Film - showing at a cinema near you
Brideshead Revisited
This much-anticipated adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel is a loving tribute to English country houses, Oxford quads, and the delights of Venice. Whether it does justice to the original novel - or indeed rivals the 1981 TV version - is debatable. Strolling through these charming settings is Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode), a handsome, wide-eyed young thing who becomes enchanted with an aristocratic family, falling first into a passionate friendship with Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw), then with his sister Julia (Hayley Atwell), as their estranged parents (Emma Thompson and Michael Gambon) hover overhead. But alongside these great flutterings of the heart is a discussion on the British class system, sexual taboos and, most importantly, religion. And it is here that this Brideshead grows flimsy, casting the fervently Catholic Lady Marchmain (Thompson) as the source of her family's undoing, her husband's departure and her children's confusion. What we crave here is subtlety, a more nuanced approach to such complex subjects. Instead we must make do with dreamy portraits of the English landscape, and a clutch of beautiful young things.
12A, 133 mins
Import/Export
The bright, shiny optimism of new beginnings is the subject of Ulrich Seidl's film - alongside the huge chug of disappointment once those dreams begin to fade. Olga (Ekateryna Rak) is a Ukrainian nurse and single mother who leaves her homeland and heads west to Austria in search of opportunity. Pauli (Paul Hofmann) is a security guard, recently unemployed, who quits Vienna and heads to the Ukraine with his trucker stepfather. Of course, their new lives are much trickier than they envisaged. Olga ends up working in a geriatric hospital as a cleaner - her perky, sweet spirit somewhat crumpled by her fate and the wrath of the ward matron. Pauli (a less lovable figure at the outset) is similarly crushed by what he encounters on the road east - his stepfather's sexual adventures, poverty and miserable high-rise blocks. It's bleak and it's grey and it's unremitting, but Import/Export is a rare and affecting film, Seidl, Rak and Hofmann all bringing an unusual and strangely beautiful honesty to the screen.
18, 141 mins
Righteous Kill
Getting Al Pacino and Robert De Niro on screen together for the first time since 1995's Heat must have seemed like a brilliant idea. But simply putting these two greats in the same room is not enough. There is a frustrating lack of direction and backbone to Righteous Kill and the result is that the two actors seem merely to flounder and revert to type - shouting a lot and looking angry. Two well-worn New York City cops, Rooster (Pacino) and Turk (De Niro) - who certainly earn those nicknames with their puffed-up, bird-like swaggering - are investigating recent activity by a suspected serial killer whom they thought they had jailed years before. Are they connected? Did they lock up the wrong guy? Do we care? It's certainly hard to give two hoots by the time the denouement comes round, since the film is something of a long trek (once the gleam of seeing two movie magnificoes up there together has worn off). The best way to pass the time is perhaps to wonder what you could have done with that budget (a whopping $60 million) and those actors.
15, 101 mins
The Duchess
Director Saul Dibb's cinematic debut Bullet Boy was a surly tale of gang life, so his second feature is an interesting step to the left. Here we follow Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (Keira Knightley), who - as we've often been reminded in the lead-up to the movie's release - was the great-great-great-great aunt of Princess Diana, and, in her day, also a fashion icon and gossip-column regular, trapped in an unhappy marriage. It's this last fact that occupies much of The Duchess, which skips lightly over Georgiana's political work (Milady was a prominent Whig) to focus on her relationship with William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire (a splendid Ralph Fiennes). She must tolerate his constant affairs (including one with her best friend), his decision to move his lovers into the marital home, and, in one scene, marital rape. She must also suffer her own unconsummated romance with Lord Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper), her childhood friend and the future prime minister. So, of course, there is much bosom-heaving, sumptuous decor, and plenty of shots of Knightley (who delivers a sweet performance) looking beautifully sad. It's not what it could have been - a portrait of a woman who blazed something of a feminist trail through 18th-century London society - but at the very least it satisfies our deep need for a taffeta-swishing, lushly shot costume drama.
12A, 110 mins
88 Minutes
The fundamental problem with 88 Minutes is one of excess. Not only is Al Pacino's skin too orange and his hair too bouffant, but for a film that depends so heavily upon the notion of a time schedule of 88 minutes, it overruns itself to an indulgent 105 minutes. The plot is also far too complicated. It begins with the sadistic murder of a young woman before fast-forwarding to a time when her murderer is imprisoned, thanks to the work of forensic scientist Dr Jack Gramm (Pacino), who is also a university professor with some devoted students, a bachelor pad and an impressive wine collection. Gramm's enviable existence is one day disrupted by a telephone call telling him he has just 88 minutes to live, followed by the discovery of various young women's bodies, all murdered in the same style as the first. There is, you'll gather, an awful lot to cram into those dwindling minutes. Of course it's all downright ridiculous, and quite preposterously acted (shame on you Mr Pacino). Indeed, 88 Minutes' only hope of salvation is surely the vague possibility of its becoming some kind of camp classic - a festival of dead bodies, bad dialogue and dreadful hair.
15, 105 mins
Redbelt
David Mamet continues to sniff around the subject of masculinity in this tale of Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a firm, devoted, Los Angeles jujitsu instructor. Based in an unexceptional part of the city, Mike is struggling financially, married to Sondra (Alice Braga) and blessed with a clutch of loyal students. His still, plain life is disturbed when two curious events occur: first, a stranger (Emily Mortimer) rushes in to one of his classes and fires a gun at a window; second, Mike rescues movie star Chet (Tim Allen) from a trouncing in a dead-end part of LA. By way of thanks Chet invites Mike and Sondra for dinner and offers Mike work on his new movie. But calm, noble and impecunious Mike falls victim to a con that leads him into a prize fight - competing not only for his pride but also for the money. This is no Fight Club, though; in tone and texture it's more like a classic Samurai movie. Occasionally you wish the film's visual grace would match its intellectual elegance - the clunking choreography of the fight scenes shares little with the best martial-arts movies. But this aside, Redbelt makes for intriguing viewing.
15, 99 mins
Rock 'N' Rolla
With considerable fanfare, Guy Ritchie returns not just to our screens but also to the territory that made his name back in 1998 with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels: the ducking and diving of London's gangsters. These are different times, of course, so Ritchie brings a frisson to proceedings by introducing Russian mobsters to the usual clutch of East End ne'er-do-wells. The action focuses on a shonky land deal organised by the Russians, which promises get-rich-quick possibilities for all manner of folk, including old-school gangster Lenny (Tom Wilkinson), Russian newbie Uri (Karel Roden) and Lenny's accountant (an excellent Thandie Newton). The plot thickens and thickens, until it proves almost unravellable - needless to say it involves a junkie rock star, a faked death, crooked police officers, tons of machismo, silly nicknames and a briefcase we never peep inside. One suspects Ritchie was aiming for something Tarantino-esque here, and he doesn't entirely fail - the movie has the romping feel of a good cartoon. But its characters are never fully drawn, and the movie feels strangely dated, which means, sadly, it never quite captures the zest of Lock, Stock.
15, 114 mins
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
Many of us will now be familiar with Toby Young's account of his own gaffe-prone attempt to conquer New York: a British journalist, he ballsed up a golden opportunity to work on an American magazine (here named Sharps, in truth Vanity Fair), but was somehow redeemed by the love of a good woman. There are various shifts in this big-screen adaptation. Toby is now christened Sidney (played rather splendidly by Simon Pegg) and has acquired a degree of likeability which, to be perfectly honest, the original Young seemed to lack; the hackish ambition replaced by a bumbling, Englishman-abroad routine. At the heart of this movie sits Young's drooling pursuit of a Hollywood starlet (a fabulous Megan Fox) who is firmly guarded by her publicist (an equally magnificent Gillian Anderson), and the confidences he shares with his only friend, co-worker Alison (Kirsten Dunst). Could it be that he is looking for love in the wrong place? For all the fine performances and amusing turns, How to Lose Friends never quite finds its groove - a result, one supposes, of Young's original toe-curling, stomach-curdling honesty being replaced by something a little more eager to please.
15, 110 mins
Death Race
For all its meatheadedness, there is something strangely pleasing about Death Race. It makes no apology for its ultra-violence and there are no cringeworthy attempts to reach for highfalutin' dialogue. Instead, this is a plain, simple, monosyllabic monster-truck of a movie. An update of the 1975 movie Death Race 2000, this movie (courtesy of Paul W S Anderson - thankfully much improved since his Alien vs Predator days) places us in the slightly futuristic environs of 2012 New York, where the prison service is now commanded by dodgy private companies who have instigated a money-spinning ploy where inmate is pitched against inmate in various physical feats, screenings of which make for pay-per-view entertainment. In the jail where the creme de la creme of terrible inmates reside, prison warden Hennessey (Joan Allen) has a dilemma on her hands: her prized driver - the mask-wearing Frankenstein - has been killed and she is devising a plan to replace him with Jensen Ames (a perfect Jason Statham), a racing driver wrongly jailed for the murder of his wife. If he wins the race, he can walk free. It's an oily, hulking tale told in oily, hulking grunts, hot metal, fire and fumes.
