THE DUKE

 Jim Broadbent     Dame Helen Mirren     Fionn Whitehead

Heather Craney     Matthew Goode     Aimee Kelly     Craig Conway

            This is a strangely seductive movie, showing a British family with a rather daft though good-hearted Kempton Bunton (Broadbent), his wife Dorothy Bunton (Mirren), and younger son Jackie (Whitehead) not communicating very well with one another.  Dorothy is extremely critical of Kempton (for some good reasons), which makes him more secretive at times, and Jackie torn between taking sides with one then the other.  An older son appears about midway through, but doesn’t appear to have much in common with the rest of his rather straitlaced family.  Dorothy is especially offended by his frequent swearing.

            Much about the family is a dramatization, but the story is loosely based on an actual theft of the Goya painting entitled “The Duke of Welllington” from the National Gallery of London.  Reference is made to it in a number of plays and movies ever since.

            In the movie, Kempton is currently protesting paying the government a television license (which everyone was required to pay) since he cannot get the BBC and he feels strongly that everyone should be able to watch television as a public service.  After serving some time, he thinks he has solved the problem by taking the BBC tube out of his set.  He is not only against paying the license himself but feels strongly that everyone should receive television as a public service.  

            When the theft of the  Goya painting is in all the news, it suddenly appears in the Bunton household, with Kempton and Jackie making sure it is hidden even from the ever-cleaning Dorothy.  

            Much intrigue occurs around the painting, around Kempton’s temporary jobs, and the death of Jackie’s sister.  Towards the end, after the viewer has become more and more sympathetic to and interested in the family, there is a surprising shift, which makes the Roger Michell’s direction and screenplay by Richard Bean and Oliver Coleman impressive in its subtlety and its shift from an account of a zany man to a heart-warming story of community and care for others. 

            Jim Broadbent’s acting skills have made him a famous and favorite British actor.  Here, he makes his character so convincing one surmises that he is one with the kindly Kempton Bunton.  The same for Helen Mirren who after we so often see her now so elegantly dressed and coifed nowadays in the media we can see how easily she pulls off playing a frumpy housewife with firm opinions.  Fionn Whitehead and Matthew Goode as Kempton’s solicitor contribute to the appeal and quality of The Duke.

 

This is an engaging British production that pulls you in, makes you think, and have good thoughts about humankind.

 

Grade:  A                              By Donna R. Copeland

THE KING'S MAN

 Ralph Fiennes     Gemma Arterton     Rhys Ifans     Djimon Hounsou     Tom Hollander

Matthew Goode     Harris Dickinson     Charles Dance     Daniel Bruhl

This third Kingsman movie in the series is to serve as a prequel to the first two:  Kingsman:  The Secret Service (2014) and Kingsman:  The Golden Circle (2017).  It’s all about how a private secret service got formed in Great Britain and who was behind it.  The Kingsman films are based on a comic book series by Mark Millar and David Gibbons.  The first film, was more positively received than the second. 

In this current version, the title The King’s Man implies something different from the previous two films.  The King’s Man (presumably referring to the duke of Oxford (Fiennes), is someone with meritorious service having a change of heart after a number of successful battles, and now wanting to work toward peace as opposed to proving his manhood (over and over) by military feats.  It was his wife’s dying wish that he would not lead their son Conrad into battle.  After meritorious military service, he quite readily accedes to her and promises that Conrad will never go to war.

This promise is the crux of the film in that as the years go by and Conrad (Dickinson) grows up admiring his father’s service, he wants to follow in his footsteps.  What ensues is an account of times when the father stands in his way and other times when Conrad insists on making his own choices.  

The film is good (and humorous) in showing political intrigue (The Kaiser of Germany, Nicholas, Tsar of Russia, and King George—all descendants of Queen Victoria—comprising a triple competition) and the uncertainty of outcomes in both dramatic and personal costs.  Ralph Fiennes’ performance is the best part of the film.

The many sword plays and cliff-side terrors can be exciting, but because of their length, tend to make the viewer lose focus.  Some are remarkably choreographed—particularly the ones showing sword fights between whirling dervishes on tabletops—which provide entertainment in themselves.

King’s Man has its appeal in the quality of the production and the actors, but the film sags from the writers’ not apparently having a clear vision of what they wanted to express.  When the fights seem to go on interminably, it seems like the director Matthew Vaughn has gotten distracted by the action and doesn’t realize he needs to move on. 

 

Swashbuckling during the outbreak of WWI in a mix of tongue-in-cheek humor, serious aggression, and emotional upset .

 

Grade:  C                              By Donna R. Copeland

SELF/LESS

--> Ryan Reynolds   Matthew Goode   Ben Kingsley   Natalie Martinez   Michelle Dockery   Derek Luke   Victor Garber

-->

Self/Less could have been so much more of a film if the creators had maintained the focus on humans’ search for immortality.  Their fantasy of science creating a way for a person to “shed” a diseased body and retain their mental capacity and experience certainly is intriguing.  Dr. Albright (Goode) casually observes that this is a win/lose proposition, but unfortunately for Damian/Eddie (Kingsley/Reynolds) this is only elaborated on after the operation is completed. 

