DVD REVIEWS

By Mike Davies

Cemetary Junction (15)

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Out Now.

The first big screen collaboration by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, working together as writer-directors, is an uneven and underwhelming affair about three twentysomething lads from the titular Reading suburb. Set in 1973, they’re trying to make the transition into adulthood and escape the stagnation of an English suburban life where getting drunk and having a punch up on Saturday night is the weekly highlight.

Desperate not to follow his dad (Gervais) into a dead end factory,  Frankie (Christian Cooke) lands a job with the local insurance company run by condescending self-made local boy Mr Kendrick (Ralph Fiennes) and is put under the supervision of the sneeringly vile and ambitious Mike Ramsey (Matthew Goode) who’s engaged to the boss’s daughter –and Frankie’s childhood crush – Julie (Felicity Jones).

Frankie’s move into suit and tie territory sits badly with Bruce (Tom Hughes), a loutish type who, resenting work in the factory and despising his divorced alcoholic father, is always going on about leaving, but never does. Then there’s Snork (Jack Doolan), an overweight idiot who keeps bragging about sexual conquests he’s never had.

And that’s pretty much it. Frankie’s household is straight out of Til Death Do Us Part, thereby allowing for politically incorrect  gags about blacks and the disabled to illustrate the ignorance of the working class era, while Kendrick’s mansion is a chuavanist’s haven where wife (Emily Watson) and daughter are supposed to make the tea, have babies and be grateful. Certainly not want lives of their own. 

There’s not much by way of character acr as, predictably, Frankie falls for Julie, Bruce discovers the truth about dad, and, after providing the obligatory comic relief embarrassment by swearing in the wrong places, Snork finally notices the plain jane in the cafe who fancies him.

Nor is there much by way of laughs either in a film that can’t quite decide if its a comedy or a drama, falling uncomfortably somewhere in the middle and lacking any real emotional dimension. It’s watchable, butm unlike its central characters, lacks the ambition to go anywhere.

Black Lightning (PG)

Universal Pictures International Entertainment From Sept 6

Overshadowed by wealthier classmates, college student Dmitry feels too outclassed to even try dating new student Nastya. Dad does his best to help by getting him a  used car, but, to his embarrassment, it’s a Volga, an old Soviet-era relic Dmitry doesn’t even want to admit owning.

But then, in the heat of a near accident, he discovers it can fly. An attribute that come sin very hand in his new job of delivering flowers in order to make enough money to become a viable romantic proposition.

However, having learned the hard way that trying to help only gets you into trouble, he does nothing when some thug attacks an old man. Which is when he discovers the old man was his dad, and now he’s dead. So, realising that with great cars comes great responsibility, Dmitry vows to use the Volga to fight crime.

Yes, it’s Spider-Man meets Knight Rider as car and driver whip through the Moscow skies rescuing those in distress and netting bad guys.

What he doesn’t know is that the car’s powers come from some prototype nano-fuel converter created long ago in a secret underground lab and that obsessed billionaire Kuptsov has been searching for it for years to power a drill that will dig into the Earth’s crust to find diamonds, cracking the city’s foundations in the process. And, naturally, Nastya has a crush on the mystery Black Lighting and, equally naturally, Dmitry can’t reveal the truth. Even when she thinks his mate’s the superhero.

Produced by Wanted’s Timur Bekmambetov who’s already planning the Hollywood remake, this comes with both dubbed version and the (better) subtitled Russian original. The special effects aren’t spectacular, but it looks good and with Grigoriy Dobrygin making a fine Russian version of Peter Parker with a steering wheel rather than a web, it’s all rather fun, especially the final vehicular battle between two super-charged cars.

Sus (15)

4 Digital From Sept 6

Self-adapted from his 70s stage play, Barrie Keeffe’s three hander is set on the night of Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 election victory and takes place entirely inside a police interview room. Here, Delroy (Clint Dyer),  a British born West Indian is being interrogated by two racist cops, the smug Wilby (Rafe Spall) and the sadistic Karn (Ralph Brown).

Initially Delroy thinks he’s been pulled in as part of the controversial stop and search laws that allow the police to detain anyone simply on suspicion (sus) that they might have been up to no good.  He’s mouthy and defiant in the face of the contemptuous detectives’ insults and fake smiles, but there’s a gradually building sense that there’s more going on that a simple sus. And so it is that, casually, coldly and cruelly, Karn informs Delory that his pregnant wife’s been found dead and that they think he killed her.

Building to an inevitable explosion of violence and a bitter climax, it’s inevitably highly theatrical, but also a powerful and often tough to watch dialogue driven study of the era’s institionalised racism. And it poses questions and issues that remain as troubling relevant today as they were back then.

Unthinkable (18)

E1. From Sept 14

Michael Sheen takes time out from playing real life characters for a film that posits a nightmare possible real life scenario. He’s Yusef , a white American Muslim convert who, through a video posted online,  claims to have planted three nuclear bombs in different American cities, each set to detonate at a specific time if his demands aren’t me. Anti-terrorism FBI Agent Helen Brody (Carrie-Ann Moss) and her team are assigned the job of tracking him down, only to be taken to a top secret installation where they find he’s already in custody.

Assigned to interrogate him is H (Samuel L. Jackson), a man whom the FBI encountered when they received a file about him and his wife (Lora Kojovic) that suggested they might have terrorism connections. Instead, it transpires he’s himself an agent with unrivalled experience in extracting the required information.

Requested by H to act as good cop assistant to his bad cop, Brody quickly discovers Yusuf, is going to be a tough nut to crack since, back when he was called Younger, he was a member of Special Forces and is trained to resist interrogation techniques. But she’s taken aback when the first thing H does is cut off one of Yusuf’s fingers.

Fir her, this isn’t interrogation, this is torture. But H has been sanctioned by the powers above to discover the location of the bombs by any means necessary; and time’s running out.

As his methods become ever more extreme, even involving Yusuf’s wife and children, so Brody becomes increasingly sickened at what she’s seeing but equally uncertain that she should stop it. Meanwhile, Yusuf himself is playing his own mind games in the battle of wills between him and H.

