Film review: Brick Lane, Beowulf, American Gangster, Jane Austen Book Club | Arts

American Gangster

There's a whiff of real danger to this movie, which is based on a true story, directed by Ridley Scott and anchored by Denzel Washington as drug dealer Frank Lucas, reigning over Harlem in the 1970s. His style is audacious: shipping heroin from South-East Asia in the coffins of Vietnam soldiers, bribing anything that moves, sidestepping the mob, buying his mother a palace and his wife everything she dreams of. Russell Crowe is Richie Roberts, a goody-two-shoes New Jersey cop who wants to bring about Frank's comeuppance. But then, so do a lot of people. The performances here are outstanding enough to leave you reeling; a really hefty punch of a movie.
18, 157 mins

Beowulf

Breach

Playing fast-and-loose with the original Anglo-Saxon epic poem, here we have Beowulf for the modern age, all lust and gore, swordfights and temptresses. Beowulf (Ray Winstone) is the mighty warrior up against not only the fiendish monster Grendel (Crispin Glover) who has been terrorising the kingdom, but also the beast's seductive mother (Angelina Jolie). Guess who proves the bigger match. Told in a kind of waxy animation reminiscent of 300, Beowulf is sure to keep the baying hordes happy but is a tremendously disappointing adaptation if you are in any way enamoured of the original poem.
12A, 114 mins

Good Luck Chuck

An embarrassing thud of a film, Good Luck Chuck tells the story of a dentist named Charles (Dane Cook) who somehow has the ability to make women fall in love after they have slept with him. Crucially, however, they do not fall in love with him, but with someone else. But while Chuck is getting a lot of sex, he's simultaneously pining for an accident-prone penguin expert named Cam (Jessica Alba), who remains seemingly immune to his charms, and who Chuck is afraid to bed lest she immediately sails off into the horizon with someone else. From its inception to its plot - even, alas, in its usually-likeable cast - Good Luck Chuck is utter dross.
15, 96 mins

Into the Wild

Sean Penn's film, which tells the true story of Christopher Johnson McCandless (Emile Hirsch), is a truly joyous work. After graduation in 1990, McCandless set off on a sprawling excursion across the US that ended in the Alaskan wilderness in 1992, where he died, apparently of starvation. In between, however, his was a journey of self-discovery, turning his back on his suburban upbringing to stoke a reverence for nature and his homeland and meeting all manner of characters along the way - the movie has a thoroughly wholemeal cast, including William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harding. Though the outcome is tragic, Into the Wild leaves us with the feeling that, though short, McCandless's life contained more satisfaction, more self-knowledge and more freedom than most of us will ever know.
15, 140 mins

Jane Austen
Book Club

The idea here, as in the novel upon which this is based, is that Jane Austen's novels provide a sturdy rulebook for the modern lady. And so we have a book club in Sacramento applying what they learn from her work to their own lives - more group therapy than literary analysis. It's an intriguing, if hokey, notion, and there's an attractive ensemble cast to play the tales out - everything from a woman who has been married six times to a floundering newlywed via a cheated wife and, at the movie's heart, a techie named Grigg (Hugh Dancy), who's pining for Jocelyn (Maria Bello), an uptight Rhodesian Ridgeback breeder. It's a glossy, appealing film, in no way groundbreaking, but certainly performed with a flourish.
PG, 106 mins

Stardust

This adaptation of Neil Gaiman's novel, directed by Matthew Vaughn, makes for a sometimes-rollicking, sometimes-whimsical fairytale about Yvaine (Claire Danes), a fallen star who has assumed human form and is pursued by the fabulously wicked witch Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer). Meanwhile, humble English villager Tristan (Charlie Cox) has promised the fairest local maiden (Sienna Miller) the gift of a shooting star and has but one week to present it, a task that requires an excursion to Stormhold, the land humans are forbidden to enter. There's a little too much going on here, with too much star-studding and a few miscastings, but nonetheless Stardust makes for an enjoyable romp.
PG, 130 mins

