Film - showing at a cinema near you
Charlie Wilson's War
Director Mike Nichols and writer Aaron Sorkin make for a mighty powerhouse in this deft and remarkably enjoyable true story of politics, cocktails and tomfoolery in the 1980s. As political films go, it's a far cry from the more straight-faced movies we're used to, yet it doesn't want for moral fibre. Wilson (Tom Hanks) is a Democrat, a congressman, a letch and a boozer - in no particular order. Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts) is a right-wing Texan socialite who has a surprising amount in common with Wilson, and indeed, Gust Avrakotos (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a fiercely anti-communist CIA agent desperate for the USA to fund the Afghan mujahideen. Together they cook up a plot that is not only successful, but also makes for an immensely fun movie.
15, 97 mins
Dan in Real Life
This was not, if I am honest, a movie I expected to like. And yet Dan in Real Life is somehow blessed with a charm that extends beyond the lovability factor of its leading actor, Steve Carrell. Dan (Carrell) is an advice columnist and a widower with three daughters (in movie terms, we might call this going for the sympathy jugular) who falls for the glorious Marie (Juliette Binoche), only to find that she is the new squeeze of his younger brother (Dane Cook). Dan, the runt of his family's litter and general loser, seems to have lost again. Or has he? There are enough macho antics to keep the guys entertained, but really, this is a gambolling, romantic film. It is, perhaps, the perfect date movie.
PG, 98 mins
I Am Legend
It's 2012, three years after a devastating virus has swept through New York. The city is now overgrown and feral and Robert Neville (Will Smith), the sole survivor, roams its streets with a gun and his dog, looking for fellow survivors and the night-dwelling mutants spawned by the virus. This is an eerie film - at times suspenseful, at others filled with a draughty loneliness. But one can't help feeling this is well-trodden, Jodie Foster-esque territory: one ordinary citizen surviving in extraordinary conditions. Smith is such a watchable actor; there must be a strong film in him somewhere. Alas, this is not it.
15, 101 mins
I'm Not There
This is not so much a film about Bob Dylan - none of the characters even carry his name - as a jaunt around our obsession with him: as musician, poet, master of reinvention and the man onto whom we have projected so much cultural significance. Todd Haynes ravels up six figures, played by six actors (Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere, Christian Bale, Ben Whishaw and Marcus Carl Franklin) that roughly correspond to six different versions of Dylan: 60s beatnik, husband, railroad rider, 19th century cowboy, coffeehouse folk star and Pentecostal minister. There are of course enough strings here for things to get a little frayed, knotted and confusing at times, but Mr Haynes' film has the bona fide ring of a masterpiece.
15, 135 mins
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
We begin with a robbery on a Saturday morning: a heist, planned and plotted by Andy Hanson (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and executed by his younger brother Hank (Ethan Hawke). The target is a jewellery store owned by their parents (Rosemary Harris and Albert Finney). And so unravels the Hanson family. This is a thoroughly brilliant portrayal of unpleasantness as family values are replaced by a desire for success - with little hope of redemption. Director Sidney Lumet keeps the action sinewy and lean, while Hoffman is, of course, spectacular and Hawke makes a tremendously impressive return to the screen.
15, 117 mins
El Violin
We're in the mountains of Mexico, where tourist hot-spots nestle beside the homes of impoverished locals. Revolution is in the air, and the three generations of Don Plutarco's family travel from town to town, busking to make ends meet and quietly accumulating support for the guerilla movement. When their village falls under the grip of the military authorities, Plutarco (a magnificent Don Angel Tavira) attempts to conjure a relationship with one of the officials (Dagoberto Gama) via the violin, in an effort to gain access to the resistance's stash of ammo, which is buried out in the fields. Hardy, flinty viewing - but thoroughly engrossing.