Taking the Jack Bauer attitude of 24 and ramping it up, the film’s a provocative and intensely powerful moral dilemma that asks just how far would you go to protect millions from a threat that may not even be real. Would you murder a child to break their father? Where is the boundary between right and wrong when faced with such circumstances and at what point do the human rights of the individual become less important than the human rights of the many?

Driven by towering performances from Sheen (who brings a ambiguous sympathy and even nobility to his character), Jackson and Moss, It’s a brutally tough watch that may well prove too much for some, but, drawing on the state of alert and paranoia in which the world currently exists, it asks the sort of questions you don’t want to face and begs answers you may not wish to give.

Last Night (15)

Park Circus. From Sept 20

What do you do with the last six hours of your life? That's the question Don McKellar poses in his 1998 directorial debut.  There's no reason given, but the world ends at midnight. And no Hollywood action star can stop it. The only thing left is to make some sense of your life and choose how and with whom you intend to bid adieu.

An amateur pianist  holds his debut recital, a woman jogs through the streets.

Architect Patrick (McKellar) knows that what he doesn't want to do is to spend his final hours reliving Christmas past with his folks (Robert Maxwell, Robin Gammel). Nor does he want to join his sister (Sarah Polley), her husband and half of Toronto in a party to end all parties. Or to help best friend Craig  (Callum Keith Rennie) fulfil his list of sexual fantasies (one of which involves Genevieve Bujold as his former French teacher). Patrick plans to die alone.

   Sandra (Sandra Oh) has made a pact to commit mutual suicide with her new gas company executive husband (David Cronenberg) who's currently making thank you calls to his customers to say the service will stay on until the end before heading home. Matters don't work out according to plan, however, when her car's wrecked, leaving her to seek help from nearby Patrick. As time ticks by, it becomes increasingly apparent that the two of them will meet the end together.

A 90s version of On The Beach, there's no heroics, just everyday courage and personal epiphanies. Finely acted, with an economy of dialogue and a quiet blend of  ironic humour and piercing emotion, McKellar's character vignettes offer compelling observations of  people finding meaning, faith and, ultimately, in a final, profoundly touching moment of redemption to the poigant strains of Guatanemera, an affirmation and embracing of life, love and humanity. 

The Special Relationship (15)

Optimum From Sept 20

Michael Sheen pops up again in, following The Deal and The Queen,  his third – and one presumes (possibly) last – performance as Tony Blair in this made for TV political drama. This time, set prior to the events of The Queen, the focus is, as the title suggests, on the relationship between the UK and The USA, in the form of the just elected Blair and then recent White House incumbent Bill Clinton (Dennis Quaid).

Directed by Richard Loncraine and again written by Peter Morgan, it opens prior to the election that brought New Labour to power with Blair invited to meet Clinton at the White House  to boost the  candidacy of the man they’re convinced will be the next Prime Minister.

The two guys bond and, much to the delight of the boyishly awestruck, eager to please Blair, become friends, seeing in each other a mutual committment to  world-changing center-left politics.

It’s a friendship that works for the benefit of both. When the Lewinsky scandal blows, Blair stands by him (though privately harbours regrets when the President comes clean) and gets to call in the favour when matters in Kosovo have clearly become genocide and he needs US support to get NATO to increase the pressure on Serbia.

And it’s that mix of the personal and the political and how the two synthesise that makes this such as fascinating watch, that and such imagined private moments as Blair chatting to Cherie (Helen McCrory reprising her note perfect role) while in the bath and the painfully awkward confessional moment between Clinton and wife Hilary (Hope Davis, terrific) over the Lewinsky affair.

Brilliantly capturing their characters in all their mannerisms and human tics, the cast (which also includes Mark Bazeley as Alastair Campbell) make the most of Morgan’s highly intelligent, insightful and often extremely funny (at times it almost plays like a sitcom) screenplay. Immensely watchable, it ends on archive news footage of a grinning Blair’s meeting with a burbling Bush. It would be interesting to see what The Special Relationship 2 might bring.

She’s Out Of My League (12A)

Paramount From Sept 27

Although both provide their fair share of chuckles (especially in a certain male, ahem, grooming scene), here’s a romcom that doesn’t rely totally on raunchiness, gross outs and toilet humour for its laughs. Directed by first timer Jim Field Smith, it’s a sweet, fresh spin on the geek gets the girl scenario with a hint of the pre Apatow innocence of Something About Mary and American Pie.

A Pittsburgh airport guard, Kirk (Jay Baruschel) rates himself a 5. On a good day. He has a rubbish car, he’s unfit, clumsy and his ex girlfriend (Lindsay Sloane) spends her time hanging out at his parents with her new man. Then, one day, stunning, self-poised event planner Molly (young Joanna Lumley lookalike Alice Eve),a perfect 10 if there ever was,  leaves her phone behind at Arrivals. Kirk finds and returns it and she invites him to one of her swish parties as a thank you.

Unlike the guys she usually meets, she’s taken with the unassuming and unpushy  Kirk, but when it’s evident she has romantic inclinations he’s so insecure he can’t believe someone like her could really fall for someone like him. A belief his three friends (T.J. Miller, Nate Torrence, Mike Vogel) are only too ready to reinforce. At best, they reckon a 5 could only ever hope to date a 7.  And then there’s the matter of his domineering ex who, consumed with envy and jealousy, informs him that they’re getting back together.

Things pan out as you’d imagine, but do so in a manner that’s rather more credible than is the Hollywood norm for self-image/self-esteem comedies, especially when you learn about Molly’s own former relationships. Duhamel and Eve make an unlikely but believable couple, the latter demonstrating  terrific sense of comic timing and awareness of one-liner techniques in a gloriously hilarious first meeting and dinner with Kirk’s boorish relatives. At the end of the day it’s still a film about a  loser and a hottie, but it’s a definite 8 on the scale.

