46-44

46. The Hurt Locker
Brought to you by the director of Point Break! 100% pure adrenaline, and so on. She really has a thing for tough guys talking tough talk. It's pretty extraordinary that someone can make a film about the Iraq war without really saying much about the war itself (other than 'it's unpleasant', and 'you might die'). I suppose that she didn't have much to say about surfing in Point Break either. Except that surfing is 'a source', I remember that. The Hurt Locker is more of a character study than a political message really, or a tri-caricatural study (since there's three of them.) And it's incredibly tense, as crazy risk-taker James goes around recklessly unplugging bombs. With no helmet on. Wearing a blindfold. Using only his teeth. Mind you, I thought that one of the tensest scenes involved no bombs at all - it was when the three squad members got drunk and starting getting all macho with each other. I suppose it suggests that the characterisation is pretty good when you can feel the growing tension in the air, and know that it's going to end in tears. Certainly, 'sensible soldier' and 'nervous soldier' were well rounded and believable. I'm not sure about the central character though. The guy that plays him, Jeremy Renner, is pretty good, really charismatic but also sort of haunted-looking when necessary. I just couldn't understand his motivation for doing the stupidly dangerous things that he did. And the film probably drops down twenty places on my list because of that. Maybe it was just too subtle for me, and I'd have preferred it if they had arrows and flashing lights saying 'addicted to the adrenaline of war' or 'escaping the mundanity of civilian life'. Ralph Fiennes as a badass soldier is a hell of a redeeming feature though.

45. Dead Man's Shoes
Someone has told me that I look a bit like Paddy Considine in this film, when I'm wearing my green coat and I have a beard on the go. I wish! As if I could ever be so terrifying. All the kids on the top floor of the bus would shut up whenever I walked on. A pure revenge film this, imagine the East Midlands equivalent of Kill Bill. Except that clever old Paddy worked out that you don't need to be a kung-fu expert to exact revenge if you have an axe and a bag full of psychotropic drugs. And here's a trivia question for you; which real life person has been played by both the actors who play the brothers in Dead Man's Shoes? First correct answer wins a chocolate mouse.

44. Eastern Promises
This is something of a companion piece to the other recent Cronenberg/Mortensen collaboration A History of Violence. Together they are seen, by some, as Cronenberg selling out since they are somewhat less deranged than his normal output. I don't really think that's fair. They are pretty conventional stories, but at the same time they are both sprinkled with brutal explosions of violence and exposed genitals. Not really family fare. Anyway, they're twin films; in one Viggo Mortensen pretends that he's a gangster, in the other he pretends that he's not a gangster. Clever, huh? So, since they're two sides of the same coin, I wouldn't argue with anyone who says that A History of Violence is better. I certainly wouldn't challenge them to a naked knife fight in a Turkish sauna. In case you haven't seen the film, I should explain that a naked knife fight in a Turkish sauna is one of the key scenes in Eastern Promises (and that the idea of a naked knife fight in a Turkish sauna didn't just independently form in my head.) It's an incredibly vivid scene. Perhaps the nakedness makes the characters seem more vulnerable, but when the knives slash flesh, oof, it looks really, really sore. Brutal.