The Guard (Ireland, 2011)
Directed by John Michael McDonagh
Starring Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Liam Cunningham, Mark Strong

Film reviewers like me frequently get accused of being unable to appreciate films designed purely to entertain. But while we may spend a lot of our time directing people towards films in which entertainment may not be top priority, we are as capable as the next punter of having a good time. The Guard is the latest film to prove this, being the most purely entertaining film since Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.From a cineaste's point of view, The Guard contains a great number of familiar genre elements. It has described as a cross between Lethal Weapon and Father Ted, and there are strong hints of both throughout. The pairing of Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle is in the buddy cop style, with one being by-the-book to the point of being inept, and the other being a loose cannon who is unprofessional but gets the job done. The shots of the landscape in and around Connemara resemble the opening credits of Father Ted, and there are occasions when Gleeson's facial expressions copy those of Father Dougal.The film is also deeply rooted in the conventions of westerns. Gleeson's performance has been specifically compared to Gary Cooper's in High Noon (high praise indeed), but more generally the film corresponds to the stock western plot of the irascible, antiheroic sheriff defending his town from simple-minded crooks. From a more European perspective, one could compare The Guard to the 1930s comedies of Will Hay: there are hints of Ask a Policeman in the role of smugglers, and Oh Mr. Porter! in the Connemara settling and the seeming simple-mindedness of the characters.The Guard is the debut film from writer-director John Michael McDonagh, whose brother Martin McDonagh previously worked with Gleeson on In Bruges. As with his brother's debut, the stock plots and familiar conventions of The Guard are a springboard to create interesting characters and carve out a distinctive niche through strong language and violence. But The Guard emerges as the superior film, for two clear reasons.Firstly, the film benefits from a low-budget aesthetic. Because In Bruges looked relatively glossy and was flashily directed, it led you to expect something very polished and balanced, so that whenever the more constrictive elements of the plot encroached, you felt somewhat underwhelmed. The Guard doesn't have the luxury of looking like an expensive film, with understated camerawork and a more washed-out colour palette. But this has the side effect of allowing the script to breathe, so that we are less conscious of the clichés when they do come to the surface.Secondly, The Guard benefits from a relative lack of archness in its characters. Both filming are incredibly knowing in their construction of dialogue, from the police officers discussing Fellini's 8 1/2 to the lad with the camera commenting that the events that transpired would make a really great book one day. But where In Bruges occasionally felt like it was showing off, being arch for its own sake, The Guard puts the brakes on all that very quickly. The characters feel more genuine and more immediately likeable, even in their most questionable or archetypal moments.One of the best examples of this latter trend comes in the performance of Mark Strong. He plays a British gangster hired by the Irish mob to oversee the cocaine smuggling operation, and is as much a fish out of water as Don Cheadle's character. In one of the best scenes in the film, he delivers a bribe to two corrupt police officers, who offer up clichéd lines like "It's all there?". Strong's response is sarcastic but smart, pointing out not only the inherent stupidity of their question within the confines of the film, but also the silliness of a particular generic convention. His character embodies the part of our brain that says "well that wouldn't happen", and seeing that urge physicalized is a real delight.There is a similar intelligence with regard to the distinctly un-PC humour of Sergeant Gerry Boyle. The script for The Guard is fantastically bad taste and walks the tightrope between laughter and pain with perfect balance. You'll quickly lose count of the number of times you'll laugh yourself stupid, squirm in your seat, or do both at once whenever Boyle opens his mouth. One particularly funny faux pas occurs when Boyle and Everett are having breakfast, and the conversation moves on to skiing. Boyle remarks: "I thought black guys couldn't ski?". Awkward pause. "Or is that swimming?".Such scenes recall the Father Ted episode 'Are You Right There, Father Ted?', in which Ted is accused of being a racist and attempts unsuccessfully to put things right. Both are attacking racists and racism by showing how utterly absurd and pitiful such statements or attitudes are. Boyle has the same misplaced innocence as Father Dougal and does not understand that what he is saying is wrong or insensitive: when berated for his remarks at the FBI briefing, he remarks that racism is part of his culture. We may find Boyle likeable as a character, but the film doesn't use ignorance as an excuse to condone any of his vices, whether racism, drinking, or using two hookers on his day off. We laugh at the statements and the characters, rather than with them.But in the midst of this knowing use of racial epithets and black humour, there is a more melancholy side to the film. Boyle may be unconventional, but he is not entirely a happy-go-lucky buffoon who has everything he needs and couldn't care less. There are several scenes where he visits his dying mother, scenes which make us laugh by showing where he got his spirit from. But these moments, and those featuring the young children, are reminiscent of Being There, contrasting the well-meaning, almost clownish central character with the dark world around him.In Being There, the gag was that whenever Chance spoke his mind, people read into his words and behaviour as if he were a guru, rather than just the sheltered child whose only life experience was in tending gardens. Boyle may not be sheltered, but there is a through-line in the characters' growing acceptance of his value as a member of the force and an ultimately upstanding human being. As Everett remarks early on, "I can't tell if you're really motherfucking dumb, or really motherfucking smart", though by the end he has clearly made up his mind.The Guard hangs on the brilliant central performance of Brendan Gleeson. He is clearly enjoying himself, taking McDonagh's script and breathing life into the character though naturalistic mannerisms and great comic timing. He improves on his performance in In Bruges and is as commanding a screen presence as he has ever been. Don Cheadle compliments him perfectly, proving his comedic worth by playing everything poker straight. The montage of him attempting to interview the locals, including a horse, is a particular highlight.Taken as a piece of pure, undiluted entertainment, The Guard is one of the best films of the year. It is deeply generic and occasionally its low-budget aesthetic works against it, with the sound design rendering some of the thicker accents inaudible. But those are little niggles which fail to tarnish a hilarious and beautifully constructed black comedy. Brendan Gleeson has given interviews suggesting that the McDonagh brothers have a friendly rivalry. On the basis of this, it's one-nil to John.

