film: Taken, Hunger and Gomorra

On the menu today, I’ve got a revenge-fuelled father, a starving Irishman and a bunch of shady Italians. Sounds like the dinner party from hell? Not when it’s Taken, Hunger and Gomorrah.

First up, we’ve got Liam Neeson in Taken. Neeson plays retired agent Bryan Mills, who has left the secret service to stay near his daughter Kim in California. But when Kim travels to Paris she and her friend Amanda get kidnapped by human traffickers forcing dad to come over and save the day.

Having not heard much about Taken, I was pleasantly surprised by its ferocious pace, dark undertones and well shot action sequences. This film is part thriller and part action movie, yet unafraid to tackle big issues like the sex industry and heroin abuse. Ever the unlikely action herom Neeson is intelligently cast as a doting father with some bad ass fighting skills. Were it not for the most ludicrous final two minutes in a film I’ve ever seen, I’d be tempted to give it 5 stars for mindless viewing pleasure. As it is – 4 stars.

Now Like taken, Gomorra also explores the criminal underworld, but this time in the outskirts of Naples. The film follows the various dealings of the Camorra, a Mafia style mob who run the area. Shot naturalistically, it has none of the gloss of a traditional mafia movie, instead focussing on a range of unconnecting storylines that include two young upstarts and a disloyal tailor.

For those of you with a taste for foreign film, Gomorrah will not only be up your street but will lay a nice table at the end of it, plonk down some fave beans and a nice bottle of chianti. Unlike some of the overly sentimental fare that’s served up to us by Italian cinema, director Matteo Garrone’s picture shoots from the hip, both in terms of photographic style and storytelling. The film’s five storylines are all equally engaging, ranging – as they do – from a 13 year old boy who wants to be part of the gang to two twentysomethings who find a stash of guns. Whilst never achieving a-grade excellence, it’s a high 4 stars.

Meanwhile, Hunger. It’s 1981 in Northern Ireland and tensions between English police forces and Irish republicans are running at fever pitch. Inside one prison, HM Maze, IRA inmates start a series of protests that culminate in a hunger strike. The film focuses on prisoner Bobby Sands, one of the ten inmates who starved themselves to death.

I’m not going to beat around the bush, do not under any circumstances watch this film if you are prone to depression. Hunger must rank as one of the darkest films of all time as it largely consists of seeing a man beaten and tortured before dying in front of our eyes. No detail is left untouched whether it be Bobby’s agonising bed sores or the shit that the inmates ‘decorate’ their cells with. First time director Steve McQueen delivers an outstanding array of gut wrenching scenes and Michael Fassbender excels as Bobby Sands. It’s a solid 4 stars.