Miles Teller

War Dogs Review

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I’ve been looking forward to War Dogs. As a fan of true-crime films such as The Wolf of Wall Street, Precinct Seven Five and Pain And Gain, I’ve been really looking forward to a new film in the same vein. And as a big fan of Miles Teller (who has been on a bit of a poor run recently, Fan4stic anyone?) I was hoping this could be a return to form.

War Dogs stars Miles Teller, Jonah Hill, Ana De Armas and Bradley Cooper and is directed by Todd Phillips. The film follows the true story of David Packouz (Teller) and Efraim Diveroli (Hill) who in their early 20s started running guns for the American Military in Iraq.

The director Todd Phillips’ highest profile work is The Hangover trilogy. From the promotion and the trailers, War Dogs looked to be continuing in that vein of often juvenile comedy. Thankfully, the comedy is toned down and the film as a whole is a lot more darker than it was advertised as. The Hangover crowd will find some fairly humorous moments; one scene where Jonah Hill struts around firing a machine gun in the air is one of the funniest parts of the film, but I liked how the humour is pushed back for space for a more mature story. While much of it is fictionalised, including one of the main scenes involving the duo running a truck of guns from Jordan to Iraq, it’s still an incredibly enjoyable film.

The actors do a fine job. Miles Teller is our main “everyman” type of guy, he provides a running voice over and the film is all from his point of view. Ana De Armas plays his wife Izzy, but neither have much personality beyond their roles in the story, they are pretty bland. Bradley Cooper, while a fun part of the film is not in most of it. He’s probably in it for ten minutes at the most, but his terrorist/evil gangster is an interesting role for an actor most known for being a comedy performer.

Jonah Hill though is the main comedy highlight. In a role similar to The Wolf Of Wall Street, he’s the scumbag to Teller’s nice guy. He likes to think he is a gangster; he has a massive picture of Scarface on his office wall, buys golden paper-weights in the shape of grenades and laughs manically like Jared Leto’s Joker. He’s bought totally into making money from the war, using the buzzwords of patriotism and the Free Market to clear his mind of any wrongdoing. A repeated line of his is “It’s not illegal,” which shows his entire character in three words.

The film is nearly two hours, and there is a little bit of a drop in the middle. The film starts great and ends great, but in the middle, once the duo have run their guns to Baghdad and have expanded their empire, it does drop with their second big contract. The film is split into around five “chapters”, with lines from the next part of the film being chapter titles e.g. “Welcome to Dick Cheney’s America!,” or “This is the whole effing pie!”. It’s like a less pretentious version of what Quentin Tarantino does with his films.

The whole films feels like The Wolf of Wall Street for teenagers, a TWOW-lite version. The shoddy stocks and bonds are replaced by AK-47s and over 100-million rounds of ammunition, and for good measure they went and borrowed Jonah Hill to play the same wacky/scummy sidekick of the main character. The glorification of money and despicable characters will obviously draw the anger of some critics, but that’s kind of missing the point. You not meant to cheer for the characters, but laugh at the ridiculous and risky things they do to make money and the mad opportunities that have been offered to them (such as supplying the entire Afghan Army).

The bad guys (or let’s just say “morally questionable” guys) is nothing new to cinema, and I bet that due to its subject matter, War Dogs will get lumped in with films like Pain And Gain or the previously mentioned Wolf. Don’t let that put you off, it’s one of the better things this summer and gets a hearty recommendation from me.

Score: 8/10 A lot smarter, funnier and better than it has any right to be.

The Spectacular Now Review

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Preface

Well, this review has been a long time coming; it could almost be considered a retro review. The Spectacular Now originally came out in August 2013 on a limited run (only four theatres showed the film) but after that initial viewing the number of theatres was upped dramatically for a nationwide release. In America. I remember seeing the trailer for The Spectacular Now on YouTube when it first came out and I was intrigued, yet I could not find a movie theatre or a DVD copy when it was released in early 2014. Yet due to the wonders of the Internet, I finally found a copy so here is my review of The Spectacular Now.

Review

The Spectacular Now is about a high school student named Sutter Keely (played by Miles Teller) who after being dumped by his girlfriend goes on a apocalyptic style alcohol-binge only to be woken up the next day by Amiee Finecky (played by Shailene Woodley) on a neighbour’s lawn. After this meeting the two strike up a friendship which soon turns into a relationship, where they help each other overcome obstacles in their lives.

Let me say this right off the bat; I had high expectations going into this film. Maybe it was the two years of waiting to finally see it; maybe it was that the writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H Weber were responsible for the script of (500) Days of Summer, one of mine and many other people favourite romantic comedies of all time. Whatever the multitude of reasons, my expectations were high. And wow, were they met.

