Who’s the man?: Jaoquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal in ‘Eddington’.
EDDINGTON **** (149 minutes) MA
Again showing his mastery of slow-burn storytelling, writer/director Ari Aster (Midsommar) unspools a superlative, totally absorbing small-town crime comedy-drama that delivers a piercing commentary on a derailed America.
Caught up in the contentious tangle of Covid-era mask mandates and social distancing, defiant sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) decides to test his mettle by running for mayor of his dusty little New Mexico village against the ensconced Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal).
With Phoenix delivering a captivating central character ridden with rule-breaking paranoia, masculine insecurity and unease about the impact of social media, the unhurried tableau toys with public protests and the limits of free speech in the midst of a battle over whether a giant data centre should be allowed to set up just down the road.
It’s a long sit, to be sure, so avoid black coffee beforehand, yet Aster imposes very measured pacing and nuanced direction that immerses you into the world of an increasingly unbalanced lawman.
Likely to feature at the next Oscars soiree, the film is also graced with cinematography that’s not afraid to hold shots for more than three seconds.
Emma Stone is terrific as the disaffected wife and Austin Butler has a spicy turn as an extremist speaker.
An arthouse opus that gains on a repeat viewing, Eddington is strictly for the mature cineaste who still appreciate the joy of allowing a story to unfurl at its own speed, all the better to set you up for a few plot jolts from left field.
KANGAROO ISLAND ***1/2 (111 minutes) M
A finely sculpted family drama in which washed-out, booze-downing Australian actress Lou (Rebecca Breeds) bombs in Hollywood and reluctantly answers the call of her father (Erik Thomson) to return to their remote beachfront home.
Lou arrives to face her disapproving, God-fearing sister Freya (Adelaide Clemens), now married with two boys to Lou’s former beau Ben (Joel Jackson).
Beautifully directed by Timothy David from a screenplay by Sally Gifford, boiling cross-currents of conflict course through the narrative as suppressed passions, moral judgments and tragedy play out against a deceptively placid and scenic backdrop.
The love of close-ups accentuates the clutch of top-shelf performances, particularly from Breeds and Clemens as the warring sisters whose verbal jousts breathe with authenticity.
PRIMITIVE WAR ***1/2 (130 minutes) MA
If Platoon and Jurassic Park had a love-child Primitive War is what it would look like.
Plenty of chomptastic fun here with this big fat serving of masterfully made B-movie mayhem as a group of very well-armed American special operations soldiers in the jungles of 1968 Vietnam confront dinosaurs who love chasing and eating humans, even if said humans do fight back with lots of automatic firepower.
Made independently in Queensland and featuring lashings of studio-grade VFX, gun director Luke Sparke (who co-wrote with Ethan Pettus, author of the 2017 book) lays on the action without many pauses for breath with the clear intention of topping himself with each outlandish encounter – with a mad scientist thrown in for good measure.
With a string of genre-hugging films such as Occupation, Occupation: Rainfall, Red Billabong, Scurry and Bring Her to Me, Sparke has established himself as Australia’s premiere maverick filmmaker, working on his own terms outside the system – or what passes for a system – and somehow putting production values on the screen that belie his low budgets.
To wit: Primitive War looks like a $100m studio picture – it actually looks better and moves faster than Jurassic World Rebirth – and though the film’s cost hasn’t yet been revealed, it’s a safe bet it was several leagues below that.
The film does, unfortunately, land at a time when dinosaurs, dragons and all manner of plus-sized beasties populate a lot of multiplex fodder, so the film might well suffer from dino-fatigue so soon after Rebirth.
Still, it’s a very proficiently executed B-grade adventure with A-grade production sheen, and boasts a wide variety of monsters, some of which will look familiar, others not so much.
However it plays at the cinema, it’s likely to score big once it hits the home market, mainly because of the joy in watching people running for their lives while occasionally pausing to lob grenades and fire machine guns at their predators, Aliens-style.
And that’s but one of the dozens of references the film nods to.
RELAY ***1/2 (111 minutes) M
Tautly directed, cat-and-mouse city thriller has corporate whistleblower Sarah Grant (Lily James) getting hold of hot documents, then getting cold feet.
Turning to a special operative who solves such problems (Riz Ahmed) the poor, arguably stupid girl finds herself caught between negotiating her freedom and fearing capture by a gang of hi-tech corporate heavies, headed very ably by polished thug Dawson (a very well-cast Sam Worthington, in full “don’t mess with me” mode).
Director David Mackenzie makes effective, tension-generating use of the titular device, wherein all the main players communicate via a free telephone service designed for the deaf and hearing impaired.
Fresh from his star turn in The Amateur, Ahmed again acquits himself well as a deceptively nebbish operative willing to put himself on the line in the quest for what’s might be a dubious return.
NAKED GUN **1/2 (85 minutes) M
The most important thing to know at the outset is that David Zucker, the late Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker – aka ZAZ, who made the original Naked Gun comedies, the Police Squad TV show that spawned them, Flying High (aka Airplane), Top Secret and Ruthless People – have nothing to do with this rather tepid remake.
Oh, it’s OK, but just OK, with Liam Neeson doing an OK, but just OK, job as the son of Frank Drebin (played with such brilliant straight face by Leslie Neilsen) opposite Pamela Anderson in self-parody mode. She’s pretty funny, too, but in an OK kind of way.
The lark is sufficiently giggle-worthy, though there are way too many toilet gags. It simply can’t match the dry wit, the verbal alacrity or stone-faced wordplay exchanges that made the legacy trilogy so famous and memorable.
One of the big disappointment oldies will likely clock with the film is how tame the whole thing is, especially given how it has Family Guy’s Seth McFarlane as a producer.
Wasn’t this a perfect opportunity to skewer all those PC/woke targets he usually snacks on? The film, directed by Akiva Schaffer, is surprisingly soft. Nothing outrageous or offensive or provocative, despite being made in an era positively brimming with highly charged, hyper-sensitive targets that – in the immortal words of Joe Pesci from Casino – are just begging to be made an example of.
As a Friday night time-killer it’s OK – but just OK. It’ll play well in the stream.