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Reviews
Amadeus (1984)
Visual and aural treat
I first saw "Amadeus" in early 1985, by which time it had already been festooned with 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture. I saw it again in the summer of 2002 when it was re-released as a director's cut, an additional 20 minutes taking the total running time to a full three hours. The extra footage does not make much difference to what was already a stunning work, but the digital remastering can only help the appreciation of a glorious performance.
Peter Schaffer reworked his own play to create the screenplay for this psychological and musicological struggle between the young genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) and his much less well-known contemporary Antonio Salieri (1750-1825), while Czech director Milo Forman returned to his former homeland where Prague provided brilliant settings evocative of 18th century Vienna, including the Tyl Theatre where in fact the premiere of "The Magic Flute" was held. Indeed the film is veritably a visual and aural feast with sumptuous costumes and sets and plenty of Mozart's sublime music.
I still have some difficulty with the casting of American-accented and eternally giggling Tom Hulce as the farting but fabulous Mozart, although he is undeniably impressive. However, it is F Murray Abraham as Salieri - a man consumed by jealous over the other's precocious talent - who gives a breathtaking virtuoso performance. Inevitably, when one revisits a film after so long, one notes the subsequent career of the actors. Tom Hulce seemed to disappear, Abraham never obtained a similarly challenging role, while Cynthia Nixon (who played a maid employed to spy on Mozart) has found fame of sorts in the hit television series "Sex And The City".
Men in Black II (2002)
Boys in black are back - but why?
In 1997, I enjoyed the original movie enormously and, five years later, the boys in black are back, but this is a tired and disappointing sequel. On paper, it probably looked like easy money: the same director (Barry Sonnenfeld who has a tiny, non-speaking role), the same stars (Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones with some role reversal), and some of the same creatures (Worm Guys and Frank the Pug have expanded parts). But, if there is a plot, it's as disguised as many of the aliens and, if you go to the cinema as often as I do, you've already seen many of the best bits in the trailers.
Monsoon Wedding (2001)
Rich and rewarding
British films "East Is East" and "Bend It Like Beckham" have examined the inter-generational culture problems of families originally from the Indian sub-continent bringing up a family in urban England. But "Monsoon Wedding" makes it clear that one does not have to leave India to find clashes of values within the Indian family. Punjabi director Mira Nair uses the device of a large-scale arranged wedding - an event lasting some days and involving much expense, ritual and tradition - to explore a range of inter-personal relationships, skillfully woven together in a screenplay by Sabrina Dhawan.
This is a vibrant and colourful movie full of contrast: between the relative peace and affluence of the Verma family home and the endlessly noisy and teeming streets of Delhi, between the normally dry and dusty weather and the regular monsoon downpours, between the candles, flowers and saris of a joyous wedding and the discovery of awful inter-family abuse. Even the dialogue is a contrast, constantly shifting between English, Hindi and Punjabi. Finally there is something of the music and dancing that one expects of a traditional Bollywood product. In short, this is a rich and rewarding work that deserves a world audience.
Kissing Jessica Stein (2001)
Fresh and enjoyable
This is such a fresh and enjoyable romantic comedy with the twist that it centres on two basically straight New York women who experiment with a lesbian relationship. It could so easily have been prurient or embarrassing or just plain sexist, but that it succeeds so well and so endearingly is down to Jennifer Westfeldt and Heather Juergensen.
These two wrote and performed the original off-off-Broadway play and have now successfully transfered their scripting and thespian talents to the screen. Westfeldt plays the eponymous Jessica, a Jewish singleton who sets impossible standards for both herself and her male suitors, while Juergensen is the cooler Helen who seduces Jessica into trying something Sapphic. The dialogue and acting are very naturalistic and, together with direction by Charles Herman-Wurmfeld, it makes for entertaining, if undemanding, viewing.
Murder by Numbers (2002)
Movie by numbers
Cute, doe-eyed and snub-nosed Sandra Bullock came to our attention in action movies like "Speed" and "The Net" but has become best-known and well-liked in a string of romantic comedies such as "While You Were Sleeping" and "Forces Of Nature".
"Murder By Numbers" is clearly her attempt to strike out into tougher characterisations, since here she is a homicide investigator, seemingly with a male attitude to sex, seeking to bring to justice two amoral teenagers who think that they have committed the undetectable crime. It doesn't really work and Bullock is either going to have to find better scripts or revert to type.