The Spectacular Now is not a “dumb, mindless action movie”, this is a story/dialogue focussed film, in the vein of Quentin Tarantino (when he’s doing the colourful dialogue and not coating everything with blood). The dialogue between our two leads feels very fluid and natural, to the point where many people have speculated that most of the script was ab libbed by Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley. I tried to find evidence for either but I couldn’t find anything concrete, but if you do know then please comment below. The film feels as if you are just watching two friends having a natural conversation, which is still a problem some mainstream Hollywood films can’t recreate.

The love making scene in the film (lauded by Woodley herself for being her favourite scene in the film) has been touted as the most “realistic” sex scene in film history. It’s awkward, both for our leads and us, the viewers but also adorably cute, something which Blue Is The Warmest Colour, another contender for 2013’s most realistic sex scene failed at, to the point where it became a bit crass.

The casting of Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley is superb, as two teenagers coming from broken families and finding solace within each other. While Miles Teller at the time of filming had been known for the “Comedy Character” (see Footloose, 21 and Over and Project X, and then That Awkward Moment afterwards) its here for me that we finally get to see a broad range of acting ability, with the final twenty minutes seeing an outpouring of emotion that is brilliantly contrasting with his earlier carefree attitude. Shailene Woodley as well is performing in what I consider to be one of her best roles, duly earning the awards that she collected for this film. The rest of the cast are good in their roles, with special mention going to Andre Royo and Saul Goodman…oh I mean Bob Odenkirk as Andrew’s teacher and boss respectively, who give lectures to our main character about growing up without turning into mawkish clichéd conversations.

In conclusion, The Spectacular Now was one of the best romantic comedies of recent history, even if we are a couple of years late to the party. Go watch in now on Netflix, or if you are able to, get a DVD copy.

Score: 9/10, Deserved all the praise it got from Sundance.

Whiplash Review

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Take the premise of High School Musical, who’s script has been written by Quentin Tarantino crossed with the boot camp parts of Full Metal Jacket and you’ll get an idea of the film you’re about to watch: Whiplash.

Whiplash (which is also the name of the main accompanying song by Hank Levy) is about a drummer named Andrew (played by Miles Teller), who after catching the eye of Terrence Fletcher (played by JK Simmons) the possibly psychotic band leader of the music college Andrew goes to, becomes the main drummer of the band.

That’s where the connection High School Musical ends. What we now get is one and a half hours of JK Simmons using every single cuss word under the sun against Miles Teller, with nothing off the cards. Ethnic slurs are used; f-bombs are dropped and family members are being verbally disrespected. That’s the Tarantino script. Now for Full Metal Jacket. During the first band practice after getting the timing wrong for what seems to be the hundredth time, Fletcher finally throws a chair at Andrew’s head, before slapping him repeatedly in the face to teach him about timing. That isn’t the first use of violence against our lead and it won’t be the last. Welcome to class.

JK Simmons is one of those actors that everyone knows from somewhere. Be it J. Jonah Jameson in Sam Raimi’s Spiderman films or Ellen Page’s father in Juno, everyone has that film that they’ve seen him in before. But Whiplash has to be the film that will win him an Oscar. The ferocity that Simmons brings lends him an air of menace which can be seen in every scene that he appears. Whenever he walks into a room, everyone falls completely silent, to the point you would be able to hear a pin drop. That coupled with his use of snatching the air when there is a single imperfection within his band makes us feel like the man is a single break away from total psychosis. Simmons ferocity is only levelled by Miles Teller’s determination to prove he is the best drummer of the band, to the point where Teller’s real blood is being spilled on the drum kit. But it all comes to fruition, just like JK Simmons Fletcher has planned, since we get to bear witness not just the best drum solos ever put to film but some of the best musical performances, with a nine minute drum solo near the end of the film being the crowning achievement. It’s the first time I have come away from a film and been genuinely exhausted after watching it

The film is akin to Hollywood blockbuster, with the story merely a device to bring the next big musical set piece along (the music is front and centre in the film) yet it differs enough from Hollywood narrative to give some flourish to the story. While some scenes might seem daft in other films (one scene where Andrew pulls himself from a car crash, covered in blood and still wanting to play the drums at a concert springs to mind) we the audience buy into it in Whiplash, as the sense of dedication that Teller brings to Andrew makes us believe that the character would do something that drastic.

The only real problem I had with the film was a romantic sub-plot which is set up early on in the film, which apart from two more scenes in the film doesn’t really pay off. It would have been fine to cut this from the film as it doesn’t add anything more to the story.

In conclusion, this film definitely isn’t for everyone. If you are sensitive to foul language or are not a fan of music then I’m not sure that this is the film for you. However, if you’ve ever had a teacher akin to the Demon Headmaster and need something cathartic or if you’re a fan of jazz music, then go see Whiplash, it is well worth your time.

Score: 9/10 An exhausting tour-de-force that never lets up.