DVD Review: Sliding Doors

What if? It’s a big question in all of our lives. What if I’d told her? What if we’d stayed together? What if I’d got that promotion? What if I’d worked harder in school? What if I had had just one more day with her and the chance to say goodbye? If we’re not careful we can get snowed in by “what ifs”.

 We have to keep our heads down to escape drowning in never-meant-to-bes or choking on could-have-beens. The possibilities that we spotted passing by out of reach haunt us as regrets. The second chances we never even noticed are too numerous to contemplate and tease us occasionally in our dreams. Let the “what ifs” talk too loudly and their chatter overpowers the everyday routine. Let them grow too tall and even the little things are given dark significance in their shadow.

Sliding Doors is a film about the little “what ifs” bunching together in mundane ordinary life until they have enormous individual consequences. When it was released in 1998 it was greeted by a mixed critical reception but it has since gone on to gain a dedicated following. It stars Gwyneth Paltrow as fashionable young Londoner Helen, complete with believable English accent, who is fired from her job at a PR company. She heads for home via the tube. The film follows two separate paths through her life; one in which she gets the train and one where she fractionally misses it, unable to squeeze through the sliding doors of the title.

The actor Peter Howitt wrote the script and directs a very grounded take on the idea of parallel universes and an alternate reality. The concept could have been lifted straight from sci-fi but Sliding Doors watches more like a meditation on the nature of fate, albeit with an uplifting rom-com tinge. One Helen, the one that gets the train, finds her boyfriend shagging his ex in her bed, only to fall for a handsome stranger. The other is delayed again and again until she arrives home late and unaware of the affair. She therefore carries on her life as normal, working flat out to support him as he “writes a novel”.

The plot is not all that clever, despite the engaging concept of two storylines running in tandem, and the dialogue is not especially witty or sharp. The real strength of Sliding Doors lies with the overlapping lives of rounded, likeable characters, well realised with accomplished performances. Paltrow is accessible rather than whiny in the lead role. John Hannah is convincingly charming and funny because of the way he says things, rather than what he says. John Lynch is a great actor, as he proves in the upcoming Ghosted, and he doesn’t come off badly here despite playing the cheating Gerry, who is often just left to look bumbling and British on the end of a full on feminine bollocking. Jeanne Tripplehorn plays mistress Lydia as a caricature but she serves a purpose and Gerry’s mate Russell (Douglas McFerran) down the pub is hilarious as the sensible one.

None of it is sublime, even the characterisation is simply above average for the genre. The acting is very good but not career defining. That said I really liked Sliding Doors. Its commonplace tone makes it all feel like it could happen to you. There are some slightly surprising twists in the climax and I was a little moved and amused in places. Its parting message is somehow both more resonant and bearable than most romantic comedies. Some things are inevitable. And there’s always hope.

The Shadow Line – Episode 7

And so we’ve followed The Shadow Line all the way to its vanishing point. But did all the pieces of Hugo Blick’s puzzle fit together into a satisfying big picture? Or was all the build up ultimately a disappointment?

Well depending on where you stand, the big reveal that the whole mess was about pensions might be a letdown. There are few less exciting words in the English language. If pensions were a colour they would be grey. They are grey pounds collected from grey post offices in dreary grey villages by grey haired foot soldiers of the drab and grey retirement brigade. All the talk of far reaching Cold War and government conspiracies on internet forums seems rather laughable now. But wouldn’t it have been more interesting and satisfying to find out that it was all more significant than a pension fund? Doesn’t all that killing seem rather OTT for a secure retirement?

A part of me was certainly a little underwhelmed by the explanation of it all, delivered by the retired Commander Penney on his yacht before he blew his own brains out. He explains to Gabriel, who refuses to let the case drop even after the really bad copper at the top has been found out and given the boot because Petra was hired by him to take out Gatehouse, that Counterpoint was official at first. But then after amassing £70 million through drug deals the authorities ordered it to stop, as its activities were entrapment and therefore useless to prosecutors in the courts. Counterpoint carried on, below the radar and unofficially. It laundered money through its deals in order to fund the pensions for the entire police force.

