The Shadow Line – Episode 4

After things really seemed to be getting somewhere with episodes 2 and 3, last night (the first time I have watched The Shadow Line as scheduled, 9pm BBC 2) things once again became a blend of baffling plot lines and bad dialogue, punctuated by the odd superb scene. This is one of those programmes so determined to keep us guessing that no sooner are we given a clutch of answers, a bucket full of more questions is splashed into our bemused faces.

The answers come in the form of customs officer Robert Beatty, who was the guy sultry sidekick Honey had a fight with last time. He’s one of these deep cover types working beyond the police, doing things they can’t like he doesn’t give a shit. It turns out that the drugs murdered Harvey Wratten used to get his rare Royal Pardon were already his. Beatty also reveals there was a second requirement for the Pardon; saving the life of a cop. In this case information was given to save him and his family from a car bomb. But it quickly emerges that the bomb was probably planted by Wratten too. So Wratten arranged a get out of jail free card for himself. Well mostly free, just minus millions of pounds worth of drugs.

Obviously Gabriel thinks this is getting somewhere with the case, that he’s been given three extra weeks to save. But it’s difficult to say where this breakthrough leads or what it means and his boss has a problem with that. Even though they’ve got a blurry picture of Gatehouse on CCTV too AND they’ve linked him to a big drug deal, where Gatehouse appeared to be acting on behalf of the vanished but ever present Glickman, who was in turn acting for Wratten because he was banged up. Confused much?

And that’s just the professional side of the police case. We haven’t even mentioned Gabriel’s personal problems. He didn’t have any agonising moments staring at that inexplicable briefcase full of cash this week but the mother of his secret child told him to tell his wife of their existence, who is finally pregnant. This is the cue for just one of many terrible lines in this episode. Gabriel, clearly in a sticky situation, blankly says “I’m in hell” only for the mother of his child to hit back with “No, we’re in limbo”. She then says she won’t have her son growing up in the shadows, which is far too forced a reference to the show’s title.

On the criminal side of the case, Bob Harris is sweating his hairy backside off because one of his supply lines has been compromised by customs, which is how the police know about Glickman getting the drugs for Wratten. How do I know he has a hairy backside you ask? I don’t for sure but I’m judging by the rest of his portly, sagging, ageing body. We’re treated to a scene with Harris and a gay lover, with Harris sporting a pair of very tight pants and awkwardly resting on his side like a beached whale, and the lover wearing nothing at all. He is sprung from a police station by an anonymous benefactor at the beginning of the episode and ever since has been stuck in camp seductive mode. He also gets some terrible lines and provides Harris with the information that apparently Jay Wratten is responsible for the busting of his line.

Jay of course, has been told by Andy Dixon the driver, that Harris killed Harvey. So he has a reason to piss him off. But Christopher Eccleston’s Joseph Bede interrogates Jay and he insists he didn’t do anything. We see very little of Bede this week, apart from when he’s questioning Jay and Glickman’s girlfriend, but Jay does get to pay another over the top, intimidating visit to Glickman’s son. And this is where we see the mysterious, deadly Gatehouse again.

Perched atop a mountain of office furniture, Gatehouse is across the street from Glickman’s son with some very fancy tech for listening to phone conversations etc. Eventually he decides to pop round to the home of Glickman’s son and play the kindly old fashioned gentleman card. Glickman’s sceptical daughter-in-law is won over by his harmless demeanour and Gatehouse gains access to the downstairs loo. After opening and closing the window briefly, he lets himself out. After calling her husband about the visitor, the wife goes upstairs to check on the wailing baby, prompted by the baby monitor. Their little girl is not there.

I was glad when Gatehouse showed up eventually last night because the rest of the episode had been poor. With Gatehouse though you know things are going to be suspenseful and tense and that something is going to happen, even without him doing very much. Here he’d magically whisked the baby outside, simply by opening and shutting a window in the toilet. Surely he must have had help? After dashing about the house absolutely distraught, she finds her baby and then Gatehouse, who chillingly tells her to call her husband “NOW” via the baby monitor. Glickman is then told Gatehouse wants to hear from him.

This episode has time for one more confusing but majestic scene. The journalist, otherwise known as that bloke from Casino Royale, who has been investigating police corruption throughout the series, features strongly in this episode asking people questions without really getting anywhere. Then he’s given the job of city editor at his paper, along with a far from feasible pay rise. Prior to this Gatehouse calls him up for an anonymous meeting but does nothing; not even speaking to him. Instead he gets hold of his home address pretending to be a deliveryman. Then comes the outstanding scene.