Rating:
Verdict: This year's Scott Pilgrim

Kick-Ass (USA, 2010)
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
Starring Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretz, Nicolas Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse

Comic book adaptations come in a cycle of 'light' and 'dark' phases. Every period of films which takes its characters and settings seriously is eventually followed by a camper, sillier phase, and vice versa. Batman went from a camp TV series to the dark and edgy Tim Burton films, then back to high camp with Joel Schumacher, and is now firmly rooted in darkness under the guidance of Christopher Nolan.

Kick-Ass, however, breaks this cycle, marrying the dark, moody and intense side of comics with a knowing earthiness and its tongue firmly in its cheek. These conflicting elements are held together by memorable performances and Matthew Vaughn's striking visuals, creating a film which truly and madly lives up to its name.In the space of ten years, Matthew Vaughn has gone from a nameless, also-ran producer to one of the most exciting directors working today. Having cut his teeth producing Guy Ritchie's first films, he made his directorial debut with Layer Cake, a flashy but ultimately empty-headed gangster film. Having dropped out of directing the third X-Men film, he really found his feet with Stardust, a genuinely great family fantasy which didn't take itself too seriously. And now we have Kick-Ass, a feisty oddball of a film which is without question his best work to date.Where some adaptations have simply lifted out the characters and put them awkwardly into the real world, Kick-Ass lives and breathes the comic-book universe. The film is dripping with pastiches or parodies of superheroes, and no character is left either unscathed or un-subverted. On the one hand, we have overt discussions about different characters- for instance, Dave's monologue about the difference between Spiderman and Peter Parker ("Spiderman gets the girl" - or not). On the other hand, we have the extended sequence of Nic Cage donning the Big Daddy outfit. The scene of him painting black make-up over his eyes is a crafty nod towards Tim Burton's Batman, since Michael Keaton underwent the same procedure when putting on the batsuit.

But although it's a film with such an encyclopaedic knowledge of comic books, you don't have to be Kevin Smith or Quentin Tarantino to enjoy Kick-Ass. What makes the film so refreshing is its total refusal to take itself too seriously. It offers enough darkness and substance to satisfy the Nolan-ites and Burton-ians, but it never risks becoming alienating or self-absorbed in a manner that encumbered Sin City. The action sequences are shot with great alacrity and are inventively choreographed, being every bit as exciting as the battle scenes in a Zhang Zimou film.If there is a phrase to sum up Kick-Ass, that phrase would be: 'knowing fun'. The familiar elements of both the plot and the characters are clear to see up on the screen; we've lost count of the number of films about gangsters being taken on by masked vigilantes. The film is clearly aware of the power and prestige of the best comic-book works, but it also knows how hard it is to get those films right.