My initial reaction was; seriously? But by the end of the episode I liked the idea and I was sold on it as a good explanation. The way Blick ties things up again emphasises what this series was about; the lives of both sides of the line, cops and crims, and the overlap in between. Police corruption was vital to the entire series and it was fitting that the solution to most of the questions raised throughout was one of complete self interest on behalf of the boys in blue. More than anything though I liked the Britishness of the pensions answer, in keeping with earlier lines like “typical fucking British car chase”. Blick could have tried too hard for a grand an all important finale. But right until the end this series remained original despite emulating the production standards and story arcs of popular American shows.

So what about Gatehouse? Were the shadows around him illuminated with a little light? Yes, a little. We find out that he’s a MI5 agent and in charge of the operations of Counterpoint in the field. He set up Glickman and Harvey Wratten long ago, and by the end of this episode he’s found replacements for them in Jay Wratten and rent boy Rattalack.

Incidentally Jay, who was completely absent last week, has been cunningly manoeuvring behind the scenes. He put the cops onto his uncle in the first place. As Gatehouse says, he has “hidden depths”. Jay gets some of his best lines in a climactic scene with Babur; “It’s never nice to watch an old man refuse to leave a disco…someone had to bundle him off the dance floor”. For all his camp menace, I think most of us who followed The Shadow Line to the end came to love Jay as a character, slimy pantomime villainy and all.

For Gatehouse the whole thing was about control, as Glickman hinted in previous weeks. The head honchos of Counterpoint thought he might have gone rouge to pocket the money for himself, hence the UV tags, but he was only ever trying to restore the stability of the system. With replacements in place, by the end it’s like he’s hit the reset button on the whole series.

Our two principal characters on either side of The Shadow Line, Christopher Eccleston’s Joseph Bede and Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Jonah Gabriel, are both extinguished. Bede is shot in a car in exactly the same way Harvey Wratten was and then officers examine the carnage as they did in the very first scene of the series. Bede knew he was going to his death, he’d been warned and had his own suspicions about Jay, but in a powerful piece of understated acting from Eccleston, he leaves his gun on the kitchen table. His plan to save his wife had failed; she attempted suicide twice and was put into care.

As for Gabriel, it seemed like he could do no more. He might just have to accept the promotion that his corrupt superior Patterson, but perhaps slightly less corrupt in that he only follows Counterpoint rather than pocketing the cash for himself, had given him. But then Gatehouse phoned him. They arrange a meet and Honey accompanies him, after repeatedly assuring him throughout the episode of her loyalty to him.

Yeah it was fairly obvious. Honey has her gun trained on Gatehouse but after some final tying off of loose ends and some chit chat about shadows, Gatehouse flicks his lighter and Honey shoots Gabriel dead. So Gatehouse always wins, Counterpoint is back to normal. Honey seems to feel a bit remorseful but Gatehouse assures her she’ll get over it, presumably in retirement with a nice fat pension.

At times The Shadow Line was atrociously bad, usually in a funny way. At times it tried far too hard to be stylish, with one example of this being a fetish during the last two episodes in particular for a close up of cigarette tips as they were lit. However overall it was ambitious and absorbing TV. I haven’t seen anything like this on the BBC or anywhere else. Hugo Blick should be applauded and I hope he gets the chance to make more things in the mould of The Shadow Line. I shall miss both watching and blogging about such twisty, exciting and quality television.

What were your thoughts on the answers, the pensions and the series as a whole? Did you want more? Would you welcome a second series or a spin-off for a particular character?

The Shadow Line – Episode 6

This penultimate episode started to bring things closer to the big reveal and end of series climax. However rather than my usual attempt to sort out the threads of the plot, I am driven by a minor detail to starting this week’s summary with a rant about realism and the suspension of disbelief.

Gatehouse, played with quiet menace by Stephen Rea, has been the most mysterious figure in a story arc stuffed full of secrets and deceit. In this episode he finally appeared to meet his match. Anthony Sher’s Glickman, who had that thrilling standoff with Gatehouse last week, uses Chiwetel Ejiofor’s confused Detective Jonah Gabriel, the one with the bullet in his brain, to set the perfect trap for Gatehouse. Both men lie in wait for Gatehouse in the home of Gabriel’s secret family.

After a tense conversation between Gatehouse and Gabriel, Glickman pounces from the little boy’s room (the son’s bedroom not the toilet). He fires several times with his silenced weapon, hitting Gatehouse decisively at least twice. The action slides into dramatic slow-mo as Gabriel’s son runs from his room, getting caught in the crossfire. Glickman shoots Gatehouse to make sure before stumbling from the horrific and tragic scene his trap has inadvertently created. Even in death Gatehouse finds and hurts the weak points of those in his way.

Except Gatehouse isn’t dead. He’ s taken to hospital and Gabriel says the doctors insist he has the heart rate of a twenty year old. I said last week that Glickman seemed to be far more human than Gatehouse despite his similar efficiency, and I was right. Distraught after accidentally killing an innocent boy, Glickman rings Petra, his jilted girlfriend. She meets him in an alleyway to console him. And then she stabs him several times, leaving him to die in a heap.

That was certainly a surprise I didn’t see coming. I had assumed Glickman’s abandoned love was simply to give his character weight and also give Christopher Eccleston’s Joseph Bede a forbidden love interest to spice up his inner battle with his wife’s dementia. But no, it turns out she’s an assassin. Who is she working for? With Gatehouse taken out, we assume he has powerful friends or subordinates seeking swift revenge.

However then she turns up, right at the end of the episode, at Gatehouse’s private hospital room. His only security is a nurse with a fondness for Dairy Milk and an unfortunate knack of dropping her precious snack to the floor as killers lurk outside looking to sneak past. Petra is clearly a cunning and formidable opponent to deceive so easily and completely someone as wary and careful as Glickman. Here she unzips her top to reveal an ample cleavage and a mass of wires clinging to her chest. She proceeds to hook herself up to the immobile Gatehouse, seemingly doing something complicated to swap heart beat readings. She has a lethal injection ready and waiting. As she says aloud “bleep bleep” to make sure she gets the timing of the switch right, Gatehouse rolls over, says “bleep” and kills her like he was just having a power nap.

And so, finally, to my big gripe. Gatehouse has not a single sign of being shot on his body. Blood could be seen spreading around his head and trademark black coat after Glickman fired. He must have been substantially wounded, taking bullets somewhere on the torso. I am quite willing to accept that Gatehouse turns out to be the unbeatable top dog, as he has been all along. I wouldn’t have minded Gatehouse summoning the strength to kill his would be killer, if there had simply been a bandage or stitch or something to indicate the earlier ordeal. We get that Gatehouse is stronger than normal men. But such inconsistency and laziness of detail when shooting a pivotal scene, severely limits the audience’s ability to inhabit the increasingly sensational story.

Most of you are probably thinking I’ve blown such a tiny detail out of proportion. I may have done. But for me things like that have always been important. It is often a trait of men to pick fault in the believability of a story. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the excitement of the scene and all that went before it. And it’s not that I wish everything to be so plausible that it becomes mundane.

Such mistakes leave me with a feeling of annoyance though. This is a huge shame because The Shadow Line has been largely consistent and quality in terms of such details. And all I really wanted to do was commend this episode. Of course, it might be revealed next week that Gatehouse knew Glickman was planning a trap and had taken precautions. In which case this was an even more pointless rant.

What about the rest of the episode then? Well finally we got some satisfying focus on Gabriel’s character. For most of the episode he was the narrative focal point, right up until Glickman’s trap was sprung, adding to the drama, emotion and awfulness of the death of his son. We start by watching him get a brain scan; it seems he’s getting his memory back. His wife nearly loses the baby but then things turn out to be fine. Glickman tells him to follow the money, not the drugs as he said last time. Would have helped if he hadn’t mucked us about wouldn’t it? He tells Gabriel to harass the retired police commander about Counterpoint, which will bring Gatehouse out of the shadows to hunt down his weak point. We learn that the journalist, otherwise known as M’s assistant in Casino Royale, met his maker because he pestered the commander too much.

The police corruption goes higher and deeper than anyone could have imagined. A senior civil servant seems to be pulling the strings as he issues instructions to our crooked inspector at a funeral. He orders the convincing suicide and murder of Gabriel and his family. Does this mean Gatehouse is working for people within the law and government (as he killed Andy Dixon in the same way)? Meanwhile Gabriel finds out he’s a good cop. He didn’t log the operation the night he was shot because he knew there were rotten elements on the police side. And the police were buying the drugs as well as selling them. Baffling.

