‘Ink’: Danny Boyle’s Rupert Murdoch Biopic Starts Electric, Then Loses Steam [Venice]

UPDATE: Reviews are good, so far, with an 80 on Metacritic (based on 11 reviews). UK critics are big on it, but I expect this film to have its score go down as it continues to screen at other festivals.

EARLIER: Danny Boyle, (director of “28 Years Later” as well as “Shallow Grave,” “28 Days Later,” “Trainspotting,” “127 Hours,” “Steve Jobs,” and “Slumdog Millionaire,” has an unmistakable style; not to mention energetic, visceral, and highly kinetic, often combining rapid editing with restless, sometimes tilted, camerawork. Practically all his movies can be described like that — the obvious outlier being “Yesterday.”

The first hour is electric, and some of Boyle’s direction is genuinely exhilarating. The second half is much less fun and a little too obvious. Ultimately, the film is not close to Boyle’s best, and it definitely loses some steam, not to mention follows a fairly conventional biopic structure, but at least it never bored me.

Larry Lamb (Jack O’Connell) has been tasked by Rupert Murdoch (Guy Pearce) to be the editor-in-chief of the struggling Sun newspaper and figure out a new way of playing the game. Less ethics, more dirt. “Ink” starts off with Lamb trying to find his writers movie. A team of journalists needs to be built. People have to be hired, some outright stolen from rival publications.

Boyle is completely in his element once Lamb gets the go-ahead from Murdoch. The fast editing and general sense of chaos make the newsroom feel exciting. Everyone is running around trying to come up with the next big story, and there’s a real thrill to watching Murdoch and Lamb put the paper together.

The film is less interested in Murdoch as the media titan we know him as today than in the relationship between these two men. Murdoch is basically the producer and Lamb is the director. They’re trying to make a product people crave, and they quickly realize that giving readers exactly what they want means pushing journalism further into entertainment.

Boyle deserves credit for not turning Murdoch into a cartoon villain. The character is written in a way that makes you understand why people would want to work for him. Lamb is the complicated one. He knows the compromises he’s making, but he also knows that they’re working, and he keeps pushing the envelope further and further, much to Murdoch’s dismay. Claire Foy’s fictional reporter Jules Davies is supposed to be the moral opposition to Lamb, but it’s an underwritten role.

The film lost me a little in the middle. The second half slows down quite a bit and becomes much more interested in spelling out its point — in rather shallow fashion. The kidnapping storyline, involving Muriel McKay, never really works — the kidnappers thought they were taking Murdoch’s wife for ransom when it was actually a Sun staffer’s. Regardless, this pivot makes the film suddenly turn into a fairly ordinary thriller and takes us away from the much more interesting story that was already happening: the newsroom.

The film is at its best when it’s simply being loud and messy — which isn’t enough of the time. And it’s fitting that a movie about The Sun should feel exactly that way. Unfortunately, “Ink” isn’t quite as bold as its subject. Despite the flashy camerawork and colourful visuals, it feels rather by the book. A movie about Murdoch and Lamb, the rise of tabloid journalism, should have been, well, sleazier.