Funeral in Berlin (Guy Hamilton, 1966)

Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) is sent on a new mission to get a Russian defector out of East Berlin.

What seems to be a tough assignment only gets more complicated when other parties become involved.

Will Palmer succeed?

Will Palmer survive?

Will Palmer care?

With Goldfinger director Guy Hamilton at the helm and most of the same production team, Funeral In Berlin may not have the uniqueness of its predecessor, but it is not a major step down.

In fact, there is much to recommend Funeral.

For one thing, Palmer is much funnier in this film - it might be a product of Guy Hamilton’s touch, but unlike his Bond movies the humor does not deflate the movie.

In some ways Funeral is even more of a traditional espionage story than Ipcress. Palmer’s mission is familiar Cold War stuff, and he is forced to juggle multiple agents with conflicting loyalties. 

The film falters slightly in the middle with a lot of double crossing and plot reveals, but makes up for it with a tense, atmospheric climax at the Berlin Wall.

As far as the new players, Oscar Homolka is the standout as the would-be defector, a Russian colonel who is in charge of security on the Berlin Wall. He  brings a welcome sense of fun to the proceedings.

Otto Heller returns as DoP but the film bears almost no resemblance to the Dutch angles and use of foreground objects of Ipcress (apart from a brief reprise of said style for Palmer’s office briefing with Ross, which feels like an in-joke). The Berlin exteriors are beautiful, and the film makes use of some great locations. 

One feature of the Palmer movies is that all of the villains are refractions of the central character. They are all in the same twilight world - they are the possible futures Palmer could face.

In Ipcress File, Dalby (Nigel Green) is considered ineffective, Funeral in Berlin’s Hallam (Hugh Burden) the forger is being retired, Billion Dollar Brain’s Leo (Karl Malden) thinks he can escape from his family.

It is a fascinating feature of the series, and I wish there had been a few more entries to build on it.

Despite the increased levity, Funeral in Berlin is a darker, more bittersweet film than The Ipcress File - it is easier to watch in some ways, but lacks the vitality and sense of purpose of its predecessor.

The Ipcress File (Sidney J. Furie, 1965)

When a top government scientist goes missing, agent Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) is put on the case to find him.

Produced by Bond alum Harry Slatzman and several of the same creative team (Ken Adam was the production designer, Peter Hunt was the editor and John Barry delivers the beautifully melancholy and mordant score), Ipcress is a reaction to Bond in almost every way. 

Directed by Sidney J. Furie, Ipcress also sticks out for its unique visual style. Shots are framed through objects, or at extreme dutch angles. 

While I had watched the film before, on the big screen these choices feel even more extreme. I found that I constantly had to re-adjust to the sudden shifts in perspective and depth of field. It has always been one of the film’s selling points, but some of these flourishes start to feel indulgent.

One wonders if Ipcress’s visuals influenced its editor Peter Hunt, who would go on to direct the similarly distinctive (and downbeat) 007 entry On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Filled with scenes of Palmer following leads, arguing with superiors, filing paperwork or shopping for his evening meal, Ipcress is the opposite of a Bondian adventure.

Unlike the glamor of Bond’s globe-trotting, Ipcress takes place in London. There is little in the way of action and no gadgets.

Palmer himself is no superhero. He is a working-class ex-soldier who is more interested in cooking and music than his work. The only thing the characters share is an eye for the ladies, although Palmer seems more interested in buying an infrared grill for his kitchen.

Palmer is a rogue but unlike Bond, he is genuinely rebellious. With Bond there is an underlying sense of patriotism. By contrast, Palmer’s loyalty is based on blackmail - he has to work as an agent otherwise he will have to serve a prison sentence for making money off the black market in the army.

Michael Caine’s performance is a masterclass in droll understatement. His Palmer is more reluctant and mercenary. When he hears he is getting a promotion, Palmer is more interested in the potential pay rise that will go with it. 

Wonderfully dour and idiosyncratic, The Ipcress File is worth checking out.

Top Gun - Maverick (Take Two)

This is not so much a review as a vaguely connecting series of musings. So pretty similar to everything else on this blog.

I watched Top Gun - Maverick again - and this time, I bothered to watch the original beforehand.

Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell is a wildcard pilot who delights in living up to his callsign.

Sent to Top Gun flight school, he finds his 'go rogue' approach challenged.

He also finds romance with a civilian contractor, Charlie (Kelly McGillis).

When his friend and crew-mate Goose (Anthony Edwards) dies during a flight, Pete blames himself.

Maverick looks grounded. 

Or is he?

First, some cliff’s notes:

Top Gun is a purely cinematic experience - the script is nothing special, and it is not the point.

