The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years (2016) 

Starring John, Paul, George & Ringo (obviously) 
Directed by Ron Howard 

Arguably more has been written, recorded and filmed about the Beatles than any other musical act in history.   As the unwieldy title suggests, the film primarily focuses on the formative years of the group (1963 -1966) through to the time when they permanently retreated to the studio to create their groundbreaking experimental albums such as "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band";  the latter period is acknowledged in the final few minutes, but the bulk of the footage deals with the mid 60s period onwards, in which they became the biggest and best pop band the world had ever seen - at one point simultaneously holding all five spots in the US Billboard chart, an incredible feat.  It really brings home how utterly huge they were and how mental the whole "Beatlemania" phenomenon was, and it's frankly dizzying. Just looking at the reception they received on things like the Ed Sullivan Show, or landing at airports, boggles the mind.  Although there's nothing in the film to surprise die hard Beatlemaniacs, it's a fascinating insight for fans both new and old alike.

First and foremost this is about the songs.  There are so many classics - She Loves You, I Want to Hold Your Hand, A Hard Day's Night, Help!, the title track, and so on -  which speak for themselves, and the sound remastering, by producer Giles Martin (son of George) is absolutely amazing. I am more familiar with and therefore prefer their later "studio" stuff; everything from and after Revolver, which is where this film ends.  So it was good to hear some of that earlier stuff belted out with unending resolves of enthusiasm.  It's pointed out, not least by Lennon himself, that they were no overnight success.  After the Quarrymen morphed into the Beatles in 1960 they played the circuit, and played it hard.  They went to Hamburg for a spell, where they would play for many hours a day, and spent the nights crammed into a single hotel room with no toilet.  Their touring was extensive, both in the UK and Europe by bus - hardly the most comfortable means of travel - and overseas by air, which was not nearly the same as it is today.  At one point they played a limited dates tour of America, returned to the UK for another tour, before returning to the US for yet more shows.  Hard work pays off.

They were indeed so busy and such a phenomenon that Record Executives worried they would be finished by the end of 1964, if not the end of that summer.  Thus production of their first feature film, A Hard Day's Night, was somewhat rushed.  Even then the Execs had very little faith in the film, wishing mainly to get distribution rights to the soundtrack.  In the end the production cost was around $560,000 and the eventual theatrical gross was close to $1.6m.  A good investment, but it's easy to see why the suits were wary.  It's a vaguely surreal day-in-life caper in which the band travel from Liverpool to London to perform on a television broadcast.  It features the often imitated (not least by Austin Powers) scene of the Fab Four running down the street to get away from an adoring mob, the attempt to look after Paul's wayward Grandfather (Wilfrid Brambell), Ringo's attempt to get away from it all only to end up in jail for loitering, and other general madcap lunacy.  It's fun seeing popstars playing themselves and seemingly having tremendous fun (this is a long way from Spice World) and retains a certain timeless charm.  The following year they did it all over again, this time in colour, in Help!  Amusingly, Eight Days A Week tells that the production went to the Bahamas at one point because of some advice received about taxes (!)  It's more polished, no less madcap than its predecessor, with a convoluted  - and frankly irrelevant - plot involving a magical Indian ring, cult sacrifice, mad scientists, Salisbury Plain and Scotland Yard.  Again directed by Richard Lester, who would go on to make Superman III and the wonderful Royal Flash; behind the Goon Show-inspired slapstick antics the music shines through again, with the single Ticket To Ride and the title track by Lennon - widely considered to be autobiographical due to the pressure he felt at the time - among the standouts. The band spent much of the filming stoned, allegedly having been introduced to the wonders of marijuana by Bob Dylan, and it shows.  It was another critical and financial success, comfortably outgrossing its bigger budget of $1.5m.  It is said to have set the tone for many music videos to come down the years.

This isn't Ron Howard's first foray into documentary film making, following Made in America from 2013, but it seems like a strange choice.  Howard is a bit of an enigma as a director, capable of producing such near masterpieces as Apollo 13, Frost / Nixon and Rush, a crop of decidedly solid but unremarkable fare such as Backdraft or A Beautiful Mind, alongside some absolute dogs - The Dilemma, The Robert Langdon trilogy (what Tom Hanks was thinking I have no idea; I suppose everyone has to pay the mortgage).  Most recently he successfully performed rescue surgery on Solo: A Star Wars story following the departure of original directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller. (*)  Eight Days a Week is a relatively safe, unfussy portrait, covering the basics, including a few controversial moments, such as Lennon's "bigger than Jesus" comment and his subsequent explanation / apology, and the groups small contribution to the Civil Rights movement, when they refused to play before a segregated audience in Jacksonville, Florida, on their 1964 US tour, and their future insistence that their contacts contained a clause stating that they would not do so.  The former was a storm in a teacup, despite the mass record burnings in the US.  The latter was a truly pioneering moment for which they are probably not really credited or even particularly well known.  Certain more famous clips, such as Lennon's "Just rattle your jewelry" comment at the 1963 Royal Variety Performance, are omitted.  It's peppered with the odd celebrity interview, with  likes of Whoopi Goldberg, Sigourney Weaver et al talking about the influence the band had on them.  It reinforces what a true cultural and artistic phenomenon The Beatles were, and still are.