Other asides: rent boy Rattalack is getting his money from Gatehouse to buy Bede’s drugs. But with Gatehouse almost dead, everyone gets panicky when the money doesn’t turn up. And Bede’s right hand man is going to sell details of the deal. We still don’t know what Counterpoint is or who Glickman’s ex was working for, seeking to tidy up the situation with some slick murders. Gabriel’s wife gets a lecture from his ex, the mother of his dead child, at the boy’s funeral. She basically tells her to get Gabriel out of the mess and that the truth isn’t always worth it. Will he be able to keep a family together even if all the mysteries are solved?

Next week, light will illuminate the shadows. Will everything fit together? Supposedly Hugo Blick plotted the whole series with massive interconnecting mind maps, so it should. And will Jay Wratten, absent this week, go out with a whimper or a bang?

Rivals beware – Barcelona’s brilliance has reignited the hunger in Sir Alex

Manchester United were always going to be the underdogs at Wembley. Beating the Catalan giants required the best from every one of the eleven Red Devils. Rooney delivered to give the fans hope, only to fade away amongst chain after chain of world class Spanish passing sequences. United just weren’t in Barcelona’s league.

But no one in the world is right now. United were right to believe in themselves and in the opening ten minutes their positive tempo took the game to their intimidating opponents. Their unity and players like Rooney, Giggs and Hernandez, meant they could hurt even the likes of Messi and co. It was an upbeat pace impossible to maintain however and as soon as Guardiola’s side got a grip on possession, England’s representatives in the clash between Premiership and La Liga were always going to be chasing the game.

Now though, with the battle lost, hardened veteran Sir Alex Ferguson is ready to launch a new war. As crushing as the defeat at Wembley was for United fans, they might be able to take some comfort in the fact that their seemingly immortal manager is to carry on for at least three more years. And not just carrying on with his job as well as he always has done but tackling a challenge so big that it can ignite and excite even the 69 year old Scott: wrestling Champions League dominance from Barcelona.

I’m not saying that Fergie had lost the hunger. He is the type of man who will never lose the desire to keep on winning and this ferocious and clinical lust for triumph is a key ingredient of his monumental success over the years. But there’s no doubt his Achilles heel has always been Europe. He knows this is where the strength of his legacy crumbles, even after a second trophy in 2008. This year he proved that he has mastered the tactics of Europe to reach the end without conceding an away goal. His team proved to him that they were a unit capable of following his instructions to the final. But not to the trophy and not past Barcelona.

The signs of an even greater determination for glory and greatness are already there. The manager knows that the effective blend of youth and immense experience his team has benefited from this campaign, is about to become imbalanced. Even before the Champions League final defeat, Fergie was aware that he’d be losing Edwin Van Der Sar and Gary Neville, and in all likelihood Paul Scholes, to retirement. He knew Ferdinand’s fitness was an increasing concern and that Ryan Giggs will have to be rested more often. These pillars of experience will need replacing.

Current players will be expected to step up with the departure of such Old Trafford greats, with greater importance falling upon the likes of Rooney, Vidic and Fletcher than ever before. Young players from the FA Youth Cup winning side, such as the promising Ravel Morrison, will be encouraged swiftly, but carefully, through the ranks. But after the “hiding” his team received at Wembley, Sir Alex knows quality and efficiency are also issues he must tackle.

I say efficiency because the likes of Nani and Berbatov, despite being pivotal at points, have not been trusted at others because of their inconsistency. Berbatov is undoubtedly a great talent, a genius with the ball, and you feel for his undeserved fall from Premiership top scorer to Champions League final exile. But his future is in real doubt at the club, with serious offers likely to be accepted. His manager prefers the partnership of Hernandez and Rooney and will be even more ruthless in his quest to catch the Spaniards that have humiliated him twice. Nani too, could be tempted by a move. Fergie needs to be able to rely on everyone for every occasion to better the Catalans.

