Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Before I was drafted into watching Salmon Fishing in the Yemen I didn't have a clue about it. I wasn't sure if it was based on a book, based on a true story or even what type of film it was. I just saw that Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt were in it and decided to give it a go. As it turns out it is a romance film about a sheikh who, as the title suggests, wants to start salmon fishing in his home country of, you guessed it, Yemen.

Ewan McGregor is a civil servant who is enthusiastic about fishing. He is approached by Emily Blunt on behalf of the sheikh in an attempt to construct a method of transporting salmon to the Yemen in order so the sheikh and the local community can catch them. Despite Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor) being married, and Harriet (Emily Blunt) having a boyfriend fighting overseas, the two of them start to bond over the seemingly impossible nature of their project. Combined with Kristen Scott Thomas as the divisive Patricia Maxwell, one of the Prime Minister’s advisors, the cast is very strong.

Ewan McGregor, in my eyes, does very well. He is an actor with such a fantastic range of performances. Here he starts off as an irritable man whose domestic life is almost as unhappy as his occupation. When he is first approached about the project he laughs it into incredulity, but soon finds himself seconded to the project. Naturally, as time goes by he becomes more and more devoted to the project, eventually delighting in its success. McGregor plays a character who transforms throughout the film, and the man we are presented with at the end of the movie is very different from the man who we are introduced to. Although his chemistry with Harriet is perhaps a little bit too scripted, and a little bit too predictable, the audience is genuinely upset when it doesn't go to plan for them. This is even more impressive given that at the start of the film, I wasn't particularly taken with his character and found myself even disliking him.

Ewan McGregor’s connection with Emily Blunt is perhaps a little awkward, but that might be the mature of the characters the two of them play. They are both radically different, but Emily Blunt doesn't excel in this role. She is good, but as with so many female roles in romantic movies, she does not complete the film. However, she does manage the range of emotions when he boyfriend is reported missing very well. For much of the early part of the film she comes across as a curt business woman, but these scenes allow some of her acting ability to shine through. The blossoming of her relationship with Alfred is apparent by the time her boyfriend returns, and by this point the audience is firmly aware of the awkwardness of this encounter. There are a few problems with her character though. Ultimately, she knew the soldier for three weeks before he was called up, and she seems to be irrationally upset when he goes missing. This is a minor plot flaw though.

Neither of the main characters have any depth to them though. There is no background to them, not complexity to their characters and very little fault to either of their personalities. The same can be said for the sheikh  for whom ‘eccentric’ doesn't quite cover it. The man who plays him is undoubtedly very suited for the role, and has the appearance of a man who commands respect, but his goal of bringing salmon to Yemen is ultimately ridiculous. This is the comedic point of the film, yes, but the audience just cannot believe in it. The comedy element of the film could have been managed much better. It could have been a genuinely funny film rather than a film which has moments intended to be funny.

Kristen Scott-Thomas has an impressive CV, but her performance in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen will not be one to add to the list. This film was released in a time when political satire is quite popular (when is it ever not popular). Programs such as The Thick of It and films such as In the Loop set the benchmark for political satire, and I think that Kristen Scott-Thomas is trying to play Peter Capaldi’s famed character, but adding a female slant to it. She really suffers in the light of these comparisons, and if I were to pick one bad part about the film, her character would be it. The scenes where her and the Prime Minister are talking over some form of instant messaging device ruin the film for me. These parts can easily be gotten rid of. At the risk of sounding pretentious, the political part of this film could have been done so much better by the film-makers.

Overall, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is probably one to miss. It isn't a bad film by any means, and I personally found it quite enjoyable, but it is the sort of film you don’t want to waste your money on. Don’t buy the DVD because you will probably only watch it once. It is a very easy-going film, and it doesn't take much to get into, but it has the potential to be much more than it is.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

This film had a lot of promise to it. When it was initially released, the trailer made me want to go and check it out, but such is the way of things I never got the chance. I had to wait until I stumbled across the DVD in a charity shop for £2 that I decided I should give it a watch. At face value it looks like it's a good film. The title suggests that it will be quite funny, and the cast suggests that it should be quite impressive. It's not.

I was really disappointed by the film. I can't work out whether it's trying to tell the story of psychic research in World War II seriously or whether it is ridiculing the idea behind it. Either way it doesn't do it very well. If it's trying to seriously tell the story then it comes across as a ridiculous idea, and the characters are dismissed as nothing more than 'hippie soldiers' who only very rarely do anything psychically impressive. However, if they are trying to make light of the research then they don't do this well enough.

Some of the names associated with this film also convey the idea that it should be a very successful film. Ewan McGregor, George Clooney, Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges are all fantastic actors, but when they are put together I didn't think that they worked well. Jeff Bridges does quite well at playing the leader of the New Earth Army, but still comes across as a bit of a lunatic rather than the pioneer of a whole field of military research. Whether the audience is meant to see him as he was perceived at the time seems a little bit irrelevant because there is not instance of him 'coming good' with his psychic powers.

Kevin Spacey has always had my admiration as an actor. American Beauty and Se7en are examples of his fantastic acting, but in this film he just seemed a bit stale. His is brilliant at 'acting deadpan', and he does well at playing the 'bad guy' of the film, but he doesn't work for me. The links between his character and George Clooney's character are portrayed well, but it doesn't seem that jealousy would be part of the personality of a member of this type of army.

Credit where credit is due, George Clooney does well in this film, and is quite refreshing as a comic actor. His timing and tone is very amusing at times, and he works well with Ewan McGregor in the early stages of the film, but his character seems to tail off towards the end of the film, and I think this is a bit of a shame. I also enjoyed seeing Ewan McGregor in this film, but his character was very boring. His motivation to go to Iraq was to prove to his wife that he was a man. This seems a bit extreme, because upon finding out that my wife was cheating of my with my boss I don't think I would prove my masculinity to her in an attempt to win her back.

Another source of disappointment with this film was the scriptwriting. There were some genuinely funny moments, but on the whole, The Men Who Stare at Goats was just not as funny as I thought it would be. I think this might just be another example of a very successful book that was made into a film, but wasn't made very well. And this is a shame, because it had the potential to be a hilarious, yet interesting film about the use of psychic research during the War.