The Language of Film

Original Gangster

Original Gangster will be available on DVD & Digital Download from 5th April and can be pre-ordered here. It’s a British gangster film, directed by Savvas D. Michael, the first in a trilogy of films soon to be released, that features some star performances including an unrecognisable Steve Guttenburg from Police Academy fame.

This story is about Castor (Alex Mills) who has had his family brutally murdered in-front of him as part of a mob killing. He’s saved from execution by Milo (Ian Reddington) who as part of the hit squad refuses to kill a young boy. Castor is left a homeless orphan who has to survive on the streets and so we see how he grows up sleeping rough, scavenging for food and surviving through committing violent crimes. When he robs a drug dealer he ends up getting into difficulty and finds himself on the wrong end of another pointed gun but luckily for him it turns out to be Milo again, the same man that saved his life as a child. Castor sees their meeting as destiny and wants to be a part of his criminal organisation. His involvement brings him to the attention of the big boss Jean-Baptiste Philippe (Steve Guttenberg) which sets him on the path to a steady job in crime. Everything seems to be going well for Castor, he’s got his own place on the gangster’s compound, and he’s ditched his leather jacket for a smart suit but things take a turn for the worse when he gets mixed up with Milo and his attractive wife’s turbulent relationship.

The main story here is about how a child can become involved in crime and how fate plays a part in him becoming a gangster. Alex Mills who plays Castor brings an authentic London accent that is also the narration of the film. It is slow and deliberate, almost childlike reflecting his lack of education and understanding, played to humorous effect like when Milo has to explain to him what a bullet proof vest is, much to his annoyance. Milo is played by Ian Reddington who brings his TV and theatre experience to the fore, like Jean Reno in Leon, but a more aggressive, nasty version, who has fits of rage and treats his wife abusively. Then there are great cameo appearances like Steve Guttenburg as the kingpin gangster Jean-Baptiste Philippe, looking like a hippy Ozzy Osbourne, playing the eccentric psychotic boss and Vas Blackwood providing probably the most irrelevant bartender anecdote ever on film.

It’s got a London core but with an international flavour and it looks to elevate itself from some of the gangster cliches through injecting some interesting concepts and theories in amongst the dialogue such as the beginning quote from Nietzsche, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” It doesn’t all work or maintain any degree of plausibility and is on the whole offensive and insulting like a British grindhouse movie but there is a nice ensemble of characters, who put in likeable performances despite their disagreeability, which includes some hugely misplaced and inappropriate misogyny. The music aims for a more sophisticated cool vibe with an eclectic mix of styles from classical music to country music and drum bass that sounds a little convoluted at times, but as is tradition, when all put together, this is what makes these gangster tributes entertaining escapism.

Film: Original Gangster

Director: Savvas D. Michael

Stars: Alex Mills, Steve Guttenberg, Alex Mills, Adam Deacon, Ian Reddington & Vas Blackwood

Genre: Crime / Thriller

Run time: 1hr 50min

Rated: 18

Rating: 3/5

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Nemesis

Nemesis is available on digital download from 29th March, it’s a cockney gangster film about a London crime family and their ageing boss who gets caught up in a web of betrayal and revenge. It has a big London cast full of familiar names including Billy Murray, Nick Moran and Frank Harper and promises a lot from UK gangster specialist, producer Jonathan Sothcott (Rise of the Footsoldier Part II, We Still Kill The Old Way).

The action starts with the return to London of family boss John Morgan (Billy Murray) who flies in by private jet with his busty wife Sadie (Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott) for a 3 day visit that starts with a special awards dinner. The presentations are interrupted by a heckler, plain clothes policeman Frank (Nick Moran), who makes himself known to the guests by berating Morgan whom he has a vendetta against. Drunk and over stepping the mark he’s escorted off the premises and his actions cost him his badge as he is suspended.

We then follow Morgan on a number of meetings. The first meeting is with his solicitor, Sebastien (Julian Glover), to discuss his newly resurfaced problem of Frank, who blames him for killing his father and wants to bring him down. He gets the all clear about the previous evening’s commotion before being summoned to another meeting with fellow London crime boss Damien (Bruce Payne). It’s a meeting of the head crime bosses with the later laying down his authority. He is not happy about ‘the noise’ being made, feeling Morgan needs to adapt to a more modern market…or perish.

The next meeting is with his brother, Uncle Richard (Frank Harper). He tells him he is thinking of giving up the business and handing it over fifty fifty to him and his step son Eddie (Danny Bear), even though the two churlishly don’t get along. Uncle Richard knows who ratted on Morgan about his whereabouts and so Morgan and Eddie go after the grass. This starts the first outpouring of violence and the film begins to find its feet a little, leading up to the big family dinner, when everything suddenly goes totally mad.

The film tries to fit together the parts of a good gangster romp with the sharp suits, flash cars and cockney patter. But even with a big London cast, the head-to-head dialogues unfortunately sound more stilted than convincing and fall short of a comedy parody or a serious crime thriller. It does have some engaging moments like when Frank (Nick Moran) is chatting to the bar owner Billy (Ricky Grover) about his grievances and things momentarily appear back on terra firma as the Guy Richie ensemble take centre stage.

If you are a fan of this particular gangster genre you might enjoy this for its old familiarity. There is plenty of macho posturing, expletives and random acts of violence. The London gangster plot has been adapted with a twist or two to keep the audience guessing, that includes a lesbian love interest but in the end it looked like it had the actors guessing too.

Film: Nemesis

Director: James Crow

Stars: Billy Murray, Nick Moran, Frank Harper, Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott

Genre: Crime / Thriller

Run time: 1hr 28min

Rated: 18

Rating: 2/5

The Secrets of the Surface – the Mathematical Vision of Maryam Mirzakhani

Available to watch on Vimeo, The Secrets of the Surface – the Mathematical Vision of Maryam Mirzakhani is a documentary tribute to Maryam Mirzakhani, Iran’s most successful mathematician and the first woman to win the most prestigious prize in mathematics, the Fields Medal.

The documentary interviews the lecturers, her collaborators and undergraduate students in the USA, where she emigrated to. The film also goes to Iran to interview her teachers, school friends and the current pupils studying at her school back home, at Tehran Farzanegan, to get an insight into her prodigious beginnings and to help explain her contribution to maths.

Directed by George Csicsery who himself has won an award for his contributions to maths albeit for the slightly less impressive success of bringing maths to non-mathematical audiences. The story begins with a brief introduction into the importance of maths in the world around us, from general problem solving, to architecture showing intricate images of mosques, and even maths as art. It also includes recordings and footage of Maryam who goes as far as saying science and technology owe everything to maths.

Maryam tells us about how she had no real aptitude for maths at middle school preferring books, but between the influence of her brother and her high school, she got hooked. So much so, she left a lasting mathematical legacy, shown here by the students gleefully clutching the maths book she wrote whilst at university.

The first test she had to pass was the entrance exam to Tehran’s top school, set up for gifted children. Here she would share a desk with her best friend Roya for the next 7 years. They made a formidable maths team, although Maryam was always the standout student and soon began showing signs of being the child prodigy she was.

To get the children into mathematics, competitions were organised, but there had been no female entries, that was until Maryam and Roya arrived on the scene. So began her keen interest in maths competitions and she was soon representing her country at the maths Olympiad. She won gold with 40/42 and her friend won silver. The following year she would go one better winning gold with full marks 42/42, a first for an Iranian entrant.

Of course she went on to University, Sharif University, to study maths and, although women in Iran are not considered a privileged group, with maths and science they are often on an equal footing with men and 40-50% of students are female. Here she was on the Olympiad Committee, she was a trainer, and wrote the text book that is still an essential guide for students at the university today.

After university, the top students are expected to progress further and do a PhD outside of the country. Expecting their chances to be better by applying to different universities Maryam got accepted at Harvard and her friend would go to MIT, both in Boston, USA, which meant that they could remain together on the next stage of their studies. Coming to America is a big move and getting a visa and figuring out the language was just the start of their tough cultural acclimatisation, but with the help of the Iranian study groups they were able to make a successful integration.