All of this means that this summer will be the busiest in a long while for the red side of Manchester. Sir Alex, by failing to accumulate replacements for his ageing stars in previous years, has left himself with a mammoth shopping list. But he is supposedly backed by funds from the Glazers and he’s given himself three years to catch the world leaders. He’ll need all the time and money he can get.

Who does he want this summer though? Well De Gea looks pretty certain to replace Van Der Sar in goal and Fergie will hope that the Spanish Under-21 keeper is a steady long term replacement, after the trouble he had replacing a certain red nosed Dane between the sticks. Also reportedly in the club’s sights is Villa winger Ashley Young, Everton rising star Jack Rodwell and Lens defender Raphael Varane. Fergie would love Dutch playmaker Wesley Sneijder to fill the boots of Paul Scholes but a move looks unlikely. With the likes of Obertan, Gibson, Kuszczak, and Brown also all likely to leave, along with possibly Nani and Berbatov as well, the task could yet grow harder still.

With fierce rivals City having plenty of oil money to burn and Arsenal looking to be busier again too, in many ways Sir Alex Ferguson has picked the worst summer to begin a major rebuild in pursuit of an almost impossible goal. But if one name continually defies expectations in football and gets what he sets out to achieve, it’s his.

The Shadow Line – Episode 5

Let’s not muck about: this was the best episode yet. The first twenty minutes to half an hour in particular, were as gripping as anything on TV. The quality of the opening alone made this the highlight of a bold series.

What made the beginning so absorbing was the reveal of the much talked of, but never seen, Peter Glickman, and some superb writing and acting. Indeed it was the acting above all else that made this so good, especially when Stephen Rea’s Gatehouse squares up to Anthony Sher’s Glickman. Before that unbelievably tense encounter though, we’re treated to Sher’s portrayal of Glickman’s alter ego Paul Donnelly, who lives a simple life as a clock shop owner in Ireland.

The unlucky passing of an old business associate, an American flashing plenty of cash, transforms our Irish accented and mild mannered old chap devoted to his clocks into a slick and ruthless criminal. The script excels itself as we see Glickman follow the man from his shop, cleverly work out the number of his hotel room and then pull off a near perfect murder.

The conversation between Glickman and the American in his room is chilling and realistic. The moment Sher’s performance switches from one persona to another is astounding. Glickman is a quietly menacing character very much in the mould of Gatehouse but also somehow on another, less predictable level. The murder itself was surprisingly brutal, jumping out at you just as Glickman is showing a compassion Gatehouse seems to lack and contrasting starkly with the meticulous but unnoticeable preparation.

Accomplished ad hoc killing complete, Glickman slots seamlessly back into the shoes of an old fashioned and harmless shop owner. He has cultivated the last resort escape route of his alter ego for twenty years, making regular but short appearances in Ireland as Donnelly to flesh out the believability. Echoing all the talk of him dividing his life into boxes in previous episodes, he describes his double life as a room kept ready for him and where nothing looks odd when he moves in full time, because really, he’s been there all along.

Despite his calculating nature and devious credentials to match Gatehouse, Glickman nevertheless seems more human than Stephen Rea’s character. He claims to have genuinely loved his girlfriend and to deeply regret not having the opportunity to say goodbye. Later in the episode he meets Christopher Eccleston’s Joseph Bede for a dead drop on a bench, ignorant of the fact that he’s been banging the woman he misses. She has sought comfort in the arms of the florist/drug trafficker, somewhat predictably after last week’s flirtatious behaviour, because they both live in the “loneliness of the past” or something.

Anyway what do we actually learn when Gatehouse and Glickman have that awesome standoff? Admittedly I’ve been putting off an explanation because I’m not quite sure I’ve digested it all. But the big thing that surprised me, amongst the quick fire, back and forth dialogue was that Gatehouse is Glickman’s “controller”. I always assumed Glickman was the real big cheese and that Gatehouse was pissed because he’s the hired help, albeit a rather active, expert and efficient employee. But I guess a theme of the series is that people appear to have roles and responsibilities which they don’t, to protect the real puppet masters (e.g. Bede).

Glickman got Wratten out of jail because the two had been working together for thirty years. Gatehouse disapproved because Wratten was threatening to expose something massive, an extremely secretive operation called “Counterpoint”. Gatehouse implies he wanted the satisfaction of killing Wratten himself, rather than having him eliminated in jail. Glickman of course ends the conversation by trying to blow up Gatehouse, unsuccessfully, thus postponing the real showdown for a later date.

