Film review

Blitz

DIRECTED BY: Elliot Lester
STARRING: Jason Statham, Aidan Gillen, Paddy Considine
CERT: 18

HAVING notched up the required action-man, body count across the water, Jason Statham is back in England to bust a few home-grown skulls, this time as a cop with a fondness for the (Dirty Harry) method.
Detective Sergeant Tom Brant (Statham) works the seedy underbelly of South-East London, where a psychopath is hunting down cops for sport, and using typically sleazy tabloid hack Harold Dunlop (David Morrissey) to make a name for himself. The serial killer (Gillen) calls himself Blitz as in Blitzkrieg, as he gleefully announces.
Brant is going to put a stop to this boy’s carry-on, using proper police procedure, of course. Though procedure as he understands it, means proceeding to kick the living crap out anything that moves. He establishes this early on, when he beats a couple of misfortunate car thieves with a hurley. It is not known if it was pointed out to President Obama this week that the camán makes a very handy weapon. Not in terms of mass destruction, exactly but historically, it is perhaps more famous for after-mass destruction.
Brant’s liking for the quick, brutal approach doesn’t go down so well with his superior, Inspector Nash (Considine), the steady half of the team, the quietly determined cop, who keeps his life and his lifestyle to himself ­ and can’t do much about how Brant keeps ragging him about it, in phrases that will have the PC brigade reaching for their pitchforks.
Blitz is based on the novel by Ken Bruen and written for the screen by Nathan Parker, who made his writing debut with the 2009 astronaut drama Moon. It’s directed by Elliot Lester, who does a fine job when his focus is on the big silly plot and letting Statham and Gillen do the stuff they do so well – Statham the angry action man with a sideline in Easstwood one liners, and Gillen picking up where he left off in 12 rounds but turning up the crazy to 11.
It’s when Lester veers off course and tries to blend an old-fashioned cop flick with gritty urban drama that things get messy. Mark Rylance appears as a friend of Brant’s who’s struggling to cope with the death of his wife, and Zawe Ashton is a cop who’s fighting a drug habit she developed while working undercover. These stories are fine and may work well in Bruen’s novel ­ or in any of Ian Rankin’s fine Rebus books ­ but don’t sit well alongside the brash, violent action yarn.
And so overall, the film is a bit disjointed. But there’s plenty to enjoy all the same and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Statham back on the beat again as Brant, breaking more shins for Ireland.

Win Win

DIRECTED BY: Tom McCarthy
STARRING: Paul Giamatti, Alex Shaffer, Burt Young, Amy Ryan, Jeffrey Tambor
CERT: 15A

I’D watch the great Paul Giamatti in anything and Jeffrey Tambor always makes me laugh, so any film starring both of them together would get my vote even if it was no good. This one happens to be good. Not as great as some of the American critics have been saying, losing the run of themselves again in their understandable delight at the sight of anything remotely resembling genuine quality. Or indeed, anything not made in 3D.
It’s not that great but it’s good, sometimes very good.
Mike Flaherty (Giamatti) is really not very good at anything. He’s not much of a lawyer, he’s not a great high school wrestling coach, and his health isn’t up to much either. His home life with wife, Jackie (Ryan), is happy enough but that tree in the front needs looking at and there’s no way he can afford to have the boiler in the basement fixed. Mike is the classic Giamatti character ­ middle aged and just a tad miserable.
Things take a better turn when his client Leo Poplar (Young) is declared incapacitated on account of Alzheimer’s and Mike learns that the court will pay $1,500 a month to a legal guardian. He takes the job himself, packs the old man off to a nursing home and pockets the cheques.
Which is working out fine until Mr Poplar’s grandson Kyle (Shaffer) turns up. He has run away from home and since he can’t exactly move in with grand dad, he ends up staying with Mike and his family. The only other relative Mike can locate is Kyle’s drug addict mother (Melanie Lynskey) but the boy doesn’t want to know.
In the meantime, it turns out that Kyle is a champion wrestler. Which is a nice surprise for Mike and his coaching buddy, Stephen (Tambor). It is also a bit of a lazy plot development, which sets up the old tried-and-tested big contest finale and ultimately ties up all the ends a bit too neatly.
This is not typical form for writer/director Tom McCarthy, whose previous films were The Visitor and the excellent The Station Agent.
But there’s enough strength and depth in the story and the characters to make up for the late lapses and the cast do a fine job. Giamatti and Tambor of course are great, and former wrestler Alex Shaffer impresses in his debut role. He may have been chosen for his sporting skills but he’s a natural acting talent and we’ll surely be seeing more of him.