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Reviews
28 Days Later... (2002)
Cheap and cheerful
Big budget horror films do have the great asset of allowing you to watch A-list film stars being gutted like fish, preferably after whimpering in a very embarrassing fashion. Apart from that, they are generally rubbish and usually the biggest star survives which always leaves a bad taste in the mouth. 28 Days Later has neither stars nor a budget, so that makes for a promising start.
After a short prologue showing a terrible virus being released we go forward 28 days to find London virtually deserted, with no congestion charge in sight, bar roaming bunches of psychotic zombies who are affected by particularly bad red eye. The only hope a small group of survivors have is a recorded message from Manchester promising salvation. So they take their chances and head north.
Thanks to some canny traffic marshalling and a shooting schedule that would make reality TV producers weep, the film opens with some startling scenes of a lone survivor wandering around empty London streets. The same trick was used in New York in Vanilla Sky but the graininess of the footage combined with the non-American surroundings make the sequence seem more powerful and unsettling.
Whilst the visuals do look murky and chunky at times the decision to use digital video leads to a greater sense of immediacy in the film, without ever sinking to reality TV clichés. The characters still walk into dark enclosed spaces (why do they never learn?), but we are not over burdened with fatuous sub plots or laboured back stories. The deftness of the writing makes it seem a tragedy that Alex Garland can no longer drag him away from his X-box long enough to write a shopping list let alone a new novel. He could at least have got a PS2 with the amount he has earnt.
The film could be tagged as a consolidation for Danny Boyle, whose reputation has stalled since Trainspotting. however as good as this well executed genre fare is, it never tracends it's origins and smacks of great talent merely passing the time.
Hable con ella (2002)
I still can't explain why it's so good
Having characters fall into a coma has long been a favoured plot device for the writers of soap operas, and were this film made earlier in his career you would expect director Pedro Aldovomar to layer on the kitsch stylings and hysterical trappings of the soap world. However Talk To Her is an exquisitely beautiful and original film that couldn't be further from the daytime world of shaky sets and improbable plots.
The story revolves around two women who lie in coma and the men who care about them. One is a dancer who was hit by a car and is now passionately cared for by a male nurse who feel deeply and unrequitedly in love with her the week before her accident. The other is a bullfighter who was gored in the ring and is visited by both her current and former beaus.
The film opens on an eerily dreamlike piece of modern dance and a mode of lightness and unreality can be felt throughout the whole piece. Aldovomar's use of bold blocks of colour in scenery and clothing creates a lush visual texture whilst the composition of the shots has a wondrous amount of detail without ever feeling cluttered or overcomplicated. Some may call the impassive framing of scenes Kubrickian in nature, but by this stage in his career it is fair to say that Aldovomar has a style all of his own.
The film is difficult to break down into easily explicable elements to describe and praise. Instead it creates a mesmerizing mood that is never flippant but retains a playfulness within it's strong emotionally core. Talk To Her is a film that is too rich to be described adequately, it can only be viewed, appreciated and enthusiastically enjoyed.
Sweet Home Alabama (2002)
Why did Reese Witherspoon decide to stop making decent films
What is it about people being left at the altar or weddings breaking up at the most painful or embarrassing moment that appeals to the producers of romantic comedies. Is there something in these events that is meant to create the perfect date movie ambiance by either discouraging thoughts of commitment or wedlock that have been causing troublesome silences in a relationship? Maybe the thought is that modern relationships are so weak that you have to find the most hideous thing you can to allow both parts of a couple to laugh at the misfortune of others? Or possibly it is just the bitterness of producers with many an ugly relationship break up showing through.
For whatever reason such wedding wrecking has provided the climax to Four Weddings And A Funeral, a couple of bodged plot points in Serendipity, not to mention the entire concepts of My Best Friends Wedding and Runaway Bride. Therefore it comes as no surprise that a film that plays it as safe as Sweet Home Alabama does manages to incorporate this old chestnut into the plot.
Reese Witherspoon stars as an up and coming fashion designer who is about to marry the son of the mayor of New York and if all things go to plan she will be first lady of the USA in no time. The only snag is that her childhood sweetheart cum estranged husband is refusing to sign the divorce papers for the seventh year in a row. So our heroine has to head back to her yokel friends and family in Alabama to set things right.
To lazily call this film the worst thing that Reese Witherspoon has ever done would be harsh. Calling it as bad as The Importance Of Being Earnest and hence the joint worst thing she's ever done is far more accurate. The whole film seems like a cynical exercise to show off how good it's leading lady looks in a variety of posh clothes and how well she can do different accents. As such it is less than a tenth as funny as Legally Blonde.
The high amiable fluff quotient, enough to keep a pillow factory going for years by my reckoning, would be more bearable if the film didn't spend the first half making cheap cracks about folk in the deep south before spending the second half making a grovelling apology to portraying them in this way. Without the courage of it's convictions or a decent script there is little bar the star's charm to recommend this. But since showing off the star is what this film is all about this probably counts as a success.
