HIGH-RISE Review

Note: This is a reprint of my review for High-Rise, which originally ran on September 21, 2015 after seeing it at the Toronto Film Festival. I am publishing it again today as it hits select theaters and VOD this weekend.

Where to even begin with director Ben Wheatley's (Kill List) latest, High-Rise, is beyond me. If ever there were a muck of a film that thrived on its look and style alone it would seem to be this one. Not even the charisma of insanely charismatic British actors like Tom Hiddleston and Luke Evans can save the hot mess this is, though they try desperately. From the outset, audiences are presented with a dystopic world of chaos and destruction that seems so disconnected from anything resembling familiarity that there is no urgency to care. Instead, this intended metaphor of social hierarchy is an aimless slog through the explanation of a failing system rather than any kind of examination of how social classes are commonly found in societies that are actually developed. All systems fail eventually, we understand that, but what we see in High-Rise is a society that never develops past the embryonic stages. It's always been something of a rule of thumb that a dominant hierarchy is necessary in order to maintain social order and provide a stable structure, but the folks who have created this luxury tower block seem to all want to live in luxury with no one invested in putting in the dirty work. Naturally, those living on the lower floors are the ones believed to be less worthy of their place in the tower and thus what eventually develops is an all-out dangerous social situation that leads the residents of the high-rise to fragment into violent tribes hell-bent on provoking one another into submitting to the other. While the circumstances of this premise would certainly turn into a rather disorderly situation in any film I didn't expect the film itself to do the same thing.

TIFF 2015: HIGH-RISE Review

Where to even begin with director Ben Wheatley's High-Rise is beyond me. If ever there were a muck of a film that thrived on it's look and style alone it would seem to be this one. Not even the charisma of insanely charismatic British actors like Tom Hiddleston and Luke Evans can save the hot mess this is, though. From the outset audiences are presented with a dystopic world of chaos and destruction that seems so disconnected from anything resembling familiarity that there is no urgency to care. Instead, this intended metaphor of social hierarchy is an aimless slog through the explanation of a failing system rather than any kind of examination of how social classes are commonly found in societies that are actually developed. What we see in High-Rise is a society that never develops past the embryonic stages. It's always been something of a rule of thumb that a dominant hierarchy is necessary in order to maintain social order and provide a stable structure, but the folks who have created this luxury tower block seem to all want to live in luxury with no one invested in putting in the dirty work. Naturally, those living on the lower floors are the ones believed to be less worthy of their place in the tower and thus what eventually develops is an all-out dangerous social situation that leads the residents of the high-rise to fragment into violent tribes hellbent on provoking one another into submitting to the other. While the circumstances of this premise would certainly turn into a rather disorderly situation in any film I didn't expect the film itself to do the same thing.

EDGE OF TOMORROW Review

There will come a day when Tom Cruise not only doesn't make action blockbusters like this, but when he won't be able to and when that day comes we will miss it. We won't miss these films strictly out of a sense of nostalgia, but because Cruise is the last of a dying breed; one of the only true movie stars left who, despite his image being tainted over the years, can demand the kind of budget and talent it takes to put together an original effort worth standing behind. He has displayed such influence throughout his career, spearheading projects like The Last Samurai that would have never been made on the scope they were without the involvement of Cruise. So, even though the artistic edges of his earlier work may have faded in the wake of his public life being more important than his acting ability he is still able to make movies he seems interested in, but that are more or less of a certain genre that has better odds of making a solid return than maybe a historical drama. With Edge of Tomorrow, or All You Need is Kill as it was originally, less-generically titled (interestingly enough, I don't remember seeing a title card) Cruise has again stepped into the world of science fiction as he seems to enjoy these kinds of worlds and the different rules in each of them he can explore. What makes Cruise the still magnetic force and pure movie star that he always will be though is how he digs into the motivations of the character and makes what could easily be looked down on as silly or nonsensical into a valid threat, a valid journey, a valid plan. To a certain degree audiences expect films of the sci-fi genre to feel gimmicky or sound corny yet here that is made all the more real, all the more immediate by not only the surprisingly rational dialogue, but by the fervor in which Cruise delivers it. Yes, Cruise is chief among his co-workers as a man who can still open a film and get people interested simply by having his name over the title. Still, what struck me more as I watched a nearly 52 year-old Cruise ride a motorcycle on the outskirts of some ravished city that highly referenced any number of Cruise films was that one day we will long to simply go to the movies and have the ability to watch a Tom Cruise blockbuster. Unfortunately, those kinds of opportunities will not always be here and so we should appreciate these occurrences especially when they are as entertaining and and thrilling as Edge of Tomorrow.