McGovern (name of said journalist) rides out of the city in his leathers and into the countryside towards home and his wife, where he can tell her the good news of his promotion. The tension slowly builds as it’s evident something will happen. Then we see a car in the distance on a straight road, with McGovern heading towards it. Both vehicles, bike and automobile, disappear into a dip in the middle of the road. We hear a screech and only the car emerges on the other side. The episode ends with a close up of our fallen journalist, in the middle of a sun drenched road, blood dripping in vivid drops from his helmet against a background of bright blue sky.

Scenes like that are the reason I continue to watch The Shadow Line. Some of them use too much style but most are refreshingly well executed, subtle and classy. This episode was full of irritating performances, including McGovern/Casino Royale man’s intonation that made everything sound like a question, hardly a subtle portrayal of an investigative journalist. It also had some of the worst dialogue so far and perhaps more of it. And the plot development became frustratingly unsatisfying too. But occasionally I am still gobsmacked, even in this mostly bad episode, and I am still intrigued.

With some questions answered new ones arise. Why kill the pestering journalist when he appeared to know very little? More interesting still, why did Gatehouse kill him, when he was investigating police corruption? Do Gabriel and Gatehouse know each other? Perhaps Gabriel simply can’t remember with that bullet inconveniencing his brain. And how exactly did it get there? Was Gabriel responsible for the death of partner Delaney? Can Chiwetel Ejiofor put in a good performance despite increasingly ludicrous plot twists for his character and sledgehammer emotional dialogue? Will Bede and Glickman’s girlfriend get together? Will next week be more enjoyable and make more sense? Will I get to see Bob Harris completely naked?

I’ll keep watching for the answers.

The Door

We all make mistakes. We all have regrets. Regrets in particular are an undeniably universal part of the human condition and the lives of everyone; from rock star to street cleaner. It doesn’t matter if you’re the flawless Empress of dozens of kingdoms or a waitress in a greasy spoon; there will be things you wish you had done differently. Sometimes, when things get really bad, it’s a cliché phrase of woe to wish that the ground would swallow you up. Usually though you’re probably more likely to be hoping for a window onto the past. A hole big enough to crawl through, or a door if you’re feeling especially demanding. There’s not a soul on Earth, no matter how content they may profess to be, that wouldn’t consider the chance to go back. The chance to revisit a moment when everything changed.

Boiled down to its basics, this is what The Door is all about; that irrepressible human desire to erase what has been eternally written on the pages of history and memory.  That craving for just one chance of redemption and the opportunity to take another path, a happier route, on the journey of life. In many ways The Door is an extremely simple tale but it’s one that uses fantasy to suggest dark and disturbing truths about human nature. It will simultaneously cut uncomfortably close to the core of your personal experience and be impossible to imagine and relate to.

The Door is a German film, telling the story of David Andernach, played by Mads Mikkelsen. I was dubious of Mikkelsen’s ability to carry this film off. I am most familiar with him from Casino Royale, in which he played a suitably menacing but also expectedly caricatured Le Chiffre. The way The Door is constructed requires intense focus on the personal viewpoint of Andernach and Mikkelsen is in practically every scene. You really notice it when things centre round his wife for a few minutes towards the climax. Thankfully his performance is varied, convincing and touching at times.

Also good are his wife Maja (Jessica Schwarz) and daughter Leonie (Valeria Eisenbart). Eisenbart is especially excellent as a child actor accurately expressing the knowing innocence of children, reacting to the sensational and dramatic events of the plot. Andernach’s mistress Gia is played by Heike Makatsch, and if I’m being really picky, which I guess I am, her performance was bland and predictable. She does play perhaps the least diverse of all the characters though, particularly when compared to the other more mysterious, male neighbour to the family.

However whilst poor performances could conceivably have ruined The Door, the really standout thing about this film is the story. It’s the sort of plot that can’t be justified in summary. I certainly can’t make my description of it much more alluring than the mildly interesting efforts of the production notes, without spoiling the surprise factor that made The Door so immensely enjoyable for me.

