Film Review of the Week

Comedy

The Penguin Lessons (12A)

Review: Penguins are among a vibrant class of flightless birds. Fittingly, this gently paced, comedy drama from The Full Monty’s Oscar-nominated director, Peter Cattaneo, flaps its wings but fails to achieve lift-off. Based on Tom Michell’s memoir, The Penguin Lessons follows a muddled curriculum of genre staples: the unconventional teacher who inspires dismissive students to academic excellence, mismatched buddies who seek common ground on a haphazard road trip, and a mischievous animal who coaxes a cold-hearted human out of their shell.

Cattaneo’s picture frames this hotchpotch with turbulent events in 1976 Argentina, when a coup d’etat displaced Isabel Peron as President. Thousands of impassioned opponents to the newly installed military regime vanished without trace. Screenwriter Jeff Pope previously collaborated with actor Steve Coogan on Philomena, Stan & Ollie and The Lost King.

Both men are more comfortable with comedy than meaty political discourse, evidenced when the bumbling British educator fails to correctly referee a rugby match between Argentine students and wearily quips: “I prefer my balls round.” Strain is visible when subject matter turns deadly serious and Coogan is asked to singlehandedly bear the emotional weight of scenes saturated with guilt and grief. Those tonal coin tosses between comedy and heartrending tragedy become more jarring as the picture waddles into its challenging second hour.

English teacher Tom Michell (Coogan) arrives in 1976 Buenos Aires to take up a position at St George’s College under by-the-book headmaster Buckle (Jonathan Pryce). Tom will be shaping the minds of privileged teenage boys and is instructed to keep any opinions to himself to avoid drawing unwanted attention to the private school. During a vacation in Punta Del Este in Uruguay with science teacher Tapio (Bjorn Gustafsson), Tom tries to impress a woman (Mica Breque) by rescuing a stricken penguin from an oil slick on a beach.

The rejuvenated bird bonds with the Englishman and he returns to Argentina with the penguin concealed in a bag, casually ignoring the “no smoking and no pets” policy for school staff. The animal becomes an unofficial mascot for enraptured students but reality gatecrashes the reverie when school cleaner Sofia (Alfonsina Carrocio) is snatched off the street by the military regime and her grandmother, Maria (Vivian El Jaber), who also works at St George’s, seeks the truth about Sofia’s potentially tragic fate.

The Penguin Lessons does not teach us anything new or surprising about murky facets of human behaviour or the political volatility in 1970s South America when anguished cries from families of the “disappeared” went unanswered. The titular bird scene-steals with aplomb as Coogan tentatively confronts his character’s reluctance to act when confronted with injustice. Archive footage over the end credits achieves a teary-eyed wistfulness and piercing emotional clarity that eludes Cattaneo’s dramatisation.

Horror

Sinners (15)

Review: In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the eponymous count hears howling wolves in the valley beneath his castle and is momentarily lost in reverie. “Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!” he enthuses, eyes gleaming. Music seduces in Black Panther and Creed director Ryan Coogler’s stylish vampire yarn, which explicitly harnesses the transcendental power of instruments and the human voice to connect people from different cultures across space and time.

In Sinners, that blurring of temporal boundaries is realised with verve in a standout sequence shot inside a crowded 1930s juke joint. Characters from the past, present and future magically converge on the makeshift dancefloor and the heat generated by this rhapsodic, gyrating throng appears to set fire to the barn, reducing the wooden structure to fiery embers. Similarly, fanged menaces preface an attack on human prey by raising their voices in choral salutation while their leader performs an energetic Irish jig.

Coogler’s sweat-drenched and sexy vision elicits seamlessly melded performances from regular collaborator Michael B Jordan as twins, who fend off the insidious evil that has taken root among their neighbours. The script peddles familiar mythology – stakes through the heart, garlic, holy water, sunlight-induced combustion – against the backdrop of racial segregation in Jim Crow and Prohibition-era Mississippi, swathed in a soundtrack that honours the rich history of the blues. Jump scares are predictable, as is the final stand-off between bloodsucking creatures and humans a la From Dusk Till Dawn that must be resolved before darkness yields to a cock’s crow.

