s depiction of an Aussie larrikin is extremely safe. A true Aussie-- without formal education-- would probably have done a lot more than just sit on the king’s throne; he would probably get shit-faced and piss on it. I feel a little bit like I’m shitting on Geoffrey Rush, and I don’t intend to. I think I was just expecting a little bit more from him in this instance.

All crudeness aside, there were also some inconsistencies with theme that I perceived in this movie. When Guy Pearce ascends to the throne as King, there is much furore made about him being involved with an American divorcee. Both Firth and Rush talk about it as if were a great fucking tragedy that a man associated with such a woman could possibly be king. I’m sure that the historical context demanded such dialogue, but later on a clear theme of social progression is introduced when we realise that Rush has no formal qualifications. Rush argues with the Archbishop over the importance of both their roles (Rush as a scientist, the archbishop as a keeper of tradition), and you get the clear sense that the underlying message of the whole film is that social progression is better than adhering to tradition, if only so we can avoid such tragedies as child abuse— which only occurs to Firth’s character because the tradition of royalty demands that royal parents be distanced from their children. This progressive message seems to be undermined a little by both Rush’s and Firth’s puritanical sexual leanings.

Call me a shallow person, but as good as the movie was, I don’t think I’ll be re-watching it any time soon. It’s not because it’s too intellectual or anything, it’s just that I find royalty wanky, and the puritanical nature of many of the characters is suffocating. I know that social progression succeeds in the end of this picture, but getting there just takes too fucking long.

3.5 Stars:  

'Devil.' Directed by John Eric Dowdle (and not, I assure you, M. Night Shyamalan)

Produced by: M. Night Shyamalan, John Eric Dowdle, Drew Dowdle, Sam Mercer.

Written by: M. Night Shyamalan (story), Brian Nelson (screenplay).

Starring: Chris Messina, Bojana Novakovic, Bokeem Woodbine, Logan Marshall-Green, Jenny O’Hara and Geoffrey Arend.

Distributed by: Universal Pictures.

Running Time: 80 Minutes.

Budget: $10 Million.

Gross Revenue: $57, 417, 973.

M. Night Shyamalan is getting crucified by pretty much everyone these days. The press don’t like him and the public certainly don’t either (as evidenced by a viral video in which an audience of movie-goers audibly boo when his name appears on the trailer for Devil.) I personally have a love/hate relationship with the guy. I think he is really good at creating suspense. He does this by using classic techniques to create a slow boil in a scene, which is a stark contrast to the ‘seat-jump’ tactics of other horror movies. At the same time, I have little patience for the religious messages he conveys in some of his movies. You know what I’m talking about: The whole ‘destiny’ bit in ‘Signs’, where an ex-priest played by Mel Gibson eventually learns that his dead wife’s last words were actually instructions on what to do when the aliens come. All that fairy tale horse-shit does my head in. Some critics have argued that this film wasn’t directed by him and so he can’t be blamed for its shittiness. Slow down. The last time I checked it was Shyamalan that came up with the story. And the story, my friends, is precisely where ‘Devil’ clunks along worse than your grandfather’s second-hand panel van.

Normally, I would use this opportunity to segueway into a nice little summary of the movie’s plot, but I really can’t be bothered. Recounting plot is a tedious exercise, even for good movies. Tedium quickly descends into ‘dull-cloud-of-rage-in-my-nicotine-deprived-mind’ when I have to recount the plot of something as fucking awful as Devil. If it’s a plot summary that you’re after, just look it up on Wikipedia. Too lazy for that? Hey, I hear you buddy. Just click here.

Now when I set out to writing a review for this movie, I thought about what it is I could possibly say that might be in the least bit meaningful. Sure it’s fun to tear a movie to pieces, but reviewers have already done that. In reviewing Devil, I wanted to try and convince you, dear reader, that the movie is actually detrimental to the evolution of human society. 

