Grabbers (2012)
Grabbers
(2012)
The closest that I could come to a ‘mission statement’ with this blog is that I really enjoy movies and as a result I try to avoid reviewing those that I don’t like. [‘Mission Statement’: ghastly idea isn’t it? That has to be an American original, surely?] My attitude has always been that no one sets out to make a bad one and I hate to slag off anybody’s hard work. But I don’t mind so much with Grabbers because everyone else seems to love it. So anything that I write certainly won’t affect its fortunes in any way.
At first I was wondering how I hadn’t heard of this. Now I think that I may even have seen it and just blocked the memory out. You know, repressed it as something too awful to retain at the front of the consciousness. I mean, I should have heard of it. I greatly enjoy seeing what can be done with a low budget and I’m frigging mad about tentacled Lovecraftian squid-monsters from space; so how could I go wrong with an Irish science-fiction horror-comedy?
Well, I don’t know. I DO know that I was still sitting there in numbed shock ten minutes after the end credits had stopped rolling, and wondering how the hell this film ever came to be made; and there are so many Irish clichés in it that you could be forgiven for thinking that it was the Brits taking the piss out of the thick Micks. But no: it’s shot in Donegal and has a mainly Irish cast; and even though there is some British investment here, I think that it’s safe to say that this one is down to the Irish.
It actually starts quite promisingly, as a matter of fact. Something huge drops down from the sky, splashing into the waters just off the coast of Erin Island, which is a bleak-looking shithole that I have a horrible feeling I was supposed to find beautiful. In fact I would guess that it’s not situated far from Craggy Island; and indeed as the film wore on and on I was half expecting Fathers Ted and Dougal to put in an appearance. Anyway, a fishing boat goes to investigate and it soon becomes evident that something really unpleasant has come to visit. So far, so good; but then we move onto the story proper.
There’s only two Garda on the island, see, and one of the cops is heading off on holiday. So there is Garda Ciaran O’Shea (Richard Coyle) waiting on the pier to welcome the replacement. And he has a fierce sore head from the night before, so he has, on account of sure isn’t he a raving alcoholic lunatic, so he is. I’ll bet you didn’t see that one coming.
The stand-in is Garda Lisa Nolan (Ruth Bradley) from the mainland and you know what those women cops from the Big Smoke are like, all the same. Terrible uptight workaholics, so they are. And character-wise it didn’t get any better than that as we were introduced to stock- character after charmless central casting stock-character.
It turns out that the space sea-creatures can basically live on blood and water. BUT! They ARE allergic to booze. No, seriously. They’re allergic to booze in general and a drop of poitin in particular. Can you believe that? So the only way to defeat them is for the whole village to have a lock-in at the island’s one pub and get completely paralytic.
If this had been made by Americans we would be having a bloody conniption fit over the ludicrous stereotyping.
I actually don’t know what else to say to it. I mean, is it meant to be some sort of post-modernist statement on the condition of the Irish nation or some other high-flying concept that I’m just missing? No, I’m just going to leave it at that. As I say, it seems to have been well received almost everywhere.
Grabbers was directed by Jon Wright (and if I see another slow fade into the next scene I think that I’ll pull my own head off); and it is written by Kevin Lehane.
Oh, and a positive thing to say: the special effects are actually quite decent.
One more thing: twice now I’ve seen this film mentioned in the same sentence as the brilliant Tremors. Now I really think that someone’s having a laugh. One is a delightful low budget masterpiece filled with likeable characters and the Irish one…isn’t.
That’s all.
June 8, 2013
After reading the above, I HAVE to see this! I have not thought of Fathers Ted and Dougal in years but I realize I miss them. Ludicrous stereotyping, I love it, bring it on. This is now on my must see list.
June 9, 2013
Mission statement – from our army (where else)to outline what is expected in a combat mission. Then our business people got ahold of it and now every enterprise has to have one. We had a nice one on the police department, a page long, of course, it could have been distilled down to “arrest bad guys” which seems to be the idea of having a police department in the first place. At least it gives people with a MBA something to do.
June 10, 2013
Well you live and learn. I knew that there had to be an American origin there somewhere but I was thinking more along the lines of the Oprah Winfrey Show. So it came from the military?
There’s no answer to that one.
I’m going to take a wild guess here and say it was some desk jockey that thought that one up. I’m reasonably sure that it didn’t come from some poor sod in Afghanistan whose mission statement would, I imagine, be more along the lines of ‘let me the hell out of here in one piece’.
I really don’t mean to be flippant. That’s just the way that MY ‘mission statement’ would read.
Now I know what that big yellow streak down my back was put there for; and it sure as hell wasn’t to give directions down the brick road to my ass.
Mission bloody statement: I wonder how many tax dollars were spent to have half a dozen morons sitting in a room and come up with that one!
June 12, 2013
Well Charley you might be a little surprised?, here was an Irish movie I actually liked, it wasn’t perfect by any stretch but it certainly had its moments.
The stunningly beautiful Ruth Bradley really caught my intention, she was an hilarious drunk, certainly deserves bigger opportunities?.
But I thought the movie got caught between a rock and a hard place, the first half of the movie had plenty of suspense with the odd splattering of decent comedy, but here is where I thought the movie fell down a bit, rather than keep the suspense up the director decided to go for an all out over the top 2nd half, firing jokes left right and centre many that simply weren’t even remotely funny, does anybody ever remind Irish movie directors that sometimes less is more?.
Certainly well worth a watch but the 2nd half of the movie was a bit of a let down which robbed it of possible cult classic status?.