Movie reviews
(12A) does almost exactly what it says on the tin. It’s the story of a British fisheries expert Dr Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor), who is roped into helping a Yemeni billionaire, Sheik Muhammaed (Amr Waked), develop a salmon-fishing industry in the middle of a desert. Dr Jones — a mild-mannered, unadventurous Englishman — initially refuses to get involved, given how preposterous the whole notion is. Unfortunately for him, the prime minister’s press secretary, Patricia Maxwell (Kristin Scott Thomas), spots an opportunity for a good news story about the Middle East, and pretty much forces the civil servant to play along. It’s all a complete waste of time, reckons the good doctor — until he meets the sheik’s PR woman, Harriet (Emily Blunt). As a set-up, the story is so bizarre that you believe it must be based on a true story; and you’re slightly disappointed, and cheated, when you discover it’s not. The irrepressible optimism that fuels the salmon-fishing project is part of the tale’s charm for so long as you believe that these people were actually trying to build a salmon-friendly river in the heart of a Middle Eastern desert. When it’s revealed that the whole plot is a contrivance, and the salmon fishing a metaphor for nudging a reluctant British government to get involved in sorting out the Middle East’s problems, the story loses its vital quality of pluck and perseverance (and quite a few million sterling) overcoming impossible odds. That said, it’s still a very pleasant experience: McGregor and Blunt are individually good, and work well together to create a passable chemistry, while Waked is wonderfully persuasive as the charismatic sheik desperate to improve the lot of his countrymen in the face of reactionary forces determined to refuse all offers out of outside help. Scott Thomas, however, steals the movie every time she appears on screen, her waspish, no-nonsense press secretary reminiscent of Peter Capaldi’s motor-mouth turn in In the Loop (2009). Director Lasse Hallström, adapting Paul Torday’s novel, maintains a gentle pace throughout, trusting that his characters and their idiosyncrasies will suffice to engage. For the most part, they repay his faith.
(15A) is a sci-fi thriller in which secret service agent Snow (Guy Pearce) is sent to infiltrate a prison station orbiting the Earth when the US president’s daughter, Emilie (Maggie Grace), is taken hostage by violent psychopaths. Adding to the intrigue is the fact that Pearce is himself on the way to prison for what appears to be the traitorous murder of one of his best friends. Irish duo Stephen St Leger and James Mather co-direct a screenplay they co-wrote with Luc Besson, which is in tone and content a darkly comic actioner akin to Die Hard in outer space. Or perhaps it’s Escape from New York in outer space. Or … You get the drift: there’s precious little that’s original about Lockout, but from its very beginning it is fast-paced fun with no pretensions to taking itself seriously. Pearce invests his chisel-jawed hero with plenty of swagger, Grace makes the most of a role that calls for her to do little more than swoon and scream, and the baddies are satisfyingly cartoonish villains. You won’t believe three consecutive seconds of it, of course, but it’s solid fare for adrenaline junkies trying to kill two hours.
