Three and Out (4 Stars)

After watching a film I usually consult Wikipedia before beginning to write my review. This often gives me additional insight into the film's background that I can build into my review. After watching "Three and Out" 18 months ago I went to Wikipedia and read that the film is a comedy. Oh. I didn't find anything funny about it. I didn't laugh once. When I watched it again today I already knew it's supposed to be a comedy, so I had that thought in the back of my head.

Yes, I can understand the humour now, but it's a very dark, morbid humour. It's a film about suicide, and that's not a subject that makes people roll on the floor laughing. We're invited to laugh at people who want to die, making it a similar subject matter to Ricky Gervais' excellent TV series "After Life". "Three and Out" doesn't make any statements supporting or opposing suicide, it's just presented as something that people do. And it's funny.

At the risk of giving away spoilers, the film's happy ending is that the man who spends the whole film wanting to die finally finds the courage to stand in front of a train, dressed in his best pin stripe suit. That's funny, isn't it?

Maybe.

It's not just about suicide, it's about assisted suicide. The train driver sees Tommy Cassidy standing on the tracks as he exits a tunnel and accelerates towards him.

The film has a simple but tragic plot. Paul Callow is a train driver for the London Underground. As he pulls into a station he hits a man whose dog pulls him onto the rails. Splat! A week later a man has a heart attack and collapses in front of his train. Splat again! Then he hears about a rule in the company that if a driver kills three people within a month he's considered too mentally damaged to continue to work, and he'll be given 10 years salary as a golden handshake. That's too good an offer for Paul to pass by, as a man who hates his job and hates London even more.

Paul sees Tommy Cassidy attempting to kill himself by jumping off a bridge. He saves him, then says that he should commit suicide differently, by standing in front of his train. Paul gives Tommy £1500 to spend however he wants, as long as he's standing on the railway line at 10:06 am the following Monday.

Paul spends the weekend with Tommy to protect his investment, but a relationship develops between the two men. How can Paul kill someone he likes so much? He also falls in love with Tommy's daughter.

Well, I suppose you can call that falling in love. It's all a matter of definition.

I don't blame him. I would fall in love with Gemma Arterton as well. Something about her face is fascinating, I don't know what it is.

You ought to watch this film whether you find this film funny or not. It's only available on DVD in England and America, but it's been released on Blu-ray in Germany.

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Tolkien (4 Stars)

This is a film about the early life of the author John Ronald Reuel Tolkien from 1902 to 1916, with a short epilogue that takes place "many years later".

After being home-schooled by his widowed mother in his early years, he went to King Edwards School in Birmingham. This was an elite school, visited by the sons of the richest people in Birmingham. Tolkien didn't fit in as a boy from a poor family, but he made an immediate impression by reciting Chaucer texts by heart. He made friends with three other boys and formed a group called the TCBS, the Tea Club and Barrovian Society. They vowed to remain friends for as long as they lived, even though their university paths separated them. Two of them went to Oxford, the other two only went to Cambridge.

After his mother's death in 1904 Tolkien and his younger brother were put in a boarding house in Edgbaston. That's where he met Edith Bratt, another orphan, who later became his wife. A major part of the film has to do with his experiences in the Great War, as it was then called. He spent less than a year in the war before he was sent home with fever, but it affected him for the rest of his life.

I've known Nicholas Hoult for a few years, mainly for his roles in "Mad Max: Fury Road" and the X-Men films, but I never realised until today what a good actor he is. He plays a perfect young gentleman, the sort of man who lived in England at the beginning of the 20th Century. This sort of person no longer exists, so it's astounding that he can play the part so perfectly.

Throughout the film I couldn't help imagining myself in Tolkien's place. If I'd been born in the 19th Century, before computers were invented, I would probably have followed a similar path to Tolkien. When I was 18, language was my second interest, after computers, so I would probably have become a professor of linguistics, rather than following a real career. I'm an academic, not a practical person, even though I spent most of my adult life programming microcomputers for the automobile industry. Now that I'm older I look back on my life and regret some of the career choices I made. I lie in bed at night and ask myself What If.

Some of my friends have called this film dull. I know what they mean, but I disagree. The portrayal of academia, at grammar school or university level, is dull to many, but to me it's fascinating. The parts of the film that I didn't enjoy were the portrayal of war. War is ugly, and the First World War was probably the most horrific war ever for the soldiers on the battlefield. I'm fortunate that I could live in the interlude of peace between the Second and Third World Wars. J.R.R. Tolkien wasn't so fortunate. Two of his friends from the TCBS died in battle. What a waste of brilliant young men!

Three and Out (4 Stars)

This film is advertised as a dark comedy, but after watching it I have to say that there's hardly anything funny about it. It's deeply tragic, and it dragged my mood down even before the film was over. That doesn't mean it's a bad film. It's a mark of quality that a film can take such a hold of a viewer that it can completely change his mood from what it was before to a completely different state.

