Top 5 (2010)

5. The Karate Kid

Director: Harald Zwart
Writers: Christopher Murphey (screenplay), Robert Mark Kamen (story)
Stars: Jackie Chan, Jaden Smith and Taraji P. Henson

 Spotlight: 2010 in the remake stakes was supposed to be the year of The A-Team, however this modification of the 1984 original would transpire into one of the years pleasant surprises. The key to Director Harald Zwartz's success is in its ability to forgo nostalgic sentiments, the story is taken to new places and different faces trading Los Angeles for the mystique and beauty of Beijing. Of course the core components are in tact Jaden Smith is "the Kid" - Dre ripped from all he has ever known in Detroit, and forced to belie his early years in order to assimilate with the cultural, educational and social transitions of a new life in the far east. There is a girl, there are beatings to take and lessons to learn too. The most difficult task for the project would be to replace the iconic Mr Miyagi and who better than a legend of Jackie Chan's standing, Chan play's Mr Han a janitor and inwardly tortured soul who guides Dre from tears to glory. Chan's performance is subtle, gracious and most importantly real- Far above the buffoonery of his earlier works but still recognisably Chan when it comes to the physical elements of his martial arts. The Karate Kid shifts effortlessly between near operatic grandeur, terrier like spirit and sweeping melodrama whilst still preserving all the charm and innocence of the original and maybe more.


4. Another Year 
Director: Mike Leigh
Writer: Mike Leigh
Stars: Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen and Lesley Manville
Low down: Tom and Gerri have a solid marriage but those around them are crumbling in Mike Leigh’s follow up to Happy Go Lucky (2008) which is part character study, part comedy, part tragedy portrayed with a devastating sense of triviality and observational terror. 

3. Mr Nice 
Director: Bernard Rose
Writer: Bernard Rose (screenplay)
Stars: Rhys Ifans, Chloë Sevigny and David Thewlis
Low down: International drug trafficking has never felt more innocuous in cinema than Rhys Ifans Pot pedalling depiction of  Howard Marks. Mr Nice based on Marks’ Autobiography of the same name is a real gem that smokes, cries, cheats and shags its way to oblivion and back at least twice. 

 
2. The Town  
Director: Ben Affleck
Writers: Peter Craig (screenplay), Ben Affleck (screenplay)
Stars: Ben Affleck, Rebecca Hall and Jon Hamm 

Spotlight: The Bank robbery is Hollywood’s favourite criminal pastime, whether it’s a suave Thomas Crown or a maniacal comic book villain heist movies come and go, year in year out with almost inevitable certitude. Charlestown is “The Town” and is to Bank Robbers what Orlando is to theme park junkies. Further it is a brutish Boston suburb painted in much the same way as in Scorsese’s Departed (2006) as a criminal municipality where the boundaries between the right sides and the wrong sides of the law are faded lines of obscurity and communal division. Ben Affleck is the architect on and off screen, firstly he plays Doug Macray a career Bank-buster at a sudden cross roads in his life following a partially bungled recent job. An equivocal middle-manager Doug begins to question his career prospects but between his subordinates including out of control crime partner Jem (Jeremy Renner) and superior big boss Fergie (Pete Postlethwaite) getting out wont be easy. An equal measure of irony and fate provide the real complication when Bank manager and former victim Claire (Rebecca Hall) becomes the catalyst for his change of heart as they fall in love. 

Secondly and perhaps most impressively is Affleck's work behind the camera, The Town is a slick, confident almost self assured crime thriller. Affleck in his second directorial offering captures absorbing dramatics, finding his characters weakness' and magnifying their strengths. It's more than just cops and robbers pastiche, a tale of forbidden love, a metaphor for inner less tangible imprisonment, with misplaced loyalties and displaced enemies.

 

 
1.Inception 


Director: Christopher Nolan
Writer: Christopher Nolan
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page


Spotlight: Prior to Inception's release Christopher Nolan's greatest triumph was arguably a battle between  2000's mercurial masterstroke Memento, a deeply cerebral thriller, driven by an uncompromising flair for invention or The Dark Knight (2008) a giant of a movie rich in cinematic bluster, yet at the same time a diligent exploration of character and goods relationship with evil. When it comes down to it Inception manages to take the best of both worlds Cobb played by Leonardo Dicaprio is every bit the broken man that Memento's Leonard Shelby is, both are widowers paradoxically tortured by the memories of their wives but live only to preserve them. As with our adventure with the Caped Crusader Inception is a team effort, everyone has a role to play be it Ariadne's (Ellen Page) DIY psychology, Arthur's efficiency or Eames' (Tom Hardy) creativity it's all part of the plan.

The central idea is intuitive if not simple, "Dream Sharing" is a concept that allows multiple persons access to the dreams of another. "Extraction" is the art of manipulating the dream to steal ideas and information from the dreamer. "Inception" is the seemingly unknown feat like a pre-conquered Everest where its possibility is questioned, this time an idea needs to be implanted rather than supplanted and Cobb a is set the challenge which stands between him and a return to normality. 

Quietly Nolan has become a master of the action set-piece and Inception is filled with all of the white-knuckle thrills that wouldn't look out place if his surname where Bay or Mann. We get everything from explosions and adrenaline fueled chase scenes to zero gravity punch-ups and a multitude of shoot out sequences which adds tension at the same time as providing relief from the mind bending narrative. All of which is perhaps Nolan's most significant accomplishment here, in that Blockbuster budget is parted from Blockbuster cliche, a film that both engages and explodes with imagination at the simultaneously..