Director/Actor Best Film #8 : Scott & Washington

I go Unstoppable, then Crimson Tide. Then Man on Fire, which I like but feels excessively cartoonish/slick. Deja Vu probably last. Never saw all of 123.

Easily Crimson Tide, followed by Unstoppable.

This is a great bunch. I think they’re all at least good, and their first, third, and fifth collaborations are all great. I’m a Deja Vu guy though. All day, every day.

Unfortunately for me I’ve only seen the last 2 and they’re not very good

Not for me.  I quite like Tenet purely as an action film ( the stunts and action sequences are great), it's got a great lead performance by John David Washington and a very good supporting one by Robert Pattinson. But it's needlessly convoluted and the amount of exposition that's needed to constantly explain what is going borders on ridiculous. I wanted to scream every time someone said temporal pincer movement . Most of the characters are paper thin, and Kenneth Branagh's hammily accented villain felt like a cartoon character. 

Deja Vu is just a lot less convoluted and has a lot more heart. The script is better, and doesn't overdo the exposition, and the characterisation is stronger. The bizzare cross-time unrequited "romance" between Doug ( Denzel Washington) and Claire ( Paula Patton) gives the film far more emotional heft and stakes than Tenet. Jim Caviezel is a far better villain than Branagh. Take away all the time-travel mumbo jumbo, and it's really a quite film-noirish story about obsession.





I'll probably rewatch Tenet again at some point, and maybe reasses, but on first watch, I had a lot of issues with the film. The action and JDW's commited performance were it's strongest assets.

I checked out his profile, did a little search on the keyword “Denzel” and we may have to consider the possibility that Ian Farrington is actually our friend puppy

How did you get a follow from the official Liverpool FC account, Ian?

Sorry about that folks. Hope this thread can get back to normal.

Three-way tie between Crimson Tide, Man On Fire and Deja Vu so far.

Interesting. 

I may have already talked about this in the review thread for Tenet, but I think the best way to appreciate Tenet is to think of it as not just a Bond film, but specifically an older Bond film in terms of how it emphasizes spectacle over character. People sometimes forget that the pre-Craig era Bond films also had paper-thin characters and hammily-accented, cartoon-like villains because the Craig films made more of an effort to give the character more emotional dimension, and to be more grounded in general. Tenet feels to me like Nolan's attempt to recreate the pure escapism of the earlier Bond films that he grew up with (albeit with a time travel twist ).

I quite like both Man on Fire and Unstoppable. I'll go with the former since it has a chance of winning.

Crimson Tide is damn good pulp filmmaking. Déjà Vu I've been meaning to rewatch but I distinctly remember finding its visual style utterly bonkers (in a good way). The Taking of Pelham 123 I'd say is unfortunately in contention for being Scott's worst - he does what he can with the frenetic direction and the performances to facilitate tension but it mostly just works up to noise.