The Killer Inside Me (18)

Optimum From Sept 27

There’s moment of such intense brutality in Michael Winterbottom’s adaptation of  Jim Thompson’s 1952 noir thriller, you might find yourself checking your clothes for flecks of blood as you watch.

But watch you will because this is a powerfully intense film with a performance to match from Casey Affleck as well read and cultured West Texas deputy sheriff  Lou Ford, whose easy-going and self-deprecating manner conceals a sociopathicic, misogynistic sadist.

The dark side seeps slowly out when, after initially being dispatched to send her packing, he takes up with newly arrived hooker Joyce (Jessica Alba), despite having a long standing relationship with slightly kinky girlfriend Amy (Kate Hudson).

When he’s approached by Conway (Ned Beatty),  the wealthy businessman he believes staged his brother’s accidental’ construction site death, who wants him to buy Joyce off  from seeing his lust-driven son, Lou sees a way to make some money, settle his complicated love life and get revenge into the bargain. And all he needs to do is beat Joyce to a bloody pulp.

Of course, one murder’s never the end of things and as blackmail and suspicion come his way, there’s soon another ‘suicide’ to add to the growing list of victims. And, as things start to close in and Lou’s tendencies become more evident, he still reckons he’s smarter than those on his tail.

  Told from Ford’s point of view with Affleck serving as narrator, it’s a grim, horrific parable about American masculinity that takes you deep into Ford’s nightmarish psyche and sickens you with the graphic violence and cold detachment as he beats Joyce to death while apologising and professing his love.

It lets itself down with an overly feverish conflagration finale that tests credulity, but otherwise this is viscerally compelling film-making.

Life During Wartime (15)

Artificial Eye. Out Now

In 1998, Todd Solondz made Happiness, a thoughtful, sometimes distressing story about America’s emotional outsiders in search of connection, among the characters a paedophile father who drugged and molested his young son’s friends. Twelve years later, set in the aftermath of 9/11, he now revisits them, but now with different actors taking on the roles.

Trish (Allison Janney) has found new love and a decent father figure for her two sons with easy going middle-aged Jewish Harvey Weiner (a spillover from Welcome To The Dollhouse, played here by Michael Lerner). Sister Joy (Shirley Henderson) is still having relationship issues, both with husband Allen (the Philip Seymour Hoffman character, now black and played by Michael K Williams), who’s still struggling with his addiction to obscene phone calls, and in a dream encounter with Andy (Paul Reubens), the ex who committed suicide.

Third sister Helen (Ally Sheedy) is a success as a writer, but still a mess as a human being and none too pleased when Joy turns up on her doorstep.

Meanwhile, Bill (Ciaran Hinds) is released from prison and – with a little time out after being picked up by a stranger (Charlotte Rampling) who thinks asking for forgiveness is weak – looking to check in on the now grown Billy (Chris Marquette) to ensure he’s not inherited his sexual perversity.  Youngest son, Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder) has been told his father’s dead, but is soon to find out mum’s been lying.

You have to have seen the first film to understand the characters’ connections and to make sense of the underlying themes – here forgetting and forgiving with a terrorism subtext– but, unfortunately that also means the sequel suffers in comparison. The performances – Hinds especially – are excellent, but the characters now veer on stereotypes, the message feels forced and the humour contrivedly bleak.

Hierro (12)

Optimum

When her five-year-old son disappears during a ferry crossing to the island of El Hierro, Spanish single mother María (Elana Anaya) is understandably distraught, not least for having dozed off and left him playing alone. An exhausting search reveals nothing and the police have no leads.

Back home on the mainland, some months later she gets a call saying a body has been found. Returning to the island with her sister for support, Maria duly visits the morgue but says the child isn’t Diego. Asked to stay on until a DNS sample can be taken, while on the beach she thinks she spots her son and believes he’s living with an eccentric German woman in a travelling caravan. She also visits another woman whose own young son went missing in the car crash that left her in a wheelchair.

Looking to mine similar territory to fellow Spanish psychological horror The Orphanage, another film about a mother’s grief and mental breakdown, this isn’t quite as successful since the twist ending is flagged up long before it arrives and there’s just too many attempts to suggest a creeping malevolence among the bleak looking island’s population, not to mention going overboard on the water symbolism.

But it does sustain a gathering sense of dread which, along with the brooding atmosphere and a strong turn from Anaya makes it well worth  a look.

Perrier’s Bounty (15)

Optimum. From Aug 16

“There’s a point to all this drivel,” says narrator Gabriel Byrne at the start of this latest addition to the whimsical, violent, foul-mouthed Irish gangster comedy-drama. Actually there isn’t, but, a sort of toned down In Bruges, in terms of language anyway, it is rather fun.

Michael (Cillian Murphy) owes money to ruthless Dublin loan shark Perrier (Brendan Gleeson). Prepared to accept cash or blood, he send two of his enforcers, gay lovers as it happens, round to collect. Which is when his neighbour Brenda (Jodie Whittaker), suicidally drunk after being dumped, accidentally kills one of them.

 Now Michael finds himself on the run, trying to stay one step ahead of Perrier’s vengeance, allying himself to a couple of rival loan sharks trying to muscle in, and accompanied by both Brenda and his errant dad, Jim (a marvellously against type Jim Broadbent), who, after believing Death visited him in a dream and that he’ll die next time he sleeps, is struggling to stay awake by hovering up cocaine and chugging down jars of Nescafe.

With diversion into the twilight world of dogfighting and some inevitable twists and turns, things naturally culminate in the showdown between the ragged crew and a by now furiously frustrated Perrier.

With hard edged violence and sharp quips going hand in hand, it’s familiar territory, but it cracks along with a slick sense of style and pace. Gleeson’s terrific as the chilled-out matter of fact thug but has disappointingly few scenes, leaving it to Broadbent to steal things as he waves a gun at anyone who comes near while trying to reconcile with his estranged son.

Whip It (12)

Lionsgate. From Aug 16

Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut is a joyful romp through the underdog sports movie by way of teenage self-discovery coming of age and female self-empowerment, cheerfully embracing all the familiar clichés but still coming up smelling of fresh laundry.

