With a significant number of Americans in the dangerous sway of a well-disseminated illusion, any stories that help us understand the psychology behind believing a con artist, and why such lies work, become a little more valuable in this day and age.
The tale of British sociopath Robert Freegard’s wreckage is one of those jaw-droppers you can’t help but want to parse, but it’s been turned into the only mildly illuminating, dimly effective thriller “Rogue Agent,” starring James Norton as Freegard, and Gemma Arterton as a lawyer who falls under his spell.
Netflix subscribers whose algorithms push scam-driven titles to the forefront will already be aware of Freegard from this year’s three-part documentary “The Puppet Master,” which grimly recounted his persuasive schemes, and the shattered victims his masquerades left behind. What “Rogue Agent” co-directors–screenwriters Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson have attempted is both to put...
The tale of British sociopath Robert Freegard’s wreckage is one of those jaw-droppers you can’t help but want to parse, but it’s been turned into the only mildly illuminating, dimly effective thriller “Rogue Agent,” starring James Norton as Freegard, and Gemma Arterton as a lawyer who falls under his spell.
Netflix subscribers whose algorithms push scam-driven titles to the forefront will already be aware of Freegard from this year’s three-part documentary “The Puppet Master,” which grimly recounted his persuasive schemes, and the shattered victims his masquerades left behind. What “Rogue Agent” co-directors–screenwriters Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson have attempted is both to put...
- 8/12/2022
- by Robert Abele
- The Wrap
The crushing inequality in global economics is both the righteous roil of British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom’s inequality satire “Greed” and its Achilles heel in effectively dramatizing the wreckage wrought by billionaires.
It’s always tricky to find humor in ostentatious wealth while stoking our concern for the plight of sweatshop workers and refugees, and Winterbottom, teaming again with his go-to comic frontman Steve Coogan, is not one to finesse such tonal details when he’s got a message to get out about mega-loaded wankers, and a killer clown whom he’s confident will wring laughs out of audacious self-centeredness.
But in the case of “Greed,” at least, the jokey jerkiness mostly works as we enter the orbit of crassly aggressive fast-fashion magnate Richard McCreadie (a fake-tanned Coogan sporting blinding white teeth) while he readies a 60th birthday toga bash in Mykonos to save his reputation after a parliamentary inquiry...
It’s always tricky to find humor in ostentatious wealth while stoking our concern for the plight of sweatshop workers and refugees, and Winterbottom, teaming again with his go-to comic frontman Steve Coogan, is not one to finesse such tonal details when he’s got a message to get out about mega-loaded wankers, and a killer clown whom he’s confident will wring laughs out of audacious self-centeredness.
But in the case of “Greed,” at least, the jokey jerkiness mostly works as we enter the orbit of crassly aggressive fast-fashion magnate Richard McCreadie (a fake-tanned Coogan sporting blinding white teeth) while he readies a 60th birthday toga bash in Mykonos to save his reputation after a parliamentary inquiry...
- 2/26/2020
- by Robert Abele
- The Wrap
Sundance Film Festival
PARK CITY -- "Trauma" is the poor man's "Memento". It is a spiraling, flash-cut visualization of one man's meltdown following a car crash in which his wife was killed.
Starring Colin Firth as Ben, the driver who wakes up in a hospital ward to find that his beloved wife is dead, "Trauma" is a mega-reality brain tease. Memory, delusion, obsession and, of course, the trauma from the accident itself all are part of this very disturbing story. What is real and what is in the mind's eye of Ben are always in doubt. And the question eventually arises: Did he kill his wife before the accident? .
Although "Trauma" is a dazzler, it's also a snoozer. Once the quick cuts and flashy cinematic flourishes subside, the story dissolves into a protracted muddle. Although we're mesmerized by director Marc Evans' visual pyrotechnics and hard-noir stylistics, it's difficult to keep up interest when we're indifferent to Ben, who emerges as an obsessive lout.
Screenwriter Richard Smith shows ample gifts, combining intrigue with the horror-of-personality genre. Yet, his character construction is overtly clinical: Ben's mental turmoil and how it connects to the death of his wife never satisfyingly congeals. Admittedly, the story is well-wired, but it nonetheless short-circuits because of the essential crudity of the characters, including dogged investigators, weird neighbors and other generic types. Not to mention bugs, which are all over the place. Such excessive imagery comes across as anthropological/psychological wanking.
Fortunately, "Trauma" recovers from its character deficiencies on the technical front. Cinematographer John Mathieson's dazzling noir scopings revive our eye even when our brain has turned off to the story. Editor Mags Arnold flexes a surgeon's precision in connecting the cinematic synapses of this hypervisual drama, while production designer Crispian Sallis shows us the character's conflicted mind-sets much more succinctly than the story does.
