More Movie Cliches

Most political movies are terrible, and particularly painful to watch if you are right of centre. They all feature a scene of Tory men eating a sumptuous dinner before asking the ladies to retire so that they can smoke cigars and persuade the Freemasons in the police force to join a plot to murder the hero. The Iron Lady does, I’m afraid, contain a sumptuous-dinner-ladies-retiring-cigar scene. (Danny Finkelstein Times January 11, 2012)

The Syndicate Mellor’s characters are … a bit off the shelf. The two brothers, desperate for cash… the frizzy-haired, kind-hearted syndicate head, the firm but fair boss, the greedy girlfriend, the naggy mother, the wide-eyed blonde child, the unfaithful, venal husband, the beady-eyed policeman. A cast this strong can sketch these characters with little effort. And yet short of holding up flashcards: “good-hearted but tragically ill”, “wants to do the right thing but doesn’t know how”, “finds it easier to relate to dogs than to humans”), they couldn’t be more unsubtle. And the plot, I’m afraid, suffers from the same flaw. The story of the brothers, for example, is just frustrating. Handsome brother is in debt owing to his pretty but extravagant girlfriend; she has fallen out with his overbearing mother, and taken herself off home with their son. Meanwhile, the other brother, who has a bit of a problem with Class As, hatches a plot to rob the supermarket where they both work. (They do, but also win the lottery…
Sarah Vine, Times, 2012)

StreetDance 2
The plots of hip-hop movies are as rigid as Japanese Noh plays and this pretty average British example makes the usual progress from hero humiliated by rival, the gathering of a new crew around Europe, the rapid training for a big public confrontation, the last minute setback, and the final triumph featuring a major dancing innovation, a fusion of Latin and street. The hero, a white American hanging around the predominantly black London street-dance world, is a morose fellow; the 3D is moderately imaginative; Tom Conti plays the usual token adult, in this case a wise old Parisian cafe owner.  (Philip French, Observer, 2012)

Tanya Gold books a holiday in a former mental hospital on an island in Venice: The ghosts will rise and overwhelm the luxury hotel. We will team up with a group including a security guard/handyman, a hot woman, and a mysterious man who would normally be played by Geoffrey Rush and is the cause of all spectral anger. We will die in this order – my boyfriend, me, then Geoffrey Rush, with the hot woman and the security guard/handyman as probable survivors, floating on the lagoon, due to their hotness. (Guardian, 2011)

Mini e-book here.

More clichés here, and links to the rest.