The Bikeriders (2023)

The Bikeriders is a film that proves that whilst Biker gangs might seem fun and cool, in reality that isn’t the case. It suffers from having a trailer that makes it appear to be something that its not. The trailer seemed to suggest (to me at least) that it was going to be a Sons of Anarchy type film. I don’t know if its just because both feature bikes but that is what the trailer suggested which is one of the many reasons why I don’t watch trailers (except at the cinema).

The film is based on a true story about a motorcycle club lead by Johnny (played by Tom Hardy) and Benny (Austin Butler) as the biker gang goes from a few guys on bikes having fun to a Sons of Anarchy type group with drug runs, prostitution etc. The action takes place over the course of about 10 years with Jodie Comer’s Kathy doing a voice over narration that reminded me of Goodfellas or Casino. I think that with this being based on a true story meant that a potential rivalry sub-plot between Benny and Johnny didn’t happen when I think it would have immediately added some tension to the film which I think it desperately needed.

The thing is that when Austin Butler with anyone else but Tom Hardy then he comes across rather well. Whenever he has a scene with Hardy though then he kinds of becomes forgotten about and bearing in mind he is one of the three main leads it makes it more surprising. I don’t think that Butler is the leading man that most people seem to think he is. I know he won awards for playing Elvis but bearing in mind he was the best thing in that film, its not surprising that his performance stood out. He even gets outshone by Jodie Comer in some scenes. Comer has on the face of it a rather one dimensional character but manages to make a lot of it and show some personality to the wife of a biker. Hardy is doing the same accent that he does in pretty much every film where is he is playing an American that isn’t Bane but he does it so well that I don’t mind.

The Bikeriders is OK. It’s not the film that I thought it would be and so that was disappointing but it told a rather ordinary story and made it seem interesting and the performances from Comer and Hardy elevate it to something above average. One thing that i will say is a big plus point is that I was never bored. It didn’t drag on for longer that it needed to which bearing in mind is just short of two hours long is quite an achievement.

Kinds of Kindness (2024)

I have become a recent fan of Yorgos Lanthimos. Ever since Poor Things, I have been watching whatever Lanthimos film I can find. Normally when a director makes a film, it would be a while before we get their next film. It might be a year or even a few years but with Lanthimos its been four months and apparently Lanthimos made this whilst they were in post production with Poor Things. This film is a trilogy (or triptych if you want to be fancy) of stories which all feature Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau & Mamoudou Athie in different roles. The set up of the three stories is the same. Someone has something and they then lose it before reaching desperate levels to get it back. That's not a critiscm by the way but just a quick outline of the film because I think that would be the simplest way of putting it.

The first story is called "The Death of R.M.F" (by the way I don't think its explained what R.M.F stands for). This one is more Jesse Plemons than Dafoe and Stone (she doesn't come into it until the final act of the story) and Plemons is really good and as the story progresses Robert's desperation gets more and more obvious and to the point where he purposefully smashes his toe against a wall just to get Emma Stones' Rita to notice him. Dafoe's Raymond is good but is overbearing by deciding what Robert should and shouldn't do. When he is rejected by Robert he isn't angry or upset. He just accepts Robert's decision and moves on. There is something ever so unnerving about the fact that it never feels like its building up to a conclusion but the tension is slowly being increased and that made this story interesting. We don't learn why Raymond wants this guy driven into but I suppose the reason isn't the point. 

The second story is "R.M.F is Flying" and sees Plemons play a police officer called Daniel who at the story of the story is searching for his missing wife Liz (Stone) and after she returns he is convince she is not the real Liz. This is basically the Lanthimos version of 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers'  and Daniel is more and more convinced that Liz is a fake to the point that he asks her to cut off her thumb and serve it to him. After she does this it doesnt change anything and he then gets her to remove her liver and once she does that then for some reason the real Liz turns up and the story ends. I liked this one as well although the reason for the sudden return is never made clear (again like the previous story). There is a great moment when Daniel wants to watch a video with his friends and it turns out to be a sex video of the four of them in probably one of the most awkward moments I have seen in a film for quite sometime. Despite Stone being in this more than the first story, it is another Plemons led tale and he like the previous story he does a good job driving it. I thought that Emma Stone was very good as Liz who was trying to convince her husband that she is the real Liz (even though she wasn't). Two stories in a so far this very strange film is still maintaining my interest and the initial concern I had about the runtime of nearly three hours was starting to disappear.

