Thursday, December 30, 2010
DREAD
Today's film was Roman Polanski's
I have been watching Polanski before he was well known at all. His Knife in the Water (1962) had three characters but the fourth character was a mood of impending doom.
Most of his films, over the years, I have seen them all, have a similar character behind the curtain. This film is no exception.
Ewan McGregor is the innocent ghost writer. He has no name. No one calls him anything except Pierce Bronson, perfection as a former British Prime Minister, who calls him "man". OK good enough. Everyman.
Bronson has the Tony Blair content and the Ronald Reagan process, all smiles and wide grins and bon homme. With a few anger issues on the side. He is so good you want him to come back for more but, alas, there is a story to tell.
McGregor is selected to rework Bronson's memoirs and hardly gets to the first pages before there is a crisis and a mystery and soon he is over his head in international intrigue.
This kind of thing is almost genré grist for an old mill but Polanski renews the lease and does a substantial remodel so that the plot keeps going and the actors are enlivened and always on their toes. A bit menacing. Threatening to the hero.
It is quite a trip which held me riveted most of the time. We are often a step ahead of McGregor but then there are times when we are caught with our assumptions down and get a jolt of a surprise.
I think that there is a lot of play in here with scenes that replicate other similar films and Polanski almost defies us to yawn and rightly so.
Oh. There is a walkon by Eli Wallach as an old man of the sea type and he walks away with the scene. You can't keep an old actor in his character. He is great. It is his next to last appearance.
I liked this a lot and I will see it again when I have the next Roman fest.
I will give it a 5 out of Netflix5
Labels: films