Minority Report (2002)
Majority support
The first-time pairing of director Steven Spielberg and producer-actor Tom Cruise promises something really special, but their ambitious work only partially delivers. The premise of this sci-fi movie, based on a Philip Dick short story of 1956, is that in a Washington DC of 2054 special humans called "pre-cogs" (the most important played by the androgynous Samantha Morton) can forsee future murders so accurately that a Pre-Crime Unit, with Cruise as top cop, is able to intervene and arrest the potential murderer before he kills his victim.
If one can go with this bizarre idea, it's still hard to understand how, at the end of the day, the assailant apparently has a choice. There are other plot incredulties, such as how the Pre-Crime people neglect to withdraw Cruise's corneal security clearance once he himself is identified as a future murderer and goes on the run.
However, if one can overlook these plot weaknesses, a tendency to introduce unnecessary humour, and a couple of sentimental final scenes, the film has much to commend it, above all a roller-coaster action-packed ride with some sharp twists in the tale. The feel of the movie - dark, washed-out colours and hi-tech gadgetry & equipment such as a wall-screen for constructing digital evidence - and the sound of it - music from four classical composers plus John Williams - create a world reminiscent of "Metropolis" or "Blade Runner" and there are some terrific sequences such as the chase by jetpack-enabled police and a reconnaissance operation by robotic spiders.
In short, "Minority Report" is going to have majority support, but the aforementioned "Blade Runner" it isn't.
Spider-Man (2002)
Entertaining yarn
The four "Superman" movies, "Supergirl", the four "Batman" films, the "X-Men" - saw them all and (to varying degrees) enjoyed then all. So I needed no encouragement to see another fantasy super-hero brought to the big screen and the record-breaking $114M opening weekend in the States just whetted my appetite. The film does not disappoint, providing fun and flying in good measure with some superb computer animation - but it's hard to see just how it took so much money so fast. For me, the first two "Superman" films still take some beating.
Perhaps it's something to do with the post-September 11 need for protection and it was right - although cinematically a loss - to cut the original sequence involving New York's twin towers. Perhaps it's 'that kiss', unlikely and uncomfortable though such an inverted encounter would be. It must have something to do with Tobey Maguire who was so weird in "The Ice Storm", but brings a kind of nerdy charm to Peter Parker. It may well owe something to Willem Dafoe who looks bizarre even before he dons the Green Goblin mask and gives the most over the top performance of a super-villain since Jack Nicholson was the Joker (I'd love to have his flying device).
Surely it wasn't Kirtsen Dunst as Mary Jane (MJ) - liked the cute dimples, but hated the red hair, and really she is a rather plain Jane. It certainly wasn't the puerile plot or the dire dialogue. So I guess in the end it was Sam Raimi's assured direction and John Dystra's brilliant special effects that spun such an entertaining yarn.
Bend It Like Beckham (2002)
Better than watching the World Cup
This is a sheer delight of a film. OK, the cliched plot-line is straight out of a cheap comic: young footballer overcomes personal obstacles to score winning goal in final seconds of crucial match. But the twist is that the 18 year old football fanatic is a girl - and she's Asian to boot!
Parminder Nagra is utterly credible as Jess, inspired by her Manchester United hero David Beckham and encouraged by her English friend Jules (Keira Knightley) and Irish coach Joe (Rhys Meyers), but thwarted by Indian parents trying hard to maintain their religious and social traditions in west London's Hounslow (just down the road from where I live).
Director and co-writer Gurinder Chadha presents a wry and very funny observation of the culture clash and its ultimate resolution in a movie brimming with sharp dialogue and comedic scenes, all enlivened by a superb sound track.
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Franchise's Fifth Finds Form
There's nothing quite like a new "Star Wars" film to excite movie fans and, on the opening weekend at the première cinema in London, the sell-out audience was buzzing with expectation as we awaited the familiar theme tune and introductory sloping text. When it came, the folk applauded and hooted with pleasure. There is a family tradition of two decades whereby I take my son Rich to the new "Star Wars" movie and, although he is now in his mid-twenties and a fully fledged Jedi knight, we still honour that tradition - and it was just as well because, on occasions, this 50-something fan needed a bit of explanation of a convoluted plot.