Juno’s Ellen Page plays Bliss Cavendar, a rebellious misfit small town Texas teen whose overbearing postwoman mother (Marcia Gay Harden) is (naturally vicariously living her unfulfilled dreams through her daughter) determined for her to win the state’s Miss Bluebonnet pageant. Bliss has other ideas. Not least when, after seeing an ad, she sneaks off to Austin to see a female Roller Derby game. Suddenly, she knows what she wants to be.

Lying about her age (the minimum age is 21) and putting on her Barbie skates, she gets a chance to try out for the Hurls Scouts, the worst team in the league, whose line up includes Maggie Mayhem (Kristen Wiig), accident prone Smashley Simpson (Barrymore), Bloody Holly (Zoe Bell), Rosa Sparks (Eve) and Eva Destruction (Ari Graynor).

Adopting the name Babe Ruthless and keeping her new life a secret from her parents, she proves a welcome, feisty addition, mostly because she’s not afraid to take the knocks. Which, given the intense rivalry of Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis), captain of the Holy Rollers who, inevitably, are the reigning champions.

Coached by the eternally optimistic Razor (Andrew Wilson), the Hurl Scouts eventually battle their way to the big match as two teams meet in the league final which resolves itself exactly as it should – as opposed to how you might expect – along with the predictable but nonetheless touching mother-daughter reconciliation.

A romantic subplot involving Bliss and Oliver, the singer in an upcoming rock band, is slightly superfluous to requirements but provides further opportunity to develop the female support system theme as Bliss discovers bother physical and personality strengths and weaknesses.

Taking time to build characters rather than one note character traits, Barrymore directs with confidence, energy and skill, driving the games themselves with a dynamic electricity as players are bruised, bumped and battered while the cast, which also include a fine turn from Daniel Stern as Bliss’ long-suffering father, are clearly having a hugely enjoyable time. It’s contagious.

Uplifting, intelligent, moving, exciting, sweet and often very funny, it is, without question, one of the best and most thoroughly entertaining films of the year.

Down Terrace (15)

Metrodome. From August 23

Imagine The Royle Family as gangsters or The Sopranos directed by Mike Leigh and you’ll have an idea of what to expect from the low budget but well executed kitchen sink crime drama feature debut from TV comedy director and co-writer Ben Wheatley. Played by real life father and son, Bill (non actor Robert Hill) and son Karl (co-writer Robin) are just out of prison for an unspecified offence and, back home supping tea and eating stale cake at Down Terrace, they’re trying to figure who grassed them up. Prime suspect is Bill’s too eager to please bumbling club manager Garvey (Tony Way). But then there’s also enforcer John (Gareth Tunley) and hot-headed Irish loose cannon fixer Pringle (Michael Smiley).

On top of which, the family business is suffering a financial downturn which doesn’t please the paymasters in London and, as if his dad nagging him redecorating the place wasn’t enough,  Karl’s ex-girlfriend, Valda (Kerry Peacock) has turned up pregnant.

Disappointed in his slacker son, who still lives at home, Bill’s a bullying old hippie much given to taking drugs, reminiscing about the 60s, spouting philosophical monologues and playing blues guitar while his wife, Maggie (Julia Deakin) slowly simmers in bitter ruthlessness, frustration at her tantrum prone passive-aggressive son’s apparent spinelessness and resentment at Valda’s unwelcome intrusion.

With almost all of the action taking place in the Brighton family home (Robert’s own),  shot on hand-held camera and much of the dialogue seemingly improvised, like the Royles it mines the banality of everyday family relationships and conversations for dry, at times absurdist humour.

Set over a fortnight and told in daily chapters, for much of the comedic first half nothing happens save for exchanges of jokey or accusatory banter. But when the first murder occurs, abruptly, coldly and brutally the tone changes, the sense of paranoia is ramped up along with the film’s central seam of male incompetence and projection of blame. And the betrayals and murders. Climaxing in a deeply nasty turn of events like a suburban version of the Borgias. A slow burning, deeply bleak vision of the nuclear family, you should pay it a visit.

Lymelife (15)

Network From Aug 23

The spiritual malaise of dysfunctional suburban families in a decaying American Dream has proven rich territory for cinema. Set on Long Island during the economic upheaval of the late 70s, this is among the best of them, up there alongside The Ice Storm with which it shares thematic, sociological and narrative parallels.

Lyme disease, contracted (here) through a deer tick, can cause depression and emotional anxiety. Lethargic and muddled, Charlie (Timothy Hutton) has the physical symptoms, for the others the affliction is metaphorical. Uptight wife Melissa (Cynthia Nixon) thinks it’s all psychosomatic and is soon putting the spread into spreadsheets with boss and neighbour Mickey (Alex Baldwin), a successful realtor whose neurotic wife, Brenda (Jill Hennessy), ignores his philandering with stoical self-loathing.

They have two sons. Jim (Kieran Culkin), a soldier awaiting call-up, is disgusted by his father’s ways and angry that he’s done nothing about it. Younger brother, Scott (Rory Culkin) is presently oblivious to his father’s behaviour. He’s more concerned with first love pangs over Charlie’s flirtatious adolescent daughter Adrianna (Emma Roberts) and doing Han Solo impersonations in the mirror, Taxi Driver style, hopelessly trying to copy his cool.

It’s through Scott’s eyes and his Catcher In The Rye styled coming-of-age that the tale of emotional betrayals unfolds. Roberts and Rory Culkin are exceptional, but, working from a slow burn, acrid-humoured screenplay by director Derick Martini and co-writer brother Steven, the entire cast deliver terrific performances. A small gem.

Leap Year (PG)

Optimum From July 5

Frustrated that her heart surgeon boyfriend (Adam Scott) hasn’t got round to popping the question (especially since being married will make it easier to get an exclusive Boston apartment), when he goes off to Ireland for a cardiology conference, controlling Anna (Amy Adams) realises she has the perfect opportunity to take matters into her own hands. She’s just discovered that in Ireland, tradition says women can propose to their boyfriends on February 29. All she has to do is get to Dublin, where Jeremy’s staying.

