LAST NIGHT IN SOHO: 3 ½ STARS
“Last Night in Soho,” the new film from director Edgar Wright, now playing in theatres, is a love letter to London’s Swingin’ Sixties by way of Italian Giallo. Surreal and vibrant, it is uneven and more than a little bit silly, but enjoyable for those with a taste for both Petula Clarke and murder.
When we first meet Cornish teenager Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) she’s dressed head-to-toe in a throwback newspaper print dress of her own design, dancing to Peter and Gordon’s 1964 hit, “A World Without Love.” Several dramatic dance moves later, she makes her way down to her grandmother’s (Rita Tushingham) main floor and a letter announcing she’s been accepted to fashion school in London.
“London is not what you think it is,” granny warns. “It can be a lot.”
Eloise doesn’t heed the warning. She is obsessed with London, specifically the magical period when Julie Christie wore Mary Quant and Carnaby Street was the fashion capital of the world.
“If I could live anywhere, I’d live in Soho in the sixties,” Eloise gushes. “It must have felt like the center of the universe.”
Unfortunately, London, as exciting as it is, doesn’t greet Eloise with open arms. At school her mean girl roommate makes life miserable to the point where Ellie moves out, renting a rundown bedsit in Soho from eccentric landlady Ms. Collins (Diana Rigg).
Falling asleep on her first night in the new digs, she is transported back to the glamorous world of the 1960s. “Thunderball” is at the movies, Cilla Black sings at Soho’s Cafe De Paris and the streets of are alive with people like Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy), a wannabe singer with a great wardrobe and aspirations to stardom.
Over time Eloise finds herself drawn into Sandie’s world, the world she had long dreamed about, but are these visions dreams, nightmares or dangerous manifestations of the ghosts that haunt every corner of old London town?
“Last Night in Soho” begins with verve, painting a picture of a time and place that is irresistible. A mosaic of music, fashion and evocative set decoration, the first hour brings inventive world building and stunning imagery. Wright pulls out all the stops, making visual connections between his film and the movies of the era he’s portraying and even including sixties British icons Rigg, Tushingham and Stamp in the cast.
A dance sequence that swaps out Eloise for Sandie at every twirl is exuberant, breathtaking in its choreography and an early indication that the two characters will be intertwined for the remainder of the story.
The first half is glorious fun but takes a very dark turn.
As Eloise becomes immersed in Sandie’s life, she peers beneath Soho’s dazzling veneer to see the dark underbelly of London’s nightlife. Wright changes tone, introducing horror and psychological elements. The two halves fit together like puzzle pieces, dovetailing into one another naturally despite the shift in ambience.
“Last Night in Soho” could use more character development in its lead characters, but the chemistry between McKenzie and Taylor-Joy as two sides of the same coin, is electric. Wright uses those characters to explore the misogyny that colors Sandie’s life, wringing horror out of the treatment she receives at the hands of her manager/pimp Jack (Matt Smith). The scares, which out me in the mind of Hammer Horror and “Repulsion,” are eye catching and effective, leading up to a surprising finale.
“Last Night in Soho” is more than the sum of its influences. They abound, but filtered through Wright’s sensibility become an enjoyable ride through a part of town and time that no longer exists.
THE FRENCH DISPATCH: 2 ½ STARS
“The French Dispatch,” now in theatres, is the most Wes Anderson-y film in the Wes Anderson playbook. If you forced a bot to watch 1,000 hours of Anderson’s films and then asked it to write a movie on its own, “The French Dispatch” would be the result.
Broken into three stories, this is the story of three writers and their work for The French Dispatch, an American owned newspaper supplement edited by Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Bill Murray) from their offices in Ennui-sur-Blasé, France.
On the occasion of Howitzer’s passing the staff assemble to put together a special edition of the paper to honour him. After a quick intro to the paper and the town by Herbsaint Sazerac (Owen Wilson), the movie introduces its first tale, an outlandish take on the birth of abstract expressionism.
Benicio Del Toro stars as Moses Rosenthaler, a temperamental artist incarcerated for double murder. His muse is Simone (Léa Seydoux), the guard of his cell block. When his work is discovered by art dealer Cadazio (Adrien Brody), who happens to be doing time for financial improprieties, Moses reluctantly becomes a worldwide sensation.
Next is “Revisions to a Manifesto,” Anderson’s take on the French May 1968 student uprising. French Dispatch reporter Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand) covers the story of wild-haired Zeffirelli (Timothée Chalamet), the revolutionary Juliette (Lyna Khoudri) and the manifesto they want to present to the world.
The final story involves food critic Roebuck Wright (Jeffrey Wright). He recounts how a food prepared by brilliant police chef Nescaffier (Stephen Park) foiled the kidnapping of a police commissioner’s son.
Fans of Anderson’s work know what to expect. Perfectly composed shots, Bill Murray and fussy, idiosyncratic situations and dialogue. Aficionados will not be disappointed by “The French Dispatch.” It offers up Anderson’s trademarks in droves. But for me, a longtime Anderson fan, the preciousness of the storytelling verges on parody.
There are some beautiful, even poetic moments in what amounts to an examination of the creative life, but the arch style that typifies Anderson’s work is in overdrive here and overwhelms the message.
SNAKEHEAD: 3 STARS
Even though documentary filmmaker Evan Jackson Leong turns to fiction in his new film “Snakehead,” now on VOD, the subject matter is very much based in real life.
The story focuses on Sister Tse (Shuya Chang), a Chinese ex-convict who pays human traffickers, known as Snakeheads, to transport her to the United States. There, she hopes to find her baby, a child adopted out to parents in New York City while she was incarcerated.
Her eventual freedom comes at a heavy price. She owes $57,000 to the Snakeheads, a fee she is expected to repay with a life of prostitution. Instead, she proves herself to be a formidable force. When she beats up one of the gang’s enforcers, she gains the attention of Dai Mah (Jade Wu), the cold-blooded head of a large human trafficking ring. She rises through the ranks, collecting debts, running drugs and eventually, under thew tutelage of Dai Mah’s hot-tempered son, Rambo (Sung Kang), in the smuggling of Chinese nationals to America.
“I never believed in the American dream,” she says, “all I knew was how to survive.”
All the while she searches for her daughter Rosie (Catherine Jiang).
“There is saying from where I come from,” she says, “‘When drinking water, remember the source.' I knew why I was here.” Her single-mindedness earns her respect from the Snakeheads, but there is danger around every corner.
“There are rules,” Dai Mah says, “Chinatown doesn’t change for anyone.”
Inspired by the real-life NYC human trafficking syndicate leader Sister Ping, who died in prison in 2014, “Snakehead” is a gritty story with a documentary, you-are-there feel. The all-Asian cast offers up compelling characters, and, as a female led gangster movie, it paves some new road.
Despite some uneven storytelling “Snakehead” succeeds because of the dual performances at its heart. Chang’s steely veneer masks the level of Sister Tse’s vulnerability. The character is the engine that drives the story, and Chang’s stoic performance keeps the movie on track. As crime boss Dai Mah, Jade Wu is regal and ruthless, and when the movie focusses on those two, it works very well.
“Snakehead” cuts deep to tell Sister Tse’s uncompromising story of survival but is tarnished by too many flashbacks and narration. Still, it’s a memorable narrative debut by a promising director.
ARMY OF THIEVES: 3 ½ STARS
“Army of Thieves,” a new heist film now streaming on Netflix, is a prequel to Zack Snyder’s “Army of the Dead” from earlier this year but do not expect the same kind of blood and guts zombiefied action.
The new film takes place six years before the zombie outbreak that brought Las Vegas to its knees in “Army of the Dead.” Both are heist movies, but the only brain eaters on display in this European-set flick are on the news and in the main character, Ludwig Dieter’s (Matthias Schweighöfer, who also directs) dreams. This is a standalone movie, the origin story of the safecracker who provided most of the lighter moments in Snyder’s film.
When we first meet Ludwig he’s a safecracker nerd, making YouTube video (that nobody watches) about the art of breaking into safes. He’s a skilled practitioner of the craft, but he’s an innocent and has never stolen anything from anyone. His job at a bank is unsatisfying in the extreme, so when a YouTube commenter invites him a safecracking competition, he readily accepts.
There, he proves his mettle and is recruited by bank robber Gwendoline (Nathalie Emmanuel) to join her gang of criminals, Korina (Ruby O. Fee), hacker Rolph (Guz Khan) and the muscle with the action hero name, Brad Cage (Stuart Martin). The gang has ambitious plans to rob three next-to-impossible safes, the kind that only Ludwig can crack, while the zombie outbreak in the United States is causing instability.
But what will bring the gang down first, zombies, sexual tension, Interpol or in-fighting?
The only real connection “Army of Thieves” has with “Army of the Dead” is Ludwig. It’s his introduction to the Snyderverse and dovetails into the zombie movie. Other than that, they are two separate things.
This one has a lighter touch, there’s some romance and no brain eating.
It plays like a riff on “Ocean’s Eleven.” At two hours it feels slightly long but Schweighöfer is an agreeable presence, adept at the character’s slapstick as well as the conveying the passion for his love interest (no spoilers here!).
The result is an unexpectedly fun, action-packed movie gives new life to “Army of the Dead’s” most interesting character.