I liked "The Phantom Menace", but "AOTC" will appeal more to aficionados, not least because - like the middle film in the second trio, "The Empire Strikes Back" - it is altogether darker, both metaphorically and visually. I'm becoming used to Ewan McGregor's weird accent as Obi-Wan Kenobi and lobeless but lovely Natalie Portman is a delight as Padmé Amidila. However, it is Canadian newcomer Hayden Christensen who has the most challenging role as 19 year old Anakin Skywalker, a personality in transition, constantly torn between the light and dark side of The Force. When he describes the savaging of the Tusken Raiders who killed his mother, one is reminded of the massacre scene towards the end of "Lawrence Of Arabia".
As always, George Lucas' fifth in the franchise is a technical tour de force. In the course of some 2,200 effects shots, we encounter wonderfully inventive worlds and weapons and a marvellous array of characters and creatures, all enhanced with stunning visuals and superb sound. Again as always, the weakest part of the production is the dialogue which reduced the audience to unintended laughter at several points. As Harrison Ford allegedly told Lucas on one of the earlier films: "George, you can type this s***, but you sure can't say it". On the other hand, Lucas was inspired to create the "Star Wars" saga by the Saturday matinee serials like "Flash Gordon" and their scripts were even worse.
At the end of the day, "AOTC" is not fine art but simple entertainment and, on that level, it certainly delivers with a roller-coaster ride and a thrilling finale that features - the best bit of the movie - Yoda kicking ass with Count Dooku. Personally I can't wait for 2005 and Episode III.
Tmavomodrý svet (2001)
A needed contribution to history
This is a Czech-German production with the dialogue half in Czech and half in English made by the Czech father and son, writer and director, team of Zdenek and Jan Sverak who brought us the delightful Oscar-winning `Kolya' in 1997. I had to wait for a full year after the film was shown in the Czech Republic before it secured a British release, but I was always determined to see it because it concerns a subject close to my family and my heart: the war-time record of the Czechoslovak pilots who flew with the Royal Air Force.
The film titled `'Tmavomodry svet' in Czech - focuses on two contrasting personalities: Spitfire pilots Franta Slama (played by Ondrej Vetchy) and Karel Vojtisek (Krystof Hadek). I'm sure that it's not too much to assume that the names of these two characters are illusions to Josef Frantisek, who shot down 17 fighters in the Battle of Britain, and Karel Kuttelwascher (my wife's father), who shot down 15 bombers on night intruder raids plus three fighters.
Like `Pearl Harbor', the war becomes a backdrop to a triangular love story involving two men besotted with the same woman. In this case, the rivals are the Czech airmen Franta and Karel fighting over a married English girl (Tara Fitzgerald) which rather dilutes the political messages of the movie. Most viewers will not have known that these heroes were imprisoned after the 1948 Communist take-over in Czechoslovakia and that it was not until the velvet revolution' of 1989 that many young Czechs knew about their countrymen's contribution to the allied victory.
The film is a well-researched piece, full of authentic detail, with some splendid Spifire flying and beautiful photography, but ultimately it is too slow and too sentimental to make the impact that it should for English-speaking viewers who are less interested than me. Although the film has been an enormous success in the Czech Republic, in the UK at least sadly it has played to tiny audiences.
The script is loosely based on books by two Czech veterans, Frantisek Fajtl and Antonin Liska, both of whom I have met. One of the technical advisers on the film was my good Czech friend Zdenek Hurt and on the official Czech web site for the movie the Czech edition of my book `Night Hawk' is mentioned as source material. Most amazingly, pilot insignia ("wings") worn by the two main stars belonged to Karel Kuttelwascher and his friend Gustav Pristupa and the leather pilot cap and gloves worn by Vetchy the principal hero belonged to Kuttelwascher.
On the aircraft front, viewers might be surprised to learn that there were only two flying Spitfires in the movie: Nigel Lamb flew Spitfire Mk Vb (BM597) from Duxford and Robs Lamplough flew Spitfire Mk.VIIIc (MV154) which he owns. All the other fighters were there due to the marvels of computer graphics and modelling plus some clever recycling of material from the 1969 film `The Battle Of Britain'. However, in a short scene, there is a lovely flying shot of a B-25 Mitchell bomber. Meanwhile on the ground, in an erotic opening scene, we see the pre-war Czechoslovak fighter the Avia B-534.