The documentary shows the stress and scrutiny they were under, the closeness and friendship they had - John Lennon and Paul McCartney agreed that whichever of them actually wrote a song, it would be credited to both of them, although George and Ringo received their own credits for the likes of Taxman and Octopus's Garden.  It shows how utterly utterly mental Beatlemania was, and provides context about the turbulent times in which they emerged - they broke through in 1963 at almost the exact time John F Kennedy was assassinated and went on to conquer the world. The songs speak for themselves and sound absolutely superb on a great soundsystem.  For cinemagoers, as a bonus after the film finishes there is a presentation of 30 minutes of The Beatles groundbreaking Shea Stadium concert. Whether a fan or not - but particularly if you are - this is a great, unmissable experience. 

Interesting, or maybe not, tidbit, the Semaphore spelled out by the boys on the cover of Help! doesn't actually spell Help.  It spells NUJV, which was apparently an easier pose.

(*) I firmly perceive that the apparent "failure" of that film at the box office was down to the sheer awfulness of the preceding Star Wars film The Worst Last Jedi.

Now You See Me

Now You See Me (2013)

Starring Jesse Eisenberg and Mark Ruffalo (and a host of others)
Directed by Louis Leterrier

SPOILERS

"Come in close... closer... because the more you think you see, the easier it will be to fool you."  Thus says professional illusionist J. Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), by way of introduction to "Now You See Me".  It turns out to be something of a double - or triple - sided dare to the audience, but therein lies the nub of this whole picture.  It's a flashy, fast-paced, magician-based, action-comedy, heist thriller; in other words, its recipe contains ingredients from many different sources.  It fits into and can appeal to fans of many genres, although it may confound certain expectations precisely because of that diversity.  From the outset it declares its intent to deploy misdirection, action, comedy and - yes - magic, albeit of the cinematic kind, to keep the viewer from guessing the unlikeliest of twists, and defies them to keep up if they can or care to.  Like a spectacular trick, in other words.  Despite mixed reviews, it was a modest-to-respectable hit on its release in 2013 ($350m worldwide gross from a $75m budget), and a sequel arrived recently, so it seems appropriate to revisit it to see if the original magic still dazzles, or just fizzles.

It's directed by Louis Leterrier, chief alumnus of the school of what could reasonably be called the "Luc-Besson-produced-trashy-Euro-action" genre (which seems relentlessly to throw up guilty pleasure after guilty pleasure). Besson, of course, is the eccentric Gallic genius who came to prominence with "Le Grand Bleu" and "Nikita" before making the move to Hollywood and turning out "Leon" and the brilliantly bonkers "The Fifth Element" amongst other films.  Leterrier made his name with the majestic Jason Statham vehicle "The Transporter" and the first of the "Taken" movies, responsible for Liam Neeson's unlikely reinvention as an action star, before helming "The Incredible Hulk" in 2009, one of the early - and criminally overlooked - entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  So it should have been clear to anyone paying attention that "Now You See Me" wouldn't be a slow-burning, brooding, psychological magic movie in the vein of late 2000s offerings "The Prestige" , or "The Illusionist".  It would be something with frenetic pace, fun, and spectacle.  If those films would be Marc Salem or Derren Brown getting into your head, this would be David Copperfield or Penn and Teller dropping your jaw.  But it just could be unexpectedly subtle too, beneath the bombast.

A prologue introduces us to four characters, in various locations, all carrying out different forms of magic tricks.  In Chicago, the aforementioned Atlas looks to be a street hustler, but the punchline to his trick involves the spectacular co-operation of a skyscraper.  Down in New Orleans, Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson) is definitely a hustler, using his powers of "mentalism" and improbably effective hypnosis techniques to shake down unsuspecting marks.  Young New Yorker Jack Wilder (Dave Franco) is shown to be a low-rate spoon-bending Uri Geller but a top rate pickpocket.  Finally, in LA, Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher) performs an amazing,  piranha infested version of the famous disappearance / reappearance act (think The Wet Transported Woman).  They are all stalked by a mysterious hooded figure, and are all drawn to a derelict NYC appartment... A year on, they're seen performing together as "The Four Horsemen", carrying out an impressive,  glitzy act in Las Vegas, in which they somehow rob a bank in Paris,  and scatter the stolen banknotes down on their incredulous but adoring fans... FBI Agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) is tasked with working out what they did, and how they did it.  He's reluctantly saddled with French Interpol agent Alma Dray (Mélanie Laurent) to assist him on the case, but is taunted along the way by magician-turned-debunker Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman) who claims to know how every elaborate stunt is engineered, and constantly reminds him how he - Rhodes,  that is, is several steps behind the perpetrators.  The Horsemen are under the patronage of insurance magnate Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine), and are seemingly untouchable.  If they have committed a crime, they point out, wouldn't the FBI be admitting that magic is real? There's no proof of their guilt.

