Movie Reviews this week looks at the George Clooney produced and directed The Ides of March, starring George Clooney (Ocean’s 11) and Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson) as Stephen Meyers and Governor Mike Morris respectively.

It tells the story of the Democratic primaries to find out who will lead the Democratic party in the soon to be held presidential elections, but as the William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar inspired title hints at, the focus of the movie is on the background incidents involving the media spin doctors, who mainly represent Governor Morris, Stephen Meyers and Paul Zara played by the always impressive Philip Seymour Hoffman (Charlie Wilson’s War).

We join the story as Stephen tests out the microphone and surroundings ahead of a much anticipated debate between Senator Morris and his main rival for the Democratic Presidential Nominee. Not much is focused on the other candidate, in fact we hardly hear a word from him during the entire movie, instead the focus of the movie surrounds the backroom shenanigans in the world of political spin doctors, which Stephen and Paul are well adapt at; as they try to give Senator Morris every advantage in the race to the Democratic Presidential Nominee, against the opposition’s spin doctor, Tom Duffy brilliantly played by Paul Giamati (Shoot Em’ Up).
It also stars the gorgeous Evan Rachel Wood (almost unrecognisable from The Wrestler) playing Molly Stearns, an intern who has joined Senator Morris’s team, and immediately sets her eyes on Stephen, there is an amusing scene where Molly asks Stephen how old he is, he asks her, how old does he look like, she says questioningly “30″? To which he replies “You think I’m 30″? Just as she is about to apologetically guess again, he tells her he is 30, when asked to guess her age, he says 20, she replies that he is correct, and the conversation moves into the morality of such a young girl being with “such an old man”.

It turns out that Senator Morris’s campaign has hit something of a cul de sac, as they require the 356 delegates of a Senator Thompson played charmingly by Jeffrey Wright (fantastic as Colin Powell in W); or else they might lose the Primary, Tom Duffy is also eager on the task of getting Senator Thompson on board, as his vote is the difference that can decide the winner.

As political movies goes, The Ides of March is a fantastic movie with some brilliant acting, dealing with a plethora of political issues such as loyalty, integrity and the things that some are willing to do for what they believe is right. It comes as no surprise that The Ides Of March is touted as being a firm favourite for several Oscar nominations.

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Movie Reviews this week looks at the highly acclaimed martial arts drama Warrior.
It stars the very impressive Tom Hardy (Bronson) as Tommy Conlon complete with an American accent, as a war vet, who happens to arrive at the door step of his estranged father Paddy Conlon played by the always dependable Nick Nolte (The Fisher King).
It turns out the reason for the estrangement is that Paddy was a violent husband, and his wife took one of her sons Tommy to get away from him.
Even though Paddy tells his son he has been sober now for a 1000 days, Tommy is not impressed, and it turns out that Tommy is here for the main reason of a MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) tournament with a prize money of $5 million, and is as detached from his father emotionally as you can get.
We find out Paddy has another son Brendan played by Joel Edgerton (Smokin’ Aces), who he is also detached from, a physics teacher who spices up the lessons in class to gain the attention (and it must be mentioned he does it very successfully, there is a memorable moment where he tries to get the class to understand Newton’s first law, Mass equals acceleration with a baseball bat). Brendan’s has a lovely wife Tess played by the gorgeous Jennifer Morrison (House) and two lovely daughters. It turns out Brendan is behind on the mortgage and is facing foreclosure. Telling his wife that he is bouncing at a local club, he enters into a MMA competition at a parking lot, that is caught on Youtube, much to the surprise of his students in his Physics class. Although he wins the bout, his wife isn’t neither is his faculty head at the school, and he is given a leave of absence.
With Brendan facing certain foreclosure he explains to his wife that entering the MMA competition with the five million prize money is their only way out, she reluctantly agrees but not before putting up a fight as she recalled the last time he was in a bout and she had to pick him up from the hospital. Brendan turns to his friend and long time trainer Frank Campana played by Frank Grillo (Minority Report)to get him in shape for the tournament, while Tommy turns to his father, although they are at loggerheads most of the time, Tommy knows his father is a very good trainer, and Tommy intends to use the money for an army comrade’s family. With some of the biggest names in MMA coming to the tournament you wonder if Brendan especially has made a fatal mistake.

