J Edgar (2012)

 I have heard mixed things about this film which tells the life of J Edgar Hoover who was the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Leonardo Di Caprio plays Hoover and this film is directed by Clint Eastwood. This story does a lot to try and be fair to J Edgar, the problem is that at the end of it there was no clear opinion that we are suppose to take away from it. The performance of Di Caprio is quite good and like Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady, the performance is better than the film.

Another problem that I had with the film was the prosthetics. In an attempt to make Di Caprio and Hammer look older, they have to appear older and it just doesnt work for me. It is better on Di Caprio than Hammer but neither could be considered a success. That said it was a better film than I was expecting and I dont know what the exact running time was but at no point did it drag. The performances from Di Caprio and Hammer were solid and it was nice to see Judi Dench and was happy that she got more than a fleeting appearance like she did in Pirate 4.

J Edgar is not a bad film but I was hoping for something a bit more from it. I will be getting it when it comes out on DVD.

The Iron Lady (2012)

Doing a film about one of the most controversial prime ministers ever was always going to be a film that was going to cause issues. I went to see this film not really knowing what to expect. Meryl Streep’s performance has been heavily praised and the its one of the rare things where the voice and the look of Thatcher is pretty much spot on. When you watch Nixon with Anthony Hopkins the voice might not be there but there is something about his performance which makes you think Nixon. In The Iron Lady what we have are three stages of the former Prime Minister but the most notable is the first one we meet Thatcher she has managed to give her security the slip to buy milk. All the scenes where she is talking to the hallucination of her late husband was very sad and I felt at times uncomfortable watching it.

The story involves a large amount of flashbacks, starting when she is working at her fathers shop moving onto the point where she is elected to parliament and some of the events which occurred during her premiership that caused to her to be the figure that she became to be. I think that when I went into the screening I was thinking that events like the Falklands and the Poll Tax Riots would be given more of a important part of the story that it ultimately did. The one part of the film that I did find problematic was when that throughout the film she is meant to be suffering from dementia (which she really has although its not mentioned by name) and yet all she does is decide to get rid of Dennis’ stuff and she is better. I thought that wasn’t believable and was a bit of a duff way to end the film. Streep’s performance is brilliant and I wouldn’t be surprised if she receives significant award recognition. Jim Broadbent does well as Dennis and he does add some slight comedy relief. I say slight because after the initial laugh I remember that he is an hallucination but its still a good performance. Olivia Colman looks odd as Carol Thatcher but her performance is still very dignified and subtle.

The Iron Lady is an odd film but the performances are good enough to enjoy and whether you agree that they portray Thatcher as a good person or bad what’s important is this film a brave attempt to tell a story about one of the most powerful people in the country and how fragile they have become.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

Still on a high after watching MI3, I went to the cinema to watch the latest MI film. This is the best of the MI films. The story is about trying to effectively stop a war between America and Russia (ah that old chestnut). In between all that were some impressive action scenes which do make Bond look a little silly.

Simon Pegg was really funny in this film and actually Tom Cruise wasn’t to bad either. His career seemed to be a bit unstable with such films as Knight and Day and that Valyrike film. However with MI3 and MI4 it seems he is back on familiar and more stable ground. The film benefits from some great locations filming especially in Dubai and the sand storm part was my favourite bit. Tad convenient that the storm ended when the bad guy got away.

The final scene where they we see the wife from the third film seemed to be the only bad thing in the film. Ok it was probably needed to include the fact that the wife wasn’t dead as we had been told but to be honest the film should have ended with Cruise walking into the mist like he did.