Essentially, then, that's the neat high-concept pitch.  Magicians rob banks and give the money away - Robin Hood style.  Catch them if you can.  The movie hustles briskly along between a series of bombastic set-pieces.  The initial Las Vegas-to-Paris bank robbery scene is fantastic, all the more so because Bradley later demonstrates exactly how it was carried out.  A second featured stage show by the now fugitive Horsemen provides a neat twist which alters the loyalties of several major characters, and their subsequent flight from pursuit leads to an exciting chase scene in which it becomes apparent why Leterrier was chosen to direct.  This is further evinced later by a quickfire hand-to-hand combat sequence and a breathtaking extended car chase, both of which rival anything in the director's previous offerings.  As one would demand from such a director, the "action" is delivered with dizzying velocity.  During the magic act set pieces the camera swoops energetically over the stage, constantly moving, in a way which makes the viewer think they couldn't spot the secret to the trick even if they tried, so we are swept up in the jaw-dropping payoffs.  The climactic showdown between the law and the law-breakers is a headspinning, disorientating feast of light and sound, appropriate to an illusionists' show meant to overwhelm.

In the face of this hokum, the ensemble cast is hugely impressive.  Daniel Atlas somehow becomes the de-facto leader of the pack, although it's never really expressed exactly how or why, but Eisenberg's charm is magnetic, so his arrogance is easy to take on board.  Harrelson's McKinney spends much of the time needling the others, threatening to use his "powers of the mind", giving rise to much of the snappy dialogue that ensures proceedings are so enjoyable, and his jousting with Eisenberg is often hilarious. Morgan Freeman turns in one of his best performances in a while; of course he's doing his customary expositional role, but with a great smugness and glint in the eye, because - remember - he's a step ahead all the way through. Mark Ruffalo plays the constantly-frustrated FBI man almost too well, whilst Mélanie Laurent gives more than as good as she gets as the investigator who knows more about the background to the case than expected, and refuses - sometimes fierily - to be sidelined.  It wouldn't be expected that a picture like this would deliver deep character development, but the other two members of the gang are given fairly short-shrift in those terms; not that that would necessarily have been the prime concern of any viewer.  Franco's Wilder is patronisingly dismissed as the "little boy" of the troupe, whilst Fishers's Reeves is depicted as little more than Altas' glamourous former assistant - despite her evident performing skill.

The script by Boaz Yakin, Ed Solomon and newcomer Edward Ricourt is peppered with snappy and highly entertaining dialogue.  It's as amusing as you might expect from Solomon, who co-wrote the "Bill and Ted" films, and it's as twisty-turny as you would expect from Yakin, whose directorial debut was the brilliant "Fresh" back in 1994.  Ricourt's subsequent work on the "Jessica Jones" series is also somewhat in evidence.  Rising star of the scoring world, Brian Tyler ("Iron Man 3", umpteen "Fast and Furious" movies) delivers a bombastic suite of music with a bold, memorable theme, which has an oddly 70s feel to it.  And as mentioned, the visual work by dual DPs Mitchell Amundsen ("Transformers", "Wanted") and Larry Fong ("300", "Watchmen") bathes the film in a glorious neon sparkle at times.



 Many viewers and reviewers complained that the final, "huge" twist was unsatisfactory. But to quibble on that point is to miss the point entirely; it's like grumbling that Houdini didn't really transport the elephant away, he simply hid it, of course.  The fact that much is made of explaining the seemingly impossible tricks as the tale unfolds makes the final rug-pulling so perfectly ironic.  Obviously it means that one character does spend 98% of the running time acting completely falsely,  but it's forgivable given the pleasant surprise.  Didn't see that coming, eh? It's magic. Misdirection. That's the whole point. 

And it's not as if there aren't huge clues littered throughout.  For example, when McKinney first meets Rhodes, he taunts him about his "daddy issues".  On first pass, it just comes across as comic bluster, with the implication that most of Merritt's predictions are "targeted guesses", as he himself claims they are. But on a second viewing, in the knowledge that the whole plot is about revenge for the death of Lionel Shrike, it can be seen that this is fundamentally true.  There are plenty more examples. 

Ultimately, "Now You See Me" is showy, silly and great fun. The cast are all at the top of their games, Laurent and Ruffalo in particular displaying palpable chemistry, and all are clearly having fun. It barrels along at pace and with pizzazz.  It definitely does bear up to a second viewing, and generally plays a lot better than some of the original snooty reviews would suggest.

Now, let's see if the magic can be re-conjured for the second installment [Addendum: Alas, it couldn't]. And remember the first rule of magic: always be the smartest guy in the room.

Vice

Vice (2018)

Starring Christian Bale and Amy Adams
Directed by Adam McKay

The office of Vice President is "not worth a bucket of warm piss."
- John Nance Garner
32nd Vice President of the United States, 1933 - 1941

Vice (noun)
- An immoral or evil habit or practice.
- Immoral conduct; depraved or degrading behaviour: a life of vice.
- A fault, defect or shortcoming.

