Film reviews: The Angels’ Share |

Alistair Harkness reviews this week’s film releases

The Angels’ Share (15)

Directed by: Ken Loach

Starring: Paul Brannigan, John Henshaw, Roger Allam, Siobhan Reilly

Rating: **

THE mushy-brained thinking of Cannes jurors notwithstanding, there’s really not much to celebrate about Ken Loach and writer Paul Laverty’s latest Scottish-set collaboration. A feeble blend of hard-hitting social realism and cringe-inducing whimsy, this tale of second chances may have a positive message, but it’s delivered in such a schematic and condescending way that only its technical ineptitude and wilful amateurism distinguish it from being another rote feel-good Hollywood-influenced Britcom.

As the film sets up its story of a violent young offender (newcomer Paul Brannigan) who discovers he has a talent for appreciating fine whisky, predictably gritty scenes of Glaswegian misery give way to an equally patronising and twee view of the Highlands as Robbie (Brannigan) and his community-service pals decide to get rich by hitchhiking up north to steal a rare whisky due to be auctioned off for £1m. Indulgent viewers may be willing to cut the film some slack thanks to Loach’s exalted reputation, but his somewhat bogus belief that using non-actors in speaking roles adds authenticity works against him here as first-timers trip over Laverty’s cloth-eared dialogue, frequently reducing The Angels’ Share to the level of a scripted reality TV show.

Snow White and the Huntsman (12A)

Directed by: Rupert Sanders

Starring: Kristen StewarT, Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Ian McShane, Ray Winstone

Rating: ***

PUTTING more of a Game of Thrones/Lord of the Rings spin on Snow White than the recent Shrek-inspired Mirror Mirror, Snow White and the Huntsman easily comes out on top in Hollywood’s latest round of needless rival versions of the same story. As the titular heroine, Kristen Stewart makes a decent stab at turning her into a proto-feminist warrior, despite sporting a fluctuating English accent that makes her sound like a karaoke version of Keira Knightley circa King Arthur. As the Huntsman, Thor star Chris Hemsworth has similarly deleterious accent issues courtesy of a peculiarly gruff Scottish brogue that makes me wonder why they didn’t just cast Gerard Butler and be done with it. Nevertheless, the film itself is well enough crafted to suck you into a familiar story, with Charlize Theron ruthless as the pathologically vain Queen and an assortment of British thesps – among them Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, Toby Jones and Eddie Marsan – playing the seven dwarves with a soupçon of Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai. Commercials director Rupert Sanders also proves he can his marry strong visual sensibility to solid storytelling, suggesting he’ll be a name to watch out for in the future.

Tales of the Night (PG)

Directed by: Michel Ocelot

Voices: Julien Beramis, Marine Griset, Michel Elias

Rating: ***

THERE’S more fairytale action in Tales of the Night, the latest effort from singular French animator Michel Ocelot. As with previous films such as Kirikou and the Sorceress and Azur and Asmar: The Prince’s Quest, the real joy of Ocelot’s work is his preference for a silhouetted shadow puppet style of animation that makes his films look like Rob Ryan paper-cut pictures come to life. His scripts, however – or at least, the way they’re translated – never quite match up to the visual design, and so it proves again here. Collecting together six culturally diverse stories from around the world, Tales of the Night has moments of wonderment, but never quite manages to be consistently engaging or enchanting. Perhaps that also has something to do with the fact that in linking together the vignettes – which feature earnest heroes, monsters, princesses and talking animals – via a framing device involving a cinema projectionist and his friends, Ocelot has delivered yet another inward-looking film that celebrates the magic of movies without delivering much movie magic in return. It’s worth persevering with if you’re a fan, but at some point it would be nice to see him really deliver on the story as well.

Beloved (15)

Directed by: Christoph Honoré

Starring: Ludivine Sagnier, Catherine Deneuve, Louis Garrel

Rating: ***

HAVING made a full-blown musical pastiche once before with his borderline charming/insufferable 2007 film Les Chansons d’Amour, Dans Paris director Christoph Honoré returns to similar territory with Beloved, a musical spanning more than four decades in the life one family as the repercussions of free love era of the 1960s and 70s impact on the present-day lives of the children and parents alike.

Ludivine Sagnier and Catherine Deneuve play, respectively, the period and present-day Madeleine, a sexually forthright woman whose decision to go on the game in 1960s Paris results in her falling in love with a client and giving birth to a daughter, Vera, who grows up to have complicated relationship issues of her own.

Passing through key moments in recent history – the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Aids crisis and 9/11 – it’s a film about love and regret and how it takes a lifetime to learn the things one needs to know. Yet despite charming performances from the principal cast, it’s neither as light on its feet as it could be or as deep as should be.

Top Cat: The Movie (U)

Directed by: Alberto MaR

Voices: Jason Harris, Chris Edgerly, Melissa Disney, Bill Lobley

Rating: *

AFTER 2010’s rubbish live action Yogi Bear movie, another 50-year-old Hanna-Barbera character makes it to the big screen. Sadly, there’s not much dignity in bringing waistcoat-wearing New York alley cat Top Cat (voiced by Jason Harris) back with such cheaply rendered 3D Flash animation, even less so with a such a dull, mirthless script and story (the baffled-seeming kids in the screening I attended didn’t laugh once).

For parents or grandparents hoping to bask in the warm glow of nostalgia and share something they loved as children with their own wee ones, there are the opening strains of Hoyt Curtin’s beloved, declamatory theme song – Top Cat! The film will perhaps engender some goodwill, but it quickly dissipates as an overlong plot kicks into gear involving the new, technology obsessed police chief’s determination to turn New York into a Big Brother state with an army of robocops, surveillance cameras and curfews.

It falls to the rascally Top Cat and his feline friends (Benny the Ball is the only one that’s at all memorable) to save the day by teaming up with their beleaguered beat cop buddy Officer Dibble (Bill Lobley). Most assuredly not tip-top.