ROCKNROLLA
(Review)

“People ask a question. ‘What’s a RocknRolla?’
“And I tell ‘em, it’s not about drums, drugs, ‘n hospital drips. Oh, no. There’s more there than that, my friend.
“We all like a bit o’ the good life. Some, the money. Some, the drugs. Others, the sex game, the glamour, or the fame.
“But a RocknRolla, oh, he’s different.
“Why?
“Because a real RocknRolla wants the f*ckin’ lot.”


Now, when Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels blasted its way onto my film geek’s radar, it blew my proverbial socks off, and instantly made Guy Ritchie a name to keep track of.
And when Snatch came barreling ‘round the bend, I loved the damn thing too, despite those who clamoured that it was simply more of the same and that Ritchie was a one-trick pony.
Then came the whole “let’s get married to Madonna” thing and Swept Away, which, though it seemed to promise an altogether different Guy Ritchie, I’ve thus far managed to steer clear of, in fear that what all its haters have to say would turn out to be true.*
Afterwards, there was the widely misunderstood Revolver, which I also happen to love, where Ritchie took the lowlife criminal milieu he’d long ago staked out as his territory, and brought it to some new, interestingly heady places.
And now, with his Madonna Period apparently behind him, he’s brought us RocknRolla, which, if you haven’t yet figured out, is more of the same Guy Ritchie: the humourous and messy collision of crime, coincidence, and funny monickers.
This time though, I’m not exactly dancing in the aisles.


It’s a good ‘un, this, don’t get me wrong, it’s just a tad… sedate.
Not a word one would normally associate with Guy Ritchie, “sedate,” but what I truly missed here is the audacious adrenaline rush that Barrels and Snatch had.
Not that RocknRolla doesn’t have its moments—Gerard Butler’s two dance scenes; the sex scene; the Jaws nod. Those—and more—are here.
Somehow though, the whole doesn’t feel all that cheeky anymore. I hesitate to say it’s all become rather old hat now, but there could be an argument for that possibility.
Here, the various plot threads also seem to jostle against each other a little awkwardly, an indication that perhaps (unlike Barrels or Snatch) there may be a tad too much narrative going on.


Lovers of Ritchie’s first two films will know a significant chunk of the beats and the eventualities presented in RocknRolla only too well, so for those in whom familiarity does not breed a vague annoyance, this should prove to be bang-on.
There’s also a great cast in this: Butler, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Strong (Stardust’s Septimus, who also happened to be in Revolver), Karel Roden, the exquisite Thandie Newton, to name some, so that’s a plus too. (Curiously enough, for all my whinging about “same” this and “old hat” that, I do miss Jason Statham, who’s gone on to 21st-century Action Star status and left a gaping hole in Ritchie’s lowlife-landia. Hell, even Vinnie Jones might have been a welcome shot of nostalgia.)


Quite possibly, in some alternate reality where I’d never seen any of Ritchie’s past work before, I am truly, madly, and deeply in love with RocknRolla.
As it is, in this reality, RocknRolla and I are on good terms: we smile at each other while salsa-ing on the dance floor, exchanging polite pleasantries in fancy-fonted subtitles.
Truth is though, I’m just not that into her.
So, though I was looking forward to Ritchie’s take on Sgt. Rock (a project currently on hold in light of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds), I am still curiously anticipating Sherlock Holmes, if only because we may just get to see an altogether different Guy Ritchie at its helm.
And better Holmes than The Real RocknRolla, as the end credits of RocknRolla threaten, ey?


* “Star” (from the BMW Hire shorts) was also an amusing ride, though certainly not the best of the Hire bunch…

(RocknRolla UK quad courtesy of empireonline.com; images courtesy of empireonline.com & ew.com.)

THE ABANDONED
(Review)

Nacho Cerda’s The Abandoned is the third After Dark Horrorfest film I’ve seen (the others, Takashi Shimizu’s Rinne and J.S. Cardone’s Wicked Little Things; review in Archive: March 2007), and it’s the best one so far.

We open in Russia, in 1966, where two infants are found in a truck with a dead woman at the wheel.
Flash forward four decades later, and Marie (Anastasia Hille, seen in Po-Chih Leong’s excellent The Wisdom of Crocodiles and Nick Hamm’s The Hole), an American film producer, is contacted by a Mr. Misharin (Valentin Ganev), a solicitor who tells her that she has come into the ownership of a farm in Russia. As it turns out, Marie is adopted, and the farm belonged to her birth mother, who apparently died shortly after she was born.
No sooner does Marie arrive at the isolated farm (completely surrounded by a river; and she can’t swim!), when strange phenomena begin to take place, including Marie seeing her doppelganger, soaking wet, eyes rolled up to their whites.
Shortly thereafter, she meets Nicolai (Karel Roden, recognizable to genre fans from Guillermo Del Toro films Blade II and Hellboy, as well as Paul Hunter’s Bullet-Proof Monk), who may have a connection with Marie, and who is also seeing his own doppelganger, bearing the bloody wounds of what seems to have been an animal attack.
And as the doppelganger sightings become more frequent and violent, neither Marie nor Nicolai can seem to leave the farm…

It’s an interesting premise Cerda brings to our door in The Abandoned. Utilizing a key horror element familiar to fans of the genre (the decrepit house out in the middle of nowhere), Cerda introduces the mystery of the doppelgangers and as a result, gives us a film that actually feels original.
At any rate, it’s certainly not cut from the cloth (sometimes all-too-wearing-thin these days) of the average modern-day horror film, with the long-haired spectre of Asian horror cinema casting its deep shadow over the ghostly proceedings.
Cerda does not even depend on the usual scare tactics of the sudden tandem shock of movement, music, and sound, to get to his audience. (No jumping, yowling cats here.)
Instead, it’s all about the situation and the predicament, with an almost constant sonic layer of voices and whispers, as Marie and Nicolai try to solve the mystery of the farm and their ghastly counterparts.

From Filmax, the production company responsible for much of the excellent non-Asian, non-Hollywood horror films in the recent past (most notably the films of Jaume Balaguero), The Abandoned is largely effective and has an interesting (if downbeat) pay-off. It’s only perhaps in the maintenance of the tension that the film suffers somewhat. The Abandoned isn’t as taut as it might have been, and whether or not you ultimately enjoy this film will be based largely on your patience and ability to lose yourself in a movie.

Having said that, the film does boast Xavi Gimenez as its cinematographer. Gimenez (go-to cinematographer for Jaume Balaguero) has a great eye and has made films like Balaguero’s Los Sin Nombre and Darkness, and Brad Anderson’s El Maquinista visually arresting cinematic experiences. (Interestingly enough, editor Luis De La Madrid, often paired with Gimenez to brilliant effect, is thanked by Cerda in the end credits.)

Ultimately, if you’re a fan of the horror genre, you owe it to yourself to see The Abandoned, if only because it’s quite unlike the typical horror film of the moment. Whether you’ll like it or not will be based on your personal tastes, but at the very least, you can say you had a bite.

Parting shot: The Abandoned is the only one of the eight After Dark Horrorfest films that actually had a theatrical release in the U.S. (Unlike the others, which, following the Horrorfest, were released straight to DVD.)

Parting shot 2: Cerda directed the documentary The Machinist: Breaking the Rules, found on the El Maquinista DVD.

(The Abandoned OS courtesy of wildaboutmovies.com.)