Unfortunately bad weather diverts the plane to Cardiff from where she decides to make her own way. Soon she’s in Ireland. Just nowhere near Dublin.

Enter Co Kerry rural pub landlord Declan (Matthew Goode), an affable chap who, despite the pair of them instantly getting off on the wrong foot, eventually agrees to drive her there. Meeting a variety of eccentric Irish caricatures along the way, they squabble, get muddy (her clothes get ruined but she seems to have an inexhaustible supply) and are forced to share a bedroom. Naturally they can’t stand the sight of one another. Naturally they wind up falling in love. Naturally there are cows.

This isn’t spoiling anything. From the moment you know the set up you know exactly how it will end. The question is, is the journey from A to B worth taking.

Well, yes and no. This is a vision of Ireland straight of Hollywood’s Book Of Blarney. I’m not sure I actually heard anyone say ‘begorrah’, but if they didn’t it’s probably the only cliché missing. The plot is, of course, wildly implausible. Nor does it acknowledge the fact that the Leap Year tradition actually applies outside Ireland too.  It’s not especially funny and, because it’s a foregone conclusion, the romance feels forced.

The good news is that, even when having to be irritating and participate in clumsy slapstick.  Adams is a fresh and enjoyable presence, that Goode does charming rogue better than he does an Irish accent, and that the pair of them have a sparkling hate-hate-love chemistry that keeps the thing moving long after the wheels have come off.

The Marc Pease Experience (12)

E1 Entertainment. From July 5

If something as awful as The Heartbreak Kid got a cinema release, it should tell you something that this more recent Ben Stiller comedy goes straight to DVD here. Given a very limited US release on just 10 screens last year, it’s taken just over £10,000 .... worldwide!

A tale of arrested development (you know this from the age-inappropriate hair dos). Jason Schwartzman stars as Peace who, playing the Tin Man in his high school production of The Wiz, panicked when his big number came and ran off stage in tears.  His smug, self-absorbed drama teacher, Mr Gribble (Stiller), hasn’t forgiven him and always trots out that night’s events as a cautionary tale to other students.

Eight years on, Peace is a limo driver who still dreams of getting his acapella group, Meridian 8 (except they’re now down to four) into the studio to record a demo and becoming a star. To which end, he’s selling his home and, once he has the money, is convinced that Gribble, whom he still thinks of as his mentor, will make good on the promise he made back in school to produce them. Marc is also dating teenage drama student Meg (Anna Kendrick) who has a much better singing voice than he does. Unknown to Marc, she’s being coached by Gribble who (and hands up who spots the Rushmore echo here) also has a relationship with her.

Now, busy preparing the opening night of a new production of The Wiz, Gribble’s doing his best to avoid Marc’s calls while he’s coming apart at the seams over his fragmenting group, Meg and his inability to stop living in the past.

There’s not a moment when you believe any of these characters as actual people, it’s painfully unfunny and, even when Marc has his both epiphany and cathartic moment, never once is it remotely emotionally involving. Neither of the principle characters are likeable, Meg lacks any semblance of personality and none of the cast seem to relate to one another.  Apparently Stiller filmed all his scenes in two weeks. It doesn’t look like it took that long. That it’s badly written and poorly directed too and even the scenes from The Wiz fail to generate any life, merely makes you wonder why it’s even getting a DVD release.

The Fosters: The Complete First Series (12)

Network. From July 5

Broadcast on ITV between 1976 and1977, the UK’s first all black comedy series had something of a convoluted background. When Johnny Speight’s ‘Til Death Us Do Part concept was sold to America it was rechristened All In The Family. That produced spin-off series Maude which in turn produced Good Times. This was then sold back to the UK where, set in South London,  it became The Fosters, but only on the proviso that it used Anglicised versions of the original scripts.

It’s a pity they weren’t a little sharper, but even so with episodes titled Sex And The Black Community, Black Jesus and God’s Business Is Good Business, it wasn’t afraid to address relevant issues and life for Black British families in the 70s. Interestingly, it offered commentary on social interactions within the Black community as well as the racism it faced from without.

Living in a tower block (the living room the main set), the Fosters comprised easy-going, hard-working Guyan immigrant Samuel (Norman Beaton), wife Pearl (Isabelle Lucas) and their three kids, teenage Shirley (Sharon Rosita), young son Benjamin (Mark Lawrie) and their eldest, Sonny. The latter provided the first starring role for Lenny Henry following his success on New Faces.  His inexperience shows, often delivering his lines as if encountering them for the first time, but you can see the roots of the comic persona that would flourish later. The more seasoned members of the cast handle the comic timing better and are less self-conscious about their hand and arm movements, but even so the comedy often feels a little forced and, inevitably, now rather dated. Even so,  the  12 episodes and Christmas Special provide both an amusing dose of British TV nostalgia and still pertinent social history. You’ll also recognise the Fosters’ neighbour, Vilma, played by Carmen Munro who, of course, went on to co-star with Beaton some years later in Desmond’s.

Shrink (15)

Lionsgate. From July 26

Henry Carter (Kevin Spacey) is a LA psychiatrist to the stars whose wife recently committed suicide. As a result he’s smoking far too much dope, letting his appearance go and becoming uncertain whether he’s of any help to his celebrity patients.

These include Holden (Robin Williams), a faded movie star who refuses to acknowledge his alcoholism by claiming he’s actually a sex addict, Hollywood agent Patrick (Dallas Roberts), a hyperactive obnoxious misanthrope with Howard Hughes style neurotic compulsions, ageing actress Kate (Saffron Burrows) married to a self-obsessed movie star philanderer. It’s pretty obvious who’ll she end with.

Also interwoven into the crossing paths are Jeremy (Mark Webber), a wannabe writer who becomes romantically involved with Daisy (Pell James), Patrick’s pregnant assistant, and sweary, hard-drinking Irish actor Shamus (Jack Huston obviously not impersonating Colin Farrell). Oh yes, and a friendly drug dealer too.