The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)
Entertaining swashbuckler
Since Alexandre Dumas wrote his wonderfully-plotted novel of false imprisonment and cruel revenge in 1844, there have been countless film and television versions, but the success of `The Mask Of Zorro' which similarly involved the tutoring of an intended avenger in the art of swordmanship clearly showed audiences' appetite for old-fashioned swashbuckling. This new version comes from director Kevin Reynolds who gave us `Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves' and `Monte Cristo' is more restrained but almost as entertaining.
American Jim Caviezel, as the unfortunate Edmond Dantes, and Australian Guy Pearce, as his erstwhile friend Fernand Mondego, both put on English accents for this romp in Napoleonic France, but acquit themselves well, especially the sneering Pearce (the bad guy had the better role in `Rob Roy' too). Richard Harris who, as in `Gladiator', has to die to move on the storyline makes the most of his role, but the Polish/American Dagmara Dominczyk should have brought more than a pretty face to her part as Edmond's lover and Fernand's wife.
There is some magnificent scenery the film was shot in Ireland and Malta and some memorable sequences, such as the arrival of the Count in a balloon and the final swordfight in a wheat field, but the movie needed more pace and a better soundtrack if the buckle was really to swash.
K-PAX (2001)
"I've got a light beam to catch"
Great title, reminiscent of `THX 1138' from George Lucas. However, although this might sound like another science fiction movie - which initially put off my wife this is an earth-bound tale devoid of special effects. Kevin Space, as a character called Prot, is either a visitor from a planet called K-PAX who can travel faster than the speed of light or someone very seriously mentally ill with complex and detailed delusions. Assigned to find out is Jeff Bridges as Dr Mark Powell who on his own admission becomes too deeply involved in the mystery.
Spacey, an actor with an otherworldliness' about him and a surname to match, is utterly believable as the benevolent and insightful alien with a consuming taste for fruit. Of course, Bridges has been here before and performs well as the doctor who often cares more about his patients than his family. He was himself a visitor from outer space in `Starman' and he was a psychiatrist again in `Vanilla Sky'. Indeed so well cast are the two that it's hard to imagine that originally Spacey was going to be the shrink and Will Smith was slated to be the spaceman.
There are some good lines (`I've got a light beam to catch'), but unfortunately it all looks rather familiar. The idea of a man with seemingly magic powers was done in `Phenomenon' and the cathartic revelations in the psychiatrist's office is straight out of `The Prince Of Tides'. Although there is much sentimentally, the ending is uncharacteristically down-beat and unless you're like me and watch all the credits you'll miss a tiny scene at the very end of this particular rainbow.
Kate & Leopold (2001)
Fun, frothy, forgettable
Meg Ryan now 40 was probably born a cute and ditzy blonde with a shaggy dog hair style. Indeed she may well have emerged from the womb crying: `Yes! Yess!! Yesss!!!' I've been a fan since seeing her in `Innerspace' and who could forget her fake orgasm scene in `When Harry Met Sally'?
So she is a natural if typecast in this romantic comedy where she plays the New York advertising executive Kate McKay. More surprising is Australian-born but London-based Hugh Jackson Wolverine in `X-Men' who sports an impeccable English accent as the suave Duke of Albany transported from 1876 via a crack in time located at the Brooklyn Bridge (which - perhaps fortunately - I didn't notice when I was there).
There have been many fish out of water' movies set in New York, ranging from `Crocodile Dundee' to `The Dream Team'. This one is likeable but light, frothy but forgettable.
Gosford Park (2001)
Old-fashioned - and wonderful for it
I didn't think that they made films like this anymore, but I'm certainly glad they do because it is a sheer delight. In many ways, it is the quintessential British movie, combining the social satire of the old television series `Upstairs, Downstairs' with the conventions of an Agatha Christie murder mystery, the whole thing populated by a magnificent collection of British character actors. Yet it was directed by the American Robert Altman who has become the master of the ensemble movie, whether it be `The Player' or (less successfully) `Pret-A-Porter'.
Gosford Park actually Syon House in west London, near where I live is the stately home of Sir William (Michael Gambon) and Lady Sylvia McCordle (Kristin Scott Thomas) who invite some relations and guests to a shooting party in 1932. Before too long, Sir William has been murdered and writer Julian Fellowes who gives the cast some wonderful lines in a richly-textured script ensures that there are plenty of suspects with a whole variety of theoretical motives.
In fact, Sir William is such an unpleasant character that we don't really care that he's been killed and the rites and rituals of the British upper class are dissected with such fascination that we don't care that much who killed him either. But tradition decrees that we have a murderer and a motive and we are given at least one of each.
There are so many fine performances from so many well-known (at least to a British audience) faces - Alan Bates, Jeremy Northam, Charles Dance, Clive Owen, Robert E Grant, Helen Mirren, Emily Watson, and many more but it is the aged Maggie Smith as the Countess of Trentham who has some of the best lines and ultimately steals the show.
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Quirky movie made by a stellar cast
I'm at all sure that I'd have gone to see this film if it hadn't received such positive reviews. The strange title gives no indication of the subject matter and, when one does discover the theme of the movie (examination of a dysfunctional well-off New York family), it's not exactly a crowd-puller. Royal Tenenbaum is the odd name of the head of an even odder family, played by Gene Hackman an actor who is now in his 70s and starring in his 80th film. Hackman does little comedy believe it or not, this is a funny movie but here has the pivotal role in a stellar cast.
His wife Etheline whom he left 17 years ago - is played by Anjelica Huston and they have three grown-up' children, each of whom was once a prodigy and now has psychological problems. There's Chas (Ben Stiller), a financial whizz-kid, Richie (Luke Wilson), a one-time tennis champ, and Margot (a panda-eyed Gwyneth Paltrow), a playright of sorts.. If that was not enough, there's Danny Glover as Etheline's suitor, Bill Murray as Margot's husband, and Owen Wilson (who teamed with Hackman in `Behind Enemy Lines') as a family friend.
It's this talented cast that gives director and co-writer Wes Anderson such an entertaining success for such a quirky movie. Without them, it's hard to see how this would have been more than a light-weight curiosity
We Were Soldiers (2002)
Gibson's war trilogy comes to an end - hopefully
Mel Gibson has now given us a trilogy of leadership in war' movies. Putting aside `Gallipoli' (where he was a mere foot soldier), he has led the Scottish against the English in `Braveheart', turned the tide for the Americans against the British in `The Patriot', and now he commands Custer's old unit in Vietnam. This is an account of one of the very few full-scale battles between American troops and North Vietnamese regulars which occurred in November 1965 in the Ia Drang Valley in the Central Highlands (recreated in central California). Some 400 US soldiers took on around 2,000 Vietnamese in a fire fight lasting three days and nights.
I've never been over-impressed by Gibson as an actor. He's fine in roles such as the wacky cop in the `Lethal Weapon' series, but I find him a performer of limited range. Nevertheless, here he has beefed up his body, adopted a gruff Southern accent and put on a smart uniform to enable him to give a more than adequate performance as the real life Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore. For Gibson, this is clearly a very personal endeavour. His company Icon co-funded and distributed the film and the director and screenwriter is his old friend Randall Wallace who wrote `Braveheart' (and `Pearl Harbor'). Gibson himself a Catholic with a large family obviously identifies with Moore who is represented as fatherly to both his children and his men. Ironically Gibson's own father moved the family from the USA to Australia partly so that his sons would avoid the draft.
Veteran Sam Elliott is good as the stereotypically tough, loyal and laconic second-in-command (`Sir, Custer was a pussy. You ain't'), but Madeleine Stowe is sadly under-utilised as Moore's stoical wife. By contrast with `The Deerhunter', `Platoon' or `Born On The Fourth Of July', this is very much an officer's view of the Vietnam war with working class characters given very little to say.
War movies will never be the same since `Saving Private Ryan'. `We Were Soldiers' like `Black Hawk Down' - presents a brutally visceral version of war in which we are left in no doubt of the terrible sound and awesome destruction of modern ordnance. Indeed there are so many similarities between these two films issued within weeks of one another. Both are based on books and show the essential role of the helicopter in modern warfare to both deliver and sustain ground troops and the all-decisive nature of air power; both involve US troops being massively outnumbered by local forces, inflicting far more deaths than they suffered, and having to fight by night as well as day; and, above all, both portray ill-conceived and ultimately failed American operations in an heroic light.
