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The Appeal - By John Grisham

Title

Grisham's legal thriller offers a warning, but little depth.

Review

The story behind The Appeal involves a multimillion dollar lawsuit against a blue-chip chemical firm who has been accused of knowingly dumping hazardous waste, thus causing numerous cancer-related deaths. The story begins at the end of this lawsuit, where the trial has just been lost. With the trial lost they attempt to subvert the upcoming appeal in their favour. 

What is initially apparent is that Grisham chooses to focus on the plot rather than the characters - with great detriment. They have no depth whatsoever, and any characterisation is based on every cliché in the book - the evil corporation magnate, his vapid, spoilt wife, shadowy governmental fixers and corrupt senators - with little sign of any attempt to flesh out these stereotypes.

Now, thinking about this I wondered if is purely because of the format of this story. After all, Grisham wants to talk about the US legal system, not bog himself down with weighty characters who will dilute his message. If you choose to put this aside, and accept the novel on its merits and for what it is, what you ultimately end up with is a very downbeat piece of work, and as much as you feel Grisham would want this to be an allegory of sorts, where those who are evil have righteous justice served and the good are rewarded, instead he reflects a legal world which is as easily infiltrated and corrupted by those with power as every other medium. 

Despite this, and with the novel's interesting ending (to go into any more detail would be a disservice to those who have not read it), and a rushed sense of incompleteness, I can't help but think Grisham has finished with this story. And yet I can't think of this as a story, more as a stark warning - you feel Grisham is speaking from a heightened perspective. This work may be fiction, but you sense there is more than an element of truth within its pages.

Darko Director attempts Kubrickian madness and comes up short

Donnie Darko is a great film, with one caveat. It has no resolution. There is no deeper meaning, no hidden context within its narrative. It makes little sense for no other reason that writer and director Richard Kelly chose obscurity over truth, narrative over reality. 

Kelly himself has admitted there are 'no answers' to the questions viewers inevitable prompt once the final credits in Donnie Darko rolls. Therefore it is hard to watch Darko again without the nagging voice in your head complaining that those logical gaps you see are nothing but frustrating logical gaps. Where Richard Kelly succeeded with Darko is that the story is compelling and weird enough to forgive his sleight of hand.

Southland Tales is exactly like this but Kelly fails to reproduce the little world charm and mysterious and subtle direction of his directorial debut. Instead we have a retrospective Apocalypse re-played out over a veritable smorgasbord of misfits, porn stars, people who are clones of themself, a musical interlude, perpetual motion and a nuclear holocaust, all crammed into a frustrating first half hour where all elements are thrown onto the screen in a vague hope that something will stick. It's maddeningly incoherent - as though Kelly saw a three year throwing paint onto a sheet of paper and thought he could replicate the sentiment on-screen.

Kelly's template appears to be Dr. Strangelove - forgetting that in its element Kubrick's masterpiece was chaotic within its simplicity. Southland Tales opts for complexity and hopes somewhere along the line the message will reveal itself to the audience. The problem is that the audience will have switched off long before this happens.

David Wellington - Monster Island

The Zombie genre is a well trod, yet stubbornly narrow path. Despite these limitations people still find ways to create new variations of worlds where the undead have rule the earth. 

Monster Island is one particular variation I haven't seen before. The story begins with Delkab, an ex-UN Inspector who travels to New York from Somalia via a sea-trawler on a mission to retrieve life saving drugs for a African overlord, months after a zombie outbreak has destroyed any semblance of modern society. An interesting twist - involving a zombie who's just a bit smarter than the average bear - occurs a third of the way in and Delkab finds himself and the Somalian girl-warriors diverted from their mission to save themselves and the living who remain in the city.

New York is a perfect location for the undead, being both beautiful and poetic in its transition from tourist hub to a lifeless tomb to the death of modern society. Wellington makes an effort to show us all the sites, shorn of their light and bustle and life. It's not quite a bleak post-apocalyptic world (if you can call a zombie infestation such) as, say, Cormac McCarthy's weightily-grim The Road, but the story takes us to a deadly silent Times Square and invites the reader to imagine such a dead, empty world with great effect. Sadly, Wellington's novel never reaches the gravitas that McCarthy attains with heartbreaking ease.

Monster Island is a zombie story through and through. It even has 'A Zombie Novel' printed on the front of the paperback. It nails its colours to its mast. Be in no doubt here; the characters are all a backdrop to the actual meat of the story itself -  the undead. Because of this the story both fails and succeeds. Wellington has some good ideas, taking the genre in an interesting direction, but singularly fails by very lightweight characterisation, cringe-worthy dialogue and not knowing when to reign the invention in. Most notable is the ending which requires various energetic leaps of faith by the reader. This particular reader wishes Wellington's editor had been paying closer attention with the naughty stick.

He also lacks the writing chops to convey the story beyond a very flat narrative. Wellington tells us what goes on: he can't evoke.  The horror isn't any deeper than the 'click here to add more gore' approach and there's little dimension to any of the characters beyond a bit-part character in a Buffy The Vampire Hunter episode. Simply put: it lacks ambition. 