There’s also Jemma (Keke Palmer) who, troubled after her mother’s suicide, has rather unlikely been assigned to Henry for treatment by her school. With a collection of movie tickets from every film she and her mom saw together, Jemma seeks escape from her feelings down the local art cinema watching revivals.

So, with a collection of characters all in need of some form of catharsis or self-redemption spliced with a satirical portrait behind the Tinseltown scenes the film pretty much plays as an amalgam of Magnolia and The Player. It’s not a patch on either of them and the storylines unfold as screenplay demands rather than any recognisable reality, but there are some sharply funny moments and twinges of poignancy.

Spacey’s done this bitter, emotionally repressed, wounded soul routine before but he can still bring an acute intelligence to the performance, Webber delivers a gloriously broad turn as the exuberantly rude Jeremy while 16 year old Palmer, the former child star of Akeelah And The Bee, provides the film’s most authentic emotions. It’s no independent cinema classic but it deserved better treatment than its brief single screen UK release and is certainly worth a rental. 

I Know You Know (15)

Network DVD. Out Now

Living in South Wales in the late 80s, 11 year old  Jamie (Arron Fuller) knows his travel agent father Charlie (Robert Carlyle) is acting strangely since he got back from Amsterdam.  He seems to be suspicious and wary of everyone, they’ve moved into a rundown sink estate flat and dad wants him to stay with his aunt and uncle, He says he’s got a mysterious job on for a Mr Fisher (David Bradley), that will pay him £2million so they can emigrate to America. He also seems very concerned about a satellite TV company. And he’s got a gun. Jamie thinks his dad’s a secret agent.  But when Charlie starts behaving more erratically and becomes more volatile, Jamie starts to wonder if things aren’t quite right with his mental state.

It may take the kid a while to suss things out, but it’s pretty obvious to anyone even half-watching that Charlie’s a delusional paranoid and it doesn’t take a great deal more effort to figure out why. The explanation when it comes is pretty banal, while the voice over coda wraps up the loose ends is the cinematic equivalent of a shrug.

As plot’s go, this is insubstantial, poorly worked out stuff (Jamie’s school problems are particularly half-heartedly addressed) and after his Human Traffic debut of a ten years ago, you might have reasonably expected more of director Justin Kerrigan’s long overdue follow-up. Especially given it’s much informed by his own childhood.

Which no doubt explains why it’s been on the shelf for two years before finally going straight to DVD.  There’s moments when it works as a coming of age/father-son relationship narrative, but, despite decent performances from Fuller and Carlyle, this sort of thing has been done before and better

Exam (15)

Sony DADC. From June 7

Four unnamed men and four women are ushered into a spare, featureless room to take the final test in a job selection process for some bio-tech corporation. The invigilator (Colin Salmon) tersely lays down the rules. If they try to communicate with either him or the armed guard, they will be disqualified. If they spoil their exam paper, deliberately or accidentally, they will be disqualified. If they leave the room for any reason, they will be disqualified. There’s is one question and one answer. They have 80 minutes. The company is the law, their rules are all that apply. He leaves and the applicants turn over their exam papers. They are all blank.

Swiftly reducing those in the room to six (among them city bully boy Luke Mably and gambler Jimi Mistry), the remaining examinees, all of whom have been given a Reservoir Dogs-style cipher name (and who are each finely delineated by the sharp script)  try and figure out what the question may be, analysing what they’ve been told to work out what is permitted, what the motives of the test may be and just who might know more than they’re letting on.

Kin to other such ‘what’s in the box?’ claustrophobic thrillers as Cube, Saw and Fermat’s Room, director Stuart Hazeldine’s debut pulls the psychological knots taut while also letting slip fragments of information (this is a world afflicted by some unspecified fatal disease with which some of the group may be infected) and batting possible scenarios back and forth, ensuring the viewer is as uncertain about the characters as they are about each other.

It is, as one of them observes, partly an exercise in group dynamics and self-focused ambition and, as such, has been described as a Sartre version of The Apprentice.

With characters turning on one another, willing to use violence and, apparently kill to secure their ambition to be last one standing,  for all its cleverness the final reveal with its ethics message is inevitably a bit of a letdown. Getting there, however, is a transfixing journey.

Edge of Darkness (15)

Icon Home Entertainment. From June 14

A compelling thriller that chimed with deep reservations about the country’s nuclear policy and the arms race, starring Bob Peck and written by Troy Kennedy Martin the six hour original was one of the classic British TV mini-series of the 80s. This big screen Hollywood update has been penned by The Departed’s Oscar winning William Monahan, but, 25 years later, the director remains the same; Martin Campbell.

The location shifts from Yorkshire to Boston, but otherwise the nuts and bolts are much the same. Thomas (originally Ronald) Craven (Mel Gibson) is a veteran cop whose daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic) returns home for a visit. Clearly unwell, she’s taken ill at dinner, but as they open the door to get to hospital a masked gunman fires and she’s killed. The assumption is that her dad was the target, but after finding a gun in her belongings, radiation in her hair and a link to three drowned activists, he’s persuaded the shooting was no mistake and that someone wanted her silenced. That someone most likely being her employer, Northmoor, a research and development company headed up by the oily Jack Bennett (Danny Huston) involved in classified – and possibly shady - nuclear projects for the American government.

In his first starring role in eight years, despite looking a little more craggy than his 54 years and appearing alongside actors who emphasise his lack of inches, Gibson is as forceful a screen presence as ever, giving both raw emotion in the scenes of grief and ferocious avenging grit as he confronts those he believes involved. Equally magnetic is Ray Winstone who (in a reversal of the casting of Joe Don Baker as Jedburgh in the original) plays the British ‘consultant’ whose job is to tidy up loose ends and ensure everything’s so complex that nobody can join the dots that lead back to the corridors of power.