There is a real sense of relish in the way that the film tackles the clichés of the superhero film and completely subverts and twists them for its own amusement. If the film had been made by Frank Miller or Zack Snyder, the central premise of ordinary people trying to become superheroes would have been treated so portentously it would have been dull. Vaughn cuts through all their pseudo-intellectual claptrap, providing us with simple, laugh-out-loud answers to the central character's questions. Put simply, you wouldn't dress up in a suit and go out and fight crime, not because it's morally ambiguous, but because you'd look ridiculous and get your ass kicked.The film situates the superhero story in a completely contemporary parallel universe, and brings the different components of these stories bang up to date. Why would you waste your time running around answering distress calls from people in the street, when it's much easier for said people to send you emails? Why would you drive a massively conspicuous Batmobile, when a souped-up Mustang will do just as well? Touches like this are the nub of what Kick-Ass is: an affectionately savage satire of all things comic-book, with a dark but playful sense of humour.

There is a natural comparison between Kick-Ass and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, since both films were developed at the same time as the comics which spawned them. Both films are visually outstanding, and both take a familiar romantic storyline and inject new life into it through a number of bold creative decisions. But in terms of their purpose, they couldn't be more different. Where Scott Pilgrim sought to charm you and make you chuckle at what unfolds, Kick-Ass asks a lot more of its audience, and the laughter comes tinged with a number of tough scenes.There are a number of scenes in Kick-Ass which are difficult to sit through, even for people who are well-versed in comic-book violence. For the most part the violent scenes are decidedly tongue-in-cheek, and the film doesn't linger unduly on any of the violent acts dealt towards the characters. That said, the scenes of Kick-Ass and Big-Daddy being tied to a chair and beaten to within an inch of their lives is very full-on. These scenes take the Joker's videotape in The Dark Knight and take it to the next level through a few gallons of blood and interesting camerawork.

The film has caused controversy because to its violence and foul language, including a now-infamous section of Chloe Moretz' character saying the 'c' word. As before, most of the violence is clearly comic-book: characters can get hurt and do die, but the film does not ask its audience to enjoy their pain, nor does it rely upon this level of engagement to make the lighter parts work. The violence towards Hit-Girl is carefully choreographed with all the power in the suggestion rather than the action; like Psycho and Alien before it, Kick-Ass works by making us think something has happened and then letting the emotional response play out.As for the language, that is largely indicative of the film's bad taste sensibility; Peter Bradshaw memorably described it as "an explosion in a bad-taste factory". The film makes no bones about its less politically correct scenes, mainly involving Nic Cage and his obsession with weaponry. Because the film was financed independently, it can get away with scenes that would never survive the test screenings of a modern blockbuster. The opening scene, which parodies the Spiderman series, sets the tone for the rest of the film, and there is no attempt made to sanitise Kick-Ass' circumstances for the sake of broader appeal. Even if the end result is not entirely to our liking, the film at least deserves some praise for having the balls to attempt such scenes in the first place.Moreover, the full-on and bloodier scenes in Kick-Ass are counterbalanced by the development of the central character. Like Scott Pilgrim the film is on one level a coming-of-age story; where the 1980s had John Hughes, our generation has comics. The central romance between Dave and Katie feels genuine, as do Dave's circle of friends who derive endless pleasure from Katie's misunderstands about his sexuality. The near-pantomime performances of Nic Cage and Mark Strong are balanced out by solid turns from Aaron Johnson and Chloe Moretz. Christopher Mintz-Plasse is also enjoyable, so much so that we almost forgive him for Superbad.Kick-Ass is one of the best films of 2010 and is destined, like Scott Pilgrim, for cult status. Its uncompromising approach to both content and characters is refreshing in an age where so many similarly-styled films are unfairly watered-down. Its visuals are striking, its action is superb, its dialogue is witty and it's immensely good fun. Only time will tell as to its overall impact on trends in comic book adaptations, but it has laid down the gauntlet for The Dark Knight Rises in 2012. Until then, it should be embraced as a dark-humoured celebration of comics which is a jagged-edged joy to behold.

