"Is This Thing On? Review: Will Arnett Steals the Show While Bradley Cooper's Directing Misses the Mark in This Exhausting True Story"

IS THIS THING ON?

(15) 124mins

★★☆☆☆

This somewhat frustrating film is based on the true story of British stand-up John Bishop, but has been given a Hollywood spinCredit: Alamy Bradley Cooper directs as we follow Alex (Will Arnett) and Tess Novak (Laura Dern) navigating life after 20 years of marriageCredit: Alamy

HAVE you heard the one about the comedian who made jokes about his impending and it saved his ?

Well, you’re about to.

This somewhat frustrating film is based on the , but has been given a spin.

Directed by Bradley Cooper — who has given himself a small part — we meet married couple Alex (Will Arnett) and Tess Novak (Laura Dern), who have come to an amicable separation after 20 years of marriage.

They share the parenting of their two sons and two dogs, with Tess living in the family home and Alex in a little flat.

Pretty excruciating

There, he struggles with the toll of the break-up and, on an evening walk, discovers an open mic night. He can avoid paying the entry fee by doing five minutes of stand-up.

Using it as a bit of a therapy session, Alex focuses on sharing his divorce woes and talks about the emotional turmoil he’s enduring in a pretty excruciating set of routines.

While I didn’t even titter at the jokes, his audience is surprisingly forgiving and laugh along.

Soon Tess happens to find herself in the club on a first date and watches her soon-to-be ex-husband perform a routine about how he had slept with someone else for the first time since their split.

Weirdly, watching it makes her fall back in love with him.

The couple then do this annoying routine where they pretend to their kids and family to still be apart but sneak about secretly hooking up, as though anyone cares about their romance as much as they do.

Alex and Tess’s friends Christine (Andra Day) and Balls (Cooper) are a deeply irritating pair who are so self-absorbed they don’t notice their besties are getting back together.

Mostly shot in handheld extreme close-up to show the deep stress Alex is going through, the format soon becomes tiresome and exhausting.

There are also several scenes about couples’ dull domestic disagreements that could have been left on the editing suite floor.

Arnett’s performance is decent and shows him as much more than a brilliant comedy actor.

But Cooper has perhaps overstretched himself writing, directing and featuring in this weak adaptation of Bishop’s life story.

KANGAROO

(PG) 107mins

★★★☆☆

Ryan Corr plays a weatherman whose TV career ends after a rescue goes wrong – and he ends up looking after an orphaned kangaroo joeyCredit: StudioCanal/Narelle Portanier. All Rights Reserved

THIS gentle and uplifting Australian drama, which wears its heart on its sleeve, is inspired by the real-life story of Chris Barns, the man behind a kangaroo sanctuary in Alice Springs.

Ryan Corr stars as Chris Masterman, a slick TV weatherman who is fired after a bid to rescue a dolphin at Bondi Beach goes badly wrong.

On his way out of town to start a new job, he accidentally hits a kangaroo and ends up caring for its surviving joey.

This moment pushes him into a rural community where his city attitude doesn’t go down well.

Corr plays Chris with enough arrogance early on to make his gradual softening feel genuinely earned, even if the transformation is on the predictable side.

The emotional core of the comes from Lily Whiteley as Charlie, a quiet teenager who cares for local wildlife while dealing with a recent personal loss.

Meanwhile, Rachel House brings sharp humour as a no-nonsense landlady, while Deborah Mailman adds warmth and authority as Charlie’s mother.

Visually, Kangaroo makes the most of the Aussie outback, with beautiful light and impressive cinematography.

It’s the usual “fish out of water” stuff, but Kangaroo’s sincerity carries it through nevertheless.

• Linda Marric

SHELTER

(18) 107mins

★★★☆☆

Shelter delivers the blunt-force thrills audiences have come to expect from a Statham vehicle – as Bill Nighy adds gravitasCredit: PA

A RECLUSE on a remote Scottish island rescues a young girl from certain death, unleashing a sequence of events resulting in an attack on his home.

returns to familiar territory in Shelter, a perfectly serviceable action thriller that plays to the action star’s strengths while flirting with darker emotional themes.

Directed by Ric Roman Waugh, Statham’s Mason is hiding from a brutal past, but is forced back into survival mode when old enemies close in.

Shelter delivers the blunt-force thrills audiences have come to expect from a Statham vehicle. The action is tight, and favours physicality over spectacle.

Waugh stages with grit rather than gloss, but there’s also a real attempt at exploring the character’s guilt and guarded compassion.

The cast elevates the material. brings gravitas as the villain, while Naomi Ackie is criminally underused as a British intelligence officer.

Daniel Mays offers his usual gruffness and Bodhi Rae Breathnach, as the orphan Mason rescues, proves an effective emotional anchor for the film and its lead.

Still, the film never fully escapes the generic and the plot can be predictable. But none of us are really watching for the plot.

Shelter is solid, intense, but nothing new.

• Linda Marric