In his documentary South of the Border, director Oliver Stone addresses the myth, perpetuated by Fox News, that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is addicted to narcotics. Sure, he likes a cocoa leaf now and then, but he’s no crackhead. Stone lauds Chávez, who took power, lost it in 2002, then got it back again, as a fellow soldier; you half expect the President to call the film-maker “Bolivar Stone” in this display of mutual admiration.
Stone is particularly impressed by Chávez’ stance against the International Monetary Fund. Chávez refused IMF loans and used Venezuela’s oil revenue to become self-sufficient. Stone travels to other Latin American countries – Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Paraguay, Ecuador and Brazil – to praise South America’s response to the banking crisis and the build-up of a surplus to aid countries in the region.
Stone’s approach is so one-sided, so top down – and even then he does not get out of his chauffeur-driven car when passing through the streets – that his film is overly simplistic. He is keen to show himself on screen alongside all the presidents, straining to hear the simultaneous translation as he keeps eye contact, that he detracts from what his interviewee is saying. He is happiest directing Chávez in a scene where the Venezuelan leader falls off a child’s bicycle.
His editorialising draws attention away from his message. Is the IMF “basically an arm of the US government”, as Stone asserts? Where is his evidence? Moreover, if Chávez
is accused of violating human rights, should not Stone raise this rather than simply point out that Venezuela’s neighbour, Colombia, is a greater violator? You wonder whether Chávez ever sought reparation following the failed coup, holding the United States to account.
The problem with South of the Border is that, in addressing the media pillorying of Chávez, it does not offer much of an insight into the man. I understand that Stone shot hundreds of hours of footage. It’s surprising, then, that the film offers only a cursory glance at its subject.
In the first few seconds of Predators, Adrien Brody is falling. Boy, is he falling. Eight years on from his Oscar-winning performance in The Pianist, he is slumming in a by-the-numbers science-fantasy action caper. Does he think he can have Nicolas Cage’s career? Only if he picks his parts better.
This sequel-cum-remake of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1987 Predator features Brody as soldier-cum-mercenary Royce, dropped into nature’s vipers’ nest – a jungle on an alien planet where he is one of eight who survived the late opening of their parachute. Also dropped onto the planet are some caged beasts descended from the black lagoon, albeit with additional invisibility cloaks. Man fights alien – predator verses predator – but why? We never find out. The film is a two-hour metaphor for the unending nature of war or, if you prefer, “Adrien verses Predator”.
It is a pity that Robert Rodriguez, on whose 15-year old screenplay the film is based, is not calling the shots. That task falls to Kontroll director Nimrod Antal, fast becoming a Hollywood hack – his most recent credits are Vacancy and Armoured. Antal does quite well in differentiating the combatants, among them Alice Braga as the token female, Topher Grace as a doctor with a secret and Danny Trejo as the kind of Latino tough guy usually seen in Rodriguez movies. Other characters include a serial killer, a soldier from Sierra Leone and a barefoot Samurai. We also get an entertaining turn from Laurence Fishburne as a long-term survivor on the planet who has turned into a mumbling schizophrenic.
Antal does less well with action. There is nothing in the movie we have not seen before, although dropping fighters on an alien planet does seem a bit extreme – and implausible, too.
Ultimately, Predators is just plain silly. The predators hunt in threes, but still manage to get picked off one by one. Antal and the screenwriters throw in such anomalies as the doctor being able to recognise a toxic juice oozing from a plant even though it is not of his Earth. And he gets to use it in later on. You wonder how the characters feed themselves; they do not even boil water. Instead, the lack of ambition shown on screen leaves the audience steaming.
