Alan Coleman

We started watching a DVD earlier, Wolf Creek. One of the main characters is a dead ringer for a bloke we know called Graham Walker, who lives in Australia which is also where this film is set.

Wolf Creek is perhaps the most horrific thing I’ve ever witnessed on screen, so much so that I had to turn it off half way through. Life can be a scary place as it is, as such I can do without terrifying myself with the stuff of insanity.

What sort of bottle does it take to steal £50 million from the bank of England? I mean, how do you go about even imagining a plan like that? Talk about putting a team back together for another job is the stuff of movies, but it actually happens and these people actually exist.

Just as they did a few years back when a gang of ‘Villains’ smashed their way into Piety’s white Elephant with a digger and tried to nick the worlds most expensive diamond. I remember the excitement of it all, a bizarre mix of boyhood fantasies and grown up dreams. The fact that they used a JCB and planned to escape up the Thames in a speedboat made men in stuffy offices everywhere smile, safe in the knowledge that all is not lost because real men still exist.

I remember me and Dad watching news footage of the Brinks Matt bullion robbery in the early eighties. It was at about the time when most kids, including my friends, were getting into shoplifting. His message was simple, “If you’re want to nick stuff, wait ‘till you’re grown up and do the job properly”. Cool as you like at the time, but now I realise that he was basically aligning himself with the gentlemanly conduct of old fashioned bank robbers, which is slightly embarrassing considering he’s the sort of bloke that’s never even looked at a fruit machine.

It’s not about the absurd tabloid romance of the bygone gangster and the East End boozer that no longer exists. Or Phil Collins and Julie Walters as salt of the earth working class London, living out the post war reality of struggle and toils with impeccable manners. Because despite what admirers of Ronnie and Reggie’s perverse brutality might claim, this type of crime is always going to hurt someone. For those on the sharp end there’s always going to be terrifying flashbacks, or years of sleepless nights and worry. In that sense this kind of criminal will always end up harming his own in pursuit of the ultimate job

But it’s not the crime itself that we find so exciting, or even the fact that someone has managed to get their hands on so much money. What is appealing is the sheer audacity of the act, the belligerent two fingers to an increasingly sterile society in which we are all terrified of the consequences of practically anything. Anything that involves looking less than perfect in front of the neighbours or colleagues at work. It’s a reminder that now matter how much we’re steered towards ID cards or a police state, there is still someone ready to front the cynicism and refuse to conform.

It’s about people taking risks, and pissing the establishment off at the same time.

But most of all it’s about the blatant refusal to bow to the cultural demands of Piety Blair, Nicky Campbell, XFM, newspapers, reality TV, celebrities and all that other middle class tedium that is consuming our daily lives. Think of Don Logan in Sexy beast, “We don’t do it for the money, it’s for the thrill of it, the sheer fuck-offness of it all!!”

Am I getting carried away with the romance? Maybe, but remember that Rock and Roll doesn’t happen that often, so when it does we have duty to indulge.

After only managing half of Wolf Creek last week I wasn’t in the mood for being upset by yet more violence. As it happens, along with sex and drugs, violence is one of this films underpinning themes. So I just sighed and got on with cringing at those realistic sounds of people punching each other in the face. Horrible.

The main story involves a group of middle class friends in Florida who have pretty much no direction in life and who only have sex and drugs in common. And there’s plenty of it too. Much of the film seems to be shot to make the viewers feel as if they too are part of the permanent state of high indifference.

The story has about it an inevitable sadness that is always going to end in disaster. The disaffected American youth, living a chaotic life of no direction and reliance on drugs for escapism. This scenario gives the film a dark sense of tragedy that begins during the opening scenes and worsens towards the end.

There are messages for Americans throughout this film. They are mostly about the relationship between the embedded culture violence, lack of education and drugs. In one of the final scenes, Marty’s brother appears with a T-shirt with, Dare to resist drugs and violence?, written on it. Most of all I think the message is about respect. The idea that everyone, even those whose lives societies look down upon, deserves an amount of respect. Even if it’s something as simple as saying their name properly.