I was constantly reminded of the story’s similarities to An Officer and a Gentleman on this last viewing. Whereas that picture is grimey and (relatively) grounded, Top Gun feels more of its moment, with the emphasis on image and sound (particularly music).

Top Gun was inspired by Don Simpson seeing a picture of a jet fighter and wanting to make the feeling he felt into a movie. The late, great Tony Scott shoots the movie like the biggest music video in the world, which is part of its appeal (and the criticism aimed at it).

Whereas Scott’s movie is filled with youthful exuberance and machismo, Maverick feels like the detox.

Top Gun feels like the heightened emotion of a memory - key moments strung together with the soundtrack of the period. 

While it carries over some visual signifiers, Top Gun - Maverick is a sturdier, more conventional piece. That is not a dismissal of Top Gun, but it is a clear distinction with its sequel.

There are a lot of callbacks in Top Gun 2 - from the identikit opening sequence to the flashback from Rooster to his dad singing at the piano, and the repeated cutaways to photographs of the original cast in younger days.

But rather than coming off as fan service, these moments reinforce the sense of time.

On first viewing, the movie reminds me of Bad Boys For Life, in its foregrounding of age and time passing. In its stars and replaying of familiar iconography (the low-angle intro in Bad Boys 3; the reprise of the introduction in Top Gun 2), the film is on its surest footing. 

I spent the movie fighting the idea that the movie only worked because of the meta-presence of 50-something Tom Cruise. If he was not in the movie, would it still work?

Maverick is a character stuck in time - and while he is awesome, he is a lonely character. He has not moved in rank, he has not found a family. He is still a rogue pilot who prides his own instincts over anyone else, but he is old enough to doubt that instincts. The film’s sense of time weighs on proceedings - it feels like the character’s struggle for relevance mirrors the star’s fight for a certain kind of big screen entertainment.

Maverick is still the best pilot in the world - while the real flying footage gives it verisimilitude, the character remains a superman. If this movie came out at the height of Cruise’s stardom, I wonder if this would play.

But with the weight of age, the uniqueness of this kind of blockbuster in today’s marketplace, and the effect of the pandemic, Maverick’s desire to complete this mission feels even more important.

The filmmakers’ decision to focus on real stunts extends to the verisimilitude of the sound design. Even in Maverick’s supersonic excursion at the start of the film, we are always away fo every shift in wind and creak of the plane’s body. We are always aware of how powerful these vehicles are, but always how close the pilots are to death.

Combined with the stakes of the mission, the filmmaking makes the peril feel more tactile. Compared with how airless most blockbusters feel these days, it is a unique selling point.

I like the decision to make the movie more mission-focused rather than character-focused, but that probably has more to do with my disinterest in these characters. 

I also liked the fact that it was more of an action movie. Because so much of the movie is focused on romance and the training, I had forgotten that there was actual combat at the end of Top Gun. The movie does feature a character arc for Maverick (ironically, learning how to be more of a team player), but the movie is so impressionistic, in its use of music and montage, that the story takes a backseat. 

The extended third act feels pat but it does not completely destroy what came before - and we get a nice resolution for resident asshole/nu-Iceman Hangman (Glen Powell).

While some have criticized the movie for its predictability, it is based on how solid the movie is in paying off its story beats. In this respect, this movie reminds me of a theory I had about why Avatar hit so big in 2009-10.

People forget that the year leading up to Avatar’s release was something of a wasteland. Most of the big crowd movies that came out that year were either failures (Terminator 4, GI Joe) or ephemeral (Angels and Demons). 

Coming out of Avatar, I remember thinking of how reminiscent it felt of the blockbusters which stayed with me: your Jurassic Parks, your Star Wars. The building blocks are familiar - the endless takes on Fern Gully and Dances with Wolves - but the story and characters are assembled in a way that is so dramatically functional that it works. And after a year of movies which failed at this baseline, Avatar must have felt like a real crowd pleaser that knew which buttons to push to get audiences onboard.

I think a similar thing is going on with Maverick. The combination of the pandemic, the emphasis on superheroes and CGI has made the movie more unique, and it appeals to people who are not interested in seeing the 10th chapter in an ongoing saga, or watching flying people fire lasers at computer generated clouds.    

Top Gun: Maverick may not have the cultural footprint of its predecessor, but it is a solid four quadrant movie. My second viewing did not make me ecstatic over its strengths, but it does not have to. Like the pilots it follows, Maverick gets its mission done. Nothing more, nothing less.

OUT NOW: Interceptor

 When a batch of stolen mobile Russian nukes are aimed at America, it falls to one anti-missile interceptor station in the Pacific to stop them.

The only problem is the same group who have stolen the missiles have infiltrated the station and are trying to break their way into the control centre.

