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Tag Archives: David O’Hara

Contraband

March 21, 2012
Film Reviews
3 Comments

Contraband: a struggling ex-con must secure his family’s safety by doing one final smuggling run. Being a re-make of Rekjavik-Rotterdam, Hollywood does what it does best and strips out a lot of the smaller background stories, characters, undertones, and relationships that thickened up the original plot, and raised the stakes a little more. Wahlberg‘s steady, but disappointingly typecast as the everyman, and costume-wise, could be from any previous film. This is all minor compared to Giovanni Ribisi, what the fuck is he doing!? His lines were delivered in the most ridiculous accent I’ve heard in years. The rest of the supporting cast really do keep the film propped up, although nobody’s particularly stretched. It’s well-directed, with the urgency maximised and lots of nice shots that play with focusing – it feels quite European / independent. There’s a decent gunfight in the middle (audio is immense) and in true modern heist fashion lots of loose ends are tied up in the final 15 mins. Unfortunately, New Orleans felt like an excuse for decent music, and nothing more. As expected, this is pretty much a cut-down, edges-smoothed, version of the original. It’s decent, but I’d suggest seeking out the original instead.

Score: 6.5/10

Doomsday

July 31, 2010
Film Reviews
2 Comments

Doomsday: Sci-fi action following a hot police babe (Mitra) as she searches post-apocalyptic Scotland for a virus cure. Anything with a pulse is blown up or gunned down in extreme fashion; from axes to the face, tanks rolling over bodies and rabbits being shot to pieces, Doomsday has the bloody quota well and truly covered splattered! Marshal does well with the action here, from a girly sword-fight between two models to a car chase, it’s all handled like a pro. Brilliant vision of a ruined Scotland – tongue in cheek but totally tribal and well realised right down to the little touches like an “out of fucking service” bus sign. The Scottish (& South African) highland scenery is magificent, with a lot of swooping shots of hills, glens and castles!  The strong homegrown cast are also great, with nobody letting the team down. The only thing that this film’s weak on is originality. Whilst it’s not all bad it borrows from a catalogue of classic sci-fi/horror films from Escape from NY to Omega Man, to Resident Evil and everything in between. It’s a good fun splatter-fest that doesn’t take itself too seriously (Two tribes go to war) yet still ticks all the boxes. Definitely worth checking out!

Score: 7/10