The Pass (2016)

Sick Product of a Sick System

one of my absolute favorites!

Just what I expected

best movie i've ever seen.

It's long, claustrophobic and boring. Ben A Young forgot what is cinema while adapting a play, cinema isn't theatre, it's also images just not lazily filming people talking. The photography is just okay, the mise en scène mediocre. The performances ain't bad, Russel Tovey and Nico Mirallegro are excellent, Arinzé Kene does his best with what he's been given, Lisa McGrillis is at best forgettable. The problem is that the characters are not very well developed. It feels like watching a never-ending short movie, 20 minutes that would feel like 2 hours. There's just not enough material to make a long feature really. The script is not that bad but the dialogues are not terrible, but pretty mediocre, It's meant to be deep, but it's all forgettable, cliché and trying hard to shock but it's just manage to be tiring. That film felt like watching paint drying then peeling.

Am a big fan of Looking and was hoping The Pass would be paar to the best the series had to offer, alas. I'm not even sure there is anything to save in this awful Z series movie, the writing, the acting and the story are pitiful, it looks like a prank movie but it isn't one. I have no idea how this was funded but one thing is for sure, the director should find another way to use his days because directing a film is definitely not an option.

This was such a pleasant surprise. I truly did not know anything other than this being an LGBT- film, and boy was it more than that. It's not exactly an LGBT romance film, and surely not one of a couple blossoming. Instead, it's a quiet heavy and quiet dark character study of one broken man. Arinzé Kene is very good and I hope this helps him get more roles, but it's truly Russell Tovey's film and he delivers. I thought he was quite good in Looking, but I never knew he would be possible of the deeper places he goes to here. It's an incredibly performance that should stand as one of the year's best.

"The Pass" has the distinction of being the first British film to devote itself entirely to the subject of homosexuality in Premiere League Football. It's a subject crying out to be tackled, (no pun intended), but this depressingly one note treatment isn't the way to do it. It's based on a play, first performed at the Royal Court a couple of years back, and it shows. Divided into 3 short acts over a ten year period, it's the story of Jason, a deeply closeted footballer who tries to hide his homosexuality by marrying, having children and, when the rumors get too much, having a sleazy sex- tape made with a dancer, all the while pinning for Ade, his black footballer buddy who had the courage to pack it in and come out of the closet.There are moments when the film actually seems to be going somewhere and to be fair to writer John Donnelly it does attempt to show the hypocrisy of what it's like to be gay in the most macho of sports and then be forced to deny it but it's a nasty and unpleasant piece with a central character you can never empathize with. Jason is just the kind of prick you would cross the street to avoid. All credit to Russell Tovey for playing the part so brilliantly but a little more sympathy on the part of the writer could have gone a long way.As the woman he hires for his sex tape Lisa McGrillis is also excellent and there is a nice cameo from Nico Miralegro as an over eager hotel bellboy. Sadly Arinze Kene as his would-be lover and the only nice character on screen, isn't up to the job; his performance like the film itself feels well below par. This might be how things are but it doesn't make for an entertaining, or even enlightening, evening at the cinema.