:00:00. > :00:00.Brook on the eve of his world title fight in London. That is all at
:00:00. > :00:18.6:30pm. Now on BBC News, it is time for The Film Review.
:00:19. > :00:21.Hello and welcome to The Film Review on BBC News.
:00:22. > :00:24.To take us through this week's cinema releases is Mark Kermode.
:00:25. > :00:37.It is a really good week. We have Captain Fantastic, tell about a
:00:38. > :00:46.family living off the grid. Kubo and the two strings, a new animation.
:00:47. > :00:54.And Hell Or High Water, a throwback nostalgic fest. Captain Fantastic is
:00:55. > :00:59.not a marvel comics superhero. And nor is it an Elton John album.
:01:00. > :01:06.Although the director said he must have heard the title from Elton
:01:07. > :01:12.John. Viggo Mortensen is a family father, bringing on six children, by
:01:13. > :01:17.D-Day hunt and they climb and they discuss Marxism and Noam Chomsky.
:01:18. > :01:22.They have been brought up completely off the grid. Now, the mother is
:01:23. > :01:26.absent, she has been in hospital, and the family have to hit the road,
:01:27. > :01:31.which means for the first time, these kids who have grown up in
:01:32. > :01:38.little planet of world are going to come into contact with the real
:01:39. > :01:46.world. Here is a clip. We have to do what we are told. Some fights you
:01:47. > :01:50.can't win. The powerful control the lives of the powerless. That is the
:01:51. > :01:57.way the world works. It is unjust and it is unfair. But that is just
:01:58. > :02:04.too bad. We have to shut up and accented. Access it. -- we have to
:02:05. > :02:35.accept it. BAGPIPES PLAY.. So they know we're
:02:36. > :02:40.coming! One of the things that is interesting is there is a discussion
:02:41. > :02:44.about which is the real world, their resistance in the woods all the land
:02:45. > :02:52.of diners and supermarkets and mauls and polite family suppers. One of
:02:53. > :02:57.the things I like about the film is the writer directors said he wanted
:02:58. > :03:00.to raise the question of whether the Viggo Mortensen character is the
:03:01. > :03:06.best or worst dad in the world. He might be either. He is somebody who
:03:07. > :03:10.has a dream for his children but also it may well be that the raid in
:03:11. > :03:17.which he has raised them can be seen as abuse. There is a Manson like
:03:18. > :03:22.clamp. People living out in the wild with hunting knives led by this
:03:23. > :03:26.bearded charismatic. What I really like about it is the film doesn't
:03:27. > :03:31.settle simply for one answer or the other. It is very funny, very
:03:32. > :03:37.moving, there are moments of genuine tragedy, moments of real comedy,
:03:38. > :03:41.every character gets given a proper three dimensionality. Even
:03:42. > :03:48.characters who you expect to be slightly caricatured. I really liked
:03:49. > :03:51.the way in which he told the story, asking you to make your own
:03:52. > :03:56.decisions about how these characters lives panned out. Every good use of
:03:57. > :04:01.song in the movie itself. People singing songs and making music
:04:02. > :04:05.within the movie. I really liked it, I was really charmed and moved by
:04:06. > :04:12.it. More than once, I had a table to my eye. Even in that little clip,
:04:13. > :04:17.Viggo Mortensen is talking about having to follow other people's
:04:18. > :04:22.rules, in a way he is dictating it. Exactly. A balance between being a
:04:23. > :04:28.monster and the greatest dad in the world. There is a fantastic sequence
:04:29. > :04:31.where there is a question about whether he is being sanctimonious
:04:32. > :04:36.and difficult or visionary and idealistic. I think the film is much
:04:37. > :04:43.more open-minded about that than some critics have given it credit
:04:44. > :04:49.for. The crazy or charismatic thing is part of it, you have to decide.
:04:50. > :05:03.Is what he is doing loving or abusive? It is an open-ended
:05:04. > :05:10.question. This is a new film about Kubo, I junk boy who has a gift for
:05:11. > :05:17.storytelling. He uses origami and his world comes to life. He ends up
:05:18. > :05:20.going on a quest which involves a beetle to discover the strange
:05:21. > :05:26.history of his family. What I really like about this is the torrid
:05:27. > :05:32.telling is complex, it imagines the audience are intelligent. It is
:05:33. > :05:37.properly scary when it needs to be. There is a moment towards the end of
:05:38. > :05:45.it, mild scary scenes, I'm 54, and there was one scene that was more
:05:46. > :05:49.than mildly scary and I like that. It is a film that was made... You
:05:50. > :05:53.can feel the care and attention to detail. Much more in the spirit of
:05:54. > :06:00.the studio Jubilee films. I think work for an audience of all ages.
:06:01. > :06:08.For younger viewers who may be scared by certain things and good
:06:09. > :06:12.that they are. It does sound like a non-formal
:06:13. > :06:16.children's film. Not where you lose a parent and you go on an adventure
:06:17. > :06:20.and you are redeemed, well worn track. It has some classic
:06:21. > :06:26.storytelling elements in it but there is nothing in it that makes
:06:27. > :06:32.you see -- think I have seen this before. The story is so well done,
:06:33. > :06:36.stories within stories, narratives within narratives, you always feel
:06:37. > :06:43.you are incompetent hands. Hell Or High Water. A nostalgic western in
:06:44. > :06:51.the style of Arthur Penn or Sam Peckinpah. Jeff Bridges is West
:06:52. > :06:56.Texas range. He says maybe he will go out on a blaze of Rory. He is
:06:57. > :07:03.hunting two bank robbers who are knocking over small-town banks the
:07:04. > :07:11.film has a nostalgia for an age that has gone. Cowboys and bank robbers
:07:12. > :07:16.are something of a different age. It has darkness, moments of action, and
:07:17. > :07:29.it also has, as we will see in this clip, a really nice, edgy humour.
