CineMuseFilms

Some space movies fill you with awe at the vastness of their domain, while others feel claustrophobic. How you react to Ad Astra (2019) will depend on whether you go along with it's inter-galactic pursuit of a menace to earth's survival or you become immersed in the film's psychological drama. These twin-storylines do not always sit well together.

The plotline is simple: Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) is an elite astronaut who has spent his career in the shadow of his famous space pioneering father H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones). Three decades ago, Cliff led a mission to find life in distant galaxies and has not been heard of since. Space Command have intelligence that he is still alive and poses an existential threat to mankind. Roy has been secretly recruited to hunt his father down and eliminate the threat.

Viewers get two very different movies for the same ticket: a sci-fi chase with enough digital effects to please the most demanding techno-obsessive, and a space-opera framed around the Freudian theme of father-son love (or its absence). Neither movie fills its potential, and each is a distraction for the other. Roy dominates screen time as both protagonist and narrator. This might have worked except that the elite astronaut's pulse rate flatlines below 80 bpm, which is mirrored in the film's tension curve (except for a five-second shot of a tear rolling down his face when his father tells his that he never cared about him).

Hoping to load intensity into the Freudian theme, the cameras spend far too much time gazing into Roy's vacant face as he grapples with the moral dilemmas that Space Command has thrust upon him (including patricide). This filming style becomes tiresome when it is applied to most of the cast, except for the feral space-lab monkeys whose fate will alienate animal rights supporters. If the photography was half as exciting as some other recent extra-terrestrial films, the depiction of Ad Astra'sinterior emotional space might have provided a poignant contrast. Instead, it imparts a claustrophobic feel to both of the film's twin storylines. Brad Pitt fans will disagree, but it's hard to imagine a more wooden hero.

There are several scenes of infinity that we come to expect from space movies and lots of shiny steel with buttons and switches and flashing lights to remind us that space exploration is at the front edge of technological innovation. But that's about all this moderately entertaining film achieves, despite being hailed as the space epic of the year.

It is no coincidence that the German-UK bio-pic The Keeper (2018) has been released into a context of Brexit turbulence. While it is a story about a hero of 'the beautiful game', it is also about tolerance and forgiveness that is so absent in today's politics. Only avid soccer history fans would know the name Bert Trautmann but this film will revive his fame. He was the goalie (played by David Kross) credited with Manchester's triumph at the 1956 FA Cup Final, keeping Birmingham at bay after literally breaking his neck with 17 minutes left of play.

The film begins with Trautmann as a young Nazi paratrooper, a celebrated soldier who won an Iron Cross for bravery. When the Allied Forces crushed the German war machine, Trautmann was interred in a British prisoner camp and passed the time by playing soccer. His talents were noticed by a local amateur club who needed a goalie; Trautmann was soon drawing big crowds and raising the club's profile. But he also re-ignited war hatreds, and many were furious that a former Nazi was allowed to play for a British team.

An inevitable romance broadens the narrative beyond sport. The local club manager's daughter, Margaret (Freya Mavor), takes an immediate shine to the handsome German, overcoming her initial contempt for his Nazi past. As the relationship develops, so too does Trautmann's fame as a goalie and he soon joins the top-league Manchester club. Incited by the press and local Jewish population, mass protests were held, but it was a Rabbi whose published letter pleaded for the goalie not to be judged for the sins of his homeland.

As a piece of soccer history, the story is told well, aided by excellent acting and cinematography. The sets, costume and mood of the times are artfully constructed, although the pace and the weaving of sub-plotlines into the main frame loses balance at times. If the storytelling can be faulted at all it is the tendency to gloss over dark corners and shine fairy lights onto the heart-warming side of the tale.

In 'true British spirit', soccer fans came to love Trautmann for his athletic achievements despite being a former Nazi, and he won several honours, including the prestigious British Player of the Year in 1964. Some viewers will see it as ironic that current Brexit politics is in part motivated to keep foreigners off British soil.