The Queen

Running Time: 97 minutes

Media: TV Broadcast

I have a big crush on Helen Mirren, and she is by far one of the most attractive women of the silver screen. Seeing her in the role of Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II was by far an inspired move on the part of the casting director, about a close second to the casting of Robert Downey, Junior as Tony Stark in Iron Man.

The film The Queen focuses on the events surrounding the death of Princess Diana on the 31st of August, 1997. Despite efforts of the Royal Family to treat the matter as a private affair and not to be treated as an official Royal death; public outcry throughout the United Kingdom as well as the firm, but gentle hand of then Prime Minister, Tony Blair (played by Underworld star Michael Sheen) the focus is moved to match the general public's desire for an official expression of grief by the Royal family. The events that transpire to this conclusion are reflected by the general public's steady decline of the monarchy, and an increase of Blair's popularity since his election some few months prior to the death of Diana. Ironically, the situation was reversed in real life with the film's release (September 15, 2006), which coincided with a revival of favor in the eyes of the public in respect to the monarchy and a downward trend in popularity for Blair, who resigned some several months later (June 27, 2007).

This film is a difficult one to critique, because the separation between truth and reality is somewhat blurred in historical/political films such as this. One could only really gather that this film is an aggregated average of events that transpired, based on witness testimony, the various television reports and the formal inquiry findings relating to Diana's death. Mirren plays the role of Elizabeth beautifully, portraying her in a manner that reflects the stern-faced monarch a number of people have associated her to be, how a queen should be portrayed, supposedly devoid of emotion. The ending scene is quite hilarious in the nature of her reaction to Blair's attempts at "small talk" (to put it mildly). Mirren plays the role with strength, courage and humility; I mean, let's face it, this is a huuuuuuge role to play... I am incredibly enamored with how convincing she plays the titular character. Mirren's popularity increased with the release of this film, which garnered general critical and popular acclaim for her; so much that Mirren was invited to dinner at Buckingham Palace after the film's release. However, due to filming commitments in Hollywood, Mirren couldn't attend the event. I just hope HRH didn't take the decline of the invitation to personally!

Blair played by Michael Sheen is effective; a little comical and his head is a little on the inverted egg shape, which differs somewhat to Blair himself, but indeed effective. His portrayal, no doubt, received some praise due to his reprisal of the role in movies The Deal (the previous film in which he played Blair) and The Special Relationship (a later release). Should I consider that reason enough to boost my rating of this film? Perhaps, but there are other factors.

James Cromwell, the only other A-grade actor to appear in this film plays the role of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, is a well received panacea amongst the other events and characters that transpire throughout the film. He almost serves as comedy relief due to the use (or perhaps abuse) of the character and the stereotype set upon him as a prejudiced, opinionated royal who has nothing but insults to hurl at other characters and the general public. it's actually quite amusing seeing him refer to the crowds gathering at the memorials as Zulus, it's enough to make you cringe, but also enough to make you chuckle, in realizing that this is exactly what Prince Philip is renowned for. Cromwell looks and acts very similar to how I pictured the Royal back then, and not as the frail but still quite opinionated Prince Philip of today.

From here the cast kinda falls apart with semi lookalikes and events that may have just been added to the film as filler to pad it out to over ninety minutes. The chap playing Prince Charles, Alex Jennings... Where the hell did they conceive that this was a good idea? The poor casting of this character made Charles look like a crude caricature of himself at the very best! I'm sure that if they had looked a little harder they could have found three or four other actors who could very well have filled the role better than Jennings.

The Land Rover stuck in the river and the glancing of the deer scene, some five or so minutes that I will never get back again, regardless of the fact that she "was a mechanic during the War." I have no idea if this ever really happened... and yes, it was a beautiful stag. So was Bambi's dad, I hear... It seems incredibly irrelevant. The casting of Sylvia Syms as the Queen Mother was imaginative at best, almost making her seem like they had taken Hattie Jacques from the Carry On films and popped her in the film. Yeah... Nah.

So where does this leave us? It leaves us with a film that despite the brilliant casting of the title role, is screaming for attention and not really getting the full attention it deserves. It's like a 1972 Corvette Stingray, but with faded blue paint, high mileage and balding tyres... The potential is there, and we know what it is meant to be, but all we see is that it's trying to be something it no longer is... or at least something it could be with a little more work on it, including a tune-up and oil change. Peter Morgan has written the film wonderfully, but I'm left wondering whether I can take the overall film seriously, or the serious parts of the film overall. If I were to knowingly shave the non-essential parts of the film off, it could potentially be reduced down to about 17 minutes. However, despite this, this film has reaped the various awards set upon it, including 29 awarded to Mirren alone; so I cannot demote it completely. Therefore, I award this film 3½ stars, and still maintain that Helen Mirren is still one of the most attractive 68 year-olds in my humble opinion.

Argo (2012)

Running Time: 120 minutes

Media: DVD

There are very few Ben Affleck movies I dislike, I think Ben is a reasonable actor and he does fairly well. He's made mistakes along the way and he seems to have gotten himself a decent momentum with which to forge on. Argo is no exception, it's a film I did enjoy, and seeing it was based on real life events, I wanted to find out more.

