By BRUCE DENNILL
BlacKKKlansman / Directed by Spike Lee / 18LPV
Voice From The Stone / Directed by Eric D Howell / 16SV
Wind River / Directed by Taylor Sheridan / 18DLSV
Armed Response / Directed by John Stockwell / 16HLV
In Dubious Battle / Directed by James Franco / 13LV
Director Spike Lee has been a vocal, sometimes controversial, advocate for black communities throughout his career, and this effort allows him an incisive platform from which to proclaim his perspectives. Based on an entirely unlikely true story – of a black police officer named Ron Stallworth, working in Colorado Springs, who went undercover as a Klu Klux Klan member to show that even in a society that tacitly endorses or at least allows their racism and hatred, the organisation still had to take responsibility for their criminal acts. Stallworth (John David Washington) is paired with an experienced colleague (Adam Driver) who is a Jew, and suffers much of the same prejudice that Stallworth does. There is a great deal of soul-destroying insight into the nature of racism in the US in the 1970s – that it was not only about ignorance and wilful hatred, but also a cultural and institutional force – but thankfully, there is also plenty of pitch, er, black humour. Casting Topher Grace as David Duke hilariously (though the veneer between laughs and scowls is always brittle and thin) combines both. Not all of the mechanisms used in the film are as effective, though, and there are a number of moments when the preceding good work is undone by some more indulgent moments – not unlike the similar moments in Tarantino films when the inventive edginess and close-to-the-surface slip to reveal indulgence and bits of auteur vision that doesn’t quite fit into the greater narrative. BlacKkKlansman is a touch patchy, and not as powerful as it might have been, but it’s still a powerful, punchy statement.
“If these walls could speak.” It’s an old cliché hinting at the excitement of discovering what might have happened in a room. In Voice From The Stone it’s a plot device (a supposed way for the dead to speak to the living), but the expected excitement is sadly absent. In industry terms, it’s completely understandable that studios will try and profit from the momentum of a currently high-profile star’s career, and Emilia Clarke’s face is now recognisable thanks to the supernova success of World Of Thrones. But she is both short-changed in terms of the material she is given to work with here and unable to make any sort of substantial impact with the lion’s share of the available screen time. The set-up is solid, if hardly original, with Clarke playing a governess charged with the schooling of a troubled child (Edward Dring) and meeting the expectations of her dour new employer (Marton Csokas). The mansion everything happens in is remote, dark and spooky. As is the weather. And the music. But however these parts are added up, the sum fails to convince. There is often no real reason for entire threads that are begun and dropped, and ultimately, remaining interested in the fortunes of any of the characters becomes a bit of a chore.
At its core, Wind River is a police prodecural, the drawn-out ordering of a number of clues and circumstances in order to prove who murdered a young Native American woman whose body is found lying in the snow on the remote reservation for which the film is named. But because of the nature of the location – desolate, empty and covered in snow – the narrative takes a different path to what you might expect. And because the protagonists are also enjoyably non-stereotypical, how matters play out is intriguing. Jane (Elizabeth Olsen) is an FBI agent, but she is young, inexperienced and from Vegas, essentially the other end of the scale from wintry Wyoming. Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) is a dour professional tracker and hunter with phenomenal knowledge of his surroundings and how to read the signs he sees, but plenty of reason to distrust people. This combination of elements makes for a wonderfully layered scenario – snow obscures evidence, but also allows for the leaving of crisp tracks; a man with the skills of a sniper has insight into the more violent mindset of a murderer, and an investigator without entrenched preconceptions may be able to spot something a more experienced agent may miss. The pacing is considered and careful, and the tone – courtesy of both the weather and the countryside and the subject matter – is dark and sinister, but in the genuinely worrying sense, not the general, jump-scare Hollywood way.
The artwork for Armed Response positions Wesley Snipes as the marquee name and plasters a huge image of him across the poster. This is completely misleading, given that Snipes’ character is not necessarily the driving force and because there are other big personalities – Anne Heche and Kiss singer-bassist Gene Simmons – involved. Regardless of the personnel, it’s a solid enough piece of high-concept (if relatively low-budget) action, with a horror edge. A high-tech military installation has its security completely compromised when the artificial intelligence that runs the compound is shut down. It being a military installation, there is all manner of sensitive intelligence involved, with trained security types on one side and dangerous criminals on the other, but potentially not much clear moral ground between them. There are strong set-pieces and a well-maintained level of tension, though the characters are never developed much. There’s potential for more, certainly, but Armed Response is a solid enough diversion.
John Steinbeck clearly knew his stuff – many of his books are established classics of American literature. In Dubious Battle is hardly a fan favourite, however, being the more-worthy-than-engrossing story of an itinerant apple picker in California who takes it upon himself to organise his fellow workers to protest against their working conditions, thus making some powerful enemies in their plantation owners. The cast list is formidable, including wonderful actors like Vincent D’Onofrio, Ed Harris, Sam Shepard, Bryan Cranston and Robert Duvall, but the filmmaking fails to serve them. Franco’s character is at the centre of the action, so perhaps his decision to draw things out interminably has to do with enjoying maximum screen time. That is at least a logical reason for the film’s pacing, which is otherwise remarkably slow. That’s not necessarily a mood killer in itself, but even with all of the potential here – great period detail in the costumes, large-scale setpieces and more – In Dubious Battle remains…dull. It clocks in at just less than two hours, but feels like four.