This is essentially a Teen movie for grown ups. It’s disturbingly sexy, at times upsetting but also very funny and endearing. Also, it has a superb soundtrack that really adds a sense of menace to the sweaty Florida backdrop.

Essential viewing for anyone disillusioned with the formulaic nature of Hollywood, or for anyone else who wants to see a great film.

Master and Commander is based loosely on the novel of the same name by Patrick O’Brien. It follows a voyage on board HMS Surprise commanded by the unyielding but well respected Captain Jack Aubrey. The ships orders are to hunt down the vastly superior French frigate Acheron, it is believed that this in turn will hamper Napoleons presumed attempt to capture Britain. I believe that in the original story the hunted ship is American or possibly Spanish, but this was changed to a French ship for the film adaptation for Hollywood reasons. A classic example of an insanely deluded nation rewriting history to it’s own ends, anyway that’s for another time.

There are two main reasons that this film is not just another Hollywood blockbuster, the first and probably most important is the absence of the ‘Love interest’ storyline. Women appear only briefly in the film, and even then only for a few seconds with no speaking roles. As I sat down to watch I was hoping that producers wouldn’t squeeze Nichole Kidman into the captains cabin and turn the whole thing into the Far sodding Pavilions. No girls allowed, I wasn’t disappointed. Secondly was the tasteful use of special effects. I think that the reason that so many modern films appear so formulaic is there reliance on explosions and ridiculous stunts. Older films tended to use a combination of suspense and insinuation that tend to wear less on the viewer. In this film the storm and battle scenes are subtle, expertly created and entirely plausible.

Apart from diverting from the original storyline as noted above, the attention to historic detail pays off handsomely in this film. When I was younger I always wondered why canon balls exploded when they are made of solid Iron. The answer is of course that they don’t, it’s just easier to make an explosion than to depict what actually happens when a canon ball makes contact with wood. All this is presented as a refreshing change from the usual tiresome end of film explosion sequence.

Captain Jack Aubrey is played by Russell Crowe, who despite the odd dodgy bit of musicianship brings the character to life in an expert manner. In fact the acting is good throughout, and I think a lot of this is the result of the welcome lack of silly humour that can find it’s way into films. The Captain’s relationship with the ships surgeon is also worth mentioning considering that they play off each other throughout. Dr Stephen Maturin, played by Paul Bettany, is a hobby naturalist who longs to immerse himself in the wildlife of the Galapagos Islands. This rubs continuously with Aubrey’s more straightforward Naval role and makes for a good storyline. My favourite character was Lord Blakeney, an inquisitive child officer of no more than 12 who has his arm removed without an anaesthetic. As the film progresses he becomes a competent officer whose unbroken voice can be heard shouting orders in the heat of battle. Brilliant.

Ultimately it’s the romance of it all that did it for me, it’s all I could do to hold the tears back when Aubrey orders “An extra ration of Rum for that man…” . Okay, it can get a bit silly, men charging about with flowing hair and swords shouting about honour and defending England. But I couldn’t help but get sucked into its carefully constructed storyline, characters and the romance of Navy life. It reminded me a bit of playing war in the woods as a child, and there was no girls allowed the either! The soundtrack is superb too, there being no better composer to accompany the high seas than Ralph Vaughan Williams. Best scene? Lord Blakeney boarding the French boat and fighting off a gun crew with one arm – unbelievable but fantastic at the same time.

Okay so it’s not going to win any prizes at Cannes, but who cares when it’s a fine piece of well crafted entertainment.

I brought the Daily Mirror yesterday simply because I liked the picture of Russell Crowe in Handcuffs on the front cover. He was sporting cool shades, and a slightly pissed off look that had about it a certain amount of inevitability.

I’m taken with the idea of people not being able to change what is part of their natural personality, irrespective of how famous or rich they are. It’s almost as if they are staying true to themselves and not giving in to the nice guy chat show guest that seems to beckon middle age actors. Tom Cruise springs to mind.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not condoning whatever he was alleged to have done and he?s probably a spoilt brat of the highest order. But I think that occasionally, western societies need people like Russell Crowe and Liam Gallagher to remind us of the dangers of conformity, falseness and chat shows.

I’m peering across at the paper every now and then and it’s putting a healthy smile on my face.