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Reviews
Menolippu Mombasaan (2002)
Finnish cinema getting its hold
I rated this film 8 since it does have some brilliant qualities in its Finnish context. However, for some reason there has been a great number of youth-oriented films lately and this in one of them. And therefore, more mature audiences might find it a little tacky.
However, acting, writing, production, directing and filming are all of a high to top standard. The storyline has depth in searching for the meaning for the life of two soon-to-die-too-young guys who decide to cease the moment which is to be the rest of their lives.
A previous comment sounded very disappointed due to over-sized publicity campaign etc. which, unfortunately is true in today's Finnish cinema effectively in hands of a single production company of Selin. Still I would say that out of the three mentioned contemporary Finnish films (the others being Pahat Pojat and Levottomat3) Mombasa can be told to be Worlds apart.
I hope that we'll hear from the makers of this film soon again and perhaps for more mature audience, too. It's good to have a heart in film industry these days.
Levottomat 3 - kun mikään ei riitä (2004)
The bad apple of a promising trilogy
Kieslowski's colour trilogy must had been some sort of an inspiration to all the unattached trilogies we're having these days. Producer Markus Selin is one of the most influential producers in the Finnish film scene and is often credited as the man who brought Finnish commercial cinema back after some 40 years of absence in late 1990's.
The so called Restless-trilogy was meant to be a series of films directed by young directors about the state of the young adults in Finland. A great subject and a great idea although one could see the commercial aspects of this money-making early 30's demographics shine through.
The first part of the trilogy "Levottomat" (Restless, 1999)can be seen as a huge success for Finnish cinema being controversial, sexy and very much tapped into the moment in time as well as the subject. The second part "Minä ja Morrison" (Me and Morrison, 2001) was slightly dimmer success as for some reason it wasn't marketed as the second part. The film and acting were good, though the story ended a little suddenly and the deeper aspects of modern young adulthood were more absent than in "Levottomat".
The third part i.e. "Levottomat 3" (Restless 3, 2004) was a complete let-down of the trilogy. Huge skin-deep marketing, poor acting, poor dialogue, poor story and safe and "pop" choices in casting made sure that the audience felt sick about the whole trilogy. It is told that screenwriters resigned throughout the project and in the end it was just pure bad luck that the last one's name ended up in the credits. Whereas the earlier parts got their young directors to a beginning of a promising career, this one must had been the worst call-card for the poor director who obviously didn't know what sort of a money-making machinery she was getting into.
Sure I should write something about the film itself. Well, dialogue in "Oxford Finnish" is the first thing to take you of the mood of getting into the story. The story itself about sex-addicted young mother getting de-railed for her ambitions has a certain contemporary touch to it but the solid numb acting between her and his husband and her and the new lover of doom leaves everyone stone cold. The plot shows how things get from bad to worse and then a shimmering happyish ending.
I think the only positive thing in this film was to tie it to the contemporary Helsinki scenery at the time when the nations biggest building project (Kamppi commercial and traffic centre) was being built right in the middle of the city. Well, that's about it.
Blade Runner (1982)
Science fiction of the first class
Very humane story about a year ahead in the future where the World has changed but the humans in it haven't really.
All the references of futuristic kind have been interwoven perfectly to the story in which essentially everything breaths the lust and love for life no matter how ugly it has been so far. It also points out how unique we all are in noticing the beauty of it. Probably the most masculine "chick-flick" I could think of.. :) It also had an enormous influence on the days Architecture (See Lloyd's building of London by Richard Rogers or basically any of the mid-80's rock stage sets) and culture up to Batman Begins (see the trivia-section of its IMDb-page). Not that it would make this any better film because of them but obviously very inspiring to many anyhow.
Again, I have to mention that giving a 10 is not something I'd normally give to just any film but this one is among the exceptions.
Der Himmel über Berlin (1987)
The Original City of Angels
I'm still shocked that they managed to make that lame American version of this brilliant predecessor.
The use of black and white and colour is beyond comparison (well, later on there has been more of them but up until late 80's it was). Some very subtle humour that came along Peter Falk gave the extra warmth to go way beyond "artistic crap" of say, Lars von Trier's or some wannabe-visually striking experiments of Moodysson's (well, they're the colleagues in the neighbourhood..). A very humane story with a poetic storytelling in it. And thus, much more closer to Art than most competitors. I have to warn that you have to give some time to this one, though.
I'm a little shy with full 10's but out of the films I've seen, this is one of the few that do deserve the extra attention.
Ronin (1998)
Warrior code in the tactics behind the scenes
Too bad some of the comments concerning this film are pure spoilers.
As explained in the beginning, Ronin is a word for a Samurai whose master has been betrayed despite of the samurai's protection and has to earn his living in shameful ways. These Sun-Tsu-ideals evolve throughout the film towards the connection to the present World in the wrap-up in the end.
Ronin the movie is about specialist mercenaries paid for one goal: to retrieve a package wanted by various international groups. The main characters Robert DeNiro and Jean Reno playing few of them are convincing cool operators and all in all, the film is full of tactics of the modern cold war and the little tricks of the spy games and twists of the international politics. If I didn't know better I'd think this was made out of one of the earlier Tom Clancy books.
The plot line takes you to the international underground of France from Paris to the Meditarrenean coast with its beautiful landscapes and towns filled with this unusual action provided by the characters. This includes top-of-the-line car chases with a grip of realism rarely seen today (well, OK, some of the cars do explode but other than that..). The viewer is let into the World of these specialists down to the choice of "tools" involved. Might sound boring but this background information is given in a daily-basis-kind of subtle way.
I believe that despite of its well-established cast this film must be an international co-operation which gives yet an extra bit of realism: the characters don't speak English (or "American") with dialects but actually speak different European languages, DeNiro French for a lot of time, for example. The main language though, remains English which makes perfect sense in the films context.
All in all, I wish there were more action/tactics films like this. The layers of details in the film just keeps dragging me back to it.
Mindhunters (2004)
A movie about profiling predictability by predictable makers
Poor Renny. He just doesn't learn.
Of course there are other factors in film-making but somehow this director hasn't come up with anything descent since early-career Ford Fairlane.
This time we have a story that is so predictable that it spoils the fun. You have to be stupid not to foresee the Hollywood-pattern happenings at least five minutes ahead so even the first time feels like a re-run.
To add to the tackiness (and to the female audience) we have two pasted-on known actors Slater and Kilmer who really have no role in the film whatsoever. To add to the demographics of the audience, there is Ll Cool J who actually is one of the brightest spots despite of this calculated existence of his in the film. Too bad that the rest of the cast don't have any chemistry and the all-in-all summary ends up with something really not worth seeing.
How do they get the money to make this s#¤t?