15, 98 mins
Paranoid Park 
Gus Van Sant's tale, set in his native Portland, Oregon, involves a teenage skateboarder named Alex (Gabe Nevins) struggling to come to terms with the fact that he is responsible for a fatal accident - the death of a security guard. The cast is largely unknown (and allegedly recruited via Myspace) which does bring a degree of naturalness to the proceedings, and the overwhelming sense is remarkably similar - though thankfully less affected - to that of Elephant. It's all characteristically Van Sant, with thoroughly beautiful, languid camerawork and an impressive soundtrack, but one can't help feeling it's a little too desperate to be hip.
15, 85 mins
4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days
This outstanding Romanian film looks at illegal abortion in the dying days of Ceausescu's rule. Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) finds herself pregnant and at the mercy of the repugnant Mr Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), an illegal abortionist who not only extracts a princely sum from Gabita but also demands sexual favours from her and her friend Otilla (Anamaria Marinca) before he will perform the procedure in a cheap, grotty hotel room. This is a stunning film, shot with an unwavering eye and full of fluid, flawless performances - particularly from the young Marinca. A flourishing example of the new rise of Romanian cinema.
15, 113 mins
Lust, Caution
Strangely, the problem with Lust, Caution is its fundamental lack of lustiness. It's World War II, Shanghai is occupied by the Japanese and Chinese actress Wong Chia-Chi (Tang Wei) has been enlisted to seduce the head of the secret police, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung) - a man with a price on his head for collaborating with the Japanese. The plot does not go according to plan, and so the story is able to stretch across several years, one long, long game of mah-jong and several scenes of sexual violence. Ang Lee is a sublime director, and in many ways this is a quite exquisite film, but it lacks that essential passion, graceful intellect and emotional fire we have come to expect from his work.
18, 148 mins
Balls of Fury
The world of competitive table tennis provides the setting for this crap - the tale of ping-pong legend Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler), roused from retirement as part of a complicated plot to both avenge his father and assist the FBI in nailing the evil Feng (Christopher Walken), who is not only a ping-pong wizard but also has a penchant for murderising people with poison darts. Balls of Fury's humour is very predictable, but its biggest problem arrives 20 minutes in when one realises that although it bears all the hallmarks of a Will Ferrell movie, Ferrell is nowhere to be seen. Thereafter, the only way is down.
12, 90 mins
PS: I Love You
There are times while watching PS: I Love You when one wonders whether the film is in fact the product of some perverse Hollywood think tank - an organisation dedicated to making the most nauseating movie in history. Because that is precisely what we have here: Holly (Hilary Swank) and Gerry (Gerard Butler) are blissfully married, their honeyed existence about to be marred by Gerry's death from a brain tumour. Thoughtfully, though, Gerry does not die before plotting out a year's-worth of activities for Holly to perform after his death: chuck out his things, karaoke, visit Ireland, meet someone else - all set out in letters delivered to his grieving wife after his death. Totally dreadful.
12A, 126 mins
Half Moon
Kurdish-Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi's fourth film tells the story of Mamo (Ismail Ghaffari), a Kurdish musician in exile in Iran who, after the fall of Saddam, crosses into Iraqi Kurdistan with his sons for a concert which will celebrate the country's liberation. This is a visually and emotionally stunning film, dreamlike and bewitching, that at times seems half road-trip, half Grimm's fairytale. From the flurry of a village cockfight to set-tos with ruffian border guards and the sight of 1,300 exiled female singers raising their voices as one, this is utterly gorgeous.
12, 114 mins
The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini's novel about an Afghan refugee who, having landed in America, looks back on his childhood, receives its big-screen adaptation. Our narrator is a novelist, Amir (Khalid Abdalla), conjuring up his 12-year-old self (Zekiria Ebrahimi), his father Baba (Homayoun Ershadi), and his best friend Hassan (Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada) - whom he will betray when Hassan is brutally raped and Amir does nothing to save him. Can Amir, in adulthood, repair the damage? In this tale of regret and the search for redemption, there is an appealing waft of Joe Wright's Atonement, but there is also a want of cultural enrichment - we never really get the flavour of Afghanistan that we do in the novel. It does make for a gripping movie, though.
12A, 122 mins
Reviews by Laura Barton
FIRST POSTED
JANUARY 10, 2008