Rating: 4.5/5
Verdict: A bona fide comic book classic

The Social Network (USA, 2010)
Directed by David Fincher
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer

When a director you admire drops the ball, it's bad news. It becomes worse news if other parties choose to reward said director with good reviews and awards nominations - the more encouragement he or she gets, the more likely it is that it will happen again. So as the months roll by and the director's next project looms, you sit there on tenterhooks, hoping that it was just a blip and that this time it will be different.After The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, David Fincher's future seemed to hang in the balance. When it emerged he was making a film about Facebook, it was hanging by a thread. Even when the first trailers emerged, trepidation remained as to whether it would be even faintly compelling for those of us who can't write HTML. How wrong we all were. The Social Network is one of the best films of 2010 and about as big a return to form as you can get.

Within ten minutes of The Social Network starting, you can put to bed all fears that Oscar buzz had somehow gone to Fincher's head. His new film is better than Benjamin Button in every conceivable way: it's tauter, has more substance, is more engaging and doesn't keep collapsing into a bottomless pit of sentimentality. The Social Network is classic Fincher in both its subject and execution: intelligent, multi-layered, complicated and icy cool.Purely from a visual point of view, The Social Network is a sight to behold. Following on from his work on Zodiac, Fincher uses the cutting edge in digital photography and visual effects to create a uniquely enveloping cinematic world. Like his contemporary Christopher Nolan, Fincher has a real gift for finding reality in the fantastical, grounding all his bright and lofty ideas into something which we would easily recognise. Jeff Cronenweth, who also shot Fight Club, shoots the opening scenes with a perfect balance of gloss and brooding, bringing out the best in Harvard's intimidating architecture.Fincher has managed to do what Noah Baumbach never managed - to take a bunch of horrible people and make them engaging and interesting. This becomes an even bigger coup when you consider that most of the so-called action scenes in The Social Network consist of writing code and hacking into servers. Like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World earlier this year, The Social Network manages to take something which on the surface is impenetrable to anyone with a life, and find the interesting stories within that.

The Social Network is not primarily about Facebook, any more than Scott Pilgrim is primarily about video games. It is instead about an extraordinary paradox: the world's biggest friendship tool was invented by someone incapable of friendship, who may also be a tool. The Mark Zuckerberg presented on screen is someone of immense intelligence and programming skill, but who is completely inept when is comes to physical interaction (of whatever sort) with other human beings. It takes him a minute to realise that he is being dumped, and a whole hour of the film to talk to the girl in question (ranting online about her bra size didn't help matters).The casting of Jesse Eisenberg is significant, considering he played a similar character in The Squid and the Whale. But there is a crucial difference between Walt and Mark, and this is the difference which makes the film compelling. Walt is so utterly assured of his own intelligence that he feels the need to constantly belittle others; both he and his close circle of friends are so completely up themselves that we just don't care what happens to them. Mark may appear to be the same - obnoxious, privileged, highly intelligent - but he is completely unaware of how socially inept he is. He expects so much of other people but doesn't know how to deal with it when they fall short. As the lawyer remarks at the end of the film, "you're not an asshole Mark, you're just trying really hard to be one."

Despite the presentation of this character, The Social Network is not a thinly-veiled attack on the real-life Zuckerberg. Neither does it attempt to compensate for this portrayal with bald hagiography on the part of his classmates. Our sympathies shift between the characters, and the only constant is that all of them have incredible intellects and are living extraordinary lives beyond our wildest dreams.The film is on one hand a character study of Zuckerberg and the highly intellectual undergraduates which Harvard unleashes on the world. Where Revenge of the Nerds' characters were well-meaning and loveable, the nerds in this film are ambitious, aggressive and uncompromising. They're not a million miles from the modern-day jocks, embodied by the Winkevoss twins. The party scenes in The Social Network refine the template founded in Animal House, keeping the sense of chaos but disposing of anything distractingly adolescent. The fact that Fincher keeps his cool even when two characters are being fellated in a toilet is a clear demonstration of the film's self-discipline.