Just typing that made me think "Wow, that’s a pretty big accusation, do you care to back that up?" If this were some kind of trial environment, and I had to convince a jury that Devil is detrimental to human society, I would point to the overall implications that the film has regarding how one can achieve redemption for past wrong-doings. You see, the devil is in the elevator with a bunch of people who are all hiding terrible secrets, and he has come to collect their souls. There are five people in the elevator, one of them is the devil in disguise and the others are all regular people (this is sounding an awful lot like a fucking plot summary.) The devil systematically kills each person when the lights flicker out, and this ultimately leads to a situation where all the characters become suspicious of one another. There are lots of “You did it!”/“No, you did it!” thrown around. Meanwhile there is a cop outside tying to break in to stop all the bloodshed; a cop who is still in mourning over the loss of his wife and child to a hit-and-run.

Anyway, the anonymous devil kills everyone in the elevator until there are only two people left standing. By the logic of the movie, the audience is led to believe that one of these two is in-fact the devil. But this isn’t a regular movie, oh no; it’s a Shyamalan movie, which by its very nature demands a shocking twist. The twist in this case? The devil faked his/her own death to avoid suspicion. The devil then reveals his/her true identity, as one of the people that died earlier in the film.

It is at this point that the surviving male character (can’t think of his name, let’s call him Roger...) offers himself to the devil and says that he would rather die than let the devil take the soul of the only surviving woman. Roger appears to have developed the characteristic of empathy in this little exercise-- now if only the writer could do the same and quit writing movies with religious undertones. Upon Roger’s declaration of self-sacrifice, the devil says something along the lines of "Damn you Roger, I really wanted your soul!" and then disappears back to hell.

The male character at this point confesses to the manslaughter of the cop’s wife and child in a drunk hit-and-run accident that occurred before the movie (Ooh, coincidence? Surely not!) Roger is led out of the elevator and the cop offers to take him into the station. During the ride into the station, the cop tells Roger that he forgives him. The movie fades to black, and all the Christians in the audience feel warm inside about the sermon they’ve just heard, where ‘forgiveness’ is the over-arching theme.

Let’s get a few things straight: The way that Roger achieves redemption in this film is by confessing to his drunk hit-and-run and then submitting himself to the American legal system for an apt punishment. This is what the movie believes is the appropriate punishment for poor Roger. Now, as anyone who has picked up a newspaper (that isn’t The Daily Telegraph) knows; the legal system in liberal democratic western countries is completely unfair in its distribution of justice.

 Let’s suppose for a second that Roger has a lot of money saved away in a bank account and hires a brilliant lawyer who argues that he was operating a vehicle with diminished responsibility due to the level of alcohol in his blood. Shit, you could probably argue that he’s also suffering from some degree of post traumatic stress disorder-- he was in Afghanistan after all. Roger gets a slap on the wrist and is forced to spend some time in a rehabilitation clinic. On the other hand, Roger could have been dirt poor and received a court appointed lawyer, who is so backed up with cases of people from low socio-economic backgrounds that he can’t think straight, and Roger ends up serving a minimum of ten years in a pound-me-in-the-arse prison. 

This is my main problem with the flick. They could have made an interesting movie about forgiveness with the same story elements minus all the Satan bullshit. Let’s say that the movie is about an alcoholic cop who has lost his wife and child to a hit-and-run. The cop subsequently befriends Roger, the guy that did it; only the cop doesn’t know it yet. For the first half of the movie you could focus on the relationship between these two men, make it so they genuinely get along with each other. They both struggle with their alcoholism, but learn to depend on one another to get through it. Then, at the half way point of the movie, Roger tells the cop about his crime, and the cop, putting it all together, realises that Roger is the guy that killed his family. The second half of the film could be about the virtue of forgiveness, with the cop overcoming all his anger and remaining friends with Roger despite the impact that he has had on his life. If you really wanted to, you could still even keep the Christian undertone, though surely such a thing is no longer necessary in an era that has seen the complete mapping of the human genome.

Devil maintains the status-quo of a society that is biased in favour of those that have lots of money. Suggesting that Roger can only achieve redemption by subjectifying himself to a hypocritical justice system is either idiotic, or a sophisticated method of propaganda created by a wealthy writer/director in an informal conspiracy to maintain the status-quo, I’m too lazy to work out which, and I don’t really care. All I do know is that Devil sucks just as much arse as your boss probably did to get into a position of middle-management with a multi-national corporation.

Half a star: