Thriller
Beast (15)
Review: Alfred Hitchcock masterfully pitted mankind against Mother Nature in his 1963 horror The Birds and Steven Spielberg turned fearful eyes from the air to the water with the streamlined 1975 blockbuster Jaws. Creatures great and small make perfect cinematic villains – witness the carnage in Piranha, The Swarm, Cujo, Arachnophobia and Snakes On A Plane – and Icelandic director Baltasar Kormakur walks on the wild side with a digitally rendered lion in his blood-soaked survival thriller filmed on location in South Africa.
The murderous big cat in Beast is the sole survivor of a night-time massacre by poachers and scriptwriter Ryan Engle wastes little time feeding the gun-toting villains to the ferocious feline shortly after one thug examines a paw print and surmises, “He’s a big one. Better get him or he’ll come after us!” However, the king of the jungle meets his match in Idris Elba. The London-born actor spends 90 minutes going fist to jaw with the lion to protect his family during a nightmarish safari that was supposed to be a healing exercise for his grief-stricken brood.
Stupidity rules characters’ actions. One teenager daughter, who purportedly inherited her late mother’s fighting spirit, repeatedly leaves the vehicle that separates her from the roaring man-eater and Elba’s father serves up his children on a platter by allowing them to fall asleep in a location with no protection from attack. It’s hard not to root for the leonine antagonist.
Dr Nate Daniels (Elba) is recently widowed and determined to salve the wounds of his two daughters, 18-year-old Meredith (Iyana Halley) and 13-year-old Norah (Leah Sava Jeffries), by travelling with them to South Africa, where he first met the girls’ mother Amahle (Naledi Mogadime). The grieving father blames himself for being absent when death came a-knocking on his family’s door. Amahle lost a hard-fought battle against cancer during their separation.
The fractured clan travels to a game reserve managed by old family friend Martin Battles (Sharlto Copley), who acts as an “enforcer” against poachers. Nate, Martin and the girls encounter a rogue lion, which views all humans as prey, and the unfortunate interlopers face a nerve-shredding fight against the savannah’s apex predator.
Beast abides by the rules of the cinematic jungle (a hero with a profession or skill that gives them a fighting chance of survival, a back story tinged with tragedy, preferably at least one cute child in peril, a steady supply of nameless, sacrificial characters). Elba showcases emotional vulnerability in between tense action sequences including a claustrophobic set-piece in a stranded jeep that nods reverentially to Jurassic Park. It’s telling that Meredith wears a t-shirt emblazoned with the dino-blockbuster logo early in the film. No real animals were harmed in the making of Kormakur’s picture but our intelligence is certainly assaulted.
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Romance
Mr. Malcolm's List (PG)
Review: Shot on location in Ireland a few months after the first series of Netflix’s glossy period romance Bridgerton set tightly corseted hearts aflutter, Mr Malcolm’s List also dabbles in society scandal, class warfare and convoluted love matches among the pompous and privileged of Regency-era London. Author Suzanne Allain rifles merrily through the pages of her 2009 novel for a frothy script that contemplates whether the search for a perfect partner can be manipulated or must be entrusted to chance.
Like its streaming service counterpart, director Emma Holly Jones’s film has an extremely handsome countenance and waltzes wish fulfilment around the ballroom, empowering diverse female characters to ignore stuffy gender conventions in the service of enduring love. Cinematographer Tony Miller opens a chocolate box of swoon-inducing vignettes: lingering glances in a moonlit orangery, bonneted promenades around an impeccably tended park, a candle-lit masquerade ball, and a mighty steed galloping across green fields to reunite feuding lovers.
Bosoms heave (modestly, to ensure the PG certificate), ladies swoon and lovestruck archetypes couple neatly in combinations that are inevitable from the onset including a long-suffering footman (Divian Ladwa) and housemaid (Sianad Gregory), who despair almost as much as us at the upstairs machinations. Mr Malcolm’s List presents itself as fanciful escapism with occasional zinging lines of dialogue and remains steadfast and true to that crowd-pleasing nature.
London’s most eligible bachelor, Jeremy Malcolm (Sope Dirisu), is keen to weed out social climbers and fortune hunters, who desire his family fortune. He judges potential love matches against a secret list of 10 personality traits and accomplishments including an education based on extensive reading, a musical or artistic talent, and a forgiving nature. Mr Malcolm rejects Julia Thistlewaite (Zawe Ashton) for her lack of political nous. “I will see to it that the honourable Mr Malcolm receives what he deserves,” she seethes.
With her cousin Lord Cassidy (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) as a reluctant accomplice, Julia beckons good friend Selina Dalton (Freida Pinto) to London and entreats the clergyman’s daughter to embody Mr Malcolm’s ideal match then publicly reject him once the bachelor has fallen under her spell. A spiteful scheme seldom unfolds as intended and Julia’s tangled web unexpectedly ensnares dashing military officer Captain Henry Ossory (Theo James) and giggling chatterbox Gertie Covington (Ashley Park).
Mr Malcolm’s List maintains a leisurely trot as misunderstandings are remedied and smartly attired protagonists learn valuable lessons about humility and forgiveness. Pinto and Dirisu are well-matched – their on-screen courtship is undeniably sweet – while Ashton amusingly skirts the fringes of hysteria as a woman spurned and scorned. Opening voiceover narration echoes Bridgeton’s waspish gossip columnist Lady Whistledown but thankfully, the superfluous storytelling device is abandoned thereafter.
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