Compounding "Trauma"'s narrative fractures, it's also hard to understand the Queen's English, especially when snarled by Firth. Supporting players are similarly bludgeoned by the writing, namely Mena Suvari as Ben's spacey neighbor and Brenda Fricker as a clairvoyant. Both come across as character pawns rather than flesh and blood -- the lack of which is fatal with this "Trauma".
TRAUMA
Myriad Pictures
Credits:
Director: Marc Evans
Screenwriter: Richard Smith
Producers: Jonathan Cavendish, Nicky Kentish Barnes
Director of photography: John Mathieson
Production designer: Crispian Sallis
Editor: Mags Arnold
Costume designer: Ffion Elinor
Makeup/hair designer: Pamela Haddock
Cast:
Ben: Colin Firth
Charlotte: Mena Suvari
Elisa: Naomie Harris
Tommy: Tommy Flanagan
Roland: Sean Harris
Petra: Brenda Fricker
Running time -- 93 minutes
No MPAA rating...
PARK CITY -- "Trauma" is the poor man's "Memento". It is a spiraling, flash-cut visualization of one man's meltdown following a car crash in which his wife was killed.
Starring Colin Firth as Ben, the driver who wakes up in a hospital ward to find that his beloved wife is dead, "Trauma" is a mega-reality brain tease. Memory, delusion, obsession and, of course, the trauma from the accident itself all are part of this very disturbing story. What is real and what is in the mind's eye of Ben are always in doubt. And the question eventually arises: Did he kill his wife before the accident? .
Although "Trauma" is a dazzler, it's also a snoozer. Once the quick cuts and flashy cinematic flourishes subside, the story dissolves into a protracted muddle. Although we're mesmerized by director Marc Evans' visual pyrotechnics and hard-noir stylistics, it's difficult to keep up interest when we're indifferent to Ben, who emerges as an obsessive lout.
Screenwriter Richard Smith shows ample gifts, combining intrigue with the horror-of-personality genre. Yet, his character construction is overtly clinical: Ben's mental turmoil and how it connects to the death of his wife never satisfyingly congeals. Admittedly, the story is well-wired, but it nonetheless short-circuits because of the essential crudity of the characters, including dogged investigators, weird neighbors and other generic types. Not to mention bugs, which are all over the place. Such excessive imagery comes across as anthropological/psychological wanking.
Fortunately, "Trauma" recovers from its character deficiencies on the technical front. Cinematographer John Mathieson's dazzling noir scopings revive our eye even when our brain has turned off to the story. Editor Mags Arnold flexes a surgeon's precision in connecting the cinematic synapses of this hypervisual drama, while production designer Crispian Sallis shows us the character's conflicted mind-sets much more succinctly than the story does.
Compounding "Trauma"'s narrative fractures, it's also hard to understand the Queen's English, especially when snarled by Firth. Supporting players are similarly bludgeoned by the writing, namely Mena Suvari as Ben's spacey neighbor and Brenda Fricker as a clairvoyant. Both come across as character pawns rather than flesh and blood -- the lack of which is fatal with this "Trauma".
TRAUMA
Myriad Pictures
Credits:
Director: Marc Evans
Screenwriter: Richard Smith
Producers: Jonathan Cavendish, Nicky Kentish Barnes
Director of photography: John Mathieson
Production designer: Crispian Sallis
Editor: Mags Arnold
Costume designer: Ffion Elinor
Makeup/hair designer: Pamela Haddock
Cast:
Ben: Colin Firth
Charlotte: Mena Suvari
Elisa: Naomie Harris
Tommy: Tommy Flanagan
Roland: Sean Harris
Petra: Brenda Fricker
Running time -- 93 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Sundance Film Festival
PARK CITY -- "Trauma" is the poor man's "Memento". It is a spiraling, flash-cut visualization of one man's meltdown following a car crash in which his wife was killed.
Starring Colin Firth as Ben, the driver who wakes up in a hospital ward to find that his beloved wife is dead, "Trauma" is a mega-reality brain tease. Memory, delusion, obsession and, of course, the trauma from the accident itself all are part of this very disturbing story. What is real and what is in the mind's eye of Ben are always in doubt. And the question eventually arises: Did he kill his wife before the accident? .
Although "Trauma" is a dazzler, it's also a snoozer. Once the quick cuts and flashy cinematic flourishes subside, the story dissolves into a protracted muddle. Although we're mesmerized by director Marc Evans' visual pyrotechnics and hard-noir stylistics, it's difficult to keep up interest when we're indifferent to Ben, who emerges as an obsessive lout.