One Hour Photo (2002)
Little negative to say about the film
Playing against type must present a great attraction to any mainstream star bored with making the same film for the tenth time to satisfy their agents demands to have a better defined public persona. Similarly doing a low budget independent film to prove that fame hasn't changed them has flattered more than one ego over the years. Unfortunately the product of these two things is usually the ugly bug a windscreen type mess of an interesting squashed beneath the shortcomings of a showboating star performance. One Hour Photo is the opposite of this.
Robin Williams plays Sy, the manager of a the one hour photo development booth at an American supermarket. Sy is courteous, talented and caring about his job, he is also dangerously obsessed with the lives of a family who develop all their pictures at his booth. Soon this obsession is spiralling out of control.
To say that Robin Williams is a revelation is an understatement. In fact attempting to adequately enthuse about the subtly restraint and power of a performance that could unsettle a major land mass is likely to cause any reviewer sprained muscles. Suffice to say that Insomnia clearly represented Williams on autopilot and Patch Adams must have been him sleepwalking.
The pacing and composition of the film are expertly judged with the ultra normality of the surroundings and the proliferation of whites and greys perfectly capturing the emptiness of the life drawing Sy to insanity. One Hour Photo is never graphic or obscene, but on an emotional level it is devastating and has one of the graceful and inventive endings in years, one that is characteristic of the whole film.
Changing Lanes (2002)
At least Ben Affleck's performance was pretty good
With the way films are marketed you would be forgiven for thinking that great casting and an arresting idea are all you need to make a good film. One only has to witness how Martin Scorsese's name was hidden on all the publicity for Gangs Of New York , his pet project for the last twenty years, to understand the strength of this theory. Unfortunately for lazy minded marketers everywhere Changing Lanes shows what any cinemagoer could tell you, that the quality of a film is all in it's execution.
Ben Affleck and Samuel L Jackson are both in a hurry when they collide on a downtown freeway. Affleck takes off before exchanging details but without a crucial file for the case he is trying, whilst Jackson misses the custody battle for his children. This then leads to an ugly game of tit for tat revenge between the two, as they both sink lower and lower to salvage something from the day.
Despite the entire story taking place over a handful of hours the film has no tension, pace of immediacy, though this is a probably a side effect of the apathy that the lead characters provoke. Whilst Affleck and Jackson are perfectly cast as the lawyer losing sight of his morals and a desperate recovering alcoholic who seems to be fighting the whole world at once, the film never brings either to life. This is doubly galling since a good performance from Affleck seems to come once in a blue moon and so it is especially painful to see it go to waste.
By the time the fudged ending ruins what respect the film may have gained for it's gritty style you will be too sick of the shaky handheld camera work and improbable character decisions to care. Best to changed channels if you ever come across this on TV.
Die Another Day (2002)
Not bad for sequel number 19
Die Another Day is the twentieth film in the official James Bond franchaise. Try and imagine what Alien 20 or Austin Powers 20 would be like, about as enticing as a kebab purchased from a stray dogs home in this reviewers opinion. However this is Bond, and as such it kicks ass.
After a deliriously outrageous hovercraft chase through a minefield in the Korean demilitralized zone James Bond finds himself imprisoned in a hellish camp where they torture him by making him grow a John Lennon style beard and listen to Madonna, more than the average man could take. After eighteen months of such unnatural practices he is released and, after a shave and visit to the tailors, sets out to gain revenge on the man who led to his incarceration. Cue guns, girls, gadgets and more inneundos than Graham Norton introducing a Carry On film marathon.
Anyone who saw Goldmember and thought that Beyonce Knowles wasn't half bad as Foxy Cleopatra should be prepared to be blown away by Halle Berry as Jinx. With a slew of sassy outfits and as many good one-liners as Bond himself it's no surprise that there are already plans to give the chracacter, who Samuel L Jackson affectionately dubbed Cinammon Bunz, a movie of her own. There's no doubting that Berry and Brosnan have the best chemistry of any bond couple in recent history and it often feels as if you are getting two action films worth of hero instead of one.
The presence of a cameoing Madonna and some cheesy computer generated special effects are hardly decent reasons to miss the film that kicked Harry Potter's under-aged backside off the number one slot, espeacially when you know it will never look as good once it starts getting shown on TV every six months. And if the prospect of an Aston Martin pulling donuts on an ice lake and the most outrageous fencing battle in history don't appeal, then action films never will.
xXx (2002)
Enjoyably stupid
xXx is as big as Pinocihos nose after he has read a statement written by Jeffrey Archer and as dumb as a person with no tongue. It is designed for the kind of people who think that Bond movies have too much of that talking stuff between explosions and use this strange music that doesn't seem to have distorted electric guitars or rapping on it. It is also a lot of fun.
After losing another spy on the trail of ultra stupid terrorist anarchy 99, whose plan for world domination involves building a boat in a landlocked country, the NSA decide they need a new breed of agent. Therefore they kidnap extreme sports enthusiast and counter culture hero Xander Cage, aka xXx, aka Vin Diesel playing virtually the same character he did in Pitch Black and The Fast And The Furious. After watching him do Evil Kineval impersonations around a Colombian cocaine plantation whilst the army try to blow it off the face of the Earth they cut him a deal. Either save the world or go to jail. Unsurprisingly he chooses the former.
For the first 20 minutes it looks encouragingly like the they have just allowed the stunt team to make the entire movie. However before long we have scenes developing the love interest set in swanky restaurants and a lush orchestral score creeping in. This wouldn't be a problem if the writer didn't think the phrase "one liner" referred to the amount of decent dialogue he had to include in the entire film. As it is your mind starts wandering as soon as things stop exploding.
However xXx's action sequences are more than enough to compensate the viewer for their patience during the more laboured elements of the film. The stunts are by turns ambitious, outrageous and just plain improbable, however it seems unlikely that the film will be causing the James Bond producers too many sleepless nights. In fact before long they will be making films to appeal to people who think the xXx movies have too much dialogue and not enough nu-metal. They'll probably call them Jackass Bond.
The Importance of Being Earnest (2002)
Only suitable for beginners
This version of Wilde's classic should probably have been called The Importance Of Re-making Earnestly such is the banal presentation of the rich source material and no amount of hot air balloons crashing to the ground and incongrous dream sequences can make up for this.
For those unfamiliar with the plot (what have you been doing with your life?) a pair of single gentleman invent imaginary friends and relatives in order to excuse themselves from engagements they would rather not attend. However one weekend their tale tales conspire against them and their respective loves confuse them for the same imaginary person and something has to give.
The original filmed version did a good job of moving this theatrical stalwart onto the big screen however since there is no money to be made by re-releasing that into theatres the producers of An Ideal Husband have got Rupert Everett back into a nice suit and filmed the the rest of the cast out with as little invention as possible (indeed the risky decision of casting the American Reese Witherspoon leads to a mildly amusing accent reminiscent of Queenie from Blackadder, but that wears things soon enough).
The strength of the production values seem to be in inverse proportion to the enthusiasm of the cast (as is so often the case) and each time one of them utters a Wlide witticism they make an expression roughly equivalent to a small dog expecting a treat. This leaves no sembalence of character and if the story has any drive in it then it surely hasn't got any gas to achieve forward motion.
Those who are yet to see a version of The Importance Of Being Earnest will doubtless find pleasure in their first encounter with some of the wonderful prose, however those more aware of Oscar will be less impressed.
Unfaithful (2002)
More like unwatchable
Making feature films is a long and tiring business that should really only be attempted by the patient and committed, and not by ex-advertising directors whose name isn't Ridley Scott. The problem is that in the years that pass between the conception and completion of a motion picture it is easy to become over familiar and bored with the original premise of the film. This is exactly what seems to have happened with Unfaithful, a film which starts out with promise of becoming a mature look at infidelity, but is then manhandled into a vehicle for it's star.
Diane Lane plays a bored housewife who is blown off her four inch heels into French heartthrob Olivier Martinez. Before she can say pardonez-moi they are making love like rabbits on Viagra, whilst rich husband Richard Gere starts becoming suspicious of his wife's new found need to purchase sexy underwear.
Director Adrian Lyne seems perfectly suited for this kind of romping fodder having been producing respectable porn for years in the shape of 9 1/2 weeks and Flashdance. However Lyne's first film since 1997's excellent, if commercially unsuccessful, Lolita is a clumsy attempt to regain box office prominence by re-hashing past glories. Nothing else can explain why the man has taken five years to produce and direct a film that is so clearly a poor facsimile of his earlier work, which wasn't particularly distinguished in the first place.
The films script makes no attempt to develop characters and Lyne seems to think that showing endless extreme close ups will convey everything we need to know about a woman's desire for sensuality. While this style over substance approach is the directors trademark forte, here it seems to be done by the numbers, so much so that playing guess what gets cut to next is far more rewarding and interesting than paying attention to the film itself.
As the gallic lover Martinez seems to have been told just to make himself seem as sexy as possible, a job he excels at. The same cannot be said of Gere who despite objecting to Lyne sending ice-cream and cookies to his trailer every day to fatten him up, seems to have been delicately shot throughout to cover his fading matinee idol physique. Overall the script is without doubt a low point for the screenwriter responsible for the Planet Of The Apes re-make, a man so inept that alphabet spaghetti forms more intelligent dialogue.
The aesthetic pleasure of Lane and Martinez screwing each others socks off would have made for a forgivable guilty pleasure, but even this is ruined by a third rate thriller plot line that seems to appeared from a different, and some how worse, film. One can only assume that Richard Gere had got bored of the whole subject of infidelity and demanded something more interesting for his character to do. The change in tack couldn't have been more obvious if there had been a loud clunk added to the soundtrack.
Unfaithful reeks of re-writes and tinkering producers. This was most notably reported with the films ambiguous ending, which was simplified at Richard Gere's requests but then replaced with the Lyne's favoured version after negative press comments at a preview. Lyne claims the new ending will have people "talking when they hit the parking lot", one can only presume he meant talking about where they left the car. That said the film has lost it's way worse than a blind man in a desert by this point and no ending could redeem it.
What makes this is all the more galling is that the gaping plot holes and undeveloped characters are compounded by laughably obvious continuity lapses that stretch through entire scenes and a thoroughly inconsistent mood. This ruins a wonderful performance by Lane who is perfectly cast as the older woman drawn in above her head. She transcends the scripts limitations in ways so subtle and divine you feel she is paying penance for past sins appearing in dross like this.
Unfaithful is not so much a film by the director of Fatal Attraction and 9 1/2 Weeks, it's a film by a director who has decided he is unable to do anything but Fatal Attraction and 9 1/2 weeks. Commercial failure and controversy can hit directors hard, and Lyne must have suffered a lot seeing Lolita go straight to cable TV in the US, however not even that can start to excuse this pathetic piece of formula film making.
Gangs of New York (2002)
A focused piece of filmic greatness
After all the delays, budget overruns and hype Gangs Of New York has become a film that seems as if it must be heralded as the last great film of the 1970s, albeit one with the shocking punctuality to arrive 20 years late, or three hours of ponderous nonsense. Given time these extreme views will settle down somewhere in the middle but no-one can be bothered with such mundane notions so soon after the film's release.
Gangs Of New York follows a boy called Amsterdam who swears to avenge his Father's murder at the hands of Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting. Twenty years of film time later, and three hours of real time, later he finally gets around to fighting him, and that is pretty much the entirety of the plot. There are some characters who die along the way, Cameron Diaz appears as a love interest and the entirety of New York gets levelled in a riot, but all of that seems fairly incidental.
It comes as no surprise that the project that Martin Scorsese has been harbouring for 20 years is about crime and power, themes he has been exploring his whole career. What is remarkable is the way he carves such a compelling tale out of what is essentially a spectacularly long game of who will blink first. Despite moving at what seems like an elegiac slow motion the film never drags and every shot oozes style.
The sets and costume are particularly well crafted but it is the lives and deaths of the characters that dominate the film. Leonardo Di Caprio turns in a focussed and restrained performance which bears the narrative weight of the film with great maturity, and hopefully signals a return to form for the over hyped star. It is Daniel Day Lewis who steals the film with his portrayal of the psychotic Bill The Butcher. Whilst there is a touch of ham in the acting to match the overpowering array of butcher references that surround the character he seems to be opening snorting at the pantomimish antic that Anthony Hopkins has reverted to in his portrayals of Hannibal Lecter.
Many will find the films lack of blockbuster qualities disappointing and there is a definite lack of scope on display. Those looking for musing on love, life and the whole damn thing may find the film shallow and obsessed with violence and those seeking the memorable dialogue of Goodfellas and Taxi Driver will go home without a single catch phrase to retell to their friends. Instead Scorsese has crafted a wondrous cinematic depiction of pride and determination to a cause with a blindness to the world around it, and in this way Gangs Of New York is a towering achievement.
Insomnia (2002)
More unengaging style from Christopher Nolan
Take a fashionable and ambitious director with potential, add a couple of Hollywood stars looking to repair their reputations with some indie kudos, apply to a re-make of an obscure Scandinavian film and then liberally add producers (about nine in this case, including Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh) and what do you get? A slickly constructed thriller with nearly enough artistic flourishes to distract you from how hackneyed the story is.
Insomnia is the third film from Christopher Nolan, the director of the clever but somehow unsatisfying Memento. It follows a heroic detective, played by Al Pacino, who is sent to Alaska to find a child killer whilst internal affairs are searching for the skeletons in his closet back in Los Angeles. Needless to say he ends up buried in a sea of adoration by a rookie cop, in a battle of wits with the killer and unable to get a moment of sleep because of the permanent daylight.
The film is centred around a 'low key' performance from Oscar winner Al Pacino, but even though he stops emphasizing every single syllable of every single word he utters like his life depends on it, his permanently wired expression screams louder than a Beatles audience at Shea Stadium. Because of this we don't sympathize with his inability to sleep but wonder when the last time the caffeine freak actually managed to sit still for a moment.
The supporting cast is just as quirky and unengaging. Oscar winner Hillary Swank sticks to Pacino as if she if afraid she will be edited out of the movie, but apart from managing the incredible feat of simultaneously pouting and grinning throughout due to her bee sting lips, does little to grab the attention. As the killer, Oscar winner (are we spotting a pattern in the casting yet?) Robin Williams seems to bait Pacino throughout not only by framing his character but also being able to appear in a scene without desperately trying to steal it.
There is no doubt that this trio can turn in great performances, it's just that the film threatens to turn into a "I can do internal emotions better than you can" competition at a method acting convention. However even if you don't empathize with the characters there is still fun to be had watching an expert going through their paces.
Insomnia is visually striking, but often in derivative ways. The opening sequence of the Shining is aped every time a character starts driving a car and the old Sergio Leone motif of the slowly unfurling flashback snippet rears it's head. This just compounds the feeling that Insomnia is somehow less the sum of it's parts. Despite this signs of potential abound and many will be satisfied by the films abundance of style alone, however we are still waiting for Christopher Nolan to make a truly moving film.
6/10
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Flawed, but still great entertainment
The arrival of a new Star Wars film always prompts expectations of
the perfect action adventure epic, with state of the art effects, all
crammed into 120 minutes. Somehow people always seem to forget that the
original films consisted of little more than great action sequences strung
together with absurd dialogue, perfunctory acting and tenuous plots.
However the fact that everyone is getting hot and bothered over the fifth installment
shows that not even a conscious effort to derail the series, as Jar Jar
Binks surely must have been, can stop this behemoth now.
Attack Of The Clones opens with Obi Wan Kenobi and trainee Jedi
Anakin Skywalker being assigned to protect Senator Padme Amedala,
and soon finds the master chasing across the galaxy to find an assassin whilst
the apprentice struggles with his feelings for the senator. Fitted in
amongst the scenes which show the rise of the evil empire are the usual
assortment of light-sabre fights and space-craft duels.
The film has a darkness to it that few other family films posses.
There is genuine torture and pain shown on screen, possibly as a
reaction to the inanities of The Phantom Menace. Unfortunately this darkness,
typified by Hayden Christensen's broodingly wooden performance as the
future Darth Vader (think of a big gnarly tree on a dark stormy night), seems to
come at the expense of the charisma that characters such as Han Solo
and Princess Leia exuded.
This is compounded by a wayward middle section where the film
threatens to grind to a halt. The scenes of Padme and Anakin picnicking in
grassy mountains looks worryingly like a homage to The Sound Of Music,
whilst Obi-Wan's attempts to become an intergalactic Philip Marlowe are
as pedestrian as a zebra crossing, with Ewan Macgregor's most
mature performance to date being frustrated by having hold his
conversations with an incomprehensible up-turned dustbin. The dialogue of the
original films may have been clunky but at least it was distinctive and delivered
with panache, here the only memorable lines are in-jokes about the
later films.
The film is stolen by an old hand in new clothes. Yoda, now freed
from the indignities of having Frank Oz's hand up his backside, thanks to
some of the most remarkable CGI ever seen, rejoices in being able to wander
freely into battle. His jumbled up dialogue is as eccentric and enjoyable as
ever. However Yoda's greatest moment in the film comes when he
finally draws a lightsaber and engages in battle, a scene which will be played out
to the sound of the jaws of entire audiences hitting the floor in unison the
world over. The fact that a 3 front tall old-codger can convincing be
portrayed as the most powerful warrior in the universe is testament to the power
of Lucas' fantasy worlds, and it is here that the viewer is reminded
why Star Wars became so successful.
The general character and plot limitations are not as bad as
Titanic or Pearl Harbour (though you'll feel only a concerted effort could
produce scripts that inept) and the effects are superior to both. The opening
scenes, based in a over-crowded metropolis are highly reminiscent of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and have a depth and richness to them that
out-does most real location shooting. However whilst the set-pieces are
well constructed throughout, some of them seem like they were
designed as Playstation games, a feeling which the computer generated effects
only reinforce.
These quibbles are all forgotten in a finale which withstands
comparison with anything committed to film (or high definition digital video).
More than anything the appeal of the Star Wars films lies in their
celebration to the classic swashbuckling films of Errol Flynn and the Zorro
serials and the last 20 minutes serves up giant size portions of Jedi whoop-ass.
The adrenalin rush of seeing such cinematic luminaries as Samuel L
Jackson and Christopher Lee throwing themselves into gravity defying battles
that make The Matrix look like it had crashed are complemented by the
almost balletic choreography and beautifully abstract visuals. Even the addition of
hundreds of Jedi fighting doesn't saturate the senses, with each duel more
exciting than anything in the series to date.
When it is at it's best Attack Of The Clones not only looks truly
amazing, it feels truly amazing too. It has moments where it totally immerses
you in another world. However these successes are punctuated by a
mundane teenage love story that makes Dawson's Creek seem racy and an unsatisfying ending designed to lead into the sequel. The rabble-rousing action-scenes will satisfy viewers who came for the thrill-ride experience and as part
of the series Attack Of The Clones is an excellent linking episode, but
viewed in isolation this is merely a slightly superior blockbuster.
About a Boy (2002)
Less than the sum of it's parts
Early on in 'About a boy' the opinion is ventured that `no man is an island'. At the same stage I was wondering when `romantic comedy' became a euphemism for 'inoffensive date movie'. The film shed little light on the facts behind either theory, but succeeded in proving them both as true and unchangeable as rush hour traffic.
The story follows Will, a fashionable layabout with no cares in the world, and Marcus, a 12-year old boy with a manically depressed hippy for a mother whose school life makes a working week in a sweatshop seem attractive. The unlikely pair end up together when Will's plan to date single mothers for some hassle free relationships backfires in the most ironic way possible.
We are then treated to the usual selection of writer Nick Hornby's pop culture observations and comic characterisations of nerdy males having to contend with the concept of a serious relationship and real life. Whilst the electric prose of his debut 'Fever Pitch' has faded through his later works Hornby still has the power to leave a readers jaw hanging in the breeze by having his generally likeable protagonists commit truly nasty acts. It is this risk taking and realism that gives his writing an edge. Unfortunately the film adaptations of his books merely see him as the new Cameron Crowe, and 'About A Boy' offers a double jackpot with the smart arse kiddie factor that was so successful in Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous.
It is depressingly predictable that the casting tells you everything you need to know about the film. Hugh Grant can make a mass murderer seem like an amusingly misunderstood guy, so his portrayal of Will seems charming to the point of sainthood, whilst Rachel Weitz may as well have 'attractive love interest' stapled to her forehead the way the make-up and lighting departments have obviously fawned over her. Grant's spiky hair cut and characterisations can't stop the audience warming to him, where someone like Richard E Grant could have given the character real sleaze, anger and most of all depth.
Such safe playing production touches smother the original touches of the film. The homespun soundtrack, completely composed by Badly Drawn Boy, is cut so slickly into the film it starts sounding like a selection from Time Life music 'acoustic love moods' CD. This wrecks the rare pleasure of having a maverick songwriter given creative control over a movies entire soundscape (at Hornby's request no less). Toni Collete's gutsy performance as Marcus' mother is edited down to little more than a hippy-chic cameo of her Muriel's Wedding persona and idiosyncratic touches such as man and boy bonding over Countdown are poorly handled.
If this wasn't enough to send the viewers higher brain functions to sleep we are given not one but two voiceovers in the film to make sure every nuance of every performance is clearly explained with no hint of ambiguity, thereby killing off any depth that accidentally may have been left in the film.
Despite this Grant's charm carries the film safely to it's conclusion with a few belly laughs along the way. But this never excuses the fact that the film lacks the consistency of jokes to survive as comedy or the emotive depth to work as drama. In short it is another film which has lead to the words `romantic comedy' describing films which are generally neither one nor the other.
K-PAX (2001)
Enjoyable but not particularly involving
Is there intelligent life within the mainstream film industry? We assume that there must be but sometimes it seems so hard to tell. K-PAX is the kind of film that reminds you what can be achieved with a little thought when there seems to be little else going on. Even though the closest we get to fireworks is the sight of some firecrackers on the fourth of July (that don't even go off) K-PAX is still strangely compelling.
The film revolves around Prot, a man taken into psychiatric care when he appears out of nowhere at a New York railway station and claims he is a man from outer space. After a month of apathetically prescribed medication fails to show him the grim light of day (an ironic treatment since he was brought in as a drug-addicted delusional) he is handed over to psychiatrist Jeff Bridges who tries to convince him that he is as human as you or I, but as the sessions go on the good doctor starts to have some doubts.
From the moment he appears on screen Kevin Spacey seems like something out of this world. Despite his appearance being merely a pair of sunglasses away from the dreary loser in the Shipping News, Spacey is full-on charisma mode and the camera can't help lapping it up. His body language, down to the look in often shielded eyes, and tone of his voice are note perfect and confirm the genius behind the man whose choices since American Beauty seem questionable at best.
Whilst K-PAX bears superficial similarities to Brian Singer's seminal crime flick The Usual Suspects (we spend most of the film seeing Spacey spinning tales in an office) a far closer match is Don Juan DeMarco, where Johnny Depp's claim to be the world's greatest lover (which I'm sure many women easily accepted) stirs life into Marlon Brando's cynical psychoanalyst. As seems traditional Jeff Bridges brilliant doctor cannot sort his own family troubles (is this the Hollywood producers Faustian bargain for the piles of fees they poor in the LA analyst trade? That they will always be portrayed as hypocrites who ignore their wives). Mary McCormack brings great depth to the domestic scenes, with a performance whose knowingness spares us being bored with yet another cliched back story whilst perfectly illustrating every nuance of family life. Also refreshing is that Bridges remains restrained and we have no histrionics or snot-nosed tearful speeches of regret, only emotional ties straining at the dilemmas facing him.
Where the film starts to falter is in the closing third when it starts paying serious attention to the whole is he/isn't he an alien finale. Whilst the ending itself is perfectly satisfactory, the build-up seems like cerebral chess played for pride rather a defining question of life and spirit. Perhaps this is where the performances are a little too calculated and methodical, all smooth smiles and no rough edges for the audience to latch on to. The viewer also starts to miss the laconic all-knowing cool Prot when we have him blubbing in hypnosis therapy, we lack enough role-models today, can't we have one who is happy deep down?
The visual style of the film makes much play on the concept that Prot travelled on a beam of light to get to Earth and in the process sets a new record for the number of lens flares caught on camera (wasn't there a time when that was considered bad camerawork and not hideously cool? What next, having boom mikes in shot as a hip post-ironic film-literate touch?). However more than anything the films lingering visuals of daily life and nature around us give a feeling of being on the outside looking in at life, and reminding us of all the wonderful joys we miss when we lose our childlike wonder of the world.