Warrior is a very intriguing movie, and you feel for the characters as their desperate fight for survival physically and emotionally takes its toil.

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Movie Reviews this week looks at the futuristic sci-fi drama Repo Men.

It stars Jude Law (Cold Mountain) as Remy and Forest Whitaker (mesmerising in The Last King of Scotland) as Jake.

In the world we currently live in, you may borrow money from a bank or a loan provider, and if you can’t keep up with the payments, the bank or loan provider can seize your property or your goods.
In the world of Repo Men, instead of property being taken if you are unable to keep up with your payments, it is organs that have been loaned out, and the Repo Men are responsible for removing artificial organs from people who are unable to keep up with payments, and this they do literally.

A company that has made it possible for those requiring liver transplants and various other organs that need replacing to get artificial ones, but they have to continue with very excessive payment terms, or else Remy and Jake will be sent to remove their property.  We are first introduced into what Remy does from the start of the movie as he retrieves organs from an unfortunate individual, as he puts it “If you can’t pay your mortgage the bank comes and takes it…If you can’t pay for your car the bank comes and take it…If you can’t pay for your organs I come and take it”, and he shows us what he does complete with gore, and I must say this movie isn’t for the faint hearted, it is full of gore and violence than most Hollywood mainstream movies.

It also stars the drop dead gorgeous Alice Braga (I Am Legend) as Beth, who has had a stream of artificial body parts right down to her eyes, whom Jake and Remy had been previously assigned to repossess.

Repo Men obviously has a great deal of analogy with debt collection in the world today, you could literally substitute the organs with any other type of secured debt, and the results could frighteningly be the same. Matters take a sudden twist when Remy in the line of duty finds himself needing the artificial organs he routinely removes from others, and when the inevitable happens and he is unable to keep up the payments, it leaves some in the company they work for; with some hard choices to make, and as is customary with new insight when you are now the victim, it leads to Remy questioning the validity of such a practice, and the motives of the company as a whole.

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Movie reviews this week looks at the suspense thriller The Next 3 Days, starring Russell Crowe (Gladiator) and the gorgeous Elizabeth Banks (30 Rock), as a couple John and Lara Brennan with a young son Luke played by Ty Simpkins.

We join the movie as John and Lara are having dinner in a restaurant with another couple, Mick and Erit played by Michael Buie and and the gorgeous Moran Aitas (You don’t Mess with the Zohan) respectively. During the meal Erit makes some innuendo regarding John, to which Lara doesn’t take kindly to, this sets the scene by director and screenwriter Paul Haggis, the screenwriter of the award winning Million Dollar Baby and Crash; for the audience to be in two minds about Lara’s character.

The plot takes a surprising turn, when back at home, the police pay a visit to Lara, and arrest her for suspicion of murder to the shock of all.

It transpires that the victim is her boss, and that the police have witnesses stating she has had arguments with her boss, but the damning evidence is the victim’s blood on her coat as well as her fingerprints on the murder weapon, not to mention a witnesses sees her speeding car, moving away, while the victim lay dead; to which even their sympathetic lawyer states “there is no way she is getting out of prison”.

This leaves John with only one other option, to break her out of prison.  He meets Damon Pennington played by the stalwart Liam Neeson (Taken), who has escaped from numerous prisons, and has written a book about his experiences; for advice on what to do in the theoretical possibility that he would need to break someone out of prison from the city, on hearing that John lives in Pittsbugh, Damon sighs with melancholy, that since 9/11 every major city had to have a lock down policy, and Pittsburgh is one of the cities that can shutdown all major roads in fifteen minutes, Damon also tells him that he would need a lot of money, as he puts it, “if you run out of money, you run out of friends”, and to be prepared cover all angles, to look for regularity in the tasks of the guards, and where there is a lapse in these duties is where an opportunity exists.

You wonder if John can actually pull it off, he seems a mild mannered school teacher, and having the guile and toughness for what he is attempting to accomplish might be way above him.

Paul Haggis captures the despair, and desperation of John and Lara superbly, and although you are rooting for them both, you can’t help but wonder if something bad is just around the corner.
As suspense thrillers go, The Next 3 Days will keep you at the edge of your seat throughout.

