THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON review

Out on Blu-ray, DVD and digital from 24th February, The Peanut Butter Falcon continues the resurgence of Shia LaBeouf as an actor of merit. Here he plays Tyler, a down on his luck fisherman who teams up with Zak (Zack Gottsagen), a young man with Down's syndrome who has run away from the care home he's forced to live in. Together they embark on an odyssey to help Zak achieve his goal of becoming a wrestler just like his idol, The Saltwater Redneck.

After finally managing to flee the old folk's home he's been forced to live in by the state, Zak has just one goal; track down his favourite professional wrestler, The Saltwater Redneck (Thomas Haden Church), and train with him at his wrestling school. Before his carer Eleanor (Dakota Johnson) can catch up with him, Zak meets Tyler (LaBeouf), also eager to get out of town to avoid the wrath of Duncan (John Hawkes), the rival fisherman whose crab pots he's been raiding. Travelling with the credo of "you keep stirring up shit, you're going to get yourself killed", they stick to the back roads and bayous that provide the safest passage to their destination.

It's impossible to deny that The Peanut Butter Falcon is a joyously sweet film, the highlight being the genuine bond that can be seen to grow between LaBeouf and Gottsagen, and not just their characters. LaBeouf has gone on record to state that his friendship with Gottsagen is one of the key factors in his return from the brink of becoming another former child actor cliche, and has helped him turn a corner away from some of his dark times. He even went so far as asking if Gottsagen could accompany him on stage at this month's Oscars; a generosity that seen Shia take some criticism for how he encouraged his friend on stage, but largely from people who aren't aware of the context of their relationship. Hopefully more will now track down this film to see how great an actor LaBeouf can be, and also how genuine their friendship is. One of the highlights of the film is a campfire bonding session between Zak and Tyler, as they drink moonshine and work on wrestling training, eventually giving rise to Zak's wrestling alter-ego of The Peanut Butter Falcon. It's a scene that in the wrong hands could have erred on the twee side, but it's a credit to first time feature directors Tyler Nilson & Michael Schwartz that it rings true.

LaBeouf is perfectly cast as the hot headed Tyler, angry at his brother's death and the system that's preventing him from earning a living, but also able to turn on the charm when he first meets Eleanor. He's an actor that not only bears physical scars from his dark period (two unignorable scars under his right eye, the result of self inflicted wounds he made during the production of Fury), but also carries with him a weight of trauma that's still not been properly unpacked (see Honey Boy for more on that). Tyler is a commanding character who, with Zak, sees the opportunity to be someone's big brother and the chance for him to help someone in need. Gottsagen is a solid performer drawing on his own life experiences, and Zak's position as a person with Down's syndrome is respectfully and movingly covered. Whereas Zak believes that achieving his dream of being a professional wrestler is possible, he thinks that people would only accept him as a bad guy due to his Down's syndrome. Although not a film that is trying to beat us over the head with a message, there's some questions you'll be left thinking about after the credits roll.

The tone shifts as the film moves from a two-header buddy movie into a makeshift family drama, with Johnson's Eleanor finding more comfort in being Zak's surrogate sister than reluctant mother figure, but this allows a healthy family dynamic to form ahead of the film's wrestling led finale. It's here that the film does dip its toe into magical realism territory, but hey, isn't that kinda what professional wrestling's all about anyway?

Verdict
4/5

HONEY BOY - London Film Festival review

Honey Boy follows the life of young actor Otis across two timeframes, as the older incarnation uses his time in rehab to reassess his childhood and the volatile relationship he had with his father. 

I would say that Honey Boy is loosely based on the life of Shia LaBeouf, but within seconds of the film's introduction to a 22 year old Otis (Lucas Hedges), performing a stunt on the set of his latest big budget action film (and complete with a nod to LaBeouf's often mocked "no, no, no, no, no" approach to line delivery), it's clear that, with the exception of the names of the main characters, this doesn't stray too far from the truth. To remove any doubt, the film then launches into a montage of the young Hollywood star's hedonistic lifestyle, culminating a car crash that leaves the actor with severe injuries, much like LaBeouf's own accident during the production of Transformers 2 that almost cost him the use of his hand and required major surgery to fix.

Entering rehab to work on his drink problem and the PTSD from his accident, Otis is tasked by his therapist (Laura San Giacomo) to keep a journal as part of his recovery, something that sends him, and the action of the film, back to his childhood in 1995 when he was starring on a kids TV show. Chaperoned by his braggadocio father James (Shia LaBeouf in a not too convincing balding hairpiece), Otis learns how to grow as a performer from James, a combat veteran and former rodeo clown with endless cheesy one-liners that impress no-one but himself. A recovering alcoholic who's displeased at having to live vicariously through his more talented son, James is a domineering, selfish, often abusive jerk towards his son. It's too LaBeouf's credit that despite all this, the relationship between Otis and James is one you want to see succeed, and touched with moments of sweetness, such as when they hold hands as they approach a taco stand, only breaking contact under the threat that someone might see them and misinterpret their affection.

Director Alma Har'el, best know for her documentaries Bombay Beach and LoveTrue that openly blended fact and fiction to create scenes of magic realism, makes her narrative feature film debut here by bringing her established style to LaBeouf's extremely personal script. Once the enfant terrible of young Hollywood with some performance art projects that were met with much sniggering derision, after a few years in the wilderness LaBeouf silenced a lot of his critics with his role in Andrea Arnold's American Honey and his method intensity on David Ayer's Fury, permanently scarring his face in the pursuit of a realistic war wound. Playing what is a thinly veiled approximation of his own father here, he delivers an often bombastic performance that could veer into caricature if not for the grounding influence of his scene partner, Noah Jupe, as the 12 year old Otis. The scenes between the two of them that take up the bulk of the story are often loud, vindictive shouting matches and with a constant fear of what might happen to the young Otis, but LaBeouf's script, although not short of dramatics (one stand out scene places the 12 year old Otis on the phone, acting as the go-between for his warring parents by mimicking their voices as he relays their hurtful messages to one another), stops short of feeling like a misery memoir.

Under Har'el's direction, Honey Boy lets some touches of dream-like fantasy come into play as the film heads towards its climax, but the earlier sections are all about raw human drama, and although Hedges's scenes are far outnumbered by the extensive flashbacks, the damaged masculinity he offers is unlike anything I've seen him take on before, with his older Otis bridging the gap between his younger self and the lingering cloud of his father. In a strange way, although this film is LaBeouf's story on screen, and you will undoubtedly leave the film with a new appreciation for how he's found a way to process the unresolved traumas of his childhood as an actor and the relationship with his father, the most crucial piece of the puzzle is the performance of Noah Jupe as the younger Otis, who delivers the best performance of the film by no small margin. 

To some this could be too easy to dismiss based on your feelings towards Shia LaBeouf and his somewhat erratic persona, but Honey Boy is a raw, emotional, deeply personal story that is pleasantly, gratifyingly moving.

Verdict

4/5

LONDON FILM FESTIVAL: AMERICAN HONEY review

Andrea Arnold's latest film stars Sasha Lane and Shia LaBeouf as part of a crew of magazine salespeople travelling across the American heartland. A band of roamers drifting from town to town, partying and falling in love with each other, when they pass through Star's (Sasha Lane) town, she jumps at the chance to be taken away from her life of familial burden, line dancing and Nickleback. Using the same method to find a lead actress as she did when casting the unknown Katie Jarvis in Fish Tank, Andrea Arnold found Sasha Lane during a visit to the American college blow-out spring break. Star is in almost every frame of the film, and Lane's wide eyed innocence helps inform the journey her character takes.

The film looks beautiful, as you would expect from cinematographer Robbie Ryan, who shot Arnold's debut Fish Tank as well as last year's Slow West and Catch Me Daddy, two vibrant and visually arresting films. Arnold's films have always encapsulated a kind of social realism that seemed to be utterly British, but these often undocumented and neglected areas of the USA (where she went to study film before returning to Blighty) fit her lens perfectly. The use of music is also greatly important in creating the tone. Most of the music comes from within the film, during the group's journeys where they sing along collectively as if it's some bonding ritual, and by using the particular genre of hip hop that it does, it makes no mistake that this is a film about the youth of today.

One of the most powerful aspects of American Honey is how it shows the watered down element of the "American Dream" that is still available to these kids. Whereas their parents may have sold cars or real estate, these poor and unskilled kids are selling magazines. That's not to say they're not good at it, and there's a number of scenes where Shia's Jake shows Star how he uses his charm and wit to sell magazines door to door. There's money to be made, and the group lie, cheat and steal in order to get a sale. It's here that Jake and Star differ on their outlook at life, as she wants to show the truth, not more bullshit. Star resorts to using her sexuality and femininity to make sales, jumping in the back of cars with men she doesn't know, giving the film a palpable undercurrent of sexual threat that's unnerving and constant.

The developing relationship between Star and Jake is infectiously romantic, and the film as a whole has a strong sense of physicality to it. As Jake, Shia delivers a fantastic performance. It's fair to say that after his wilderness years a lot of people will have written him off, but this is a real coming of age as an actor for LaBeouf. Still under 30 when  this film was shot, the maturity he displays in comparison to his younger crew members shows the treacherous chasm there is to cross in your twenties, and how difficult it can be to come out the other side unscathed. The supporting cast (also largely cast via Arnold's preferred method of finding untrained actors from real life characters) don't really have a lot to do besides party, although Riley Keough's Crystal at least is able to provide an antagonist for Star as her permanently angry boss.

Like any road trip, you've got to make sure the passengers are entertained before they get irritated, and American Honey does suffer the issue of being over long with a few false endings, repeatedly placing Star in situations not dissimilar to one she was in twenty minutes ago. I wouldn't call it an issue with pace, as the film relishes in taking its time and stargazing from the off, but could be improved with a tighter edit towards the finale.

A sometimes meandering look at a journey across the American heartland, Andrea Arnold has nevertheless created another believable world where real life experiences have informed the performances of her cast. A film about youth, love and the vibrancy of living life, American Honey is among the year's most beautiful and best, anchored by a strong performance by Shia LaBeouf and the announcement of a new talent in Sasha Lane.

Verdict

4/5

DARK SUMMER review

When he is placed under house arrest for stalking one of his female classmates, Daniel soon starts to experience horrific visions when she kills herself in front of him over Skype. Now streaming on Netflix is Dark Summer.

NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU DVD review

The follow up to Paris, Je T'aime is out now on DVD.

Watch the trailer and read my review, next...

TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON teaser trailer review

The teaser trailer for the third Transformers film has just been released on the web. If you thought the second film was terrible (like me), prepare to be pleasantly surprised.

Well, who'd have thought it. After seemingly ruining the franchise with the second installment, this teaser trailer for the third outing actually looks quite promising. I quite like the idea of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin being super spies, sent to the Moon on a secret mission. Government conspiracies have always played a part in the Transformers films, but this appears to be the biggest one yet.


Of course, what this trailer doesn't show us is any of the present day shenanigans with Shia LaBeouf and Josh Duhamel, and that's where the bulk of the story is going to lie. Little is known about the plot for this one, only that Megan Fox won't be returning and Patrick Dempsey's been added to the cast. Not as a replacement for Fox, obviously. 


I don't know who that robot on the Moon was, but I'm sure he'll turn up at some point to stir things up, hopefully without any cringeworthy racial profiling. Michael Bay took some horrendous missteps on the second film, and I only hope that Steven Spielberg has been able to set him on the right path this time. As for it being in 3D, I'm slightly looking forward to it. The robot on robot fights will be as predictable as ever, but if they use some real outer space photography as backdrops, it'll at least look nice.


I still think this third film has an awful title, but then so did the second film and that turned out to be... oh, wait. It was terrible, wasn't it.


Mr Bay, this is your last chance.


Due July 2011
Anticipation Level