It falls to disgraced* officer JJ Collins (Elsa Pataky) to stop them from getting inside.

Before I get into the review, if you want to watch Interceptor, trigger warning for inferences of sexual assault.

I first read Matthew Reilly in the early noughties - I remember buying his book Ice Station at an airport bookstore before a flight.

I motored through that book and everything else he wrote for a year or two.

Reilly has a gift for crafting fast-paced action thrillers that felt like action movies.

They are great holiday reads.

I have not read a Reilly book in years but when I heard he had finally made an action movie I was curious to see it.

Interceptor is like a Matthew Reilly book brought to the screen - there is almost no fat and the focus is on sheer momentum.

Most of the action takes place in a control room but Reilly and co-writer Stuart Beattie (Collateral) ensure that it never gets bogged down.

After Top Gun: Maverick, Interceptor is another callback to the action movies of an earlier age, when the threats were nuclear rather than cosmic. 

In the lead role, Elsa Pataky is great and takes the whole thing completely seriously.

Having a lead whose first language is not English also reinforces the films’ links with action movies past.

After her unceremonious exit from the Fast and Furious saga, it is good to see her in a role where she gets to take an active role in the action. 

The character has a solid backstory and motive which is called back at pivotal moments - it is all familiar action scripting 101 but it works.

And like all action heroes she spends most of the movie in a white wifeeater.

*Despite this being an escapist thriller, her backstory is surprisingly adult for what I was expecting. 

Collins has been sent to the station because she brought down a top brass who tried to assault her. The movie is very delicate and clear-eyed with this piece of the story but it grounds the character in a way that reflects a sadly common experience for women in the military.

Interceptor had a small budget but the movie is so well-paced it never feels constrained.

The largely Australian cast are solid, with Luke Bracey as the film’s primary antagonist.

And as an action helmer, Reilly knows what he is doing. 

The fight sequences are well-choreographed, and he makes sure to cover them in extended wide shots. There is always a clear sense of geography and while there are a few beats of super-physicality, the filmmakers make sure that Pataky never feels like she has a clear path to victory. Every fight is a scrappy, semi-improvised scramble to outwit her bigger opponents. 

A great little potboiler, Interceptor would make a great double bill with that other wifeeater-in-an-enclosed-space epic Cop Shop.

f you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Enemies Closer (Peter Hyams, 2013)

Park Ranger and ex-special forces soldier Henry Taylor (Tom Everett Scott) has two problems:

a) Clay Decker (Orlando Jones), the brother of a deceased comrade wants him dead

b) A group of drug dealers led by Xander (Jean Claude Van Damme) want both of them dead

Can  Henry and Clay put aside their differences to defeat their common foe?

This 2013 picture represents Peter Hyams’ latest directorial effort - and it is pretty solid.

The script is fairly straightforward, the filmmaking is functional, and it features one element which elevates above being an average action thriller.

If this is Hyams’ sign-off, it is not a bad way to go - and with a star he had worked with profitably before.

Cast as the film’s villain, Jean Claude Van Damme has a ball. He is making big physical choices, and offsets his bag of physical tricks with a jocular, relaxed performance that gives the familiar kicks and Van Damme’-isms a sense of suspense and danger. He is legitimately threatening in this movie, and Hyams serves him well by showing his physical prowess in extended long takes.

One particular example that stood out was his rapid scramble up a tree after Tom Everett Scott. It never feels like our hero has a chance.

There are points where he seems to be disconnected from everything around him, and playing for the camera, but it works. He conveys a world weariness, a sense of a killer who has done it so long he can no longer keep up the pretense of caring about it.

The decision to cast Van Damme as the villain is the film’s reason for being. 

Everett Scott has decent physicality, but otherwise he comes across as bland and wooden. It stands out when he is against Orlando Jones, who makes him disappear. Jones brings the sense of history and pathos that the filmmakers want Henry to have.

The action sequences are low-key, and there are a couple of clunky plot turns (including a character reveal which feels unnecessary).

With its single location and small stakes, Enemies Closer feels like a missing installment in the Marine franchise. In its favor, it handles the outdoor action better than The Marine 4.

Like a lot of Hyams movies, things do get bogged down about halfway through, and there is some dialogue which feels like a first draft. But the movie never stops moving, and it gets its business in 85 minutes.

In a neat closing of the circle, following his father’s role as cinematographer on Universal Soldier: Regeneration, Peter’s son John Hyams contributed to the editing on Enemies Closer. The editing on Enemies Closer is part of its success - the action is frenetic but never confusing, and shows off the elder Hyams’ compositions (and JCVD’s action credentials) to their best.

Overall, Enemies Closer is a solid little programmer. I am surprised Hyams did not join his son John in the DTV action/thriller arena. 

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