5 Days Of War

“The first casualty of war is truth,” reads the sombre quotation at the start of this ridiculous movie.

Well, they said it. In 5 Days Of War (2011), truth isn’t just a casualty – it’s punched in the nuts, water-boarded then blasted by a firing-squad before the opening credits have even finished.

Supposedly ‘based on real events’, this war drama tells the tale of plucky Georgia’s heroic resistance in 2008 against a Russian invasion. Most independent commentators reckon the blame for this messy conflict needs to be shared – but you’ll find no such namby-pamby even-handedness here.

The reason why is simple: the film was part-financed by the Georgian government. (Bizarrely, one of its ministers is even listed as a producer.)

The result, unsurprisingly enough, is a gallumphing piece of pro-Georgian propaganda. Swivel-eyed and angry, the movie ramps up the anti-Russian rhetoric so much it’d bring a blush to the cheek of a Fox News presenter.

The ‘story’ centres on Thomas Anders (Rupert Friend), an American journalist in Georgia to report on the war. While helping a Georgian family flee the fighting, he films Russian soldiers cold-bloodedly executing civilians – then has to daringly escape through the frontlines with this damning evidence of evil Russkie war crimes.

Will he make it? Could the truth finally be revealed to the world? Does anyone remotely care? No.

Rupert Friend the star of 5 Days Of Snore

There’s another odd, even schizophrenic, aspect to this movie. Clearly, the Georgian tourist ministry – fearful that two hours of watching the country being reduced to rubble might discourage potential holidaymakers – has insisted on the inclusion of lots of idyllic ‘travelogue’ imagery showing off the region’s beautiful old towns and balmy countryside. In some scenes, you half-expect Judith Chalmers to wander into shot and start extolling the virtues of the unspoilt beaches.

But then the action will suddenly lurch back to a graphic depiction of war-time horror (a wedding celebration ending in a bombed bloodbath, for example). Back and forth it goes, between sunny vistas and blasted buildings, cute pavement cafes and corpse-littered streets. It’s like watching Machete Kills and Wish You Were Here having noisy, confused sex. And not in a good way.

Misfortune seems to be heaped onto this movie. Already staggering under the weight of Georgian governmental expectation, its credibility is further lumbered by two titanically over-the-top performances from a couple of has-been stars: Andy Garcia and Val Kilmer (of which, more later). And then there’s the ultimate death-knell for any film: Renny Harlin.

Ah, Renny. Over the years, the scarecrow-coiffured Finn – a favourite bete noire of this website – has been accused of many things, but subtlety and sophistication are not among them.

The dead hand behind such clunking high-concept fare as Die Hard 2, Deep Blue Sea and Cliffhanger, our Renny deals pretty much exclusively in explosions, car chases and gunfights. Indeed, his Nordic disposition seems almost offended by such quaint cinematic conventions as plot and character development.

Renny Harlin directs 5 Days Of Bore

Harlin’s stylistic peccadilloes are most readily apparent here during a scene in which senior government figures anxiously discuss the country’s fate. Confronted with people doing nothing more than actually speaking to each other, Harlin’s unease is palpable. You can almost sense his panic: ‘What is this? Two people, in a room, talking? Oh my god – there’s pages of this stuff’.

Realising the potential for cinematic catastrophe (ie. three straight minutes without an explosion) Renny solves the problem with admirable simplicity: he just presses the directorial fast-forward button. Suddenly the actors – who’d previously been speaking in measured and actorly tones – start rattling through their dialogue at machine-gun pace. It’s like they’re taking on bets at Ascot.

Complex plot points – whole swathes of story – are hurled back and forth like hand-grenades, just so the Renny-nator can get back to blowing some shit up.

Still, such pyromaniacal intent was always going to pay dividends for readers of this blog. And when a big Russkie Mil-Hind 24 hooves into view, shooting up heroic Georgian soldiers, you can be sure Renny isn’t about to cut away to a quiet scene of contemplative dialogue. Oh, no. It’s chopper fire-ball time.

With his comrades under fire, one of the Georgian grunts whips out a rocket launcher and blasts the helicopter. Damaged, the whirlybird spins into the top of a building, before tumbling to the ground and providing our exploding helicopter ‘money shot’.

Artistic merit

As already mentioned, if there’s one thing old Renny knows about (and we’ve checked: there is only ‘one thing’ he does know about) it’s how to blow things up. Thus, the audience gets to really relish the ailing chopper’s death throes before seeing its final demise – all in lustrous, fiery, CGI.

Exploding helicopter innovation

Nothing to report, sadly. This is a little disappointing, as the Nordic numpty has provided plenty of quirky helicopter explosions in previous films – see Cliffhanger, Deep Blue Sea, or 12 Rounds for examples.

