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It's a little miracle that Better Call Saul can deliver such a fantastic season finale, without the need for anything particularly earth-shattering to happen. Events just allowed to unfold in a very plausible way, and we're now so invested in the core relationships that the tiniest of things can cause a great deal of tension, heartache, and sorrow. Continue reading...
Given the title "Nailed", you’d be forgiven for thinking the big climax of Better Call Saul's penultimate hour would involve an exciting set-piece where Mike (Jonathan Banks) uses his homemade 'spike strip' on one of Hector Salamanca's drug-carrying trucks. Instead, it came down to Chuck (Michael McKean) simply arguing with an employee of a xerox shop, and was all the better for it. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the genius of a character-based series like Better Call Saul. Continue reading...
It's fair to say Netflix's Daredevil was one of 2015's biggest surprises, because it did something fresh with a superhero indebted to Batman, in a show with conceptual similarities to The CW's Arrow, while overcoming a negative perception of Daredevil thanks to a misfiring 2003 movie. In going darker and meaner than everything else in Marvel's Cinematic Universe, Daredevil offered something for the slightly older crowd who crave deeper emotional stakes, narrative complexity, and mature content. Continue reading...
We're hurtling towards the season finale now, but things remain surprisingly sedate in the world of Better Call Saul. I've heard grumblings from people that season 2's been a disappointment, but I wouldn't go that far. It's just understandably tougher to turn the life of a crooked lawyer into gripping spectacle, and the writers are alleviating this issue with a plot for Mike (Jonathan Banks) that leans heavily on associations with Breaking Bad. And this show will never be Breaking Bad. I made my peace with that from the very beginning, and suggest others do the same. Better Call Saul more a quirky character study that goes to some surprising, strange, occasionally tense places. Continue reading...
Certain things about Better Call Saul are fated to happen, as we know where Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) will end up in several year's time. The fun is seeing the details of the journey, but chances to truly surprise us are difficult to execute. Jimmy's tenure at Davis & Main was doomed from the start, of course, and last week I theorised that he may try and start a law practice with Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), and "Inflatable" saw both of those things happen. Continue reading...
There was understandable cynicism when Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was announced—born of suspicion it was a cynical way to rekindle interest in a sequel to the faltering Man of Steel, and concern that The Dark Knight trilogy had dropped the mic when it comes to modernising Batman. Continue reading...
As we ease into the second half of Better Call Saul's sophomore year, it's becoming clear that Jimmy McGill's (Bob Odenkirk) storyline isn’t a strong as his occasional partner-in-crime Mike’s (Jonathan Banks). I've had concerns about this being the case before on the show, but I think season 2's highlighting the split more because the writers are giving Mike far more exciting stuff to do—and in a hour like "Bali Ha'i", it was noticeable just how secondary Jimmy felt to everything of real importance. Indeed, now that Kim’s (Rhea Seehorn) getting more attention as a character, there were times when Jimmy felt very marginalised.Continue reading...
I love how Better Call Saul fleshes out its own narrative, with glimpses of the past that inform the future (which is also, slightly confusingly, the past to fans of Breaking Bad). The opening of "Rebecca" answered the obvious question the title provokes, with a lovely vignette set during the time Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) was working in the mailroom of HHM, as he was invited for dinner at his brother Chuck's (Michael McKean) and his wife, the eponymous violinist Rebecca (Ann Cusack). Naturally, a further question was left to swirl around our heads during all these scenes: where is Rebecca McGill now? I suspect we'll get the answer before the season's over, but one presumes it’s a further reason for Chuck's dislike of his brother. Did Jimmy split them up, intentionally or not? Did Rebecca die? Was she perhaps even killed? Did this trauma result in Chuck's mental breakdown? Continue reading...
There's a long tradition of stories about groups of people being hunted and killed, one by own, by a mystery assailant (most owing a debt to Agatha Christie's 1939 novel And Then There Were None, maybe a few to 1987's Predator). There’s an even longer real-life tradition of soon-to-be-married men being thrown raucous parties, to celebrate their final days of bachelordom. Combine the two and you have BBC2's three-part comedy-drama Stag, about a group of Englishmen on a weekend trip of drinking and deer-stalking in the Scottish Highlands, only to find themselves as the prey. Continue reading...
My favourite episode of Better Call Saul's first season was episode 6, "Five-O", which could be seen as a problem because it had the least to do with the titular character, Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk). It was instead a showcase for Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), answering questions about this ex-cop-turned-enforcer that had been lingering since Breaking Bad went off-air. It was also, therefore, the hour that most felt like an unaired Breaking Bad hour, and a worrying early sign that Better Call Saul might only achieve greatness by mimicking its famous predecessor. Thankfully, last season carved its own identity and turned in some great Jimmy-centric stories to redress the imbalance, but once again the second season’s best hour (so far anyway) turns its attention to the criminal underworld Mike inhabits. Continue reading...
For all its critical and commercial success back in 2000, Ang Lee's martial arts epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon doesn't get talked about all that often—although it helped ease mainstream English-speaking audiences into foreign-language films. They’re not all black-and-white French dramas set inside grotty kitchens, folks. It was also, together with The Matrix the year before, responsible for a resurgence of interest in chopsocky cinema—pushing the boundaries of what could be achieved in the digital age, with computers erasing wires to allow filmmakers greater artistic freedom. Continue reading...
How long will the honeymoon period at Davis & Main last for Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk), who’s more of a lone wolf than a company man? We’re definitely heading for an acrimonious divorce (spoiler, for the 0.09% of viewers who haven't seen Breaking Bad), and the tension could become unbearable if "Amarillo" is anything to go by. Continue reading...
While not as distasteful as "Babylon", the finale of The X-Files' so-called 'event series' was a preposterous mess that bit off more than it could chew. Maybe if this had been a two-hour film (possibly as intended, as Chris Carter once admitted writing a third movie on spec), it perhaps would have had the necessary time and budget to do justice to some of its ideas, although brevity and lack of money wasn’t the main problem. Continue reading...
The big picture is yet to emerge for season 2 of Better Call Saul, but "Cobbler" concluded last week’s storyline very amusingly, and the show is doing a nice job easing us into a new direction—with Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) getting used to his fancy new job at Davis & Main (where he's valued and listened to), but starting to hear the call of a more exciting, dangerous side of lawyering that plays to his strengths as a creative liar and improviser. Continue reading...
