INTO THE ABYSS
Dir: Werner Herzog

Last week I was enjoying his investigation of mankind's earliest artworks in Cave of Forgotten Dreams; this week another documentary from Werner Herzog captivated me, though I wouldn't say it was exactly 'enjoyable”.

Subtitled 'A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life”, the closest thing I can think of by comparison would be In Cold Blood. Except this really is a documentary. In it Herzog interviews two convicted killers, Michael Perry and Jason Burkett, both from a small Texas town. Perry is about to be executed (it happened eight days after these interviews), Burkett, certainly the more culpable of the two, is serving life.

He also interviews relatives of the three victims and others, from the investigating officer to the priest who counsels death row inmates. It is, primarily, a film about the death penalty, though it does not advocate one way or the other. (Herzog states that he is against, but remains remarkably impartial.)

And, like all great documentaries, there is a lot to think about here. This is a world far away from the one in which we live. Burkett's father is interviewed. He's also in prison for murder. Violence, though unseen, appears commonplace. A neighbouring town where the boys showed off their stolen cars (they killed to steal a car) and took people for joy rides in them is called Cut And Shoot, Texas – really.
It's sobering, riveting stuff.

With typical timing the topical tropes of The Campaign have disappeared for its belated release here. But, though the US election may be over, the film still has plenty of funny moments. Will Ferrell and Zack Galifianakis play two idiots battling it out for a North Carolina congress seat. Ferrell is the entitled old-timer, Galifianakis the naïve half-wit chosen to challenge him. The humour is broad and continual but sadly gentle given the real-life excesses American politics. There's plenty of fun to be had with the slanderous craziness of political advertising or the absurdity of campaign debates but this stays in very safe territory.

Each zombie film I saw this year I swore would be the last. The walking dead may serve as metaphor for everything from consumerism to racism but after a while it just gets so... repetitive. But a cover quote likens the Exit Humanity director to Terrence Malick, an idea so unlikely that once again I took the plunge. This time we're in Civil War America (so recently co-opted by bloodsuckers in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter), where returned soldier Edward Young documents the rising plague. He wanders unhappily around the south and has a generally miserable time. It's very serious and long, while the Malick comment presumably refers to the vacuous voice-over.

Anarchic Scandinavian crime writer Jo Nesbo turns his hand to a film script with Jackpot, a delightfully twisted tale that opens with 'hero” Oscar discovered beneath a 'huge woman”, shotgun in hand, surrounded by corpses after a shoot-out in a strip club. His problems stem from winning big on a football bet made along with three workers he supervised at a Christmas tree factory employing ex-cons. His co-winners are not sharing people. Or bright people. Told in flashback from a police interrogation room, it's fast, furious and funny, a gleefully black comedy of murder and body disposal. (In Norwegian.)

This week's irritatingly gimmicky title awards goes to Twenty8k. But in every other respect its a top-notch London gangland thriller, following Deeva, who returns from a high-flying job in Paris after her brother is arrested for a shooting. Not believing the charges, she investigates, only to uncover a hot-bed of twisted gang loyalties and general corruption. It's classy stuff, walking a line between gritty realism and BBC-style drama. Writer Paul Abbott was previously responsible for TV's brilliant State of Play and creates a similar level of multi-layered complexity here. Sterling stuff.