Paul Callow is a driver for the London Underground. He hates London, and he's struggling to pay his monthly rent of £750 for a single room on a busy road. (That was 10 years ago. He would probably have to pay more now). Paul's dream is to move away to the countryside. He's found a house online that's at the foot of a mountain on a Scottish island. It's cheaper than anything he could buy in London, but still beyond his means.

There was a time in my life when I too would have wanted a house like that. I've changed. Now I love the comforts of city life too much.

A man accidentally falls onto the tracks as Paul is approaching a station. Splat! He's dead. Paul is given grief counselling by his bosses and sent back to work. Two weeks later a man standing on the platform has a heart attack and collapses onto the tracks. Splat again!

Paul's fellow drivers tell him about a special rule for train drivers on the Underground. If anyone accidentally kills three people within a month he's considered mentally incapable of continuing with his job, so he's dismissed with a golden handshake of 10 years salary. This excites Paul, because he could use the money to buy his dream house. He needs to find a suicidal person who is willing to throw himself in front of his train. After interviewing a few unsuitable candidates he meets Tommy Cassidy, a middle-aged Irishman played by Colm Meaney. Paul offers him £1500 to spend however he wishes at the weekend, as long as he will throw himself in front of his train on Monday.

Paul accompanies Tommy to the Lake District, where he says farewell to his estranged wife and daughter. The weekend doesn't go as expected. Paul begins to like Tommy and they form a friendship. Paul also has a brief affair with Tommy's daughter Frances (Gemma Arterton), a young woman who dreams of moving to London and living an exciting life.

How can I describe the film? Whatever good things happen, there are always shadows of doom. Every time the viewer thinks there might be a happy ending something happens to remind him that the laughter will turn into tears. It's a depressing film. I don't know if I'll watch it again. It depends on whether I want to make myself feel miserable.

The film's release was mixed with scandal. The British train drivers' union ASLEF claimed it was "insulting and foolish" to make a film about persuading someone to commit suicide on a train line, and they called for a boycott of the film. They're the ones being foolish. They don't understand what cinema is about. The film doesn't encourage suicide, it's just dramatising it, in the same way that "Tragedy Girls" doesn't encourage mass murder.

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TV Series: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Is it really four years ago that I began to watch "Star Trek: The Next Generation"? I moved through the series slowly, only watching a few episodes each month, as if I were watching a real television series. Almost. If I'd been watching it as it were broadcast I would have been watching for seven years, but that's only because the series wasn't broadcast every month of the year. As it is I calculate that I watched an average of one episode a week for the last four years.

Now I've moved on to "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" (which I'll refer to as DS9 for the sake of brevity). I missed the beginning of this series when it was first broadcast. I began to watch it in 1997 in the middle of the fifth season, and I was hooked for the next two years. (It finished broadcasting in June 1999). Since then I haven't seen any episodes repeated on television. It's interesting to finally catch up on the early episodes that I missed, 16 years later.

When asked which Star Trek series I like most I always reply "the original series" without hesitation. I feel sentimental about it. I grew up with Kirk, Spock and McCoy at an early age. I've watched the episode so many times that I only need to watch a few random seconds of any episodes to remember which one it is. And yet I have to acknowledge that the following series did things better. For instance, in "The Next Generation" the captain rarely took part in an away team, which makes a lot more sense. In the original series only Kirk, Spock and McCoy were fully developed as characters, then Scotty, Uhura and Sulu as peripheral characters, and everyone else was a hazy shadow in the background. In "The Next Generation" all of the Enterprise's principal crew members are shown in detail in one episode or another.

In DS9 the character development is taken a step further. Unlike the previous series DS9 isn't set on a space ship travelling through the galaxy constantly encountering new situations; it's set on a space station, and so the interaction between the regular cast members isn't just a matter of sub-plots, it's the principal dynamics of the series. It's all about the characters, so they're shown in their full richness from week to week. The series even has the flavour of a soap opera, which I mean as a compliment.

Rather than it being a well disciplined star ship crew, the series opens up with characters who distrust and sometimes even dislike one another. The series begins soon after the end of the war between Cardassia and Bajor (which was sometimes mentioned in "The Next Generation", but never shown in detail). After the occupation of Bajor the Cardassians abandoned their space station near the planet. Bajor requested the United Federation of Planets to administer the space station with their help, even though Bajor was not yet a member of the Federation. This leads to two main factions within the station, which the Federation renamed "Deep Space Nine". Most of the Bajorans accept the Federation, but some think of them as a new occupying force. Ferengis operate businesses on the space station, often using shady means to make a profit.

