:00:19. > :00:26.Welcome to the Film Review. With me today is Mark Kermode. What do we
:00:27. > :00:29.have? As I am sure you know, we have Grace of Monaco, which has opened to
:00:30. > :00:33.universally, shall we call them mixed reviews? Universally negative
:00:34. > :00:36.reviews. We have 22 Jump Street, the sequel
:00:37. > :00:42.to 21 Jump Street, which was the spin`off of the TV show.
:00:43. > :00:48.And we have Fruitvale Station, a harrowing retelling of a true life
:00:49. > :00:51.story. We have Princess Grace and Nicole
:00:52. > :01:00.Kidman saving the little state of Monaco for billionaires as a tax
:01:01. > :01:03.haven. That is pretty much it. When Grace of Monaco opened at Cannes,
:01:04. > :01:08.the phrase that everyone used was that it was worse than Diana. The
:01:09. > :01:14.story is that it begins with the Grace Kelly filming her last scene
:01:15. > :01:18.in Hollywood. There is a crisis going on, because there is the war
:01:19. > :01:27.in Algiers, Monaco is acting as a tax haven. There is a blockade.
:01:28. > :01:31.Alfred Hitchcock wants Grace Kelly to go back to Hollywood and film.
:01:32. > :01:46.The prince is not happy. Here is a clip. My head. Who told you to cut
:01:47. > :01:53.it? We are still in 1962. I think her head looks elegant. It is
:01:54. > :02:00.dreadful. She is a modern woman. She is the Princess of Monaco. Call
:02:01. > :02:08.Hitchcock. Turn him down publicly. We need you to show him how happy
:02:09. > :02:14.you are here. Because I say so. It is not your decision to make. I am
:02:15. > :02:21.your husband. I will not do it. I did not make you marry me. I did not
:02:22. > :02:30.make you come here. What is it that Hollywood can give you that I
:02:31. > :02:36.cannot? You were just an actress. Here is what happens. All the time
:02:37. > :02:39.you're watching the movie, you think, is this deliberately stilted
:02:40. > :02:43.or is it some kind of call back to the movies of the time? Nobody could
:02:44. > :02:46.have made a movie this bad by mistake. It is like they went out of
:02:47. > :02:52.their way. We are getting the talk about the idea of my life as a fairy
:02:53. > :02:58.tale, is the fairy tale? We got the worst possible fairytale. They were
:02:59. > :03:01.not interested in facts. What happens is that Grace Kelly bats her
:03:02. > :03:05.eyelids at Charles de Gaulle, who appears to be blockading Monaco to
:03:06. > :03:08.stop her taking part in a Hitchcock film and says she believes in
:03:09. > :03:16.fairies and he says, that is fabulous. It is preposterous beyond
:03:17. > :03:24.belief. You think, there must be some underlying, it must tie itself
:03:25. > :03:37.back to reality. No, it is just... It is not entirely her fault. Her
:03:38. > :03:40.performance is not terrible. Every minute of the film, the camera is
:03:41. > :03:45.right in her face. For heavens sake, just back off a bit. But you get
:03:46. > :03:51.this terrible caricatures. You get the most caricatured version of
:03:52. > :03:57.Alfred Hitchcock. It is like a pantomime. I can see why people who
:03:58. > :04:02.are interested in the history will be outraged by it. It is one of
:04:03. > :04:09.those things that is such a spectacularly ill`conceived film.
:04:10. > :04:13.All you can do is sit there slack`jawed. Often when critics at
:04:14. > :04:22.Cannes react badly, the critics are over the top. In this case they are
:04:23. > :04:25.not. Seeing this on the big screen for the first time and going,
:04:26. > :04:33.really, you have really made that movie, it is genuinely worse than
:04:34. > :04:38.Diana. 21 Jump Street, 22 Jump Street, what will they think of
:04:39. > :04:42.next? One of the funniest parts of the film is the end credits
:04:43. > :04:48.sequence. It does a whole thing about, where would you go next with
:04:49. > :04:57.the other sequels? What it did was it was a parody, a pastiche of the
:04:58. > :05:06.TV show. Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill were the centre relationship.