Sharp-suited brothers Smoke and Stack (Jordan) return to their hometown of Clarksdale, swathed in notoriety from their exploits in Chicago as small fish in the big pond of Al Capone’s criminal underworld. The siblings intend to open a juke joint with the help of their young cousin Sammie (Miles Caton), local medicine woman Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), pianist Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) and bouncer Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller). Stack is awkwardly reunited with Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), the sweetheart he left behind. As night falls, vampire Remmick (Jack O’Connell) and his bloodthirsty acolytes Bert (Peter Dreimanis) and Joan (Lola Kirke) arrive at the joint’s front door and ask to be invited in.

Sinners bulges at impressively stitched seams with ideas as Coogler injects fresh blood into a staple of the horror genre but his film does feel oversaturated, even with an indulgent 138-minute running time. Mirror images of Jordan are easily distinguishable by fashion colour schemes (red and blue) and digital witchcraft allows the brothers to seamlessly interact with each other and co-stars in elaborately staged set pieces. Emotionally, the picture is anaemic even with a pithy epilogue distinguished by an appearance from Chicago blues trailblazer Buddy Guy but when Coogler’s joint is jumpin’, it’s mighty intoxicating.

Action

Warfare (15)

Review: War is hell – sickening, relentlessly brutal hell – in Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland’s bravura snapshot of bloodstained brotherhood during conflict. Based on Mendoza’s minute-by-minute recollections of a real-life 2006 mission during the Battle of Ramadi and forensic interviews with his former US Navy Seal team, this real-time drama is a physically and psychologically gruelling assault on the senses.

Award-winning sound designer Glenn Freemantle takes no prisoners and seems grimly determined to split open skulls with a blitzkrieg of mortars and bullets scything through masonry and khaki-clad flesh. On more than one occasion, I felt dizzy and nauseous weathering the sonic bombardment. Warfare is an intense, visceral experience that delivers repeated hammer blows to the cranium.

When an improvised explosive device (IED) detonates unexpectedly, bloodcurdling screams of injured soldiers are muffled to replicate blast-induced hearing loss. A sudden disconnect between the wooliness of what we hear and the horrific, stomach-churning vividness of what we see is eerily powerful and disorienting. Volume gradually returns to eardrum-piercing levels, and with it, our discomfort. Imagery is equally unsettling: ragdoll-like broken legs covered in phosphorus burns catch on wall corners as heaving bodies are dragged to temporary safety, appendages severed from torsos lay forlornly in the dirt. Flag-waving patriotism still serves with pride but a bombastic glorification of war goes awol before the first shot is fired.

In November 2006, Navy Seal team Alpha One led by Captain Eric (Will Poulter) gains access to an apartment building under the cover of darkness, accompanied by two Iraqi scouts, Sidar (Heider Ali) and Farid (Nathan Altai). Residents are held hostage as soldiers assume surveillance positions on the building’s second floor. Insurgents are alerted to the Americans’ presence and throw a grenade into one room, badly injuring sniper and medic Elliott Miller (Cosmo Jarvis).

Communications officer Ray Mendoza (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) requests emergency evacuation of the wounded: “Look for the blood and the smoke. We’re there.” Unfortunately, the extraction results in further casualties including leading petty officer Sam (Joseph Quinn). Pinned down inside the building, Eric and his men, including sniper Frank (Taylor John Smith), gunner Tommy (Kit Connor) and point man Aaron (Henrique Zaga), trade fire with advancing Iraqis as they await reinforcements from Alpha Two led by Officer in Charge Jake Wayne (Charles Melton).

Warfare dazzles and discombobulates with its technical virtuosity but there is scant time to get to know the vast ensemble of characters. A platoon of bright young things from Britain and Hollywood, who underwent three weeks of training prior to filming, compete valiantly with the cacophony. It’s a losing battle but Mendoza and Garland’s picture ultimately grinds out a Pyrrhic victory of broken hearts over shell-shocked minds.