Cementing his reputation as Hollywood's best-loved wounded bear, the gruff Nick Nolte recently picked up his third Oscar nomination essaying yet another broken-down has-been in the mixed martial arts punch-up pic Warrior (2011, Lionsgate, 15). He plays Paddy Conlon, a recovering alcoholic and troubled father whose fractious relationship with his fighting Irish sons provides the dramatic backbone for this pumped-up, pugilist spectacle.
A quasi-mythical tale of two estranged brothers, one a renegade war veteran, the other a bruised teacher, destined inevitably to sort out their differences in the arena, Gavin O'Connor's punchy upmarket exploiter has been widely compared with Rocky but actually owes a far greater debt to Gladiator – not Ridley Scott's lavish, award-winning sword-and-sandals epic, but Rowdy Herrington's altogether cheaper and more cheerful 90s boxing romp. Like Herrington, O'Connor understands the visceral pleasure of watching two muscular men beat the living crap out of each other while crowds of onlookers explode in orgies of ecstatic vocal excitement.
It helps that one of those men is rising star Tom Hardy, who channels that elusive mix of brooding thespian intensity and raw physical power that once made Oliver Reed a superstar. Next to Hardy, his sparring partner Joel Edgerton looks like an absolute lightweight, in terms of both physical heft and dramatic clout. As for Nolte, he prowls the screen like a majestic dying beast, his rasping voice resembling the last gasp of a soul in purgatory, his face a picture of weather-beaten authenticity.
One word of advice; if you like him in this, then try to track down Nolte's most overlooked and underrated performance in Blue Chips, another sports movie with arthouse aspirations that went straight to video in the 90s, and remains shockingly unavailable on UK DVD today.
There's plenty of beefcake action on display too in Abduction (2011, Lionsgate, 12), albeit with none of the breast-beating depths of Warrior. Ultra-buffy Twilight star Taylor Lautner (doesn't he have a shirt?) attempts with limited success to broaden his portfolio, playing a troubled kid who uncovers a secret identity in the wake of a violent attack upon his not-very-happy-family home. It's formulaic fare from director John Singleton, aimed equally at the teen girls who love Twilight's Jacob and the teen boys who like to see things blow up, providing an odd mix of smashes and sentimentality that is neither fish nor fowl. Still, the ever-reliable Jason Isaacs raises the bar in a sadly short-lived role and Sigourney Weaver pops up to lend tough support whenever the egginess gets a little too over-easy.
The most remarkable thing about the international smash hit Johnny English Reborn (2011, Universal, PG) – other than fact that it really is an "international smash hit" – is just how poorly it serves Rowan Atkinson's flair for physical comedy. A lumpen spy spoof sequel with none of the knockabout charm of the European OSS-117 movies, this witless dirge is the kind of clumsily constructed part-Brit pic which allows continental nostalgists to remain preposterously proud of Uncle Jacques's underwhelming oeuvre. Atkinson may be a remarkably rubber presence whose bodily contortions are a joy to behold, but does the film-making cage in which he plays really have to be quite so wooden? Despite the flexibility of its star, the resulting movie is more tatty than Tati.
That said, I'd rather sit through the double-pack DVD Johnny English two-movie marathon than endure another second of Restless (2011, Sony, 12), Gus Van Sant's most annoyingly up-itself movie since the godawful Last Days. Presumably envisaged as a latterday Harold and Maude, this toothache of a film brings together "a young man who has given up on life and a young girl on the verge of losing hers" (nurse, the bucket!).
That the young man in question is an habitual funeral gatecrasher who spends his spare time playing Battleships with the ghost of a dead kamikaze pilot (geddit?) should give you some sense of just how vomit-inducingly twee this is. Suicide may be painless (at least according to M*A*S*H), but losing the will to live while watching this twaddle is nothing short of excruciating. Pity talented Mia Wasikowska who battles photogenic movie sickness (you're terminal, but you look great) while restraining herself from slapping Dennis Hopper's son, Henry.
Time to cheer oneself up with Dolphin Tale (2011, Warner, U), an utterly innocuous but frankly hard-to-dislike true-story yarn about an injured sea mammal that finds itself the recipient of a bespoke artificial tail thanks to the kindness and gosh-darned determination of a few well-intentioned human souls. Like the current cinema release Big Miracle, which rehashes the real-life rescue of whales stranded under Alaskan ice to tear-jerking effect, this plays upon the anthropomorphic heartstrings with populist gusto. A subplot about combat veterans coming to terms with life-changing prostheses is neatly woven into the unfolding drama and the final family-friendly resolution is suitably soft and charming. Pointlessly released in 3D in cinemas, this looks a whole lot better on good old flat-screen DVD.
In Friends With Benefits (2011, Sony, 15), Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake take time out from proving that they're not just pretty faces in movies such as Black Swan and The Social Network to reassure us that, despite all that proper acting stuff, they can still be just pretty faces after all. In the 80s, we had Harry and Sally wondering whether men and women could ever be friends without the "sex part" getting in the way. Now we have Dylan and Jamie. I preferred the old couple.
