Reviews

I'd heard many good things about this film, so perhaps I was expecting too much.

I'll get the good parts out of the way. The cinematography and art direction are first rate, plenty of light and shade and good use of camera angles.

Eminem's acting is not as bad as I thought it would be, but I don't think he could do anything other than playing himself.

Right, onto the bad things. The script is no more than average, it jumps all over the place and leaves us none the wiser - leaving a not particularly startling insight into B Rabbit's mind.

It also leaves lot of loose ends. For example - what exactly does happen to their home - and in the context of the film, does it actually matter? What is the significance of him driving by his ex-girlfriends house and what did it add to the film?

You could also see most of the plot twists coming from 8 miles away and the supporting characters are weak and not entirely believable.

Future - for example dresses and acts like a daisy age hip-hopper. He sounds middle class and eloquent and really doesn't seem the type who would be a local success, hosting underground hip-hop battles. Alex's character is woefully underused and Kim Basinger just doesn't seem suited to her role of the trailer trash mum.

The comedy element in Cheddar Bob just doesn't work and ends up being grating and predictable rather than amusing. He is seriously overused, especially as his sole purpose seems to be to give Eminem the inspiration for his final battle.

Also, as it is set in inner city poverty in an extremely violent city, in the middle of the gangsta rap era, why is the pulling of a gun in a fight seen as something horrendously shocking? Why are none of the characters involved in anything illegal?

In short - it comes across like a bad student of wong kar wai's incidental, isolationist style of film making having a crack at a 21st century rocky story.

Tackling a book such as Germinal is a mammoth task - and one that I always thought was extremely difficult to transfer onto the big screen.

There are two ways you can do it, keep it simple or explore everything and bore the audience to death. You can see here that the director has decided to keep the story as simple and straightforward as possible.

This means there are a few gaping holes in the film, as it ignores some of the intricacies of the story and many of the sub-plots which punctuate the story and add to the feel of the book.

In one sense he succeeds, as the tempo of the film is high and it rattles along at a fair pace, not reading like a 2 and a half hour story.

But the major drawback of this tactic is that Germinal ends up looking like a simplistic noble workers versus the greedy bosses story, when the novel is anything but that.

Scorn is poured on both sides with equal contempt by Zola, and plenty of sympathy is given to some of the "wealthy" protaganists in the book.

Having said this, I do understand that in order to keep the film from turning into a 4 hour behemoth, you need to try and keep it as simple as possible.

On the whole, however, it is pretty well acted and the art direction is utterly breathtaking. The villages, the pits, the landscapes, the mines are fabulously shot. You really can feel the poverty oozing from every inch of the screen.

Gerard Depardieu (Maheu) and Renaud (Ettiene) put in some pretty convincing turns but feel that Jean-Roger Milo rather over-egged Chaval, turning him into some pseudo incredible hulk type character who is incapable of speaking normally. Judith Henry also seems a little to young and fresh faced to play Catherine.

I think I let my interpretation of the book cloud my judgement, and as a result I was disappointed because I expected more from the film than I should have.

Rating: 3 out of 5

I don't think I need to add much to the comments on this page really. IA is a refreshing look at a well worn path.

Just to answer the oft mooted query about the relevance of Chan's ex-girlfriend.

I guess her brief cameo is designed to heighten his sense of isolation as he (a lonely, almost broken man with an identity crisis) - is given a glimpse of what his life could have been like.

Likewise, Lau's girlfriend is there to exacerbate his character's turmoil, never allowing him to have any respite from his conscience.

Both of these things seem to be shoehorned in a little, and it would have been better to see Lau's girlfriend develop a little in character to give that sub-plot more credence. The issues she raises in him could certainly have been explored more.

However, the incidental meeting between Chan and his ex is the sort of thing that happens from time to time, and often sends you into reminiscence. However in his situation, it is enough to send his levels of self doubt and longing for a normal life soaring.