Tag: Matt Damon

Le Mans ’66 (aka Ford v Ferrari)

Posted on by victorfraga

Get ready for a blast. All 152 minutes of Le Mans ’66 unravel with the vigour of a naturally aspirated V8 thrashing at 7,000rpm. It’s a gas-soaked fable of raw talent and passion battling against the egotistical meddling of inherited privilege and corporate mediocrity. It’s Amadeus (Milos Foreman, 1984) for petrol heads.

It tells the story of the Ford Motor Company’s attempt to beat Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966. The project was led by Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon), the legendary automaker, and Ken Miles (Christian Bale), the Brummie former tank commander who Shelby described as “one of the best sport car drivers in America”.

This isn’t some special interest picture though, far from it. The script, whilst slightly formulaic, packages the obsession, jealousy and in fighting of Ford’s daunting effort with an irresistible energy. It is a deft combination of polished spectacle and charismatic performances.

Especially charismatic is the dynamic between Shelby and Miles. While Shelby was a stand-up Texan with a charming southern drawl, Miles was a cantankerous perfectionist who said exactly as he pleased, no matter who he was talking to.

Naturally, Miles’s personality was not conducive to success amongst the unctuous empty suits of Ford, but Shelby believed in Miles’s natural, difficult talent. He knew that his abrasive style of teamwork – and almost sixth sense for automotive performance – could get the very best out of the GT40, the 7.0L beast that would become a legend.

Director James Mangold and the writing team manage to extract maximum humour out of this dynamic without falling into caricature. And all of this is skilfully interpreted by Damon and Bale, who play off each other with explosive panache.

Another memorable turn comes from Tracy Letts, who must have thoroughly enjoyed his unflattering portrayal of Henry Ford II, the CEO of Ford Motor Company from 1945 – 1980. Letts plays him as the proverbial executive bully, treating everyone with an obnoxious high-handed attitude. It’s unclear whether this portrayal is fair, but it’s quite fun to watch.

Almost as unpleasant is Leo Bebee (Josh Lucas), the Director of Special Vehicles. With Henry Ford II as the villain of the piece, Bebee is the sycophant, the minion. Lucas, who gave a memorably cocky turn as blowhard Craig McDermott in American Psycho (Mary Harron, 2000), proves this particular adeptness once again, especially with that smarmy grin.

However, as enjoyable as these performances may be, the animus between Shelby, Miles and the Ford executives does have a whiff of biopic formula, which typically calls for the crowbarring of conflict to stir the drama. As a casual observer, I am not one to comment on veracity – that’s best left to the spirited debate amongst motorsport enthusiasts, for whom the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966 is particularly contentious.

Le Mans ’66 is in cinemas across the UK on Friday, November 15th. On Disney+ on Friday, April 15th. Also available on other platforms.

The key talking points from John Dahl’s Rounders

Posted on by victorfraga

Director John Dahl’s 1998 exploration of the private, underground clubs dedicated to high-stakes poker in New York City captured the imagination of poker fans around the world. Many of today’s professional poker stars cited Rounders as one of the main reasons they got into the game, with Dahl’s depiction of the age-old card game proving a cult hit, scooping almost $23 million at the box office. A “rounder” is someone that ventures from city to city in search of high-stakes poker games, and this perfectly describes the film’s two central characters, Mike McDermott (Matt Damon, pictured below) and Lester “Worm” Murphy (Edward Norton).

In my humble opinion, Rounders is a film that’s up there with some of the dirtiest films in recent memory. It excites and makes you empathise with Mike McDermott in equal measure. It contains moments of high drama, due mostly to the sterling acting from John Malkovich, who plays Russian mobster Teddy “KGB.” It also contains moments of hilarity that are up there with some of the funniest themed scenes in film. However, if you delve even deeper, you can get a sense of several common themes that run through the heart of this gritty movie.

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You have to play the hand you’re dealt (in life and on the table)

It’s one of the most popular taglines from Rounders, and it is somewhat apt considering Mike is left having to clean up Worm’s mess created by burying his head in the sand regarding his debts to Teddy “KGB.” Mike is proactive in trying to clear Worm’s debt by setting up a host of home games around New York City to try and help him win back some money to pay off the debts built up prior to Worm’s time in jail. Mike’s stance is admirable, as he puts everything on the line — his law degree and his relationship with girlfriend Jo (Gretchen Mol) — to resolve his old friend’s financial situation.

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The importance of doing what makes you happy

Of course, it helped Worm’s cause that Mike enjoyed the buzz of playing poker more than anything else in life. Mike had always dreamed of having a bankroll that he could take to Las Vegas to live and play professionally and win the World Series of Poker Main Event. Despite harboring those aspirations, Mike signed up to law school and attempted to lead a normal life by studying and holding down a steady relationship, but there was still a void in Mike’s life that needed filling. In helping out Worm in his hour of need, Mike also helped himself to feel alive again and to realize the importance of doing what makes him happy — taking his “three stacks of high society” to Las Vegas and quitting law school.

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On the flip side: the fragility of relationships

Mike’s relationships in the film are quite fragile and volatile, both with his male and female friends. His friendship with also Worm is turbulent, particularly when he finds out Worm has been playing poker on Mike’s credit behind his back. It makes him question the legitimacy of their friendship, but the pair’s shared thirst for thrills at the poker table is what keeps their relationship together by a thread. Mike’s love interest, Jo, had been a calming influence on Mike since packing up poker and focusing on his law degree. However, by not doing what made him happy, Mike quickly began to resent Jo and his law pursuits, resulting in his decision to break Jo’s heart and leave New York for Sin City.

