:00:00. > :00:00.first Premier League title. Also more on the race to reach the top
:00:00. > :00:00.flight and the latest European rugby. All that at 10:30pm. Now, The
:00:00. > :00:17.Film Review. Hello and welcome to
:00:18. > :00:21.The Film Review on BBC News. To take us through this week's
:00:22. > :00:23.cinema releases is Mark Kermode. Well, we have Miles Ahead,
:00:24. > :00:27.which is Don Cheadle's I know you are a big
:00:28. > :00:31.Miles Davis fan. We have Jane Got a Gun,
:00:32. > :00:36.a western starring Natalie Portman. And Louder Than Bombs,
:00:37. > :00:38.a drama about a family coming I do love Miles Davis,
:00:39. > :00:45.and I like Don Cheadle. So, Miles Ahead is directed by,
:00:46. > :00:51.starring and co-written, and also some composition,
:00:52. > :00:53.by Don Cheadle. It is a film which he describes
:00:54. > :00:58.as being metaphorical and modal What this means is that the approach
:00:59. > :01:03.to facts is somewhat shall we say... It flashes backwards
:01:04. > :01:08.and forwards in time. At the centre of it is apparently
:01:09. > :01:13.Ewan McGregor as a Rolling Stone journalist, attempting to get
:01:14. > :01:16.an interview with Davis at the end of the 1970s - Davis
:01:17. > :01:19.having fallen silent. Essentially what happens
:01:20. > :01:21.is Ewan McGregor turns up at his door, bangs
:01:22. > :01:23.on the door and says, Mr Davis, I know you're in there,
:01:24. > :01:27.please give me an interview. Initially Miles Davis doesn't
:01:28. > :01:29.want to do it, but one thing leads to another and they end
:01:30. > :01:32.up in a sort of caper, which involves them attempting
:01:33. > :01:36.to find stolen tapes and going around town and getting
:01:37. > :01:39.involved in shoot outs and car Look, I think we just got
:01:40. > :01:44.off on the wrong foot. I mean, I could write some
:01:45. > :01:49.book out a magazine, but I'd rather hear it
:01:50. > :01:53.in your words, you know? Miles Davis,
:01:54. > :01:55.the story in my words. I was born, I moved to New York,
:01:56. > :02:09.met some cats, made some music, did some dope, made
:02:10. > :02:11.some more music, then You laugh, that is one
:02:12. > :02:22.of the best gags in the film. What I like about it is firstly
:02:23. > :02:25.I think Don Cheadle's It's clearly a film made
:02:26. > :02:29.by someone who is passionate I also like the idea of attempting
:02:30. > :02:33.to be adventurous with the format, going backwards and forwards
:02:34. > :02:35.in time, flipping between There are hallucinatory interludes,
:02:36. > :02:39.in which there is a boxing match in which the fighters turn
:02:40. > :02:41.into jazz musicians. There's a lot of moving backwards
:02:42. > :02:45.and forwards in time, in terms of the music
:02:46. > :02:47.and the characters What I'm less impressed
:02:48. > :02:53.by is the need to tie it all around this fanciful idea of the journalist
:02:54. > :02:56.who needs to get the story, which let's not forget is actually
:02:57. > :02:59.the story of Abba the movie. Don Cheadle said he wants to get
:03:00. > :03:04.the original gangster flavour of Miles Davis,
:03:05. > :03:06.to represent the dangerousness I think that on that level, the film
:03:07. > :03:16.somewhat falls apart. That said, it's clearly made
:03:17. > :03:18.with great affection There are moments
:03:19. > :03:21.when it's very funny. There are moments when it is splashy
:03:22. > :03:24.and engaging, and I admire the fact that it wants to do something other
:03:25. > :03:28.than just tell a straight story. At the very beginning
:03:29. > :03:30.we see him being interviewed, He says, don't do that -
:03:31. > :03:35.if you're going to tell a story, That is what the film
:03:36. > :03:38.attempts to do. I don't think it doesn't wholly