Now resonating with cynicism about the US administration’s handling of the war on terror, it doesn’t have the same brooding intensity and slow burning suspense of the TV drama and the condensed running time inevitably means excessive exposition and some clunky plot transitions. Nor does it quite know how to handle the original’s poignant imaginary conversations between Craven and his dead daughter while succumbing to crass sentimentality for the final scene. However, these are minor flaws in what, a quarter of a century later, remains a highly effective entertaining and politically relevant thriller.

The Last Station (15)

Optimum Home Entertainment. From June 21

On paper, a film about the last days of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy and the battle over the rights to his work between his wife, Countess Sofya, who believes they (and the revenues) belong to her, and his disciple, Chertkov, who believes they should belong to the Russian people, with personal secretary Valentin Bulgakov caught in the middle, doesn’t sound exactly enticing.

However, lace the screenplay with some spry – if a little anachronistic – witty dialogue and spice it with Paul Giamatti as Chertkov, James McAvoy as Bulgakov and twin Oscar nominated masterclass performances from Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy and Helen Mirren as the Countess, and you have a film with a far wider appeal than  dry historical literary drama. Especially when you add in virginal  Valentin’s subplot sexual awakening romance with free-thinking Tolstoyan Masha (Kerry Condon) and the friction between Sofya and shrewish daughter Sasha (Anne-Marie Duff) who sides with the despised Chertkov.

At times both the narrative perspective and the ins and outs of the copyright arguments can get a little confusing, but there’s nothing foggy about the relationships between the characters as loyalties are divided, plots hatched and exploitation suspected. 

However, it’s Plummer and Mirren who are the film’s pulse and heart. He, a wily rascal who’s renounced his title and – so he claims - meat and sex in the name of his new religion, she the devoted, passionate wife who reckons she’s owed something for bearing 13 kids and copying War And Peace out by hand, six times. 

Here lies a sparkling, bittersweet love story between two people with genuine affection for each other but driven apart by conflicting needs and desires inflamed further by outside interested parties.  The scenes between the two are the stuff of great theatre (on or off screen) and the depth and history of the feelings their characters share make the final moments emotionally devastating.

Sherlock Holmes (12)

Warner Home Entertainment. Out Now

Robert Downey Jr is on a  roll. Once touted as the finest actor his generation, he lost the crown in a descent into drink and drugs but recent years have seen him back a comeback with a  vengeance and, on the evidence of recent releases, has the title firmly in his grip once again.

He’s in Tony Stark flippant mode for Guy Ritchie’s reinvention of the Baker St sleuth and while Conan Doyle purists may well be horrified at Holmes’ transformation into a dissolute but pumped up karate chopping bohemian action man with a liking for bare knuckle boxing not to mention the homoerotic undercurrent to the relationship with Dr Watson (Jude Law), this is first rate popcorn adventure.

Having caught occult practising serial killer Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) and sent him to the gallows, the pair are unsurprisingly confounded to discover he’s returned from the grave and is up to his old tricks. Holmes investigations are, however, hampered by incompetant Scotland Yard chief Lestrade (Eddie Marsan), Watson’s forthcoming nuptials (which inevitably don’t sit well with his partner) and the appearance of a woman from his past, temptress Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), the only woman to have got inside his heart. Naturally, she has her own agenda as the race to uncover Blackwood’s apparently black magic fuelled plans for London get under way and the diabolical scheme reveals itself.

The plot wists every which way and there’s plenty of thrilling set pieces unfolding on London’s murky streets and alleys while the frantic climax suitably takes place above the Thames, but the real pleasures here are the repartee between Holmes and Watson and the way Ritchie visualises Holmes’ deductive through processes. It’s a testament to Downey that there’s as much excitement watching him think as there is seeing him going one on one with a hulking strongman. Crackling with chemistry and energy, this is a big box of popcorn fun and I for one can’t wait until the game’s afoot again/

• More Stephanie Zacharek

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St Trinians :The Legend of Fritton’s Gold  (PG)

EV From May 24

There’s more girls and more cliques for the return visit to the notorious boarding school where rules are left at the gate. Annabelle Fritton (Talulah Riley) has taken over as head girl from Kelly (Gemma Arterton) who’s now a secret agent, there’s new arrivals in the form of indie chick Roxy (Sarah Harding from Girls Aloud), blingtastic Bianca (Zawe Ashton), goth Zoe (Montserrat Lombard) and the ecos, the emos, the geeks, the rude girls, the posh totty, and the flammables just can’t get along with one another.

However, they all pull together when, having caught  Celia (Juno Temple) trying to steal a ring from the Fritton archives to sell to a mysterious buyer, they discover their headmistress, Miss Fritton  (Rupert Everett), has a pirate ancestor and that, according to legend, there’s a massive treasure waiting to be found.

The girls are determined to crack the clues, but they’re not the only ones on the trail.  Lord Piers Pomfrey (a gleefully overacting David Tennant), the head of AD1, a secret society of sexist women haters, is determined to prevent them discovering the truth behind the legend; a truth that has seen the Frittons and the Pomfreys as bitter enemies for 420 years.

There’s a lot more plot than the first film (from which Colin Firth also returns as Geoffrey Thwaites) and it’s a bit repetitive and over long, but it’s also guilty pleasure fun for kids and grown ups alike. There’s plenty of physical comedy, but also sly gags, a clever piece of word play that will cause a fair few laughs in Stratford and a lot more music, including three songs by Harding  and Girls Aloud covering I Predict A Riot by The Kaiser Chiefs whose singer, Ricky Wilson, cameos as Roxy’s rock star boyfriend. We’ll give it a B+

Extras include music videos, bloomers, deleted scenes and profiles of the St Trinian’s clicques.

Precious (15)

Icon Home Entertainment From May 24

The year’s 1987 and obese, illiterate, black 16 Harlem teenager  Claireece "Precious" Jones (deservedly Oscar and BAFTA nominated Gabourey Sidibe)  has just been made pregnant for the second time (her first child, ‘Mongo’,  has Down Syndrome) by her abusive father.  Constantly physically and emotionally abused by her unemployed, alcoholic mother Mary (Oscar/BAFTA winner Mo'Nique), life’s not exactly a bundle of laughs for Precious. There’s not exactly many in the film either, but if you’re looking for inspirational uplift to go with a thick serving of dysfunction and depression, it’s hard to beat.

