Review: Summer of the Flying Saucer (1/5); Before The Rains (3/5); Elite Squad (2/5); The Mummy, Tomb of the Emperor (2/5)

Summer of the Flying Saucer
(Martin Duffy): Dan Colley, Lorcan Cranitch, John Keogh, Joanne Kernan, Hugh O’Connor, Patrick Bergin.
Running time: 98 minutes.

I’ve heard stories about the hoops screenwriters are made jump through for the Irish Film Board. What’s the fuss about? If a film as execrable as Summer of the Flying Saucer can get funding, then two Bonobos on ketamine with a broken typewriter can too. It is set in the late 1960s when hippy teen Lorcan (Dan Colley) returns to small town Ireland. His grumpy widowed dad scowls at his hippy son and the gossiping locals think he’s a communist. Meanwhile, a flying saucer is parked in a delapidated farmhouse. The alien space pilot looks like a Teutonic Nick Cave; the other is a pleasant young woman (Joanne Kernan). They wear strange clothes, steal tin and the locals don’t want their sort around here – an embarrassing metaphor for Travellers. Hugh O’Conor, who has been in every Irish film you should avoid, plays a sclerotic priest. Damn it if he isn’t consistent. Martin Duffy directs like it was 1980s children’s TV: naff aliens; ridiculous costumes; appallingly twee drama, clunky and clichéd. His staging of the players is amateur theatre. It reminded me of Ed Wood, though he never made films for kids and was famously chased out of the cinema by angry financiers. This apparently got around €1m from the film board. How many young filmmakers are being starved of a voice because of decisions like this?

Before the Rains
Santosh Silvan):
Linus Roache, Rahul Bose, Nandita Das, Jennifer Ehle.
Running time: 98 minutes.

British spice merchant Henry (Linus Roache) is having a dangerous affair with his married Indian housemaid Sajani (Nandita Das). His engineer, the Indian intellectual TK (Rahul Bose), looks askance in silence. He knows the villagers will hang her if she is caught. Henry plans to build a spice road before the monsoon, but the Raj is beginning to collapse; the Indians are turning against the imperial Brits. The pomp and period tells you this is Merchant Ivory, though director Santosh Silvan approaches the theme of betrayal with classical simplicity. Silvan, also a cinematographer, conjures lush topography and sensuality. But he coaxes too some wonderfully nuanced performances from his excellent players. Henry’s wife (Jennifer Ehle) makes a late entrance and her face, a slow-motion car crash of realisation, almost steals the show. Silvan is aided by a fine script from Cathy Rabin: though the dramatic momentum is too easy to predict, the film’s moral complexity captures precisely the political and emotional tenor of the period.

Elite Squad
(José Padilha):
Wagner Moura, André Ramiro, Caio Junqueira, Milhem Cortaz, Fernando Machado.
Running time: 114 minutes.

José Padilha’s Elite Squad arrives here freighted with controversy. It’s a slick, potent Brazilian cop movie and Padilha is a socially conscious filmmaker. His target? Cop corruption, and more pointedly, the vigilante violence of Rio de Janeiro’s special ops squad BOPE. But he makes a fundamental error of judgment: the film glorifies the violence into fascistic propaganda, a training manual for SS-wannabe bootboys, instead of making a case for change. Captain Nascimento (Wagner Moura) is a BOPE lieutenant cracking under the strain. He needs out. First he must groom two rookies. The BOPE shoot first, ask questions later. They raid silently at night, like the SAS. They interrogate by pummel and suffocation. Their training regime is brutal but rendered macho-sexy. They are accountable to no one and this the film justifies BOPE’s vigilantism. The story allows for Nascimento to get out, but not by rejecting violence. His character is seen not only to condone but promote it. This is dangerous: films encourage you to develop sympathy for their characters. In the ultimate scene, I found myself egging on an individual who is told by Nascimento to shoot a gangster in the face with a shotgun so he cannot have an open coffin. The moment is electric; I wanted him to do it until I yanked hold of my senses. What kind of film makes anyone wish for such a thing?

The Mummy: Tomb of the Emperor
(Rob Cohen):
Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Mario Bello, John Hannah, Michelle Yeoh, Luke Ford.
Running time: 111 minutes.

Brendan Fraser’s career ended seemingly thousands of years ago. His embalmed physique plods through this silly adventure franchise. A newly resurrected 2000-year-old Chinese emperor (Jet Li) and his terracotta army is set to take over the world. It’s like the last time I read the Economist only with marginally less sense. (Americans really are terrified of the new China). It’s up to explorer Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser), his wife (Mario Bello) and son (Luke Ford) to stop him. Cue a treadmill of explosions, giant diamonds, supernatural powers, avalanches, a drunken Irish pilot (Liam Cunningham), yetis, Shangri La, and a yak yakking into an airplane sick bag. The glossy special effects well to disguise the film’s showy origins. Hollywood has been churning out B-movies like this forever: critics maul them, parents groan-giggle and children take them to heart.