There is obviously a dual meaning of the title Vice.  Ostensibly it's so-called because it broadly depicts the life and latter political career of Dick Cheney, Vice President to George W Bush, and arguably, through skillful manouevering, the most powerful VP in United States history.  But it also implies corruption, dishonesty, and wrongdoing.  Make of that what you will. The film plays its Get-out-of-Jail-Free card right from the outset, stating that although it will attempt to depict the life and career of its subject, ultimately, nobody really knows who Dick Cheney is.

Having briefly shown a 21 year old  Cheney getting pulled over for drunk driving, the scene is set in the White House Operations room on September 11th 2001; amidst the chaos Cheney gives authorization to the military to shoot down any aircraft deemed to be a threat, and apparently does so with the President's authority. Flashing back in time we see Cheney arguing with his classy wife Lynne (Amy Adams) having been kicked out of Yale for repeated drunkenness.  Naturally, to get his life back on track, Cheney chooses Politics, that most honourable of professions, and enrolls as a Congressional intern, where he ends up working for the abrasive Donald Rumsfeld (a note perfect Steve Carell) purely because he likes the address just given to the interns, rather than from any discernibly ideological preference.  And so his climb begins.  After the Watergate scandal brings down the Nixon administration, Rumsfeld is recalled from exile as Ambassador in Brussels to become Secretary of Defense under Gerald Ford; Cheney becomes Chief of Staff.  When Jimmy Carter becomes President in 1977 Dick is out of Government, but becomes Congressman for Wyoming in the House of Representatives, despite suffering a heat attack mid-campaign.  Amongst his "achievements" in the post, to which he was re-elected five times, was the repeal of the doctrine requiring the media give both sides of a story, leading to the wildly ideological and biased news outlets such as Fox News, which we know and love today. 

Having later served as Secretary of Defense for George H W Bush, Cheney again finds himself out of a job when Bill Clinton becomes President.  He takes the role of Chief Executive Officer with the multinational oil and energy behemoth Halliburton.  But the lure of office is never far away.  When George W Bush, once the drunken, wayward black sheep of the Bush family asks Cheney to be his running mate, he initially demurs but eventually agrees.  9/11 happens - this is where we came in.  The film attempts, for the most part successfully, to unpack the Gordian knot of the the Afghanistan / Iraq  wars and the ongoing strife in the Middle East into a coherent narrative. Al-Qaeda is identified and (partially) neutralized, but the Government, led by Rumsfeld and Cheney are determined to take down Saddam Hussein and seize control of Iraq's vast oil deposits.  Bush Jr apparently just wants revenge on Saddam because his daddy didn't finish the job a decade previously.  The myth is spun that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction (UK Prime Minister Tony Blair famously went along with this, and lied to the House of Commons when he claimed they could be deployed within 45 minutes); secretary of State Colin Powell (Tyler Perry) is coerced into making a cringe-worthy address to the United Nations General Assembly making the case.  It's sad to see a noble and honest man such as Powell have his dignity stolen. 

The desperation with which the key players struggle to find some justification, however flimsy, for an attack put me in mind of this cartoon; eventually they seized on the fact that al Qaeda lieutenant and Bin Laden loyalist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had moved from Afghanistan to Iraq.  Around this point in the film broadens its scope from a biographical depiction of Cheney's rise to power and starts to demonstrate his wider influence on domestic and global politics and society.  It induces incredulity; how could such brazen dishonesty go unchallenged?  It's blackly humorous in every sense of the word black, and would be funny if its consequences weren't so destructive and tragic.  Cheney consolidated his power further as Rumsfeld is forced out with no mention of unknown unknowns and Bush bumbles along on his merry way.  The popular perception of Bush Jr as a buffoon is partly borne out here, but McKay wisely steers clear of this path, as did Oliver Stone in his level-headed "W." with which this film has some similarities, historically and thematically, if not tonally.  Sam Rockwell gives an effective, somewhat understated performance as a vaguely over his head Bush, which heightens the focus on Cheney, as is the intention.

Whilst this is Bale's film without question (he was Oscar nominated for Best Actor) the supporting actors are all solid.  In addition to the aforementioned Carell,who almost manages to humanise Runsfeld, and Rockwell,  we have Tyler Perry in an unfamiliar role as Colin Powell, and particularly to the largely unheralded, despite an Oscar nomination for Best supporting actress, Amy Adams, reliable and versatile as ever.   The most surprising role goes to Jesse Plemons (Fargo series 2, Friday Night Lights, Bridge of Spies), whose character Kurt acts as a narrator, although the audience is initially none the wiser as to his relationship with Cheney; [mild spoiler:] it's later revealed that he is just an ordinary citizen whose heart, after his death in a car accident, ends up in Cheney's chest after his latest heart attack.  This works on a symbolic level, implying that Cheney literally ripped the heart out of the everyman citizen.  It's one of the stylistic and narrative contrivances, however, which have caught some reviewers and some audiences off guard, and rubbed some up the wrong way.  It's certainly not something one would expect from a political bio-pic, and adds to the films distinctive package.

