SECONDSCREEN
Cheap Thrills Cert:16 Time: 1hr 28mins ★★★★ ★ 22 Jump Street Cert: 15 A Time: 1hr 52mins ★★★ ★★ Fruitvale Station Cert: 15 A Time: 1hr 25mins ★★★★ ★
What are you willing to do for money? Well, it all depends on how much money and how broke you are, questions that lie at the heart of Cheap Thrills, a new, nasty but wellmade American shock-fest that seems destined to become something of a cult classic… at least for those with sufficiently strong stomachs.
Craig (Pat Healy) is broke – he’s lost his job, his apartment’s about to be repossessed and he has a wife and baby to support. His old school friend Vince (Ethan Embry) doesn’t seem much better off.
So when the pair meet up in a bar with Colin (David Koechner from the Ron Burgundy films) and the lovely but remote Violet (Sara Paxton), who are out celebrating her birthday and tossing the cash and cocaine around, it promises to be an interesting night. But what exactly do Colin and Violet want in return for their money?
At first, it’s all about who can down a shot of tequila first or throw the best dart, but when the rewards jump to $500 for hitting a burly security guard at a strip club, it’s clear that the stakes are being seriously raised. And then the action moves to Colin and Violet’s apartment, where there’s $250,000 in the safe and Craig and Vince are now deadly rivals locked in an increasingly macabre duel.
Writer-turned-director E L Katz makes an impressive debut, mixing the blackest comedy with an increasingly grotesque and morally decadent tale and drawing terrific performances. But it certainly won’t be for everyone.
Two summers ago, Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum scored a predictable box office hit with 21 Jump Street, in which they played Schmidt and Jenko, two youthful-looking police officers who were sent undercover into a high
school with a drug problem. Two years on, having moved to ‘a slightly bigger abandoned church across the street’ to justify the new title, they’re being sent undercover into a college… with a drug problem. Yes, as the screenplay of 22 Jump Street cheerily admits, it’s more of the same. But pretty good more of the same. Hill and Tatum have the sort of screen chemistry that gets audiences chuckling and they’re helped here by a wellpolished screenplay.
Fruitvale Station is a powerful American drama that has been picking up awards on the festival circuit for more than a year and now finally makes it into our cinemas.
Based on a true story, Michael B Jordan is excellent as Oscar Grant, a young black ex-con desperate to get his life back on track. Ryan Coogler writes and directs, generates a tremendous sense of atmosphere and draws flawlessly naturalistic performances. A must for serious film fans.