What I can tell you is that Andernach is a famous artist who is over the road fucking the neighbour one day when his daughter trips over her shoe laces and drowns in the family pool. Five years later Andernach is a broken man, begging his former wife for forgiveness. He tries to drown himself in the same pool, only to be rescued by a friend. He then follows a butterfly (his daughter wanted him to catch them with her but he chose a rendezvous with his mistress) to a hidden door that opens onto the day she died. He intends to simply save her and then perhaps alter his future, but he finds himself trapped in the past, lurching from one unintentional catastrophe to another.

In a way I’m tempted to write one review of The Door for those who have not seen it and one for after you’ve all hunted it down and enjoyed its one hour and thirty five minutes or so. It’s a film that raises a lot of big questions and emotional themes that would be interesting to discuss in more depth. You think you can work out its progression from the premise but you probably won’t. I will say that its poignant overall message seemed, for me at least, to be something along the lines of; we can all relive the past if we pay a big enough price and surrender enough of ourselves, but it’s a part of being human to let go and move on.

Trying to bottle up the raw feeling I got from The Door makes it sound far from creative or moving. But watching it with its tender score and acting and simple surprises, you are really sucked in. For once the glowing descriptions of the film adorning the marketing are totally apt and spot on; The Door is a “dark moral fable” and “an accomplished supernatural thriller”. You’ll be gripped by it, fascinated by it and haunted and moved by it. You’ll wonder what you’d do confronted with your own door.

BlogalongaBond: Thunderball

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I only discovered BlogalongaBond recently. But blimey what an excellent idea. Talking about 007 once a month for two years, and each film in turn; blogging bliss for Bondian fanatics like me.

Then I realised I had just missed the boat for writing about Goldfinger. My first contribution to BlogalongaBond would have to come hot on the heels of a month’s glowing discussion of the world’s most famous franchise’s most iconic entry. How was I going to compete with that? I couldn’t rant and rave about every single classic scene moulded into cliché by endless reference and repetition. As many bloggers said when reviewing Goldfinger, it was THE Bond film and in the eyes of many every one since has aspired to its formula and fallen short of its magical mix.

After watching Thunderball though, I remembered why it’s always been more than the shit part of the National Lottery to me. I loved Thunderball growing up as a boy, and I love it now. For me it is better than Goldfinger. Aside from From Russia With Love, Thunderball is the film that best captures the origins of the character; Ian Fleming’s James Bond transplanted onto the screen.

Thunderball the novel was a return to form for Fleming, who had taken a break after Goldfinger to produce a collection of short stories, For Your Eyes Only. The book introduces the character of Ernst Stavro Blofeld for the first time and provides Bond with an excellent enemy for two other brilliant novels, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and You Only Live Twice. Of course the films made Blofeld Bond’s ultimate nemesis from the outset, whereas prior to Thunderball, in the literary world of Bond his primary foes had been unorthodox Russian organisation SMERSH. Lampooned in the 60s by Bond spoof Casino Royale, SMERSH sounds unavoidably silly compared to the sinister SPECTRE headed by mysterious Blofeld.

Interestingly the physique of Blofeld in the novels is quite different to that presented in the films. The most memorable portrayal of Blofeld is perhaps Donald Pleasance’s scarred little bald man in You Only Live Twice. In Roger Moore’s time the character is reduced to being dropped down a chimney in a pre titles sequence. Thunderball showcases Blofeld at his best; unknown, all powerful and faceless.

Thunderball also shows off Bond at his best. In a PTS far superior to the aforementioned Roger Moore effort in For Your Eyes Only, we learn everything we need to know about 007. In my view Thunderball’s PTS is also better than Goldfinger’s despite the prevailing view being that Goldfinger’s is the most flawless of the series. As several bloggers pointed out, Bond’s ridiculous duck disguise in Goldfinger spoils the other elements somewhat and to me Thunderball’s PTS is a stronger standalone mini-story, which also ties back to the main adventure.

Steven Spielberg once said that to him, James Bond was a detective, a suave Sherlock Holmes with a gun. For the directing legend Bond was at his best when distilled to this level and he tried to replicate elements of this when creating his Bond equivalent, Indiana Jones. I certainly think that description is a simplification of Bond’s character. But the mighty Spielberg has a point. There’s plenty of sleuthing and relying on Bond’s instincts in Connery’s early films, and particularly Thunderball. It’s something the modern films lost sight of and need to get back to.