:07:30. > :07:38.Audi, man. How are you doing today? So, what don't you want? What don't
:07:39. > :07:47.you want? Oh, well, I think I would just... I have been working here for
:07:48. > :07:54.44 years, ain't nobody ever ordered nothing but T-bone steak. Except for
:07:55. > :08:00.one person from New York who tried to order trot back in 1987. T-bone
:08:01. > :08:06.steaks. So, either you don't want the corn on the cob or you don't
:08:07. > :08:15.want the green beans, so what don't you want? I don't want green beans.
:08:16. > :08:26.I don't want green beans either. Steaks cooked medium rare. Can I get
:08:27. > :08:31.my steaks... That wasn't a question. The mumble vision is great. It is
:08:32. > :08:36.able to go from that from -- the scenes which are dark. It is about
:08:37. > :08:41.characters who are out of time. The real bad guys are the banks. There
:08:42. > :08:46.is a way of life, the law to the plains is no longer there. It is
:08:47. > :08:50.about people being run off their lands and run off their homes. It
:08:51. > :08:56.has that kind of epic feel to it. When you look at it visually, long,
:08:57. > :09:01.flat landscapes, big, empty skies. It is a film about a world which has
:09:02. > :09:10.disappeared. It has that melancholy and that wonderful score. It really
:09:11. > :09:14.has a melancholic edge to it. Some people have compared it to the Coen
:09:15. > :09:22.brothers. I think it is a slightly lazy comparison. I think what it
:09:23. > :09:27.has, as I said, it is closer in my mind to the 1970s cinema of Sam
:09:28. > :09:31.Peckinpah. It is not scared to be open-ended and leave threads not
:09:32. > :09:37.tied up. I really, really liked it. This is a good week. Three films
:09:38. > :09:43.which are all solid. The reason I want to see this is the concept of
:09:44. > :09:48.where is the moral heart of this film? Is it the bank robbers or the
:09:49. > :09:51.banks the robbers? And it plays that in a world in which that kind of
:09:52. > :09:55.corporate corruption is the background to everything. People
:09:56. > :10:00.losing their lands and their homes as a story which is on the back of
:10:01. > :10:07.all of this. I thought it was good. You're best of the week? Isabel who
:10:08. > :10:11.pay is superb as a philosophy teacher who discovers an ill of her
:10:12. > :10:21.life that love is more constant than politics. It is inspired from her
:10:22. > :10:25.own mother. It is one of the most commanding screen presence is, she
:10:26. > :10:30.does not put a foot wrong. It is to do with small gestures, to do with
:10:31. > :10:33.understatement, not to do with overstatement, she is brilliant, and
:10:34. > :10:39.I really encourage anybody to see this, it is a really, really smart
:10:40. > :10:45.film. There is also a big metaphor there which is the black cat. The
:10:46. > :10:50.thing with this is this access can make anything seen simultaneously
:10:51. > :10:56.really important but also slightly frivolous. One of the things I like
:10:57. > :10:59.about this film is it is funny, it does have a really dark sense of
:11:00. > :11:07.humour about it, there is lots of discussion about it being an old
:11:08. > :11:11.lefty, her husband says, UR a communist, and she says, yes for
:11:12. > :11:21.about three weeks, everybody was. DVD? Embrace of the serpent. This is
:11:22. > :11:28.Columbia's first nomination for Best foreign language film. It is a
:11:29. > :11:37.superb story which is intended to blend Amazonian myths and western
:11:38. > :11:41.storytelling. Imagine if you can fix Crowther and Apocalypse now but
:11:42. > :11:47.inverted. Black-and-white cinematography, superb and sparse
:11:48. > :11:49.use of music. A film which works on an absolutely cinematic level.
:11:50. > :11:56.Sometimes it Israeli hard to describe the movie -- sometimes, it
:11:57. > :12:02.is really hard to describe a movie because it is a piece of cinema. One
:12:03. > :12:09.of the best films I have seen this year. It is fabulous. Even on the
:12:10. > :12:16.smaller screen, it is really worth watching. You will love it. And
:12:17. > :12:20.Colombian cinema, something we haven't talked about? They have had
:12:21. > :12:27.a lot of problems in Colombia. They have. They have had a
:12:28. > :12:30.foreign-language category and the foreign-language category has been
:12:31. > :12:34.so strong this year is so great to be nominated. There is not one film
:12:35. > :12:38.that was Oscar-nominated that I wouldn't recommend you rush out and
:12:39. > :12:45.see immediately in the foreign-language category. More news
:12:46. > :12:52.and reviews at the website. You can catch up on our previous programmes
:12:53. > :12:54.on the BBC iPlayer. That is it for this week. Enjoy the movies and
:12:55. > :13:00.goodbye.