Das Leben der Anderen (5 Stars)

Some films are slow because not very much happens. Others are slow because they have something more important to do than keep the story moving. "Das Leben der Anderen"  (engl. "The Lives of Others") belongs firmly in the second category.

Set in East Germany in the 1980's, the film takes us into the world of the Stasi, but what makes it different from many other films about life in the DDR is that we don't see the Stasi purely from the point of view of its victims. We spend a great deal of time with the people doing the watching.

Captain Gerd Wiesler is assigned to monitor playwright Georg Dreyman and his girlfriend, the actress Christa-Maria Sieland. Wiesler listens to their conversations, observes their private lives and reports anything that might be considered suspicious. At first he is simply doing his job. He believes in the system and has no apparent difficulty with what he is doing.

But then, gradually, something changes.

And it's not only Wiesler. One of the film's great strengths is that the Stasi isn't represented as one-dimensional. There are people who genuinely believe in what they are doing, people who are simply following orders, people interested in their careers and people prepared to abuse their position for their own personal purposes. The machinery of the state is made up of human beings, and that makes it considerably more disturbing.

The film is wonderfully atmospheric. There are no car chases, explosions or unnecessary attempts to manufacture excitement. The tension comes from people talking in rooms while somebody else is listening. A pause, a glance or a change in someone's voice can be more suspenseful than an action sequence.

It's obvious to compare it with other films about the DDR and the Stasi, films such as "Wie Feuer und Flamme" and "Der Rote Kakadu", but "Das Leben der Anderen" approaches the subject from a different direction. Those films show us what it was like to live under the system. This one takes us inside the system itself.

And that's what makes it so fascinating.

The performances are excellent, particularly Ulrich Mühe as Wiesler. He manages to say an enormous amount without saying very much at all. You can almost see his thoughts changing as he listens to the people he has been ordered to spy on.

It's a beautifully controlled film. Nothing is rushed and very little is overstated. Even when the story becomes deeply emotional, it doesn't resort to melodrama. The film trusts the audience to understand what is happening.

And then comes the ending. It's one of those endings that doesn't need a grand speech or an emotional explanation. A small gesture says everything.

"Das Leben der Anderen" is a brilliant film. It takes its time, but that's precisely why it works. The atmosphere, the performances and the gradual transformation of its characters are far more important than action or pace.

Some films are about what happens.

This is a film about what happens inside people.

Success Rate:  + 36.7

Sympathy For Delicious (4 Stars)

A wheelchair-bound DJ discovers that he has the power to heal other people, but not himself. That's the straightforward part of "Sympathy for Delicious". The less straightforward part is figuring out what the director, Mark Ruffalo, is actually trying to say with it.

The clue is in the title. "Sympathy for Delicious" is a play on the Rolling Stones song "Sympathy for the Devil", but the film also has a much closer connection to "You Can't Always Get What You Want". Dean desperately wants the one thing his miraculous power cannot give him: the ability to walk again. Instead, he gets the opportunity to heal other people, and promptly turns his gift into a way of making money, gaining fame and getting involved with a rock band.

And that's really the point. Dean spends most of the film wanting the wrong thing. His physical disability is only part of what needs healing. The real journey is learning to accept what he cannot change and discovering that helping somebody else can be more important than getting something for himself.

It's a good idea, and once I understood what Ruffalo was getting at, I appreciated the film considerably more. But I have to admit that I didn't fully get it while I was watching it. There are so many different elements competing for attention – religion, faith healing, rock music, fame, poverty and Dean's own bitterness – that the message is buried.

So don't expect a conventional story about a man who discovers he can perform miracles. The miracles are really there to ask what "healing" actually means. And as the Stones already told us, you can't always get what you want. Sometimes, if you're lucky, you get what you need.

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World Trade Center (3 Stars)

I didn't enjoy the film. For long sections the picture is so dark that I found it difficult to follow what was happening. I'm sure that's realistic, but I don't watch films to experience exactly how little the characters could see. I much prefer the way films handled night scenes in the 1960's, with a blue tint that tells us it's night without actually making the screen almost black.

I was also disappointed that we never actually see the planes hit the towers. I understand the decision, but those are the images that immediately come to mind when you think of September 11th. Perhaps "World Trade Center" is too concerned with realism for my taste. I found it a rather dull experience.

Success Rate:  + 0.5

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Amazing Grace [2018] (5 Stars)

I saw "Amazing Grace" in the cinema in 2019 and loved it, so I'm glad I finally have it on Blu-ray. I'm not particularly a fan of Aretha Franklin as a soul singer, but as a gospel singer she's phenomenal. Watching her perform in a church, backed by the Southern California Community Choir, is an extraordinary experience. The picture quality is poor, especially on the first evening, but I can forgive that. The footage was lost and unreleased for years, so it's better to have it like this than not at all.