Much has been made of these stylistic quirks.  They work for some but not for others.  I found them to be effective and memorable.  It seems that great effort has gone into comparing this to McKay's previous film, 2015's Oscar Winning The Big Short.  That film, based on the book by Michael Lewis (*) was a satirical take on the Global Financial Collapse of 2008, and opted to employ celebrity cameos and much fourth-wall-breaking to illustrate the complexities of Collateralized Debt Obligations, Credit Default Swaps, Sub-prime Mortgage Bonds, and all the rest.  But to do so is to miss the point of Vice. Where The Big Short took artistic licence to tell essentially what was a true story, this film uses historical events, with which it plays fast and loose, to paint a portrait of an individual and his lasting affect on society.  It's too convenient to place the two in exactly the same basket, although that's not to say there aren't some similarities.  This is also ostensibly a true story, but the boundaries between fact and fancy are less clearly drawn.  One of the best gags in Vice comes during the end credits, when a focus group (seen previously giving their opinions on the war) breaks into an argument about whether the film has been too liberal or too conservative.  It's a brave move since it undoubtedly reflects the widespread opinions of the audience which has just watched the film.  Another (possibly too) cute moment comes midway through the picture when a set of faux credits runs, showing Dick and Lynne retiring to Wyoming to breed dogs and live happily ever after; Not really, says McKay, gotcha. Another sees Cheney and cohorts dining in a five star restaurant, where the waiter (Alfred Molina) reads off a series of menu items including rendition and enhanced interrogation techniques. Cheney says thanks, they'll take the lot. 

It's easy to see why this film is divisive.  It sits somewhere between outright satire and serious drama.  It's funny, but in a smirking rather than laugh out loud way.  It's undeniably messy and a little loose, and it never really gets under its subjects skin.  But of course, remembering the disclaimer, it doesn't fully attempt to; it does, but comes up with a relatively simple, if unsatisfactory answer: he's a bad person.  It's enough to say that, more or less, this is what happened.  And the presiding message is that once one has a taste of power it might be hard to relinquish it.  To paraphrase Lord Acton, "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely".  It's challenging partly because of what it says about the world today.  Despite the best efforts of the 44th President, we live in an environment where it's not just normal, or expected for the President or senior politicians to lie, it's overlooked and even commended.  Watching this film makes one almost nostalgic.  It serves as a reminder that, any revisionism regarding George W Bush's presidency is misplaced (although it's heartening that he is implicitly critical of the current incumbent). He was fully complicit in handing the keys to the kingdom over to Cheney and Big Business.  But that was a generation ago, and a film like this is necessary to make and /or keep folks aware of what a bin fire it all was.

It's one of life's great conundrums how a film like this could come from the director of such fairly low to middlebrow - and that's being generous - comedies. Talladega Nights, the Anchorman films, and Step Brothers.  But it's a welcome direction in which for this talented filmmaker to venture.  There is a hint of things to come in the film The Other Guys, which is tangentially about financial corruption, particularly evident during the end credits.  But now McKay seems to be tackling "serious" subjects, albeit in an unconventional way; his next project is slated to be Bad Blood, another true story about an entrepreneur who creates a successful biotech company which comes under investigation from the Federal authorities, which could prove similarly interesting.  Certainly Vice is not for everyone.  Some viewers will be deeply frustrated at its apparent lack of insight, others will be irked by its arguably frivolous diversions, but anyone with more than a passing interest in politics, or geopolitics, should find something thought provoking therein.  It's a film which may well stand the test of time as a depiction of what has been, and still is, a turbulent era in the world.

(*) All of Michael Lewis' books are worth reading, taking as he does a variety of complex subjects and presenting them in a readable and easy to grasp manner.

Bruce Willis

Something different from the straight reviews; having recently seen Glass a couple of times lately I was struck by just how good Bruce Willis can be on his day, so decided to do a little top five list of his best / most enjoyable / memorable performances on screen.  He has certainly been in some turkeys, but has also turned in a few in which there is much to be enjoyed.  He has appeared in films collectively grossing over $2.5bn, so he must be doing something right.


John McClane (Die Hard, Die Hard 2, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Live Free or Die Hard, A Good Day to Die Hard)

Having starred in Moonlighting on television for 66 episodes, and turned his hand to music with the album The Return of Bruno in 1987,  Die Hard was the film which propelled Willis into the big time.  Not only did the film set the template for most action movies for years to come - see Under Siege (Die Hard on a Battleship) Olympus Has Fallen (Die Hard in the White House) etc etc ad nauseam, but Willis' performance as John McClane, the ordinary everyman New York detective caught up in a terrorist attack on an LA skyscraper which gave the film that extra something. Tautly directed by John McTiernan (Predator, The Hunt for Red October) the film mixes suspense, with sporadic bursts of violence, some big explosions, and no small amount of humour - see McClane's ongoing radio dialogue with LA Patrol Cop Al Powell (Reginald Veljohnson), the only man on the outside who believes him, and the FBI Agents Johnson and Johnson ("no relation").  Willis wisecracks his way through the nightmare scenario, but never in a cheesy manner, and by the end of the film his character has taken a hefty beating on more than one occasion, emerging into the Christmas night limping, bloodied and bruised; no Superhero style invincibility here.  Ultimately he brings a likeable humanity to the reluctant hero, which endeared him to audiences worldwide.  Die Hard grossed $83m domestic / $140.8m worldwide, and spawned 4 sequels of varying quality, with a sixth film, apparently a Godfather 2 style prequel and sequel in the works.

See also Joe Hallenbeck in The Last Boy Scout, an exaggerated version of essentially the same character.

David Dunn (Unbreakable, Split - cameo, Glass)

A world away from the action of Die Hard, is M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable.  A supernatural, comic book influenced thriller, in which Willis played David Dunn (now there's a superhero's alter ego name if ever there was one), the sole survivor of a horrific train crash, which kills everyone else on board.  Not only does he inexplicably survive, but he's virtually untouched.  He is contacted by a mysterious stranger, Elijah Price (Samuel L Jackson, in one of several appearances alongside Willis) who is convinced that David is one of a very select group of people with special abilities about which they don't know.  He embarks on a sort of superhero vigilante campaign, spurred on by visions he experiences when bumping into or touching people.  The rain poncho he wears resembles a superhero's outfit.  Once again the film largely rests on Willis' quiet, understated performance, which evinces confusion, disbelief, determination, faith and courage.  Satisfyingly there is an explanation for the events as they unfold, but never really for the source of David's strength.  It's a haunting, mysterious film, made all the stronger (no pun intended) for Willis' restrained performance.

Unbreakable grossed $95m domestic / 248m worldwide and eventually became the first part of a trilogy, with two sequels almost two decades later, Split, and Glass rounding out the story.

As a side note it's worth bracketing this with the role of Malcolm Crowe, in Shyamalan's breakthrough feature, The Sixth Sense.  Clearly the two work well together, and the director certainly brings out the modest best in his star.

James Cole (12 Monkeys)

Another role strikingly at odds with the wise-cracking action hero persona traditionally associated with Willis, 12 Monkeys, directed by Monty Python's Terry Gilliam, is an intense, psychological, time-travelling race-against-time drama-thriller, inspired by Chris Marker's 1962 film La Jetée, and scripted by David Peoples (Blade Runner, Unforgiven).  He plays James Cole, a convict in the year 2035, in which the world has been devastated by a virus which killed most of the planet's population and rendered the surface uninhabitable.  In exchange for parole, he is sent back in time to stop the release of the virus.  As one would expect from an eccentric genius such as Gilliam, the film is all over the place, but in a good way.  Cole pings back and forth through time as the boffins in the future try to perfect the time travel process. The virus is / was released in 1996, hence this is the target destination.  But initially he ends up in 1990, where he is incarcerated in a mental asylum, meeting the frenetically bonkers Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt) and psychiatrist Kathryn Reilly (Madeleine Stowe); he is returned to the future, then is mistakenly sent to the battlefields of World War One, where he incurs a bullet wound to the leg.  Finally arriving in 1996 he is able to set about his mission.  Throughout this instability the audience has to work not to be utterly wrong-footed.  Willis' Cole is by turns scared, confused and disorientated, then determined.  His acting skills really tie the picture together, not only acting as a calming counterpoint to Pitts mania, but giving the audience a figure with whom to identify. It's a standout role.

12 Monkeys took $57m domestic / $111.7m worldwide and gave rise to an unlikely television series, to date running to four series.

Butch Coolidge (Pulp Fiction)

Quentin Tarantino's sprawling crime epic won countless awards (an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and not least the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival) and proved to be often imitated but never equaled or bettered.  Split into distinct chapters it interweaves stories of a disparate set of characters.  Willis plays washed-up boxer Butch in the segment entitled "The Gold Watch".  He is paid by Gangster Marsellus Wallace to throw a fight, but he takes the payoff, bets on himself, and duly wins the about.  About to go on the run and leave the country with his girlfriend, he discovers that she forgot to bring his father's gold watch, which is the one thing Butch holds dear above all else.  What follows is a somewhat surreal odyssey through the darker echelons of Los Angeles, involving some unexpected and unsavoury sexual violence.  This section is only relevant to the main narrative, indeed Willis worked on it for only 18 days; it was conceived and written  independently by Tarantino's friend Roger Avary in 1990, before being incorporated into the main feature.  But its impact, and Willis' are marked.  "Bruce has the look of a 1950s actor.  I can't think of any other star that has that look", Tarantino later commented.  Although he doesn't have a huge amount to do, he certainly carries himself with that sort of swagger, and utters one of the film's coolest and most quotable lines: "Zed's dead, baby.  Zed's dead."  Taking a lower salary to appear in this relatively small independent film certainly paid off, not only in terms of his professional standing after a series of misfires, but also in the rewards from points earned against to the box office take.

From a budget of $8m, the film went on to make $108m domestic / $214m in total worldwide.

