The “fuzz” of February’s films

If you can’t lay claim to a royal title, don’t expect to be in with a shout at the Oscars next weekend.

The Queen will earn Helen Mirren best actress for her turn as our monarch, and The Last King of Scotland will rightly net Forest Whitaker gong for best actor.

And Martin Scorsese - let’s call him the prince of the gangster movie to keep the theme going - will surely, surely, surely finally get the best director nod he should already have had.

Traditionally, Martin scores highly at the Baftas, then gets shunned at the Oscars. This time, rather surprpisingly, his mob flick The Departed was overlooked at the British Academy awards. Perhaps it’s an omen…

A raft of “quality” movies have come and gone from Shropshire’s screens in January as the award season’s big-hitters did battle.

Now we’re back to the rather mundane. Much like in life, February in the film world has the feeling of an “after the lord mayor’s show” month.

Christmas and New Year festivities are tidied away, and our lives have returned to the hum-drum. A word which could sum up this week’s rom-com offering, Because I Said So.
Doting mother of three Daphne Wilder (Diane Keaton) knows all about making mistakes with the opposite sex, but has somehow managed to bring up three beautiful and talented daughters.

While her eldest children have their lives in order and wedding rings on their fingers, her youngest, ditzy caterer Milly (Mandy Moore), has enjoyed little success in love. If they’re not married or insecure, her boyfriends turn out to be gay.

Unsettled by her impending 60th birthday, Daphne channels all of her energy into finding Milly the perfect man by secretly placing an online advertisement.

Because I Said So splutters from one lacklustre misadventure to the next, never finding its comic timing as Milly dithers between the two men in her life. The main obstacle is Karen Leigh Hopkins and Jessie Nelson’s poorly constructed script that paints the character of Daphne as an unsympathetic, unreasonably shrill fuss-pot.

Probably the pick of this week’s offerings is Hot Fuzz, from the makers of crazy zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead. This time it has buddy cop movies in its mickey-taking sights.

The first half is quite wryly amusing, but it peters away badly towards a surreally OTT climax.

Obsessive police constable Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is one of the London force’s shining lights. An expert in hand-to-hand combat, armed response and high-speed pursuit, he is so good at his job that he makes the rest of the force seem sluggish in comparison.
So Nicholas’s embarrassed superiors transfer him to the sleepy West Country backwater of Sandford, the place where nothing ever happens.

“Statistically, Sandford is the safest village in the country,” boasts the local Inspector Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent). Not for long . . .

There are several moments of surreal brilliance and amusing one-liners, but a few lulls too where jokes fall flat and the story treads water to prepare for big set-pieces.

Ridiculous, enjoyable insanity, nonetheless.

Carl Jones is the Shropshire Star’s film critic. You can catch his views and the latest local film information every Friday in the newspaper.

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