:03:39. > :03:41.successfully, but you know what, sometimes it's nice to see something
:03:42. > :03:44.trying to do something and failing, And also, actually, you have
:03:45. > :03:50.to like a film where Ewan McGregor plays a journalist called Dave
:03:51. > :03:52.Brill. And has a haircut which makes him
:03:53. > :03:56.look like Kurt Cobain. And the haircut does tell
:03:57. > :04:00.you which ones are the flashbacks. If you look at Miles Davis hair,
:04:01. > :04:04.you know which time it's in. Actually everything about the film
:04:05. > :04:06.is very good in placing Lets move on, because Jane Got a Gun
:04:07. > :04:10.with Natalie Portman. Yes, this is a very difficult film
:04:11. > :04:13.to review because the screenplay was on the blacklist in 2011
:04:14. > :04:15.of great unproduced screenplays. It was then going to be directed
:04:16. > :04:18.by Lynne Ramsay, who made We Need to Talk About Kevin,
:04:19. > :04:20.which I absolutely love. It's a western in which Natalie
:04:21. > :04:24.Portman stars as a woman whose husband brings trouble
:04:25. > :04:26.to her door, after having a run What happened was that
:04:27. > :04:32.Lynne Ramsay left the project. There was an awful lot of changing
:04:33. > :04:35.around of characters and it now comes to our screen directed
:04:36. > :04:38.by Gavin O'Connor, who does a job which is perfectly fine,
:04:39. > :04:40.but somewhat unremarkable. It's a film which all the time
:04:41. > :04:43.you're watching it you keep thinking, what would Lynne Ramsay
:04:44. > :04:47.have made of this? It's handsome and it's well played,
:04:48. > :04:50.if somewhat unremarkable. Some of the scenes are
:04:51. > :04:55.somewhat on the nose. It just feels a little bit
:04:56. > :04:57.like a missed opportunity. Obviously you can't spend your life
:04:58. > :05:00.wondering what a film would have been like if it was made by someone
:05:01. > :05:04.else, but this is one of those cases in which I spent most of the movie
:05:05. > :05:07.doing exactly that. Yes, and I was thinking this is fine
:05:08. > :05:11.but remarkable only Also, Bradley Cooper
:05:12. > :05:13.and Michael Fassbender and others were thought
:05:14. > :05:15.to be associated with it. Bradley Cooper came in,
:05:16. > :05:19.replacing Jude Law. It has been a game of musical
:05:20. > :05:25.chairs, but actually my main feeling is that it comes down to who's
:05:26. > :05:28.at the helm, the director. I'd have loved to have seen
:05:29. > :05:32.Lynne Ramsay make this film. Joachim Trier making his
:05:33. > :05:38.English-language debut. The story is about a family -
:05:39. > :05:41.Gabriel Byrne and his two sons coming to terms with the loss
:05:42. > :05:43.of mother and wife, played by Isabelle Huppert,
:05:44. > :05:45.who is a war photographer. The movie again moves around
:05:46. > :05:47.in its time structure. She is seen entirely
:05:48. > :05:50.in flashback and memory. As the movie opens, we are leading
:05:51. > :05:54.up to an exhibition of her work, and it's going to be revealed
:05:55. > :05:57.in a newspaper article that her death in a car crash
:05:58. > :06:00.actually may not have been Gabriel Byrne is worrying
:06:01. > :06:03.that he needs to tell His elder son, played
:06:04. > :06:06.by Jesse Eisenberg, doesn't He's not doing that well,
:06:07. > :06:14.I don't think you should tell him Don't you think he deserves
:06:15. > :06:20.to know the truth? Some story that Richard wants
:06:21. > :06:27.to write, that's not the truth. He's going to make her out to seem
:06:28. > :06:30.like she's some kind But she was depressed,
:06:31. > :06:36.you know that, right? Sometimes I think it must have been
:06:37. > :06:44.really hard for you. I mean, it was tough here,
:06:45. > :06:49.you didn't know what Actually, I did know what was going