Eastern Promises

There is something dreadfully unpleasant about David Cronenberg's films, but arguably, unpleasantness is his point. In this London-set film, Viggo Mortensen is Nikolai, henchman to restaurateur - read gangster - Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl). Into their world walks Anna (Naomi Watts), a midwife who delivers the baby of a Russian woman who dies in labour, leaving behind the child and a card for Semyon's restaurant. So there Anna heads, a beacon of innocence amid all the grimness and moral besmirchment. Cronenberg's London, populated by both the mobsters and their prey, is fascinating, but he takes things too far: Anna is too pure, a naked fight scene too symbolic, and on numerous occasions there's gore where the promise alone would suffice. Cronenberg would be masterful, if he could only show some restraint.
18, 100 mins

Brick Lane

Nazneen (Tannishtha Chatterjee) was 17 when she moved from Bangladesh to London for her arranged marriage to Chanu (Satish Kaushik), an older man threaded through with groundless optimism. By 2001 she is settled with two teenage daughters, enjoying an entanglement with the young and politically active Karim (Christopher Simpson) and contemplating a move back home where her rebellious younger sister still resides, living a kind of parallel life that Nazneen learns of only through her letters. This adaptation of Monica Ali's book is tremendous stuff, splendidly acted and imbued with great subtlety and warmth.
15, 101 mins

Lions for Lambs

Details of a new US military offensive are revealed to a reporter (Meryl Streep) by Republican senator Jasper Irving (a fearsome Tom Cruise) - an offensive we duly see carried out in Afghanistan, where two soldiers (Derek Luke and Michael Pena) are wounded and left to perish. Meanwhile the soldiers' old college professor (Robert Redford) is attempting to prompt the political awakening of lackadaisical student Todd (Andrew Garfield). Redford's latest directorial foray is a worthy attempt to grapple with the issues of America's wars abroad, and boasts some splendid performances, but is perhaps little more than an impressive example of preaching to the converted, in sum, a liberal message spelled out in words of one syllable.
15, 92 mins

Elizabeth:
The Golden Age

The first Elizabeth was a sublime piece of cinema. This, though, is a little too ITV, with a syrupy, sentimental heart and a swashbuckling approach to historical accuracy that does little to help our understanding of the monarch (Cate Blanchett) in her later years, when England is under attack by King Philip II of Spain (Jordi Molla). The film's failure is in some way baffling: it shares a director with the first Elizabeth and the cast is tremendous. But Elizabeth: The Golden Age is not a film you can believe; it tells us a lot of nonsense, and does it in the flush-cheeked fantastical manner of the barstool braggart.
12A, 114 mins

In the Shadow of
the Moon

This stirring documentary about the US space project of the 1960s and 70s draws on archive footage and personal testimonials from astronauts who took part in its missions. At the film's centre is the 1969 Apollo mission that in due course led man to walk on the moon, and, in US terms, beat the USSR to the prize. It is moving to see not only the awe that space travel inspired in its passengers, but also the hope and pride it engendered back on earth. A rich, vibrant and immensely humbling piece of cinema.
U, 100 mins

Air Guitar Nation

Air guitar is a serious business these days, and Alexandra Lipsitz's pleasing documentary follows a clutch of candidates vying for the chance to represent the United States at the 2003 international championships in Finland (where the reigning champion is fearful of the onslaught of the Americans who only joined the fray that year). When you're not laughing, you're busy rooting for the underdogs, of course, and wondering at the awesome techniques of competitors such as those laid down by David 'C-Diddy' Jung, an actor whose kung fu style 'playing' takes him to the finals in Los Angeles and beyond. With a wonderful air of a Christopher Guest mockumentary to the movie, you have to pinch yourself to remember this is real. Fabulous stuff.
15, 81 mins

Death at a Funeral

A very British farce about a well-liked old gent whose demise summons all manner of friends and acquaintances to his funeral. The problem is that his death reveals the secret life he had long concealed, a life that curiously involves a dwarf (Peter Dinklage), who has now appeared waving some rather compromising material and demanding a slice of inheritance. Meanwhile all manner of doolally activities are occurring elsewhere in the house. Directed by Frank Oz, the voice of the Muppet Show's Miss Piggy, the film sails perilously close to the wind at times, but is actually amusing, in a surprisingly adult way.
15, 90 mins