Bond is certainly knowing and observational when he unmasks the widow in Thunderball’s PTS as an enemy agent. Connery’s charm, charisma and comedy are turned up to the max and the whole sequence looks stylish. Bond quips and flirts with his female assistant. Then in a brutal, ahead of its time fight scene that the likes of Jason Bourne and the modern 007 are returning to today, Connery kicks his opponent’s ass, savagely strangling him to death with a poker.

The PTS then ends with an outrageous escape via jet pack and gadgets galore on the sleek Aston Martin. These tongue in cheek gizmos aside, the gadgets in Thunderball are at the pitch perfect level. There’s a wonderful scene with Q in which sensible but clever gadgets are introduced that will return to prove vital in the plot. Connery’s sparky dialogue with Desmond Llewelyn is the best in the entire series.

So after the PTS we know who we’re dealing with; James Bond 007, licence to kill, with girls, guns, gadgets and grisly action galore. It’s then that the film introduces the masterly plot that remains durable, relevant, captivating and even slightly plausible today. Goldfinger took Fleming’s immense imagination and made his ideas work better on film than they did in the novel. In Thunderball Fleming’s fantastical schemes once again marvel and delight, and shock and scare, this time sticking closer still to the original story. It’s a testament to the story’s selling power that a major legal tussle over the rights to a remake led to the 1983 unofficial entry starring an aged Connery, Never Say Never Again.

The legacy of the nuclear arms race remains an issue today and the power of rogue atomic weapons to frighten certainly endures. The enormous importance and scale of events adds terrific drama to the story. It’s a drama any Bond film needs and thrives off of; the global significance bearing down on 007’s shoulders as he conquers personal hurdles to unravel it all. Coming up with the perfectly judged plot remains the biggest challenge for those behind new Bond films today because they can’t compete with Fleming.

Thunderball is the first of the films to deal with Fleming’s fascination of the sea and the underwater world. Today it is increasingly difficult to find exotic locations for Bond when holidays can whisk you practically anywhere in a flash. But the colourful realm beneath the waves, glowing in a turquoise tint, remains another mostly inaccessible world. There’s something alien and yet attractive about the monstrous creatures living amongst the sand and sun rays. There’s something dark about anyone who can master this environment and exploit it for his own gain. Something secretive about the tropical depths.

Emilio Largo had a tough act to follow. Auric Goldfinger is the master villain to beat with his distinctive characteristics and fondness for a verbal duel prior to some ghastly fate waiting for our hero. Largo also struggles to impose himself when the magnificent early scene, with one of THE Ken Adam set designs, showing the SPECTRE meeting makes it clear that he is merely a puppet and drone himself. The true power lies elsewhere. This definitely makes him a different kind of villain. He doesn’t compete with Goldfinger but he doesn’t lack menace or do a bad job either.

What about the girls then? For me in Domino and Fiona Volpe we have two of the best Bond girls ever. Pussy Galore, as played by Honour Blackman, is iconic for sure but mainly because of Fleming’s outrageous name. Domino comes across as one of the most beautiful girls that even Bond himself has ever seen in the novel, and Claudine Auger doesn’t do a bad job at all of visually representing this on screen. As for Volpe, she is incredibly sexy and seductive. Her bright red hair set her out as dangerous, but also as red hot. The scene where she is waiting for Bond in the bath and he offers her merely shoes to put on, and the dancing scene at the Kiss Kiss club where she dies, are two of the most memorable in cinematic history for me personally, never mind the Bond series.

During Bond’s scenes with Volpe there are some cracking Bondian quotes from the script and Connery also delivers some of his best lines in the role sparring with Largo: “Do you know a lot about guns?”, “No but a little about women”, for example.

Another reason for Bond’s scenes with Volpe being so memorable for me, particularly the ones at the Mardi Gras, is the film’s score. I think Thunderball is the first time Barry uses the “00 theme” and his variations on the Bond theme itself to provide tense music are catchy and complimentary to the action throughout. Even when the film has aged less well, for example the scene in the health club on the rack and the unintentionally comedic speeded up careering of the boat at the end, the music remains superb. Tom Jones’ title song is no Goldfinger, but it’s undoubtedly addictive and Bondian. And besides I hear poor old Shirley so much that her voice starts to grate.

