Three Films Make A Post: He was a world-class criminal and a working-class hero.

The General (1998): This gangster movie by the great John Boorman about Irish burglar, robber (etc) and perhaps part-time national anti-hero Martin Cahill (portrayed by Brendan Gleeson with perfect nuance even when the character he portrays would deny possessing any of that) was all the rage with critics when it came out, and really doesn’t seem to be part of any conversation anymore. It’s definitely a John Boorman movie in its willingness to be peculiar: at times, it feels more like a very strange comedy than your typical biopic. It portrays its protagonist with as much sarcasm as it does reverence (though there’s some of that, also), understanding the very specific working class charm of the man as well as the fact that he also was a scumbag. Boorman is never willing to make any total statements about his subject, instead treating Cahill as the sort of complicated and contradictory person we all are, denying the audience the easy way of seeing him as a hero or as a villain, therefor denying the kind of easy judgement that sees everyone as either all-virtuous or all-bad that’s all the rage at this political moment in time.

Confessions of a Police Captain aka Confessione di un commissario di polizia al procuratore della repubblica (1971): If you go into this Damiano Damiani joint hoping for more typical hard-hitting Italian 70s cop movie fare, you’ll probably be a little disappointed, for as is so often the case with the director, he’s really only interested in providing as much of the exploitative stuff as he needs to let his social criticism go down easier with an audience. That approach is not always to my taste because it does tend to suggest a pretty patronising view on Damiani’s audience, but in this film, the director avoids most of the spirited monologing he loves so well and instead makes his points via the conflict between a bitter police captain (Martin Balsam) and an idealistic young D.A. (Franco Nero, cleverly and effectively cast against type), who want the same things but completely disagree on how to achieve them, arguing against political and societal corruption by showing what it does to individuals and their view of the world.

It’s a very effective film at this, and even better for the fact that this is one of the Damiani films where the director seems to have put as much heart and energy into the more generic crime elements as he has into the political side of the film, letting one enhance the other quite wonderfully.

Jaca Pocong (2018): A nurse (Acha Septriasa) is tasked to travel to a lonely country home to change an IV and make an injection, but quickly finds herself roped into a wake. Of course, there’s spooky stuff happening. And some of said spooky stuff in Hadrah Daeng Ratu’s Indonesian horror film is rather effective; the spookery is also rather generic in its nature, with only the not quite as worn out last act twist providing a hint of half-originality to the proceedings. It’s not a bad film before that, mind you, just one that seems so satisfied with standards shocks and suspense moments, it never gets too exciting.

On the other hand, it is crafted carefully enough that it also never becomes boring, so there’s that.