Non-Stop. A review and a look at the birth of the modern retro action thriller

I like the Taken movies. No, scratch that, I fucking love those movies. Fastpaced action, condense storytelling and one of the best on screen action heroes of this millenia.

Bryan Mills is both the best and the worst dads in the world. He is overbearing and clingy, and he doesn't realise that his "little girl" is actually a grown up... oh well, a teenager. At the same time he travels the world, puts hus life in danger and kills over 30 people in cold blood, all for his "little girl".

So why am I talking about Taken when I should be talking about Non-stop?
Well, without Taken there wouldn't have been a Non-stop.

Taken is, on paper, nothing but yet another Van Damme or Segal movie. An ex-superagent wants to reconnect with his somewhat estranged daughter. Well, he's in luck (sort of), she gets kidnapped and he only have 48 hours to find her. With his superagent detective skills and a fair amount of excessive force, he battles his way through Paris and finally finds his daughter in the nick of time.

With a little imagination this could actually be mistaken for Schwarzeneggers classic Commando or Van Dammes Die hard wanna-be Sudden death (both very enjoyable action flicks) except for one major difference; Liam Neeson. Neeson is a major actor, I'm not saying JCVD or the terminator are not major actors, but we can all agree that Liam Neeson is in a whole other league.
Casting Liam Neeson as Bryan Mills transformed Taken from a silly but entertaining 90 minutes into a gritty, serious action thriller that portrays a crime that happens all the time in the real world that we might not be aware is that serious.

Neesons acting skills elevated the movie out of the B-action swamp and turned it into a world wide sensation, and thus a new genre of action movies was born.

In rapid sucsession, Liam Neeson appeared in several action and thrillers.
Unknown, The A-team, The grey and of course taken 2. They were all B-movie material (The grey is the exception. That movie is actually an amazing movie) that were graced by the presence of a great actor. This made the rest of the cast&crew work extra hard to make the movie better than it should have been.

I'm probably generalising a bit. A-team woild probably have been awesome even if Neeson didn't play Hannibal.

Of course, by becoming a household name among action fans, Neesons earlier movies have been somewhat over shadowed. Movies like Schindlers list and Kinsey that really made use of his acting skills. But can never forget that it was because of these earlier performances that we reacted the way we did when Taken came out. That a serious actor (with a somewhat tarnished rep after a certain Sci-fi epic) would take on a silly action movie and actually make it good.

Todays audience will always think of Bryan Mills when they hear the name Liam Neeson, while the somewhat older audience might think of Rob Roy, Oscar Schindler or even Qui-Gon Jinn. But some of us will remember how Liam Neeson transformed himself from actor to the greatest actionhero of the second millenia.


So what about Non-stop? Any good?

It's basicly taken 3 (that one is actually coming next year) and Neeson once again saves a kind of lackluster thriller and makes it enjoyable by simply being awesome at what he does. apart from a few silly twists and a way to over the top ending, both the writers and the director have made decent enough efforts to make a good movie.

The quiet roar

It's not very often that a movie opens with a disclaimer, saying that in order to enjoy this film, you need to stop thinking. Don't try to understand or analyze, just relax and go along with what ever is happening.

For the first 20 minutes or so I tried this, and what I experienced was something quite unique. I wasn't watching a movie, I was watching a painting come alive before my eyes.

Magical vistas, framed by a gentle camera in constant motion and a silence that made you deaf. It was truly beautiful. After after a while I had to turn on my brain though, I realised that I had stopped breathing, and that's when the spell was broken.


The quiet roar is a relationship drama with hints of Sci-Fi. It explores the notion of coming to terms with ones past in the face of death, or rather accepting your fate at the end of your life. Trying to understand past choices and finding the reason, or accepting the outcome of those choices. A very heavy bunch of subjects that could easily be a very interesting bunch of subjects when given the specific ingredients they require.
The quiet roar fails at this. Not for the obvious reasons. The director, and writer, Fredrik Hellström has chosen to almost completely ignore the story he has written and focuses on the beauty of the swedish nature (a constant backdrop to the dreamy cinematography) and in the 77 minutes the film lasts, maybe 15 minutes is spent on the story and characters.

To what supposed effect he makes these choices, I don't know. The final product falls very ahort of the masterpiece it could have been. What we are left with is a hauntingly beautiful movie (I teared up halfway through because of the wonderful landscapes) that is almost totally devoid of... well, anything.