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Movie Reviews this week looks at the sci-fi block buster from James Cameron (Terminator 2, Aliens) Avatar.

It is a wonderful romantic movie, and you can see very quickly why it was much lauded at the Oscars and in the media.

For starters it has state of the art 3D, I believe it was the first movie that used the patent 3D imaging to capture the facial expressions of the actors so not only do we see a realistic portrayal of the Avatar the actors represented, but their facial expressions were shown on their avatars in a very realistic way, and the CGI programming is top notch, you will feel as if you are in a another world.

The story begins with Jake Sully played extemely well by Sam Worthington (Terminator: Salvation), a marine who has been left in a wheel chair, but the death of his twin, means he now has the opportunity to replace his brother on a mission to Pandora, a distance planet a mining corporation called “The Company” has ear marked for future drilling in the hope of gaining Unobtanium (apparently it costs a million a kilogram, hence it is a very lucrative venture).

Jake uses his brothers Avatar (which as he describes it are remotely controlled bodies made up of human DNA and the DNA of the natives called the Navi). Despite the protests of the team leader Grace played by the stalwart Sigourney Weaver (Aliens) to her boss Parker Selfridge played very convincingly by Giovanni Ribisi (completely different from the vulnerable medic he played in Saving Private Ryan), Jake is allowed to join their excursion.

However his first day using the Avatar is extremely eventful, not only is he chased to within an inch of his life by an angry creature, he happens to meet the daughter of the lesder of one of the clans of the Navi, Neytiri played adoringly by Zoe Saldana (Star Trek), her strength and vulnerability simply makes the movie.

He is brought to the head of the clan, and once Neytiri tells him that he is her father and he is deciding whether to kill him or not, the fast thinking Jake tells them he is a warrior of the Jarhead clan, the leader Eytukan played by the dependable Wes Studi (Last of the Mohicans) and his wife Mo’at played by Carol Christine Hillary Pounder (The Shield) are suitably interested and allow Neytiri despite her protestations to teach Jake their ways.

Jake’s new found acceptance by the Navi is seen by an opportunity by the protagonist Colonel Miles Quaritch played superbly by Stephen Lang (Gods and Generals) who Selfridge has as a last ditch attempt to force the Navi to move, as their home (a gigantic tree) sits on the largest unobtanium deposits within a 30 mile radius of any place.

However the longer Jake learns about the Navi, the less he is convinced of the virtue of his task, as he is beginning to falling love with the Navi and Neytiri.

The movie portrays the natives living at one with nature and the contrast of the sky people (humans) who have nothing to teach them but simply wants to destroy their home for their own financial benefits, a parallel to the Amazons, or many other ancient civilisations other people have destroyed in a quest for profit. The movie is extremely well done, with some fantastic action sequences, and superb animtronics and CGI, and it goes without saying you end up rooting for the Navi all through.

Movie Reviews this week looks at the fantasy drama Limitless. It stars Bradley Cooper (The Hangover) as Eddie Morra a seemingly lazy author forever trying to complete his book while meandering through life, he happens to come across Vernon (Johnny Whitworth) the brother of his ex Melissa played by the lovely Anna Friel (Pushing Daisies), who introduces him to a whole new drug, which he later calls NZT, which has not been given a license by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), on trying this drug, everything becomes much clearer to Eddie’s mind, his mind is much more alert, and knows how to process information, and to process it at incredible speeds, and he finishes his book that night much to his publisher’s amazement, his mind is so sharp that he picks up learning another language, and helps a student with their thesis with scraps he came across but with the aid of this drug are crystal clear in his mind.