At Harvard she was taught by Curtis McMullen a professor who had already proved a theory of his own to be awarded the prestigious Fields Medal and Maryam would begin to take his work further. Her first thesis would be published in the top 3 mathematical journals and along with her team of collaborators the work was considered so powerful it became known as the magic wand theorem for which she won her own Fields Medal in 2014. The first Iranian and first woman to do so.

She got married to a Czech mathematician, a non-Iranian, which was considered quite unconventional, but they were happy and had a child together. Sadly when her daughter was only 2 years old she was diagnosed with breast cancer that would turn out to be terminal.

Since her passing away, she continues to inspire female students to pursue maths in her hometown in Iran and the mathematical world at large. Her image can be seen on murals and in photographs in tribute to her in Iran (not all of them with a head scarf, something unheard of for public figures, but illustrating how much Maryam is revered) and she has had a building at her university named after her, as well as a global mathematical award.

The documentary is a nice life story talking about her mathematical achievements using examples of some of the maths she worked on. It gives a great insight into how absurdly difficult maths is, without totally losing a non-Mensa audience, although further explanation would help to explain the importance of knowing ‘the trajectory of a billiard ball on a mirrored pool table.’ And whilst most of us will never understand the significance of ‘counting the simple closed curves around hyperbolic surfaces’ either, we can certainly appreciate the mathematical genius of a woman who is worshipped in her own country and has left her mark on the world of mathematics with her work continuing to be cited in the top classrooms around the world.

Film: The Secrets of the Surface – The Mathematical Vision of Maryam Mirzakhani

Director: Geroge Csicsery

Stars: Alex Wright, Anton Zorich and David Dumas

Genre: Documentary

Run time: 59min

Rated: U

Rating: 4/5

Come True

Come True is a Canadian psychological sci-fi / horror available for digital download from the 15th March about a school girl suffering from a sleeping disorder who signs up to a scientific sleep study that does more than just check her R.E.M. frequency.

Set in the present day with a sense of the future it begins inside the dreams of a young girl, Sarah (Julia Sarah Stone), who has been having some dark dreams with a repeated shadow figure appearing in them. She’s sleeping rough and having to make some stealth visits home, as for some unbeknown reason, she is avoiding her parents. Her problematic sleeping troubles mean she is struggling at school and socially. She stubbles across an advertisement on a cafe noticeboard looking for trialists to take part in a sleep study and grabs this gift wrapped opportunity with both hands, to get paid to sleep.

The sleep laboratory tests get under way and she is part of a small group of applicants who are put in rooms to sleep, slipping on some smartly designed pyjama space suits that will monitor their sleeping behaviour. To begin with there seems nothing out of the ordinary as the scientists and lab technicians go about their observations, taking their vital readings but when the psychological tests afterwards have an adverse reaction on Sarah, she’s keen to pull out of the experiment.

She has an admirer in one of the nerdy scientists Riff (Landon Liboiron) and when her condition gets worse she wants to know what they have been doing and she persuades him to give her an explanation, and in exchange she’ll rejoin the experiment. He reveals to her that with the technology they have, they are able to process the mind’s information into actual moving images and are capable of seeing people’s dreams on monitors, as they fall into the hypnogogic state of sleep.

The CGI dream sequences are dark and foreboding and as a sci-fi horror it maintains an intriguing and slightly disturbing undertone, with some primordial shadow figures appearing in the dreams, although without ever going overboard. The film score has an eerie pop-synth from Electric Youth and Burns that adds to the films stylised cohesiveness.

Directed and edited by Anthony Scott Burns it has a minimalistic retro feel that gives a unsettling insight into the debilitating effects of insomnia. It conjures images of several films in the genre, particularly a quirky Donnie Darko, that allow you to enjoy its oddities and should keep you awake to the end.

