New Zealand Listener - November 5, 2016

NOVEMBER 5 2016 http://www.listener.co.nz 61

hair, an enormous handgun tucked cosily

into the waistband of their old Levis, and

not much else. You wouldn’t think so,

but justice still functions in this parched

dustbowl. It comes, slow-moving, in the

form of Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges),

an old-fashioned lawman in a Stetson and

spurred boots, whose voice sounds like

gurgling gravel drowned in acid.

It takes an outsider to look honestly

at this proud part of America, to see the

wreckage and destitution. Scottish director

David Mackenzie (Starred Up, Perfect Sense)

does so by skilfully and stylishly updating

the Bonnie and Clyde motif, pairing it

with the morality tale of 99 Homes – two

films that have economic depressions as

their context. He marshals extraordinary

performances from the leading trio, turn-

ing villains into fleetingly loveable rogues.

The result is an elegiac, unhurried,

strangely funny and ultimately masterful

film – more Townes Van Zandt than

Randy Travis, if you know your country

music. If this is the direction western

cinema is heading, bring on the rodeo.

IN CINEMAS NOW

Marcus Hamilton is an

old-fashioned lawman

in Stetson and spurred

boots whose voice sounds

like gurgling gravel

drowned in acid.

Now showing

I, Daniel Blake

Ken Loach’s resoundingly powerful

indictment of existence in Austerity

England. Angry, didactic and utterly

essential.

Inferno

Dante’s visions of Hell are nothing

compared with this apocalyptically

boring Dan Brown “thriller”. Tom Hanks

looks embarrassed to be part of it.

Café Society

Woody Allen gets an injection of reined

gorgeousness for this thinly plotted Old

Hollywood comedy.

My Scientology Movie

Louis Theroux recreates notorious

accounts of abuse in the Church of

Scientology, though his subjects escape

his gangly charm.

The Girl on the Train

Reliable memory-loss thriller, but its ine

female cast are reduced to blubbering

too often – an uncomfortable and

infantilising technique.

Hitchcock/Trufaut

A rich, thorough, critical uplifting of

the English master. His French friend is

somewhat sidelined, as are the less well-

known ilms of Hitchcock’s catalogue.

Deepwater Horizon

Shockingly good disaster lick, though

try to leave before the tacked-on

documentary ending.

The Magnicent Seven

Captain Fantastic

Bridget Jones’s Baby

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar

Children

The Rehearsal

Sully

Films are rated out of 5:

(abysmal) to (amazing)

Inferno

the line under heavy shelling. Two days

later, four men. When hit by a grenade,

he ordered his stretcher-bearers to tend

another soldier first. Again and again, Doss

ran forward into the hellfire without hesita-

tion. For gallantry and unadorned heroism,

Doss received the US Medal of Honour.

Such a story is ripe for cinema. Yet some-

how Mel Gibson, back from a decade spent

in exile for those notorious anti-Semitic

outbursts, manages to completely foul up

Doss’ legacy. Gibson’s act of atonement is

disfigured by overflowing doses of religious

zealotry rather than saluting a genuine

hero with honest humility.

As with all fanatics, Gibson must render

everything unto the Almighty. Nothing

happens in Hacksaw Ridge without inter-

vention from above. Doss’ youth, with its

puritanical awkwardness, takes place in

church, at home with the Ten Command-

ments hung on the wall, or at a hospital

with nun-like nurses. The central dilemma

of the film – whether Doss will be allowed

to serve without carrying a weapon

• functions as a theological debate. Even
  the eventual victory on Okinawa (against
  hara-kiri-committing Japanese heathens)
  is insinuated as God-given.
  As if it wasn’t quite clear, the film’s
  closing image is of Doss on a stretcher
  hung from a zip wire. Arms spread wide,
  filmed from below, he is levitated Jesus-
  like into a golden heaven.
  Catechistic crises aside, Hacksaw Ridge
  still runs into outright disaster. Andrew
  Garfield, with slinky-like neck and jutting
  lower-jaw, plays Doss as a more gormless
  Forrest Gump. He even says “Momma”
  like Tom Hanks did, and you half-expect
  him to address the similarities between
  existence and packaged confectionery.
  The only thing Gibson could ever do
  without sectarian inflection was scenes of
  depraved war, and Hacksaw Ridge has its
  share of Legs á la Linguine and Offal Salad
  served with genuine panache. But thrilling
  mayhem alone cannot redeem the film, or
  its director. It just won’t do.
  IN CINEMAS NOVEMBER 3

Hell or High Water: a

stylish update of the

Bonnie and Clyde motif.