On the couch

“Once upon a midnight dreary” is never a bad place for a gothic detective story to begin. And so it is for James McTeigue’s The Raven, a story of death, drunkenness and… more death.
The story, when it finally gets around to starting, revolves around a series of murders in Baltimore modelled with terrifying accuracy on the work of poet, critic, author and drunk, Edgar Allen Poe (John Cusack).
A local cop, Detective Fields, recognises an element from the first crime scene – a seemingly impossible slaying of a mother and daughter – and immediately calls Poe in for questioning.
After an incident at a masquerade ball, however, it becomes clear that he is not the brains behind the murders. When his financeé Emily (Alice Eve) is kidnapped, a game of “hunt the clue” begins with the girl as the prize and increasingly elaborate crime scenes as the means for the killer to communicate with his favourite writer.
Poe and Fields make an interesting pair on paper. The detective bears a bit of a resemblance to Sherlock Holmes in so far as he’s interested in forensics and references, in one of his first scenes the Baker Street sleuth’s investigative mantra, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”, while Poe is the wilder, more inspired of the pair.
Unfortunately there’s about as much chemistry between Cusack and Evans as there was between the pages of my Leaving Cert answer book and it leaves a great big bro-hole where their relationship should be.
Far more entertaining are Cusack and Gleeson’s moments together. As blustering bully and potential father-in-law Captain Hamilton, the Irish actor is never not winding up for, or calming down after, a red-faced rant, typically inspired by his dealings with Poe.
The two play off each other well as only two such accomplished performers can but there just isn’t enough of it to satisfy.
While The Raven can be a bit slow in spots, it’s not a bad way to spend an hour or two. Cusack is always fun to watch and the murders and Alice Eve’s imprisonment really hit a nerve, providing a sense of anticipation for the killer getting a mighty serving of comeuppance.
Unfortunately the perfunctory and disappointing ending may leave you exclaiming, as Bart Simpson once did during a recitation of an eponymous poem, “Eat my shorts”.
It really does leave a bad taste at the end of a reasonably palatable film.
Dragon Eyes is a dose of martial arts nonsense I had no real intention of reviewing. Starring action movie legend Jean-Claude Van Damme and MMA star Cung Le it seemed like just the thing to help relax my brain on a Sunday evening.
Turns out nobody told director John Hyams he was making Complan for the brain. While it ain’t quite Citizen Kane, Dragon Eyes packs far more twists and turns than you would expect from a staight-to-DVD chopsockey flick.
The star of the show is Le. Currently fighting for the UFC, he has made a good sideline for himself in the last few years as the quiet, ass-kicking guy in such flicks as Pandorum.
This time around Le’s kicking the asses of some nasty gang types in the parish of St Jude’s in Anywhere, USA. The film flashes between him learning the manly art of beating folk up while in jail with JCVD and him using these skills to keep rival drug-dealing gangs and their well-dressed mafioso boss Mr V (Peter Weller) in line.
With better than average fight scenes – the influx of actual fighters like Gina Carano, Rich Franklin and Le into movies can only add to their authenticity – and a surprisingly well structured story, until the last 20 minutes or so anyway, transmutes Dragon Eyes from bog standard, instantly forgettable fare to a higher kind of nonsense.
Fight fans, look out!