But give Wellington some chops. In spite of the above I enjoyed the action scenes and he weaves a good story. But for those who are after more than a shock-horror-gore-zombie novel - be prepared for disappointment. If you are - great. If not - it is a shame because the ideas are worth much more than box-ticking genre-pulp fiction. If this was in the hands of a writer who had more enterprise, or one who was less blinkered to the genre, then Zombie Island could have been something quite special. 

King would have aced it.

John Courtney Grimwood - End Of The World Blues

This is my first experience of John Courtney Grimwood, and it is a positive one. His characters are well rounded, with a particularly good ear for dialogue. He's also keen on cross-genre writing - a concept as a writer I'm in favour of. When mixing genres it's important to maintain the integrity of the story underneath: the mix is nothing without a compelling narrative. End Of The World Blues succeeds, but in spite of this.

In End of The World Blues (henceforth known as EOTWB) we have two parallel stories - one set in modern day Japan and the other in a future version of what appears to be a dying Earth. While the story following Kit, an English bar owner in Tokyo, soon to have a number of live changing events is a conventional thriller, the parallel narrative following Neku, a princess living within a 'sentient' castle in the future, jarrs in its execution.

Yet apart from Neko and her appearance in Kit's life in modern day Japan, these parallel narratives keep a firm distance apart. Barring the odd tweak you could remove the science fiction mix from EOTWB without being any the worse off. The question is: why is it there? My problem with the sci-fi element is not that it's unwelcome, but that less attention has been furnished to the future world than with more conventional real world. Grimwood doesn't give the reader the time to relate to characters in the future earth - each one is weak, unmemorable and for the most part unlikeable, whereupon in the real world each character has depth and and human, modern day interest - that Grimwood has been unable - or unwilling - to translate to the future portion of the novel.

Grimwood is an engaging writer, sharp and witty, yet is subtle enough with his characterisations that cliches are avoided and surprises are unexpected. He puts me in mind of a less romantic Michael Marshall Smith, thin on hyperbole but generous with allowing his characters space. I will look forward to reading more of his work.

Blood Diamond

Blood Diamond Review

The last two films I have seen based in Southern Africa are The Constant Gardener and, most recently, Blood Diamond. Both movies paint a thoroughly depressing picture of oppression that will no doubt have the local Tourist Board pulling their hair out.

The truth is that as brilliant a film Blood Diamond is it is equally depressing. When inundated with shot after shot of abuse, murder, rape, kids taking heroin, more abuse, whole villages being razed to the ground and children with guns shooting indiscriminately it is hard to put the plot on the back burner and spend the entire movie feeling incredibly sorry for those who live there.

While Blood Diamond is not a true story the elements that comprise the political and social aspects are based on the diamond trade in various countries in South Africa. You can visit the Blood Diamond website (http://blooddiamondmovie.warnerbros.com/) and browse locations and events following the conflict diamond impact. Necessary reading.

It is easy for the subject matter to overwhelm the film, a shame as it is both beautifully shot and acted with conviction by all present. While DiCaprio surprises and conveys the word 'harrassed' with every fraught frown, Benin born Djimon Hounsou takes the honours as the more than convincing father searching for his family in war torn Sierra Leone.

The ending provides some resolution, but based against the reality of the situation it could be accused of being something more than just hopeful. While a more realistic resolution would be the more brave option, perhaps it would be more than a westernised audience could bear. While Blood Diamond attempts to show us the diamond trade unfiltered, it is at the end where the film loses its nerve.

1408

1408 is based on a short story by Stephen King. Initially published in the audiobook collection Blood and Smoke it eventually made its way onto print form with the short story collection 'Everything's Eventual'. At heart a haunted hotel story, Swedish Director Mikael Hafstrom keeps things simple with only one character on screen for most of its running time. Two if you count room 1408.

Cusack is excellent as Mike Enslin, a character himself haunted with the death of his daughter and the subsequent end of his marriage. This is a catharsis for a grinding ennui as he travels to self-publicised haunted hotspots, where self-serving establishment owners embellish tales of haunted rooms so Enslin can record them in his latest book. A mysterious postcard points him towards the Dolphin Hotel and Room 1408 where his interest is piqued by the apparent reluctance of the hotel manager - a nicely restrained Samuel L Jackson - to allow him to spend the night in 1408. Enslin talks his way in - and from there the fun begins.

In effect 1408 is an extended Twilight Zone episode, but completed with King's deft touch for personal horror, Cusack's energetic turn and an excellent cast (Fans of HBO's The Wire will chuckle at Isiah Whitlock Jr's brief cameo) along with a willingness to remain true to the format of the genre. Cusack's performance alone is worth the price of admission.

1408 tends to tailspin towards the end, the twists thrown up are clunky and obvious, although as a long term reader of Mr King's work I can attest to the fact that whilst King is one of the greatest fiction writers of our generation his endings are a hit and miss affair. Jackson is underused, and disappears for the majority of the movie, a surprise given the dual billing. One wonders - should one be a cynic - if Jackson's bankability is the sole reason for this. The horror, when it comes, is curiously archaic, steeped in the 1950s, its decor similar to room 1408 itself, yet oddly welcome in the day and age where excess gore and shock-torture has become a byword for modern horror.

For that I'm glad 1408 is around.