I know I said that as I'm not watching many movies lately when I do review something, I want to review something obscure, hence the new link and new design of the blog. This is like the 'first issue' of Think About It!'s Obscure Opinions.
And this 2011 British Movie with Brian Cox and Toby Kebbell probably doesn't really fit with the rest of the films I have chosen, that being said, it has probably the most empty Wikipedia article out of any thing I've reviewed for a long time, which means it can't be all that popular...so that in turn makes it obscure? Maybe?
To be fair, I probably wouldn't watch this movie on my own accord, but it was recommended to me and I'm a huge Cox and Kebbell fan, so I wanted to give it a chance. And was it worth it? Well, read and find out!
What makes the weird estate falling into chaos because of drugs plotthread feel even more out of place is running alongside it is a second plotthread about a super secret programme being set up to combat hidden terrorists in Britain. This super secret programme basically trains normal individuals to fight terrorist threats in secret. And Bobby gets mixed up in it all. It feels like Bobby is jumping between two movies. Thankfully much of this can be excused, it does take a while to get there, but when this film hits its stride, it's hard to notice just how much of a mess this movie is over the sound of how badass it is.
I can't tell if it thinks it's really clever or it's just trying way too hard. But in the end the overarching plot ends up getting so huge that it starts to collapse under its own weight, it gets very, very stupid. And Brian Cox's character, Gerry is basically reduced to comic book villain going, "I will take over the world!" about the only thing he lacks is a menacing cackle. And in the end, the subplot about terrorists rise to such humongous stakes, the only way they could get the original plot about the estate back into the story is through such contrivance I cringed a little.And of course both Cox and Kebbell give truly brilliant performances. Kebbell can't rely on the script to form his character and much of what we learn about his character is told through his actions and mannerisms. And also the reactions and mannerisms from the people around him, in relation to him. It's an incredible performance, which seems almost out of place in this kind of film. Cox doesn't have much to do, but what little he has to play with as Gerry Langdon, he does well. I was also impressed to find Tom Brooke in the movie as well, he deserves more roles as he is a great actor. His use in this movie though... is really weird. He steps into the foreground for something really important, disappears for long enough for you to forget about him, for him to suddenly be the most important thing again.
And my God, Kebbell looks awesome in action. Although he doesn't even throw a proper punch until around 45 minutes in, in a really stylish and awesome action sequence, even just seeing him break into places and utilise the shadows is awesome. This guy is just in general awesome. And I have to say, I discovered this guy through Dead Man's Shoes and I saw so many parallels between Bobby and Richard who is Kebbell's brother in Dead Man's Shoes and also a returning soldier. There is also a key character, Alayna Wallace, the main problem with her as a character is she herself is an unreliable narrator, so despite her being basically the heart of the plot, we actually learn very little about her we can actually count on. Is she on our side? Or the terrorists? Or both maybe? Well it's Bobby's job to find out. It seems odd the film leaves you with so little to say about really the character that is holding everything together and what little it gives you is so convoluted in all the twists and turns I could barely follow it. There is a twist, a third party, a betrayal, another twist, a red herring, another third party and this cycle just repeats over and over. The fuck is happening?
As far as I can tell Alayna is really just a puppet knee deep in shit because terrorists are planning a country wide terrorist attack in Britain and her ignorance allowed it all come together...I think. Bobby eventually finds himself right in the heart of the terrorist plot too, but seemingly more out of plot convenience than anything else, he takes it upon himself to set things right despite spending most of the movie trying to stop people calling him a hero and the plot starts with him quitting the military, so it really doesn't make much sense that he suddenly becomes a White Knight, especially when it puts his life directly in danger, from what we know of the character so far, I'd have expected him to walk away when asked too. I know that wouldn't make much of a film, but breaking your characters characterisation for the sake of plot convenience is really shitty. And you could just argue it's just the fact that once a soldier, always a soldier and his sense of duty takes over but that still doesn't explain his sudden obsession with saving Alayna in particular. I mean he spends most of the movie following her around and although they share a few scenes together, there is really not much to imply any sense of romantic feelings between them and then suddenly he's risking his life for her, sense of duty or not, this is just silly. The Veteran is visually, very pleasing. Despite it being set in the rotting urban landscape of modern London, the cinematography does a great job to really capture the desolation, the scale or when needed the claustrophobia of the environment. It uses some brilliant locations and it uses visual storytelling to its fullest. To the point in places where it almost becomes laughable.
The first five minutes of the movie are dialogue free and yet through simple imagery, we learn so much about Bobby and his surroundings. And for one of those rare moments, sound is really used to its fullest too. Through the use of audio it gives us flashbacks into Bobby without really wasting any screen time, there is a lot of meaning generating from seemingly nothing. I had the movie playing through my 5.1 incredibly expensive speakers and it's amazing just how much good sounds adds to an overall experience. I sometimes think that if sound is used well in a film, it can be much more important than flashy cinematography or editing because of how much meaning and atmosphere the most basic of sounds create. Plus many sounds come with preset meanings and associations.Although most of it is low key, I was impressed by the special effects in this movie. You sometimes forget how injuries look in real life because in movies, even ones parading with a 'realism' tag often the bodies reactions are overplayed and in one short fist fight, enough blood to fill a swimming pool has been spilled and their faces are swollen enough to make them float off. However in The Veteran the injuries are much more natural. When Bobby is captured and interrogated, he is punched several times in the face and the skin slowly yellows around his eye across the scene to show the natural forming of a bruise. This is very true for the way his injuries heal, too. And I thought the scars on his back were real!
It goes a long way that Bobby's reactions to the injuries are natural too, he is human, he yelps when he gets punched because it hurts. And he may 'just get' slashed on his side, but of course in the real life this is serious and the film treats it as such. When he and other characters kill, it has a serious impact on them as much as it does the person they have killed. They don't rack up a triple figure body count, but each kill no matter how minor the goon they kill is, has a huge impact.Bobby isn't an action hero that roles in with two semi-automatics and takes down a room full of guys, getting blown up but only getting his shirt ripped, Bobby is a 'real' action hero. And although I like crazy over the top action movies, in this context Bobby's human fragility just makes the action all the more poignant. Because let me tell you, the fact that the film went for a more naturalistic look and feel, just makes everything more brutal when the violence begins to escalate around the 45 minute mark.
You also must know though, this isn't an action movie. Despite the movies cover and the tagline 'some soldiers never leave the battlefield', the first action scene is a tiny one around 45 minutes in, then there is no real action again for another twenty or so minutes. First and foremost this is a spy/secret agent movie depicted in an almost social realistic sense. And although there are action set pieces, which are very far from realistic, they are still pretty low key, most people go down in one or two hits and Bobby is regularly overpowered just by one guy, as mentioned before it's never Bobby vs the world and I think they found a good balance between realism and style. Because could you imagine how boring this film would be if they went all the way with realism and the final battle is Kebbell putting a terrorist in a headlock? Yeah... Even when the film seems to set it up for action clichés, the film still manages to keep itself level and keep a sense of realism about it... until the last ten or so minutes.Those last ten fucking minutes. A master class in how to ruin your move in ten minutes. I seriously can't explain enough the sheer level of shittiness in those ten minutes. But let's be fair, the movie had no choice but to slip into self parody. The film wrote itself into a corner, it had two plots with no connection, an overarching plot so humongous in scale it was truly ridiculous and a character so small and insignificant in the plots scope that they had no real way to close this film in any meaningful way. So what do they do? They don't even try, queue extremely violent pointless shootout that undermines the rest of the movie, yeah! Five minutes in to this beyond stupid ending, the film does snap back to reality for a moment when it reminds us that in the real world, taking on an entire estate alone, where everyone has uzis...for some reason is going to get you killed but the way this scene is done is just so incredibly hamfisted to both connect it back to earlier in the film and give some kind of message...it's just, beyond shitty. My God, I think 90% of my braincells have died... just how do you fuck up this bad? How do you make something this stupid? How do you undermine your own movie so much? Children of Men meets Taxi Driver? Packs a powerful punch? What movie were you watching? I'm just going to pretend that the film ends when Bobby kills Gerry and pretend the last ten minutes never happened, they practically feel like they come from another movie anyway.
So do I recommend this? I was perfectly willing to overlook this films flaws due to the excellent central performance from Kebbell, who is a fucking great actor and the excellent construction of the film. But my God, that ending. What utter, utter garbage. If you watch the film until around one hour twenty what you have here is a pretty decent movie. Watch any further than that however and you'll want to throw yourself out of the nearest window. It saddens me that so much potential is wasted by such shitty writing, so shitty it actually becomes kinda incredible.
Think About It!
-Locke
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