Film: Come True

Director: Anthony Scott Burns

Stars: Julia Sharon Stone, Landon Liboiron, Carlee Ryski

Genre: Sci-Fi / Horror

Run time: 1hr 05min

Rated: 15

Rating: 3/5

Foster Boy

A legal thriller about foster care available for digital download from 1st March, Foster Boy, is based on the true story of foster care victim Jamal Randolph (Shane Paul McGhie) who wants to take a for-profit foster care company to court for the abuse he received in their homes.

Written by Jay Paul Deratany and based on his experiences as a trial lawyer, the story begins with Jamal, in court for another misdemeanour and as the judge (played by Oscar winner Louis Gosset Jnr) puts it, he has seen him more times than his own grandchildren, we imagine this is just another social misfit stuck in a cycle of repeat offences. But the judge notices the boy has another case pending against a foster care company, which until now there hadn’t been a lawyer to represent him. Step up reluctant attorney Michael Trainer (Matthew Modine – Stranger Things), a high flying corporate lawyer just leaving the courtroom after winning another lucrative litigation, when he is hauled back by the judge and told to work pro bono i.e. for a client who can’t afford it, and fight for the young offender’s civil action case.

These two, from very opposite sides of the track, are forced into an alliance. We find the win at all costs lawyer and the foster care ‘thug’ who refused to take a $50,000 pay off, are capable of healing one another. As we delve deeper into the case the kid has genuine grounds to claim negligence against the privately run foster care company who had put a violent sexual offender into the same foster home as him. The problem is, can he testify with his PTSD symptoms and is there any concrete evidence to convince the jury?

They’re up against a corporate foster care company that makes money taking contracts from the state to find homes for kids, a very nice little earner they will do anything to protect. When their initial pretrial payment is turned down they begin with stronger tactics approaching Jamal’s lawyer to see if they can come to a favourable arrangement but when an even higher offer is rejected they find out this case isn’t about the money. Their tactics become more unsavoury as they try to scare off the opposition and show an unnerving level of power and influence as a series of unfortunate events follow.

The producer of the film, Peter Samuelson, is the founder of First Star, a charity that gives academic support to young adults in the care system. The statistics are clear on how coming from a disadvantaged background or without a stable family affects people’s futures. The lead Shane Paul McGhie corresponded with some of the kids who helped him prepare for the role and his performance made sure that whilst being a victim of horrendous circumstances he came through it showing great strength. Perhaps in the end the courtroom battle is a little too cliched as a film dramatisation with its don’t judge people by appearances message but it’s a heartwarming attempt to tell the story.

Film: Foster Boy

Director: Youssef Delara

Stars: Matthew Modine, Shane Paul McGhie, Louis Gossett Jr., Julie Benz

Genre: Drama / Thriller

Run time: 1hr 49min

Rated: 15

Rating: 3/5

February Films

Max Winslow and The House of Secrets
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Gatecrash
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Gatecrash

Available on digital download from 22nd February, Gatecrash is a twisted psychological thriller about a couple who return home from a party having been in a car accident with a passer-by late at night. Their confused actions after the incident lead to repercussions that get even further out of control.

Directed by Lawrence Gough and based on an award winning play by Terry Hughes the film begins with Steve (Ben Cura – Marcella) and his French wife Nicole (Olivia Bonamy – Them) talking agitatedly and confusedly after the hit and run incident. Their relationship seems already distant and strained made all the worse by the accident, and the flowing accusations that spill out, quickly become threatening and physical as they attempt to figure out a plan as to what to do next.

Things take a turn for the worse when an oddball policeman (Samuel West – Darkest Hour) turns up and invites himself into the house at which point Steve makes a sharp exit left, leaving his wife to deal with some awkward questioning. The policeman disappears to take a look around their luxury pad and not wanting to leave the policeman to his own devices too long, Nicole goes looking for him in the labyrinth of rooms only to find some evidence of blood.