Crudely ejected from his cover life, Glickman tips off Gabriel about the drugs, kick-starting an unveiling of police corruption on a huge scale and taking us closer to the truth about Gabriel’s memory loss. The police are selling drugs from the evidence room (Honey and Gabriel discover UV codes; two sets from the police and one from customs) and even very top officers know about it. Gabriel, in trying to confront his superior, is confronted with his own apparent corruption and the extent of the rot. Blimey.

As if that wasn’t enough for one episode, Bob Harris pulls out of the deal to buy Bede’s drugs, only for his rent boy to bump him off and take his place. Someone must be backing him and this becomes one of the new mysteries, along with what exactly is “Counterpoint”?

As I’ve said before, this is a series that can infuriate as well as inspire, with some of the many references to “shadows” in this episode deflating the subtlety somewhat. But undoubtedly, The Shadow Line is now beginning to reward commitment in a big way.

The King Maker

Last year the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg was dubbed a “King Maker” by many in the press, due to the historic power afforded to him as a result of a hung parliament. He could either prop up grumpy Gordon or crack open the party poppers for Dave’s coronation. The public rejoiced in watching the usual big boys squirm and a new man get a chance to pull the strings. But now no one agrees with Nick and he’s plummeted from the heights of Britain’s most popular to the land’s favourite burning effigy. Thousands genuinely hate him and want to scratch out his entrails for his sickening, unnatural marriage to the Tories. They despise him for drunkenly tossing away longstanding pledges to the public on his stag night and loathe him for cutting chunks from the country’s finances lustfully on honeymoon. For many it’s a painful, all consuming dislike of this one yellow tied Westminster suit amongst hundreds.

It’s sometimes easy to accept the idea that in today’s world, truly bad films don’t get made anymore. It’s impossible to find two hours in front of a screen with some flickering images completely unsatisfying. You can’t hate a piece of filmmaking like you hate a man. You can’t find it as painfully offensive to your artistic taste and morality as swathes of reckless, damaging government spending cuts. This may be true. Even the most misguided projects I review usually have some kind of redeeming quality, at least one moment of real enjoyment or an admirable aim. But The King Maker is a film that took only 60 seconds for me to want the blessed release of the end credits. It’s an absolute and total turkey, the sort of film that goes straight to the bottom shelf at Tesco for a reason, the sort of film that without qualification deserves the label: BAD.

Out of scores and scores of poor movies, The King Maker is one of the few that if you have any sense of quality and taste, you’ll rapidly be able to regard with something close to hate. Seriously you should heed my warning if you want to avoid an excruciating hour and a half; do not watch The King Maker. Certainly DO NOT PAY ANY (real) MONEY TO SEE THIS. You might think its 88 minute running time short, but it feels a hell of a lot longer and you’ll never get those precious minutes back. There is nothing at all to justify spending time on this lifeless, empty shell of a film.

Literally nothing at all, everything about The King Maker is purely bad. As I’ve said it takes less than a minute for the shoddy editing and woefully low production standards present throughout to raise their ugly, persistent heads. The film opens with an action chase sequence peppered with ludicrous ninja/karate style high kicks and flips. There are jumps and landings that would be laughable were the tone not so serious or the camerawork and execution not so dire. In fact much of the action in The King Maker could be from a masterful slice of slapstick Charlie Chaplin or a ridiculous Monty Python sketch. But The King Maker is not even so bad it is funny. At times it ought to be hilarious. I did not laugh or smile once at its awfulness though. Afterwards my face hurt from the exhaustive efforts of a non-stop grimace.

The main reason I can’t even recommend The King Maker as refreshing fest of unintentional LOL moments is because it’s evident that the actors are trying so damn hard. You can’t have a good old heartening chuckle at all those involved in the film when it’s so obvious that they were trying to make something good; they have no idea how shit it is and you’re left with an endless feeling of painful pity. Every element of the movie is bad, every acting performance poor at best and agonisingly awful at worst. In fairness to the cast they are not helped by the script. Rather than rant about its failures one quote sums up the clunky, grating quality of the dialogue: “Look it’s the king’s emissary, I wonder what he wants?”.