15, 105 mins
Tropic Thunder
Spawned by the talents of Ben Stiller, Etan Cohen and Justin Theroux, Tropic Thunder is an occasionally sharp, occasionally too-familiar skewering of the film industry and its audiences. Stiller is in his element as Tugg Speedman - a fully-fledged action hero who hopes to reinvigorate his career with a 'Nam movie, starring alongside respected Australian actor Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr) and popular comedian Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black). It's a movie that requires as much pyrotechnic force as the studio can muster - blood, guts, lost limbs and decapitations. But these aren't the only scenes of dubious taste: Kirk undergoes a skin-darkening procedure for his character; and Tom Cruise (as the film's Jewish producer) is a heavily latex-ed, money-hungry grotesque. It's all rather repellent, but the idea is, of course, that Tropic Thunder is an unflinching parody of Hollywood: its stereotyping, miscasting and love of violence. There are times when it gets a little lost on this mission, when the viewing is uncomfortable and the jokes a little trampled, but you can't help thinking that Stiller and co are saying something rather valuable here, and that it's rather bold of them to say it at all.
15, 107 mins
Then She Found Me
Helen Hunt's directorial debut is a muddled, clouded work - but, one suspects, deliberately so. It is, after all, a story of lives confused and stumbling, based on the novel by Elinor Lipman. April (Hunt) is a kindergarten teacher, dealing with the death of her adoptive mother (Lynn Cohen) and the tailspin of her marriage to the immature Ben (Matthew Broderick) which has lasted less than a year and clocked up two of the most dispiriting sex scenes ever witnessed at the cinema, landing her pregnant as well. Into all of this blusters Bernice (Bette Midler), a blowsy, badly-dyed talk-show host who claims to be April's real mother, and Frank (Colin Firth), a divorced father who just might be April's knight in shining armour. There is a bravery to the way Hunt directs - this could have been such a gooey schmaltzfest, after all. But here the humour is kept dry, and the actors never appear dewy-skinned and golden. April looks perpetually gaunt and weary, Bernice borders on the clownish, Ben is a pale little worm and Frank (though exuding a raffish charm) is past his best and prone to bouts of over-emotion. It works, somehow, not least because Firth here is compelling - the seediness and machismo of his earlier career now giving way to a depth and maturity - and because Hunt is wise enough never to raise the temperature beyond a satisfying slow-burn.
15, 100 mins
I've Loved You So Long
This is precisely the kind of small, intimate movie Kristin Scott-Thomas was surely born to make. Here, she's playing the slightly dowdy and extremely weary-looking Juliette, who is trying to re-forge a connection with her sister Lea (Elsa Zylberstein) after an absence of 15 years. Lea is now married to Luc (Serge Hazanavicius) and kept busy caring for two adopted children and Luc's elderly father. Though Lea tells her daughter that Juliette has been away in England, it transpires that she has in fact been in prison, jailed for the murder of her six-year-old son. Though there is plenty of satellite action as Juliette fumbles her way into employment and through dinner parties and dates, the centre of this film is the bond between Lea and Juliette and their attempts to rebuild their relationship in spite of all that has passed. Set in eastern France, it's a very handsome movie, but the most compelling thing on screen is Scott-Thomas, giving us perhaps her finest performance to date.
12A, 115 mins
The Wave
The Wave began life not as a movie, but as a television drama, before which it was a book, and even before that a real-life experiment in Palo Alto, California, in the late 60s. Frustrated by his pupils' lack of interest in the rise of Nazi Germany, high-school teacher Bruce Ross (Bruce Davison) embarks upon a project which swiftly becomes a social experiment to show how easily people can be swept up into a terrifying political movement. He inducts his students into a group called 'The Wave', which requires its members to adhere to strict codes of behaviour, and terrorise those who are not signed up. The project swiftly gets out of hand, of course, and as the entire school teeters on the brink of some fascist abyss, Ross must supply the short, sharp slap of sense. Even after all this time, it's a disturbing concept and a gripping film (though not as terrifying as Oliver Hirschbiegal's Das Experiment (2001), based on not-dissimilar events at Stanford Prison) and really ought to be compulsory viewing for high-school students.
15, 101 mins
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
It is World War II, and an unlikely friendship is blossoming across a barbed wire fence: Bruno (Asa Butterfield) is the eight-year-old son of a Nazi officer (David Thewlis) who finds companionship with Shmuel (Jack Scanlon) - a Jewish boy of his own age who is imprisoned in the nearby concentration camp. It's something of a rude awakening for Bruno as he discovers his father's involvement in the camp and draws a direct line between the man he thought he knew and the suffering of the people behind the fence who - to his young, innocent mind - are forced to wear striped pyjamas and spend their days working ceaselessly on a farm. That the resolution is grim is inevitable and necessary, though it still seems unsettling for what is essentially a children's movie (adapted as it is from the children's book by John Boyne). Strong performances from Butterfield, Scanlon and Thewlis only enhance what amounts to a sad, simple and deeply affecting tale.
12A, 94 mins
Reviews by Laura Barton
FIRST POSTED
OCTOBER 2, 2008