Positives

Andy Garcia's 5 Accents Of War

For schadenfreude enthusiasts, the undoubted highlights of the film are the eccentric cameos from Andy Garcia and Val Kilmer.

Garcia has the juicier role as Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Cast because of his physical resemblance to the great man (and, let’s be frank, because he’s generally ‘available’ these days), his performance comes crashing to the ground as soon he opens his mouth.

Try as he might, our perma-brylcreemed smoothie is simply unable to maintain a Russian growl, and his weird Cuban lilt keeps leaking through. No true film buff has really lived till they’ve witnessed his ‘Nyet! Nyet! What-a are ya doin-a, senor comgrim rade?’ schtick for themselves.

Along with Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins and Ray Winstone’s catastrophic ‘American’ in Fool’s Gold, this is one of the worst accents committed to film.

Val Kilmer has a smaller role as a maverick, slightly unhinged journalist: though, in fairness, his role is the only thing about him that is small. The striking, blonde hunk of Top Gun has long since been subsumed into layers of celebrity blubber. Big Val’s famously hearty appetite for drink, drugs and however many burgers are on offer is, in a sense, now literally written all over him in rubbery bands of flesh.

Val Kilmer's 5 Bellies Of War

His entrance to the film is spectacular. With little warning, the shocked viewer is confronted with a paunchy, long-haired Val, luxuriating naked in a bubble bath. It’s like Jabba the Hutt’s bigger brother has slithered into the wrong film. It’s a truly magnificent sight.

In his (successful) day, Val was famous for on-set strops, minion-bullying and ridiculous ‘remove all the red M&Ms’-style diva behaviour, so there’s a certain grim satisfaction in watching the old fool get his gut out for a few paltry shekls. It can comfortably be assumed that the Big Man is these days administering to his own M&M compartmentalisation needs.

Negatives

The movie spends 15 minutes establishing a traumatic back-story for Anders, involving a friend and fellow reporter dying in his arms while in Iraq. Throughout the film, various characters tell Anders he needs to move on from this trauma in a manner that strongly suggests a looming moment of dramatic catharsis. However, nothing ever happens.

One can only guess that Harlin, petrified by the prospect of shooting scenes featuring actual emotions, quietly ripped those pages out of everyone’s script.

Favourite line

“Everything is easy when you wear a mini-skirt.” Thankfully, this line is not uttered by Val Kilmer.

Review by: Jafo

The Thaw

It’s ironic that, having made his name playing Iceman in Top Gun, Hollywood quickly went very cold on Val Kilmer.

First there was the frosty reception for his lumpen turn in Batman Forever. And when his lame reboot of 60s spy caper The Saint met with an equally chilly response, Tinseltown promptly shoved Kilmer’s career into the deep freeze and forgot about him.

Since then, Val’s attempts to once more bask in the warm glow of cinematic success have resulted only in lukewarm DTV slush. So, could this low budget chiller be the one to finally bring Val Kilmer in from the cold? In a word: no.

The Thaw (2009) sees Kilmer play Dr Kruipen, a scientist investigating the global warming crisis. While working in the Arctic, he’s made a momentous discovery with global implications. So naturally, this being a schlock-horror movie, the first thing he does – before calling the World Health Organisation or the UN – is invite four nubile teen students along to, like, check it out.

And then, after a few early scenes, he pulls a Yeti-like vanishing trick and simply disappears for most of the film. At first you hardly notice. But after a while, as you stifle yet another yawn at the panto-horror antics of the teen-bots, you’ll start questioning whether you really saw Val Kilmer at all.

Was he even in this movie? Have you perhaps confused this with another movie? After all, the only evidence for his existence lies in a few brief, blurred sightings, uncertain third-hand accounts and opening credits that state ‘Starring Val Kilmer’. It’s all a mystery. Truly, Big Val has become the Abominable Actor of Hollywood.

After the brooding one’s exit, we’re left to follow the travails of the regulation issue movie teens (frigid nerd, horny jock, babe-alicious cheerleader, earnest ‘nice’ boy) as they slowly – and witlessly – begin to comprehend the danger they’re facing.

But what is the chilling terror that our young clichés are pitted against? The answer, dear reader, is flesh-eating bugs.

Photographic evidence of Val Kilmer's presence
in this film

Our weirdo doctor has discovered an ancient, deadly parasite while defrosting the remains of a prehistoric woolly mammoth. And once thawed, these pesky critters like nothing more than burrowing under human skin, where they quickly multiply and start feasting on the flesh.

And, horror of horrors, it turns out the doc isn’t quite as nice as he doesn’t seem. Oh, no. Our boffin’s view of humanity has soured after being ignored for years (perhaps this is where Kilmer identified with the role).

His dastardly plan is to deliberately infect the naïve teens and send them back to civilisation, thus unleashing the buggy threat on the world. Although given the sex-ploits of the teens, venereal disease might well kill everyone off long before the bugs get a chance to.