The film is also a detailed examination of just how ruthless and cut-throat modern capitalism is. Harvard students are presented as born-and-bred winners, who invent jobs rather than taking them and don't know how to take coming second. The film examines how painfully easy it is to get left behind, both in the fall-out between Eduardo Savarin and Shaun Parker, and in the fate of the Winklevoss twins. The last time we see them on screen, they have just come second in a very close race. The film ends on a spiky note, commenting that they "finished sixth" at the Beijing Olympics.Most of all, The Social Network is about the nature of modern-day friendships and the rapid speed at which life seems to move. Aaron Sorkin's Rashomon-like screenplay balances three timeframes and shows us different versions of what occurred in those fateful days in 2003-4. The characters talk with a natural impatience, demanding that you keep up with them or get left behind; it takes a good few minutes to get in the zone and be a part of their conversations. The film brilliantly demonstrates how Facebook and its counterparts have become a proxy or substitute for genuine friendship. The computer screens act as an artificial barrier between individuals; regardless of how much information we share, we are drifting apart even as technology brings us together.

The film is not quite flawless due to a couple of problematic scenes. Having spent so much of its running time in claustrophobic rooms with the intensity building, the boat race is like someone taking the lid of a pressure cooker; we feel like we need it, but the film is never quite the same again. This sequence feels like a very deliberate way to end the twins' part of the story, as if the film couldn't deal with four stories running side by side. The ending also drags a little for the simple fact that so much of this is recent history; how do you put a definite ending on something which is still ongoing?In spite of these little niggles, The Social Network is one of the best films of the year and a high point in Fincher's illustrious career. It is every bit is intense and atmospheric as The Ghost Writer, and every bit as entertaining as Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. It raises all the right questions about its subject and contains a number of very fine performances, particularly from Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield. If nothing else, it's the most exciting film you could make about a bunch of unlikeable men sitting in dark rooms arguing about copyright. Inception remains the best film of the year, but this is a very close second.

Rating: 4.5/5
Verdict: One of the year's best films

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (USA, 2010)
Directed by Edgar Wright
Starring Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Brandon Routh

When I reviewed Gregory’s Girl (1981), I argued that coming-of-age movies are both thin on substance and have a limited lifespan. Films as varied as American Graffiti and Dirty Dancing revolve around the same old stories of young love and heartbreak; the ones that last are not just those that evoke their period, but which contain some form of deeper truth about the process of growing up.Being a young man still very much within the coming-of-age bracket, it is hard to me to say how good Scott Pilgrim vs. the World will look in ten years’ time, when the gaming world has moved on and young people no longer talk like extras from Juno. It may well be that, like Edgar Wright’s previous films, it will get better with age, at least to those who saw it the first time round. All that can be said right now is that this is one of the best coming-of-age comedies in a long, long time.

For starters, Wright has managed to make a film about video games which doesn’t feel like a video game adaptation. The plot on paper does seem like a video game; defeat a series of bosses to win points and end up with the girl. But unlike, for instance, Tomb Raider, the film doesn’t feel like you are watching someone else playing a game and expecting you to be interested. The fight sequences feel like natural continuations of the story, and the character development in-between is a damn sight more complex and insightful than the swathes of exposition in something like Silent Hill.The film has an extraordinary visual style which is somewhere between Tron and Sin City. Like Tron, you feel at moments like you are inside a video game rather than just a spectator. And as in Sin City, the film retains a very literal comic book structure, albeit without the dull pomposity of Robert Rodriguez’ film. The video game elements in both the design and the content of the battles are used to compliment and enhance the conflict; the powers gained and used by Scott and his foes do not become distracting goals unto themselves.