Eva-Britt Strandberg does the most with what little material she is handed. A few times she is actually very good and managea to bring some very needed humanity to the movie. The other actors do a decent to half assed job at portraying the shallow and very alien characters that inhabit the script.


The quiet roar wasn't a bad movie, but it wasn't very good either. It had some very good moments but they weren't enough to balance out the emptiness.


The quiet roar... actually a very fitting name now that I think about it.

Noah

Before we begin I want to clarify that I will be referring to God as "he". Why? Because her is three letters and he is two. I'm lazy.


I am not a religious person. The closest thing I have to a god is probably some writer or director that I admire (don't want to play favourites but Christopher Nolan and maybe Frank Herbert).

I have read the bible, not cover to cover but the most popular of stories. Creation, Adam and Eve, Jonah and the whale. The one about the guy...Jesus something. All of these stories that a lot of people found helpful and important I never really cared for, but there was ome that I actually really liked and that was the one about Noah and the ark.

It had adventure, a big ass boat and truckloads (Arkloads?) of animals, everything a young boy likes. Even if the actual message never really made its way into my brain, I haf a blast reading it, and now in my adult life I still don't actually get the whole destroying the world thing. God, to me, seems to be a spoiled child with way to much power. He sits in his big ass sandbox and builds this massive and complex sandcastle, uäbut as soon as something isn't quite working the way he wants it to, he smashes the whole thing like nothing and starts over... bad example.

He has this huge and awesome fishtank with so many different fish in it, but as soon as the water starts filling up with algae and fish start dying, he just flushes the whole thing and buys new fish...that's better.
He does however save his favourite fish and by doing so, this fish gets a sense of entitlement.
The fish starts telling people what to do and sets rules by his own volition...damnit.

Ok, so the fish thing doesn't really work. Fish don't really have the mental capacity to be selfrighteous bastards. What I am trying to say is that by singleing out Noah as his protogé, God is granting one individual with the power of a god. Granted, he does have to do Gods bidding, but he is given way more power than any one individual should have.

The concept of megalommania is however all to foreign to God since he never had to answer for his behaviour. In essence, God is not fit to handle the reaponibilities of a god. Many of you will probably argue that God is not human and therefore can't make any mistakes, that he has always been wise and all knowing. But the Bible is full of examples of him fucking up and fixing it by basicly cheating (Sodom and Gomorrah) and sometimes he just plain mean (Adam and Eve).

All of these stories have one common denominator except for god, and that is the human race. To paraphrase Rust Kohle

We are a mistake. We obviously doesn't fit in to gods plan, since we keep ruinig everything and he keeps punishing us. In the Noah story he had the chance to get rid of all of us but instead he saved a a few of us and look where we are now...

It's true like they say, God works in mysterious ways and god is certainly not human. He lacks the key traits that make one human. Humility and the ability to learn from his mistakes, and that is why he will have to smash his sandcastle and drain his fishtank over and over again.

But enough about that, how was the movie?
Pretty good. Cool effects and som pretty nifty camerawork. Aronofsky seemed a little scared of offending either side of the religious debate so Noah must be one of the most ambigious movie based on a biblical tale I have ever seen.

Jennifer connely overdid it in a few scenes and Emma watson gave the performance of her lifetime. Russel Crow was Russel Crow, for better or for worse wich ever you prefer.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake eater part two

This is the second part of my Snake eater review and the second part in my series called The Metal gear chronicles.

In last weeks part we talked about the first attempt to rescue the Sovjet researcher called Sokolov, and how that turned in to a much more dangerous and critical mission. It ended with Snake entering Colonel Volgins massive base "Groznyj Grad" in search for his targets.



Surprisingly, Groznyj Grad is so vast that security can't cover it all. Snake easily makes his way to the facility where EVA said they were holding Sokolov, but to get in there you need special clearence. This comes in the form of a specific uniform. Captain Raikov Raidenovichs uniform. Raikov is Colonel Volgins "special friend" and he is the only one with all access in Groznyj Grad.

