Tag: Robert De Niro

One Robert, many facets

Posted on by victorfraga

An actor, producer, and director, Robert De Niro has been a familar face on the silver screen since The Godfather, Part II (Francis Ford Coppola), 1974, a springboard for the future legend of the world cinematography. With all imaginable and unimaginable awards – two Academy Awards, Golden Globe Award, Cecil B. DeMille Award, Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, etc. – and a Presidential Medal of Freedom from U.S. President Barack Obama in 2016, De Niro is a success guarantee for any movie he appears in.

But what impresses the most is that the 77-year-old cinematic tough guy isn’t going to retire at all, being convinced making films and acting as long as you can is the best you can do. As he put it after Dirty Grandpa Dan Mazer, 2016): “I always say, the next thing is grandfathers, then great-grandfathers, then great-great-great grandfathers, so who knows. I’ll go as long as I can. The projects are different but for me all good in different ways.”

And it’s not just all talking – yet another hard evidence of the relentlessness of De Niro is scheduled to hit the screens in the spring of 2022, the movie called Wash Me in the River, an action thriller directed by Randall Emmett. Now, are there any doubts about its potential? The world will watch it agape! And it’s even better that you can sneak peek into the future picture thanks to Aleksandra Maj, a movie lover and a gambling expert from KasynoHEX, who has dug out some juicy details on the upcoming movie.

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A washed down spring

Wash Me in the River will open in theatres in Norther America in spring of 2022, with European dates to follow. The film was picked up by Avenue, the distribution arm of Highland Film Group, and sold to Easter Europe, UK, Germany, France, New Zealand, India, South Africa, Australia, Russia, Portugal, Greece, and Taiwan. According to the Highland Film Group CEO, Arianne Fisher, ”The market response to the film has been remarkable! Randall has succeeded in directing a very commercial film with a strong artistic vision that our buyers have fully embraced. Our trusted international partners had their eyes on the film for some time now, so being able to wrap principal photography with such a stellar cast amid the pandemic is something we are very proud of.”

The snapshots from the movie are already available on the web, the most popular one depicting Robert De Niro and Jack Huston in action in the surroundings resembling a jungle. De Niro plays a cop pursuing a drug addict seeking revenge for the death of his fiancé. Willa Fitzgerald, Machine Gun Kelly, John Malkovich, Quavo, and Taylor Kitsch are also a part of the picture, but it’s De Niro that most are waiting to see in action again. As Quavo acknowledged to Billboard, ”It’s just an honour to be on the screen with Robert De Niro. I’m just blessed and I can’t wait for y’all to see it. I couldn’t wait to tell my Mom dukes that I’m gonna be on the screen and kicked it with him. He’s a nice dude.”

The director of the movie, Randall Emmett, is exuding confidence: “I couldn’t be more excited to work with Bob again after many collaborations, including The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019) as a producer. I’m so grateful that he is supporting me as a filmmaker now. Colson was always my first choice to play the lead in the movie and John has been an icon of mine since childhood. Having them both attached with Bob is a dream come true.”

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The De Niro lowdown

Not to idle while anticipating for Wash Me in the River, you might want to re-watch one of the staples. Here’s a list of the best films starring Robert De Niro

1. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976):

There might be some corny rags-to-riches stories out there, but not this undying classic, which elevates an average taxi driver to a hero ran.

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2. Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980):

In the age when bloggers are earning more in the ring than professional boxers, it might be nostalgic to plunge into the old-school world of rage, jealousy, and self-destruction. Probably the most famous film starring De Niro, Raging Bull is an absolute beast.

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3. Casino Royale (Martin Campbell, 2006).

Now that you have access to classy online gambling platforms like Betsafe, you might know more about gambling than most people back in 2006 – and you might even mock the blunders of the movie – but that doesn’t take away from the fact that Casino Royale is a breathtaking performance of sharp gambling minds and a must-watch movie for casino games lovers.

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Only about half a year left for your favourite charter to enliven the screen, and it must be worth waiting for!

Joker

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

Arthur Fleck lives in a cramped apartment with his ageing single parent mother. He dreams of being a successful comedian. They regularly watch the nightly Murray Franklin Show on TV together. One time Arthur was on the show in the audience and was a big hit as a heckler. Later, a video recording of him doing an act in a club, described by Murray as proving you can’t be funny just by laughing, gets such a strong audience reaction that he’s invited as a guest on the show.

There’s such a lot going on in this film that you could omit certain elements and write a number of very different – but accurate – synopses. One would involve rich entrepreneur Thomas Wayne running for mayor, believing that any poor person can improve their lot just by trying harder, inspiring a Gotham-wide protest which culminates in anarchic riots by people wearing clown masks. Another would involve Arthur’s being mugged by a gang of youths, being given a gun by fellow clown Randall (Glenn Fleshler), shooting three well-heeled but seriously out of order suits on the subway and becoming a serial murderer who brands himself Joker on prime time TV. A third would involve a vulnerable woman being taken advantage of by a predatory male, with terrible consequences in the fullness of time. And so on.

Just as Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan, 2005) spent much of its running length on Bruce Wayne before he became Batman, so Joker is a film about Arthur Fleck before he became Joker. Joaquin Phoenix completely owns the character with his finely nuanced performance which might be reasonably said to put him in the same class as Robert De Niro.

As it happens, De Niro here gives a performance in a bit part that, apart from its short time onscreen, is up there with his great screen roles. As Murray Franklin he plays a talk show host, so comparisons with The King Of Comedy (Martin Scorsese, 1982 – like this film, not in fact a comedy) are inevitable. They’re two very different films, but would make for a great double bill with the smaller scale The King Of Comedy playing first. Rep cinema programmers please take note.

There seems to be a racial undercurrent in that numerous people with whom Arthur communicates who seem to actually listen to him in the course of his everyday life are black, including his love interest in the form of Sophie (Zazie Beetz), the single parent mum in the apartment next door. The only white person Arthur feels really listens to him is a dwarf named Gary (Leigh Gill).

The film is extremely violent in places, though it never descends to the callousness of Making A Pencil Disappear in The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008). That said, and even though it is effectively a Batman spin-off, its win at Venice may bring in a wider audience than your average DC superhero movie.

Sadly, it loses half a star for the bad decision to include a Gary Glitter song on its soundtrack. But otherwise, there is a remarkable, melancholy score. Indeed, everything else here is equally remarkable. (I would use the word ‘masterpiece’ were it not for the Glitter blunder.)

Joker is out in the UK on Friday, October 4th. On Amazon Prime in March. On Netflix on February 3rd, 2021.

Joker is in our list of Top 10 dirtiest films of 2019.

The Deer Hunter

Posted on by Jeremy Clarke

Russian roulette. You put a bullet in the chamber of a revolver. You spin the chamber. You put the barrel to your head and pull the trigger. The chance is one in six you shoot yourself. Theoretically, the chamber containing the bullet is the heaviest, so that sinks to the bottom and you’re emptying an already empty chamber. But that’s not always the case. Also, if the spin is arbitrarily stopped, your chance is definitely one in six.

Russian roulette is about as dirty a pastime as you can imagine. Especially if players are not taking part of their own free will and if spectators are gambling money on the game. Games in which the participants are gambling their very lives.

Games of Russian roulette take centre stage in The Deer Hunter and function as its central metaphor. It’s a series of snapshots from the lives of a group of Pennsylvania steelworkers who enlist in the Vietnam War.

In the first hour, Michael (Robert De Niro), Nick (Christopher Walken) and Steven (John Savage) leave their factory workplace and, prior to shipping out to ‘nam, they attend Steven’s wedding and party then go on a deer hunting trip.

Surprisingly, the wedding party seems to take up the best part of the first hour. It’s unclear how much is scripted and how much improvised but Cimino is clearly fascinated by setting up such scenes for the camera and letting them play out with actors. These scenes feel at once well prepared and open to anything that happens on camera, lending them a convincing realism.

If both wedding party and deer hunt showcase a degree of male horseplay, the hunt also hones an aspect of Michael/De Niro who by the end of the film has emerged as its main protagonist. As far as the hunt goes, Michael takes only one of his friends seriously: Nick. Certainly not Stan (John Cazale) who wants to borrow Michael’s spare pair of boots having forgotten to bring his own.

Even so, Michael goes off on his own to hunt and shoot a deer, determined to do so with a single shot. And he succeeds. The single shot anticipates the subsequent Russian roulette where a single shot decides a participant’s fate.

About an hour and 10 minutes in, just when you’re wondering why anyone should refer to this as a war film aside from its young men about to go to war theme, an edit abruptly cuts to the Vietnam War. Michael is lying hidden in the dirt as an enemy soldier opens a trap door hiding terrified villagers and tosses in a grenade. At once shrewd and possessed of a righteous indignation, Michael is soon wielding a flamethrower against the enemy. After which the rest of his unit, including Nick and Steven, show up.

Another cut and the three are held prisoner waist deep in water below a bamboo hut on stilts above a river. Steven is not coping well. In the hut above, other prisoners play Russian roulette at gunpoint for their captors’ amusement and gambling bets. Keeping his head, Michael devises a plan to get three bullets put into the revolver for the game as the trios only possible hope of escape.

In line with De Niro’s physicality and commanding presence – he’d already played three of his great Scorsese roles Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976) and New York, New York (1977) plus Coppola’s The Godfather: Part II (1974) – he does indeed break the trio out in a tense escape sequence.

In the 1970s, a new De Niro film was a cultural event. He articulated the emotional arc of a generation and you had to see it, at least if you were male. This ceased to be the case somewhere in the 1980s. It’s hard to think of an actor (male or female) since for whom this is true to the same degree.

Michael/De Niro takes centre stage in further sequences in Saigon and Pittsburg. Nick disappears into Saigon’s dangerous and shady Russian roulette gambling netherworld under the patronage of a mysterious, enigmatic French promoter (real life Bangkok restaurateur Pierre Segui) while Steven has been reduced to life in a wheelchair in a military nursing home. Peter Zinner’s groundbreaking editing means that Nick/Walken’s slow personality disintegration is fed to us in devastatingly effective bursts.

A Pittsburgh subplot also develops Nick’s girlfriend who becomes involved with Michael when he returns but Nick does not. She’s brilliantly played by Meryl Streep who turns a minor bit part into something very special indeed.

Russian roulette not only causes Steven’s trauma and Nick’s disappearance but also affects Michael’s attitude to the world around him. Back in Pittsburgh, he avoids a ‘welcome home’ party. He goes hunting again but can’t bring himself to shoot a deer. He’s clearly not the “man” he once was. Whether this is good or bad is open to debate – perhaps that’s part of what makes this such a great film.

The lethal game provides a wider metaphor too. The war kills and damages people at random. But perhaps life as a steel mill worker isn’t so good either, otherwise why would enlisting in a war seem such a good idea? Michael talks about shooting the deer with “only one shot”, but in the Russian roulette scenes “only one shot” keeps coming again and again until it kills someone. War is about lots of “only one shot”s one after another. It’s also the case in a wider sense, outside the war context, that you only get one shot at life but life can take as many shots as it wants at you and any one of them could prove fatal.

It may be 40 years old and ostensibly about the Vietnam War, but The Deer Hunter actually tackles deeper issues – not only how the horror of war changes people but also how people deal with their lot in life generally. Made in 1978, it looks as fresh today as it did on its original release. A beautifully judged, dirty masterpiece.

The Deer Hunter is back out in the UK in a 4K restoration on Wednesday, July 4th. Watch the film trailer below: