053 - Prince of the City

Synopsis: Consequences suffered by a corrupt NY policeman trying to do the right thing

Director: Sidney Lumet

Actors: Treat Williams, Jerry Orbach, Lindsay Crouse

Date: 1981

How viewed: Lovefilm rental

Rating: 4/5

David Meyer says:

It's a bleak study of class brotherhood, shot with simplicity and acted to the highest level.

I say:

This is a long, complex film (based on a true story) about a detective in the NY Narcotics Squad, who, along with his team, break up numerous major drug gangs, but do so by supplying drugs to informants, stealing money from dealers, and generally operating outside the law. When approached by 2 prosecutors charged with weeding out corrupt police, lawyers, and judges, he decides to co-operate, so long as he isn't asked to rat on his partners. The boy does good, but slowly more pressure is placed on him to reveal more and more, and as he starts to unravel mentally, eventually he admits to all the scams  he was involved in. The film is long (nearly 3 hours) and comes on like a TV min-series (with chapter headings), there's a huge cast, and much of the dialogue is in street slang, so it's hard to work out the detail, although the bigger picture is clear. It raises very interesting questions about where police draw the line (remember this team was extremely successful, whilst underpaid and risking their lives almost daily). I struggled with the film a bit at the start, but it drew me in as it went along, and the only jarring feature was Treat Williams, who just seemed too young, and too clean-cut, though I admit, he put in a tremendous performance. 

052 - The Man Who Would Be King

Synopsis: Boy's Own adventure of 2 ex-soldiers in Kashiristan in the late 19th century

Director: John Huston

Actors: Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Christopher Plummer, Saeed Jaffrey

Date: 1975

How viewed: Lovefilm rental

Rating: 4/5

David Meyer says:

The story, the players, and the script possess a natural exuberance that the Indiana Jones pictures strive for but cannot attain.

I say:

Based on a Rudyard Kipling short story, this film follows the adventures of 2 ne'er-do-well English ex-soldiers, who run out of scams in India, and decide to head to Kashiristan (a country north of Afghanistan which no white man has seen since Alexander the Great), side with whichever tribe they first come across, and conquer and bring peace to the country village by village. Which indeed is what they do (salutary lessons for those forces currently in that part of the world!). However one of them is mistaken for a God, and it all goes pear-shaped when his true identity is revealed. The story can be seen as encapsulating and satirising the role of the colonising English, ultimately failing to appreciate or understand the local cultures, but it is tremendous fun, and there's real chemistry between Caine and Connery. Michael Caine plays himself of course, but who cares!

051 - I know where I'm going

Synopsis: Ambitious, selfish, gold-digging girl discovers love on a Scottish Island

Directors: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger

Actors: Wendy Hiller, Roger Livesey

Date: 1945

How viewed: Lovefilm rental

Rating: 4/5

David Meyer says:
It's nice to experience old fashioned cornball without the usual accompanying stupidity .. a grown-up love story, engaging, poignant and magical. 

I say:

Well, I'm back, after a long break - think I got film-fag, and as the next film to drop on the doorstep from Lovefilm was yet another old black and white Powell and Pressburger film, I just needed a break! However, I have to say I really warmed to this particular P+P film (I must drag out 'The Life and Times of Colonel Blimp' as I do remember liking that a lot!). Anyway, this particular one concerns a stubborn ambitious Manchester girl who heads off to the Scottish Highlands to marry her older rich fiance - but gets stranded on the Isle of Mull, meets the local laird on leave from the Navy (who, as we discover turns out to be 'old rich', rather than 'nouveau rich'), realises money isn't (quite) everything, and falls in love for the right reasons. Is this a wartime propaganda film about the how great it is to be British, is it a sort of 'Not So Brief Encounter', or is it about how nature (in this instance the wind, rain and fog) can determine our destiny? Not sure. It's terribly hammy, the plot is predictable, the Scots and Scotland are badly stereotyped (though never patronised), and yet, and yet, there are loads of nice touches (an edit from a top hat to a train chimney for example, and even the opening credits), quirky characters, and lots of comedy moments. I liked it!

050 - Battle of Algiers

Synopsis: Drama-documentary of the FLN uprising in Algiers in the 1950's

Director: Gillo Pontecorvo

Actors: Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi, Brahim Haggiag

Date: 1965

How viewed: Already in my collection

Rating: 5/5

David Meyer says:
It's a revolutionary film in form and content. There are no comparable films being made today, films that combine history with drama and make both so compelling. 

I say:

I can't praise this film too highly, and it's a compete travesty that it is in anyone's list of 'DVDs you've never heard of'. It follows the emergence of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) in 1952 against the colonising French, and their subsequent virtual elimination by the French Army. It's worth knowing a bit of the history, though the film doesn't directly provide this information - anyway (with thanks as usual to Wikipedia): The Algerian War was a conflict between France and Algerian independence movements between 1954 and 1962, which led to Algeria gaining its independence from France. An important decolonisation war, it was a complex conflict characterised by guerrilla warfare, marquis fighting, terrorism against civilians, the use of torture on both sides and counter-terrorism operations by the French Army. The conflict was also a civil war between loyalist Algerians who believed in a French Algeria and their insurrectionist Algerian Muslim counterparts. The extraordinary thing about this film is that it does not use any images from the conflict - everything is re-enacted. It's shot in grainy black and white to look like a documentary, and the crowd scenes, riots, explosions, etc are unbelievably realistic. It's not always an easy film to watch, both sides commit atrocities and these are shown in graphic detail (including torture scenes, although these may only be in the restored version of the film). Impressively the film tries to be neutral, and depicts aspects of good and bad on both sides (for example, the Army leader fought in the French resistance and therefore has some sympathy with the fight against a colonising country), and my only gripe is that the ending is shown as the first scene - why oh why?? Nevertheless, it is gripping viewing, and very topical as it has many resonances with the current Arab Spring uprisings, and, for me, has the effect of making almost every other film feel superficial. PS and there's a fantastic score by Ennio Morricone - what more could you ask?