Barbados vs Aruba 2025-26 CONCACAF Series, Group C Sir Vivian Richards Stadium North Sound, Antigua and Barbuda 15th November 2025
For the tiny island country of Aruba, their last match was very much a runners up prize. Well off the pace in qualification for the 2026 World Cup, picking up two points from a possible 12, Aruba were cast off into the grandiosely named “CONCACAF Series”, essentially a just about competitive tournament for the lesser lights of the confederation, with the aim of giving some of those lower ranked teams a chance to have additional matches, the kind of thing that these islands and minnows are routinely crying out for. After an opening draw with hosts Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba took on Barbados hoping to secure a hold on the top of Group C, ahead of the culmination of the series next March.1
Aruba have long taken advantage of their status as a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, something on a par with Curaçao – recent World Cup qualifiers – or Sint Maarten.2 The ghosts of colonisation rarely allow any kind of silver lining for a nation looking to the future, but there is the access to a better quality of coaching and the opportunity for the best Aruban players to head across the Atlantic to play in the Dutch league system, and bring some of that experience back with them for the international arena (if they don’t decide to stay and play in the orange of the Netherlands that is, as some have). There’s also the children of Aruban immigrants who grew up in the Netherlands, and were able to hone their skills from the very start in a much more technically advanced environment.3 Aruban scouts are probably better off spending as much time or more scouring through family trees than actual watching football. It’s the building of a functional national side from a Dutch-supplied flatpack of parts.
The current claimant to be Aruba’s top goalscorer tells the story, having accomplished that feat when he was only 23. Born in Rotterdam, Rovien Ostiana played for SV SVV before in various lower league English clubs, ending up back in the Netherlands at TOSB in the Dutch fourth tier. Hardly the stuff of legend, but more than enough for the country of his parents to come calling. Since making his debut for Aruba in 2023, this energetic #6 has been playing well and banging in goals, with eight in 16 appearances, a period marked by an increasing level of professionalisation in Aruban football.4 Curaçao, with their players of Dutch origin and Dutch coaches, point the way, and Aruba seems to have sent themselves the goal of matching Curaçao’s 2017 qualification for the CONCACAF Gold Cup qualification as a means of measuring progress.5
It could have been a little different maybe, if Aruba had been able to hook in another one of its second-generation sons faster than the Dutch did. In 2014 an 18-year-old Denzel Dumfries, then playing for Sparta Rotterdam at the beginning of a career that would eventually lead to Inter Milan, was convinced to accept a call-up for Aruba, for whom he was eligible to play owing to his father. Dumfries duly togged out for the island nation, playing two friendlies against Guam in the course of a few days, scoring in the second. Of course no one fully knew where Dumfries’ career was heading at the time, which made it all the more inexplicable for some Arubans when Dumfries suddenly announced he was more interested in pursuing an international career with the country of his birth, subsequently not making himself available for further selection in the Caribbean. Some might have been bemused at Dumfries’ ambition, or presumption, but four years later he was playing in the orange shirt, and as a defender known for surging runs, has scored 11 times for Netherlands at the time of writing. Dumfries remains something of a controversial figure in Aruban football, the one who got away, or maybe the one who toyed a little with the island before seeking out more profitable climes. Whatever it was, Dumfries has become a hated figure among many in Aruban football, to the point that the overused “t” word has been tossed about, proving that the use of a diaspora is a double edged sword in many respects.6 7 In the end, even the most bright seeming offer of an international footballing identity is liable to be considered optional, even when ancestral.
Unfortunately, the CONCACAF Series, not even identified as such in many reports of the contest (it’s usually described as a friendly) does not appear to have been filmed, and does not exist to watch back even in highlight form. We essentially only know which players were on the field and which ones scored, and in the end they were all Aruban. Ostiana did play but did not add to his tally: instead it was Quinlan Poulina, Jaybrien Romano and Carlito Fermina – all Dutch-born – who scored for Aruba, with Barbados soundly beaten in the end.8 9 10 11 I wish that I had more to say, but to attempt to do so would probably make me sound like some kind of AI generator of match reports (which I have, sadly, encountered more than once in the course f this series).
It might seem strange to say, but the future actually does look at least somewhat bright for Aruba. No, they aren’t looking like they will be among the middleweights of CONCACAF in the next cycle or two, but Curaçao have pointed the way, and the likes of Ostiana are going down the path and it is certainly not beyond the realms of possibility that the tiny island could make a serious go of Gold Cup qualification before too long, or advancing up the tiers of the CONCACAF Nations League. The World Cup remains a distant dream, but perhaps not quite as distant as it once was.
Women
Aruba vs St Kitts and Nevis 2025 CONCACAF W Championship Qualification, Group D Trinidad Stadium Oranjestad, Aruba 28th November 2025
If we’re lacking some information on the Aruban men’s team, then the situation is a fair bit worse for the women. We know about their fixtures at least, so we know that their last match was the first match of W Championship qualification, at home to other Caribbean minnows St Kitts and Nevis. Aruba entered this qualification cycle the second lowest seeded teams involved following a raft of pull-outs, with only the Anguillan women’s team below them.12 The climb to get out of that status pit seems far more difficult and slippy than it is for the men, even if there are a few interesting personalities that find themselves part of the set-up.
The first is their manager. A former midfielder, known mostly from his playing days for being part of the FC Twente side who won the Dutch Cup in 2001, Arjan van der Laan entered into coaching in the 2010, and was, perhaps somewhat unexpectedly, elevated to the position of leading the national team in 2015. Things started well enough, with van der Laan’s Netherlands finishing second at the 2016 Olympic tournament, but iffy results in the lead-up to the Dutch hosted EURO 2017 saw van der Laan removed from his position just a few months before the tournament, with the KNVB rather brutally stating they had “insufficient confidence” in his coaching.13 It perhaps turned out to be the right call, with the Netherlands winning that tournament under new manager, his former assistant, Sarina Wiegman.14
Since then van der Laan has bounced between a few different jobs without any great notoriety, but one of them has been as the head coach of Aruba: certainly a step down in many respects, but also certainly an interesting route to take on the road to some kind of international redemption. Since his appointment in April 2024 he’s been travelling back-and-forth from Europe, attempting to institute a better quality of training session, tutoring Aruban coaches and mining Aruban and Aruban-descended players plying their trade in the Dutch league, of which there are more than a few.15 Team sheets tend to be a mixture of Dutch and Caribbean names, a diaspora stitched together.
One of those players, namedropped by van der Laan when he took the job, is Vanessa Susanna.16 Born in the Netherlands to Aruban parents, Susanna is the kind of asset that sides like Aruba desperately need, having played competitive senior football as a forward in four different countries, including with the London City Lionesses in the English league. Currently with ADO Den Haag, Susanna choose to forgo any possibility of playing for the country of her birth beyond the underage structures, in favour of the country of her parents. Her ability to play as the target woman, move up the wings and hold the ball up and turn provider, are all the kind of things that Aruba need if they are going to succeed.17
For the St Kitts game, Susanna is on the top-right of the 4-3-3 that Aruba line-up with.18 It’s a blustery evening under the lights in Oranjestad, but that doesn’t dull the enthusiasm of the few spectators, who make plenty of noise throughout. St Kitts enter as favourites, sitting 50 rankings position higher than the hosts.19 It’s a scrappy first few minutes, marked by copious amounts of throw-ins as both teams struggle to adapt to the strong wind, but it’s St Kitts and Nevis, the amazingly nick-named “Sugar Girls”, who have most of the ball, with much focus on their star striker Phoenetia Browne, playing with Espanyol in the Spanish league, who has the unusual accolade of having scored more goals for her country than games she’s played.20 But it’s actually Cloey Uddenberg of FC Toronto who gets the first chance, getting free on the edge of the area only to slice her resulting shot badly wide.
This seems to galvanise Aruba a bit, helped along by the visitors being forced into a change, Jasonna Williams replacing Zonia Marshall, inside the first 15 minutes. Aruba test Kyra Dickinson from a corner moments after, and the tackles start going in hard at midfield, probably made worse by the astroturf pitch. St Kitts seem a little frazzled by the sudden level of opposition they are facing, with passes miscued and hopeless long balls lofted into the hands of Aruban keeper Hadassah Kock. Aruba aren’t stepping off, and a high press when St Kitts and Nevis have the ball in their own third is causing problems, with Susanna among those working the hardest.
After both sides seem to be struggling to make chances for a long time, things spring into life in the last ten minutes of the half. Somewhat against the run of play, a brilliant reverse chip pass from Uddenberg catches the Aruban defence completely off guard, and sends Browne into the box. Straying too close to the byline, she shows great skill to beat the recovering defenders and somehow steer the ball past Kock from the narrowest of angles, to the extent that the commentary weren’t even sure if the ball had gone in for a few seconds, it seemed so unlikely. Aruban heads don’t go down, and it only takes about six minutes for them to draw level, with captain Soraya Verhoeve sending Tarianna Doornkamp through on goal with a defence splitting pass somewhat out of nowhere, and the Forum Sport striker makes no mistake in nestling the ball in the bottom left corner. Things stay as they are going into half-time, with St Kitts and Nevis contemplating a shock reverse and Aruba a famous result.
St Kitts and Nevis come out for the second half looking the more livelier of the two sides, though early on this mostly manifests as dangerous looking, but ultimately ineffectual, crosses to no one in particular. They nearly get caught out the first time Aruba come down the other, with Susanna getting a cross into the path of Aisse Gumbs, only for her to sidefoot wide when the goal seemed a more likely destination. Shortly afterwards Gumbs directs a header goalward from a corner, only for a red-shirt to get in the way. Aruba are knocking on the door suddenly, and they take the lead off a set-piece, the captain sending a looping free from far out on the right over nearly everyone’s heads, only for center-back Genesis Hazel to pop up and head the ball past a wrong-footed Dickinson.
St Kitts are back into the fray quickly, with Browne sending a shot fizzing just wide within a few minutes, but Aruba are not in retreat either, retaining plenty of the possession and pressing forward when they can, with Gumbs shooting just past the near post with ten minutes to play. The nominal favourites struggle to create any more opportunities, but Browne has the pick of them when she manages to rob the ball from a goal-facing defender, only to see her subsequent toe-poke denied by the legs of Kock. That’s as much as St Kitts and Nevis can create, with Aruba doing an excellent job of closing the game out, frustrating the opposition and keeping the ball away from their own goal. When full time comes, the players celebrate like they are going to a World Cup, with wins very much in short supply in this part of the Caribbean.
It’s a fantastic result for a team in Aruba’s position. It might not do much for their immediate prospects – tougher teams await in this qualification campaign, so any pretensions of being involved in the higher positions when the thing comes to an end should still be considered speculative at best – but it’s a sure sign of where the side might be headed. It’s a lot of if’s: if they can hold onto the services of a manager with the experience of van der Laan, if they can continue to find players in the Dutch league system or beyond who are both eligible and willing to play for them and if they can maintain the kind of heart and willingness to keep plugging away that they showcased against St Kitts and Nevis. Do all that, and they could genuinely become the kind of side that follows in the wake of Curaçao and turn themselves into something other than a Caribbean minnow. It might be a fair few “if’s”, but it’s better than a lot of “buts”.
Aruba’s Vanessa Susanna, playing for London City Lionesses in 2019. Photo, cropped, from James Boyes, reproduced under a Creative CommonsAttribution 2.0 Generic license.
On the eve of the 2002 World Cup, the Irish team travels to the Pacific island of Saipan for a pre-tournament training camp, and discover a shambolic set-up: a bad hotel, terrible food and car park-like pitch, with the FAI officials having failed to adequately prepare. Manager Mick McCarthey (Steve Coogan) struggles to get on with things, but team captain Roy Keane (Éanna Hardwicke), who insists upon high standards and speaking his mind in terms of complaints, finds his anger at the conditions building and building. A fateful confrontation between the two becomes inevitable.
This was a hard one to watch for me. 2002 seems like a very long time ago, but 14-year-old NFB still remembers the pain, the rancour and the recriminations of the Second Irish Civil War. I was in the McCarthyite camp then-and-now, but time has a way of making you look back and genuinely wonder just how and why we all seemed to lose our minds that summer. A screen version of the “Saipan incident” was inevitable (we did already get a stage musical after all) really, there’s just too much drama to be mined there for it to be ignored in a country where everyone then and now seems to have an opinion on what happened. The end product, from Lisa Barros D’Sa & Glenn Leyburn, is a great film, an actor’s showcase, that gets to the heart of the Keane/McCarthy schism and allows the space for everyone to make up their own minds.
Hardwicke’s performance as Roy Keane is incredible: he seems to become the man more than play him. The accent, the mannerisms, even the tics of rubbing against his nose when on camera, that’s all there and all of that is important, but it’s the aura mores o that Hardwicke manages to get across. I mean the way Keane commands a room the moment he walks into it, the sheer sense that Keane is a walking bag of nerves, aggression, even rage, liable to burst open at any second, even if he may not actually want to. He actively isolates himself from his teammates, holds grudges silently, and holds them forever. His homesickness is acute. He has a sense of humour, even about himself, but it only comes out rarely. Excepting his wife and his club manager (SAF has a couple of phone appearances, both hilarious), he doesn’t seem to have any friends really. From the moment we first see him, trying to rehab an injury by probably doing too much in an exercise room, right on through to everything that follows, that’s the thing that really comes through the most, that intensity in look and word that makes the man positively scary even if his intentions are obviously good.
Coogan has a lesser job to accomplish as McCarthy, but he’s still great as the put-upon Ireland manager, inherently laid back in the way that he goes about things, something akin to a stressed dad who just wants people to stop letting him down every ten seconds, but will soldier on regardless. Again, it’s more than the accent and the mannerisms, which are replicated well, but in what’s behind the eyes: fatigue, nervousness, an inability to comprehend the sort of man that Keane is. When McCarthy keeps asking Keane “Do you want to play?” it’s painful, as the audience has long since realised that it’s not what Keane wants to hear.
Saipan does a great job of painting a portrait of these men, in all of their obvious differences, but also in their similarities: the desire to succeed, an uncomfortableness when speaking to the media, a reliance on their wives for emotional support from a distance, the struggle to relate to the people around them. You could call Saipan an examination of toxic masculinity in some ways, especially in relation to Keane, who finds the idea of having to say the world “Sorry” an enormous problem, even if he might think internally that he should say just that. McCarthy, for his part, has so much value and identity placed upon his status as a manager, that he too struggles to back down and admit he’s presiding over a circus.
McCarthy might be more prone to keep his mouth shut where Keane is prone to outbursts, but I think the whole point of Saipan might be that the gulf between the two was potentially bridgeable, if McCarthy had chosen his approach a bit better or if Keane had shown some willingness to climb down from his high horse. More than anything, I would say that the film is fair in its depiction of the two: while Keane is essentially the main character, both are depicted in terms of their justifications for their positions, and there’s an understanding that any viewer will be able to have for either. In the end, it seems to come down to competing visions of what Ireland is and what it is capable of: McCarthy seems more willing to accept a realistic appraisal and conduct himself as such, which Keane interprets as an embrace of mediocrity, while Keane’s single-minded obsession with excellence, the best of everything and constant self-improvement, starts off inspiring but ends up perhaps seeming like something of a complex, of the post-colonial inferiority type (it’s no coincidence that Keane’s hackles are raised especially by news reports of the brilliant facilities the English are enjoying).
Everything builds and builds to that confrontation, which is almost uncomfortable to watch, someone putting a sad moment from my childhood up on-screen that I paid money to re-live. It’s intense, it’s emotional, it’s heartbreaking, how these two men reach the end point of this collision course, and Saipan should be credited with, in a tight running time of only an hour-and-a-half, doing an effective job of building to that moment as well as it does. If nothing else, I can say that seeing this infamous argument play out on-screen, turning all of these accounts into something a bit more tangible, did increase my sympathy for Keane, even if it also increased my distaste for some of his comments (his barbs at the English-birth of McCarthy and some members of the team were then and remain a disgrace, but seeing the state of the Saipan set-up on film does make you realise just how justified his anger was). Keane didn’t want to let his country or his team down, but couldn’t stay silent, and McCarthy couldn’t balance his need to be an authority figure with placating rage in a human form constantly. At the end of the day the real villain is undoubtedly the FAI, represented in the film by Jamie Beamish’s exec, not named as such but doing an excellent interpretation of one John Delaney, as underhanded as he is incompetent, with the larger organisation riven with inefficiency and general humdrumness in everything that it does.
If there is a significant fault to name, it might just be that Saipan has little time for the perspectives of most of Keane’s teammates, some of whom – Stephen Reid, Jason McAteer, Niall Quinn and Stephen Staunton – are named and get a few lines here and there, but are generally just background players. Other than occasionally telling Keane that he’s out of order, they operate in a way just as Keane allegedly viewed them, as insignificant figures that he was forced to occasionally interact with. That Ireland actually did pretty well at the subsequent World Cup relative to their size and ranking, without Keane, also seems like something the film should allow those players to have a voice about.
D’Sa & Leyburn’s film has clearly been made at least partly on the cheap, but in many ways this actually suits what it is trying to do. The Saipan hotel is a kip, exemplified by a repeated focus on the trundling AC in Keane’s room that eventually fails completely, and the pitches that the Irish team use which are of a similar quality. Vaguely psychedelic sequences of people partying in the hallways, an exaggeration of Keane’s inner turmoil, paint the picture of a place that is a bacchanalian nightmare, where the players are as liable to find a coffin waiting for them in the lobby as they are a wedding. There’s a surreality to it that is very effecting, right down to the odd colour schemes, the sense that this tropical island is really rundown and a recurring prop of a large cardboard Keane head. Ever and anon there is a fascinating willingness to place faces throughout the frame, not least Keane’s, who takes on the feeling of a looming giant or some kind of anthropomorphised volcano, ever ready to explode.
Saipan saddened, me, but in ways that I suppose must be considered to its credit. It’s probably the best dramatisation of this seminal moment in Irish history – and that is not an exaggeration – that we are ever likely to get, one that lays out the facts as the creators understand them, polishes it up a little here and there, presents the clash of egos and emotions and asks the audience if they still hold to the position that they held 24 years ago. There are no simple answers: in the end, Saipan is probably at its best in showcasing to Ireland and the Irish that both men had their reasons and neither was fully in the right or the wrong. Brought to life by fine performances, shot well and telling a fascinating story in a tight timeframe, Saipan is highly recommended.
(All images are copyright of Wildcard Distribution).
The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers – “The Retreat Of The Hornburg”
Wherein we say goodbye to the elves; Aragorn and Gimli decide it’s time for some thrilling heroics; and it all falls apart.
We have now reached the real crisis point of the Battle of the Hornburg. In the course of this chapter of the story, another that bucks the trend of short scenes that have populated much of The Two Towers, we really see things turn: the collapse of the defence behind the Deeping Wall, the initial breach of the Hornburg gate, and then that terrible retreat back into the keep. Following on from the previous two sections of the Helm’s Deep fighting in “The Battle Of The Hornburg” and “The Breach Of The Deeping Wall”, we need a great blend of acting, choreography and cinematography, but we also need that other important element: Howard Shore’s score. Int his entry, I’d like to take a closer look at the score for the first time in a bit, and examine how it fluctuates and changes with the rhythms of the fighting it plays over.
The initial music has an obvious primacy over the sounds of the actual action, which comes across as if it’s occurring a great distance away: the effect seems to want us to consider the fighting as almost an abstract, with the producers much more focused on toying with our emotions through the music. This starts as a mournful tune, despondent in its low winds, drawn out like a funeral dirge, not at all that dissimilar to the song that Eowyn sung in “The Funeral Of Theodred”, and to my ears carrying also a certain likeness to “Dido’s Lament”. The feeling is of defeat and heartbreak. The music cuts off for a few seconds as Aragorn sounds the retreat, only to come right back in when Haldir gets his fatal wound. Elizabeth Fraser’s “Haldir’s Lament” comes in here, a low piece of a kind with the “Lament For Gandalf” we heard back in “The Mirror Of Galadriel”, her voice coming across as if from a great distance as well, singing Haldir onto the next world with sorrow, the words lamenting the passing of the years. Things suddenly pick up again as Aragorn holds Haldir’s body, the score whipping up with higher, faster horns and winds, as he dives off the Deeping Wall even as the Uruk-hai first breach the causeway gate. The dread times are passing, now we are back to more opportunity for daring-do on a more even keel.
The heroic themes continue for the initial fighting at the causeway gate, before silence comes into it, the absence of the score for a space allowing the viewer to fully immerse themselves in the screaming, the clashes of swords and other battlefield noises. Our auditory palette cleanse done, Aragorn and Gimli take their side passage out of the space before the gate as a very low, sly-sounding violin piece comes into things, rising slowly and ending sharply, as the two make their plans. The annotated score calls this “Evil Times”, but for me it doesn’t sound evil, more like the kind off accompaniment you might have to a fantasy heist at the critical moment, to someone very clever about to implement their very clever plan and hoodwink all of their enemies. Then the Fellowship theme comes roaring back into things, out of nowhere in an auditory sense, as the two leap onto the causeway and start killing Uruk-hai, the sudden arrival of this part of the score mimicking the surprise that the two heroes have managed to inflict on their enemies. The Fellowship theme is always, to use an appropriate phrase, music to the ears, and again there is the sense of the tide turning in the favour of the forces of good.
But from there, things turn again. As the Uruk-hai fire off their ballista and get their giant ladders going, we hear the return of the terrible and imposing Isengard themes, their mechanical monotony underlining the creeping inevitability of the Uruk-hai advance. It comes to an end when Legolas sends one of those ladders packing, the music dying off into silence as it collapses, a sign of temporary defeat for Saruman. There follows one of my favourite pieces from the soundtrack, “The Heroics Of Aragorn”, as Aragorn and Gimli, their daring-do accomplished, get pulled to safety from the causeway, a grand heroic piece of music, all dramatic horns perfectly pitched, as the Uruk-hai are left temporarily defeated at this critical part of the fighting, and the protagonists live to fight another day (non-literally of course). It’s like something that you would hear in a swashbuckling story of old, like something involving Zorro or Robin Hood, one meant to underline the incredible deeds pulled off in the pursuit of good.
But there is only so much that Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas and indeed any of the defenders can do. The Uruk-hai still have two ladders in place and continue to swarm over the walls, and what work has been done on the gate does seem to be able to stand up to the continue assault. As things turn once again, a lone violin leads us into the last bit of music for the scene, a reduced version of the Rohan theme, one that eventually coalesces into what is essentially just a single martial-sounding horn. As the Uruk-hai swarm what is left of the defenders, and those defenders scramble back into the relative protection of the keep, this lone horn shoots out this small version of Rohan’s signature, and it very much feels like it is the accompaniment to a final defeat, a bugler sounding a retreat from a battle lost, the last flickering ember of Rohan’s resistance being shouted into a void before it is silenced forever.
Looking at the Battle of the Hornburg in this manner has emphasised to me how, in some ways, this defining sequence of The Two Towers actually goes by much faster than you might think if you were watching the battle in one continuous sequence, with only the entmoot chapters to break things up. That makes the music work here shine all the brighter in my estimation. Shore brings us from moment to moment with auditory expertise: the serious lows of Haldir’s death and everything that it represents, the collapse at the gate and that terrible final retreat, with the highs of Aragorn’s leap into the Uruk-hai, the stand on the causeway, or the rescue effort to get Aragorn and Gimli back on the battlements. It’s stirring when it needs to be, morose when it needs to be, taking in influences from all over the place. Ahead of the true finale of the Battle of the Hornburg, it’s a great example of what a score can be and what it can do for a film.
Not a word.
Notes
-Great opening shot from above of the disintegrating situation behind the wall, as the elvish defenders get cut down.
-A little bit of a cliche, the sudden absence of sound as things get serious and Haldir gets his mortal wound. All we’re missing is the screeching bullet.
-Not sure we need what is essentially a comedy shot of Gimli being literally carried away by Legolas and another elf.
-A well worked moment as a wounded Haldir see’s the scores of dead elves around him. Given this is the last great martial contribution of the elves to this form of the story, it seems appropriate.
-Aragorn takes a ride on a ladder at this moment, crashing into the melee below, and I remember on a first viewing being a little confused, thinking this was one of the Uruk-hai ladders and that Aragorn had just leapt outside the Deeping Wall.
-That gate to the Hornburg isn’t worth much is it? It doesn’t take much for it to start to crumble, and a chaotic brawl is the result.
-Theoden gets into the thick of things, saving Gamling, and gets a spear into the shoulder for his trouble. This King is not going to hang back.
-There is a jarring change in the general tone of things here for a moment, as Aragorn and Gimli sneak out to the side of the causeway. The music drops, the sounds of battle recede, and it’s like we are suddenly in a totally different film.
-What an exchange: “Toss me.” “…What?” “It’s too far, you’ll have to toss me!…Don’t tell the elf”. “Not a word”. Amazing.
-Great overview shot of Aragorn and Gimli kicking ass and taking names on the causeway as the Fellowship theme swells, and that always gets me going to.
-Pure Saruman, this ballista that allows the Uruk-hai to get a massive ladder, and then two more, onto the walls of the Hornburg. The narrowing top isn’t the smartest of course.
-Nice bit of choreography as Aragorn and Gimli do circles back-to-back in their desperate defence of the gate.
-Big hero moment for Legolas, as he sends one of the giant ladders crashing with one shot. It’s a cool idea, but a vulnerable one it has to be said.
-Theoden seems to pretty much abandon Aragorn and Gimli here. He couldn’t have let them sneak back in before fully sealing the gate?
-Great shot from the ballista, nailing one of the Rohirrim dead on, with a pitch perfect accompanying scream.
-Theoden does seem to essentially give up at this point, despite the huge effort that has been made to secure the gate. His retreat order is an act of desperation.
-Great panning aerial shot as the defenders scramble back into the keep, the Uruk-hai swarming over the walls and the stairs. Just one of those instances where you can pick out a different specific character or figure every time and see something different happening.
Final Thoughts: Music for action scenes, for war scenes, can just be big booming horns if you don’t want something more ambitious, but Howard Shore has that ambition. His score for this section of the film ebbs and flows, goes loud and goes quiet, underlines instances of heroics and instances of failure, and never sounds the same moment-to-moment. He’s been an enormous part of what makes the Battle of the Hornburg great, and he’ll be doing it again very shortly. Up next, back to Fangorn.
Football is a team sport, first and foremost, but as is natural in today’s society, it is also often perceived as a sport of individuals. Some squads focus very much on the sum of the parts, of taking a large number of perhaps more-than-exceptional footballers and making a much greater whole out of all of them. But other sides have their superstars, their talismans to focus everything around, and in some cases just one person out of the 11 on the field can claim such a level. The 2014 World Cup Final was a contest where both sides of this frequent dichotomy were apparent: in the team-based approach of Germany, coming to the fulfilment of a lengthy regeneration project, and in the singular emphasis of Argentina, so wrapped up in memories of similar feats from yesteryear that they seemed to think that one man could carry the other ten on his back all the way to glory. It was an appropriate endpoint of a journey for both teams, since you could arguably trace the starting point all the way back to the last time they had contested such a match, where Franz Beckenbauer’s West Germany won that grim affair in 1990, setting Diego Maradona’s Argentina into a tail spin.1
With the exception of their triumph at EURO 1996, a result that in hindsight only briefly masked the decline, the period between 1990 and 2014 was a grim one in most respects for Germany. The shock of losing the EURO 1992 Final to Denmark previsaged a deeper calamity, as Der Mannschaft sandwiched their win in England with successive Quarter-Final exits at World Cups. The 1998 disaster, the 3-0 demolition at the hands of a Davor Šuker-inspired Croatia, was especially galling, signifying the true end of a generation of talented footballers, and a deeper crisis in the traditional powerhouse.2 Things fluctuated massively from there, with the Oliver Kahn-led march to the 2002 World Cup Final coming in-between consecutive group stage exits at the EURO’s, with 2004 a particular low-point: Rudi Völler’s regime came crashing down on the back of two draws, one loss and just two goals scored in Portugal that Summer.3 4 A deep and far-reaching introspection was needed to determine where exactly Germany was going wrong, which all and sundry could see went beyond the underperformance of the national team.