Screenwriter Richard Smith shows ample gifts, combining intrigue with the horror-of-personality genre. Yet, his character construction is overtly clinical: Ben's mental turmoil and how it connects to the death of his wife never satisfyingly congeals. Admittedly, the story is well-wired, but it nonetheless short-circuits because of the essential crudity of the characters, including dogged investigators, weird neighbors and other generic types. Not to mention bugs, which are all over the place. Such excessive imagery comes across as anthropological/psychological wanking.
Fortunately, "Trauma" recovers from its character deficiencies on the technical front. Cinematographer John Mathieson's dazzling noir scopings revive our eye even when our brain has turned off to the story. Editor Mags Arnold flexes a surgeon's precision in connecting the cinematic synapses of this hypervisual drama, while production designer Crispian Sallis shows us the character's conflicted mind-sets much more succinctly than the story does.
Compounding "Trauma"'s narrative fractures, it's also hard to understand the Queen's English, especially when snarled by Firth. Supporting players are similarly bludgeoned by the writing, namely Mena Suvari as Ben's spacey neighbor and Brenda Fricker as a clairvoyant. Both come across as character pawns rather than flesh and blood -- the lack of which is fatal with this "Trauma".
TRAUMA
Myriad Pictures
Credits:
Director: Marc Evans
Screenwriter: Richard Smith
Producers: Jonathan Cavendish, Nicky Kentish Barnes
Director of photography: John Mathieson
Production designer: Crispian Sallis
Editor: Mags Arnold
Costume designer: Ffion Elinor
Makeup/hair designer: Pamela Haddock
Cast:
Ben: Colin Firth
Charlotte: Mena Suvari
Elisa: Naomie Harris
Tommy: Tommy Flanagan
Roland: Sean Harris
Petra: Brenda Fricker
Running time -- 93 minutes
No MPAA rating...
PARK CITY -- "Trauma" is the poor man's "Memento". It is a spiraling, flash-cut visualization of one man's meltdown following a car crash in which his wife was killed.
Starring Colin Firth as Ben, the driver who wakes up in a hospital ward to find that his beloved wife is dead, "Trauma" is a mega-reality brain tease. Memory, delusion, obsession and, of course, the trauma from the accident itself all are part of this very disturbing story. What is real and what is in the mind's eye of Ben are always in doubt. And the question eventually arises: Did he kill his wife before the accident? .
Although "Trauma" is a dazzler, it's also a snoozer. Once the quick cuts and flashy cinematic flourishes subside, the story dissolves into a protracted muddle. Although we're mesmerized by director Marc Evans' visual pyrotechnics and hard-noir stylistics, it's difficult to keep up interest when we're indifferent to Ben, who emerges as an obsessive lout.
Screenwriter Richard Smith shows ample gifts, combining intrigue with the horror-of-personality genre. Yet, his character construction is overtly clinical: Ben's mental turmoil and how it connects to the death of his wife never satisfyingly congeals. Admittedly, the story is well-wired, but it nonetheless short-circuits because of the essential crudity of the characters, including dogged investigators, weird neighbors and other generic types. Not to mention bugs, which are all over the place. Such excessive imagery comes across as anthropological/psychological wanking.
Fortunately, "Trauma" recovers from its character deficiencies on the technical front. Cinematographer John Mathieson's dazzling noir scopings revive our eye even when our brain has turned off to the story. Editor Mags Arnold flexes a surgeon's precision in connecting the cinematic synapses of this hypervisual drama, while production designer Crispian Sallis shows us the character's conflicted mind-sets much more succinctly than the story does.
Compounding "Trauma"'s narrative fractures, it's also hard to understand the Queen's English, especially when snarled by Firth. Supporting players are similarly bludgeoned by the writing, namely Mena Suvari as Ben's spacey neighbor and Brenda Fricker as a clairvoyant. Both come across as character pawns rather than flesh and blood -- the lack of which is fatal with this "Trauma".
TRAUMA
Myriad Pictures
Credits:
Director: Marc Evans
Screenwriter: Richard Smith
Producers: Jonathan Cavendish, Nicky Kentish Barnes
Director of photography: John Mathieson
Production designer: Crispian Sallis
Editor: Mags Arnold
Costume designer: Ffion Elinor
Makeup/hair designer: Pamela Haddock
Cast:
Ben: Colin Firth
Charlotte: Mena Suvari
Elisa: Naomie Harris
Tommy: Tommy Flanagan
Roland: Sean Harris
Petra: Brenda Fricker
Running time -- 93 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 1/23/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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