Eden Lake (2008) - Watkins' survival horror debut is a relentlessly negative watch

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Kelly Reilly's light summer dress is contrasted to three menacing figures behind her on this blood-promising poster for James Watkins' Eden Lake

A young couple head out for a weekend camping by a desolate forest lake, which is soon to be upended by swanky apartments. But a group of violence-idolizing, ghastly kids and teenagers hang out at the lake ...

Eden Lake is the debut for English writer-director James Watkins (My Little Eye (2002), writer). Kelly Reilly (A Single Shot (2013)) is pretty rad here as the resourceful female lead, and Eden Lake has a certain pallid drive and a couple of great shots, (cinematography by Christopher Ross (Get Santa (2014))), but you would have to have a very special taste to not also find the film unusually unpleasant.
The plot's implicit message of not straying out into the wild nature, (where we don't belong), is reminiscent of The Descent (2005), a better English survival horror of the same period, only that film's ghoulish monsters are here nothing but physically normal human teenagers. They are led by Jack O'Connell (Home (2016), short) as a gruesomely etched youth without a shred of goodness in him.
The film is also enormously depressing and tiring, because the assaults that take place are so predictable and low-practical that one feels nudged to witness them while wishing the worst of ramifications possible for the young perpetrators and their scummy parents. Eden Lake is a fiercely negative experience.

Related posts:

James Watkins: The Woman in Black (2012) or, Creaking Galore
2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess 

Fassbender gives an interview about his work on the film here

Cost: Reportedly 2 mil. $
Box office: 3.9 mil. $
= Big flop (1.95 times the cost)
[Eden Lake premiered 12 August (Berlin Fantasy Filmfest) and runs 91 minutes. Shooting took place in England, including at Pinewood Studios, from July - September 2007. Buckinghamshire's Black Park Lake played the titular, non-existing Eden Lake. The film opened #93 in 10 theaters to a weak 5k $ first weekend in North America, where it was only in release for 1 week and grossed tiny 7k $ (0.2 % of the total gross). The film's 3 biggest markets were its production country the UK with 870k $ (22.3 %), France with 739k $ (18.9 %) and Russia with 668k $ (17.1%). The film's themes played into Britain's ongoing 'Broken Britain' debate, and the film drew praise and criticism for its portrayal of a middle-class couple's trials at the mercy of depraved underclass youths. It was nominated for 2 British Independent Film awards. Watkins returned with The Woman in Black (2012). Reilly returned in Me and Orson Welles (2008), Michael Fassbender in The Devil's Whore (2008, miniseries) and then theatrically in Fish Tank (2009). Eden Lake is fresh at 81 % with a 6.6/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Eden Lake?

Harry Brown (2009) or, Old Man Vengeance

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Michael Caine is a determined-looking gentleman on the poster for Daniel Barber's Harry Brown

Harry is an aging ex-Marine, who lives in a crummy neighborhood and only has one friend, whom he plays chess with. When his friend gets murdered, Harry takes up killing off the young hoods responsible. Along with some other criminals.

Michael Caine (Shadow Run (1998)) does well in the semi-comical titular part as the avenging, walking-impaired vigilante here.
Harry Brown takes itself very seriously but is really one-dimensional and reactionary. It proposes that by shooting around 10 people, old man Brown makes his neighborhood safe again. The evil drug-pushing villains seem like mostly fantastic clichés.
England is (still) ugly and bleak in Harry Brown. It is written by Gary Young (Spivs (2004)) and directed by feature debuting Daniel Barber (The Keeping Ground (2014)).

Related post:

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

Michael Caine gives an interview to Empire Magazine about the film here

Cost: 7.3 mil. $
Box office: 10.3 mil. $
= Big flop
[Harry Brown premiered 12 September (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 103 minutes. Shooting took place in November 2008 in Essex, London and in the Elstree Studios in the UK. The film opened #27 in 19 theaters to a 173k $ first weekend in North America, where it peaked in 67 theaters but never achieved a higher position and grossed 1.8 mil. $ (17.5 % of the total gross). The film's biggest market was its native UK with 6.6 mil. $ (64 %). North America was the 2nd biggest market, and the 3rd biggest was Australia with 1.4 mil. $ (13.6 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to one notch better than this review. Harry Brown is fresh at 64 % with a 6/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Harry Brown?

Unbroken (2014) - Despite good elements, Jolie's Grand WWII Biopic is mostly distant and weak

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Jack O'Connell (Starred Up (2013)) as Louis Zamperini on a poster for Angelina Jolie's Unbroken

Olympic champion runner Louis Zamperini gets shot down as a US Air Force pilot during World War II, and after a long time on a raft in the Pacific Ocean gets interned in a Japanese POW camp, where he and other prisoners endure great sufferings.

Unbroken begins with some incredible aerial warfare scenes. Another thing about it that deserves praise is popular Japanese rock star Miyavi's (Oresama (2004, video)) impressive performance as Mutsuhiro 'The Bird' Watanabe. Zamperini and many others are unfortunately portrayed by distractingly handsome actors, and the film's polished look also doesn't help get us involved in a character and a story that feels distant, - and which has a smack of better, preceding films.
Unbroken is written by Richard LaGravanese (Beautiful Creatures (2013)), William Nicholson (Gladiator (2000)) and Ethan and Joel Coen (Burn After Reading (2008), both), based on Laura Hillenbrand's (Seabisquit: An American Legend (2001)) biography Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (2010), and directed by Angelina Jolie (In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011)) as her second fiction feature. The film becomes boring, and Jolie's own relation to this almost exclusively male-filled story seems thin; we don't feel the creator behind the work. There is also something clichéd about the grand treatment Zamperini gets here. The development in his life, which is related in the end, is moving, - but it can't save a fundamentally weak film.

Related posts:

Angelina Jolie: 2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
The Changeling (2008) or, The Christine Collins Story (actress)

 

Watch an official trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 65 mil. $

Box office: 163.4 mil. $

=  Minor hit

[Unbroken premiered November 17 (Sydney) and runs 137 minutes. Universal purchased the book rights in 2011, while having owned the movie rights to Zamperini's story from the late 1950s. Jolie was reportedly paid 1 mil. $ to direct the film. Filming took place in New South Wales and Queensland, Australia from October 2013 - February 2014. The film opened #3, behind The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies and Into the Woods, to a 30.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it stayed in the top 5 for a total of 3 weeks and grossed an impressive 115.6 mil. $ (70.7 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were China with 5.4 mil. $ (3.3 %) and France with 4.9 mil. $ (3 %). A Japanese change.org petition for a ban on the film in Japan by Japanese nationalists was successful in disrupting the Japanese release of the film to a much smaller scale. A Dutch-Indonesian group started another petition in response, voicing their support for the film and its portrayal of the harsh prisoner abuse and torture committed by the Japanese during WWII. The film got nominated for 3 Oscars: Best Cinematography (Roger Deakins), lost to Emmanuel Lubezki for Birdman, Best Sound Mixing, lost to Whiplash, and Best Sound Editing, lost to American Sniper. It was also chosen as one of AFI's Top 10 movies of the year. Unbroken is rotten at 52 % with a 6 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Unbroken?