The warrior queen who was a real-life superhero
Viola Davis may have won an Oscar opposite Denzel Washington in the 2016 drama Fences, and have another three nominations to her name, but for most of her long career she has worked in a film industry that has offered few leading roles to black actresses, and even fewer to black actresses of a certain age.
But times, quite rightly, change and now, at the age of 57, Davis has landed an absolute peach of a part, playing Nanisca, the battlehardened general who commands an elite regiment of female warriors protecting the West African kingdom of Dahomey.
And if that reminds you of the fearsome female warriors in Black Panther, it won’t be the last time the acclaimed Marvel film comes to mind.
But while that is fiction, The Woman King is anchored loosely in real West African history, with its early 19th Century setting seeing Dahomey threatened by the rival Oyo Empire, just as the lucrative slave trade is beginning to come to an end.
For far-sighted Africans like Nanisca, that means planning for a peaceful future without slavery. But for others, inevitably, it means war. So thank heavens Nanisca and her trusty lieutenant, Izogie, played by the British actress Lashana Lynch, have a new group of recruits to put through their famously punishing training programme. One particularly determined young woman, Nawi (Thuso Mbedu), quickly stands out.
We can argue about the use of heavily accented English and the liberties possibly taken with history, but Davis, Lynch and Mbedu do an outstanding job of leading an almost entirely black, predominantly female cast and helping director Gina Prince-Bythewood deliver an action film that certainly stands comparison with the likes of Braveheart, Mulan and, of course, Black Panther.
Many of us will feel we know the story of how the body of the muchmaligned King Richard III was found under a Leicester car park in 2012, and it’s not surprising that director Stephen Frears and Steve Coogan, who co-writes, produces and takes a supporting role, saw the potential to turn it into a quirky British comedy drama. But The Lost King only just about comes off, despite the seemingly sensible decision to tell the story from the point of view of the amateur historian, Philippa Langley, who led the hunt for Richard’s long-forgotten grave. Frears certainly delivers an audience-friendly mix of the funny and the touching, but you can see why the film has upset the University of Leicester. Meanwhile, Sally Hawkins, who looks nothing like Langley, seems miscast in the central role.
David O. Russell may have Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle to his name, but he comes badly unstuck with Amsterdam, despite the fact that his 1930s-set drama looks gorgeous and features a glittery cast led by Christian Bale, John David Washington and Margot Robbie. Playing out in an eccentric, heightened style that calls to mind the films of Wes Anderson, Amsterdam initially promises much but slowly succumbs to too many words, an over-abundance of tangled plot and an excessive running time.
In Vengeance, a New York writer travels to Texas for the funeral of a young woman who’s apparently died of a drugs overdose. Ben (B.J. Novak) only dated her a couple of times and cynically thinks her death might be the basis for a podcast series. Her gun-toting Texan family, however, believe he was the love of her life and want his help exacting revenge. Cleverer and more fun than it sounds.