Day 164: Haywire

After finding out she has been sold out by her handler, Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) is focused on working out why.

The story was boring, I won’t lie to you. And yet I wasn’t bored at all. Sometimes it’s just good to watch a mindless fighting film, you know? The fighting itself was impressive and well directed, I’d say. I’m not sure whether or not I liked the lack of sound in those scenes though. Sometimes music was used, or all you could hear was far away grunting. It seemed odd but interesting at the same time, so I’ve yet to make up my mind with that. The acting was passable but nowhere near as good as would be expected, considering the cast. Gina Carano is a MMA fighter in real-life and she is a beauty to watch when she’s fighting in this film. It's worth watching it just to see her, really.

The picture up top is the moment after she strangles him with her thighs and before she shoots him in the face. Intense moment.

6/10

Day 71: La Haine

Riots break out in an estate in France after a local kid, Abdel, is beaten into a coma by the police. For 24 hours the film follows Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui) and Hubert (Hubert Koundé) as they go about their day. During the riot an officer lost his gun and somehow Vinz got hold of it and he is threatening to kill “a pig” if Abdel dies.

The personalities of the three guys were interesting. All of them were angry about what happened to Abdel and the continual police oppression where they live but they deal with it in different ways. Hubert seems the most together of the three, he wants to get out of the estate and get away from the fighting. He continually has to calm Vinz down throughout the film and he tries to keep the peace between people and the police. Saïd can get a bit riled up but he mainly just seems to want to mess around. He’s telling jokes and he just wants to keep away from the fighting and get a girl. Vinz, however, has a quick temper and he wants to be respected and he thinks the way to do this is to shoot a police officer. It seems like the gun reflects how he feels inside: strong, dangerous and not to be messed with. But as the film goes on you can see he is all talk and eventually he gives up the gun, knowing he can’t use it.

Was definitely interesting to see a side to France that I usually don’t see in films. I liked that it was shot in black and white, it worked well for the gritty feel of the film.

“It’s not the fall that matters, it’s the landing.”

8/10

Day 64: The Fifth Element

Pure evil has come to destroy Earth and Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis) is tasked with helping to save it. He meets the supreme being, Leeloo (Milla Jovovich), who is the fifth element and the only creature that can stop evil. Korben helps to recover the four stones that represent the four elements while battling with some very unhappy aliens and a possible psychopath, Zorg (Gary Oldman). Ultimately love saves the day. And a lot of explosions.

We open in a temple in Egypt in 1914, where there’s an Italian man attempting to discover the meaning behind some symbols on a wall. He’s uncovering too much however and must be stopped so the Mondoshawan, aliens that defend against evil, have to come and remove the element stones before they are found. Pretty sure my favourite bit of the whole film is when this great big hulking robot-alien ambles into the room and the Italian man asks, “Are you… German?” I just laughed so much, it was great.

In films, the people in charge always want to shoot first and ask questions later (it’s even said by one of the military guys) and it always drives me mad. I understand you have things to protect but you can’t just go around attacking and killing things when you don’t know what they are. If nothing else it is just rude. That’s probably why if there is other life out there in the universe it hasn’t shown itself around here, they know they’d be killed on sight. Humans are hopeless. When Leeloo learns about war you know right away how it’s going to go, that she’ll not want to help humanity because all we do is kill everything. But then obviously Korben convinces her otherwise, he says that there are some beautiful things worth saving. Love, namely. He tells her he loves her and so she stops the advancing evil. Love to the rescue! How sappy.

I really wish I lived in the time of proper space travel. Living on a ship and exploring space sounds so brilliant.

“Everything you create is used to destroy.”

8/10