When we catch up with them again there is a surprising switch in circumstances as we see an interesting line in retribution being administered, along with some marriage counselling. This all happens before Sid (Anton Lesser – Game of Thrones) the actual victim of the incident turns up at the house some years later. We know some time has elapsed because Nicole has had a baby, a seemingly curious plot thread that isn’t as random as its first introduction, after she felt the need to take a timely pregnancy test during the height of the initial crisis.

Sid’s arrival at the house unannounced brings the 2nd act into play, a kind softly spoken older man who believes the couple had helped him on the night of the accident. The interplay between the characters has the feel of the original play throughout with the added dimension of some simple but effective visual storytelling. Olivia Bonamy brings some high anxiety as the bullied wife who gets trapped by a succession of tormentors, most notably her horribly obnoxious husband.

The film doesn’t hang around getting down to the scruples of the incident. Were they arguing in the car? Was he drink driving? …but reversing over the victim? This is a stylised psychological thriller that has elements of a farcical horror, set in a modern country house situated somewhere in a secluded part of the English countryside. The tension builds with some uncomfortable conversations assisted by some creepy sound mixing before a vengeful finale.

Film: Gatecrash

Director: Lawrence Gough

Stars: Olivia Bonamy, Ben Cura, Anton Lesser & Samuel West

Genre: Drama / Thriller

Run time: 1hr 28min

Rated: 15

Rating: 3/5

Max Winslow and The House of Secrets

Available on digital platforms from the 15th February Max Winslow and The House of Secrets is a family teen movie where a select group of high school students are invited to the home of eccentric entrepreneur Atticus Virtue to compete to become the winner of his mansion.

Local hometown technology billionaire Atticus Virtue (Chad Michael Murray), a sort of Elon Musk meets Willy Wonka, has an unusual influence over his former high school in Arkansas. His start up businesses in computer sciences and space flights are now redefining artificial intelligence and as the school’s major benefactor, having donated a whopping $45 million sports stadium, he is able to interrupt classes with a hologram broadcast to announce his latest challenge, a competition for 5 especially selected students to compete in a game for the key to his mansion.

The 5 students find out they’ve been chosen via smartphone much to their delight and are a mix of personalities and talents. The lead is Max (Sydne Mikelle) a geeky female computer programmer who’s the tech guru able to hack into her neighbours smart doorbells and can figure out just about everything except how to get a boyfriend. She has a crush on Connor (Tanner Buchanan) the high school lacrosse star who wants to sing and play cheesy acoustic guitar numbers much to his parents dismay. Then there is also Sophia (Jade Chynoweth) the glamorous social media influencer who is totally unapologetic about her superficial pursuit of getting likes online, Benny the 24 hour gamer (Jason Genao) and Aidan (Emery Kelly) the too cool for school rebel with a bad attitude.

Their arrival at the mansion doesn’t come without a certain amount of trepidation. There are rumours Virtue’s newly unveiled hi-tec pad has been used for human experiments. What kind of experiments is unknown only that he has been working on a top secret project to change reality. They are welcomed by the voice of Haven – the home automated venture, an AI system that controls everything in the house, basically a super tech version of Alexa. Haven is assisted by Sir Mordred the robotic knight, Virtue’s first invention, a menacing looking and sounding Jeeves the butler.

The kids trials begin when they enter the cinema room / golf driving range (the rooms are big and there are lots of them). They get locked in and they’ve only got 3 attempts to crack the code to the door before they are trapped there forever – the first sign that things in the mansion might not be too comfortable for our contestants. The game is now properly underway as the young competitors begin to explore the house accumulating points and solving puzzles, and as they enter the different rooms they come face to face with augmented AI realities of the biggest challenges impacting their lives.

Director Sean Olsen has created an entertaining teen movie that brings a futuristic world to the screen. Its simplified plot meanderings illustrate a vision of the future dominated by AI and an eccentric tech billionaire’s influence on school life whilst touching on some deeper teen social and family issues. It maintains a level of sweetness throughout that means the controlling AI system never gets too sinister and in the final drone onslaught the kids show they’ve got this in a soft teen Breakfast Club way.