Korben Dallas (The Fifth Element)

Arguably falling back on the type of performance for which Willis is known best (Empire Magazine described it as a return "from his more demanding performances" , here he plays a wisecracking everyman, in this case a down on his luck taxi driver thrown into an extraordinary mission to save the Earth's destruction by "the Great Evil" .  But this is no Die Hard in space.  From the brain of crackpot French writer-director Luc Besson, The Fifth Element is part science fiction, part action, part comedy, pure comic book pulp hokum, but visually lavish, with costumes designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier and fantastic colourful visuals.  Willis is once again the hero and main character, but plays opposite a strong cast including a wildly OTT Gary Oldman, a wildly OTT Chris Tucker - I sense a pattern developing - Ian Holm, Milla Jovovich, John Neville, the supporting actor's supporting actor Brion James, Luke Perry (RIP), and even our very own Lee Evans.  For a film seriously unlike anything seen before it's to be commended that Willis more than holds his own amidst the chaos.  The one liners are still there, of course, (in response to Jovovich's stream of alien gobbledygook "Whoa, lady, I only speak two languages, English and Bad English") but the comedy is broader than usual.  It's a fun film and a fine performance, serving as a tidy reminder of the actor's spectrum.

The Fifth Element took $63.8m at the US box office for a worldwide total of $263.9m

Jarhead

 Jarhead (2005)

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx
Directed  by Sam Mendes

The film's mantra is the sniper's creed, often repeated: "This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I master my life. My rifle, without me, is useless.  Without my rifle, I am useless.  I must fire my rifle true.  I must shoot straighter than any enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me."

This is something of an oddity, for a few reasons.  For one thing, it's a Sam Mendes film - one of only three (*) - which is half way decent. It is also a War film - or was at least presented as such - in which there is little to no actual fighting, although this is the point. And it's a "war film" which takes no moral standpoint on the rights and / or wrongs of this particular conflict. As one character says, "F*** politics. We're here. All the rest is bullsh*t"

The film, adapted by William Broyles Jr (Apollo 13, Flags of Our Fathers) from the  memoir of the same name, tells the story of US Marine sniper Anthony "Swoff" Swofford; of his early time in the Corps through to deployment in Saudi Arabia in August 1990 as part of Operation Desert Shield, in preparation for the invasion of Kuwait to expel the occupying Iraqi troops.  US led Coalition forces built up to great numbers, but had to wait for the Diplomats to do their thing before they could mobilise.  For 175 days they could do nothing but kick their heels, practicing various drills, notably the NBC (Nuclear Biological and Chemical) protocol, and acclimitising to the harsh desert conditions.  News crews visit to interview the somewhat embarrassed troops, who at one point turn a game of American Football played in NBC suits in 100+ degree heat into a rowdy brawl, for which they are later punished.  But boredom quickly sets in and takes over.  The Jarhead of the title refers to the haircut given to new recruits - number one around the sides and back with hair on top.  But it also emerges as a derogatory term - being "just a Jarhead" implies a lower grunt like status, unlike the elite, veteran fighters.  

The film is by its very nature episodic and anecdotal.  There is no driving narrative beyond that of a group of soldiers sequestered in camp waiting for the big push.  There are the expected tropes of this kind of story; "dear John" letters from wives and girlfriends back home who are sick of their partners' absence, writing to break up and say they have found someone else.  Obviously this is a significant dampener on the Marine's already battered morale.  And these young men are merciless, if not malicious, in the way they treat their afflicted colleagues.  Letters are pinned up on a wall of shame.  A videotape of one man's wife having sex with another is screened for all, and the reaction is raucous and celebratory, schadenfreude in the extreme.  Seemingly most men are just relieved and glad it's not their own wife or girlfriend on show, for the time being. They are also, frankly, pretty vulgar; one can re-imagine this is a College based frat house.  But they repeatedly come back to stressing how much they "love the Corps".

                     

Amidst all of the harsh barbarity, two relationships stand out.  Alan Troy (Peter Sarsgaard) is Swoff's "spotter".  Snipers work in teams of two, one man to fire the shots and one to survey the target and give corrections where needed.  Troy is older, wiser, and more experienced, acting as something of a friend, although not, we discover, without his flaws, which will lead to trouble after the war.  More interesting is his bond with Staff Sergeant Sykes (the excellent Jamie Foxx), who is part charismatic, part enigmatic, part disciplinarian.  Sykes rides Swofford hard, at one point hilariously inviting him to bugle tryouts, even though Swoff has no bugle, purely to humiliate him in front of his comrades.  Once in the field, Sykes becomes something of a father figure, both mentoring and chastising as appropriate.  Sykes is a "lifer", and as the film ends and the soldiers return to civilian life, Sykes is shown serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom, the mop up after Desert Storm.  Of less significance are the friendships with other marines in the unit. Kruger (Lucas Black, of Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift fame, amongst others) is a gung ho individual who only joined up to avoid a prison sentence.  He remarks at one point as they wait that if he had gone to prison, this would have been the day he got out.  Fergus O'Donnell (Brian Geraghty) is perceived as weaker, and looked down upon.  During a Christmas party, Swoff, who is meant to be on watch, gets Fergus to cover for him.  Fergus accidentally sets fire to a tent and a crate of flares; chaos ensues, and Swofford is demoted from Lance Corporal (E-3) to Private (E-1).  Later,with the pressure mounting, Swofford snaps and goes crazy at Fergus, sticking a loaded rifle in his mouth, threatening to kill him.  This doesn't go down too well with Troy or Sykes, who do their best to calm him.