For Argentina, the immediate period after the 1990 disgrace seemed shiny. The shadow of Maradona and his deterioration was removed, and La Albiceleste found a new talisman in the form of the imperious Gabriel Batistuta, who helped guide Argentina to consecutive Copa America triumphs in 1991 and 1993.5 But, coincidently enough, it was right around the time that Maradona was briefly welcomed back into the fold for the 1994 World Cup, alarming viewers with his bug-eyed celebration of a goal against Greece before being sent home in disgrace for failing a drug test, that things fell apart.6 The Argentinian team subsequently went out in the Second Round, and they then spent the next decade mostly floundering: Quarter-Finalists only in 1998, a humiliating group stage exit in 2002, and consistent failures in the Copa.7 The latter was topped off by the agony of the 2004 tournament, the first time in several editions where Argentina had gotten beyond the first knockout stage to reach the Final, where an 87th minute César Delgado goal over Brazil appeared to have stopped the rot, only for Adriano to pop up with the last kick of normal time to finish it at 2-2 and allow Brazil to win on penalties.8 With Batistuta’s international career petering out amid disputes with management and lengthy absences, the side was casting about for someone to embody Maradona’s greatness and lead them back to glory.9
Across the Atlantic, Germany were now commencing what Raphael Honigstein’s excellent book would notably dub “Das Reboot”: a root-and-branch reform of how German football worked, from the entry of youth players into the system all the way up to the national teams.10 Having previously relied totally on the DFB and the regional federations to identify youngsters, a new academy programme was implemented Germany-wide, mandating Bundesliga clubs in the top two tiers to set-up academies with teams going down at least to the U-12 level, with the DFB to be actively involved in all instances. There was a flood of funding for regional centres of excellence, a regeneration of coaching standards and a refusal to slow down in the midst of the 2004 disaster.11 At the top, the newly appointed management team of Jürgen Klinsmann and his assistant Joachim Löw took that foundation and used it to start crafting a new identity for German football going forward, one that would be far from the restrained, defensive-minded stereotype that some associated with Der Mannschaft. There would be less sweepers, and more play akin to tiki-taka, if not quite as suffocating, less pragmatism and more blistering attacks.12 13 Smaller pitches during development, modern training technology and the best possible statistical analysis were all to be employed.14 The new leaders of German football wanted kids in the German academy system to be playing faster football, more technically adept football and, most importantly, more attacking football, the kind of football where the incisive threat of constant short passing, the potential disruption of off-the-ball movement and individual skill in ball control and pulling off the unexpected was the norm. They no longer wanted a team where singular individuals like Franz Beckenbauer and Lothar Matthäus did the work of many, but one where a true team dynamic could emerge.15
And they wanted those kids undergoing all of this development graduating into senior teams that played the way the new leadership dictated. A heavily beneficial advertisement for what Klinsmann wanted to do came at the 2006 World Cup, hosted by Germany, where the home team played an attractive and engaging kind of football, and ended up defying some of the odds by finishing third.16 His approach, and the entire plan from top-to-bottom, had its critics, not least because of the cost of implementing the academy structures, but over the next eight years a truly special generation of German footballers emerged.17 They flipped the paradigm of foreign dominance in the Bundesliga totally which, back in 2002, had been inundated with non-German players in the aftermath of the Bosman ruling: under the regeneration, this situation was dramatically reversed.18 The new generation had learned their trade the way that Klinsmann, and then Löw when he stepped into the head coach role, wanted them to learn it. New citizenship laws implemented in 2000 also started bearing fruit, through second generation immigrant families that now had a much easier path to becoming German: a number of the Turkish team that finished third in the 2002 World Cup had been German-born, and this was not forgotten. The string-pullers in the DFB now wanted those youngsters playing for the country of their birth.19
The result of all of this work was a perfectly balanced blend of long-term veterans sticking around for one last ride, established players thriving under Löw’s system and youngsters who knew nothing else. The team that would make history in 2014 was a lesson in finding the right component in every part of the field: Manuel Neuer, the “complete” keeper who perhaps more than any other has defined what that position means in the modern day; Philipp Lahm at right-back, a player so adept with the ball and reading the play he could, and did, excel as a defensive midfielder when called upon, but with Germany could be seen more often bombing up the wing; a rock-hard centre of defence, between the strength of Mats Hummels and the hard-tackling of Jérôme Boateng; the versatile Benedikt Höwedes at left-back; a midfield engine powered by the impervious Bastian Schweinsteiger and Sami Khedira, who epitomised the ball-playing requirements of Löw; an attacking medley made out of combinations of lethal midfielders like Toni Kroos, technical master Mesut Özil and all-rounder Thomas Müller; and elder statesman Miroslav Klose up-front, a legend who already had 14 World Cup Finals goals to his name and was more than willing to give it one last shot 12 years on from being a runner-up in 2002.20 – 27 The larger squad was replete with players who would walk into other international teams: Per Mertesacker, Mario Götze, Lukas Podolski, André Schürrle.28
They also represented much of the facets of the regeneration project: of the 14 German players that would take the field for the 2014 World Cup Final, ten had only ever played under Löw as German manager, nine plied their trade in the Bundesliga and four were the sons of immigrants.29 30 31 This was the team that carried out Löw’s plan of attacking movement, fast-passing and what seemed almost like a telepathic understanding of everyone’s else’s movements, and there were very tangible results. Germany under Klinsmann had emerged from the shadow of those 2000 and 2004 disasters, and now under Löw they progressed back to the status of being among Europe’s and the world’s elite international teams. With Löw they were runners-up at the 2008 EUROs, third at the 2010 World Cup and Semi-Finalists in the 2012 EUROs, always there-or-thereabouts and not to be underestimated or dismissed.32 The moment of triumph was elusive, and German media was still prone to make criticisms, but the progression was plain to see, as Germany under Löw established themselves as the international scene’s pre-eminent team in terms of attractive forward-focused football, moving from being a strictly counter-attacking side to more of an all rounder, able to mix that aspect with possession-heavy offence as they needed.33 34 But still, they needed that win to truly cement their legacy.
Argentina would be enjoying some attractive forward-focused football of their own, but it would all revolve around a single person, the man that Batistuta, in acknowledging he would soon lose his status as Argentina’s most prolific striker, dubbed “an extra-terrestrial”.35 It’s a potent descriptor, but it really gets to the heart of one Lionel Andrés Messi. Born in Rosario in 1987, Messi was a phenomenon from a remarkably young age, playing with his local club at four, and banging in so many goals over the next eight years that he was rapidly attracting interest from Argentinian giants like River Plate and then European giants like Barcelona.36 37 With an ancestral background in Catalonia, it was to the Camp Nou that the Messi family relocated in 2000, with Messi honing his skills at La Masia, forming an intensely successful collaboration with the likes of Cesc Fàbregas and Gerard Piqué. By age 16 he had conquered the youth teams and made the breakthrough into the senior squad, never looking back.38 The cavalcade of team and individual honours that has followed tells the story: 12 league titles, seven cups, four Champions Leagues and eight Ballon D’ors.39
How has he done it all? At first glance, for the uneducated, Messi has consistently appeared unimpressive, short and thin, but then he gets out on the field. His intelligence and movement is second-to-none, with his speed earlier in his career matched with his perfection of “walking football” later on. His ball control ability is astounding: I have never seen anyone else as adept as Messi at getting the ball and knowing exactly what he has to do with it next in so short a time, whether it is a quick pass done so automatically that it seems to be just pure instinct, a longer through ball that shows the keenest insight or a dribble where Messi rapidly showcases his ability to run at opposing players and glide past them. All of that would make him a great player, but man oh man can Messi score goals: from distance, as a poacher, set-pieces, he even makes a mockery of his height by being one of the most accomplished headers of the ball over the last two decades. Put him anywhere on the attacking side of the field, an outright striker, a playmaking central role, on the wings, and he’ll excel. Anytime he gets the ball, you immediately feel that something amazing could be about to happen. The superlatives employed in the descriptions of Messi all fall short in really getting across just how great he is, little less, in my opinion, then the single best individual to ever play the sport.40 41 42
But for all of that success at the club level, in 2014 Messi was still reckoning with repeated failures at the internationals stage, that hung over him like a shadow, his time with the senior national side a catalogue of what-might-have-beens. If we are being honest with ourselves, the players that we consider the best in the history of the game are players who have achieved success at the international level. Pelé, Maradona, Beckenbauer, Zidane are the kinds of names I mean, players who excelled for their clubs and excelled for their nations, winning continentally or winning World Cups, and sometimes both. For the others, the Eusebio’s, the Puskas’ the Best’s, the Cruyff’s, the Giggs’, the admiration that falls on them is often tempered with an acknowledgement that, for whatever reason, they were not able to do for their country what they could do elsewhere. How to get to that level was the Gordian Knot facing Messi for the third time in his career in 2014.
Through the two previous World Cup’s that Messi has been a part of, you can get a picture of his relationship with his country when it comes to football, which has always been surprisingly complex. In 2006 he only had a minor role – he scored one goal, in the 6-0 rout of Nigeria – as Argentina went home after the Quarter-Finals, but the level of his talent was so obvious that then manager José Pékerman came under fire at home for not playing the young man more.43 Argentinians, twenty years removed from their last World Cup success and 17 years from their last raising of the Copa, were hungry to be back at the top table, and Messi seemed like the real “new Maradona”, after so many pretenders to that title had come up short: for once, Maradona himself was endorsing Messi for that most over-used of titles.44 45
Four years later, Messi had established himself as arguably the best in the world, but such success was matched by increasing unhappiness at home over perceptions of his attitude towards the national team. Messi excelled in South Africa, playing behind the main attackers as a chance-creating playmaker, and while not scoring himself was involved in nearly everything productive Argentina did that summer, struggling as they often were with the erratic management style of Maradona, and it was largely on the back of Messi’s play that they topped a tricky group and progressed past Mexico in the Second Round. But the wheels came off the bus decisively in a last eight humiliation, when Löw’s Germany put in their, to that point, landmark performance in a 4-0 demolition.4647 In the aftermath Messi was singled out by some at home, accused of placing club before country and facing the frankly tired criticism that, as the new Maradona, he should be single-handedly capable of taking his country to a World Cup triumph, even if the side around him was frequently sub-par.48 Maradona, whose catastrophic management of the team was more to blame, got off lighter: evidence of the unique ability that man had of wowing the Argentinian public and media, something the more unassuming and less flamboyant Messi has always struggled with.49
Onto the 2014 World Cup. Germany were drawn in a tough enough group, but got things off to a flyer in a scintillating performance against Portugal, where Müller both scored a hat-trick and took a headbutt, the latter seeing Pepe sent-off in the first half. A much tougher contest against Ghana followed, where it took Germany 51 minutes to take a lead, and only 12 minutes after that to be behind, before Klose rescued a draw. A tense final group game against the United States – managed by none other than Jürgen Klinsmann – was settled by a lone Müller strike, slotting home a rebound after Tim Howard had parried away a Mertesacker header.50
It had been a successful – they topped the group – but unconvincing First Round for Germany, and doubts about their ability to finally bring home a World Cup only increased in the last 16. An Algerian side seemingly intent on getting revenge for the alleged “Disgrace of Gijón” 32 years prior held an unexpectedly toothless Germany for 90 minutes, but couldn’t keep it up in an additional 30, with Schürrle and Özil getting the needed goals.51 52 Criticism of the side was loud in the aftermath, and not even a win against France in the last eight, Hummels powering home the only goal from a free-kick, stemmed that criticism.53 Germany did not seem like they were embodying the kind of ethos that Löw wanted, not least because they simply were not scoring enough for some people’s liking.
And then Brazil. Nothing will ever really match the “Mineirazo” will it? In a strange way it has become the defining result of the German regeneration project, far more than the game that followed. The destruction that Germany visited on the host nation that night, scoring five goals in one remarkable 18 minute period of the first half before adding two more in the second, will likely go down in history as the most famous drubbing ever, a game where the hopes and dreams of the Brazilian nation were annihilated by an utterly ruthless Mannschaft, who passed the ball around their hapless opponents at will and seemed to score as they pleased. It was important to recognise that that game was not really a vivid example of the greatness of Löw’s Germany, as Brazil played so badly that night that the 7-1 final scoreline was far more of a reflection on the hosts than it was on Germany.54 But any concerns about Germany’s ability to score goals, of showcasing a lethal streak where they were capable of punishing opposition errors and of beating some of the best in the world, were firmly and dramatically dispelled: the biggest challenge the Germans then faced was getting their heads right after such a momentous result.55
After an impressive qualifying campaign where they topped the CONMEBOL group – Messi scoring ten goals in 18 games – Argentina’s path to the Final ended up being a tight one, where the impact of Messi was the critical factor.56 He made one goal and scored another in an opening 2-1 win against newcomers Bosnia-Herzegovina, then had to rescue his nation by scoring a superb injury time winner against a hard-fighting Iran in the next game, when a draw would have been a far worthier result. In the final group game it sometimes seemed like Messi and ten hangers on vs Nigeria, the Argentinian captain scoring the first two of his country’s goals before Marcos Rojo’s winner went in off the defenders knee late. It had been at times scrappy and at times unconvincing: about the only convincing thing really had been the evidence of Argentina’s reliance on their star man.57
Into the knock-outs then, where the pattern largely repeated. For all of their attacking talent – aside from Messi this was an Argentina side with the likes of Ángel Di María, Gonzalo Higuaín and Sergio Agüero in the squad – the 2014 edition of La Albiceleste looked frighteningly impotent, spending the vast majority of two hours of Second Round football against Switzerland passing the ball around their opponents penalty area, before Messi set di María up for the winner with two minutes to play.58 59 Belgium offered a similar resistance, broken by Higuaín’s somewhat fortunate decider, he pouncing on a deflected di Maria pass.60 That led to the Netherlands and another 120 minutes of scoreless action: depending on who you believed it was either a taut chess game where Louis van Gaal and Alejandro Sabella expertly cancelled each other out in a fascinating tactical stalemate, or two hours of utter tedium where neither side was able to score. Argentina advanced via penalties, where Messi scored one.61 It had not been a vintage showing through the tournament, with a pronounced tendency of the Argentinian players to constantly be seen to pass the ball to Messi in the hopes that he might be able to produce the necessary moment of magic, an overreliance that was as obvious as Messi’s ability to frequently make good use of it.62 On the other hand, they had never trailed in six games, hadn’t conceded in the knock-outs and had demonstrated the ability to get the needed goals late.63
Both sides fielded unchanged sides from the last four, with the exception of Christoph Kramer coming in for an injured Khedira on the right side of a German midfield three, while Messi played behind Higuaín in a 4-4-2 that could morph into a 4-2-3-1 as required.64 The dynamic of the game seemed apparent early, the Germans passing the ball out of the reach of early Argentinian pressure and aimless Argentinian play forward when the ball wasn’t being put directly at Messi’s feet. When Germany won the first chance of the game, a 30-yard free-kick four minutes in, it was remarkable to see almost all of the outfield players clustered around the ball calmly discussing what should be done, before a multi-touch set-up comically resulted in it being smacked right into the wall. Moments later a German burst forward was marked by commentators simply naming players briefly holding onto the ball before playing it on, so quick and fluid was the passing, something the crowd picked up on too, cheering every pass just seven minutes in.
The Germans looked patient, cool and calculating, but then Messi got his first touch on the ball, and proceeded to roast Hummels down the right flank, starting in front of him, speeding up next to and then past him, and denied the chance to make a clear opportunity only by the intervention of Schweinsteiger preventing the successful cutback from the byline. That was a wake-up call for Germany, until then perhaps inclined to question Messi’s potential impact. Schweinsteiger looked intent on getting one back on the Argentinian captain a few minutes later, dispossessing him in the centre of the field, only for Messi to show his own defending acumen by racing back and helping negate any Germany production.
As many Finals tend to be, it was a tense game marked more by half-chances and conservative choices, both sides wary of being too gung-ho and allowing the other the opening they sought. Argentinian robustness in defence helped to nullify Germany’s clear advantage in possession, while Messi, despite his moments of obvious brilliance, was nullified through the opening stages. It was Higuaín who got the first real chance of substance, inadvertently played in straight through on Neuer owing to a botched header backwards by Kroos, but the the Napoli man dragged his volley harmlessly wide. Other than that Germany’s control asserted itself through lengthy periods of retained possession. Argentina were playing chaseball while Messi stayed resolutely in the middle of the field waiting for a break, with Schweinsteiger generally never too far away, drawing a yellow for a trip just ahead of the half-hour mark. Still, there was nothing really doing from all the German possession though, with Lahm’s beautiful throughball getting beyond Müller and needing an acrobatic save from Sergio Romero, only for the offside flag to go up anyway. Messi, not to be outdone, then laid off an utterly gorgeous pass for Ezequiel Lavezzi on the right, the subsequent cross converted by Higuaín, but he too was offside.
With Kramer nursing an injury from a previous collision, Andres Schürrle was sent on after only 32 minutes, perhaps unsettling the Germans a tad: it was down the flank concerned that Argentina next came, Messi advancing with menace towards the German goal only for his attempted pass through to an open Higuaín to be denied by a well placed boot. Schürrle tested Romero seconds later from a Müller cutback, but the offside flag was up again and Germany continued to wait for a legitimate effort on goal. Argentina, for all of their limitations in keeping the ball, had no such issues: it was Messi who went close next, speeding down the right flank off a great forward pass, the German offside trap beaten all ends up, but Hummels was able to recover enough to get close, throw Messi off and allow the situation to be dealt with before an actual effort on goal resulted. Germany dominated the last few minutes of the half in response, and did at least get a shot off, straight at Romero from Schürrle, before the half-time break. Höwedes then hit the post from a corner at the death, only for the offside flag to be raised again. It was a half where Germany’s intent on working with the ball and patiently allowing things to be built was obvious, as was Messi’s dramatic importance to Argentina.
Seemingly unhappy with Argentinian play down the left, Sabella hooked Lavezzi at half-time in favour of Agüero. Within moments Messi was again at the centre of things, attempting to thread a throughball to Agüero only to be denied by Boateng. Then, he turned receiver from a throughball put in down the left, in around the stranded German defence with only Neuer to beat. It wasn’t a gimme chance by any means, but you would back Messi on most occasions to convert. This time he didn’t, dragging his shot just a foot or so wide of Neuer’s far post, much to the German’s relief. Playing slightly more advanced now, Messi was still the focal point, sometimes regrettably: when Agüero played a ball to him down the right on 51 minutes the Argentinian captain didn’t even bother attempting to get on it, well aware that he was figuratively miles offside.
Argentina were making the early running in the second half, but having survived those nervy moments Germany now re-established their dominance, exemplified by patient passing build-up and a willingness to put pressure on the Argentinians. That willingness was not limited to the outfield players, with Neuer bravely jumping into a clash with Higuaín to punch the ball clear on a potential breakaway, the sweeper-keeper, with fear no part of his mindset, unwilling to play it safe: it was dedicated and physical, but it wasn’t an infringement, despite Argentina’s protests (bringing up uncomfortable memories of 1990).65 Things weren’t coming off in the attacking third for Germany at that point though, with a weak Klose header easily collected by Romero, an intricate sequence ending with Lahm playing a reverse pass straight out over the endline and Özil miscontrolling a cross on a counter badly. Tackles started going in a little harder than before with Javier Mascherano and Agüero picking up yellows within 60 seconds of each other for late challenges. Messi had faded out of the game past the hour mark, at least a bit: when Argentina won a midfield free-kick about six minutes in, he floated it gently into the hands of Neuer, at a time when Argentinian time in the German half was being measured in seconds. Not that the German minutes in the Argentinian half were creating anything, with the sense that Germany were overplaying things constantly, trying to create a tap-in when the chance to pull the trigger from further out was sometimes there, very palpable.
Now, about 15 minutes from time, it became clear that both teams were getting locked into the predictable mode of waiting for an additional 30. Messi got the ball and danced briefly around the German area, only for his shot to bounce harmlessly wide: he really was no longer looking like the best in the world, the pressure of the occasion getting even to him. Sabella made more offensive changes: both Higuaín and Enzo Perez would go off before the end of the 90, replaced by Rodrigo Palacio and Fernando Gago respectively, making Messi the only remaining part of the four man offence still on the field, a total change that would later see Sabella criticised for creating an imbalance and putting too much on a tired seeming captain.66 Messi kept plugging away, jinking around Hummels in a bid to open up the German defence, only to be rapidly closed down, the lack of any open option to give the ball to painfully apparent. Things got stretched, with Kroos set free on the edge of the area to pull a shot wide, and the Germans suddenly able to use more long passes to split the defence, only for the Argentinians to break forward, Messi’s clever flick through to Palacio foiled by the latter slipping when he should have been able to run onto it. Messi was trying to do too much now, as if he could feel the whispers of the people back home willing him to do what Maradona had done in 1986, to do it all himself.67 On the other side, Löw determined that Klose, largely ineffective in what constituted his last match in the national shirt, had done enough, now replaced by Götze. The Bayern München man had been frustrated watching the previous 88 minutes from the bench, but was sent on with a mission from Löw: “Show Messi that you’re better than him”.68 He didn’t start well, putting a badly hit shot from distance straight at Romero inside injury time. Extra-time it was, with Messi looking tired and Germany looking impotent.
Facing into extra-time, the German players might well have been minded to think on Löw’s pre-match exhortation that it was time for them to make good: “Today. Not tomorrow”. The collective will of the team in these moments has been noted by observers, that despite carrying a succession of knocks, playing away from their preferred positions or the frustration of not making the best of their opportunities, they kept their heads and trusted the process.69 Within seconds of the restart, Schürrle had a guilt-edged chance to break the deadlock, played in wonderfully only to hit his shot straight at Romero. When Argentina broke down the other end, Agüero putting a tempting ball across the face of goal, a weary-seeming Messi had not made the required run to potentially get a foot on it. Germany kept their foot on the gas, and the ball, keeping possession for long spells and happily watching their opponents sit back more and more. When Argentina did things without Messi, they failed: the chance of chances fell to Palacio 96 minutes in, off a long-ball from Rojo that put him in clear, but the Inter man then shinned the ball wide in an audacious, and frankly unnecessary, attempt to lob Neuer.
Germany finished the first-half of extra-time well on top all the same, Argentina mostly camped in and around their own penalty area. Messi looked stranded as the furthest man forward and was probably grateful for delays in play necessitated by medical attention for Schweinsteiger, consistently in the wars and left bloodied and needing stitches by one clash with Agüero, but probably the last player on the field who would have willingly assented to going off. At half-time Löw maintained a simple message of confidence, that his side were assured of victory as long as they stayed calm and stuck with the plan.70 As the game resumed, Argentina seemed spent: within moments that pattern of extra-time had been re-established, with La Albiceleste rooted inside their own half, and just trying to maintain their shape enough to limit the Germans to passing around them. Messi tried in those brief moments when he had the ball, but he was now being closed down rapidly by multiple defenders, swamped by a side that seemed to naturally have more energy.
The critical moment came 113 minutes in, and was an advertisement for the reboot in and of itself. It started with a German free on the right hand side of their own half. Through Lahm, Schweinsteiger, Boateng and Hummels they worked it smartly and without fuss to the other side of the field through a series of short, efficient passes. Kroos took over, and went back and forth and back again with Schürrle, the latter trying to work an opening through his own off-the-ball movement. In possession again just inside the Argentinian half, to the left, he decided that it was a moment for some individual expression, and he choose to run at the opposing defence, breezing past Gago and then tricking a covering Mascherano into thinking he would turn inside before just continuing forward towards the corner flag. Schürrle didn’t fully realise it, but his unexpected action had torn the Argentinian defensive shape to a critical extent, with Pablo Zabaleta leaving his area of responsibility to come across and assist Mascherano. With Müller pulling Martín Demichelis the other way, there was more than enough space for Götze to move into, left of the Argentinian goal. It still needed a good cross, which Schürrle happily provided, admitting later that he did so blind to who he was kicking it too. Götze had the space, the calm and the technique to chest the ball down as he faced away from goal, turn, and hit a falling volley into the net that Romero could not adjust to. The intricacy in passing, the critical impact of the off-the-ball movement, the trust in placing that blind cross into the area and the skill to finish as it was finished – a skill formed in six years at Borussia Dortmund’s mandated academy – this was the reboot goal of reboot goals.71
There was still time for drama. Neuer showcased his imperviousness one more time in racing off his line to deny the chance to make something of a cross, with a look on his face that betrayed an attitude of almost annoyance that the opposition thought they could deny Germany. A swooping cross went in from the left, with an unmarked Messi coming at it from midfield, but there was too much on the header to trouble the goal, and the look on Messi’s face was already one of defeat. Germany were, remarkably enough, still attacking, Müller pulling a ball across the face of goal, but no-one had followed his effort. Per Mertesacker came on, his lone contribution being to head a high ball clear, an act that the German benched cheered like a goal scored.
Messi would get his moment all the same, as Argentina won a free-kick, 30 or so yards out, and right enough that it was closer to the corner of the box than the centre. Looking back, it was not really a scoreable free-kick, too far out and too far to the right to be tried, especially with Neuer in the goal. But Messi perhaps felt that he had to try, that his team was not capable of converting a cross and that it was down to him to score. As the Germans looked on in terror of something spectacular coming from Messi once again, the Argentinian captain stepped up and skied it wide, the picture of quiet despair in the aftermath. That was all she wrote. The team had beaten the man.
It was Christian Gödecke writing in Der Spiegel who probably best summed up the nature of the German achievement, which was far more than just winning a football tournament: “…German football is barely recognisable. It’s the perfect mix of virtue and magic, of hurrah and heave ho.”72 The days of sweeper-based pragmatism were gone, replaced by something far more dynamic, entertaining, even exhilarating. There has probably never been a larger and longer project in football ever executed that had this apogee as its goal, and I think that most Germans would say that it was all worth waiting for. Germany won the 2014 World Cup playing the game the Klinsmann/Löw way, as a team that might have been made up of talented individuals all capable of individualistic moments of skill, but who formed a rising tide that lifted all boats through their supreme team ethic: the rapid passing, the intelligent movement, the trust in each other and in the game plan. All of that was on display that night in Rio de Janeiro.
Of course it is here that we must acknowledge the comedown from 2014, that has characterised the history of the German men’s team over the last decade and change. The Semi-Final appearance in the 2016 EURO’s indicated that Germany were still at the very highest level, but consecutive group stage exits at the next two World Cups, sandwiching an unimpressive showing at EURO 2020, showcased plainly that the regeneration project not only had its limits, but had essentially ended.73 Löw probably held onto the top job just a bit too long, his 2014 heroics giving him patience and leeway from an increasingly unhappy DFB, and the inadequacy of his immediate successor in Hansi Flick has made plain that the current problems in German football go beyond one man.74 There’s a certain dearth of talent in the current generation it is fair to say, even if the most recent tournament, German’s hosted EURO 2024, did indicate that they might be slowly on the way back up.75 We may yet look back and see this period as the climb of another regeneration project, one that will see its own apogee in World Cups to come.
The other side of the equation was a crestfallen Messi, faced with the strange ignominy of winning an undeserved Golden Ball in 2014, who now faced into what must be considered his own nadir on the international stage.76 A few brief moments of his typical genius aside, the 2014 Final was a poor enough effort by his standards, Messi touching the ball just 66 times in 120 minutes of football, and being the orchestrating point in an Argentinian attack that hit the ball towards the goal ten times and hit the target only once.77 He was the subject of unfortunate, and unjust, criticism from home again in the aftermath from fans starved of success, who didn’t seem to care about Messi’s exhaustion, his knocks, and issues in his personal life that would be impossible to divorce from the field.78 79 The calls only got louder in the next few tournaments: consecutive Final defeats in the next two Copas, and a pisspoor showing in Russia four years after Brazil that ended at the Second Round.80 Messi actually called it quits at one point, frustrated beyond belief by the continued inadequacy of the national set-up, and the endless pressure from his homeland.81 But it was a retirement that wouldn’t take. One of the defining images of the 2014 Final is during its direct aftermath, with a disconsolate Messi on his way to pick up a silver medal snapped staring at the World Cup trophy, the last piece of the puzzle for him in many ways, the object he needed to have in order to complete the story of his own career.82 No, Messi would not stay retired, not when he still had the capability of challenging for that trophy. The GOAT was not done yet.
Lionel Messi attacks the German defence during the 2014 World Cup Final. Photo by Danilo Borges, reproduced under a Creative CommonsAttribution 3.0 Unported license.
In the midst of Germany’s retreat on the Eastern Front, German tank commander Philip (David Schütter) manages a deadly withdrawal over a Dnieper River bridge before being ordered to lead his Tiger crew on a desperate-seeming solo mission: to travel behind enemy lines and retrieve a missing colonel. Amidst a variety of challenges and their own private fears, the Tiger crew struggle through an increasingly surreal journey, with Philip haunted by the ghosts of the past.
Der Tiger should be the kind of film that I would like. Released abroad in some regions last year and now come to streaming as The Tank, the film can be easily described as a German take on Fury, carrying with it a distinct flavour of Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now. Indeed, it’s really more than a flavour, and could almost be considered a fully fledged adaptation of the Joseph Conrad novel. Der Tiger carries with it the same sense of episodicness, the same aura of a group of armed travellers moving into increasing insanity and the same kind of ending, something that is bordering on the psychedelic.
I could potentially be onboard with all of this, but I can’t in reality. Because Der Tiger does something very silly about 10 minutes into its running time, and that’s hint very broadly at where the plot is going in terms of a twist-ending, and I called that ending then and there. I suspect that most viewers will be able to do the same, but I will relent on spoiling things nonetheless. It is enough to say that the people behind Der Tiger seem to think that they are making some kind of transcendent experience wherein adherence to story-telling norms is not really required, and the result is a last act that could be charitably described as a mess. The twist ending is deeply unsatisfying, and being truthful not really that surprising. It killed most positive feelings I had about the film dead.
On the other hand, Der Tiger actually is a decent enough depiction of this kind of military unit at this point of the Second World War, and it is clear that the people behind the film, even if they don’t have a firm grasp on how to craft an ending, at least have an appreciation for armour, how it works and what kind of action sequences can be created involving then. The internal camerawork for the Tiger does manage to get across the sense of dinginess and claustrophobia that the film needs. Some sequences, like the defusing of a mine or when the Tiger crew must briefly submerge the tank in order to cross a river, are especially impressive in terms of the tension creation. And I appreciate that this German-made production does not shy away from German war crimes.
But the efforts to make three dimensional characters out of the various members of the tank crew fall rather flat, they essentially all coalescing around one trait – leftist, grieving father, a kid – and it all doesn’t matter anyway because of the twist ending that you know is coming (I’m not kidding when I say that it is as obvious as it is). Der Tiger can’t be saved, not from ten minutes in, and that’s an awful shame. I feel like you would be better off re-watching Fury. Not recommended.
The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers – “The Entmoot Decides”
Wherein the ents can make their mind up quick after all; Merry isn’t having it; and Pippin isn’t really clued in at all, is he?
Onto what is now the fourth of the entmoot chapters, and we’re just about two-thirds of the way through this general arc. Looking back at “Entmoot”, “Don’t Be Hasty, Master Meriadoc!” and “Old Entish”, I am reminded again that these are some of the shortest chapters in the trilogy, and it can be a little tricky finding things worth talking about in them. But it’s a little easier in “The Entmoot Decides”. In this scene, we get three very clear, stated positions about the War of the Ring, its consequences on different people and how it should be approached by either those who are in it or those who remain on the sidelines. In something akin to “Of Herbs And Stewed Rabbit”, this is another instance where we get something akin to a debate on the morality of the war and fighting in it, even if the argument is clearly slanted in a very particular way.
First up is Treebeard. As the apparent de facto leader of Fangorn, it falls to him to relay the decision of the entmoot to the hobbits, and it isn’t what they want to hear. He couches the agreement that the ents will do nothing in a very self-centred sense, focusing first and foremost on their own perceived lack of strength: “The ents cannot hold back this storm.” That he see’s the conflict through the lens only of the ents’ potential part in it is very much in keeping with the ent attitude we have seen throughout The Two Towers, and that is also matched by the his following call out to the idea of an enforced isolationism: “We must weather such things as we have always done”, that is by doing nothing. Treebeard doesn’t really respond to the idea that the ents have a moral duty to assist anybody from outside of Fangorn, and he doesn’t seem to respond to any kind of ra-ra speechmaking. Even if the borders of the forest have shrunk over time, to the point where they are now, the ents will stay the course and look out only for them and theirs.
Before moving onto the main event, we should consider Pippin. He’s been fairly side-lined for all of the entmoot chapters, his only real contribution being of the humorous variety in “Old Entish”. But here he gets to actually outline some of his own perspective on things. In essence, Pippin seems to be giving up. He says outright that he and Merry “don’t belong here”. In a line that calls attention both to events and to their own physical stature, he remarks that the situation is “too big for us” and then echoes Treebeard specifically by asking “What can we do in the end?” and noting that “We have the Shire”. It’s a very isolationist viewpoint, even if it is framed in a more positive manner than Treebeard put it in relation to Fangorn. Pippin, seemingly the less mature of the Merry and Pippin pair, can, if you’ll excuse the use of the phrase, can’t see the wood for the trees. He wants to go home, and wants to go on pretending that home, the Shire, is some kind of island that is not effected by everything else going on in the world, his own form of Fangorn. But not everyone thinks that the agrarian utopia that we first saw back in “Concerning Hobbits” is going to be able to survive the coming storm.
It’s Merry whose perspective takes up the majority of the scene. His initial reaction to the decision of the entmoot is one of barely restrained anger. He can’t understand that the ents would consciously choose not to get involved, by sheer virtue of the fact that a battle for the fate of the world naturally includes them. For Merry, it seems, the enormity of the war means that a decision to ignore it cannot be contemplated. Later, in a quieter moment, he directly refutes Pippin’s view of things, and in so doing rejects any idea of an isolationist standpoint, whether it is born from self-survival or a naive optimism. Merry has come to believe that the “fires of Isengard will spread” if they are not stopped now, and no patch of green in Middle-Earth will be spared the scorching. That includes the Shire. In effect, we can say that Merry and Treebeard might actually be looking at the issue in a very similar way, both trying to save their own bit of Middle-Earth the only way that they know how.
It’s not difficult to see who among this trio are in the right really. Treebeard’s perspective is understandable, but built on foundations of sand: this is not a conflict that the ents are going to be able to sit out. Even if the ents are unaware of the depths of Isengard’s designs on Fangorn – boy they won’t be so ignorant in a few scenes – there has already been instances of Isengard forces breaching the borders of the forest, and Treebeard at least is well aware of the tree destruction being carried out (albeit he may not be fully aware of the true extent of it). The ents can either take a pro-active stance and join the larger war in order to defend their lands, or they can wait for those lands to be taken from them. Either way, the entmoot refusing to get involved isn’t actually going to stop the ents having to fight. As for Pippin, his desire to return to the Shire is also understandable, but his apparent belief that he and the Shire can stay aloof from the advance of Sauron and Saruman is, like with Treebeard, not a position that stands up to any scrutiny. Only Merry, of this trio, seems to truly get it: that they may not want to fight, that they may be risking everything in taking up arms, but the only real choice is whether they fight with hope of victory now, or fight with no hope of victory later. The morality of the war doesn’t even come into it really, because the war is coming, virtuous or not.
We’re heading towards the really critical part of the entmoot story arc, and “The Entmoot Decides” can be described very much as the crisis point following the set-up of “Entmoot”, the escalation of “Don’t Be Hasty, Master Meriadoc!” and the tension of “Old Entish”. In a lot of ways, you have to really take all of these chapters together, since they are so short individually that when analysed as such they can seem insubstantial, even unimportant. But such analysis is a a little easier in “The Entmoot Decides”. In this film chapter, we get those three differing perspectives about what is happening out in the world, how it effects all of us and just what we should be doing about it, either pro-actively or reactively. Peter Jackson’s film pretty clearly wants us to take a certain side of all of those perspectives, but I suppose it is important to point out that it is one of the losing side, namely Pippin, who is going to be the one to turn the tide back the way that it should be flowing.
The fires of Isengard will spread.
Notes
-We get some actual music for “The Entmoot Decides”, with the track of the same name from the complete recordings. A very low, mournful horn marks Merry’s angry outburst, then a return of the Shire theme for the rest, this one marked with a new, rather sad sounding, coda, as Merry looks to a grim future.
-A sudden portrait shot of Merry sets up his angry reply to Treebeard, and like in my thoughts on “Old Entish”, it seems a very deliberate thing to really emphasise how personally he’s taking this decision.
-A nice few shots follow Merry’s admonition, of the various ents looking decidedly awkward, even embarrassed. It seems not all of them might think that the decision they have made is the right one.
-Treebeard tells Merry and Pippin to “Go back to your home”. Um, how, exactly? They are a very long way from the Shire.
-Really good delivery on Monaghan’s part as he puts the killer line in on his friend: “There won’t be a Shire, Pippin”.
Final Thoughts: Looking back at The Two Towers in the way I am with this series can give one a false impression of scenes like the entmoot story-arc, which looking at it week-on-week come off almost as unwanted intrusions into the main narrative. But they work well when the film is watched in one genuine flow, and such a perspective can help a viewer to appreciate “The Entmoot Decides” a bit better, as the moment when Merry takes a stand when the ents refuse to. Up next, back to the Hornburg.
As is my tradition in the first week of the new year when I simply have been unable to review a new film, I’d like to instead talk about one of those instances in my favourite films that, for me, reach the point of being considered perfect. And we’re really into the serious territory now folks.
Der Untergang (Downfall): Eva Braun’s Last Letter
Oliver Hirschbiegel’s 2004 depiction of the end of the Nazi regime mostly coalesces around the remarkable performance of Bruno Ganz as Adolph Hitler, an acting job so well crafted that it raised debate about whether or not it was morally right to portray history’s greatest monster in any way that could be considered even slightly sympathetic, even while the internet was doing its bit to add a nice sheen of ridicule to Hitler’s legacy. It’s a wonderful film, one of the great war epics, but for me its best scene is not Hitler raving at his generals, or the moments leading up to his suicide, or even that remarkable ending that manages to somehow imbue the entire affair with a bit of hope for the future. No, it’s a different moment, a montage of sorts, that occurs in the middle of the film, as Eva Braun writes what will be her last letter, addressed to her sister.
Downfall is a film that is at pains to recreate the last gasps of Nazism in Berlin, and there will always be an audience for that kind of thing. We, as a species, are obsessed with the endings of things, and empires are no exception, whether it is Rome in 476, Constantinople in 1453, the Aztecs in 1521, Napoleonic France in 1815 and, the really big one, Berlin in 1945. There’s so much written and depicted about that moment that I have read very respected historians refer to it as “pornography”, and in a way I think that is right, it’s a term that speaks to the way we want to view such things, to experience second-hand the kind of feelings that those who were there felt.
The end of the “Thousand Year Reich” is a chance for a filmmaker to showcase sheer, true desperation on-screen as soldiers and civilians fight to the last gasp and fight just to survive the storm, but it’s also a chance for some of the best depictions of delusion I have ever seen to come to life on-screen as well. By the time that Braun writes her last letter, we’ve already seen a myriad of ways as to how characters in this story, based very much on the accounts of real people, struggle to wrap their minds around the enormity of Germany’s defeat and what it means: Hitler waxes lyrical about how the bombing of their cities is actually a good thing as it allows them to be rebuilt as they see fit; Braun tries to get a jazz party going amid an artillery bombardment: the Goebbels bring their children into the bunker and get them to sing for Hitler like it’s Christmas. There is a recurring theme throughout Downfall of people trying to keep normality going amid the insanity, and only very reluctantly facing up to the impossibility of that task.
The montage that marks Braun’s last letter is, for me, the apex of this feeling, of seemingly ordinary events taking place that end up warped and destroyed by the oncoming Russian advance, a largely unseen grim reaper here to deal out death and judgement. Doctors take a break from surgery to have a cigarette; Hitler consults with his aides; Magda Goebbels calmly writes her own last letter to her eldest son; teenagers flee from danger; and Braun straightforwardly outlines some gifts she is sending to her sister, and how she can go about finding a watch that she has left in for repairs. But in amidst it all, there is the madness, the sorrow, the needless violence of a terrible system in its last ghastly death throws; the doctors soon have to drag wounded soldiers into their own bunker and get cutting again as the lights flicker; Hitler watches his aides burn documents in a ramshackle fire, his presence snapping them to a form of pathetic formality; Magda Goebbels outlines her terrible plans to prevent her other children from living in a world without national socialism; the remaining teenagers, a boy and a girl who should be off doing very different things in a very different world, execute a planned suicide pact before their position is overrun.
The last one, for me, really speaks to the greater darkness of Der Untergang. Those youths, the leading boy and girl, are the true believers, ready to sacrifice their lives on the funeral pyre of Nazism. And even though we have only seen them in one brief scene before this, where the boy’s lack of battlefield experience is almost cruelly exposed by a veteran of the Eastern Front, it still hits hard when the girl, brainwashed to the point of suicide, urges the boy to shoot her, before the traumatised boy shoots himself, with the look of someone who isn’t fully conscious of what they are doing. As they do so, Braun’s calm, cool and collected last thoughts to her sister play over the scene, her comments on tobacco and chocolate as ordinary seeming as the scene they are voiced over is not.
The last thing to note is the music, which generally throughout Downfall is great, but which really hits the mark here, a lyricless version of “Dido’s Lament” or “When I am laid in earth” from the Henry Purcell opera Dido and Aeneas. It’s a song that I have heard described as one of the saddest ever written, and its mournful strings, tailor made to draw feelings of moroseness out of anyone listening, are the perfect accompaniment to the myriad avenues of despair that this montage showcases to us. The lyrics, that play at other parts of the film, are eerily appropriate for what Braun herself is writing, as Dido similarly luxuriates in her own despair and prepares to be cast into her own pyre: “Remember me, remember me, but ah! forget my fate“.
Whenever I find myself watching Der Untergang, I am always struck by the way that it manages to instil a near constant feeling of dread in me. Part of that is because, from first viewing to today, I know how this story is going to end, and I know that very few people involved are going to make it out alive. But it’s more than that. The music is expertly curated to fulfil that feeling; the dichotomy between the sane and the insane on screen is expertly filmed to fulfil that feeling; the performances of actors like Juliane Köhler in the reasoned final words of Braun put against the obscene final end of many of Germany’s young people is deliberately and provocatively done to fulfil that feeling. There are very few films that I have ever watched that I can say have been able to create those negative feelings within me, dread, fear, sorrow, to the point of tears. Downfall, in Eva Braun’s last letter and its montage, is right at the core of that.
The reason that I liked this as much as I did was pretty much how Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon have a chemistry, both in terms of comedy and in being an unlikely romcom duo, that is so good I’m surprised we’ve never seen the pairing before. Ferrell’s an old hand at this of course, but it’s not like Witherspoon has no chops either: but it’s in the combination that You’re Cordially Invited shines, putting two perennially stressed people, for different reasons, in the same narrow space and letting them bounce off of each other. They range from outright antagonism to actual understanding back-and-forth several times in the course of the picture, and in their interactions, whether they are barbed or comic, there is an easy understanding of the insane escalation that occurs. Nicolas Stoller manages to hit the sweet spot of two believable people who occasionally dip into caricature.
And the laughs are all over the place in terms of the general vibe. You’re Cordially Invited is not your typical milquetoast romcom, interspersing some of the traditional fare – your pratfalls, your misunderstandings, your double entendres – with the positively over the top. This is a film that features Ferrell’s character having to correct himself when sounding a bit too cheery when announcing that his wife is dead, and later mixing a tearful apology with a frank admission that he misses sex with his wife; a recurring bit about Margot’s brother-in-law to be being an exotic dancer; and, best of all, an unexpected cameo from an alligator in the third act, in a moment where You’re Cordially Invited briefly becomes something more akin to a Looney Tunes short. What I appreciated was the subtle mix of the serious with the funny, and how Stoller’s script is always looking for a way to put in even a brief joke, whether it is your typical Ferrell one-liner or Witherspoon’s pitch-perfect reaction to adverse circumstance.
You’re Cordially Invited got kind of savaged by critics, a result that makes me once again think that a disproportionate amount of that kind of journalism is still inordinately swayed by things like screener copies and press invitations . At its very worst You’re Cordially Invited is a perfectly acceptable bit of spicy romcom fare, from two industry veterans who could be described as going through the motions to a certain extent, but are imminently watchable even at the very worst of times. Looking at the film more kindly, I think it’s consistently funny, well-acted and manages to tread the fine line between drama and humour.
Margot (Reese Witherspoon) and Jim (Will Ferrell) in You’re Cordially Invited.
A long anticipated remake of the 1989 film, The Roses is a genuine delight, a very well constructed take on this story, that makes the absolute best of two stand-out performances from two of the greatest actors working today. It suffices to say that this one is essentially a showcase for Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman, in line with the script of Tony McNamara. The point of this exercise is very much just to provide these two wonderful thespians with the material that they need – biting, eviscerating, nasty and oh so thoroughly British – and just let them at it. And it would be nothing if they were just slinging insults at each other willy-nilly, but the trick is that the two are able to effectively get across that there is genuine affection underneath all of the insults. It would just be bizarre verbal jousting but for that: from the moment that we see the two clap eyes on each other for the first time in the film’s prologue, we can see that there is a very deep attraction, and eventually love, between them.
There’s a lot going on here, as The Roses ebbs and flows between scenarios that are almost slapstick, the deeply serious and back again, with a general throughline of Theo and Ivy having to decide whether their plainly toxic relationship has enough redeeming qualities to make it all worthwhile. Bouncing off of each other and a surprisingly stacked supporting cast, both Cumberbatch and Colman bring the goods in every scene that they are in, delivering these whipsmart putdowns and dry witticisms with all of the panache that you would expect, unflappable in most scenes and unbearably heart-breaking when the façade cracks. It’s a combination that really shouldn’t work as well as it does, but somehow director Jay Roach manages to pull it off.
Of course the film is just funny otherwise. Some of the Roses’ friends try to copy the Rose dynamic, and it’s essentially just Zoë Chao coming out with some comments that are a little too sexually-motivated and a little too real, as Jamie Demetriou struggles to laugh along; the entire sequence where Theo’s maritime museum collapses hours after it first opened; Theo manipulating airline staff into giving him whiskey-after-whiskey, with inevitable results; Samberg and Kate McKinnon’s own dysfunctional husband-and-wife duo, with McKinnon hilariously coming on to Theo at every opportunity; one of the best lawyer-meeting scenes I have ever seen, with Allison Janney making the most of an extended cameo; and anything in that incredible last half hour, which includes escapades involving live crabs, polka music, arson and literal gunfire. If nothing else, it features two fantastic leading performances, who take the kind of material that could result in a total misfire in other hands, and use it to make something really special. It’s a film that’s funny throughout, frequently poignant, and I think it’s the kind of production that the 1989 version can’t really hold a candle to. This one is cleverer, wittier, more meaningful in its ending and more pretty to look at.
Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Ivy (Olivia Colman) in The Roses.
I bought into most of what Eenie Meanie was selling, more than most other reviewers at the time of release it seems. A really excellently constructed opening, where a 14-year-old Edie (Elle Graham) has to confront a very terrible life-defining choice, gets us going, and then director Shawn Simmons does the hard work to establish an adult Edie as someone worth following around: in her eagerness to have a normal life, in her friendships and in the complicated relationship she has with John (Karl Glusman), a man who we know is a fuck-up long before we actually clap eyes on him. Some nicely peppered in moments of levity – an entire sequence with Randall Park is one of the most darkly comedic five minutes of the year – keep things ticking over nicely. The middle stretch takes us into heist territory, as a team is assembled, plans are made, people have doubts, complications arise and we’re left on tenterhooks as to whether these people will be able to pull it all off. That leads into what I can say would be a third act open to some interpretation. It’s enough to say that I feel like the last 15 or so minutes of Eenie Meanie elevate what would have been a fairly good but not exactly stellar film into another level entirely, and I would encourage people to experience it directly to see exactly what I mean.
Samara Weaving is really great here. It might be much to say that she has flown under the radar a bit, but I don’t think it would be an obfuscation to say she’s never really broken into the top tier. She really makes you feel something for Edie from start to finish, a put upon good person having to exist alongside a variety of snakes, with too many things set against her. She’s matched by Glusman, who embodies the kind of low-key criminal nobody who always thinks they are just one daring scheme away from massive success, getting by on a nod-and-a-wink type of manic charm and energy, until they just can’t get by on such things anymore.
Simmons directs a pretty slick looking production. The promise of the premise is realised really well here, as after that taut prologue we’re just waiting to see what Edie can do behind the wheel of a car. It’s not exactly Baby Driver, even if that is very clearly an influence, but Simmons and Weaving do their best with a limited budget in how it approaches getaway driving, in a restrained sequence where her character and John have to escape pursuit inside an rundown apartment complex and later on in the high stakes arena of the actual heist that they need to pull off. Very little in the way of VFX here, just actual metal and rubber screeching around the road and doing flips, and that’s all for the better. It’s fast, heart-pounding and kinetic, with Simmons understanding that the visceral feel of a car impact means as much or more than any depiction of speed. This is a sharp, stylish punch of a film that has kind of come out of nowhere, and I found that its impact lingered long after the credits rolled. There are few films in this sub-genre that are as bold, entertaining, and full of personality as this.
John (Karl Glusman) and Edie (Samara Weaving) in Eenie Meanie.
Now this one was highly anticipated it is fair to say. Guillermo del Toro has been trying to make his version of Frankenstein for a while, and it’s obvious why: that Gothic setting, the chance for his unique style of myth-making and monster creation, and all wrapped around the potential for some serious character study. This is very much del Toro country, and if we might never get his version of At The Mountains Of Madness (get on it Netflix), it seemed an appropriate bit of justice that we got his version of this iconic property. And it’s another one that he has knocked out of the park: the perfect del Toro source material has resulted in another excellent del Toro film, and I suppose we should all not be too surprised really.
After an extended prologue that really does a fantastic job of setting the scene we go straight into “Victor’s Story” which could be a del Toro masterpiece all on its own. It’s a grim but amazingly well put together collection of wonderful set-pieces, replete with wonderful character moments culminating in the the turn from being the man who played God to being the man who becomes rapidly disgusted with his creation. Oscar Isaac is immense as Frankenstein, really bringing us along the path of a man who is set-up as an adult as having an intense fear of death from the premature demise of his mother, a deep-seeded resentment of an awful father he must now surpass and an arrogant desire to break nature over his knee, it all melding together into something akin to a rock star scientist with barely hidden mental health problems. From there we are into the Creature’s story, and a new showcase, in this case for the excellent Jacob Elordi. He plays Frankenstein’s monster like a new born child, struggling to learn, struggling to survive, aching for connection, in a world where he simply does not seem to belong, except in the eyes of a few people. He’s the real hero in this interpretation, who defends himself when he has to but is otherwise maligned and stained by prejudiced forces. Frankenstein had me glued to the screen from start to finish, as these fascinating character arcs played out, and this unlikely father/son pair reckoned with each other.
And it does just look amazing, though given the name of the man behind the camera I suppose that shouldn’t really come as a big surprise. Del Toro has very clearly been thinking about what he wanted to do with this property for some time, and the result is an absolutely sumptuous period piece, where every scene has something new to catch the eye. This is a very worthy adaptation of Shelley’s story, weaving into its superb narrative the needed themes of mad science, the choice of life over death, redemption, innocence and forgiveness. The cast is doing excellent work, with the central duo of Isaac and Elordi bringing a new verve to these iconic, and familiar characters. Del Toro provides everything that he needs to prove behind the camera, in a production that is among the years best in terms of its sets, props, costumes, CGI and the wonderful confluence of them all. Frankenstein is that rare thing, a passion project that the director got backed to the hilt, that has resulted in something really wonderful.
The Creature (Jacob Elordi) and Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) in Frankenstein.
A fascinating mix of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Allied, Black Bag is one of the best spy films in a very long time. You don’t need flashy action sequences, or a high body count or an endless line of scantily clad women to fall into bed with the hero – obviously a damaged type in the traditional form – even if sometimes those things will help a film along. No, Black Bag proves that this genre can still get along just fine, even be startingly effective, when such accoutrements are discarded in favour of something much more intimate and human.
I don’t really know how else to say it, other than to say that Black Bag is nicely complex. Not too complex: it doesn’t have that sense of an enigma you need to re-watch to get, that Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy had for example. No, this is different: a similar premise to be sure, but one where the central elements are laid out in a fascinating opening sequence where George (Michael Fassbender), almost bragging about how he destroyed the life and career of his spy father (he wasn’t a nice guy, and if George has one guiding star it’s that he “doesn’t like liars”), secretly doses his dinner guests with drugs designed to make them a little loose with their talk, and then sits back and observes the vomiting up of backstories, motivations, complications and neurosis. You get everything you need really from there, and Black Bag unfolds afterwards as a really entertaining procedural, George looking into everybody in turn, and rapidly uncovering the deeper intricacies of the plot. It’s nothing too confusing, but still cerebral in its way, as things escalate from a mole into a crisis worthy of Bond. And it does it all, fashioning a mystery, expanding it out and then solving it, in just 93 tightly edited minutes, never losing anything in the process.
It’s an interesting performance from Fassbender, far more reserved, even conservative, than he might be used to. He dominates the screen, but plenty of the others make their mark: Cate Blanchett is a tad limited, but exhibits a different kind of practised façade in her Kathryn, a sort of sultry aloofness that is very affecting, very femme-fatale from another age (she and Fassbender have a brilliant chemistry it has to be said, that positively oozes sexy from scene one); Marisa Abela gets under your skin as Clarissa, a woman who treats too much of what takes place around her like a game; and Pierce Brosnan, now in a M-esque role, makes the best use of his few scenes as the towering Stieglitz, a would-be puppet master with a lot of dark secrets of his own. As for Steven Soderbergh, I don’t know if there is a better director working today who is able to use the environment of the scene to set the right mood: whether it is the warm, almost suffocatingly so, home of the Woodhouse’s with its soft orange light and endless array of shadows, the clean, sterile and repetitive intelligence agency building or pulsating nightclubs where contact between agents takes place, every set or setting in Black Bag feels like it has a deeper meaning, even if it isn’t just doing all that the director requires to create the intend ambience. This is one is going to be a very well-regarded effort in the genre going forward, one that deserves more of an audience than it might get.
George (Michael Fassbender) and Kathryn (Cate Blanchett) in Black Bag.
Alex Garland’s more rooted-in-reality follow-up to Civil War, made in conjunction with Ray Mendoza, a veteran of the event in question who has previously worked as a military advisor for Garland, is one of the more interesting films to come out of the War on Terror in some time, at least in my estimation. The end product claims to be the most realistic depiction of modern warfighting that it is possible to be, and even if I am not qualified to answer whether that is true, Warfare certainly feels like the real deal. It starts tense and then never lets up: its 90 minute running time is about as breathless and captivating as a film of this genre can be, even though large sections do not have anything you might call traditional action at all.
Warfare is an almost excruciating experience, of trapped men trying to keep it together through a succession of disasters. Garland and Mendoza tease it all out, and make you feel intensely uncomfortable in the shared desperation. There are brief moments of actual gunfighting, but they are framed in such a way as to make it clear that it is almost secondary to the direct experience of one group of men doing the shooting: you barely ever see any of the insurgents they are firing at, and more often than not you are looking in the faces of men firing as opposed to the direction they are firing. It’s visceral and kinetic and frighteningly real seeming, with little in the way of what you might call stereotypical heroism or tactical ingenuity. The visuals in Warfare seem meticulously designed to take the audience directly into the claustrophobic intensity of modern combat. The film has an urgent, lived‑in texture, the camera capturing every bit of dust, every dripping sweat-filled face, and every weapon the soldiers are holding in increasingly trembling hands. Harsh daylight filters through bullet‑riddled walls when dust isn’t flowing in because of explosions or fly-bys. Combined with zero frills and a raw, unembellished soundscape the result is an atmosphere that feels brutal, intimate, and eerily disconcerting all at the same time. Warfare almost makes you feel like it is a memory of combat, and not just a replication.
Despite its limited scope and un-genrelike limited running time, Warfare stands as a major achievement in depictions of modern conflict, managing to be a feature that focuses wholesale on realism while gripping the audience tight. Its relentless pacing delivers an experience that is harrowing and deeply affecting, showcasing a level of craft that few films in the genre can honestly say that they have achieved. Yes, the film misses an opportunity to explore the broader human and ethical dimensions of the conflict it depicts and the absence of meaningful Iraqi perspectives and a deeper thematic core – beyond the survival of this Navy SEAL unit – leaves the narrative feeling a little insular. Still, these limitations don’t diminish the film’s impact as a sensory and emotional whirlwind. Warfare may not really say anything at all, but it somehow manages to do so while retaining a staggering clarity and power when it comes to human conflict.
This is an adaptation of The Odyssey that is about trauma, and we see this primarily with Ralph Fiennes’ Odysseus, every bit the “complicated man” of Emily Wilson. We only ever hear him talk about what occurred outside and inside Troy once really, with a few allusions and hints elsewhere, but you can see the reality etched all over his face and his body from the moment that we first see him, naked and almost dead, on that beach. He’s been through a lot, at war and in that long voyage home, and now brings all of that pain and suffering with him to a homeland similarly wracked with misery. It’s an effective and heart-rending way of portraying Odysseus finally at home: a fundamentally changed man, who isn’t sure he can ever again be the King that he was, let alone whether he is worthy of such a position.
Juliette Binoche’s Penelope may not have the literal scars that her husband has, but she has troubles enough. If Odysseus in The Return is a living example of what war does to those that fight it, then Penelope is a picture perfect representation of what it does to those left behind: she’s a lonely, desperate woman here, tied to ridiculous hope that her husband will come back over the horizon after 20 years and somehow solve every problem facing her. In a world so dominated by the male sex that all of her options revolve around granting power to a husband, new or old, it’s everything that she can do to not just be a victim of the “scoundrels” that have essentially occupied Ithaca, and to be a mother to a son who is similarly caught in limbo. But there’s a genuine loneliness, an awful solitude, that comes across in the way that The Return approaches Penelope, a woman different in fundamental ways to the paragon of devotion in the text: here she’s portrayed as far more trapped by social convention, conventions she might very well want to break out of if pushed to her limit.