:06:50. > :06:57.on, because she called me When she wouldn't talk to you,
:06:58. > :07:02.she would talk to me. Anyway, I guess this story suits
:07:03. > :07:08.you perfectly, because then you can make her out to be the negligent
:07:09. > :07:11.parent and you can be I don't want to argue
:07:12. > :07:15.about this. Just think really hard
:07:16. > :07:23.about what you're doing here, because even if you see her that
:07:24. > :07:28.way, I don't think Conrad has to. What I really like about this,
:07:29. > :07:31.firstly the performances. Great actors at the top
:07:32. > :07:33.of their game. Secondly, when it played at Cannes
:07:34. > :07:36.there were reviews that compared And I think it reminded me more,
:07:37. > :07:42.weirdly, of something like Donnie Darko, with a hint of -
:07:43. > :07:45.weirdly enough - of Lynne Ramsay's We Need
:07:46. > :07:50.to Talk About Kevin. And perhaps just a touch
:07:51. > :07:52.of American Beauty, I thought it was really smart
:07:53. > :08:09.in the way in which it It could very easily become a sort
:08:10. > :08:13.of trite depiction of the way And occasionally it does walk a very
:08:14. > :08:17.thin line, but I ended up being won over by it, because it has
:08:18. > :08:20.a slightly dreamy quality. Isabelle Huppert, as I said,
:08:21. > :08:22.appears in memory and in flashback, but actually she does haunt
:08:23. > :08:24.the entire film. There is one sequence
:08:25. > :08:27.in which the camera just looks at her face for about a minute
:08:28. > :08:30.and it is the most unbelievably expressive face, the symphony
:08:31. > :08:33.of emotions that plays out on it. It's particularly interesting,
:08:34. > :08:35.in a week when something like Miles Ahead is out,
:08:36. > :08:37.very flashy, very stylistic. It's a low key film and that might
:08:38. > :08:41.put some people off, And I cared about the characters,
:08:42. > :08:44.even when the characters are being quite annoying,
:08:45. > :08:47.which they can be, I cared about them, and I believed in them
:08:48. > :08:52.and I believed in the way the film was talking about memory,
:08:53. > :08:54.and the way people remember The way in which relationships can
:08:55. > :08:58.be misremembered and the way people And it's nice to see
:08:59. > :09:02.Jesse Eisenberg who can really act And turning it down,
:09:03. > :09:06.that's the key thing for me. But you know I am
:09:07. > :09:13.a big Shere Khan fan. I was thought the tiger got
:09:14. > :09:16.a really rough deal. The tiger says, you go out
:09:17. > :09:20.there, and kids grow up It's a fair point,
:09:21. > :09:23.if you're a tiger. I think what you have
:09:24. > :09:26.to remember, Gavin, I think it's really well done,
:09:27. > :09:32.because I think what it does is take a certain amount
:09:33. > :09:34.from Rudyard Kipling, it takes an equal amount
:09:35. > :09:37.from the Disney cartoon and it And your DVD, The Ninth
:09:38. > :09:39.Configuration? This is a cult movie from 1980,
:09:40. > :09:43.directed by and written by William Peter Blatty,
:09:44. > :09:46.who wrote The Exorcist. A story about an army asylum
:09:47. > :09:49.in which Stacy Keach is a psychiatrist who is sent
:09:50. > :09:51.there to figure out It is strangely intellectual,
:09:52. > :09:59.and also completely off the wall and it's one of those movies,
:10:00. > :10:02.believe me, when people say cult movies they often mean movies that
:10:03. > :10:05.aren't very good. In this case what they mean
:10:06. > :10:07.is something that is strange and weird and indefinable,
:10:08. > :10:10.and it's one of my favourite movies ever that's just come out
:10:11. > :10:12.on Blu-ray, which is You can catch up with
:10:13. > :10:24.all of our shows on... You can see Mark Kermode
:10:25. > :10:28.Uncut and his blog. Thank you for watching,
:10:29. > :10:32.enjoy the movies.