What distinguishes `We Were Soldiers' from so many other Vietnam movies is the patriotic and religious tone which is made easier by the timing of the incident in question. This was a period before the cynicism and chaos of the war had taken hold, when the Americans still thought they were right to be in this Asian quagmire. For the British viewer, this tone will not sit so easily, although one cannot fail to be stirred by the action and the music. However, I saw the movie with an American friend, who once wrote a book based on the recollections of 19 Vietnam veterans, and he confirmed my clear impression that American audiences -especially post-9/11 - will love it.
Charlotte Gray (2001)
Blanchett the new Streep
I've been a great admirer of Cate Blanchett ever since I saw her eponymous performance in `Elizabeth' and she is perfectly cast here as the Special Operations Executive agent on her first mission to Vichy France. Blanchett is the Meryl Streep of her generation not classically beautiful but simply luminescent, wonderful with different accents in different roles, and a magnificent actress. Ironically Streep herself once played a former SOE agent in the film `Plenty'.
As well as unusually in a war film a woman in the leading role, the director is a woman, Gillian Armstrong, and indeed this is more a love story than a war movie. Yet, when all is said and done, this is the Second World War and the film does lack action sequences and dramatic pacing. I much enjoyed Sebastian Faulks' First World War novel `Birdsong' and I suspect that when I do eventually read it I'll find that `Charlotte Gray' works much better as a book than a film.
A Beautiful Mind (2001)
Manipulation of the best kind
Mental illness often makes compelling cinema - think of `Rain Man' or `Shine'. Now both sides of the Atlantic have produced new movies on this theme, looking at the effect of such illness on brilliant and famous individuals: from the UK there is `Iris' portraying Alzheimer's Disease and from the US comes `A Beautiful Mind' examining paranoid schizophrenia.
This latter work is essentially the story of American mathematical genius John Forbes Nash Jnr whose biography of the same name was written by Sylvia Nasar. However, I say 'essentially' because director Ron Howard - known for his 'triumph over adversity' movies (`Apollo 13', `Backdraft', `Parenthood') - has given us a somewhat sentimentalised and sanitised version of a complex life. Nowhere in this film will one learn anything of Nash's homosexuality or importuning, one would never guess about his divorce and remarriage, and we are told nothing of his repressed upbringing or his son's own troubles with schizophrenia.
Having said all this, `A Beautiful Mind' is a must-see movie, primarily because of an outstanding performance from Russell Crowe who plays Nash from his arrival at Princeton in 1947 to his award of the Nobel Prize in 1994. Adopting Nash's West Virginian accent, his ornamental style of speech and mannered mode of movement, this is a character a million miles away from the assured confidence of Maximus in `Gladiator' and will deservedly win him many awards.
Jennifer Connelly is excellent as Nash's wonderfully supportive wife Alicia. Like `Iris', there is not much on the principal's work but, again like `Iris', this is ultimately a love story - an account how a partner can be there when the spouse has literally lost his or her mind. Director Ron Howard skilfully manipulates us, both visually and emotionally but, in a sense, all art is manipulative and, if we fall for the trap, it's because we want to. We want the human spirit to survive and succeed - and here it most assuredly does.
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
Inversion of the convention
The cinematic convention is that the remake of a successful film is rarely as good as the original, but here director Steven Soderbergh has inverted that convention by taking a mediocre movie of 1960 and turning it into an enormously entertaining caper. A lot of it is down to Soderbergh's sheer cinematic verve; some of it is explained by the sharp script from Ted Griffin; but ultimately it works because of the stellar casting.
George Clooney oozes charisma and cool as Danny Ocean, a career criminal who is no sooner out of jail than, like Yul Bryner in `The Magnificent Seven', he's recruiting for a mission impossible. Few shots are fired on this escapade, though, because it all comes down to planning, cunning and sheer bravado.
Along for the fun and it's clear that the crew really enjoyed themselves are young stars Brad Pitt and Matt Damon, old timers Elliot Gould and Carl Reiner, and sundry others ranging from a non English-speaking Chinese acrobat to a Cockney-speaking black man. Andy Garcia is the owner of the three casinos whose $150 million is targeted and Julia Roberts is his girlfriend who at least for Ocean is as much a target as the money.
The plot is totally fanciful, never more so that in the suggestion that one could take possession and operate a device that would knock out the electricity of Las Vegas without either act attracting the attention of law enforcement let alone special forces. But it is all done with great panache and, as sheer entertainment, this is hard to beat.