K-PAX stands as more than a demonstration of method acting mechanics but somehow less than a truly heartfelt film. Maybe the production got too caught up in Jeff Bridges easy going coolness, or maybe showing emotion is something they are not so good at doing on the planet K-PAX.
A Beautiful Mind (2001)
Lives up to the hype
Life is a long, subtle and complex entity riddled with ambiguity and questions, without neat little dividers or convenient scenes. In short it is often a frustrating and confusing experience, which is one of the reasons why motion pictures have become as successful and as ubiquitous as they have, because they offer an escape from the problematic nature of our circumstances and allow us to dream for a few hours.
If you wish to see a balanced and intelligent portrayal of either the life of nobel prize winner John Nash or the effects of Schizophrenia then A Beautiful Mind should be well down your list, if even on it at all. However if you want 2 hours of well produced and well acted drama, and have it in you to forgive a few oversights then Ron Howard's multi Oscar winner succeeds.
The film follows the life of John Nash from his obsessive and turbulent time at Princeton university where he writes a groundbreaking paper on an economics related subject, through to his study at Wheeler labs where he becomes embroiled in top secret government work as delusions start to take over his life.
The strength of A Beautiful Mind is in how powerfully it evokes Nash's delusions, to the extent that you not only starting questioning exactly who around him is real, but wishing that some of his fantasies really were real, and as such, if you let it, the film draws you into the characters tortured world, where he is torn between impossible decisions because of his confused judgements.
The performances are all excellent and aided by the scripts wise decision to restrict tearful emotive speeches to a minimum instead of soliloquising the audience into submission. The supporting roles from Ed Harris and Paul Bethany are crucial and well delivered. Even Russell Crowe's Forrest Gump accent is forgivable due to the general restraint shown in a part that most people would have showboated throughout in. Whilst it still pales next to his remarkable performance in The Insider, this confirms that Russell Crowe's ability remains undiminished by the corrupting effects of Hollywood stardom.
Where the superficially similar Iris struggled to impress with an intricate flashback structure and dreamy abstract visuals Ron Howard keeps things relative basic, with only some fairy dust special effects trying to add a little too much saccharine to the tale (whenever Nash cracks a code it seems as if Tinkerbell is pointing the way for him with the amount of sparkles on the screen). The result of this is that whilst A Beautiful Mind may function only on a simple and restricted level, with little for the intellect or artistic eye to feast upon, it succeeds as potent storytelling where the performances and direction do their best not to obstruct or inhibit the fingers of the film plucking at heartstrings, which is what has made American cinema the most popular in the world.
Panic Room (2002)
Possibly Fincher's best film yet
Every so often a an off-the-wall director plays it straight. Sometimes it blunts their edge, like Robert Altman's Grisham-by-numbers adaptation of The Gingerbread Man. Sometimes it produces an entrancing oddity, like David Lynch's The Straight Story. However it sometimes brings out the best of the director, and Panic Room is a massive example of this, showing David Fincher's class through and through.
The story revolves around Meg, a recent divorcee who moves into a cavernous property in Manhattan that looks for all the world like the dream property to take care of her daughter. However on their first night in the house a trio of burglars break in and a stand-off ensues with Meg and daughter trapped in an impenetrable bunker in the middle of the house (the titular Panic Room) and whilst the burglars trying to get in to access a hidden safe.
It is the greatest credit to the cast, writer and director that a stock genre situtation is shown in such a fresh and vital light throughout. From Forrest Whittaker's compromised morality to Jared Leto's drug addicted craziness each role seems so real it would be an injustice to attempt to describe them in a few lines. These are not characters, these are people and people can only be defined in a few sentences by a great artist, and here there is definate evidence of greatness at work.
However where the film finds real depth is in the character of Meg. After Nicole Kidman withdrew because of injuries sustained during Moulin Rouge, Jodie Foster was brought in and the character of Meg toughened up and made less glamourous. This change in the character opens up completely different areas of the film. With the absent husband / father having left for a young model, Kidman would have lent the film an air of rejected fragile beauty being slowly crushed before finding her inner strength. A classic tale of having to reach the bottom to find a way up.
However with Foster's tougher screen personna we have a battle of the rejected woman trying to re-assert her ability to function in the world alone as stronger as she did before and determined to lose no diginity along the way. The trio of intruders become like phantoms of her husband whilst her claustrophic fear of the Panic Room mirrors her fear of this strange and new world closing in around her. Given the trust of writer and director, Foster lets her body do all the acting and gives a master class in showing how dialogue should illustrate everything the character isn't saying.
Fincher's visual style builds on Fight Club, even from a credit sequence that recalls North By Northwest but stands on its own in invention and execution. The whole film seems to be shot in a new form of 3D where every object seems perfectly natural, but with heightened depths, as if you were admiring the craftsmanship of a perfectly rendered computer simulation, but without being able to see any flaws. This works perfectly in the claustrophobic confines of Panic Room where the viewer is drawn into each room of the house and left standing next to the protaganists.
