All Things To All Men

[kissmekate]

Ohh, what a fantastic find! There must have been an Irish fangirl behind that ;D

I also loved the other interview GE2 found. (He did sound a little peeved at that "morale" question, didn't he? ;D )

[GreenEyesToo]

Oh, lovely, Rueful and PGG - thank you!

Have another one, in return : www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwoM3bnzeBc&feature=youtube_gdata

(Not just Rufus being interviewed, but the director and producer talking about him, too)


And I just found an (overall) nice review - kind to Rufus, at least! :

A slickly shot and nicely performed British crime film, All Things To All Men suffers from coming hard on the heels of other (and slightly bigger budgeted) London-set thrillers such as Welcome To The Punch and The Sweeney, and while it delivers in terms of a complex conspiracy plot packed with devious double-crossing, at times it is simply too labyrinthine for its own good.

But despite a sense of familiarity and the over-arching need to make things a little too complicated, there is still much to enjoy. Rufus Sewell is quite splendid as a devious detective; Gabriel Byrne nails his London gang lord role; Terence Maynard is cool personified as Sewell’s police partner, and Julian Sands offers up a nice cameo as Byrne’s mob enforcer (the pair memorably starred together in Ken Russell’s 1986 film Gothic). The film also makes great – if rather clichéd – use of a series of London landmarks, those does help to underscore its modest sense of cool.

The film has a relatively strong marketing push in the UK where the familiar faces could see a goodish response, but in truth All Things To All Men’s best marketplace is likely to be in home entertainment when the combination of crime and strong British actors are a strong combination.

Sewell plays maverick London detective Parker (we know he is a bit of a rebel because he wears a black trench coat and drives around in a black Range Rover) who is hunting smooth jewel thief Riley (Toby Stephens, looking the part, but favouring a grim, unsmiling, persona when a bit of louche charm would have worked better). Parker blackmails London crime boss Joseph Corso (Byrne) into setting up a trap for Riley, but things spin out-of-control as the three men vie to take the upper hand with Riley caught in the middle of the machinations.

Just like Welcome To The Punch and The Sweeney, the film – thanks to Howard Atherton’s lush cinematography – makes London look vibrant, steely, and cool, though the film does favour ticking off landmarks (exemplified by its action climax inside Battersea Power Station and Stephens planning his next job while inside a pod on the London Eye) as well as providing stunning backdrops.

Rufus Sewell brings just the right amount of playful charm to balance the nastier antics of his rogue cop role, and gives the films its drive and energy, working especially well with Terence Maynard (smooth coat, shades and a jazz flat cap) as Sands, his long-time friend and partner. Gabriel Byrne is equally fine as the London gang boss, while the likes of Leo Gregory, James Frain and Julian Sands help give the film is sense of gravitas.

Sadly All Things To All Men lets itself down when it comes to a strong female character. There isn’t one. The impressive Elsa Pataky (from the recent Fast & Furious films) has the charisma and beauty to demand more screen time, but her role is poorly developed and then rushed into a climactic sequence to limited emotional effect.

The plot – which has references to LA Confidential - gets overly complex at times (there is a lumbering side-plot about Parker owing millions to a Turkish gang boss because he slept with his girlfriend, that bemuses rather than intrigues) which is a shame given the talent available and the attractive filming style.But then trick here is to sit back and enjoy a series of fine actors impressively going through their motions.

www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-latest/all-things-to-all-men/5053494.article#


And another - not so kind about the film (beware SPOILERS), but very nice indeed about Rufus (well....mostly! ):

Returning to London, cool, taciturn, professional thief Riley (Toby Stephens) aims to pull a few scores and settle a few more. His last big job ended with the death of his brother and now he’s out for revenge. When his friend and fence is brutally murdered after a diamond heist, Riley finds himself forced to deal with crime boss Corso (Gabriel Byrne) who makes him an offer he can’t refuse; a one-off multi-million pound burglary. But Corso is being manipulated, setting Riley up for dodgy, corrupt cop Parker (Rufus Sewell) who has his own very personal agenda. As cross follows double-cross and the complications start to pile up, Riley finds himself betrayed, forced to fight for survival in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse.