There's something rather surreal about seeing Mick Jagger dancing at the back of the church. Perhaps the Spirit was moving him. Or perhaps Mr Sympathy For The Devil just couldn't help himself.

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The Himalayan (3½ Stars)

Ching Lan is framed for the murder of her husband, so she goes on the run with her childhood friend, Little Hu. They take refuge in a Tibetan temple where they're trained in esoteric kung fu, preparing them to return and take their revenge.

The problem is that it took me more than half an hour to work out exactly what was happening. Too much of the story is skipped over, while the training at the temple goes on far too long. We've seen the old kung fu routine where the novice carries water or stones up a mountain many times before, but here it really does seem to go on forever.

That's a shame because the fighting is good when it finally happens. Unfortunately, there's not enough of it. When the characters gathered for the final battle, I checked the time and saw there were only 12 minutes left. That's much too late for a martial arts film to get to its main event.

Not a bad film, but it could have been much more exciting.

The Tournament (3½ Stars)

I was shocked to hear Angela Mao's character say that Thai boxing is stronger than kung fu. That sounds almost blasphemous coming from a 1974 Chinese martial arts film. The Thai boxing scenes didn't do much to convince me. They were sterile and lacked the excitement I was hoping for.

The film improves considerably when Angela finally gets to use some proper kung fu. The fights in the middle and especially towards the end have much more energy, and this is where Angela Mao comes into her own. She's such an impressive martial artist that it's a shame the film doesn't make better use of her.

It's one of those Angela Mao films where the star herself is more entertaining than the film around her.

So many films, so little time.

Sisu: Road to Revenge (4½ Stars)

As my regular readers have noticed, I've been having a disappointing run of sequels lately. I hoped "Sisu: Road to Revenge" would break the run. It does.

It's 1946. Aatami Korpi returns to Karelia, now occupied by Russia, to dismantle his old house and take it back to Finland. A Soviet officer takes exception to this and gives chase.

It's slower to get going than the first film, but once it gets going, it really gets going. There's more gore, more mayhem, and Aatami gets considerably more battered this time around. It's a wonderfully insane action film.

Success Rate:  - 1.2

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Scream 7 (4 Stars)

It's OK. That's probably the best way I can describe it. I enjoyed watching it, but when the final credits rolled I felt that something was missing.

For a start, there aren't enough teenagers. That might sound like a strange criticism, but this is supposed to be a teenage slasher movie. The teenagers have always been an important part of the formula, and there simply aren't enough of them here. There are too many adults and not enough of the young characters who made the earlier films so much fun.

On the positive side, Sidney Prescott and Gale Weathers are still a great combination. The chemistry between them works. It always has. Put Sidney and Gale together and there's an instant familiarity that reminds you why these characters have survived through so many films.

Unfortunately, I didn't feel the same way about Sidney's husband Mark. He irritated me almost from the moment he appeared. He has no charisma, adds very little to the story and, frankly, I wasn't sorry when Ghostface killed him.

In fact, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Then it was revealed that he'd survived.

"Oh no!" I thought. "That means he'll be back in the next film".

And then there's Ghostface. Or, more accurately, Ghostfaces.

Yes, there are three killers again. I don't actually have a problem with that. Scream has done multiple killers before and it can work very well. The problem here is the motivation.

Karl Gibbs is basically random. He's talked into becoming a killer by Marco Davis, who's the real brains behind the operation. And Marco, in turn, has been talked into it by Sidney's jealous neighbour, Jessica Bowden.

That's quite a chain of events just to get to a group of people wearing Ghostface masks.

The trouble is that none of their motivations are particularly convincing. When the killers are finally revealed, you're supposed to have that wonderful Scream moment when everything suddenly makes sense. Instead, I was thinking "Why?" And then, when the explanation came, I was still thinking "Why?"

That's disappointing, because the identity and motivation of Ghostface are such an important part of the fun. The best Scream reveals make you look back at the film and realise that the clues were there all along. Here, the explanation feels more like the writers needed three people to be Ghostface and then had to find a reason for each of them to be involved.

Having said all that, I didn't hate "Scream 7". Far from it. It's entertaining, there are some good kills, and Sidney and Gale are still fun to watch together. I just don't think it works as well as the best films in the series.

It's OK.

But when you're watching a Scream film, "OK" isn't good enough.

Success Rate:  + 2.8

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