Vernon lets him know that NZT does not make an individual smarter, they have to be smart already, it just heightens it. Unfortunately as with all drugs the high doesn’t last forever, and Eddie sees that he needs more of the drug from Vernon, however there is a serious problem as when Eddie gets to Vernon’s apartment, he finds him dead, and the place ransacked by someone looking for Vernon’s stash of NZT. Eddie eventually finds Vernon’s stash of NZT, but he finds that he is now being followed by not one but two sinister characters bent on getting their hands on this revolutiinary new drug.
With his ability to analyse situations improved by the drug, Eddie tries his hand at dabbling with the stock market. He makes such a phenomenal profit to the stock of a company that he gets the attention of a major investor Carl Van Loon played by the always impressive Robert De Niro (The God Father), trying to seal the deal with a major corporation. As Eddie tries to impress Carl to gain a contract on behalf of the company he is currently working for, he begins to find out some of the aide effects of NZT, and alarmingly finds out that the end result of the drug is a far cry from the start, and is running out of time before the sinister characters either get hold of him and or his supply of NZT, and keeping up appearances to land Carl as an investor. Eddie also has to deal with another ex Lindy played by the lovely Abbie Cornish (Stop-Loss) who remarkably looks like Charlize Theron; falling in love with the new improved Eddie.
Limitless is a great movie with plenty of twists and turns many will enjoy.

Movie reviews this week looks at the very enjoyable animation Rango starring the superb Johhnny Depp (Edward Scissorhands). It also stars Isla Fisher (The Wedding Crashers) as Beans and the lovely AbiGail Breslin (Litle Miss Sunshine) as an adorable and questioning mouse called Priscilla.
We meet Rango a very theatric chameloeon, who spends all of this time alone, but has devised a number of ways to entertain himself (playing roles and making up stories). It jsut so happens that his intrepid story telling is to be put to the test, as he soon finds himself in the real world (it turns out all this time he was improvising with a pet fish for a friend, he was living in a tank, we find this out as there is a road accident, and Rango gets thrown out of his surroundings). He meets an anteater called Roadkill played by Alfred Molina (Spiderman 2, An Education), who is trying to get to the other sie where there is the mythical spirit of the West, and all that they seek.
The two are soon separated and Rango finds himself in a desert town, where the locals are desperate for water, and in fact the local bank (called the dirt bank) instead of money has water instead, but its levels are running dangerously low. Rango’s wild tales of killing several outlaws with just one bullet gets him respect, admiration, and becomes the sheriff of the town, when by some twist of luck (or call it fate), he does manage to kill an eagle that had been preying on the town with just one bullet. The local mayor a turtle played by the much loved Ned Beatty (Superman), sees that the town needs someone to belief in and at that moment it is Rango. Rango on the otherhand takes to his new role with suitable aplomb, getting all the benefits of being sheriff, until you wonder if he has told too many lies to be able to back out, especially as the town is running out of water, and people are looking to Rango to solve it, which he promises he will.
Rango is an extremely enjoyable animation, both adults and kids will like, and some of the lines in the film are certain to be classics, such as Rango saying “I want a urine sample from everybody and somebody get me a latte…don’t get the two confused”.
We also get a guest appearance (albeit in animation) from a well known star, that humorously fits in with the movie anecdotes.
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Movie reviews this week looks at the action thriller Salt, starring Angelina Jolie (Lara Croft) back to her best physically demanding role since Lara Croft (and I must say how impressed by her action scenes seeing she is the proud mother of twins).
The movie begins with Evelyne salt (Angelina Jolie) as a CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) agent, who happens to be asked to interviews a self confessed Russian renegade, Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) who happens to walk into the building, saying that he has some news that they should hear, seeing that Evelyne speaks Russian, the CIA head Peabody played by the always impressive Chiwetel Ejiafor (Red belt), askes her to interrogate him. As we watch the interrogation, which the CIA monitors with Orlov’s heart beat and brain scan to see if he is telling the truth, he seems to oass all the tests with flying colours. At the end of the interrogation Orlov says something that lands Evelyne, as well as Evelyne’s work colleague who is always on the look out for her best interests Ted Winters played by Liev Schreiber (Xmen Beginnings: Wolverine) on edge. Peabody would like to interrogate her about what Orlov says, but Salt knows something is up, and she has to leave the building, fearing her husband Mike Krause played by August Diehl (brilliant as the Nazi officer in Inglourious Basterds) is in danger.
This begins a cat and mouse chase between the CIA headed by Peabody, and accompanied by Winters to find Salt, and get to the bottom of the allegations Orlov makes, and to prevent Salt from doing what Orlov alledges she is about to do.
Salt is an excellent action movie, and as is standard with Hollywood movies these days, the violence is not for the faint hearted, but the suspense is what makes Salt a great action thriller.

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