Cowboys and cannibals

Richard Jenkins (L) and Kurt Russell

One of the great pleasures of genre movies is that genre boundaries are never completely fixed. Every now and then a film comes along that pushes the inside of the envelope and takes a genre picture in new directions. Such a film is Bone Tomahawk.

This begins as a conventional Western, and very handsomely mounted it is, and then in the final quarter veers into splatter movie territory with just as much conviction and command of the generic elements. I would imagine the pitch for the movie went along the lines of ‘Imagine The Searchers meets The Hills Have Eyes’.

Whether or not the audience goes with it remains to be seen but this is an impressive debut by writer-director S.Craig Zahler. It begins as a standard ‘four men ride out into jeopardy’ picture. A young woman has been kidnapped from the town of Bright Hope by a native clan so bloodthirsty even the other tribes have nothing to do with them.

Town sheriff Kurt Russell, looking increasingly like he’s been hewn from solid rock, leads a posse comprising his deputy (Richard Jenkins), the woman’s husband (Patrick Wilson),  and a nattily-dressed psychopath (Matthew Fox).

The journey is perilous but the real danger comes when they approach the clan lair. Suddenly we are in splatter movie territory as the posse is beset by savage cannibals who are looking to re-stock their larder. It’s a sudden and jarring shift in tone and if it doesn’t quite come off it does at least leave the audience as disoriented and confused momentarily as our heroes.

Just as the first three quarters of the film was faithful to the Western conventions, the final quarter is equally faithful to the conventions of the horror movie. To be fair Zahler nails his colours to the mast early doors; the film opens on a throat slitting, and also features a cameo from Rob Zombie alumnus Sid Haig.

It’s in this final segment that we encounter the scene that has made the film notorious. Already when I mention Bone Tomahawk the response is usually ‘Oh is that the one where….?’ Yes it is. It features the most brutal, graphic, and shocking death scene I have ever come across in mainstream cinema. It is unbelievably gruesome; but it works.

It raises the stakes for our heroes to a level where we cannot possibly hope for salvation and that is exactly what the audience needs to feel this point. The best horror movies offer the audience little comfort, like Audition which offers none at all, and that’s what this scene does.

In the end Bone Tomahawk has all the makings of a cult classic. The performances are very good and Russell and Jenkins are superb; this may be the best performance Jenkins has given in a long and distinguished career.

The visuals and the pacing are first class too. This feels like a classic Western, there is no sense of sleight of hand on Zahler’s part. The Western is not a Trojan horse for a horror movie; it is incredibly faithful and respectful to the genre conventions.

But the film’s crowning achievement is in its writing. Zahler is a novelist to trade and his characters are rich and well realised. Everyone gets their moment and he captures perfectly the tone and the mood of the period through the entirely convincing formality of the dialogue.

Bone Tomahawk is a hidden gem; a film to sit through again and savour. But not perhaps on a full stomach.

Spotlight shines a welcome light

I think it was Damon Runyon who said the race doesn’t always go to the swift, or the battle to the strong; but that’s the way the smart money bets. He was right. But he would also have to acknowledge the sheer visceral thrill that comes when the expected result is overturned; the moment when the little guy wins. It is that moment that Spotlight builds to for a whisker over two hours and will have you metaphorically punching the air when it pulls it off.

Let’s be clear though; this is a battle between the forces of the media, in the shape of The Boston Globe, and the forces of authority, in the shape of the Roman Catholic Church. The Globe is by no means a little guy – it is one of America’s most famous newspapers, and deservedly so – but it is very much on the side of right. On the other side we have the Catholic Church which has for years been covering up and, in some cases, tacitly enabling, sexual abuse by its clergy. When the Globe’s investigative section Spotlight is charged by incoming editor Live Schreiber with examining the story, battle is joined.

What I love about this film is its complete lack of bombast. The tone is established in a key scene where the new editor is invited to meet the Cardinal of Boston (Len Cariou) to literally kiss his ring and receive his imprimatur. Cariou tells Schreiber that the city flourishes ‘when its great institutions work together’, Schreiber politely demurs asserting his newspaper’s independence. It is a brutal examination in the use of soft power and political leverage and this notion of these two titans tussling for supremacy while their foot soldiers, journalists on one side and lawyers on the other, battle in the trenches dominates the film.

Spotlight is never exploitative but it does not shrink from confronting its abominable subject. It moves with the dogged certainty of a well-crafted thriller as, one by one, the obstacles are overcome and the truth is finally exposed. Ironically the film is written and directed by Tom McCarthy who played a corrupt newspaperman in the final series of The Wire. Visually and narratively McCarthy brings this world to life in a film which is thrillingly mundane, and I mean that as a compliment.

The real joy of the film is in its ensemble cast. I love watching great actors do what they do best and the delight of this ensemble is in its generosity. No one hogs the lines, no one steals the lens, this is a wonderfully supportive group of superlative actors working in harmony to tell an important story to as wide an audience as possible.

There is no doubt that having Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, and Stanley Tucci above the line will bring in an audience, but this is a team effort. There are so many glorious moments; Schreiber’s stillness, Cariou’s unctuousness, and Tucci’s passion no name a few. If you have to pick a standout, then it would have to be Keaton as a veteran newshound who has walked both sides of the street; like many of the Globe’s staff he is a Catholic and like many of them he has gone along to get along. It is this knowledge of previous venality that drives him to the performance of his career.

Spotlight is the story of a victory but it is a small one in a larger battle which tragically is still being fought. In the meantime, it puts down a marker as a terrific, grown-up film for grown-up audiences.