For what it’s worth the film chronicles the story of Portuguese mercenary Fernando De Gama (Gary Stretch), who is shipwrecked in Siam and rescued from slavery by his love interest. He works his way up through the ranks of society, stumbles across a plot, and has scores of his own to settle blah blah blah…it’s really not worth it.

There are continuity errors aplenty, an out of place soundtrack that will make you cringe, silly stunts and cliché black and white flashbacks. CGI of a port full of ships looks like it’s been taken from an unsuccessful computer game with unconvincing Windows 98 graphics (the water in particular looks atrocious). In fact the plot and action set pieces and horrible attempts at a historical setting all seem like ingredients from an out of date, bargain basement video game. There are even punch and kick sound effects ripped straight from cartoon archives.

Despite my partial defence of the actors earlier, the standout flaws of this film are their totally unbelievable performances. The worst offender is the plotting Queen and her lover as they fail to convey the passion of their secret affair. The majority of their scenes together seem like a disappointing porno with an inexplicable lack of flesh on show. Another potentially career devastating turn comes from lead Gary Stretch. His limp delivery of lines serves as the final nail in the coffin for The King Maker. Even a film so badly executed could have salvaged some likeability with a charismatic turn from the lead actor. Stretch merely drags things further into painful depths of disappointment and dismalness.

The King Maker was supposed to be a spectacular showcase of Thailand. It’s only the third Thai film to be made in the English language, and the first since 1941. There are some superb, beautiful locations occasionally visible in the background amongst the appalling action of the story. But they don’t deserve to be associated with the worst film I’ve seen this year and I suspect the favourite by a mile in the race for worst film of 2011.

Reading and Writing Challenge Month – Days 5, 6 and 7

What’s the old saying; one step forward and two steps back? After finally making progress by finishing The Day of the Triffids (and easily answering a question on its opening line from University Challenge this evening as a result) I then went to see a friend for the weekend and did no reading whatsoever. I took an assortment of books, I intended to read and she intended to revise, but neither of us succeeded. I could hardly be rude could I? This is my excuse I know. But the break, not from this challenge but from life, did me good. So in reality this post could be entitled simply Day 7.

To make matters worse I haven’t devoted today solely to reading. Distracted by writing I haven’t actually read a great deal. However I do feel that I have a plan of action and that I made some considerable strides in terms of understanding today. I finally read Chekhov’s The Lady with the Dog in its entirety, along with an introduction to a collection of his stories by Richard Ford. I’ve also read some more of Haruki Murakami’s short stories and I plan to read Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice before I sleep tonight. Lady Chatterley is on the back burner for the time being, but next on my list, whilst I get my head around different short story writers and hopefully attempt an article on them this Wednesday.

Reading the introduction to Chekhov’s stories really helped me appreciate the unique value and insight of short stories compared to novels. Much like essays they can single out a particular issue or aspect of existence for closer inspection. Chekhov’s writing was economical and concise in making its points, something I need to begin to hone. His stories also reveal life’s hidden truths that we’re sometime reluctant to acknowledge, often from mundane events and goings on. I shall hold back the rest of my musings for another time.

I also recalled a Ray Bradbury short story from The Martian Chronicles that I’m going to re-read, as it’s another example of a type of short story and something else they can do.

Tomorrow night I’m going to attempt serious physical exercise for the first time in ages. I shall be a shattered and broken man. Hopefully my eyes will still be able to read. Until then I suppose.

The Special Relationship

Peter Morgan may or may not see his script for the 23^rd James Bond film become a reality, and it may or not be a picture directed by acclaimed director Sam Mendes, but Morgan has certainly not struggled to make films about former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Equally serial impressionist Michael Sheen has not found it hard to play the charming leader, taking on the role in previous dramas The Deal, The Queen and now The Special Relationship. Sheen has made a living out of playing real people, from the chaotic camp of Kenneth Williams to the masculine self assurance of football manager Brian Clough and he has always fitted snugly into Blair’s recognisable suits and effortlessly donned his trademark grin. As with Morgan’s previous examinations of Blair The Special Relationship looks at a particular period of this remarkable man’s life through a narrow lens with a small cluster of essential characters. This is the story of Clinton and Blair; the President’s influence on the Prime Minister, the wives influence on the two men’s friendship and the advisers grappling with how best to make use of such ideological and personal bonds.

