{"id":1614,"date":"2024-09-25T14:27:15","date_gmt":"2024-09-25T14:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/?p=1614"},"modified":"2024-09-25T14:27:15","modified_gmt":"2024-09-25T14:27:15","slug":"triple-review-king-of-thieves-the-card-reader-decision-to-leave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/?p=1614","title":{"rendered":"Triple Review: King of Thieves, The Card Reader, Decision To Leave"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Three crime films. The first one\u2019s not so good, the second one\u2019s more impressive, and the third one\u2019s even better. Check out Decision To Leave<\/em> on iPlayer before it decides to, uh…leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

King of Thieves<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oi Oi! It\u2019s Michael Caine! In a gangster movie! Nothing new, since he\u2019s been playing those kinds of roles since his heyday with films like Get Carter<\/em> and The Italian Job<\/em>, and a bit more recently with Harry Brown<\/em>. I can\u2019t say I\u2019m a big fan of the first two, and I haven\u2019t got round to watching the third yet, but hey, I\u2019m probably not the market they\u2019re aiming at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know what you\u2019re getting here within the first few minutes. Technically, it\u2019s all based in reality as it\u2019s a true crime retelling of the 2015 Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary. Is there much truth in those, uh, performances? Or the general context? Is there fu-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I thought I\u2019d throw in an F bomb (or half a one) for effect. Funnily enough, those colourful words kind of lose their power if they\u2019re not used effectively. Michael Caine and the rest of the admittedly star-studded crew (Jim Broadbent is on half-decent villain form, Ray Winstone does his standard gangster shtick, although I don\u2019t buy Tom Courtney\u2019s bad-guy persona) seem to have fun dropping a whole heap of C bombs all over the area, but it\u2019s hard to feel any sense of threat \u2013 or comedy \u2013 when there are no real stakes. It can never decide which side of the scale it wants. These guys are supposed to be engaging in a robbery, but there\u2019s never any sense of jeopardy. When we get a view of the police department working hard to catch the culprits, they may as well be statues. No one says anything. Nope, not a single word. And hey, I\u2019m a fan of silence and all that, but not if this silence is here is contrasting against a loud, foul-mouthed group of supposed master criminals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels<\/em>\u00a0influence is loud and clear. Tough guys shooting the shit, a nice level of performative masculine aggression, a high-stakes operation that doesn\u2019t feel high-stakes. Textbook. Although I\u2019ve watched\u00a0Lock, Stock<\/em>, all I can think about when I hear that title is\u00a0The Fast Show<\/em>\u00a0parody sketch \u2018It\u2019s A Right Royal Cockney Barrel of Monkeys\u2019. For the uninitiated, it\u2019s basically Paul Whitehouse repeatedly shouting \u2018You Muppet\u2019 at John Thomson, who repeatedly responds with \u2018You slag\u2019. It\u2019s a nice comedic summary\u00a0of Lock, Stock<\/em>, and it\u2019s a pretty elegant microcosm of\u00a0King of Thieves<\/em>, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Card Counter<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I prefer to work under the radar\u2019. Well, no shiz, Sherlock. Lead guy William Tell lets us know how much of a lone wolf he is at various moments in\u00a0The Card Counter<\/em>, but his succinct admission here is more effective in getting across the point. Paul Schrader takes charge of this noir thriller, and boy don\u2019t you know it\u2019s a noir. Everything looks slick, from the organised gambling rooms to Oscar Isaac\u2019s meticulously slicked back hairdo. Taxi Driver<\/em> might be Schrader\u2019s most notable production role, but in the main seat, he can go crazy with all the darkness. If you thought Travis Bickle\u2019s monologues were too long for your liking, get ready to be hit so a barrage of expository dialogue as Tell employs his shady card skills to win big. He\u2019s got his hands in his pockets, he drives in his car with a moody expression and he\u2019s got his own darkened room with a desk where he writes in a notebook while his thoughts are heard on screen. Ooh. Moody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s not a slick production. Because it is. Everything and everyone\u2019s looking great. But every shot screams \u2018film noir\u2019 in your ear like it\u2019s a separate character. When a woman says that he\u2019s \u2018been around\u2019 and that he\u2019s \u2018mysterious’. Hey! This guy\u2019s an enigma. WOW. The dialogue is pretty solid, even though there\u2019s the occasional bit of cringle. When he threatens a boy with the words \u2018This is not a proposal you can afford to reject\u2019, it\u2019s hard to push away those\u00a0Godfather<\/em>\u00a0vibes. If you\u2019re willing to run with the heavy film noir vibes, it\u2019s a competent, albeit cold bit of cinema.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Decision To Leave<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With\u00a0Decision To Leave<\/em>, however, you\u2019re getting none of that easy exposition stuff. Park Chan-Wook throws us straight into the drama as we see dedicated police cop engaging in some sneaky sleuthing. When a man is found dead in the mountains, Jang Hae-jun becomes enthralled by the man\u2019s wife Song Seo-Rae, who seems ambivalent about his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While\u00a0Oldboy<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Handmaiden<\/em>\u00a0exist in a heightened realm of fantasy,\u00a0Decision to Leave<\/em>\u00a0feels slightly more grounded in its adherence to film noir tropes, particularly when it comes to the femme fatale figure. Yet the whole film is so elegantly shot, and its actors so compelling to watch, especially when the camera takes time to focus on their wordless facial expressions, it doesn\u2019t really matter. Chan-Wook also took production duties as well as a co-screenwriting role, and his signature intrigue pulses throughout. Deception and unease is rife. The cinematography is also typically exceptional, with the Korean mountains and water set against each other in symbolic parallel.\u00a0Decision To Leave<\/em>\u00a0isn\u2019t Chan-Wook\u2019s best work, but considering the masterpieces that are included in his filmography, that\u2019s certainly no insult.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three crime films. The first one\u2019s not so good, the second one\u2019s more impressive, and the third one\u2019s even better. Check out Decision To Leave on iPlayer before it decides to, uh…leave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1614"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1615,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1614\/revisions\/1615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}