Written and directed by Kidulthood producer George Isaac, it’s somehow entirely fitting that central to All Things To All Men is Toby Stephens’ cool-as-a-cucumber thief committing a multi-million pound robbery as Isaac appears to have done exactly the same, boosting dialogue, characters, scenarios and entire scenes from every crime thriller he’s ever seen. All Things To All Men isn’t just a derivative homage; it’s daylight robbery! We’ve got a loner thief with his own moral code (Michael Mann’s Thief) out for revenge (Point Blank, Payback, The Outfit) on the gangsters who killed his brother, being set up by a maverick dirty cop with money worries (Training Day) in a scenario borrowed from Walter Hill’s The Driver, who’s breaking in a naïve, by-the-book rookie (Takeshi Kitano’s Violent Cop, William Friedkin’s To Live And Die In L.A.) who’s unhappy with the methods it takes to get the job done. There’s a dialogue-free heist scene directly purloined from Thief, a gun purchase in an anonymous hotel room that apes the one in Taxi Driver, a meeting in the Grosvenor tea room that echoes Sexy Beast (with not nearly so much sense of threat), a couple of twisty betrayals trousered from L.A. Confidential (including the bare-faced heist of the Rollo Tomassi plot-device) and a climactic Mexican stand-off that feels like it wandered in from half a dozen crime flicks before a final to Violent Cop and the credits roll.

Which isn’t to say All Things To All Men is bad; it’s not. It’s just not very good; a middle-of-the-road time waster. The fault for that doesn’t lie with director/producer Isaac, who’s delivered a handsome, glossy, good-looking, mechanically efficient little thriller on a tight budget, but with screenwriter Isaac who’s a derivative magpie, a hack nicking all his favourite bits from better movies, cutting and pasting them into his own script. Come on George, you’re not just dishing up moronic crap like The Fall Of The Essex Boys for undiscerning mouth-breathers nostalgic for the heady, E and coke-fuelled hooliganism of their youth. You’re too good a filmmaker for that. Did you really think no one would notice you just lifted the safecracking scene from Thief? Or the Rollo Tomassi twist from L.A. Confidential? We’ve all watched the same films as you.

Where the film excels is in its top drawer cast. Stephens acquits himself admirably as the cool thief doing one last job, Byrne and Julian Sands bring a faded authority to their aging gangster roles and it’s always good to see Green Street’s Leo Gregory even if he does feel just that little bit too old now to be playing the young rookie cop. James Frain and David Schofield turn up as duplicitous police Mandarins, subtly pulling strings behind the scenes, but it’s Rufus Sewell as dodgy copper Parker who fascinates. The angelic beauty of his youth now grizzled by middle age and disappointment, Sewell has lost none of his charisma and makes a perfect film noir antihero.

While it’s still better than Danny Boyle’s excruciating Trance, All Things To All Men winds up being less than the sum of its parts and, crucially for a thriller, fails to thrill. Here’s hoping Isaac hires a better screenwriter for his next outing.

www.filmjuice.com/all-things-to-all-men.html

[anyother]

Oh, he looks (and sounds) SO happy! Thanks for finding all these treasures!

[rueful]

That's a great video, GE2! Thanks for posting it, as well as the reviews. Love the reviewers' compliments about Rufus's talents.

[tipou]

i just read the interviews and saw the pics.
having been away from the thread for a while, i cannot help but see how happy, healthy, and WORKING our man is.
and in interviews, "refreshingly honest". disappointed? perhaps. bitter? not at all.
i always said he would bloom in later years, that we have seen nothing yet.
and i still believe it's true. his best years are coming.

[GreenEyesToo]

More pics:









www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/04/03/mc-harvey-all-things-to-all-men-gabriel-byrne_n_3005641.html

[kissmekate]

Nice!! I may have said it before, but he really looks particularly great in this.

[rueful]

Very nice! Love the one with the gun! What a visually pleasant day we're having today. ;D

Thanks, GE2!

[robela]

PGG!Thanks for the great screencaps!

GE2! Thanks for posting the videos, reviews and photos!

It looks great! Rufus looks in his element, obviously enjoying himself!

Can't find it scheduled for showing locally yet!

Can't wait to see it!

[jamolivej]

Thanks ladies for all the interviews and pics. So looking forward to seeing this and hearing that he would love to work in England more.

[rueful]

A few more reviews:

www.thelondonfilmreview.com/film-review/genre/action/all-things-to-all-men-review/

Review by Derek Winnert
Rating 3 stars out of 5

Rufus Sewell stars as a maverick (ie bent) copper who stages a robbery with help from safecracker Toby Stephens and crime lord Gabriel Byrne in a London-set crime drama story that closely recalls the recently released Welcome to the Punch. It’s just one of those strange coincidences you get quite often in the movies. They were planned and made simultaneously and I’m sure didn’t know about each other at all. Weirdly, there are two movies about assaults on the White House coming up this year – Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down.

Made on a lower budget than the James McAvoy movie, George Isaac’s first film stands up well against it. Admittedly it’s not perfect, but All Things to All Men is still a pretty slick, fast-moving and atmospheric crime thriller, lensed quite stylishly and very effectively on some of the capital’s more interesting non-tourist spots to suggest the way of life here in 2013. The eye-catching photography by Howard Atherton really captures the flavour of living, and working, and indeed enjoying the crime business from both sides in our mean streets. This gives the film texture and makes London one of the bright stars of the movie.

Never afraid to kill off characters, it’s gritty entertainment that manages fresh riffs on old situations, thanks to half a dozen fine Brit actors on excellent form, one ace nailbiting car chase and that brilliant location work throughout the capital, ending up with a lethal showdown at the old Battersea Power Station.

Sewell, Stephens and Byrne slip comfortably in their characters like they’re putting on sleek old leather gloves. They have nicely written roles and actors as seasoned as these don’t mess this up. And there’s good work all round from Terence Maynard as another rogue cop, James Frain as the Attorney General, David Schofield as the Police Commissioner and Julian Sands as Byrne’s henchman. I said it’s strongly cast and the actors here are much better used than the Welcome to the Punch lot.

The plot? Well, it’s no better than Welcome to the Punch’s, but this time I like it more.

If the Internet’s to be believed, and of course it always is, the movie’s budget was £3million and they’ve got a lot of value from that, all there up on screen. Then again, Welcome to the Punch’s was twice that at around £6million, and they got pretty good value too. Brit movies of this kind of cost stand a good chance of getting their money back, especially when supported by good advertising/marketing campaigns, which these are. So, good.

A screen-writer surprised me recently by asking me at a screening if critics made allowances for the budgets of films. First response was of course not. (Anyway, the film in question – Cheerful Weather for the wedding – was so well made, I’d have had no idea it was low budget.) But later I thought, well you do a little – but sub-consciously. You don’t expect All Things to All Men to look as great, or have as awesome action sequences, or have as big stars as a $100million American thriller. But then you do hope they’ll use their micro budgets to maximum effect. And All Things to All Men kind of does.


tnt24.ie/index.php/2013/03/review-all-things-to-all-men/

TNT24 sends Victoria Mary Clarke to the movies

It was an exceedingly cold morning. Excruciating, in fact. The central heating had stopped working and outside there were blizzards blowing.

Myself and Shane MacGowan (my muse and constant companion) were huddled in the bed where it was warm and that was where I wanted to stay. And would have stayed. Except for the fact that I had been invited to a press screening of a film called ‘All Things To All Men’, starring Toby Stephens, Rufus Sewell and Gabriel Byrne.

And it is a testament to the allure of these lovely luvvies that I braced myself and ventured out from under the covers and went to see the film.

If you have ever been to a press screening you will know that they are not the glamorous and exclusive events that their name suggests. They generally happen at around ten in the morning, which is not a healthy time to be watching films. At that time of day, the heating has barely been switched on in the cinema, and the atmosphere is frosty.

The members of the Press are also rather cool, (or perhaps we like to think we are cool) and because of this we sit as far apart as it is possible to sit and studiously ignore each other while we pretend to be taking notes. I suspect that a group of hitmen (and women) would be warmer towards our peers.

However, I digress. None of this is of interest to you. What you want to know is was it any good, the film?

The answer to your question is yes.

‘All Things To All Men’ is basically a cop-thriller. There have been a glut of cop thrillers of late and quite often the plots are predictable. But not this one. This one is seriously complicated. I had absolutely no clue what was happening. Not a notion. But I was gripped. I clung to my cappuccino for dear life, from the moment it started.

It is important to mention that on the screen, nobody was smiling. Especially not Toby Stephens. Rufus Sewell gave a hint of a smirk at one point, but apart from that everyone was deadly serious, which is something I appreciate in a thriller. Personally, I am not one for thrillers that pretend to be comedies and killers who joke about cheese burgers. If the characters aren’t taking the thing seriously, how do they expect me to take it seriously?

Gabriel Byrne is one of my favourite actors, partly because he is hot and partly because he is equally convincing in the role of a sensitive, vulnerable, needy guy as he is in the role of a hard nosed violent and ruthless bully. He is a proper actor, in other words. And he is magnificent in this film. Moody, menacing and also rather dashing.

The other thing that is truly excellent about the film is the cinematography, which comes courtesy of cinematographer Howard Atherton (Indecent Proposal, Fatal Attraction.) London is an intrinsically cinematic city, but in the wrong hands it can look drab and colourless. Not in this case. They make full use of the landmarks, with great chase scenes in the City and wonderful bits at Battersea Power Station, and even an afternoon tea at The Grosvenor House on Park Lane with Gabriel daintily sipping tea from a Wedgewood china cup.

‘All Things To All Men’ is both written and directed by George Isaac who produced ‘Kidulthood’ and ‘Adulthood’. It is his first feature. It is worth getting out of bed for. Even if you were in bed with Shane Mac Gowan.