Footnote: The movie ends with a beautiful rendition of `Claire de Lune' by Debussy. Question: which other film uses this piece classical music? Answer: the 1991 `Frankie and Johnny'.
Vanilla Sky (2001)
Four Cs and a B+
What do you have if you take two Cruises and two Camerons? Four Cs and a B+, that's what. The first two Cs are Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz who are playboy publisher David Aames and his newly-discovered love (both on and off-screen). The second two Cs are Cameron Diaz as Aames' `f**k-buddy' Julie and Cameron Crowe as both writer and director of this strange thriller set in New York with an appealing soundtrack.
Is David Aames demented or dreaming? Is he a murderer or a victim of a set up? Who knows? More relevantly, who really cares? If Aames seems thoroughly bewildered by what is happening to him, maybe you'd be confused if you had to choose between making love four times a night to someone like Diaz and having an idyllic relationship with someone like Cruz.
The movie a remake of the 1997 Spanish work `Open Your Eyes' tries hard to be clever and original and has some memorable scenes with Cruise often looking like the `Phantom Of The Opera', but it only partly succeeds, leaving me at least more than a little perplexed. In short, no more than B+.
Iris (2001)
There's nothing like a Dame
Mental illness often makes challenging cinema think of `Rain Man' or `Shine'. Now both sides of the Atlantic have produced new movies on this theme, looking at the effect of such illness on brilliant and famous individuals: from the US comes `A Beautiful Mind' examining schizophrenia and from the UK there is `Iris' portraying Alzheimer's Disease.
The latter concerns the novelist and philosopher Dame Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) who was loved and cared for by her uxorious husband Professor John Bayley, on whose books the movie is based. Kate Winslet and Hugh Bonneville represent the couple at Oxford University in the early 1950s, while Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent take on the roles for the last years of the author's life what one critic has called the `bonking' and `bonkers' phases of her rich life.
The performances are uniformly excellent, with Dench compelling in a role where expressions as much as words speak volumes. When she does speak, it is often movingly, as when she comments `I feel as if I'm sailing into darkness'.
The film cuts constantly from one period to the other and would have been better served with a more settled structure. Also the subject matter in terribly depressing and anyone who has watched a loved one destroyed mentally in my case, it was my mother after a stroke will know how utterly helpless one feels. But not all cinema can be escapist fantasies like `Harry Potter' and `Lord Of The Rings', so see `Iris' and be thankful for your mind.
Black Hawk Down (2001)
A new type of war movie
Like `Behind Enemy Lines', this is a movie rushed out in the aftermath of the World Trade Center horror, apparently on the assumption that it will make Americans feel better about themselves. It would seem that, in the US, there has been a `Let's kick ass' response but, to this British viewer at least, such a reaction is hard to fathom. Certainly the film is a celebration of comradeship and heroism, but it reminds us of an appalling military misjudgement by the Americans and a lack of political will by the international community.
It depicts in savagely graphic form the outcome of an October 1993 operation in the Somalian capital of Mogadishu when an attempt to detain henchman of the local warlord gave rise to a 15-hour `firefight' in which 18 American soldiers lost their lives and more than 70 were injured, while something like a thousand Somalians men, women ands children were killed. Elite soldiers of the Rangers and Delta Force regiments go in, supported by Black Hawk and Little Bird helicopters but, from the start, it is a mess, as one soldier falls from Black Hawk, resulting in it being downed by the local militia. This is war as we have never seen it before on the big screen: brutal and confused combat in city streets and houses where the enemy does not wear a uniform or fight by the rules and rescue is far from hand.
This was always going to be a better work than `Behind Enemy Lines' because it is helmed by one of the finest directors around and presents a very much less gung ho' depiction of war. Fresh from his success with the wonderful `Gladiator', British Ridley Scott the son of a Royal Marine - has taken locations in Morocco and used magnificent camerawork to produce a stunning visual and visceral record based closely on the book by journalist Mark Bowden. Indeed such is the verisimilitude of Scott's action that one can't always hear what is said or understand what is happening.
As I left the London screen where I saw `Black Hawk Down', I found myself in conversation with the cinema attendant who incredibly happened to be a Somalian who was there in 1993. He assured me that the events were worse than shown in the film we didn't see (fortunately) the parading of the dead Americans through the streets - and the situation is just as bad now as it was then, with four clans controlling different quarters of Mogadishu.