In the end it’s for those moments in which we see what purists call the “real Bond” that I remember Thunderball. When Connery calmly kills the Professor in Dr.No after he’s had his six shots I knew that was a truly Bondian moment. It marks out the detached killer in Bond’s character so well. He is so used to living his work that he carries it off with a ruthless efficiency that looks effortless and irresistibly cool. There’s another moment like this in Thunderball. When Largo’s chief henchman Vargas is sneaking up on Domino and Bond on the beach, Domino spots him. Bond turns, almost nonchalantly rolling over, to fire a harpoon through his chest. This is the assassin in Bond. The moment’s slightly spoilt by Connery’s quip, “I think he got the point”, but even this dark humour becomes part of the character that fans can love.

Watch Thunderball and you’ve hit the 007 jackpot; never mind the riches of Goldfinger.

James Bond will (FINALLY) return…

Big news. Bond is back. Well he’s on his way. After all the financial uncertainty surrounding the fall from grace of MGM, the 23^rd Bond adventure, and Daniel Craig’s third outing as the suave secret agent, will be released on the 9^th of November 2012. Yup it’s still quite the wait for 007 fanatics, myself included. But on the plus side a larger gap between films in the past tends to produce more satisfying results.

The recent road has undoubtedly been rocky for the seemingly unsinkable franchise. Few ever seriously feared it was the end of Bond forever, but it was looking a real possibility that Daniel Craig might not get the chance to make amends for the disappointments of Quantum of Solace in the famed tuxedo. The actor who kicked 007 back into shape with a leaner, moodier spy in 2006’s Casino Royale reboot, following Pierce Brosnan’s dismal, ludicrously fantastical final straw Die Another Day in 2002 (complete with invisible car), has been in great demand and taking on heaps of work. This year Cowboys vs Aliens is an anticipated release and Craig is also due to play a key role in David Fincher’s reworking of Scandinavian hit The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.  He’s now finally confirmed to reprise his role as Bond to the relief of most fans.

Elsewhere production problems have also hit the most important ingredient; the script. Peter Morgan, writer of Frost/Nixon and The Queen, was signed to work on the 23^rd adventure last year, only for his involvement to end before it really began due to the MGM crisis. Now attached to the project are regular scribes Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, as well as new addition American John Logan. Logan was responsible for the script for Edward Zwick’s Tom Cruise epic The Last Samurai and also helped with Ridley Scott’s Gladiator screenplay. He’ll replace Paul Haggis, who’s been the third contributor for the first two Craig movies. The fan community will have mixed reactions to the departure of Haggis. On the one hand he seemed to make a real difference for getting back Bond’s Ian Fleming roots in Casino Royale. But recently he’s only masterminded turkeys as a director in Hollywood and has sought to take his new emotional additions to Bond too far, with rumours of his preference for a plot involving a baby and lost son in 2008’s Quantum of Solace, which were rejected.

Most of the blame for Quantum of Solace is now pinned on director Marc Forster. He talked a good game about the importance of story prior to the film’s release, only for the 22^nd film to look great and start well, but to ultimately lead to a disappointing villain and rushed plot. The criticisms aimed at him are probably too harsh and a recent article in The Telegraph makes a good point that Bond is not a director’s franchise; the producers, the writers and the cast are more influential to a film’s success. However considerable interest and opinion was still inevitably generated by the eventual confirmation of Sam Mendes as director for Daniel Craig’s third Bond picture. Mendes too was in doubt after initially agreeing to direct the picture, due to other work commitments, with an adaptation of Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach starring Carey Mulligan rumoured in the press and fuelled by comments from the author. Many Bond fans view Mendes as too arty like Forster and would rather see the film in the hands of a seasoned action director like Martin Campbell, who helmed Goldeneye and Casino Royale.

Having said this most fans recognise the franchise needs to continue along the new path set by Craig’s Casino Royale, whilst being considerably better than Quantum of Solace. The problem now is the lack of original Ian Fleming source material to work from, which leads to weaker, predictable plots. There’s a difference of opinion as to the best way of overcoming the weaknesses of Quantum: does the franchise return to a more classic format with a dastardly villain hatching world domination, to coincide with the 50^th anniversary of first Dr No in 2012, or do something new again? Whatever the answer, with a release date now firmly set in stone, the rumour mill will once again start churning at full speed. So far the only concrete casting rumour is that of Simon Russell Beale in a “good guy” role. But these shall only multiply until every attractive actress around is linked to the untitled film. And of course that’s the biggest question of all; what will the latest 007 adventure be called? Only a handful of Fleming story titles remain unused; The Property of a Lady? Risico? My money’s on the former. Bring on 2012!