Now Over 5500 Reviews and (near) Daily Updates!

WELCOME! Use the search engines on this site (or your own off-site engine of choice) to gain easy access to the complete MAKSQUIBS Archive; more than 5500 posts and counting. (New posts added every day or so.)

You can check on all our titles by typing the Title, Director, Actor or 'Keyword' you're looking for in the Search Engine of your choice (include the phrase MAKSQUIBS) or just use the BLOGSPOT.com Search Box at the top left corner of the page.

Feel free to place comments directly on any of the film posts and to test your film knowledge with the CONTESTS scattered here & there. (Hey! No Googling allowed. They're pretty easy.)

Send E-mails to MAKSQUIBS@yahoo.com . (Let us know if the TRANSLATE WIDGET works!) Or use the Profile Page or Comments link for contact.

Thanks for stopping by.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

ANTHROPOID (2016)

Fact-based WWII Czech resistance story on the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, chief administrator of the Nazi occupation, is well handled, but too Standard Issue.* The killing of SS General Heydrich, third in the Reich chain of command, was certain to cause major reprisals, but too important to pass on. The film largely follows two (out of a handful of) Czech & Slovakian agents (Cillian Murphy; Jamie Dornan) on assignment from London who parachute back in to bolster the decimated local resistance units. A fascinating, exciting war story, but writer/director Sean Ellis makes it hard to get a handle on characters & action by leaning too heavily on hand-held close-ups & busy editing (it also robs the technique of effect when he finds better use for it later); while uncomfortable dips into melodrama with a pair of romances and ‘rhymed’ plot elements might have worked in a different sort of film. A shame since much of this true, tragic history is handsomely caught, as if on the run. Of the leads, Jamie Dornan brings something less than 50 shades of personality with him (he’s easily outflanked by heroic confederates with far less screen time), while the fortunate Mr. Murphy was born with a camera-ready face just waiting to take the light.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *You’d hardly accuse Fritz Lang of anything Standard Issue in his version of the same story. Made soon after events as HANGMEN ALSO DIE!/’43 (Bertolt Brecht’s sole Hollywood credit), the tone goes a bit bizarre at times and the acting uneven, but it builds relentlessly. On a smaller scale, Douglas Sirk gives a different side of the same story in HITLER’S MADMAN/’43.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/hangman-also-die-1943.html  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/03/hitlers-madman-1943.html

No comments: