Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I think Harry had a chance to meet this spy while he was in London. If this is who I think it is, then Harry had good things to say about the guy. The film he's here to discuss is currently struggling to find a title they're happy with (it was NO MAN'S LAND at one point, and is now called DEATH WATCH or even UNTITLED GREAT WAR PROJECT), but it's one I've had my eye on for a while now no matter what it's called. It stars both Jamie Bell (BILLY ELLIOTT himself) and Andy Serkis (the voice of Gollum), as well as a number of other young English actors. The writer/director, Michael Bassett, is someone I've chatted with a few times now, and he certainly has a love of genre. I know he's excited about this film, a supernatural thriller set in the trenches of WWI, and I was excited when this review showed up. It's harsh, and there's a major, major spoiler about the ending, but I'm leaving it in because it sounds like there's work that can be done to make this better than it is now. Here's hoping Working Title gives Michael the support to get this one right. Longfellow... you were saying?
"Death Watch" Review (SPOILERS)
The only real reason for this film's potential interest is the presence of the star of "Billy Elliot", Jamie Bell, in the main role - private Charlie Shakespeare (a piss-poor name probably designed to appeal to the American market). Directed by Michael J. Basset, whose only previous claim to fame was some involvement in series 4 of the God-awful excuse for a TV series, "B.U.G.S.", it is currently listed on the IMDB as "Untitled Great War Project". And yes, it is set during World War One, although whether it wants to be a war or a horror movie seems not to have been fully decided yet.
"The Western Front - 1917" - we are introduced to the small cast by close-ups and the actors' names, as the troops cower in a trench before the off. Private Shakespeare is a 16-year-old who lied about his age and has joined up. Just as he begins to realise he's not cut out for war, he's sent over the top. Witnessing his squad apparently get massacred all around him, he loses it, cowering in No Man's Land as a German machinegun mows down the British troops. Then we get the (as yet unfinished) titles.
Cut to Shakespeare's squad carrying one of their wounded through a wood, struggling to see against what appears to be mustard gas, but turns out to be simply thick fog (they've obviously watched "Sleepy Hollow" a few too many times - there it helped disguise the sets, here it simply underlines them). They come across a German trench, but the Hun are unconcerned about the arrival of the enemy, ranting about some unseen menace in their native tongue. Having dispatched the Germans, the squad settles in as their commander, Captain Jennings (Laurence Fox of the great Fox clan, most recently seen in "Gosford Park", although here he shows none of the talent of his Dad, James, or Uncle Edward), tries to work out where the hell they are and contact his superiors. They're lost and out of contact, perhaps deep behind enemy lines, and to top it all, the trenches they're in don't seem to lead anywhere but in circles. Exciting eh?
During the night, weird things start to happen, as the noise of battle is heard, scaring everyone (but the audience), and one of the soldiers gets separated, coming across three dead men wrapped in barbed wire, standing erect in a dead end trench. Then one of them comes to life (shock, horror) and grabs him. His friends find him dead, wrapped in barbed wire too, but the other lot have vanished. Cue loads more spooky shenanigans, as they all try to work out what the hell's going on, whilst refusing to leave the trench because their Captain has ordered them not to. The only sensible guy seems to be the Sergeant (who I recognised from somewhere, but couldn't place as he was doing such a good Sean Bean impersonation) and the medic, Doc Fairweather (Matthew Rhys, one of the few cast members to noticeably display any acting ability) but even they refuse to disobey orders.
In a typical "Alien" rip-off, the unseen menace (which seems to manifest itself largely via spooky battle noises, moving barbed wire, and some kind of underground thing which I assume will be cleared up in post-production) picks off most of the squad, sending most of them slowly insane, except for the Sergeant, the Doc, and Shakespeare (quite why they don't get driven potty isn't sufficiently explained).
Despite a VAST amount of overacting and insufficient characterisation, plus the inability of any of the cast to display any real emotion, there remains a fair amount of tension up until this point. The fact that there isn't even a single hint as to what is causing all this weird stuff to happen leads to the expectation of some major revelation. After the final confrontation between the Sergeant guy, Shakespeare, the Doc, and two of their squaddie pals who have gone utterly bonkers (which seems like it could be quite impressive once the CGI is in - as long as it's done well), only Shakespeare is left alive, and the whole film goes to shit. After being sucked into some kind of big hole that appears in the middle of a pile of (very plastic-looking) corpses, Shakespeare sees all his comrades in some kind of underground cave, has flashbacks of the battle at the start, and wakes to find out "it was all a dream" and he's still on the battlefield, wounded.
"IT WAS ALL A DREAM?" I mean, Jesus! No wonder the British Film Industry's in such a piss-poor condition if that's the best you can come up with. I think they meant the whole thing to be a metaphor - "Oh look! This violence is killing us! Isn't it terrible? War's bad, M'kay?" - but it has ended up an entirely unsatisfactory "Wizard of Oz"
This film had the potential, with better casting, a few dialogue touch-ups, a couple of extra scenes, and a totally different ending, to be a really good little supernatural thriller. The constant rain, fog, mud, and abundance of rotting corpses and rats create a great atmosphere for an "Alien"-style romp. The hints of "Hellraiser" or "Event Horizon" style Masochistic demon thingies thrown into this mix could also work well. The fact that it's set in a loosely "historical" setting, that is rendered pretty faithfully, and for the most part shot pretty well (there were no crew credits other than the director, but whoever it was did a decent enough job), adds to its possibilities.
However, I cannot state enough how trite and unoriginal the ending is, or how really awful Jamie Bell is as the film's apparent moral core. He might well be able to dance, but here he displays no acting ability whatsoever. He looks scared, he shouts, he screams. That's it. No emotional range at all. But then, that goes for the rest of them too. Stereotypes to a man, there is not a single interesting character among them, because none of them are developed beyond what we need to know - they're stereotypes.
I could go on and on. This film typifies what I hate about the British Film Industry. This is an interesting setting for the old supernatural thriller formula, and they ruin it. This film will fail at the box office, and the bigwigs at the Arts Council will think "OK, we can't do supernatural thrillers", and pump all their money into yet more attempts to recreate "Four Weddings and a Funeral" or "The Full Monty" (or if we're lucky, "Croupier" or "Sexy Beast" - but it took the USA to point out to us that those were good). We just can't tell what makes a good film anymore, and when we take a risk, like here, we bugger it up. This could have been a British "Brotherhood of the Wolf" - as it is, it's a British "Castle Freak".
Longfellow (and no, that's not a double entendre)
Thanks, man. I'll agree with him about the "it's just a dream" ending; oldest trick in the book, and all it does is piss me off as a viewer, every single stinking time I see it. Still... it sounds like the stuff that works could be tweaked into a nice little genre picture. That's certainly what I hope ends up happening.
And now if they could just figure out that title...
"Moriarty" out.
