Every movie on Melbourne TV tonight – rated and slated
From one of the best Australian-made movies ever to a Bruce Willis action flick that proves that age is no barrier when there is stuff to be blown up, here’s what you should be watching on TV tonight.
Leigh Paatsch
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LANTANA (M)
*****
9.50pm WORLD MOVIES
Best Australian movie ever? It has to be right up there. Until Lantana, Australian cinema had never truly mastered the genre of contemporary drama. Virtually all of our best ‘serious’ films have consistently shied away from the here and now, turning their focus instead upon life stories or famous events that draw on the power of hindsight. Some might argue there is nothing quintessentially Australian about Lantana, that it is a film that could have been made anywhere at any time. However, the sheer perfection on display here in every department – especially the uniform excellence of its ensemble cast, the eerie resonance of Andrew Bovell’s screenplay, and the textured direction of Ray Lawrence – achieves an intelligence, eloquence and emotion that showcases Australian film at the height of its powers. Stars Anthony LaPaglia, Kerry Armstrong, Geoffrey Rush, Barbara Hershey, Rachael Blake.
RED (MA15+)
***
8.30pm 7MATE
The umpteenth ultra-disposable action flick of the modern era is here to prove only that age is no barrier when there is stuff to be blown up and body-count quotas to be filled. Bruce Willis plays a retired CIA agent marked for death by his former employer. The veteran support cast (led by Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich) play the pensioners-go-pow-pow card with panache and good humour. Good, dumb fun.
SICARIO 2: DAY OF THE SOLDADO (MA15+)
****
9.00pm GO!
Don’t hit Day of the Soldado expecting a straightforward sequel to Sicario. That movie, you may recall, was one of the finest released in 2015 : a report from the frontlines of America’s long-running war on drugs, with casualties continually piling up either side of the Texas-Mexico border. While the principal location remains the same, the change of direction executed here is instantly noted. The overall impact is a lot less subtle than before, but often, just as powerful. An aggressive opening act projects a hellish vision of the Tex-Mex border that is no longer simply all about the movement of drugs. Mexican cartels are now putting a foot down on the barbed wire and letting through terrorists of all creeds and callings. Money is money, regardless of whether you’re trafficking cocaine or suicide bombers. To stem the tide, CIA black-ops specialist Graver (Josh Brolin) and his rogue Central American enforcer Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro) stage a strategic kidnapping that may provoke the cartels to turn upon themselves.
VICEROY’S HOUSE (PG)
**
5.30pm WORLD MOVIES
A chunky, clunky history lesson that leaves you feeling as if you’ve been kept back after school for something you did not do. This is the stilted, not-so-stirring story of how a retreating British Empire signed off on the Partition of India in 1947. At the forefront of an ever-escalating political crisis are the foremost representative of the Crown in the region, Lord Louis Mountbatten (Hugh Bonneville), and his wife, Edwina (Gillian Anderson). All a bit too Downton-Abbey-does-Delhi for words.
THE CONSTANT GARDENER (M)
***
7.30pm WORLD MOVIES
A meek British diplomat (Ralph Fiennes) investigates the mysterious death of his wife (Rachel Weisz) in Africa. Poised, intelligent thriller which also points an accusing finger at drug companies dumping obsolete product on third-world countries. Based on the novel by John le Carre.
THREE MOVIE PICKS FOR STREAMING OR RENTAL
JOHN WICK CHAPTER 3 (MA15+)
***1/2
BINGE, FOXTEL, NETFLIX
The John Wick franchise will never be down for the count as long as it keeps upping the ante. Just as movie number two in the Keanu Reeves-starring series of revenge thrillers bested the original, number three takes higher aim than its predecessors and hits a bullseye. The new instalment picks up where we left off last time, with Mr Wick making the most of a one-hour head start he has been granted from a horde of contract assassins on his trail. Joyless Johnny violated a code of conduct so precious to his hit men brethren that there is now a $14 million bounty on his head. What follows is yet another stunning collection of action set-pieces for which the franchise has become renowned, every one of them intricately choreographed to the last millimetre. Some sequences are flat-out insane, such as an all-in brawl staged in Morocco where the most dangerous fighters turn out to be a pair of comically combative canines. The unworldly shot composition of unheralded director Chad Stahelski continues to astonish, too.
THE OLD MAN & THE GUN (M)
***1/2
NETFLIX
In this funky, laid-back caper flick based on a true story, Robert Redford stars as Forrest Tucker, an elderly bank robber with over 80 stick-ups and 16 prison escapes to his name. It is too late to teach this old dog any new tricks. He’ll be politely pointing pistols at tellers until the day he dies. In the midst of a multistate robbery spree, Tucker and his creaky cohorts (played by Danny Glover and singer Tom Waits) attract the attention of both a Texan police detective (Casey Affleck) and an adoring general public. In his final screen outing, Redford effortlessly has us fall for this loveable rogue, whose heart has stayed in the right place despite a lifetime running on the wrong side of the law.
READY OR NOT (MA15+)
***1/2
FOXTEL, or RENT via various services
People who speak of the wedding ritual as something to be survived will never speak so flippantly again after this highly strung and highly entertaining horror comedy is done with them. Young bride Grace (Australian rising star Samara Weaving, a standout here) thinks marrying into the posh Le Domas clan will give her the family she never had. Then comes the news from new husband Alex (Mark O’Brien) that gives her both the heebies and the jeebies. Anyone intending to enter the Le Domas inner circle must first endure a disturbing family tradition that goes back several generations. Therefore Grace must live through a wedding night in which her devilishly inclined in-laws will be hunting her down with every sharp and blunt instrument at their disposal. So out come the knives, axes, spear guns and what have you. And off bolts Grace, still in her bridal gown and improvising modes of defence and retaliation that would make Johns Rambo and Wick feel queasy. Nutty, nerve-shredding and fiendish fast-paced fun throughout.
@leighpaatsch