With a campaign of airstrikes already fully underway, finally, it's time to advance through the desert.  The marines experience a "blue on blue" friendly fire incident, when US jets mistake them for retreating Iraqi troops.  Suddenly boredom is replaced by terror.  There are no signs of the enemy, but the road is littered with burnt out cars filled with the grotesquely charred bodies of civilians, desperately trying to escape the bombs.  For the most part the troops are dispassionate, although some are visibly affected.  Mendes lets his camera drift over the carnage, inviting the viewer to react as they will, disgust or indifference.  The Marines discover a field of burning oil wells, at first just a distant glow on the horizon, but as they advance and try to dig in for the night the oil falls from the sky, a black rain.  Frustration returns, as the soldiers are technically at war, but there is no one to fight.  Eventually Swofford and Troy are given a combat mission, to which they react with a strange euphoria.  They are tasked to advance to a bomb-damaged airport to take out two Iraqi officers.  Taking up position in a derelict building across from the control tower, they are all set to take the shot; finally to fire a weapon in anger.  Swoff even has one of the targets perfectly in his sights, when they are interrupted by another team. They are desperate to complete the mission, but the commander of the other unit (Dennis Haysbert) orders them to stand down, as he calls in an airstrike to obliterate the building.  The pair plead with him to allow them to take the shot, but they are overruled.  In a fit of desperation, anger and frustation, Troy snaps and breaks down.  This was the one chance they had of actually being part of the war, and it is denied them.  

Missing their pickup, Troy and Swoff attempt to navigate the night-time desert, becoming utterly lost, until the sound of distant voices reveals that they have stumbled upon their base camps.  The marines there are ecstatic; the war is over.  Partying is in full swing. Not having had a chance to fire his weapon in combat, Swofford joins the others in wildly discharging shots into the air, finally getting the chance to use his rifle.  There is some debate amongst veterans as to whether this indiscipline would really have happened, but the effect on the soldiers and the viewer is exhilarating and cathartic.  There is a certain melancholy and disappointment at the Saddam proclaimed "Mother of all wars" lasting only four days, essentially a nothing conflict, but meaning everything to these men.  But there is also relief and happiness that home is beckoning.  Just because the war was almost nonexistent, it doesn't detract from the film's power.  It's not about nothing, it's about a range of human emotions brought about by the expectations of impending battle.  It recalls and depicts something common to all such situations, from waiting in the the First World War trenches for the whistle to blow, or waiting for the weather to clear so D-Day can begin, but something rarely if ever focused on in cinema.  It is rare but strikingly memorable.

As the bullets and flares light up the pitch black night sky, we find ourselves back home, in the middle of a victory parade.  They are joined by a semi-deranged former marine, presumably a Vietnam veteran.  All wars are the same.  There follows a montage which shows what happens next.  Families are reunited, soldiers go back to civilian life, spending time with women in bars, tending to their children, stacking shelves in the local convenience store, and even giving presentations in a corporate boardroom.  Fergus visits Swofford at home, and informs him that Troy is dead.  It's implied, but not made explicit, that he killed himself, presumably because his pre-war misdemeanours had caught up with him. At the funeral, former colleagues are briefly reunited.  The film is not intrusive, even at this point, simply matter of fact.  In a state of blankness and melancholy Swofford reflects on his experiences, and the effect of the blink-and-you'll-miss-it war.  He concludes. in voiceover: "A story. A man fires his rifle for many years, and he goes to war.  And afterwards he comes home, and he sees that whatever else he may do with his life - build a hour, love a woman, change his son's diaper - he will always remain a jarhead.  And all the jarheads killing and dying, they will always be me.  We are still in the desert."

Technically the film is predictably top notch.  Shot by long term Coen brothers collaborator Roger Deakins, a man who had to wait an unreasonably length of time before finally winning an Oscar (for Blade Runner 2049), it looks beautiful and stunning, from the blinding, bleached white scenes of the blisteringly hot desert to the haunting, eerie shots of the soldiers silhouetted against the blazing oil well fires set by the retreating Iraqi troops.  Mendes' regular composer Thomas Newman turns in another effective and subtle score.  His music has been heard in films as diverse as The Shawshank Redemption, The Player, Bridge of Spies and Spectre, but whatever the genre, his favoured chord progressions always mark the score out as his, and here it's successfully unobtrusive.  Broyles' screenplay is pithy and sharp, with  many a crackling one-liner to be found.  Jarhead is an interesting, bordering on great film.  It's largely about boredom, but never boring.  At its centre is a regular young man finding himself in a surreal, abrasive situation, but he is rendered sympathetic, a proxy by which the audience can experience the downs and ups of this war.  The other grunts, whilst often behaving crassly, are not judged harshly.  The First Gulf war, as it has become known (conveniently overlooking the devaststing 8 year Iran-Iraq war which preceded it), was one of the first played out on television, so many will have an idea of what it was like, judged from the comfort of their living rooms.  This film shows a different side to it, and is much more evocative of a true picture.  A fine achievement.

"Welcome to the suck".

(*) Road to Perdition and Skyfall  being the others