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timdilks
Reviews
About a Boy (2002)
Good fun - go see it
This has to be Hugh Grants least annoying film. Not just a chick flick, this well-paced, lively and entertaining movie tackles issues such as loneliness and the importance of friendship. Hughs' Norf-Lahndan accent is not as embarrassing as Dick Van-Dykes' either. Warmly recommended. 8/10
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Three hours of bliss.
There are lots of words to describe this film but if I were limited to one word to sum it up, that word would be WOW!
I spent most of my time watching this with my mouth open.
There were a couple of scenes in this movie where I was touched, and a couple of scenes in which I was chilled to the marrow. Not bad for an old cynic, who thought that I'd seen it all.
I'm going to see it again as soon as I can.
Legalese (1998)
Surprisingly good.
This is not the greatest movie ever made, but it is surprisingly good. Your attention is grabbed from the very start and you're taken on a great ride. Films like this, which don't insult your intelligence, tend to be few and far between these days.
James Garner's plays a canny defense attorney who will stop at nothing to win a case. Kathleen Turner, looking incredibly different from her Romancing the Stone days, turns in a great over-the-top performance as an investigative journalist. Edward Kerr is excellent as the new kid on the block, torn between his ambition and his conscience.
Highly recommended.
Gangster No. 1 (2000)
Shameful waste
Unfortunately the execution of this movie didn't do the script or the story justice. McDowell is badly cast as the older man. He is way too old, and his 'mockney' accent was dreadful. It's a shame they didn't just 'age' the younger actor Paul Bettaney, like they did with all the others - he was obviously more talented and menacing.
The lack of understanding of the story and the characters by the director, Paul McGuigan, was obvious in the way that the main character and his confused sexuality was not exploited or alluded to in any way. He also could not drive any decent performances out the actors, some of which had obvious talent.
The cartoonish performances that appeared in 'Lock, Stock' were also apparent here - anyone who knows any East Enders would be embarrassed by some of the acting. Dropping your aitches and saying 'cahnnt' all the time doesn't make you an East Londoner.
Directed by someone with more nous, this film could have been an absolute classic. Paul McGuigan was naive and not up to the job, MacDowell was just inept, but the rest of the cast should have been inspired to fine performances.
Gangster No 1 is sadly a waste of talent, and time.
Pearl Harbor (2001)
Offensive Garbage for the Masses
I have spent the last week trying to remember a worse film than this. I have failed miserably. This is the most appalling blend of patriotic nonsense, bad plot, weak dialog and hackneyed acting. The only reason I stayed in the theater after the first hour was that the first half was so poor, I thought that it had to get better. How wrong I was.
This offensive garbage is churned out by the studios only for the consumption of the corpulent, duncical US masses. The rest of the world groan at the patriotic hokum cooked up in the name of ticket sales. The story of Pearl Harbor is a fascinating one, with lots of tales of individual bravery, which could have been done completely differently, but unfortunately, turned up to be formulaic, jingoistic trash. When are the studios going to stop producing this polluting garbage? Only when the market disappears. When your average American Mickey-D eating Joe wises up and quits consuming this brain-dead tripe. Not for a long, long, time, then.