EP 72 – 2 Guns (2013)
EP 71 – Man on Fire (2004)
DVD Review – Tommy (2014)
Estelle, the wife of a gangster who pulled off one of the biggest jobs in Sweden is returning home after being away in Sri Lanka whilst Tommy was avoiding the law. What Estelle and us, the audience know is that Tommy is dead. Upon her return to Sweden she informs all the men involved in the heist that Tommy is coming home and he wants his money. Estelle takes it upon herself to set up all of the men that led to the death of her late husband and she won’t stop until Tommy gets what he’s due.
Behind every man, there’s a woman and Tommy is a fine example of it! These Nordic crime thrillers are always of this great quality of storytelling. The obvious key examples come from the hit films; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy – that’s my main experience with Swedish film. Tommy keeps that standard with an excellent storyline supported by a strong female leading actress.
Moa Gammel portrayal as Estelle is a woman with nothing to lose, but she has everything to lose – her little daughter. She plays a very dangerous game – messing with the worst of people. She plays it off excellently dealing with the darkest sides of the criminal underworld. Sure she may end up being shot in the middle of snowy field for playing criminals against each other – but she’s got to get things ready for Tommy coming home right?
Supporting Estelle is her close friend Blanca (Lykke Li), a friend who has stood by Estelle and believed she had died after disappearing with Tommy months prior. Although as the saying goes; you fly with the crows, you get shot with the crows. Blanca isn’t bulletproof when it comes to the mob trying to press her for information on Tommys whereabouts. Even when trying to evade the mobsters from grabbing Estelles daughter another poor soul is caught in the cause.
Head mob guy Steve (Johan Rabaeus), is brutal! I don’t want to ever mess with this boy – when the news of Tommys return sparks interest, Steves attempts to get information of Tommy’s whereabouts. How else to integrate a low level mobster than strapping him down onto a electric cooker and proceed to burn his chest on the hobs – it’s horrifying!
DVD Special features – zip, it’s unfortunate that there isn’t any features alongside this release. But I’m happy enough to see that these Nordic noir titles are getting released in the first place.
Overall – Tommy is cold, dark, sinister, but it won’t be as memorable as the films that have come before it.
3/5
Blu-Ray Review – Rollerball (1975)
IN THE FUTURE! Sport has evolved; they’re not just kicking balls over goals and slapping pucks into nets! They’ve now got ROLLERBALL! It’s like Mad Max meets Roller Derby inside a pinball machine! The face of Rollerball comes in the form of John E. (James Caan), a season pro who leads the Houston team to Tokyo for the Semi-Finals. Or so he thinks…
Rollerball seems to have some shady background politics, the man behind Rollerball Mr. Bartholomew (John Houseman) believes Johns retirement from the sport is best for business. It will also be the edge that they’re looking for with an upcoming television special on John’s career. When John shows resistance against Bartholomew’s master plan people around him suffer…
Rollerball is a great look into the life of a star player becoming a broken man by the increasing pressure of the company that made him famous. James Caan is excellent, he’s got that great look on him, he knows something shady is going on, but he can’t help but think about the people missing from his life and who took them from him.
The seventies interruption of the future wasn’t as horrific as you can image, yes we’ve got plenty of very brightly coloured corridors (the colour orange must have been on offer) and even Mr. Bartholomew’s office, white as snow and surrounded by long icicle like sheets of glass hung from the ceiling.
The actual Rollerball matches are superbly choreographed, these poor stuntmen having to weave in and about men on motorbikes, but the bikers aren’t any safer – you get to see some great shots of players delivering dropkicks to the men on bikes! They take some nasty spills, but it’s totally engrossing to watch. Over the course of the film we witness three Rollerball matches and as you can expect the finale when Houston take on New York turns into utter chaos! It’s ace!
One of the best quotes that should have been over all of the marketing materials comes from the final match as they’re dragging bodies off the track; “Game? This wasn’t meant to be a game. NEVER.”
Blu-Ray Features
For the Arrow Blu-Ray release of Rollerball (almost 40 years later) we’re given an excellent selection of special features. There’s half a dozen featurettes that date back from interviews filmed on set comparing rollerball to the Roman gladiators. There’s original Making of Rollerball feature from 2001 – where a majority of the crew tells tales of the production, casting etc.
More recent features include; Blood Sports with James Caan – a ten minute interview on James experiences working on Rollerball, his thoughts on the films message and how he trained for the role. The Fourth City is another near ten minute feature which was filmed for this release of the movie, production scouts returned to the original filming locations in Munich and give you a history of the building and how they adapted the building to create their arena and the lengths they had to go to fill the building! How many Asians do you expect were in Munich during the seventies?
Of course we’re given original theatrical trailer and television spots. Both lackered with J.S. Bach’s; Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.
We’re given two audio commentaries, one from the director Norman Jewison and a second commentary from the films writer William Harrison.
Overall, a excellent release of a stand out futuristic sci-fi classic, ranked amongst the greats!