So I took it upon myself to go to Wikipedia and check out details of the Canadian Caper and I was intrigued... There was even an illustrated children's book about the event called Escapes! Now while there were there already was a TV film made back in 1981, based on the original cover story (i.e. "the Canadians saved the day") Argo is based on the true events, namely, that the CIA were responsible for the cover story and development of a fake film studio and fake press releases and fake this and fake that, just to provide a definite background story to prove to the Iranians that the six escaped staff from the U.S. embassy were actually six Canadian film crew members getting locations for the film. Basically the CIA used some serious bull[CENSORED]t in order to complete their mission. And boy, did it pay off!

This two-hour movie has a strange property, it makes you feel like you're watching a documentary that's only half the size. The events that led to the seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran seemed somewhat minimal in length, and the process of the set up of this Canadian film crew cover story took some considerable time to be put into effect, but once that was done, from the moment Affleck's character of Tony Mendez touches down in Tehran, the rest of the movie seems to disappear in the blink of an eye.

Interesting thing about the events that transpired in 1979-1980 which were the inspiration for this movie; when the Canadian Embassy became hosts to the six refugees from the now seized US Embassy, the Canadian Government started the ball rolling by getting six fake passports ready, complete with fake identities ready to be sent through to them. The only thing is, they lacked the resources to pull it off. Enter Tony Mendez and the creation of the fake film studio, press releases, etc. with thanks to the CIA, and it all came together...

So, is it convincing? Yes... And yet no... Here's the thing, just like the pretext of the movie within the movie, Hollywood has a way with artistic license. I took the liberty of reading more into the events of the Canadian Caper and they're actually quite dull... In a way it's no surprise that they decided to add extra bits to jazz it up. By doing so, the historical inaccuracies have been criticized considerably and have resulted in a few disgruntled critics bad mouthing the film despite the various awards won by this film.

I'll be blunt here; I did like the film, even though the film kinda smacks of the old Mission: Impossible TV series of 1969-1973... Given that the events took place some seven years after the TV series finished, the analogy kinda fits like a comfy old pair of gloves. I have to admit though, that the number of "Hollywood" thriller clichés within the film kinda added to the effect of the film. According to the Rotten Tomatoes, 96% of critics gave a positive review for this film... So why people keep pummeling these movies based on real life events puzzles me... I mean, why didn't they pummel Titanic or Men of Honor or Apollo 13 just as equally? 

I think the whole point of Hollywood is to add a layer of glamor to everything it touches, just like within Argo and its fake film counterpart. And that's what makes this movie work on so many levels... Even though there are various clichés that permeate the film. There's the doubting people to be rescue; the rescue plan that's so crazy that it may just work despite the lack of confidence by everyone involved; the near-capture scene; the quick thinking actions of one of the people to be rescued (who conveniently speaks fluent Farsi like a native) and the protagonist's right-hand man who seems to stop at nothing to help his friend in need...

Cringeworthy as each of these clichés seems to be, I think a number of us have grown rather accustomed to them being present in films such as this. The funny thing is, during the film they're not as noticeable as they are in retrospect. I guess the convenient Farsi speaking embassy worker cliché kinda haunts me a little but otherwise I'm okay with it...

Ben Affleck, he starred, directed and produced this film... He's done pretty well, I think, with George Clooney also sharing production rights along with Grant Heslov, who was also responsible for The Men Who Stare At Goats... I think he's made an exceptional performance as exfiltration specialist Tony Mendez. What made Affleck so believable in this film was that he didn't bring an overconfident, cocky and expert-of-everything character to the screen. Tony Mendez in this film was a vulnerable man; separated from his wife and son, self-doubting at times and has a genuine demeanor about him that doesn't feel it's forced.

You then have Bryan Cranston, who has been one busy man. Amid starring in seasons of Breaking Bad, and fourteen movies over 2010 to 2012, Cranston's character of Jack O'Donnell is bold and determined which is a credit to his acting stamina... I honestly don't know how he does it to be honest...

John Goodman as John Chambers, a perfect fit. Both Johns were big men and Goodman must have studied his namesake very carefully as I had difficulty seeing anything but Chambers on the screen. I know Goodman has been selective of late choosing his roles but I got to hand it to him, he's done well with this role.

Finally Alan Arkin, one of the first films I saw him in was the 1968 film Inspector Clouseau... A spin-off film from the Pink Panther series... I haven't seen him in much else of late, save for "Get Smart", but like Goodman, Arkin doesn't hammer out films like Affleck and Cranston do... He too is selective, and in his case his roles are more a subject of quality than quantity. Nevertheless, his portrayal of Lester Siegel was remarkable... Arkin's cynicism and candor come out strong in Siegel in aiding Mendez to get the script for the mission, in fact, it stays with you for the length of the film... But not in a bad way. Arkin's good at what he does, he adds a little wit to help quell the tension within the film, as he seems to do.

The film, all in all, was quite enjoyable and I'd watch it again... My only regret is that Hollywood, in the name of making it a great film, took an interesting story, and added more Hollywood to it to make it worthy of screening... Sort of like the film cliché where the girl who is the ugly duckling gets made over so that she'd fit in with the rest of society... Given that, I'm happy to award 4½ stars to Argo.