Blair’s devious tabloid spin doctor Alastair Campbell slammed Morgan’s latest drama before it premiered on BBC2 on Saturday night as a complete work of fiction bearing almost no relation to the facts and events as they happened. Now whilst it must be true that Morgan wielded creative license to craft a number of personal scenes between the two leaders and the leaders and their wives, as he cannot have known the content of such intimate chats besides glimpses from memoirs, Campbell’s utter rejection of the drama’s credibility may be down to his own less than flattering portrayal. The special media adviser appears to be a brash, sneering and crude presence throughout. He represents the dark side of Blair he had to embrace in order to haul Labour out of Opposition in a new media age, a dark side of tabloid manipulation and sinister back stabbing and sordid scandals. Campbell is less of a character in Morgan’s drama than a commentator providing rolling coverage of the headlines at the time, highlighting the worst of public bloodlust and opinion, slipping in details that both provide background and represent the scale of the struggle Blair faces to get things done, when faced with an indifferent public more motivated by the shape of a President’s penis than his foreign policy commitments.

In fact given the political nature of the subject matter it’s hard to get to know any of the characters in The Special Relationship, because we don’t know them and neither did Morgan writing the script. We recall the events of the time, remember the urgency they tried to convey in their speeches and are familiar with their managed images in front of the flash bulbs. But even when we see Dennis Quaid’s brooding Clinton, seemingly drained by scandal and the web of lies he has entangled himself in, it’s impossible to deduce the sentiment of the man, he’s presented as a blank, an enigma of a stress deliberating how best to handle the political fallout. Hillary is arguably the most lifelike character in this drama and she is sensitively played. The restrained emotion is there, visibly only just in check but her ambition and necessity trap her in her situation. She doggedly soldiers on.  

The events, somewhat inevitably, are major characters in themselves in this historical drama. That’s not to say we don’t get insight into character; it’s clear early on that despite Clinton’s insistence that Blair owes him nothing he expects good old Tony to tow the line. Initially he does so, movingly and hesitantly sticking his neck out over the affair, but when Blair makes a stand on Kosovo Clinton is not prepared to be in Blair’s debt, he was always managing the upstart Brit whatever the praise. It’s when the plot gathers pace over the Kosovan crisis that this drama comes into its own, engaging far more than the early, plodding set up of the Clinton-Blair relationship. Blair refuses to be politically positioned like a pawn by Clinton and the stage is set for confrontation. Churchillian like speeches full of inspiration captured the mood of the new millennium, a mood of optimistic cooperation in which every nation with a moral compass could play its part and make a genuine difference, a mood banished by 9/11 and the subsequent retaliation. It’s odd to think that Clinton’s America, although led by an adulterer, was more trusted and respected around the world and that Blair was able to harness goodwill felt towards it.

Blair’s boldness wins over the American press, with gushing approval ratings calling for him to run for the Presidency. Throughout the piece however the more experienced Clinton urged Blair to consider his legacy, not just fickle opinion polls, and whilst it may seem triumph in Kosovo secured it for Blair we all knew it was to be eclipsed, and the drama ends ominously with his heart and mind in the right place, committed to a pragmatic, meaningful relationship with new Republican President George Bush, but ultimately to underestimate and be sucked into a damaging legacy he would never shake off. Popularity would pass by Tony Blair just as it passed for Bill Clinton and both men arguably spurned opportunities to make use of it. The Special Relationship of progressive centre left leaders, leading the world in a unified, positive banishment of right-wing politics to the dark ages never truly materialised. Morgan’s drama ends by asking topical questions raised by the release of Blair’s memoir; did Blair waste his legacy and was he ever the politician he claimed to be, given his current support for the coalition, or was he just a self-centred man grabbing his place in history with both hands, wherever he had to reach to? Whatever the answers, despite Clinton’s warning to Blair that rhetoric alone is not enough, both leaders had moments in this drama that demonstrated the enormous power of words in the hands of a politician and leader, the power to ignite, transform and inspire, but also sadly, to disappoint.