The third and final story was "R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich" and see Emily (Stone) and Andrew (Plemons)  trying to find a woman who can bring people back from the dead. They are part of a cult where they don't drink the water and Emily sneaks off to see her estranged husband and daughter. When they go back to the cult its clear that there is some sort of sex thing going on and if you have watched any documentaries about cult, the actions of the leader aren't that far off. This is by far the best performance from everyone. Dafoe is great and this is a great performance from Stone who has sort of been on the sidelines for two-thirds of the movie before taking centre stage in this tale. There is a part of the story where Emily is raped by estranged husband and this leads to her being thrown out of the cult and I don't like watching sexual assault in films or TV so this slightly ruined the film for me. Also the fact that this leads to her being thrown out despite it not being her fault seemed like a forced plot point like they couldn't find a better way to get thrown out the group. After being thrown out of the group, Emily purposefully hurts a stray dog (another minus point for the film) and uses this to meet Rebecca who is the one that can bring back the dead leading to the infamous dance that is in the trailer. 

Overall this was a very good film. Not quite as good as Poor Things but as its a very different film it was always going to be a tough ask to be better. I thought that the performances were all good and each actor gave three very different but very good performances with no weak link. I think this is one of those films that people are either going to love or hate and I think that people need to see this sort of film because otherwise all we are going to get at the cinema are more superhero and franchise films. 

 

Freud's Last Session (2023)

I will be honest that normally I wouldn't have seen this film at the cinema but rather have waited for it to come out on streaming but its been a few weeks since my last visit (Furiosa) and it was just nice to see something and this seemed to be the only thing on that a) I hadn't seen and b) was on at a decent time. Normally early on a Saturday morning is ideal for me. This was one of those rare instances where I was the only one in the screening, that's the first time since 'A Haunting in Venice' back in September 2023. This tells of a possibly true story where Sigmund Freud (played by Anthony Hopkins) has a discussion/debate with C.S. Lewis. We know that this may not be true because the text at the very end says that Freud met up with an 'Oxford Don' but there was no name and it possibly could have been Lewis.

The film largely centres around religion and faith with Lewis being a believer and Freud not. There are some interesting scenes where they discuss the points in each case but after a while it did feel like a lot of talk about things that ultimately didn't really matter. What I was more interested in was the dynamic between Freud and Lewis because its an interesting one but I think that the dialogue could have been made easier to understand and also I think that the a better job could have been done to make the flashbacks seem a bit more obvious as it took a moment or two for me to realise this wasn't happening in 1939.  The fact that Freud had mouth cancer was one that because a recurring point throughout the film and I think that this is where Hopkins does his best work because Freud is clearly a smart person but his willingness to accept his fate is something that doesn't seem to happen too much in stories. Matthew Goode is also very good as C.S. Lewis, the what would now be called PTSD of Lewis' experiences in the First World War are briefly touched upon at various points throughout the film but it never makes Lewis seem like a lesser character but adds the discussion and make him a perfect person to discuss faith and god.

Despite this effectively being a two-hander, Sigmund's daughter Anna is also involved in the story although at a slight distance because there is the subplot about her dependency on her father and what sort of relationship the two of them have and when a friend of Sigmund's wants to date her even though he is 20 years older than her, it suggests that the relationship is at best odd. There is also what would have felt like a tacked on plot point if it weren't true and that Anna had feelings for someone else.

Freud's Last Session isn't a terrible film but an average one at best. This is the second Anthony Hopkins film I have seen at the cinema (One Life) and that is a better film although I do think that Freud is a more interesting character because he is a more complex one and the role in One Life was written to be a much more emotional character but it does show that even at 86 years of age, he is still capable of delivering strong and attention grabbing performances.