:05:07. > :05:15.The just said, the first movie did better than anyone expected, let us
:05:16. > :05:18.do the same thing over again. The sequel is not as good as the
:05:19. > :05:27.original. But it is funny enough that it can get away with it. The
:05:28. > :05:30.final end credits sequence is funny. My rule with comedy, you have to
:05:31. > :05:34.laugh six times for it to count. I counted six times. It is not
:05:35. > :05:37.brilliant, but it does the job. You do not need the action sequences,
:05:38. > :05:42.but I did laugh. I laughed a lot. It is a summer movie. If you are bored
:05:43. > :05:49.with the World Cup. Sequels take two thirds what the originals take. This
:05:50. > :05:53.is two thirds as funny. That is not too bad. Fruitvale Station. This is
:05:54. > :05:59.the true life shooting of Oscar Grant in 2009. It is something that
:06:00. > :06:12.made all the headlines, a terrible story. The actual event was captured
:06:13. > :06:16.on cellphone footage. We went back and look at the events leading up to
:06:17. > :06:33.that terrible shooting. I am scared. Scared of what? I hear guns outside.
:06:34. > :06:40.Those were just firecrackers. You are safe inside with your cousins.
:06:41. > :06:45.What about you, daddy? Me? Everything will be fine. I tell you
:06:46. > :06:51.what, though. Wake up in the morning, we are going to play
:06:52. > :07:05.Candyland. And guess what else? Go to the park? Better. Way better than
:07:06. > :07:10.that. What? Chuck E Cheese. Really? I promise. We are going to play all
:07:11. > :07:17.the games, OK. Then we are going to get your favourite pizza and eat it
:07:18. > :07:20.all up. Even your mother. The story is a shocking and alarming one. The
:07:21. > :07:25.film itself is somewhat unremarkable. It does have a
:07:26. > :07:30.terrific central performance and that somewhat carries it. There is
:07:31. > :07:36.an overwhelming sense that you are moving towards this tragic event.
:07:37. > :07:44.The film is not an extraordinary piece of work. It is a solid piece
:07:45. > :07:50.of work. The central performance is a genuine rising star performance.
:07:51. > :07:56.It makes the whole thing engaging. The thrust of the film is to engage
:07:57. > :07:58.with the central character. He is played as flawed, but you see him as
:07:59. > :08:10.a 3`dimensional character. He does a very good job of fleshing
:08:11. > :08:16.that out. Your best of the week is Ken Loach's latest, Jimmy's Hall.
:08:17. > :08:20.Some critics have complained that it is didactic and they are wrong. It
:08:21. > :08:31.is a story of a hall in Ireland in the 1930s, set up for ideas and
:08:32. > :08:35.singing and dancing. He is runout of town by the clergy. What I like is
:08:36. > :08:41.that it is an important story and it has a historic backdrop. I liked it
:08:42. > :08:45.as a movie. The way it uses music. The characters are engaging and
:08:46. > :08:47.likeable. They are not 2`dimensional. There are some
:08:48. > :08:53.interesting conversations between the main characters at loggerheads.
:08:54. > :08:59.And yet they both give a little. The Christmas was terrific. There was
:09:00. > :09:02.one scene where Jimmy dances with his old sweetheart who has gone off
:09:03. > :09:16.to marry someone else and nothing happens. That was the kind of
:09:17. > :09:19.atmosphere of innocence. Ken Loach does get accused of making didactic
:09:20. > :09:24.movies. If you look at what is on screen, they are not. They engage
:09:25. > :09:31.real things. He is interested in history and politics, but most of
:09:32. > :09:39.all he is interested in people. That is probably why your DVD choice is
:09:40. > :09:42.The Past. Strange characters and flawed relationships. Working in
:09:43. > :09:55.France here, it is basically a story about people in crisis. A fantastic
:09:56. > :10:02.performance. Beautifully absurd, very truthful, very moving, very
:10:03. > :10:11.gentle, very low key. I thought it was a wonderful piece of work. It is
:10:12. > :10:17.impressive. Great stuff, thanks. A reminder before we go. You will find
:10:18. > :10:22.more reviews on Mark's blog. That is it for this week. Thank you for
:10:23. > :10:47.watching. Good evening. We have seen a bit of
:10:48. > :10:48.rain around early on the day.