Despite featuring a couple of scenes which will have you screaming at the screen because of the characters stupidity to do the sensible thing, it is hard to find fault with David Koepp's taught script. However without Fincher's obsessively bleak vision to give it an edge Panic Room would have been another slick forgetable thriller, instead it is classic film-making that truly deserves the title of 21st century Hitchcock.
Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
Uninspired lower division fare
Bend It Like Beckham is a film that attempts to deal with adolescent angst, arranged marriages, racism, disfigurement, self-belief, homosexuality, parental disagreements, trust, idolisation, jealously, class divides, female bonding, cultural breakdown and the coming of age. However it merely succeeds in being a cliched romantic comedy which wastes interesting ideas like a striker with Tolblerone for boots.
Jess is an 18-year old whose elder sister is getting married and whose parents want her to be doing likewise as soon as possible. However she is far more interested in playing football like her idol David Beckham (who can bend a ball well, as we are reminded no less than 10 times in the movie!) than learning how to cook Aloo Chat and become the perfect wife. Against her parents wishes she joins a local girls football team and numerous plot contrivances (and there is no other fitting way to describe them) lead to misery for all involved until the cop-out climax.
Gurinder Chadra's film is not without it's redeeming features. The performances are solid and likeable with only Juliet Stevenson's image obsessed housewife seeming a little too much like it was fashioned from the back of a corn flakes packet for comfort. Jess's adolescent dreaming and view of life are also neatly captured at points, especially in the opening sequence where she fantasies about scoring the winner for Man United and having pundits heaping praise upon her, only for her Mother to invade her daydream and chastise Gary Lineker and company for encouraging her.
Unfortunately such light hearted playfulness is rare in what is a depressing sombre film, with writer-director-producer Chadra either unable to produce consistent comedy or deciding that there are more worthy causes to focus on. However there are simply too many ideas and too little depth given to the deeper issues of the film, with Jess trying to balance both English and Indian cultures and her and her parents hopes, and after a while you wonder if the film was adapted from the contents page of a book on the trials of being an Indian teenager.
The films plot, which seems like it has the words `and then...' written in capital letters every five pages of the screen play, seems to rejoice in coincidence. No sooner does one situation start developing, such as the token relationship between Jess and her coach, than the viewer is thrown a twist that lands half the protagonists in a cliff-hanger. This approach would be understandable if the film were being shown as ten minute segments on TV with the Hollyoaks theme being regularly played, but appears woefully childish on the big screen.
Lacking the emotional resonance of films such as East Is East, Bend it Like Beckham is an opportunistic piece of cinema that cashes in on a big star name who doesn't even appear, almost in the style of Bowfinger. I spent most of the time wondering who the player who kept getting dropped whenever Jess could play was, and how she felt about her disposable nature. She could be seen briefly at one point, but like most interesting things in the film, disappeared within seconds.
5/10
David Goody
Last Orders (2001)
A fine cast saves an uneventful film
Many a time has a cinemagoer been presented with the dilemma of spending an evening down the pub with fond friends or going to see the latest film on a Friday night. Last Orders presents the perfect compromise between the two, with the prospect of spending two hours in the boozer with Michael Caine, Bob Hoskins, David Hemmings, Ray Winstone and Tom Courtney The story focuses on how a family butcher played by Michael Caine's friends remember him after his death, and through a heavy dose of the tried and tested flashback formula we see his life over a period of 50 years from his youth as a cotton picking Jude Law look-a-like to the old(er) Caine we know and love. through this we see how the relationships between the five friends have developed through affairs, fights, denial, separation and, of course, masses of booze. These recollections are threaded around a journey to scatter his ashes at the pier at Margate. Director Fred Schepsi makes Last Orders a serenely paced affair, with few twists or surprises thrown in across the massive time-span covered. What this allows is a realistic sense of camaraderie between the characters to appear as scenes slowly play out in bars across the years. The meaty British thespian talent on show clearly enjoys the chance to show their chops with a decent script and quality actors to work with. Ray Winstone portrayal of Caine's alienated son allows the actor to show his lesser seen sensitive side, whilst David Hemmings' brandy soaked performance and outlandish eyebrows (you'll swear they are about to crawl off his forehead at any moment) are particularly memorable. More than anything the film has the feel of a distant memory of a particularly drunken evening being retold by a friend. The jokes don't seem quite as funny as they clearly were at the time and the seismic events seem more common place than people's reactions would have indicated. However more than anything a true sense of warmth and compassion comes across, and it is difficult not to empathise with the characters. Last Orders is unlikely to set pulses racing, but the average cinemagoers extreme fondness for the magnificent cast allows it to escape death by dry worthiness and become an enjoyably down to earth pleasure that will leave you sad to be heading home on your own when the projectionist calls last orders and the lights go up. 7/10