Downsizing

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

This being a Hollywood movie, you may find yourself worrying you’re at the right film when it starts off with a Norwegian scientist in a lab. No matter: it soon goes through momentous discovery to big international conference where one Norwegian scientist takes to the stage and opens up a box to reveal another of his colleagues – who has been ‘downsized’ and is now a mere five inches tall. It’s the solution to too many people living on planet Earth with its finite and inadequate resources.

Cut to people watching this on TV in public spaces, among them occupational therapist Paul Safranek (that American everyman Matt Damon). He and his wife Audrey (Kristen Wiig) are currently experiencing budgetary problems and over the next few weeks and months they discover couples that they know who have ‘downsized’ and think it’s the best decision they ever made.

So the couple take a visit to Leisureland, a miniature resort where ‘downsized’ people live after the non-reversible procedure. They learn that if a full-sized person becomes downsized, the financial assets of an average income would turn from just about enough to get by to a millionaire’s income. They’re hooked, the paperwork is signed, the process undergone.

On the other side of the process, it all seems too good to be true, although Paul isn’t really sure if he fits. He is even less sure he likes his constantly partying, Serbian upstairs neighbour Dusan Mirkovic (Christoph Waltz) and his business partner Konrad (Udo Kier). And as Paul watches the TV news he learns there are global issues with the process too: people in repressive regimes are being downsized against their will, such as Vietnamese activist Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau). Who one day turns up as the head cleaning lady in charge of a small posse of cleaning ladies tidying up Dusan’s flat after one of his parties.

If this seemed initially like a utopian existence, Leisureland turns out to suffer from all the financial inequalities that beset other human societies: there are haves and have-nots. Tran takes Paul to her home in the hope that he can administer medicine to her seriously ill flat-mate – on a bus through a vast tunnel to outside the Leisureland complex where the poor live in substandard, run down blocks of flats. The narrative has stranger things to deliver still, as Dusan takes Konrad and the other two to visit the original downsized Norwegian colony…

Sadly, however, while downsizing is a visionary film brimming with radical concepts it’s equally an infuriating narrative exercise where potentially rich ideas, themes or characters suddenly appear only to disappear shortly afterwards before they can be fully explored. So for instance, the ill neighbour for whom Paul supplies inappropriate tablets which Tran gets her to ingest one week is gone when he visits the next week. What happened? “Oh, she died”, says Tran matter-of-factly. No shock, no grief, patently unbelievable. Something similar happens towards the end of the film when Paul, in an episode with the Norwegian scientists’ colony worthy of When Worlds Collide (Rudolph Maté, 1951), has to decide whether or not to accompany the departing colony members into a huge Brave New World deep underground.

Were it not for such serial errors of judgement, this could easily been the film of the year. It’s still worth seeing, though, despite its faults.

Downsizing is out in the UK on Wednesday, January 24th. Watch the film trailer below:

Suburbicon

Posted on by victorfraga

Most critics have slammed George Clooney’s latest directorial endeavour, which was universally described by Rotten Tomatoes as a “misfire”. And indeed the film is not without faults. But it’s not a complete disaster, either. Far from that. Despite some shortcomings in the script (which was penned by the Coen brothers) and in the acting, Suburbicon is still fun to watch. Perhaps most importantly, it’s a film with its heart at the place, and a witty take on American “suburban” or capitalistic values.

The film title refers to a supposedly peaceful and idyllic community with affordable homes, impeccable lawns and residents donning immaculate dresses and hairdos. The film opens with images as if taken from a hairy tale homes brochure. And the entire vintage has a charming vintage from the 1950s. It looks like the ultimate concretization of the American dream. George Clooney, however, begs to differ: the dreamlike world slowly descends into a nightmare, as locals become intoxicated with their very own petit bourgeois inclinations and racist views.

Gardner Lodge (Matt Damon) is the father of a small family in Suburbicon. One night, the home of the Lodge family is broken into by two sadistic robbers, who proceed to sedate the whole family and to kill the matriarch Rose. Gardner is left to raise his child Nicky (Noah Jupe) with Rose’s twin sister Margaret. Both sisters are played are Julianne Moore. It predictably turns out that Lodge’s relationship to Margaret is far more profound that initially revealed, and that he may have an obscure connection with the local mafia as well as vested interests in the death of his wife. And so the American dream begins to collapse.

Parallel to all this, a black family has moved next door, and they immediately encounter rabid racism from the neighbours. The community erects a fence around their house, shouts profanities and vandalises their property while flying the Confederate flag. The only viable connection between the black family and the white community is the friendship between Noah and their black son of about the same age.

The best moments of the film are with the savvy death insurance agent played by Oscar Isaac (pictured above), who suspects there’s something “fishy” with the claim. Isaac is witty and sadistic, and he finds a very clever way to deal with the situation.

The biggest problem with Suburbicon is that these two narrative strands (the Lodgers and the black family) neither tie together nor complement each other. In fact, they compete with each other. The film would have worked much better without the black family. The very last scene is an attempt to fix this, but it simply doesn’t work. You will you catch yourself thinking: “what the heck?”. Also, Nicky’s character evolves to become the only ray of hope and decency in the story, but Jupe’s performance isn’t strong enough to support such a central role.

Suburbicon is out in cinemas across the UK on Friday, November 24th.