Snake acuires Raikovs uniform and stuffs his sedated body in a locker. He makes his way to Sokolov, and there he sees him talking to EVA. But EVA is disguised as Tanya, her cover identity. Sokolov hands her a microfilm containing all the excersise data from the Shagohod. EVA leaves and Snake moves in to get Sokolov but just as they are about to leave, Volgin enters. He quckly realises that Snake is wearing Raikovs uniform and after that it all goes black.
Snake wakes up. He is blindfolded and tied up, and all he can hear is Volgin torturing Sokolov, asking him where the data is, who's the spy. Sokolov only screams in pain and after a while he stops completely. The blindfold comes of and in the room is Volgin, EVA, The Boss and a GRU operative known as Ocelot. Snake remember him as the leader of the soldiers that have been chasing him the whole time. Volgin starts beating Snake, asking him how much the CIA really knows, what his mission is. The Boss tells Volgin it's no use. That Snake has been trained not to break, by her. He continues to hit him until a small tracking device falls of Snake. The Boss admit to have put it there, Volgins gets suspicious and asks her to cut out Snakes eyes as a sign of total loyalty.
Just as she is about to, EVA/Tanya stops her. This now makes Ocelot suspicious. He calls EVA out as the spy and to test her he forces a form of russian roulette on her. Just as the bullet is about to go off, snake pushes EVA out of the way. The bullet rips open his right eye. Volgin leaves, as do Ocelot. The Boss shoots Snake in the leg and and puts the gun in the waist of his pants and tells him to run.

Snake wakes up some time later in a jail cell. He manages to escape by jumping down a waterfall (Fugutive style) and lands in the river. After a near death experience, he meets up with EVA who helps him with his wounds.
Now that Sokolov is dead, the mission is simple. Destroy the Shagohod and kill Volgin. Snake heads back to Groznyj Grad and doesn't waste time. He places C3 explosives all around the Shagohod and starts the timer, but then he is caught by Volgin, The Boss and Ocelot. Tanya/EVA is there as well With the timer ticking Volgin is challenging Snake to a fair chance at survival, a fistfight. Right before they begin, The Biss escorts EVA /Tanya away from there. Snake see The Boss handing EVA/Tanya something.

Snake easily defeats Volgin,  and with only seconds left on the timer he escapes the hangar.  As he watches the whole facility go up in flames, he notices something moving in the fire. It's the Shagohod,  Volgin somehow survived and is now gunning for snake in a jetpowered supertank. Out of nowhere EVA shows up on a motorcycle. Snake jumps in the sidecart and they escape with the Shagohod on their heels.

In a final showdown, Snake destroys the Shagohod and Volgin is struck by lightning and dies in the wreckage of his own "ultimate deterrent".
The end is is finally in sight and EVA and Snake make it to the escapecraft EVA had planned, but before they leave, Snake have one more objective.

In the middle of a meadow, filled with white flowers, The Boss tells Snake why she defected. She was always loyal to the mission,  it was the enemies who changed. She had become pregnant Years prior to this,  but the military had taken the baby and used it as leverage to make her kill one of her own. The sorrow, of COBRA unit, who was also the father of the child.

A emotional battle begins, but in the end, The Boss forces Snake to end it by shooting her.

EVA and Snake board the plane and head for Alaska. There they spend a night together. Snake lets himself go for the first time and he feels alive for the first time in years. When he wakes up the morning after, EVA is gone. All that is left us a tape with a message on it. EVA tells snake that she was actually not an American spy.  She was working for the Chinese government all along. Her mission was to find the location of the philosophers legacy and that The Boss had given her the location there in the hangar. The Boss had never betrayed America. She was given orders to defect so as to buy her way into Volgins closest circle and find the Philosophers legacy. She sacrificed everything for the mission, her reputation, her rank, her freedom. All for the good of The American people.

Snake returns to Washington where he is awarded the title of Big Boss by the President. Just as he is about to leave, he sees Ocelot peeking in through a window and smiling at him. He shakes it of and heads for the soldiers cemetary. He walks up to a gravestone and places The Bosses gun and some white lillies on the grave, and as a single tear rolls down his cheek he salutes.


                           ROLL CREDITDS



After the credits we hear someone making a phone call. Someone on the other line answers and Ocelot speaks. He tells this person that the threat has been neutralised and that Khuschev is finished and that this person is now at the helm ov the Sovjet union. He hangs up and makes another call. This time to an American.  It seems he had been the real American spy all along. He had made sure that the location EVA had recieved from The Boss was fake, and the real location was now in the hands of America. He ends the conversation with the words "with this money the Philosophers can rise again, even if it's only half. Of course I am always at the disposal of the CIA...Mr director"


And so ends the first story in The Metal Gear chronicles. The next time we will be discussing how Snake, now Big Boss, was kidnapped by his own people for the purpose of finding the other half of the Philosophers legacy,  in Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops.