London Fields Finally Opens

After the success of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, the unreliable narrator became all the rage in popular fiction, but Martin Amis had already been there and done that. Admittedly, his untrustworthy story-teller was a bloke rather than a “girl,” but the principal is the same. In this case, he also happened to be a failed novelist—an Amisian trope if ever there was one (see The Information). Long mired in legal and financial wrangling, Amis’s celebrated deceptive narrator finally gets a theatrical release, but he is not fooling anyone in Matthew Cullen’s London Fields (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Thus far, Samson Young’s literary career has been a miserable failure, but he picked the perfect time to visit London. Apocalyptic riots break out nightly across the city, but the lack of tourism meant the terminally ill writer could swing a flat exchange with pompous bestselling novelist Mark Asprey, swapping his crummy Hell’s Kitchen apartment for the tony London pad. As a further fringe benefit, Young discovers Asprey also has quite a beautiful neighbor in Nicola Six, who might just provide the inspiration for the page-turner he never had in him.

Young quickly learns Six has foretold the exact time of her death, which is fast approaching. However, she only knows she will be murdered—not by whom. For impishly perverse reasons, Six seems determined to help fate along, by stoking the lust and jealousy of the two leading suspects: flamboyant small-time hoodlum Keith Talent and petulantly entitled gentry-lad Guy Clinch. Young is convinced he can just record this real-life “novel” unfolding around him to finally score his bestseller.

The biggest problem with Roberta Hanley’s adapted screenplay is that we can immediately guess the big twist as soon as the film establishes all the main characters. Maybe it is all Gillian Flynn’s fault, but even if the troubled film had been released before Fincher’s Gone Girl, Cullen and Hanley simply do not incorporate enough misdirection to carry off the surprise. That is especially problematic, since they have stripped away most of the idiosyncrasy of Amis’s novel, opting to focus on the D.O.A.-ish noir plot-strand.

To give you an idea how long Fields has been held up, way back when it went into production, it was still considered a good idea to have Amber Heard and Johnny Depp in the same film. Depp is strangely uncredited, but that is probably for the best, considering his recent career setbacks. Frankly, he and Jim Sturgess are cringe-inducingly embarrassing as Talent and Chick Purchase, his pimped-out loan shark and professional darts nemesis. Admittedly, Heard is stuck with an underwritten character in Six, but at least she makes a credibly smoldering femme fatale. Theo James fares somewhat better than Sturgess as the shallow and easily manipulated Clinch, even though he is rather bland and forgettable.

In contrast, Billy Bob Thornton is unusually restrained as Young, but he still manages to chew a good bit of scenery. Frankly, Jason Isaacs largely steals the show, which is kind of sad, because most of his work as Asprey comes via voice messages to Young, sort of like the opening answering machine gag that always launched the Rockford Files credits.

To give credit where it is due, cinematographer Guillermo Navarro makes all look fabulously noir and stylish. The electronic score credited to Toydrum, Benson Taylor, and Adam Barber is also percussively propulsive, sounding quite appealingly influenced by Birdman and earlier crime jazz. Unfortunately, any viewer with any pop culture savvy will be way ahead of this film, which gives them plenty of time to lose patience with the shtickiness of Depp and Sturgess. It is not nearly as hideous as it is cracked up to be, but London Fields still isn’t recommended when it opens today (10/26) in New York, at the AMC Empire.

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane: Horny Teenagers are Easy to Kill

Virtuous high school student Mandy Lane is the polar opposite of Stephen King’s Carrie White.  The guys want to sleep with her and the girls want the status of being her frienemy. She is not really into the scene, but she agrees to a weekend getaway to be sociable.  Naturally, everyone soon becomes the prey of a serial killer in Jonathan Levine’s All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (trailer here), which finally opens today in New York.

The last time Lane tried this partying thing, it ended in tears.  At a fateful poolside shindig, Lane’s reluctantly platonic artsy friend Emmet convinces a big dumb jock to attempt a high dive from his roof to impress the unobtainable bombshell.  He misses. It seems like Emmet left himself plenty of plausible deniability, but he winds up shunned by everyone, including you-know-who. Obviously, this episode looms large for Lane when she accepts Red’s invitation for what he hopes will be a few days of debauchery at his family ranch.

It is awkward right from the start.  Lane rebuffs everyone’s advances, but seems kind of sort of interested in the legally adult ranch hand, Garth.  Only the school floozy agrees to sleep with any of Lane’s frustrated admirers, but she soon pays for her bad judgment.  Before long, the kids are dropping one by one, like a hornier, binge-drinking version of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.

ATBLML appears to be a case of absence making the heart grow fonder.  It first hit the festival circuit in 2006.  Subsequently, it was picked up by Weinstein, who later sold it to another distributor that went under shortly thereafter.  When the rights dust finally settled, Weinstein re-acquired the film—and now here it is, rather underwhelming given its elusive rep.

Frankly, this is merely a serviceable dead teenager movie, executed with a measure of style, but not a lot of inspiration.  It gets the high school vibe right, but the genre stuff is all strictly by the numbers.  In fact, the big switcheroo is so conspicuously obvious, it feels rather anti-climatic when the shoe finally drops.

Some viewers might also be intrigued to catch up with early screen turns from Amber Heard and Anson Mount from Hell on Wheels.  While they are perfectly adequate as Lane and the Garth the protective cowpoke, their work in the film never screams “star in the making.”  Perhaps Whitney Able fares the best as Chloe the high maintenance party girl, whereas the rest of the ensemble is rather anonymous.

There are a lot of reds and golds in cinematographer Darren Genet’s color palate, but at least that will help you remember the film.  There are worse slasher films out there, but it is nothing special.  With better genre releases due next week, discerning horror fans are advised to wait.  For Heard obsessives, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane opens today (10/11) at the Angelika Film Center.

John Carpenter’s The Ward

To be young and crazy in the 1960’s only meant one thing. Prepare yourself for some generous helpings of electro-shock treatment. Unfortunately, the beautiful and institutionalized Kristen has even greater problems in John Carpenter’s The Ward (trailer here), which is now available on DVD.

After burning down a remote farmhouse while mysteriously decked out in her night-gown, Kristen is delivered into the care of Dr. Stringer. He does not seem like a bad fellow, but his nurse is evidently still out of sorts from all the trouble she had with that McMurphy character. Yet, despite their aggressive battery of pharmaceuticals, Kristen is often left unattended with the other four young women in her ward.

Iris, an artist, is initially the most welcoming of the group. Emily is the assertive one, often assuming the role of protector for Zoey, who seems to suffer from an acute case of arrested development. Conversely, Sarah, the catty sexpot, specializes in generating bad vibes. It would all be like a CW show in an insane asylum, except that the spirit of a former patient is apparently trying to kill them all.

Just about every horror movie fan wants the new John Carpenter film to be a triumphant return to form. As a result, there is a temptation to forgive a lot in The Ward. Truthfully though, it is just a serviceable genre picture, at best, that relies far too heavily on scares derived from stuff sneaking up behind character and going boo, rather than genuinely tapping into the fear of the unknown. Even the spooky old nut house is not all that memorable, particularly when compared to that of the Vicious Brothers’ Grave Encounters.

To its credit, the cast is fairly game. Though not a scream queen in the Carpenter-Jaime Lee Curtis tradition, Amber Heard is quite credible as the take-charge Kristen, which is essential given where the film is headed. Jared Harris is not exactly Peter Cushing either, but he is still pretty good as Dr. Stringer, projecting an ethically ambiguous erudition appropriate to the genre.

Though it is reasonably well executed, the big twist might frustrate genre fans as well, because we have seen it before in films of relatively recent vintage. (Here’s a hint: in one such movie Alfred Molina played the head-shrinker.) However, the biggest disappointment of The Ward is the absence of that unquantifiable but instantly recognizable eerie atmosphere that permeates the classic Carpenter canon. Judged on its own merits, The Ward is a mediocre to sort-of okay b-movie, with some featured performances arguably exceeding the industry standard. Yet compared to They Live, The Thing, the original Halloween, and even Prince of Darkness, it is rather watery beer, but fans can still check it on DVD, now available from Arc Entertainment.