True(ish) Stories: American Hustle and Dallas Buyers Club

On the upside of a disruptive and chaotic Christmas/New Year (welcome to 2015, everybody), I watched a few films from my Amazon subscription. First up, two con artists (Christian Bale and Amy Adams) are blackmailed into an FBI sting operation:

On paper, this looks like it could be a really great movie, with a top notch cast and a true(ish) story, but the direction is poor and the casting laughable. Bale couldn't sell a lifebelt to a drowning man and generates no sympathy or empathy as the lead. Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams, as his wife and girlfriend respectively, do better, but, like Bale, are too young for the roles. Jeremy Renner is also good, but Bradley Cooper is just embarrassing. It's just simply not their kind of film. However, you do get a glimpse of what might have been when Robert De Niro turns up for 5 minutes and steals not just the scene but the movie.

Next is the Dallas Buyers Club. Ron Woodruff (Matthew McConaughey), after contracting HIV and developing AIDS, decides to treat himself and others using non-FDA approved drugs after the approved treatment fails.

The acting in the film is top notch, as you'd expect, with McConaughey ably supported by Jennifer Garner as his doctor and Jared Leto as his business partner, and the story is handled well. However, as with the previous film, I've always felt that true stories don't fit particularly well into film because a life cannot be told in 90-120 minutes. I always have a feeling that the truth is more complex and you're just getting half the story. Still, it's not a bad film and worth the watch.

Silver Linings Playbook

I blogged about this last year and it came through my LoveFilm subscription. Pat (Bradley Cooper) moves back in with his parents while trying to put his life, and marriage, back together after a stay in a psychiatric hospital for bipolar disorder, when he meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence).

A very good romantic comedy. The plot is a little contrived in places, but there is a useful side story with Pat's father's (Robert De Niro) superstitious gambling. The acting is top notch from the leads (Lawrence won an Oscar, but Cooper was good as well), with a lot of emotional engagement. Highly recommended.

The Sweeney - "You're Nicked!"

Part of my LoveFilm subscription, this is a remake of the 70's cop show. Jack Regan (Ray Winstone) and George Carter (Ben Drew) investigate the robbery of a jewellers where an innocent bystander was killed.

Hmmmm, not sure. I don't think it would be a particularly good cop drama were it not for the connection with the TV series. Ray Winstone's ok (he's no John Thaw, but you'd make allowances for that), but Ben Drew was a bit wooden for my liking. There's some good set-pieces, especially one in an underground car park but, overall, it just seemed like thugs chasing other thugs. Compare this to a similar film, Michael Mann's Heat, with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, which had two class players and a good plot. Maybe American's do this kind of thing better (more money, probably), but it says something about us when the final car-chase involves a Ford Focus in a caravan park.