Review Roundup: Lockout, The Raid: Redemption and Goon

I have seen three new movies in the past week, and they all have very little in common with the exception of one thing: I liked them, but I don’t have a lot to say about them. So here I will give you three short reviews in one blog post. Here are some brief thoughts on Lockout, The Raid: Redemption and Goon.

Lockup

Dir: James Mather and Stephen St. Leger

The new sci-fi thriller Lockout is ridiculous in so many ways that one begins to lose count. For starters, it’s about Guy Pearce infiltrating a space jail. Yet one of the most ridiculous aspects of the film is that it has absolutely no respect for the audience’s intelligence. Whenever a new character or setting is introduced, a subtitle appears that only gives the name but also that person or place’s relationship with everything else. This is unlike most films that, yaknow, just let the audience figure this all out for themselves. Yet this tendency to spoon-feed only adds to the film’s considerable idiotic charm. There’s no mistaking it for art, or even solid filmmaking, but it hits most of my sweet spots when it comes to cinematic junk food.

Pearce plays Snow, an ex-CIA agent accused of a crime he didn’t commit. He is sentenced to do time on MS:One, a maximum-security prison… in space. Before he gets there, a riot starts while the President’s daughter (Maggie Grace) is on board. Snow is recruited to go on board by himself and rescue her, and while there he hopes to find evidence that may solve his own problems. All this comes after we are introduced to Snow via a car chase with some of shoddiest CGI work I’ve seen since Birdemic: Shock and Terror. While the movie is on Earth, it looks less a like a convincing futuristic America and more like a Perfect Dark level.

This sloppiness becomes something of a virtue; perhaps because of how sincere the film is about everything. It never even pretends to know how absurd the space jail concept is, and the film is all the better for it. The last thing Lockout needs is self-awareness, and there’s already plenty of snark coming from the mouth of Snow, who is little more than a wisecrack machine. I can’t tell if Pearce is having the time of his life or if he’s bored out of his mind, but the good thing is that his performance adds plenty of life to the proceedings. There’s also some memorable work done by Joseph Gilgun, who plays one of the primary criminals set loose during the riot. While his character is a one-dimensional nutcase sporting the “murderous Travis Bickle” look, he goes so over the top with it that it fits quite well into Lockout’s universe. Writer/directors James Mather and Stephen St. Leger may not be the greatest filmmakers, but considering the resources they were able to turn their major debut into solid dumb-as-nails fun.

Grade: B

The Raid: Redemption

Dir: Gareth Evans

Speaking of dumb-as-nails fun, The Raid: Redemption has been heralded by many as the latest cult sensation. It’s nothing more than 100 minutes of punching, stabbing, shooting, kicking and more with no regard for character, plot, or pretty much anything. It hits the ground running and never looks back, and this considerable boldness has garnered tons of rave reviews and a select few pans from the likes of Roger Ebert. I can see both sides of the debate. If you want nothing more than a unique, insanely well-executed and bloody thrill ride, The Raid: Redemption will be incredibly satisfying. If you want to see an actual movie, with stories and memorable characters and subtext, then you’re going to feel like you were bludgeoned to death. This film might as well be called Not For Everyone: The Movie.

However, when it’s good it is really good. The Raid: Redemption is a martial arts film starring martial artists first and actors second. Since we are never asked to care about anyone or anything, not a whole lot is required of the performers besides sequences of insane physical skill. And boy, no other movie in existence has done a better job of convincing me that I am out of shape. The combat scenes are unassisted by CGI or well-placed wires. The thrill comes from the fact that we’re seeing actual human beings duke it out, and each hit feels utterly real and brutal. The Raid: Redemption does not skimp on the bloodshed either; this is one of the most violent movies I’ve seen in quite some time.

There’s a definite video game feel to the film, as the entire film takes place in a single apartment block and our heroes move from floor to floor in search of an infamous gangster. There’s also the matter of just how thin a movie can be and still be worthwhile; as Ebert argued in his review, should we be so enthused by all this brutality if it isn’t in service of anything important? I wrestled with that throughout the film. I was completely detached from The Raid on an emotional level, yet endlessly impressed on a technical and stunt level. The good ultimately wins out, for Gareth Evans was able to make an action film that looks and feels unlike just about every other action film out there. Let’s hope next time he throws a little more meat on the bone, but for right now The Raid: Redemption is a striking breakthrough.

Grade: B

P.S. – I’ve no idea why the American distributor decided to add the “Redemption” subtitle. There’s not a whole lot of redeeming going on.

Goon

Dir: Michael Dowse

Seann William Scott has carved out a niche in Hollywood as the brazenly crude best friend; a reputation facilitated by his work as Stifler in the American Pie movies. It also helps that he has the physicality of such a character, as someone with that face would rarely be an academic. However, the new hockey comedy Goon makes the case that maybe we can start casting Seann William Scott in roles that don’t require him to emcee a wet t-shirt contest. His character Doug Glatt is an up-and-coming hockey enforcer—a player that doesn’t do a lot of scoring but does a lot of hitting—yet he’s not necessarily the thug you think he is. He’s just a dumb, sweet guy trying to find a place in the world. Turns out that place involves the incessant use of his fists.

Of course, he had been using his fists for some time anyway. Before his hockey career begins, Doug works as a bouncer at a local bar. This changes when he beats the crap out of a player that runs into the stands and he becomes a viral sensation. When he’s eventually signed by the minor league Halifax Highlanders, he learns how to skate and then is asked to simply go out there and beat the crap out of people. He doesn’t get any real charge out of it. It’s just his job, and he wants desperately to be good at it. Along the way he befriends the underachieving Xavier Laflamme (Marc-Andre Grondin) and begins a relationship with Eva (Alison Pill). The latter is mostly there because the movie thinks it needs a love interest, and the resulting character is so thinly drawn that even she doesn’t seem confident as to who she is from moment to moment.

It isn’t all that funny a movie, necessarily, but it’s tremendously winning thanks to a magnificent performance from Seann William Scott. The film lives and dies by his character, and the audience can’t help but root for this big oaf that we have come to know. Goon was directed by Michael Dowse from a script by Jay Baruchel (who stars as Doug’s profane best friend) and Evan Goldberg, and the filmmaking becomes downright triumphant in the final scene. I don’t think I’m spoiling much by saying that the movie all leads up to one big fight between Doug and a legendary enforcer played by Live Schreiber, but when that moment comes I was blindsided by how brilliantly it was handled. This movie takes the violence of the game relatively seriously, and through the work of Scott and others it paints enforcers as actual human beings rather than one-dimensional, well, goons. Players like Doug Glatt are among the least-respected men in the game, but if you’ve got one on your team you’ll love them to death.

Grade: B+