           The loss part for this particular movie for me were the car chases/crashes and fierce gun battles, with unbelievable outcomes.  Sometimes filmmakers think they have to always cater to the young man’s taste and include heroics even when it is not necessary to make a film interesting.

           Leaving that aside, Damian is dying and someone gives him a mysterious card that says the name on it could be helpful to him.  He tries to connect with his estranged daughter Claire (Dockery), but when she rejects him and they get into an argument, he feels guilty and miserable.  Soon after, he collapses and is taken to the hospital, whereupon he decides to visit Dr. Albright.  Damian is a billionaire, so he can well afford the “treatment” offered by Dr. Albright—the transplant of a new body while leaving his mind intact.  Damian does not want to die so agrees to the procedure.

           Interesting to me is that post surgery, he has to be retrained in many kinds of physical actions—like walking—but in short order, he is fit as a fiddle—and only in his 30’s.  He is given a new name, identity, and papers and lives the good life with a new friend (Luke) he has met in New Orleans, where the procedure was performed and where he is put up in an apartment as arranged by Dr. Albright.  Then he begins to have hallucinations and other symptoms associated with the transplant, and is reminded that he absolutely cannot skip taking the pills prescribed by Dr. Albright.  Without the medication he will eventually lose his abilities and die.  But Dr. Albright has built in a handy little perk for himself:  The patient cannot contact him; Albright will periodically visit the patient and give him a small bottle of the medication, thereby keeping him “on a hook” and observed.

           But what he—now he is Eddie—observes in his hallucinations bothers him so much because they seem so real, and because he has never seen the people within them before.  He starts to explore, first by searching on the internet, and then doing some detective work.  What he finds, is shattering, and the rest of the story is about how all that plays out.

           I was upbeat about seeing Self/Less because I liked Tarsem Singh’s earlier film, The Fall, and as I say, the part about seeking immortality through the process called “shedding” (i.e., shedding the body) was intriguing, and the aspect of crime associated with scientific breakthroughs enlivens the pace and captures our interest.  It’s going over the top with the violence to the point of absurdity that detracts from the quality of this film.

           The main cast is really fine with Ben Kingsley acting out a billionaire’s dilemma in encountering something he can’t do anything about, and Ryan Reynolds’ portraying an armed services veteran whose fitness and combat skills are formidable.  Matthew Goode is convincing as a competent scientist in complete control, but with ulterior motives that are initially hidden.  The two main actresses (Michelle Dockery and Natalie Martinez) have lesser roles, but are very good in what they do.

Too much violence lessens the impact of a potentially interesting film.

Grade:  C+                                                             By Donna R. Copeland

           

THE IMITATION GAME

Benedict Cumberbatch     Keira Knightley     Matthew Goode     Rory Kinnear

Allen Leech     Matthew Beard     Charles Dance     Mark Strong

       The highly anticipated Imitation Game delivers in both entertainment and educational value.  It tells the story of the breaking of the German Enigma Code during WWII.  Not only does this involve the intrigue of a spy story, it gives an account of all the frustration and roadblocks Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) had to endure to pull it off.  Norwegian director Morten Tyldum (The Headhunters) is gifted in assimilating related sub-plots into a beautifully crafted, reasoned whole.  Of course, in this respect the novelist Andrew Hodges and screenplay writer Graham Moore, deserve part of the credit. 

     They tell the story about shy, socially awkward Turing in Great Britain who was fascinated by puzzles, particularly crossword puzzles, from a young age, and became expert at making and deciphering codes.  He was an odd child (perhaps had Asperger Syndrome in the autism spectrum disorders, characterized by difficulties in social interactions and communication, along with compulsive interests and behaviors, but sometimes with brilliance of mind), and suffered from teasing and discrimination all his life.  To make matters worse for him, he was attracted to men.  Despite these drawbacks, he was supremely self-confident in his abilities, and never doubted his success in creating a machine (a prototype of the computer) that would translate Enigma into English.  Also despite his social difficulties, he managed to head up a team of scientists who ended up being loyal to him during critical times when the English government threatened to shut down his operation.

      The group included one woman, Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), who got the job by working a crossword puzzle in record time.  (This was the task Turing used to select his team.)  It also included Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode), who was in charge of the team before Turing managed to wrest it from him by enlisting Churchill’s support, much to the frustration of not only Alexander, but two superiors, Commander Denniston (Charles Dance) and Stewart Menzies (Mark Strong) as well. 

       The threats to the operation were unbelievable, and included Joan’s parents thinking her job was inappropriate for a woman and calling her back home, Denniston’s lack of confidence in Turing and his accusations of Turing being a Soviet spy, the insertion of an actual double agent into the team, financial support, and homophobia, just to name some.  While the team was ultimately successful in breaking the Enigma code, it was at a dear cost to Turing personally. 

     All in all, The Imitation Game is an interesting, exciting, thriller with outstanding performances from Cumberbatch, Knightley, Goode, Dance, and Strong.  The music by Alexander Desplat and cinematography by Oscar Faura give it the boost necessary for a top-notch movie, along with Tyldum’s direction.

An interesting, exciting, thriller with outstanding performances, music, cinematography, and direction.

Grade:  A                        By Donna R. Copeland