POMO

It takes time to get used to the hand-held camera, and I also had to endure the entourage of Eastern European criminals who are not portrayed in a cool, “Guy Ritchie-ish” way, but rather realistically and thus repulsively. But as the main character sinks deeper and deeper under psychological pressure, the film draws you in more and more, and the conclusion is interesting. A decent little drama. [Cannes]

Nighthawk is an unbelievable ride that leaves you staring with your jaw on the floor. It cannot be compared to anything else and is difficult to write about. With its very captivating drive and a skilfully hidden but strong political subtext, it is a great festival flick offering a riveting, even “action” allegory of haughty evil and simple life professing resistance that has to resort to violence. The opening scene of the truck driving through the Brazilian wilderness suggests a unique experience – a promise that the masters Dornelles and Filho more than fulfil. In short, Nighthawk is an explosion of filmmaking creativity. [Cannes]

Set in poor rural Texas, Bull tells the story of outsiders who must be tough to survive (or at least they think so), and yet they develop signs of friendship between one another, even though he is an aged, physically drained bull fighter and she is a teenage girl without a father and with a mother in jail. For a directorial debut, the film offers a nicely flowing narrative, but is also an unoriginal drama with little emotion that could have been set in a thousand other places in the world without losing anything. [Cannes]

Another crazy Dupieux movie destabilising the viewer’s thought process, Deerskin is based mainly on the main protagonist’s obscure behaviour and his unpredictable actions. The best thing about Dupieux is how much he drifts away from reality without losing contact with human psychology, which he inventively deconstructs. The one thing I didn’t quite understand was the choice of the washed-out colour scheme. Maybe it’s a paraphrase of the home video filmed by the protagonist, but in any case, it spoiled the experience a bit for me. [Cannes]

Jarmusch wrote the characters to fit his iconic cast, letting them make off-base comments and humorously react to what we know from zombie movies. Accompanied by mystical guitar riffs such as those used in Dead Man, but at a slightly brisker pace, with the forester Tom Waits observing the end of the world from a distance, a pure zombie role for Iggy Pop, who washes down the freshly bitten off bloody guts of a housekeeper with coffee from her coffee machine, not forgetting the passion and broad knowledge of young genre geeks. There is nice buddy chemistry between the cop duo of Murray and Driver, who represent two generations of Jarmuschian dramedy heroes. A pleasant chill-out movie with surprisingly full-fledged gore, The Dead Don’t Die is not groundbreaking in any respect, but still offers a refreshing take on well-used tropes. For the stalwart Jarmusch fans who once pursed their lips at the “commercialism” of Night on Earth, it will be another on of Jim’s “breaks”. I’m not sure, though, if it’s going to earn anything for Universal in the multiplexes - the body count is abundant and the CGI high-quality, but the popcorn-devouring youth might still find the whole movie overly traditional and not dynamic enough, while Jarmusch fans just don’t go to multiplexes. [Cannes]

This film has a promising start. With its interesting sci-fi vision, beautiful visuals and the theme of bringing a father together with his son, who is also undergoing a process of self-realisation process, After Earth has great blockbuster potential. Despite the pleasant charm of adventurousness, however, the result is a weak storyline that fails completely in terms of both emotion and message. It is like when you know what you are supposed to be experiencing as a viewer, but it just passes you by due to its naivety and half-baked nature. To a large extent, that is actually Jaden Smith’s fault, or perhaps we should blame Shyamalan’s directing.

The Rift is an unsuccessful attempt to make a mysterious horror movie such us those made primarily in Hollywood, where they know best how to do that. The film is marred by characters who are unattractive (in every sense of the word), a lengthy and uninteresting exposition, and an unsuccessful attempt at hackneyed tricks to create suspense when the characters are wandering through the forest. Bebjak is a good director and his The Line, which is much more complex in terms of the characters and story, was great. This type of genre flick, however, obviously requires a different kind of talent, and probably a better-adapted script that would not smack of a shoddy attempt to make quick money.

Bright is a bizarre, entertaining genre hybrid that surprisingly manages to maintain a little dignity. The social issues of minorities, class-based society and racism addressed in the first half are presented decently, and Edgerton’s orc character is the movie’s best feature. In the second half, we get to see demons, a magic wand everybody wants and the threat of enslavement of the world by a potentially coming dark overlord. And, of course, some kung fu, torture and gunfights. Futuristic sci-fi, social drama and crazy fantasy with a hint of buddy cop comedy. I wouldn’t say that it’s a pity Ayer kept it only slightly above average, but rather a miracle.

Cam offers an original theme reflecting the obsession of young people with success in the competition of artificial online identities and, what’s more, it is technically well made. But that’s why I expected this movie to develop a broader conspiratorial storyline with a more dramatic outcome. In the end, the movie is a rather intimate portrait of the psychological tremors of a teenage character who is out of touch with reality, and I as a viewer unfortunately didn’t find those tremors interesting.

Triple Frontier is a solid action flick with enough space for the characters (ironically, however, the way Affleck’s character behaves in the second part seemed unreasonably cold to me due either to poor directing or the cutting of some scenes). The movie boasts a great cast; from the beginning, it has great genre movie potential that it more than lives up to. Original ideas, exquisitely staged locations and an attractive insider’s view on how such mercenary enterprises might be conceived.