The Hateful Eight, Partisan, A War The Film Review

Kick-off is just before eight o'clock and we will be live on BBC

News, but first, time for The Film Review.

Hello and welcome to The Film Review on BBC News.

To take us through this week's cinema releases is Mark Kermode.

And we have? Phil, the new film by Quentin Tarantino, and you have seen

that as well. We have Partisan, an extremely strange and rather

disturbing thriller. And then what's entry for best foreign film, Oscar.

I am a huge Tarantino fan, warts and all! Phil, the eighth film by

Tarantino, I may get the ninth. Set in post-Civil War Wyoming and set in

super, ultra-white screen, opens with the last stage to red rock

carrying Kurt Russell's bounty. A storm is coming and they picked up

en route Samuel L. Jackson and they are heading towards red rock but

they will have to stop at Minnie's haberdashery where the other

characters are waiting. Here is a clue.

This here is Daisy Domergue, she's wanted dead or alive for murder.

When the sun comes out, I'm taking this woman to hang.

Is there anybody here committed to stopping me from doing that?

Looks like Minnie's Haberdashery's about to get cosy.

One of them fellas is not what he says he is.

Not a warning, not a question, a bullet.

It is kind of an Agatha Christie set up, all these disparate characters,

they come together and one of them may not be who he says he is. Let's

start with a good points. The photography is extraordinary. That

ultra-white panoramic vision is really extraordinary, not just for

the landscapes but also for the interiors. A lot of the movie takes

place in doors. Surprisingly. It was surprisingly quite claustrophobic. I

think it works really well. Tarantino himself said just because

you have a wide screen doesn't mean has to be landscaped. He absolutely

proves that point. The original score is very good. Great

performances. I thought Samuel L. Jackson was terrific in the lead and

Jennifer Jason Leigh and Kurt Russell and Tim Roth, doing this

extraordinary British accent, more than holding their own. The problem

is, Tarantino is not the person you would go to for brevity or

understatement and he has not changed that here. I think there is

no way round this. It is baggy and too long. A lot of the movie is

essentially a riff on that set of Reservoir dogs. A group of people in

a closed space double-crossing each other. It takes 40 minutes to get to

Minnie's Haberdashery. Almost half of the running time of Reservoir

dogs before we kick off. Like Django there are hints towards a political

subtext. But, the political staff all takes second seat to the

sensation. And when violence comes, it is shocking. Django you could say

was a bit too long at the end, this is very long at the beginning. After

two and a half hours I confess, I wanted to go home at. At a key point

in his career Harvey Weinstein described his house as the house

that Tarantino built. Nobody will rein him in. There are great things

in it, I think it is too long. I sent the violence is not very

effective. The thing is, I twice had in my head, he made Jackie Brown, a

film with real people and real characters you really care about.

There is much here to enjoy on a cinematic level, on a post modern

referential level. What I didn't do with care about the characters

themselves. That's why I think... It still suffers from all the problems

that beset Tarantino. Just as well some of them reach an unhappy end. I

will not give anything away! Partisan. A very strange

psychological thriller about stolen innocence and manipulation of

children. A cult leader gathers around him this man's like family of

women and children, in which the children are raised to do his

bidding, which includes a horrible act of violence, which they are

brought up to think of as a game. The director described the film as

being inspired by news stories of children in Colombia. It has a

creepy fairy tale feel. It is set in no man's land, in fact it is in

Georgia. In Asia rather than the United States. Exactly. The dialogue

is largely second language English and is an Australian production.

There is a film called doctors, that is a good reference to. It is a

dark, strange, fairy tale fable, which has alarming moments in it but

all the time has that strange otherworldly feel. I rather liked

it. I've seen some critics took against it but I like it. Mahmood is

one I want to see quite soon. Denmark's entry for foreign film. We

divide our time between Denmark and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan there is

a danger patrol dealing with the mundane nature of war. In Denmark

the wife is awaiting his return and she is dealing with life and death

situations in terms of raising her own children. They both make

decisions which are harassed and made in haste. His decisions wind

him up in a court room. Here is a clip.

Some people will recognise two of the three of those as the cast of

Borgen. And Hijacking, and he co-wrote the Hunt. It is a film

about responsible at it and guilt and grief, in which there are

battlefields from home and abroad juxtaposed and asks questions about

how responsible we are for our decisions. You saw even for that

clip, it is hand-held and has that realist feel to it. Sometimes you

feel like you are almost watching a documentary. It is very intelligent

and low key. I think it is impressively ambiguous. It does not

try to pretend there is a moral certainty. That is what it is about,

the fog of war. But what it does really well... We have this

juxtaposition of the husband and wife, living these two separate

lives, but both facing similar problems, children in danger and

both facing people dealing with their own decisions. I thought it

was very gripping and intelligent, rather low-key. Not every critic has

loved it, but I liked the fact it was such a low and thoughtful film.

You're best of the week is Joy. I haven't seen it am hoping to see it

this week. The pitch for Joy doesn't lead me to the movies. Joy is out at

the moment. It is the strangest mainstream movie I have seen for a

long time. Stranger than fiction stories of a woman who invents the

miracle mop. Exactly. Jennifer Lawrence is terrific. David O

Russell she has worked with before. There is a terrific supporting

performance from Robert De Niro. Like I said about Tarantino, I

didn't care emotionally about the characters. Joy, for all of the

things that are wrong with it, and it is all over the place, but it is

a film that made me care whether the miracle mop was adequately

demonstrated on television. Seriously. That I think is a strange

achievement. A breakthrough for modern cinema. It will not work for

everyone but it was so off the wall and unexpected and so unlike what

you normally think of as a rags to riches story, this is ranks to the

home shopping channel. Robert De Niro does some of his best

supporting work in a long time. You are not quite sold! No, but I will

go and see it. It is shorter than The Hateful Eight. Quite a few

things are. Your DVD is? 45 years. I beg your pardon, Love Mercy. Love

Mercy, a biopic of Brian Wilson divided into two sections. John

Cusack as the older and the other with Paul Dado as the young Wilson.

It takes a very inventive look at his life. On one hand there are bits

of it that look like they are absolutely... When they are

recording pet sounds on the early Beach boys, it was like found

documentary footage we have not seen before. All day no's performance was

brilliant. There were moments when I was watching it when I thought it

must be archived footage of Brian Wilson. John Cusack slightly less

so, but he has a slightly more difficult role. In that he is

playing the part of Wilson's life that is harder to represent

on-screen. If you are a beach boys fan you will really enjoy it. And 45

years is great as well! I am going to spend a couple of hours with the

mop. A quick reminder before we go that

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