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') Home Further Reviews to come FILM REVIEWS FOR THE DISCERNING CINEMAGOER An annexe site to mediaeyefilm.com REVIEWS BY THOM MCKEOWN © Pulse Communication/Media Eye Film Elysium Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Alica Braga, William Fichtner Directed by Neill Blomkamp Elysium is the second feature from writer-director Neill Blomkamp (District 9) Three ships illegally attempt to flee the wrecked, poverty-ravaged Earth of 2154 for the abundant riches of Elysium, a paradisiacal, medically advanced space station that’s home to the privileged few. First one ship, then another, falls to a missile, an event Blomkamp shoots from a distance before cutting to a control panel indicating a successful strike. Over a few seconds, the film conveys just how little the deaths matter to the people with money. They draw minimal notice from the rich, who not only distance themselves from the little people, but literally look down upon them. Elysium uses its 22nd-century setting to comment on the inequality that currently divide the 1 percent from the 99 percent, citizens from non-citizens, and those with health insurance from those required to pay their own way. One of the film’s smarter touches is how un-futuristic its futurism feels. Los Angeles lies in rubble, but it’s the rubble of sustained neglect, reminiscent of the creeping disrepair of many urban cities right now, in seemingly irreversible decline. Blomkamp widens the allegorical net while telling a story of one man reluctantly drawn into an attempt to overthrow an unfair system, a journey that unfolds over a series of increasingly bone-rattling action scenes. Matt Damon steps into the protagonist role as Max DeCosta, a child of the 22nd-century slums who, in a series of flashbacks, is seen dreaming of moving to Elysium and taking along his young love Frey (played as an adult by Alice Braga). Paradise hangs over their heads, just out of reach. As an adult, Max mostly dreams of making it through the day. An ex-con covered in tattoos and trying to distance himself from a past as a car thief, he plods away at an assembly line making robots for the police and other clients, droids of the same sort that, in one early scene, harass him on his way to work. But forces work to shake him out of his routine. While being treated for injuries inflicted by police robots, Max reconnects with Frey, now a nurse trying to care for her ailing child. Then he’s injured again, this time on the job, when he’s exposed to toxic amounts of radiation and given five days to live. With nothing to lose, he joins his friend Julio (Diego Luna) in a scheme to steal the memories, and confidential information, of Max’s boss Carlyle (a sneering William Fichtner). What they don’t realize however is that Carlyle has plans of his own, having fallen into cahoots with Elysium’s Secretary Of Defence (Jodie Foster), who’s plotting a coup. To pull it off, she leans on a band of Earth-based mercenaries led by Kruger (District 9 star Sharlto Copley), a man with no real beliefs, and who takes barbaric pleasure in inflicting pain. For all its simple politics, clanging dialogue, and underwritten roles—only Damon’s natural, and deepening, ability to suggest unspoken disappointment gives his character dimension—Elysium just about works, although never as well as it should. There are visceral action scenes that feature the technology of tomorrow but have the immediacy of powder burns or a scraped knuckle. The film also keeps its world vivid, from Max’s hovel to the sterile interiors of Elysium. While Blomkamp’s creation never reflects our world as effectively as it wants to, it still feels like a real place, one where the promise of a better life hangs tauntingly in the sky, inspiring the sort of dreams that could lead a child, grown bitter with time, to try dragging it down to Earth. Pain & Gain Dwayne Johnson, Mark Wahlberg Director: Michael Bay Big” and “loud” are two adjectives that have become synonymous with Michael Bay productions over the years, but usually they refer to cars, shootouts, and alien robots, not actual human characters, as in “Pain & Gain". Despite the relatively low cost for this and the film's more intimate focus, however, everything about “Pain & Gain” feels big, from the bodybuilder characters’ hulking physiques—perhaps Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is an alien robot after all—to the volume at which they all shout at one another, that and the ridiculous 'devices' gratuitously and pointlessly on show during a pointless sex-shop sequence. What makes “Pain & Gain” more interesting than the usual Bay nonsense, is that his usual stylistic overkill, from the ultra-vivid colour stock to the abundant 360-degree pans, is this case he's dealing with actual punters, as opposed to mere hollow spectacle. The overriding theme in “Pain & Gain,” incidentally based on the true story of Miami bodybuilders who kidnapped and tried to murder a millionaire in order to steal his fortune, is about a perversion of the American Dream (whatever the hell that actually is, as it has always mystified this realistic Scotsman) to mean greed and excess instead of hard work and upward mobility. Bay and cinematographer Ben Seresin’s immoderate aesthetic nevertheless bombards the viewer with flash in order to demonstrate that there comes a point in anything—be it one’s pursuit of wealth or the style of a film—when enough is enough. But the big problem with “Pain & Gain” is that a group of men would think stealing and murdering was a valid way to attain a luxurious lifestyle. Further, Bay does hee-haw (ie nowt) to convince the audience that such a criminal mindset is a widespread issue in America despite his evocation of the American Dream through glib cultural references, like a sleazy, motivational speaker (Ken Jeong) whose “Be a do-er!” affirmations get twisted into criminal intentions inside the mind of Wahlberg’s Daniel Lugo. The entire film is entertaining enough for much of its far-too-long running time - not just due to its stylistic insanity but also its cornucopia of utterly reprehensible, unredeemable characters, from Wahlberg’s megalomaniac idiot to Anthony Mackie’s impotent steroid-junkie to Tony Shalhoub’s ludicrous delicatessen-owner, perhaps the least sympathetic kidnapping victim to ever grace the silver-screen. Johnson’s portrayal of the thick sidekick, a cocaine junkie who gets clean in prison and turns to Jesus, only to be solicited by a gay priest and then run back to criminality, is so far beyond bad taste, it has to be seen to be believed. It's shallow nonsense, with no real demographic target and is simply impossible to recommend in any serious way. Lovelace Amanda Seyfried, Sharon Stone, Peter Saskaard, Robert Patrick Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman Hot on the heels of the sexual revolution, 1972's pornographic smash-hit Deep Throat turned its lead actress, Linda Lovelace, into a quite a star. In Lovelace, actress Amanda Seyfried does an admirable job of portraying Linda Susan Boreman (her pre-Lovelace name), a clenched and repressed young woman, barely functioning in the shadow of a religious mother and ineffective father (a superb performance from a barely recognisable Sharon Stone and Robert Patrick). As fate would have it, Chuck Traynor (Peter Sarsgaard) chats her up, and quickly becomes her full-time all consuming partner. Soon Chuck is coming over to the house for dinner and charming her parents, while engaging intimately with Linda in the kitchen between dinner and desert. To all intents and purposes, Chuck seems to be a sensitive lover and an understanding confidant, so wedding bells are soon on the way. Traynor then turns into an abusive beast and serious physical and emotional violence replaces the initial sensitivity and love. Later, after being busted, Traynor coerces Linda into entering the sex industry, to raise funds for his legal fees. In the offices of porn-film director Jerry Damiano (another superb tur...