Seven Psycopaths (2012)

Starring: Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, Tom Waits, Abbie Cornish, Olga Kurylenko

Director: Martin McDonagh

Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama

Rating: A-

This movie is nothing like what you expect it to be.  That's the warning; the trailers and even the poster for this movie make it seem like it's about seven people, each one of them a psychopath, as they get up to shenanigans following a dognapping.  It is about that... but it's also about a lot more, and people who are implied to be a psychopath in the promotion for this (and even are implied to have a major role) aren't.  Not really, or at least not in the manner that you expect.

Marty (Farrell) is a screenwriter, currently working on a film titled Seven Psychopaths.  He has a few problems, however; one he's an alcoholic, two he's suffering from a bit of a writer's block, and three his screwball best friend, Billy (Rockwell) keeps on offering to help.  In addition to wanting to help Marty out, Billy is also a professional dognapper.  He and his partner, Hans (Walken), kidnap dogs then after a few days return them to their owners for a reward.  This is all going great, until they kidnap Bonny, the dog of a gangster, Charlie (Harrelson).  Charlie is willing to go to great lengths to get his dog back, killing and destroying anything that is related to this dognapping.  Through this all, Marty begins to find his inspiration for his film - although whether he or any of his friends will survive long enough to finish the script is debatable.

I did have a problem with how this film was advertised.  The trailer presents each of the stars as one of the psychopaths, and while this isn't entirely false, some of them are psychopaths, the reasons for which aren't what happens in the movie.  Furthermore, three of the stars aren't really stars and have very minor roles in the film - I loved Tom Waits' role, but it's not really an important one overall to the film, and neither of the women really have anything to do in this movie.  It's just very misleading to have them in presented as being so important and then barely have them present.

That having been said, I loved this film.  I love the way in which they tie in Marty's script and the overall plot of the film, and the struggle between the belief systems of the core characters - with Marty and Hans being pacifists, Billy being all gungho for the action sequences, and Charlie being hell bent on revenge and getting his dog back.  There are as many sequences of long talking as the characters articulate and argue about their beliefs as there are fight sequences, if not actually more.  A lot of this is a talk about what's going on with Marty's script, but everything that they say about the script relates to what's actually happening in the film's plot. It all really ties in nicely, which I loved.  The one thing that did worry me for a bit was that things wouldn't be resolved, or that the ending would be anticlimatical.  Having seen Martin McDonagh's films before, I should have known better than to worry.

The acting was also really great.  I thought the actors were really well cast.  Sam Rockwell plays the perfect weird, creepy guy, as does Christopher Walken, and to have them together is just awesome.  I thought Colin Farrell did a really good job of providing the straight man to them, particularly Rockwell, while also embracing his character's issues - somehow, Colin Farrell does drunk Irishman with a lot of life problems in general.  It was really good and made me want to watch it again and, even better, made me want to watch more of McDonagh's films.  The first thing I wanted to do when I got home was put on In Brughes.

Total Recall (2012)

Starring: Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston, Jon Cho, Bill Nighy

Director: Len Wiseman

Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

Rating: B-

I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but I actually really enjoyed this movie.  The acting isn't superb, the plot is weak at points, it's not really moving on an emotional level or funny or anything.  At its core, Total Recall is a mindless action flick set in a dystopian future.  It isn't meant to have a great plot or great acting or connect on an emotional level (the lack of funny, however, is a bit of a disappointment).  It's supposed to have awesome chase scenes, mind blowing special effects, and cool gun fights.  Total Recall has all of this and more - in addition to it all, it also has this awesome futuristic world.  Sure the science is sketchy, but damnit, it's science fiction.  The science doesn't have to be right, it's fiction.

Total Recall follows factory worker Douglas Quaid (Farrell) as he begins to realize that his life is not exactly what it seems.  After a series of nightmares in which he is a spy of some sorts running from the police, Quaid decides to visit Rekall, a company that implants memories into its clients.  You can go anywhere, do anything, be anything.  While he's at Rekall, however, things go horribly wrong and before he's even put under it's revealed that Quaid is in fact a spy, who worked for a resistance movement.  From here his life goes to shit as his wife, Lori (Beckinsale), reveals that she isn't really his wife but rather a cop who's been assigned to watch him.  Quaid must flee from her, and by extension the entire paramilitary police force of both the United Federation of Britain (UFB) and the Colony (otherwise known as Australia), the only two habitual land masses on the planet.  Oh, and in it all, the girl from his dreams, Melina (Biel), appears.

The plot and characters in Total Recall are somewhat weak.  There isn't really the emotional connection between them and the viewer that the original film had.  I will give the film a lot of credit, however, in that it doesn't just totally rip off the original movie; while it follows the same basic plot and much of the general storyline, it also goes on a number of different directions.  This Total Recall is a lot more political than its predecessor, although never in a really original way.  It's very much anti-militaristic totalitarian and rather pro-workers, which is pretty much what you expect of a movie like this.  There's a lot of development towards this aspect of the plot, just not the characters themselves - I actually don't think I would have known the name of Biel's character if not for Wikipedia (and the fact that it's the same name as used in the 1990 version).

That being said, though, the movie's fun.  The special effects are cool, the chase scenes are hot. Every action movie is pretty much required to have a chase scene at one point or another, and in Total Recall it does so with hover cars.  Hover car chase scenes are the best.  The science is a bit wonky, but who cares - they go through the center of the earth.  Going through the center of the earth is always awesome.  The thing with the original Total Recall is that, while it's got a good plot and is emotionally charged the futuristic elements are rather lame and dated.  It's something that's a bit characteristic of older science fiction movies, which makes them a bit annoying to watch in the present day.  In this Total Recall, however, everything is slick and smooth and very much along the lines of what the future would look like if current trends continue.  I'm sure in another twenty years I'll be saying that the futuristic technology used in this Total Recall is rather old, dated, and lame when they remake the movie again, but for now it looked damn awesome.

I think, though, that my favourite part of this movie was the way that it differed from the original film while also paying tribute to it.  There's no Mars, but they mention it.  There's no huge brothel, but there's still a three breasted prostitute (no midget prostitute, however, sorry).  There's a fat woman who's travelling to the UFB for two weeks.  There are more moments like this, and to be honest every time they happened I smiled.  I enjoyed them.  Total Recall knew it was a remake of an older classic and assumes that you've seen the original.  It doesn't try to be some grand, fantastic movie.  It's a mindless action flick, and it does mindless action damn well.