Ocean's 8 - review

Ocean’s 8 is a prime example of the perfect con. The unsuspecting punter is sucked in to the film, entertained and astonished by the array of talent on show and it is only once they have left the cinema that they realise they’ve been had.
The plot holes start to appear and you begin to over-analyse everything you’ve just witnessed but sometimes you can just accept it and admire the sheer audacity of the crew involved in stealing 110 minutes of your time and your heart.
Here, unlike the infamous Ghostbusters reboot, a group of women have seamlessly and effortlessly stolen a franchise from the men and the audience will have no complaints.
At no point during the film are you left thinking, “I wish there were more men in this film”. In fact any time a male character was introduced, it was like “Meh”... and not just because one of those men was James Corden!
If anything, it would have been nice to just spend more time getting to know the team as some of the characters are criminally underserved by the script.
Of the seven members of the crew (yes, seven. We’ll get to why it is called Ocean’s Eight in a minute), here is a quick ranking of them based on screen time and impression made:

1. Sandra Bullock
2. Cate Blanchett
3. Sarah Paulson
4. Rihanna
5. Helena Bonham Carter
6. Awkwafina
7. Mindy Kaling

Yes, the film might pass the Bechdel Test with flying colours and Rihanna sinks the memory of Battleship but one can’t help but wish that more time had been spent introducing the characters and scenes of them interacting as a group.
This is an odd request because the film does take its time in getting through the first act before the heist begins and a lot of that is on the shoulders of writer/director Gary Ross.
Ross is probably best described as similar to Ron Howard, “a safe pair of hands”. His films come in one time, on budget and meet expectations but he is not really known for a particular visual style or flair.
This is something that Steven Soderbergh (director of the Ocean’s trilogy) has in spades and brought to Ocean’s Eleven in particular, giving it a pace and polish that allowed it to zip through exposition effortlessly and introduce characters quickly and with charm and hutzpah.
It is what Eight is ultimately lacking to give it some extra energy and help raise the stakes because the biggest problem the film has is that the stakes never feel all that high. It never feels as though the outcome of the heist is ever in jeopardy.
The film doesn’t need the “getting revenge on the former boyfriend” subplot and could easily have been reworked as a plot about getting even with a former female partner-in-crime and it would have worked just as well.
I know that Debbie Ocean has been planning the job for 5 years, 3 months, 12 days or whatever but in that time the filmmakers could have added a bit more polish to the script or editing.
Of course that is not to say that there are no diamonds in the rough. Quite the opposite as there are elements that shine bright like a diamond (Rihanna reference), brighter than the Toussaint necklace that is the prime mark of the Met Ball heist.
Anne Hathaway is delightfully ditzy as movie star Daphne Kluger who is hosting the Met Ball; the shock realisation of how good Sandra Bullock is at speaking German; the delight of creating a subplot in your head that Bullock was the woman who plays off star-crossed lovers Blanchett and Paulson in a sequel to Carol; and a whole five stars just to the costume designer for Cate Blanchett who is dressed like the goddess she is in every single frame.
For those of you good at maths, you will notice a slight discrepancy between the title of the film and the number of people in the crew. This is one con that won’t take a genius to work out given how the film plays out and certain aspects of the promotional campaign.
Ocean’s 8 tagline is “Every con has its pros” and this perfectly encapsulates the end result. Just like a diamond, it has flaws but you’ll be too dazzled by its beauty to care all that much.

3 stars

Unsane - review

Steven Soderbergh. The man seems to have retired more times than Deckard has retired replicants. He is Michael Corleone in The Godfather Part III. "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!"
However, if he continues to pull films like this and Logan Lucky out of the bag, then "Frankly me dear, I don't give a damn!".
Throughout his career Soderbergh has experimented with storytelling techniques through narrative and technology and Unsane is no different, being shot entirely on an iPhone 7.
He is not the first, Sean Baker made his debut feature Tangerine on an iPhone5, and he certainly won't be the last. Rather than limiting or handicapping production, Soderbergh uses it as a positive.
The handheld camera sets the scene from the first frame. Following Claire Foy's character Sawyer Valentini from a distance. Watching her from afar. Just like the stalker that has destroyed her life, and possibly her sanity.
Visiting a mental health facility to discuss her fears following a relapse, a few signatures later and Sawyer finds herself voluntarily committed for 24 hours.
*ALWAYS read the terms and conditions folks!*
24 hours turns into 7 days as she retaliates against her forced imprisonment. Not only that but she starts to see her stalker within the facility but what is real and what is in her head?
With Unsane, Soderbergh has actually made two horror films for the price of one.
The first is a horror, that seems scarily plausible, about being locked away in a mental asylum even though you are not insane, simply so the hospital can claim on your insurance. This is how the film begins, sort of like a cross between One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and Girl, Interrupted. As Sawyer tries to convince people of her sanity, it only goes to antagonise the fellow patients and the staff into sedating her. On the inside she finds an ally in Nate (Jay Pharoah, impressing in a straight role with no Denzel Washington impressions to be found). He tells her about the hospital's scheme and advises her to keep her head down and do the time and she'll be out in a week when the insurance money run out.
Unfortunately, the stress of the situation causes Sawyer to start seeing things. Imagining that her stalker is working in the hospital and messing further with her deteriorating mental state.
The film then becomes a psychological horror as the Sawyer, and the audience, cannot be sure what is real and what isn't. One of the film's most shocking moments is the realisation that the stalker who is played with a placid, creepy calm by Joshua Leonard is Josh from The Blair Witch Project!
Claire Foy is electric in the role and completely convinces as a woman who is scared, vulnerable and perfectly walks the line where she could be sane or insane.
Other reviews have expressed surprise at her performance given her most famous role in The Crown and it is out of her comfort zone. Yet prior to The Crown, Foy had appeared as Lady Macbeth in a West End adaptation of the Scottish play opposite James McAvoy and she was superb as the conniving, crazy wife.
The plot takes some crazy, wild leaps in act 3, as if the film has stopped taking its meds, but leaves things suitably vague to allow for the seed of doubt to grow in the audience's mind as to whether or not to trust what they have seen.
What can be trusted however is Foy's committed performance that elevates this grimy, genre flick that looks and sounds so good that people will think YOU are mad to say it was shot on a phone!

3 stars

Contagion - review

Contagion might not strictly be a horror film by definition, but it could be argued that it is infinitely more frightening than the likes of Insidious and Paranormal Activity 3.
Warning, this is not a *spoiler*.  Within 15 minutes of Contagion, Gwyneth Paltrow is dead.  Dead as disco or Colonel Gaddafi.  Turns out she was more crudded up than the monkey from Outbreak and is Ground Zero for a disease that will be responsible for killing over 2.6 million people worldwide.  Goes to show what happens when you eat healthily, listen to Coldplay and call your children silly names like Apple!
Driven by another terrific electronic score by Cliff Martinez (also responsible for the Drive soundtrack), the first 30 minutes of this film are the worst nightmare for someone with OCD.  Soderbergh tracks the path of the virus as it travels across the world as those infected dip their hands into that bowl of communal nuts at the bar or touch elevator buttons or door handles before convulsing and foaming at the mouth like a tweenager at a Justin Bieber concert.
Just as Jude Law's ridiculously annoying, and possibly Australian (I couldn't really decide from his accent), blogger attempts to get rich by claiming a homeopathic remedy is the cure to the disease, I wouldn't be surprised if Soderbergh and the producers have shares in hand sanitizer, because sales are going to go through the roof following screenings of this film!
As the outbreak spreads, the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) and World Health Organisation try to deal with the pandemic, controlling the spread of the disease and finding a possible cure.  Cue lots of scenes like this...

The CDC and WHO are the good guys fighting an unseen enemy in this old school disaster movie that features a fantastic cast (Cotillard, Damon, Fishburne, Winslet), and as he proves with Oscar winner Paltrow kicking the bucket so soon, the disease does not care about awards or celebrity status when claiming victims.  The gloves are literally and preverbally off, but not for the protaginists... due to health and safety fears, it is best to keep the latex gloves on!
As the authorities begin to get a handle on how to deal with the MEN-1 virus, the focus shifts slightly to hint that our fellow man can be just as dangerous as society threatens to break down due to the pressures of trying to survive.  At one point Fishburne's head of CDC tells Law's blogger that his panic causing lies and misinformation are just as damaging as the virus.  Law is also told that "blogging is writing.  It's graffiti with punctuation" but I'm sure Elliot Gould was talking about this site when he said it.
By having a large ensemble cast with multiple plot threads, it is inevitable that like the virus, some strains of the film are stronger than others.  Winslet and Damon make the most out of their parts, Law is on screen too much for my liking and unfortunately the wonderful Marion Cotillard gets lost in the mix and misses out on a suitable payoff to her storyline.
Overall the film, like the virus, loses momentum once a vaccine has been found.  Perhaps there is a reason why most films of this nature end quickly after the virus is defeated, here we get some sense of the fallout and after effects, but it does answer the question of what happened to Jennifer Ehle after Pride & Prejudice all those years ago.  Turns out she was working at the CDC.
Soderbergh almost manages to end it on a nice moment with Damon, his daughter and a digital camera which provides a clue as to the cause of the outbreak, which is then ruined by showing exactly what happened, as if to bludgeon home the point to stupid viewers who can't work things out for themselves.
Hopefully this won't be indicitive of Soderbergh's career if the rumours of his retirement prove to be correct.
If he does retire, I'm sure he'll be happy sleeping on a bed made of money gained from the profits of rocketing sales of hand sanitizer.

3 stars