Fiennes is just wonderful as Odysseus, with the work he does physically matching the work he does with his face, in scenes and moments as disparate as violent action against his enemies and mourning the death of his dog. Binoche brings that quiet desperation, a human form of a brick wall, a woman trapped between past and present. When the two share a room the chemistry is electric, even when Penelope allegedly does not know who Odysseus is. This is an interesting and engaging version of a well-worn tale, taking in well-crafted themes of loss, told well, and you can’t really ask for much more.
Odysseus (Ralph Fiennes) and Penelope (Juliette Binoche) in The Return.
The two hours or so that precedes the conclusion of A House Of Dynamite are based around what appears to me three pillars: creating as much tension as is humanly possible; shining a light on the possible inadequacies and pitfalls of how a nuclear conflict could start; and creating a very human drama. On the first score, A House Of Dynamite succeeds wonderfully. With every pluck and strain of the minimalist violin soundtrack, we see things ratchet up and turn from unexceptional to catastrophic. It’s the way that things seem to be progressing both slowly and at breakneck speed all at the same time: each chapter is basically just 35 minutes or so, the action essentially in real time, but the nature of how things are framed, how the principals react and how the dread builds and builds does an immense job in making the hairs stand up on a viewers arm as things fall apart. On the second score, A House Of Dynamite feels like a very timely rallying cry. In an era where the potential use of nuclear weapons seems to be coming back into the firm realm of the possible with every conflict and every unworthy leader of a nuclear-armed nation, A House Of Dynamite shines the harshest light possible on the range of things that could wrong, and how the system we all take for granted is riddled with human factors that might break or fail.
But it’s on the last score, the human element, that I feel A House Of Dynamite shines the brightest as an actual film, as an actual story. Kathryn Bigalow essentially seems far more concerned, rightly as it turns out, about how people in different parts of the country and the system would actually react when something like this happens. In essence, A House Of Dynamite asks “What would you do?”. Some of the characters place their trust in the system and fall into denial. Others break quickly and abandon their posts. Some reach out to family, some actively choose not to. Some get angry, at themselves, at the world, at those designated as being more important and so more worthy of protection. Some go numb. A House Of Dynamite whirls around the range of human experience, helped along by the immerse work done by its simply enormous cast.
Its ending is thought-provoking, showing a trust in the audiences ability to engage with the material that is refreshing in this day and age. And its deeper point, its expose of the way that things could go wrong in the nuclear age, really makes it stand out. Too often in film, nuclear bombs have been treated as something for the hero to defuse or as background news in an examination of some aspect of the Cold War, but A House Of Dynamite places them right at the centre, where they belong, and where we can no longer ignore their existence as some kind of normalised thing we have become accustomed to. Nonproliferation as an idea seems to have stalled, something A House Of Dynamite outlines right from the off. Ferguson’s character sets up a toy dinosaur from her son on her desk as things start to go very badly, and the symbolism should not be lost on anyone.
Daniel Gonzalez (Anthony Ramos) in A House Of Dynamite.
It’s genuinely lovely to get to enjoy a film like this, in a time and place when studios seem obsessed with dumbing down the big offerings, luxuriating in fan wankery/nostalgia and treating the audience as if they need everything explained to them in detail. The Knives Out films generally have been a serious pushback on that feeling, by presenting themselves upfront as intelligent, deep and complicated, abounding with interesting three-dimensional characters and central mysteries that are clever without being overbearing. Oh, and it’s doing it all again here with an excellent cast doing excellent work. There’s remarkably little to dislike in Wake Up Dead Man, and so much to love.
Right at the heart of it is Josh O’Connor’s Father Jud, very much the main character, placed very much opposite Josh Brolin’s horrible, toxic, old school priest you’re very much happy to see expire. Some of the best parts of Wake Up Dead Man are those moments when Jud gets to simply be a priest, ministering to those who need his spiritual assistance, detailing his devotion to the teachings and giving succour to anyone who truly needs it. For a film where the central mystery is as much a battle of faith and what faith should do for people as it is about finding a killer it’s important that our guiding star come with a good performance, and O’Connor provides that in every rumination, every caring hand offered in friendship and in every moment when a deep-seeded inner anger comes to the fore. The mystery itself is as whipsmart and engaging as any that Johnson has come up with in the past, propelled along by that vastly entertaining cast of characters, and a never-ending series of small touches, visual cues and hints that something deeper, and more disturbing, than a murder is going on.
Once Daniel Craig’s Blanc enters the picture we’re into the standard pacing of the detective story in many ways, lampshaded with references to sub-genre standards like The Hollow Man, with an ever intriguing series of clues, misdirects, shocking reveals, red herrings and metaphorical neon signs all pointing at the wrong person. There’s also a non-murder mystery within the mystery, that speaks directly to the deepest tenants of the Catholic religion and what a large degree of its adherents actually want out of it. It’s here that the supporting cast really come into their own, most especially Glenn Close as the church assistant who is just a bit too devout for her own good. The charms of Blanc in both his manner and his accent continue to showcase this character as the best of a new breed of on-screen detectives, and Craig continues to seem very much like a man who is having ball with the role, whether he is almost gleefully interrogating a never-ending litany of awful people, or waxing lyrical with Jud about his opinions on organised religion. Johnson, Craig and Knives Out have done it again, and long may the adventures of Benoit Blanc continue.
Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) and Father Jud (Josh O’Connor) in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.
A Real Pain is a very special and moving experience. On paper there is a lot about this idea that might be a struggle, since the enormity of the Holocaust and how we react to the memory of it today would seem like more than enough for a 90-minute production to tackle, but for A Real Pain this is just a backdrop to the more immediate narrative of once close, now sundered cousins. But the film manages to pull it off and excel, on the strength of its writing, its devotion to a very particular depiction of Holocaust commemoration and most importantly two absolutely stellar performances from its leads.
A Real Pain is essentially two wonderful character studies happening in tandem. Jesse Eisenberg’s David is a really expertly crafted depiction of neuroses, sheer awkwardness who “always seems like he’s late for something” and has a yearning to be in on the joke while being incapable of doing so. He doesn’t want to share his pain – he himself deems it “unexceptional”, as if this is reason enough to ignore him – but it’s there, etched all over his face and in every awkward movement. Kieran Culkin’s Benji arguably had the much harder task though. Thinking on the bare facts of what occurs, his character is easily painted as an utter asshole, a man deliberately without purpose in his life, selfish in the way he takes and takes, incapable of understanding the position and feelings of others, lacking any kind of shield between him an the word. But despite all that, he’s still likeable, through Culkin’s performance anyway, coming off as the kind of charming rogue anyone would be drawn to, at least temporarily. Eisenberg and Culkin don’t put a foot wrong in the 90 minutes.
All at the same time, the film uses the backdrop of Jewish Poland to add another layer to the story. Here there are commentaries and thoughts on the sometimes dry or even ghoulish nature of monument tourism, or even “tragedy tourism”, and how cultures that did not experience these things themselves are meant to act when approaching them. There is generational guilt and feelings of inadequacy in terms of how modern-day Jewish men and women react to the struggles and horrors of their grandparents. And there is the always grim reality of the Holocaust itself, brought to life in all of its terrible detail in one key sequence in the third act, which leaves even the happy-go-lucky Benji breaking down. It’s that last point that really marks the film out visually, though Eisenberg’s efforts behind the camera otherwise should not go unnoticed: a sequence where the characters observe a preserved gas chamber, the blue stains of Zyklon-B giving them a bizarre and uncomfortable similarity to the blue skies outside, is especially striking. A Real Pain is a smorgasbord of excellence all over its production: in its efforts to do as much as possible with that breezy running time; in the performances of its two leads, which are stellar both in their own right and in how they interact with each other; in its simple but beautifully constructed cinematography; and in how it mixes an intensely personal character study with something as serious and relevant as the Holocaust and how it happened. It is the best film of the year.
Benji (Kieran Culkin) and David (Jesse Eisenberg) in A Real Pain.
And then some dishonourable mentions. Herewas a total misfire on nearly every level, not least those smoothed-out foreheads. The Electric State so fundamentally misunderstood its source material that it’s hard to believe the people behind it even read the graphic novel. Lilo And Stitch was an empty re-make. Our Times was a property that could have been serious or funny, and actively decided to be neither. But for me, the worst film of the year has to be the laughably bad War Of The Worlds, which started out with a somewhat interesting premise and then delivered a product placement soaked disaster of video conferencing and actors struggling to react to bad CGI.
Onto the awards then.
Best Actor
Awarded to the actor who has impressed the most throughout the year in leading roles.
Jesse Eisenberg (A Real Pain)
Tripling up as writer, director and lead was no problem for Eisenberg it seems, with his David an expertly crafted and executed portrayal of what is essentially a walking ball of anxiety, regrets, fears and anger. Eisenberg’s work is so powerful that it is all too easy to see a bit of yourself in the character.
Honourable mentions: Ralph Fiennes (The Return), Michael Fassbender (Black Bag), Josh O’Connor (Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery), Benedict Cumberbatch (The Roses), Oscar Isaac (Frankenstein)
Best Supporting Actor
Awarded to the actor who has impressed the most throughout the year in roles other than the lead.
Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain)
Might as well make it a twofer. My own preferences on determining leads aside, A Real Pain is pretty much a case of sharing the spotlight, and I have to give almost as much praise for Culkin as I do for Eisenberg, with his Benji an amazing performance of someone who straddles a line between charming and obnoxious in every memorable minutes.
Honourable Mentions: Karl Glusman (Eenie Meanie), Tom Burke (Black Bag), Lewis Pullman (Thunderbolts*), Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein), Daniel Craig (Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery)
Best Actress
Awarded to the actress who has impressed the most throughout the year in leading roles.
Samara Weaving (Eenie Meanie)
There was just something about this film, and something about this performance that I really adored. Weaving was able to really get across how the Edie character was at once someone from the wrong side of the tracks but also dreaming, and capable, of so much more, wrapped around her illogical infatuation with John.
Honourable Mentions: Kôki (Tornado), Viola Davis (G20), Olivia Colman (The Roses), Florence Pugh (Thunderbolts*) Arden Cho (KPop Demon Hunters)
Best Supporting Actress
Awarded to the actress who has most impressed throughout the year in roles other than the lead.
Juliette Binoche (The Return)
The Return was really a two-hander as well, but there was something very special about Binoche’s turn as Penelope, combining depictions of misery, devotion, lust and love.
Honourable Mentions: Cate Blanchett (Black Bag), Rebecca Ferguson (A House Of Dynamite), Mia Goth (Frankenstein), Monica Barbaro (A Complete Unknown), Glenn Close (Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery)
Best Ensemble
Awarded to the best cast, generally, of any film during the year.
A House Of Dynamite
Such is the depth of the cast here, with dozens of important principals playing dozens of important characters in a taut, terrifying feature, that it can be the only winner.
Honourable Mentions: A Real Pain, A House Of Dynamite, Warfare, Black Bag, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, Frankenstein
Best Director
Awarded to the best director of the year.
Jesse Eisenberg (A Real Pain)
Though it’s not Eisenberg’s debut behind the camera, I still feel that his relative newness to that role only makes the achievement of A Real Pain all the more impressive. Its depiction of a post-Holocaust Poland, smoking weed on roofs and that visit to a concentration camp are all standout sequences, before you even touch the visual approach to the complex central relationship.
Honourable Mentions: Uberto Pasolini (The Return), Ray Mendoza & Alex Garland (Warfare), Steven Soderbergh (Black Bag), Guillermo del Toro (Frankenstein), Rian Johnson (Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery)
Best Production
Awarded to the film that has the best production values of the year, in terms of sets, props and other associated elements.
Frankenstein
Guillermo del Toro’s magnificent adaptation of the iconic story is something he has had in his mind’s eye for some time, clearly, and that comes through in every amazing set construction, every opulent bit of costuming and the way in which “the Creature” is quite literally brought to life.
Honourable Mentions: The Return, Warfare, Black Bag, O’Dessa, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale
Best CGI
Awarded to the film with the best use of computer-generated imagery and graphics.
Frankenstein
This was a bit closer, and might even seem unusual given the director’s penchant for the real, but Frankenstein does a really good job of melding CGI assets into its Gothic tale, so that it is an addition to the ambience, in every green-tinged lightning storm and imposing tower.
Honourable Mentions: Thunderbolts*, Fantastic Four: First Steps, The Running Man, O’Dessa, Superman
Best Score
Awarded to the composer/ film with the best instrumental (non-lyrical) music of the year.
John Lunn (Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale)
I could have gone with many different options here, and Lunn’s gets the nod more out of recognition for the generally always quite good music of this franchise down the years, which was replicated in the last offering.
Honourable Mentions: David Holmes (Black Bag), Nathan Johnson (Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery), Marcelo Zarvos (KPop Demon Hunters), John Murphy & David Fleming (Superman), Alexandre Desplat (Frankenstein)
Best Soundtrack
Awarded to the film with the best songs, generally, of the year.
KPop Demon Hunters
I’ll admit, in the months since I posted my review of KPop Demon Hunters, this soundtrack has grown on me far more than I thought it would, and for good reason. It’s catchy, it’s fun and it deserves some reappraisal.
Honourable Mentions: KPop Demon Hunters, Superman, O’Dessa, A Complete Unknown, Lost In Starlight, The Witcher: Sirens Of The Deep
Best Original Song
Awarded to the best song created for a film of the year.
“How It’s Done” – Huntrix (KPop Demon Hunters)
Maybe not the best year for this category recently, so I’ll go back to what was, essentially, the biggest musical of the year, and what I think was its best song.
Honourable Mentions: “The Mighty Crabjoys Theme” – The Mighty Crabjoys (Superman), “Onederworld” – Murray Bartlett & Emily Forsythe (O’Dessa), “Life Goes On” – Kim Tae Ri & Hong Kyung (Lost In Starlight), “My Story” – Christina Wren & Joey Batey (The Witcher: Sirens Of The Deep)
Best Adapted Script
Awarded to the best script adapted from another source of the year.
Tony McNamara (The Roses)
I almost went with The Return here, but The Roses got in late and stole it out from under Odysseus. It’s just too clever in its wordplay throughout its entire running time, and is a worthy adaptation of the Warren Adler novel.