As a way of getting the world’s population to listen to his message about melting ice-caps, it’s unconventional to say the least. Let’s just hope Al Gore doesn’t catch on to this one.

Matters come to a head in the final act, when Big Val finally wanders in from the snow to find his cunning plan has been rumbled.

Not to be foiled, he infects himself with the dangerous parasite and hops into a helicopter to fly back and infect the world. With all the other teens rendered into bug-food, it falls to the frigid nerd (typically the last surviving genre type in cheesy horror films) to stop the deranged doctor.

Grabbing a rifle, she fires inexpertly at the helicopter and ‘luckily’ hits the pilot in the neck, killing him. The chopper spirals out of control and whirlybirds into the Arctic base station. Boom! Both building and helicopter blow up in a massive fireball. Someone get the marshmallows.

Artistic merit

Given this is a low budget film with few frills – or thrills, for that matter – this is a commendable chopper fireball. Having the helicopter crash into the building gives the pyrotechnics boys and girls a perfect excuse to create an impressively large fireball.

Exploding helicopter innovation

Little to report, sadly. Helicopters have been destroyed in similar circumstances countless times before. Perhaps surprisingly, even the polar location of the explosion is fairly common. For previous examples see: John Carpenter’s The Thing (and its remake), TV disaster movie 2012: Ice Age, and the lamentable creature-feature Arctic Predator.

Positives

A gory, improvised, amputation has long been a staple of the horror film, and dismemberment fans will are in for a treat with The Thaw.

After being bitten on the arm, one hapless teen agree to have their arm unceremoniously chopped off to stop the infection spreading. Fortunately, there’s a big meat cleaver handy.

Unfortunately, the wimpy teen wielding it is afraid of blood. They initially bungle the amputation necessitating repeated, gruesome, blows to finally sever the limb. Given a choice, they should probably have left his arm to the bugs. They’d have made a cleaner job.

Negatives

Talking of plot standbys, where would these films be without the scene where one character realises they’ve left something crucial behind? Sure enough, this hoary old plot device here is creaked into dishonourable service once again here.

After trapping the parasites in a laboratory, the gang realise they’ve left vital evidence of the conspiracy in the room. Cue a predictably frantic escapade into the room to retrieve said device.

Tag line

The somewhat meaningless: “Extinction will find you.”

Interesting fact

William B Davis, better known as the ‘smoking man’ from The X-Files, briefly pops up as a talking head in a TV clip.

The truth is out there, but the entertainment certainly isn’t in here.

Review by: Jafo

Batman Forever

After Tim Burton jumped ship, the captaincy of the Batman franchise passed d to Joel Schumacher – with near disastrous consequences.  

With Michael Keaton also departing, the bat cap was donned by a visibly bored Val Kilmer (Big Val and Schumacher famously didn’t get on during the making of this film). While Tommy Lee Jones (Two Face) and Jim Carrey (The Riddler) mug their way through the film as two of the most annoying villains in superhero film history.  

These problems made Batman Forever (1995) a hugely inferior sequel, but it was nothing compared to the cinematic crime that Schumacher committed two years later with Batman and Robin.  

Widely considered one of the worst superhero films ever made, the film derailed the franchise so seriously it would be more than a decade before the Caped Crusader would return to the cinema screen.  

Still, whatever the flaws, Batman Forever does feature an exploding helicopter. This occurs while Two Face attempts to steal an enormous bank safe. Using a Sikorsky helicopter, Two Face rips the vault through the bank’s wall and then tries to fly off with it.  

Fortunately, Batman is on hand. He unhooks the safe from the helicopter, then climbs onboard the chopper. Using his cape, Batman obscures the pilot’s view causing him to crash into the Statue of Liberty (even though this isn’t New York). 

Verdict 

A pretty decent explosion and display of wreckage, but you would expect that from a film that cost $100 million to make. 

Relevance to plot 

Pretty negligible really as it is more an introduction to Two Face’s crazy criminal escapades rather than a crucial plot point. Is hauling a safe out a bank via helicopter and dragging it halfway across the city the work of an evil mastermind or a showboating idiot? 

Artistic merit 

Joel Schmacher knows his action onions and the scene is handled well although if you look carefully the helicopter itself looks a little model-like. 

Exploding helicopter innovation 

First helicopter to crash into the (fake) Statue of Liberty. 

Positives 

I like the artful way the rotor blades hack into the head as the debris slowly burns its way down the Statue of Liberty’s robes. 

Negatives 

Its rather unclear how Two Face escapes from the burning debris and a 500ft fall with no superpowers to speak of apart from the ability to toss a coin and act like an inferior version of the Joker. 

Interesting fact 

As part of creating the character of The Riddler, Jim Carrey planned to shave a question mark into his hair. However, as he was appearing in court to finalise his divorce, he ultimately decided against it.