Wednesday 19 January 2011

Wild Target
(2009)

RATING: 60%

Unnecessary remake of a better film (Cible émouvante) that is still good fun.

Emily BLUNT steals the show as the eccentric target of a lonely assassin, who comes to find love late in life. Her timing is spot-on and her sexuality understated - but both very real for all that.

Where the film falls flat lies in its being decidedly under-written. BLUNT's character never really makes much sense psychologically and her apparent Electra complex - her motivational mainspring - springs from no clearly-definable source. Her would-be assassin is much more clearly-delineated as epicene with potentially-homosexual tendencies. This inevitably lessens the sexual tension and chemistry between the two leads that would have catapulted this amusing crime caper into classic romantic-comedy territory. This thin psychological sketching-in of the characters also partly invalidates the theme of Nature versus Nurture that the film darkly hints is responsible for much of the on-screen shenanigans.


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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.