Remember Saving Private Ryan? Remember how amazing the Normandy scenes looked the first time you saw them?
They were brutal, visceral but thrilling.
It was a neat bit of Spielbergian string pulling to make you feel horrified and yet genuinely excited – how many of you wanted to be in on that action, chopping down Nazis with your trusty browning?
With Lu Chuan’s City of life and death, the same visceral, blood curdling reality of war awaits you, but thanks to some truly amazing auteurship the last thing you’ll feel is elated…
2009 may well be remembered as the year of the apocalypse – cinematically at least, and despite strong (not to mention patently ridiculous) bids from Zombieland and 2012, The Road is the literary pinnacle of the years filmic lust for devastation. Based on a Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer winning novel, Proposition director Hillcoat has a stellar cast, and manages to pull off a literate, messagey Sci-Fi meltdown without ever coming across as portentous or overblown.
Going by title alone, you’d be forgiven for expecting a set-piece-filled video game spin off. In fact this is a slow burning and underplayed version of real life events, as Norwegian resistance member Max takes on dastardly invading Nazis, in a WWII film that’s a wobbly mix of two-fisted action and true-life consequence.
There’s been a fair bit of talk around the STS office bemoaning the demise of the traditional war movie – so it was with baited breath that we took our seats for what was originally touted as an all-action knucklefest a la Where Eagles Dare. What we got was something quite different, but none the worse for it.