Like the comic it is based upon, Scott Pilgrim jumps from one form of reality to another without warning. There are many flights of fantasy which are either poignant or hilarious, and the film explores issues of love and death with a fascinating alacrity. It makes no bones about its comic book violence, shooting the battles in a playful and entertaining manner with minimal focus on any lingering amount of pain. We still believe the characters are in danger, but as in Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies there is no real need to demonstrate their danger beyond stylised forms of suggestion.Several moments in the film really stick in one’s mind. Towards the end, Pilgrim is ‘killed’ by Gideon, the last of the evil exes played brilliantly by Jason Schwartzman. He finds himself in some kind of desert, identical to the dream in which he first saw Ramona. He then uses the ‘life’ he had gained before to replay all the previous events and finally defeat Gideon. Having the exes shatter into piles of coins when defeated is ingenious, as is the spectacle of sound waves forming into two dragons and taking on a giant aural gorilla during the battle of the bands.

Despite its large quantities of geeky references to video games and the like, the film gets away with it for the simple reason that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. So many other films with video game elements fail as much from being po-faced as they do from being plot-less. For all its visual style, Silent Hill is not scary, and for all its seeming intensity, Max Payne is not exciting. Scott Pilgrim, on the other hand, has an incredible and knowing lightness of touch. It drifts like its central character from one scene to another, paying enough attention to follow what’s going on while still finding time to escape into fantasy and have fun.The film is laugh-out-loud funny from beginning to end, with jokes coming so thick and fast that you struggle to keep up or breathe. The humour comes in all shapes and sizes, from physical slapstick to witty one-liners. We have Wallace, Scott’s gay roommate, who hits on everyone’s boyfriends and can seemingly text Scott’s overprotective sister even whilst slipping into unconsciousness. We have Todd, the third evil ex, whose status as an arrogant vegan has given him psychic powers. We have the Japanese twins, who look like a bizarre marriage between Kraftwerk and Siegfried & Roy. And we have all of Scott’s embarrassing verbal slip-ups, such as confusing ‘love’ for ‘lesbians’ and asking Ramona if she’s into drugs.

Jokes like this drift very close to the more putrid adolescent comedies, like Animal House, Porkies or Superbad. But despite all the moments where we cringe at the characters’ actions, Scott Pilgrim is not out to make us wriggle uncomfortably in our seats. The more intimate scenes, including those of Ramona in her underwear, are shot with an underlying sense of respect. The film treats its female characters on a level playing field, not just by demonstrating they can fight as well as the men, but by refusing to fall into the trap of laughing at their misfortune during the break-up scenes.In the midst of all the belly laughs and eye-popping visuals, Scott Pilgrim is a very tender treatment of young love, demonstrating not just how to get the girl but how to deal with the baggage that goes with all relationships. Both Scott and Ramona have issues with commitment, with the latter admitting that she went through a phase of being a total bitch. And like in Gregory’s Girl, there is the faint suggestion that the girl Scott falls for may not be the one he is destined to be with. In the original draft of the screenplay, which preceded the final comics, he ends up with Knives instead.

In defeating the evil exes, Pilgrim is not just standing up to other people’s demons but also confronting his own insecurities, and in going so gaining self-respect. The film genuinely conveys the sense of heartbreak on both sides which comes at the end of a relationship, and it doesn’t pretend that our heroes are perfectly compatible and therefore destined to be together. Ramona’s changing hair colour and tendency to withdraw both represents the fragile nature of love and encapsulates the modern age of complicated relationships and how hard communication can be despite (or perhaps because of) new technology.The performances in Scott Pilgrim are all of a high calibre. Michael Cera, who can often be annoying, puts in his best performance since Juno, taking his familiar dweeby character and refining it to make Scott genuinely empathetic rather than simply pitiful. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is terrific as Ramona, possessing a sense of mystery while being completely natural and down-to-earth. Kieran Cullin is hilarious as Wallace, and Brandon Routh is very good as Todd, turning in a performance which is a million times more charismatic than his work in Superman Returns.Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is one of the best films of the year and is destined to be a cult classic. It isn’t quite a masterpiece, being slightly too long and feeling somewhat rough around the edges. It takes time to adjust to its peculiar execution, and I would be hard-pushed to say it was Wright’s best film. But as a document of teenage love and insecurity, it is up there with Juno, and is therefore essential viewing for anyone in their early-20s.

Rating: 4.5/5
Verdict: Essential viewing for the early-2os