I have decided not to copy the reviews I don't like. ;D However, this one (like several others) gave positive reviews to the actors while condemning the script. So I'll just copy the quote I like:


www.cine-vue.com/2013/04/film-review-all-things-to-all-men.html

Rufus Sewell gives good grit as veteran cop Parker..., who's been playing the game for years.

[kitty]

Hope we get to see this soon!

[kissmekate]

Nice finds, rueful!

[walt]

Thanks so much all the ladies who posted the video, the screencaps and reviews!

[rueful]

Here's another interview with Rufus:

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/04/04/interview-rufus-sewell_n_3013112.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

INTERVIEW: Rufus Sewell On The Frustration Of 'Only Ever Being Cast As A W**ker'

Caroline Frost

Rufus Sewell is delighted to be taking on a London baddie, after years of playing the brooding, anguished aristocrat…

“I've never, ever, ever been allowed to play a Londoner before,” he tells HuffPostUK.

“Much to my irritation over the years, the only time it would seem in this country, any curiosity about my availability is for period drama, middle class or higher.

“So when it takes a first time director to think of me for a role like this, I jump.”

‘This’ is the role of Parker, a completely bent cop in ‘All Things To All Men’, a London gangland thriller, also starring Gabriel Byrne and Toby Stephens. While they all share undisputed demons, it’s Parker who has the least contrition for his actions…

“What was attractive about this character was that he was an absolute sociopath,” adds Sewell.

“It was a stylistic exercise, a certain type of fantasy, I didn’t want to give tells about the crying child within.”

It’s true we do know Mr Sewell for a certain type of haunted, sometimes lovelorn aristocrat, ever since his big break, straight out of drama school, into the BBC’s big-budget ‘Middlemarch’. Has he changed, or…?

“Well, that’s what I looked like, I wasn't like that at all,” he exclaims. “I was always that actor (the bushy eye-browed scene-stealer we saw recently in ‘Parade’s End), I’ve just had to struggle to get the opportunities to be it. Now, if I was to get a role like 'Middlemarch', I wouldn't consider it a straitjacket, I'd enjoy the colour and freedom I'd have the nerve to put into it, but at the time I saw it that way. I just don’t want to get stuck, and for a while it looked like I was going to.

“If I wanted to do a big film, it was always that kind of role, I had to play some level of w**ker. I've got no idea why, and I was actually lucky enough to be in American films, but I was a little bit frustrated.

“And then, finally, in my late thirties, I was lucky enough to land in… myself, find my own skin.”

He laughs easily. “I’m hoping that a lifetime of compromise and disappointment will read as extra depth and layers in my work.”

Sewell tells a good story about being landed in a US series (‘Eleventh Hour’) and sticking with it for the year until it was dropped, despite knowing he’d made a big mistake.

“So when I had that opportunity to escape it, I realised what a gift that was. I never wanted to be in a position again where I settled on something based on someone else’s description, where I accepted what other people told me I wanted, because I was lost. As for the promise of regular riches alongside dissatisfaction, I would trade that in in a millisecond for penury and uncertainty and a little bit of hope for the rest of my life.”

Fortunately, he won’t have to for a while yet, with roles coming up in this, his current run on the London stage and the forthcoming ‘The Sea’. But he has known his time in the wilderness, most often, he explains, straight after a big hit… “that’s just how the universe seems to work”.

Fans of his character Aurelio Zen were disappointed when the Roman detective disappeared from BBC4 after only three 90-minute shows, but Sewell was happy to “cut and run – if I’d been told it would be 20 years, I’d have run a mile. As it is, I can be very proud of the three stand-alone shows we made, even if I didn’t know I was going to be out of work for the eight months afterwards.”

But surely he’s accepted penury and uncertainty now? “As an idea, not a reality,” he bellows. "As a day to day thing, it’s hard. But yes, that’s true. Would I have swapped it to be back in 'Eleventh Hour'? No.”

But these days he’s definitely ready to mix it up, even if it means we’ll have to get used to trading his cheekbones and flashing gaze for less chiselled characters. ‘The Sea’ will afford him the opportunity to use both his looks AND personality, apparently, hence his enthusiasm – a merging of old and new Sewell. “He’s rather dapper with neck tie but not cast according to his looks, which are described as goat-like in the books,” he explains of his character Carlo Grace.

As for the straitjacket of the leading man he escaped after drama school, Sewell is more relaxed about wearing one these days…

“I’d happily play those roles as well. As a person I’m perfectly vain, I’m just vainer as an actor about my ability. My acting vanity trumps my human vanity.”

Evidence, then, that Rufus Sewell now knows himself as well as any of his increasingly broad roles.