Release

DVD weekly: Machine guns, Eddie Murphy and Yank rounders

Matt

19th March 2012

Now that Mother's Day is over, you can concentrate on buying these new DVD and Blu-ray releases for yourself. It helps that they contain guns, explodey things and probably even some tits. And that's just Tintin.

Released: Monday 19th March 2012

Machine Gun Preacher (2011) DVD & Blu-ray
Buy the DVD on Amazon for £12.97

Machine Gun Preacher

Gerard Butler kicks open the double oak doors and emerges from the church with an Uzi in each hand, straps hung low against his billowing cassock. "Let the hellfire of God's wrath rain down upon thee!" he shout-commands, before pumping the local gang of drug pushers full of lead. And as the jerking bodies collapse to the floor, spurting arcs of sinful blood, the gunfire stops, the barrels smoke and Butler mutters "Amen, brothers".

THAT'S the kind of film you expect with a title like Machine Gun Preacher. Half Machete, half Hobo With A Shotgun, all retro B-movie exploitation. And yet, what we have instead is a true story about a hardened criminal-turned-missionary who struggles to protect children from becoming casualties in war-torn Sudan. A worthier subject, for sure, but the result suggests that director Marc Foster would have been better off going in the former direction.

Gerard Butler executive-produces himself into this serious star role, which sees him play violent biker Sam Childers who gets released from prison, indulges in a bit of drug-addled murder and then gets bitten by the God-bothering bug. After witnessing the terrible events happening in Sudan, he dedicates his life to making things better there by building a church and orphanage - much to the eventual eye-rolling chagrin of wife Michele Monaghan, who presumably was just about happy with going to a service once a week.

The problem in the film comes with trying to portray Childers as a complex, conflicting man. Of course his cause is a worthy one, but does he have to be such a dick about it? Forgetting for a moment that he goes from bitch-slapping hard case to God-goggled prayer master in 0-15 minutes, Childers character arc sees him lose sense of his religious morals and start shouting at his makeshift clergy for not doing enough to make a difference. Like a charity collector in the street that greets you with a stern shake of his donations tin, it makes you want to not care just to spite him.

And yet, we're never really sure why he cares so much. At the risk of sounding like a cold-hearted bastard, the full extent of the tragic circumstances in Sudan are only shown by occasional shots of homeless people and the chargrilled corpses of children. Obviously, this is enough to make any man want to change the world, but in a dramatic sense, more impact would have been had if we could get a sense of the real plight of those living through such hell. In fact, overall, the whole unthinkable situation is a little glossed over in favour of focusing on Childer's obsession with fixing it.

And then there's Gerard Butler himself, a man who has never been the greatest emoter on screen. While his smush-faced acting is passable when opposite a Heigl or a Swank in some talent-forsaken romcom, here you can't help but feel that a more adept actor could handle Childer's inner conflict with more subtlety. Instead, we get the acting equivalent of a plasticine toy: downturn the lips, widen the eyes and push down his brow - there, instant sadness.

The film isn't a total waste of time. It raises interesting questions about how much difference one man can make, and the effect Childers' mission has on his marriage makes for some well-performed scenes. Overall though, Machine Gun Preacher seems to forcefully push a very unclear message. Of course, if the film had gone down the B-movie route, the message would have been perfectly clear: bad guys are bad. BOOM.

Read the original review
The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn (2011) DVD & Blu-ray
Buy the DVD on Amazon for £10.97

 The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn

"Hergé's Adventures of...TINtin!" That's how I remember the beginning of every Saturday/Sunday morning cartoon serial that followed the intrepid Something About Mary-haired reporter. It was an overly dramatic intro that suited these timeless, exciting exploits carried out over an epic, global scale and, like a good trailer voiceover or a majestic score by John Williams, it helped to set a grand, classic tone. And y'know... it was fun.

So fast-forward past 20-odd years of my discovering alcohol and questionable haircuts and I am pleased to note that not much has changed for the Belgian hero. Sure, the animation is a new height for motion capture, just about covering up the dead-eye look and managing some truly stunning shots in the process, but the spirit is still exactly the same. Perhaps we shouldn't have expected anything less from the director of the Indiana Jones trilogy (ignoring Crystal Skull for a moment), but Spielberg takes to this unknown medium like an expert, finding a blockbuster form that he hasn't delivered in years and years.

As a result, we get a fast-paced action adventure that drives a motorbike and sidecar over the uncanny valley and into a new age of CGI animation that actually looks pretty flawless. Zemeckis be damned.

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Tower Heist (2011) DVD & Blu-ray
Buy the DVD on Amazon for £9.99

Tower Heist

It’s Ocean's Eleven meets Dodgeball! It's. ..er...Night At The Museum meets Ocean's Twelve! It's Ocean's Fourteen! Have I made my point? Yeah, probably. The thing is, this ensemble comedy heist movie is actually really enjoyable. Ben Stiller is on great straight man form and, more importantly, Eddie Murphy is pretty damn funny and he doesn't don a fatsuit ONCE. It's almost enough to make you forgive Norbit. Or those fucking Klump films.

It's rare these days for a comedy to receive the big-budget blockbuster treatment, but Brett Ratner clearly throws a lot of dollars at the screen here, not only in assembling a great big-name cast, but in a few spectacular stunts, expensive set-ups and all against the backdrop of New York's massive Thanksgiving Day Parade. All of which is mightily impressive for a film that probably isn't all that above dishing out a half-hearted fart gag.

And yet it doesn't disappoint in the comedy stakes either. Besides the two biggest names heading up the band of chuckle brothers, much of the laughs come from the smaller roles, with Matthew Broderick's near-suicidal broken man and Michael Peña's ethnic new recruit competing for funniest character.

Really, Tower Heist's only downfall is in not knowing what kind of film it wants to be. With two thirds of the running time playing like a direct spoof of the Ocean's movies, including several planning and practising montages that might as well be a series of different sketches, it seems like a pretty clear cut parody. And yet the final act – the one in which the heist actually takes place – is so surprisingly cinematic, it wouldn't look out of place among Soderbergh's trilogy, which has always been more than a little tongue in cheek anyway.

So is it an actual heist movie or a piss-take of one? It doesn't seem to know, but it makes for entertaining fare all the same. To be honest, this film is worth a watch just to witness the Lazarus-like return of Murphy on fine comedic form. Something he has apparently squandered, what with starring in wrong-com A Thousand Words later this year. The fool.

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Moneyball (2011) DVD & Blu-ray
Buy the DVD on Amazon for £9.99

Moneyball

Isn't it weird that an OSCAR-nominated film starring BRAD PITT and JONAH HILL, and co-written by praised Social Network screenwriter AARON SORKIN, should get such a limited release over here just because it's all about Yank rounders? I mean, obviously a film centred around baseball stats was never going to be an easy sell here in the UK, but you'd think they'd find a way of splicing it out of the trailer? "Look, Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill in a... film. Coming soon to a cinema near you."

Anyway, it's supposed to be really good, so maybe give it a go? That's all I've got.
Also out this week


A Horrible Way To Die Blu-ray
A Night To Remember DVD & Blu-ray
American Pie Blu-ray
American Pie 2 Blu-ray
American Pie 3: The Wedding Blu-ray
Devils Bridge DVD
Dreams Of A Life DVD
Get Shorty Blu-ray
Kalifornia Blu-ray
Our House Blu-ray
Resistance DVD & Blu-ray
Smoke Blu-ray
Snowtown Blu-ray
Spaceballs Blu-ray
Take Shelter DVD & Blu-ray
The Crossing Guard Blu-ray
Trespass DVD & Blu-ray
Weekend DVD & Blu-ray

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