Papillon. (15.)
Directed by Michael Noer.
Starring Charlie Hunnam, Rami Malek, Roland Møller, Michael Socha, Eve Hewson, Yorick Van Wageningen. 130 mins
This tale of a man desperately trying to find release from his confinement has itself struggled to see the light of day, waiting over a year to finally be slipped into cinemas. After being framed for murder in 1931, Parisian safecracker Papillon (Hunnan) is sent to the penal colonies in French Guiana where his daily existence is one of deprivation and brutality. There seems to be no reason to go on living but, tucked away from the prying eyes of the world, his will to survive and escape remains unbroken. Similarly, there would seem to be no reason for this remake of the 1975 Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman to exist, but it does and, though nobody will see it, it kind of succeeds.
Papillon is of that strange genre of suicide remakes, diminished versions of yesteryear epics, like Ben Hur or Rollerball or Poseidon, that seem to have been made to fill some unknown quota; films that seem designed to show that They Don't Make 'em Like They Used To. The 2016 Ben Hur suffered because it sought to replace large-scale spectacle with computer-generated spectacle. Papillon at least avoids that, but it is still a thin creation compared to the 70s behemoth.
Still, that could be an advantage. It starts horribly with a sequence set in 30s Paris where everybody is Italian America and Papillon upsets a gangster who, like any Parisian gangster of that time, tells him, "you got some balls on you kid." Once he's been shipped off to the colonies though the film quickly becomes more plausible. It's a more brutal take on the story than the seventies one and, not weighed down by lavish production values, it is perhaps a bit more nimble. Malek is quite effective in the Hoffman role as the rich counterfeiter that Papillon protects.
It is a great irony that a film about a man who is framed for a crime he didn't commit is being played by a movie star who can't get arrested. Since turning down the lead in Fifty Shades, Hunnan has been box office poison in Pacific Rim and King Arthur yet he still carries himself like he's hot stuff. Like McQueen, he doesn't feel the need to overdo. Here he looks like a genetically spliced hybrid of Channing Tatum and Matthew Modine and the film has been shaped into too much of a star vehicle with him as the noble action hero rather than a human being. As a result, this film which is based on a book that wanted to expose the retributive savagery of the French penal system, suggests that it effectively rehabilitated him. The Paris Papillon was an arrogant, selfish man but after a couple years in le nick open air, he is transformed into a tremendous, selfless figure, who makes wild sacrifices for friendship.
Directed by Michael Noer.
Starring Charlie Hunnam, Rami Malek, Roland Møller, Michael Socha, Eve Hewson, Yorick Van Wageningen. 130 mins
This tale of a man desperately trying to find release from his confinement has itself struggled to see the light of day, waiting over a year to finally be slipped into cinemas. After being framed for murder in 1931, Parisian safecracker Papillon (Hunnan) is sent to the penal colonies in French Guiana where his daily existence is one of deprivation and brutality. There seems to be no reason to go on living but, tucked away from the prying eyes of the world, his will to survive and escape remains unbroken. Similarly, there would seem to be no reason for this remake of the 1975 Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman to exist, but it does and, though nobody will see it, it kind of succeeds.
Papillon is of that strange genre of suicide remakes, diminished versions of yesteryear epics, like Ben Hur or Rollerball or Poseidon, that seem to have been made to fill some unknown quota; films that seem designed to show that They Don't Make 'em Like They Used To. The 2016 Ben Hur suffered because it sought to replace large-scale spectacle with computer-generated spectacle. Papillon at least avoids that, but it is still a thin creation compared to the 70s behemoth.
Still, that could be an advantage. It starts horribly with a sequence set in 30s Paris where everybody is Italian America and Papillon upsets a gangster who, like any Parisian gangster of that time, tells him, "you got some balls on you kid." Once he's been shipped off to the colonies though the film quickly becomes more plausible. It's a more brutal take on the story than the seventies one and, not weighed down by lavish production values, it is perhaps a bit more nimble. Malek is quite effective in the Hoffman role as the rich counterfeiter that Papillon protects.
It is a great irony that a film about a man who is framed for a crime he didn't commit is being played by a movie star who can't get arrested. Since turning down the lead in Fifty Shades, Hunnan has been box office poison in Pacific Rim and King Arthur yet he still carries himself like he's hot stuff. Like McQueen, he doesn't feel the need to overdo. Here he looks like a genetically spliced hybrid of Channing Tatum and Matthew Modine and the film has been shaped into too much of a star vehicle with him as the noble action hero rather than a human being. As a result, this film which is based on a book that wanted to expose the retributive savagery of the French penal system, suggests that it effectively rehabilitated him. The Paris Papillon was an arrogant, selfish man but after a couple years in le nick open air, he is transformed into a tremendous, selfless figure, who makes wild sacrifices for friendship.