Honourable Mentions: John Collee, Edward Bond & Uberto Pasolini (The Return), Eric Pearson & Joanna Calo (Thunderbolts*), Rand Ravich & James Coyne (The Killer’s Game), James Mangold & Jay Cocks (A Complete Unknown), Guillermo del Toro (Frankenstein), Tony McNamara (The Roses)
Best Original Script
Awarded to the best original script of the year.
Jesse Eisenberg (A Real Pain)
From the rapid-fire Benji monologues, David’s quiet anxiety and some of the amazingly written sequences involving the tour group and their visits to sites of Jewish interest in Poland, A Real Pain is written sublimely from start to finish.
Honourable Mentions: David Koepp (Black Bag), Shawn Simmons (Eenie Meanie), Dan Gregor, Doug Mand & Akiva Schaffer (The Naked Gun), Rian Johnson (Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery), Noah Oppenheim (A House Of Dynamite)
Best Cinematography
Awarded to the best camerawork of any film of the year.
Robbie Ryan (Tornado)
Maybe a bit of a left-field choice here, for a film that didn’t even make my top ten, but Tornado‘s key strength was its look and the way it was filmed. Vast Scottish vistas, intimate interiors and a film where the movement of the camera and the people in front of it told the story, it deserves some recognition.
Honourable Mentions: Michał Dymek (A Real Pain), David J. Thompson (Warfare), Marius Panduru (The Return), Peter Andrews (Black Bag), Dan Laustsen (Frankenstein)
Best Make-Up/Hairstyling/Costuming
Awarded to the film with the best combined make-up, hairstyling and costuming work of the year.
Frankenstein
Del Toro brings the goods here, that’s all I really need to say, right? Well, I’ll go a little further and say that the dresses, the suits, and the work done on the Creature are all sublime here.
Honourable Mentions: The Return, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, Black Bag, O’Dessa, Thunderbolts*
The Ashling Award
Awarded to my wife’s favourite film of the year.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Best Comedy
Awarded to the best comedic film of the year.
The Roses
Best Animation
Awarded to the best animated film of the year.
KPop Demon Hunters
Best Romance
Awarded to the best romantic film of the year.
The Return
Best Sci-Fi
Awarded to the best science fiction film of the year.
Thunderbolts*
Best Documentary
Awarded to the best non-fiction film with a documentarian focus.
Mrs Robinson
Best Historical
Awarded to the best historical film of the year.
Tornado
Best Irish
Awarded to the best Irish film of the year.
Mrs Robinson
Best Scene
Awarded to the best, non-action, scene of the year.
Visiting the concentration camp (A Real Pain)
Best Action Scene
Awarded to the best action/fight scene of the year.
The siege of the house (Warfare)
Best Set-Piece
Awarded to the best single set-piece sequence of the year.
The confession (Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery)
Best Delivered Line
Awarded to the best written and delivered line(s) of the year.
“Sorry, I’m just, like, so fucking exhausted by him sometimes, you know? Like, I…I, I love him and I hate him and I wanna kill him…and I wanna be him, you know? And I feel, like, so stupid around him, you know, because he is so fucking cool and he just does not give a shit. And then…just, like, being here with him is just so fucking baffling to me, you know? It’s just baffling, ’cause it’s like: How did this guy come from the survivors of this place, you know?” – Jesse Eisenberg (A Real Pain)
Best Hero
Awarded to the year’s best presented protagonist character.
Father Judd (Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery)
Best Villain
Awarded to the year’s best presented antagonist character.
Monsignor Wicks (Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery)
“Diamond In The Rough” Award
Awarded to the actor/actress who gives the best performance of an otherwise bad movie.
Sydney Elizebeth Agudong (Lilo And Stitch)
“Bang For Your Buck” Award
Awarded to the best film in the shortest running time.
Warfare (95 minutes)
“Inception” Award
Awarded to a film that is still good despite its plot holes.
G20
“Walter Mitty” Award
Awarded to a film that is still good despite its clichéd elements.
A Real Pain
“Lonely Planet Guide To…” Award
Awarded to the best world/universe building within a film.
KPop Demon Hunters
“On The Shoulders Of Giants” Award
Awarded to the best sequel, reboot or remake of the year.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
“Equality Now” Award
Awarded to the film that features the best use of female characters.
Black Bag
“Surprisingly Tolerable” Award
Awarded to the worst movie idea that turned good.
KPop Demon Hunters
“Why Is No One Applauding?” Award
Awarded to the film that has been rated too lowly by the critical community.
Eenie Meanie
“We’re Going To That” Award
Awarded to the film with the best trailer(s) of the year.
The Naked Gun
“You Can’t Take The Sky From Me” Award
Awarded to the best thing of the year.
“I think I’m probably just gonna kick it here for a little while..Kinda like it here. You meet the craziest people, man.” (A Real Pain)
See you next year!
(All images are copyright of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Amazon MGM Studios, Searchlight Pictures, Hulu, Netflix, Universal Pictures, A24 and Bleecker Street ).
Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor) is sent to an isolated rural church to assist controversial right-wing Monseigneur Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), whose flock, by his own design, consists of only a small number of increasingly radicalised people. Well meaning Jud comes to detest Wicks’ brand of hateful preaching, and becomes the prime suspect when Wicks is mysteriously killed in the middle of a service. Enter Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), who believes Jud is innocent and sets out to determine the real culprit among the congregation of would be MAGA politicians, red pill women haters and disgraced writers.
We’re back in the murder solving world of Rian Johnson, and ending 2025 in film with a production I was confident would be ranking highly on my end of year review. I adore the original Knives Out, and have almost nothing but praise for the Glass Onion follow-up, two films that placed Johnson at the pinnacle of the new movement to create films based on this kind of sub-genre, and Craig at the pinnacle of charming, idiosyncratic and generally fun-to-watch fictional detectives. I was supremely confident that the third instalment, Wake Up Dead Man, would be more of the same, with the same director, same lead and same depth in the supporting cast. And I wasn’t wrong.
It’s genuinely lovely to get to enjoy a film like this, in a time and place when studios seem obsessed with dumbing down the big offerings, luxuriating in fan wankery/nostalgia and treating the audience as if they need everything explained to them in detail. The Knives Out films generally have been a serious pushback on that feeling, by presenting themselves upfront as intelligent, deep and complicated, abounding with interesting three-dimensional characters and central mysteries that are clever without being overbearing. Oh, and it’s doing it all again here with an excellent cast doing excellent work. There’s remarkably little to dislike in Wake Up Dead Man, and so much to love.
Right at the heart of it is O’Connor’s Jud, very much the main character, with Blanc only entering proceedings around three-quarters-of-an-hour in and very much second fiddle. Jud, placed very much opposite Brolin’s horrible, toxic, old school priest you’re very much happy to see expire, is at the heart of the film’s efforts to explore the nature of Catholic teachings in a world where they often don’t seem to fit anymore. He has a tragedy in his past that has propelled him into the priesthood, but his dedication to being a priest is far more than that: some of the best parts of Wake Up Dead Man are those moments when Jud gets to simply be a priest, ministering to those who need his spiritual assistance, detailing his devotion to the teachings and giving succour to anyone who truly needs it. For a film where the central mystery is as much a battle of faith and what faith should do for people as it is about finding a killer – whether Jud is there to be a part of Blanc’s murder mystery game or be a servant to his congregation – it’s important that our guiding star come with a good performance, and O’Connor provides that in every rumination, every caring hand offered in friendship and in every moment when a deep-seeded inner anger comes to the fore.
The mystery itself is as whipsmart and engaging as any that Johnson has come up with in the past, propelled along by that vastly entertaining cast of characters, and a never-ending series of small touches, visual cues and hints that something deeper, and more disturbing, than a murder is going on. Johnson teases it all out so well, taking the opportunity granted to him by the extended running time – Wake Up Dead Man comes in at 144 minutes, but never really feels it – to deliver an opening act that could almost be its own film. We meet so many interesting people – Daryl McCormack as the amoral social media obsessed politico, Martha Washington as his increasingly disillusioned mother, Andrew Scott as a once famous author turned bitter hermit, to name only a handful – and get our teeth into the fundamental conflict between Jud and Wikes, between those who see the Church as a force for good and comfort even if it means a retreat from its previous position of dominance in society, and those who are willing to do and say whatever they need to do or say in order to get power within that institution.
There’s very obvious Trump allusions in all of this. Indeed, it’s not even appropriate to use the phrase “allusion”, because it is too upfront for that. Early on McCormack’s character laments that he has failed to get traction for politics despite bashing every minority going and trying to make people afraid, and later a member of Wicks’ flock insists that it doesn’t matter about anything that he says or does, they’ll all still be behind him. Toxic social media is a constant presence in the story, and an underlying theme of manufactured narratives and fake news forms an important part of the finale. At times, it’s probably too on the nose, but I found it didn’t bother me as much as it might otherwise have: maybe it’s just because the dark humour of some of those moments worked for me, or maybe the representations of so many malcontent right-wing trends in these characters is just so accurate to real-life.
Once Blanc enters the picture we’re into the standard pacing of the detective story in many ways, lampshaded with references to sub-genre standards like The Hollow Man, with an ever intriguing series of clues, misdirects, shocking reveals, red herrings and metaphorical neon signs all pointing at the wrong person. There’s also a non-murder mystery within the mystery, that speaks directly to the deepest tenants of the Catholic religion and what a large degree of its adherents actually want out of it. It’s here that the supporting cast really come into their own, most especially Glenn Close as the church assistant who is just a bit too devout for her own good. The charms of Blanc in both his manner and his accent continue to showcase this character as the best of a new breed of on-screen detectives, and Craig continues to seem very much like a man who is having ball with the role, whether he is almost gleefully interrogating a never-ending litany of awful people, or waxing lyrical with Jud about his opinions on organised religion: the latter aspect is especially important, as Wake Up Dead Man essentially ends up revolving around the nature of faith in many peoples lives.
I arrogantly thought that I had cracked the case myself about halfway through, but in the end I had really only grasped about half of what was really going on, and the joy of discovering just what was at the heart of Wicks’ slaying is an enormous part of the whole experience. I ended up feeling rather foolish when the final resolution was patiently and carefully laid out in what was essentially an extended epilogue, proving both clever and well-constructed, and absolutely satisfying. Suffice to say that uncovering just whodunnit is a big part of proceedings, of course it is, but there are bigger things that happen on a character and on a thematic level, to both Jud and to Blanc, leaving both men with a little bit more growth as human beings than when they started. In terms of the writing of an intriguing mystery, and the writing of intriguing characters to explore it, Johnson has one again succeeded admirably.
With the help of Steve Yedlin, Johnson once again ensures that his detective story is one that looks absolutely stellar in just about every frame. At times it can seem almost simplistic, the way that light and darkness are used to illustrate certain characters at certain moments, or how literal dark and stormy nights become part-and-parcel of the unfolding drama, but it all just seems to work so much better than it has any right to. The town and its church work as places that have that façade of welcome masking an inner hostility, flashback sequences are intercut nicely with the present, and Johnson even has the time-and-space to go a bit more esoteric, in sequences where characters reckon with a combination of poor visibility and slight brain injury. In the end, Johnson demonstrates, for what seems like the umpteenth time, his mastery of montage in the reveal, and few directors working today are as good as he is when it comes to directing attention onto the right details subtly and making a very well-worn kind of tale seem like the freshest looking production going.
Johnson, Craig and Knives Out have done it again, and long may the adventures of Benoit Blanc continue. Wake Up Dead Man is another entry in a series that defies fears that it might all be too much too quickly, by delivering another rip-roaring success with all of the traits that made Knives Out and Glass Onion such successes: an engaging and entertaining central mystery, expertly played out; a cast doing brilliant work with an ensemble of interesting characters; unique central themes that are resonant with the real world even while the film retains an old world mystique; and a slick looking production that avoids the trap of the thing becoming a stage play. It’s all here, and all here for the third time running. Roll on #4. Highly recommended.
Look, in the sky, it’s some kind of…expanded universe!
In an alternative universe, the Fantastic Four, heroes imbued with cosmic powers, reckon with multiple crises, both personal and intergalactic, as they struggle to keep their world safe from harm. The husband and wife pair of super scientist Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) and diplomat Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) prepare to become parents, Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) wants to go back into space and Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) seeks a connection outside of his found family. But all of this pales into insignificance when the mysterious Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) arrives from deep space, heralding the approach of the planet consuming Galactus (Ralph Ineson).
Just a quick wrap-up review for a film I finally got around to watching a few weeks ago, ahead of the end of the year. I’ve been more optimistic on the MCU’s prospects over the last 12 months than I have been in a few years, on the back of the great Thunderbolts* and the under-rated Captain America: Brave New World, but it’s fair to say that the long anticipated fourth effort to turn this iconic is more of an “as you were” in terms of its impact on my outlook: not bad, not great either, let’s just move along.
I’m confident enough to say that First Steps can be considered the best Fantastic Four film yet made, but that’s not saying much. Discounting Roger Corman’s ridiculous 1994 effort, it’s better than the Tim Storey films by virtue of its better cast and better grasp of the characters and it’s better than the somewhat misjudged Josh Trank film by virtue of its coherence if nothing else. But I don’t want to go too far either: in many ways, the best thing about First Steps is its, for this universe anyway, its unique setting, a Fallout-esque 1960s style world with a “New Frontiers” feel, all optimism about the future, good feelings and generally warm and cozy.
Once you get away from that, admittedly neat, environment, you’re left with a typically straightforward MCU film, where the attraction is mostly to be found in the interactions of the protagonists. And those are pretty good, with the four principals all inhabiting the titular four pretty well. Pascal’s Richards and Kirby’s Sue depict a warm, affectionate marriage, Quinn’s Johnny eases back on the playboy aspects and it’s almost refreshing, though maybe a little odd, to see a version of the Thing who isn’t in the depths of despair over his transformation. The dynamic between the four is easy, realistic and helps to carry large sections of First Steps, not least those involving the rather bland villain pair of Galactus and the Silver Surfer.
That blandness is the key weakness of First Steps, with this film calling back to the MCU’s too frequent problems with its antagonists in the past. With Galactus and Surfer being just blank slates or predictable in equal measure, First Steps has little productive to base itself around, and thus reverts to a series of mawkish set pieces based around this version of Earth pulling together in the face of the existential threat, propelled by alarmingly silly inspirational speeches and some fridge logic when it comes to turning the Surfer against Galactus. It’s also hard to get away from the feeling that we’re watching something that is essentially prologue for something else, which First Steps underlines with its post-credits scene. In the end, it fells like something of a let down after a fair amount of hype, and perhaps proof that this property may just be too difficult to adapt to the screen properly. Not recommended.
(All images are copyright of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures).
Never Felt Better 