One thing contained in DS9 that's absent from the previous series is religion. The Bajorans are a deeply religious people, and we repeatedly hear that only their faith helped them survive the Cardassian occupation. Commander Benjamin Sisko, the head of the space station, is considered by the Bajorans to be the Emissary of the Prophets. Despite his natural scepticism as a man of science he accepts this role.

Sometimes episodes deal with topics that are thinly veiled references to current topics in our real world. For instance, in the season one episode "In the hands of the prophets" a religious leader interrupts school classes because they teach scientific theories that contradict the Bajoran beliefs. This leads first to children being taken out of school, then to acts of violence.

Another example is the episode "Duet", in which a Cardassian visits the space station who used to work in a labour camp where the Bajorans were raped and slaughtered. He was only a filing clerk, but does this make him innocent of the crimes committed in the camp? There are passionate arguments for and against his innocence. Do the survivors of the camp want justice or revenge?

TV Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation

After a long pause I've continued watching "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (TNG for short). My last review was in April last year. This week I've watched the whole second season. I enjoyed the first season, but this season is even better. Let me point out all the changes that I can think of.

Several members of the crew have been replaced or reassigned. It's not always clear why.

Lieutenant Geordi La Forge was a navigator in the first season, but in this season he's become chief engineer. This is an understandable promotion. Chief O'Brien, who worked in engineering in the first season, has now been demoted to operating the transporter. What happened to him? Was he punished because he was drunk on duty?

After the death of Lieutenant Tasha Yar in the first season, Lieutenant Worf has now become the security officer. While this is undoubtably a good position for a Klingon, it's a strange change because he was communications officer in the first season. Maybe Star Fleet likes to rotate their personnel?

Doctor Pulaski takes over as ship's doctor in this season. I groaned in her first two episodes because she seemed too much of a clone of Doctor McCoy in the original series (TOS) in her dealings with Data. Luckily this was dropped in the following episodes.

The enigmatic alien Guinan has become the bartender in the previously unshown bar called Ten Forward. Whoopi Goldberg plays this role. Evidently she rang up the series producers and begged for a role. At first they said No, because they didn't have anything appropriate for a star of her fame. She said that she would do anything to be on the show, even if she were only sweeping the floor in the background. And so they created the role of bartender for her, which was perfect because she wasn't needed every week and could fit her appearances around her film schedules.

Then there are the cosmetic changes. In the first season the uniforms had been a mixture. Some women had short uniforms, as in TOS, although most had uniforms that covered their legs. Now all the women have long uniforms. That's a shame. I loved the female uniforms in TOS. On the other hand, the first season of TNG also had a few men walking around in short uniforms. To avoid claims of sexism? Now they too all wear long uniforms.

First Officer William Riker has grown a beard. No comment!

In this season Worf is used more. In the first season he'd been a background character, but now we're seeing more of what makes him tick. However, the two main characters of the series are still Riker and Data, with Captain Jean-Luc Picard coming a close third.

Incidentally... the complete DVD box set of TNG only costs £75.50 in England. What a bargain! Click the picture above for a link to buy it. On the other hand, in America it costs $311. That's almost three times as much as the price in England! I've commented before on the overpricing of DVD's in the USA. I'm just glad I live in England.

Law Abiding Citizen (4 Stars)

This film is a thrilling story with unusual character motivation. Clyde Shelton is a law abiding citizen. He's a family fan who never does wrong. One day two crooks break into his home. During the robbery one of them kills his wife and daughter. The evidence is too weak for a conviction, but one of the crooks, the one who committed the murder, cuts a deal with the prosecution and testifies against his partner. As a result the murderer gets a light sentence, while the other crook is given the death penalty.

Are you with me so far? Good.

Fast forward 10 years. Shelton is a changed man. Disgusted by his wife and daughter's killer walking around free, he decides to take the law into his own hands. He takes revenge not just on the killer, but on everyone who was involved in the trial. After confessing to a series of murders he's arrested, but he manages to continue his revenge plot while sitting in prison. Does he have a helper on the outside? That's the question the prosecution lawyer has to answer.

Gerard Butler delivers an excellent performance. Apart from the one incident where he stabs his fellow cellmate to death we have sympathy with him. Maybe that scene should have been omitted, because all his other victims were those who he considered to be guilty. The cellmate was an innocent bystander. Nevertheless, haven't we all felt that way at some time in our lives? We know who is guilty of crimes, but we see them walk free because the law doesn't have enough proof to convict them? Don't we feel frustrated and tell ourselves that we could do a better job than the police or the legal system? Clyde Shelton represents us as someone who feels wronged and tries to make a difference.

I might have given this film 5 stars, except for the bland performance of Jamie Foxx as the prosecution lawyer. Foxx has never been a good actor, in my eyes. I've never seen him play a role convincingly. There are a dozen other actors who could have played the part better. Nevertheless, this is a film worth watching.