A year after the disastrous American intervention in Somalia, the Taliban took control of Afghanistan and we all looked the other way until the appalling events of 11 September 2001. If Scott's film serves to remind us that we cannot forgot the injustice in Somalia and other parts of Africa perhaps it will have served a higher purpose than entertainment.
Behind Enemy Lines (2001)
Adrenalin rush - but not long lasting
It often happens that films come in pairs and, in the same month on British screens, we have `Behind Enemy Lines' and `Black Hawk Down', two movies featuring rescues of American servicemen from policing missions in distant parts of the globe where the US involvement was less than brilliant. Their appearance is not coincidental it reflects a wish, post the horror of the World Trade Center attack, to show America at its most heroic. Certainly `Behind Enemy Lines' deliver an adrenalin rush, but the style is too gung-ho for it to last long.
The plot concerns the shooting down of an American jet which is off mission' over Serb-occupied Bosnia-Herzegovina. The American military has co-operated fully with the hardware, so in a return to `Top Gun' territory - there are terrificly atmospheric shots of the aircraft carrier that is the crew's base and some really exciting film of the F-18 Hornet that is their mount'. Slovakia stands in for Bosnia but fits the bill convincingly.
It was a shrewd move not to cast a star in the lead role, but instead the newcomer, blond-haired, pinched-nosed Owen Wilson. In fact, the only really well-known actor in the movie is Gene Hackman, playing a characteristically gruff role as the admiral of the carrier, but he is sadly under-used, even when stupidly he is shown leading the helicopter rescue operation (`Let's go get our boy!').
First time director John Moore deploys some flashy camera-work and provides plenty of pyrotechnics but, besides the fact that it has been done before (in the more intelligent `Bat 21'), the whole thing is just too formulaic and simplistic to make a lasting impression.
Serendipity (2001)
Where's the beef?
I'm a sucker for romantic comedies, but even I need more substance than this. The leads are fine. I've admired John Cusack since `Grosse Point Blank' and he's cute as American newsman Jonathan. Kate Beckinsale was sweet in `Pearl Harbor' and is charming as English therapist Sara.
The main problems are the script which is weak and the narrative which is almost non-existent. Finally it doesn't help that the nature of the plot if that's not too strong a word in this context means that the principals spend too little screen time together.
Perhaps the best that can be said for this film is that it will make the word serendipity' better understood (fortunate, but chance, discovery), but I bet you don't know it's origin (it was coined in 1754 by Horace Walpole and is derived from the ancient name for Sri Lanka).
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
A triumph of visuals over victuals
J.R.R. Tolkien was a professor of medieval literature at Oxford University when he wrote the `Ring' trilogy between 1937 and 1949 and, since their publication in 1954/55, apparently some 100M people have consumed them. I've never read a word of Tolkien and have no desire to do so, but I'm always up for a fantasy film because today's special effects are so brilliant in realising strange, new worlds. Director Peter Jackson shot three films in one mammoth undertaking, taking 15 months and $300M and deploying 300 crew members and 20,000 extras.
Certainly there is much to admire here: an eclectic cast, some fine acting from veterans Ian McKellan (Gandalf) and Christopher Lee (Saruman), magnificent sets, wonderful prosthetics, stunning special effects, terrific battle scenes, soaring camerawork, and the splendidly varied terrain of the director's New Zealand.
But there are many problems too most of them inherent in the novels themselves. For starters, how can one believe that the saviour of Middle Earth can have a name like Frodo Baggins (played by pop-eyed Elijah Wood)? Indeed, for viewers not familiar with the books, there is a bewildering array of strange names and it's not always clear what's going on. Then there's the lack of female characters, just brief appearances by the ethereal Queen Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) and the elf Arwen (Liv Tyler). Next there's the utter ponderousness of it all this is a work that takes itself so seriously and `Harry Potter' was much more fun. In short, one could say that the film is a triumph of visuals over victuals.
Most seriously of all, there is the poor pacing. The bladder-straining three hour movie is one set-piece battle after another, with no real plot development or build up of the tension. Then, to cap it all, suddenly the film ends in mid air, leaving us to wait for 12 months before we can pick up the story (`The Empire Strikes Back' did this much more successfully). However, real fans will stick it out and Christmas and the `Ring' is set to become a hobbit.