Suspended from school, it’s arranged for Precious to attend alternative education where, under the guidance and care of new teacher Ms. Rain, (Paula Patton), she learns to read, giving her the self-respect and confidence to eventually stand up against her mother. She’s also helped by her social worker (an unrecognisable and unexpectedly excellent Mariah Carey) who, in an emotionally draining scene forces the mother to confront the domestic abuse and incest to which she allowed her daughter to be subjected.

Leaving home, Precious raises her second child in a half-way house, while continuing to make academic progress before her mother comes begging her to return home, a meeting that will determine the shape of Precious’ future.

It’s a little Oprah in places with saintly teachers and caring social workers while the fantasies Precious imagines as a way of escaping her traumatic existence feel awkward even as they underline her poor self-image and a wish to be anyone other than who she is. But there’s no getting away from the sheer power of the performances or the visceral emotional impact of the story that pulls you into Precious’ life without resorting to any Hollywood manipulation and, while offering explanations for Mary’s actions make no excuses for them, making her  uncompromisingly detestable but never a caricature bad mother. It’s not an easy watch, but it’s an electrifyingly compelling one.

Up In The Air (12A)

Paramount from May 24

Oscar nominated for Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Actor, Actress and Supporting Actress, it may not have won any of them but Jason Reitman’s follow up to Juno is unquestionably one of the best and most intelligent comedies of the year. George Clooney is Ryan Bingham, the frequent flyer’s frequent flyer, a man who lives his life out of suitcases and in planes and hotel rooms, travelling around America firing people for a living so that the corporations who employ them don’t have to get their hands messy. Times are tough all round, which means business is brisk for Ryan. Which is just how he likes it because he doesn’t have to go back to his apartment and contemplate being his own company. He doesn’t want a home, a wife or a family (indeed, he barely sees his two sisters) and gives self-help lectures on how to unpack the luggage in your life.

But then two things happen. First he meets Alex (Vera Farmiga), a businesswoman who, like him, lives from plane to plane and doesn’t want commitment. One night stands in different cities start to turn into something more as Ryan begins to reassess his relationship needs.

Equally upending his ordered life is the arrival of Natalie (Anna Kendrick), a new graduate who’s come to work for Ryan’s boss (Jason Bateman) and has big ideas of redesigning the operation so that the ‘Termination Facilitors’ work from the office, firing by video conference rather than in person.

Determined to keep things the way they are and to show how downsizing someone needs human contact, Ryan takes her on the road with him to see how the job works.

Between the two, Ryan gets to learn some unexpected life lessons, but then so too does Natalie.

Not a straight out comedy, there’s some striking poignancy here in its observations about a modern life style that leaves people disconnected from one another, but still very funny, due in no small part to the three tremendous lead performances, Clooney as warm and smooth as ever, Farminga sexy but unknowing and Kendrick providing just the right amount of ingénue ebullience and pragmatic know it all smarts.

There’s an extra frisson in knowing that several of the employees Bingham fires aren’t actors at all, but people who had recently themselves been let go and were asked to respond with how they felt at the news. Tightly scripted with an unexpected  last act twist that manages to be both cynical and optimistic about human connections, this flies high.

Valhalla Rising (18)

Momentum from May 24

Director Nicholas Winding Refn’s an odd one. He made his name with Danish drugs trilogy Pusher and his last film was Bronson, an idiosyncratic, theatrical and extremely violent account of psychotic British prison inmate Charlie Bronson. But he’s also directed an episode of the very polite TV whodunit Marple.

Here though, he’s back to his fondness for society’s outsiders, the society in question this time being pagan-era Scotland. Uttering not a word throughout (and what dialogue there is is pretty sparse too) Mads Mikkelsen is One Eye, an incredibly strong mute warrior held prisoner in a wooden cage by a chieftain for use as a fighting slave in gambling matches. The guy never loses.

However, armed with an arrow head, he eventually escapes, slaughtering his captors and taking off with Are, the young kid who showed him relative kindness, as his companion and voice. Together they wind up with a bunch of Born Again Vikings determined to travel to the Holy Land and retake Jerusalem. From the moment their ship enters a dense fog, you know things aren’t going to work out well as, instead of their intended destination, they wind up in an unknown rocky land, As if the voyage itself  hadn’t been bad enough, the place populated by savages who are pretty nifty with bows and arrows while other grisly misfortunes befall the rest of the would be crusaders.

Accompanied by an electronic industrial metal soundtrack, this Herzog-like apocalyptic fable is so steeped in metaphysical dread and existentialism as to defy any easy interpretation of its long journey into the heart of darkness. But even if it’s hard to fathom what Refn is on about, the atmosphere, visuals, the enigmatic narrative, intensity of the performances, striking images and the uncompromising violence make it a jaw dropping experience.

April 2010

Nine (15)

Entertainment DVD From April 19

Missing out on all four of its Oscar nominations, Rob Marshall’s second incursion into musical territory is a far different beast to Chicago. This is introspective art cinema with production numbers, a rework of Fellini’s 1963 autobiographical story about a movie director with a creative block who starts reminiscing and fantasising about all the women who have had an impact on his life.

Here, set in 1965 Rome, Daniel Day-Lewis plays Guido Contini, the self-absorbed maestro who, ten days away from starting work on his next project, still doesn’t have an idea what it will be about let alone a script or budget and is panicking that, like his last two films, it’ll be a flop.

So, being Italian, he starts thinking about the women in his life. There’s the wife (Marion Cottilard) he’s neglected in his obsessive pursuit of his art, his mother (Sophia Loren), the whore (Fergie, from Black Eyed Peas) to whom he lost his virginity when he was nine (hence the extra ½ on the film’s title), his film star muse (Nicole Kidman), his mistress (Penelope Cruz), a fashion journalist (Kate Hudson) and his costume designer confidante (Judi Dench).

For no apparent reason, his reflections all take the form of the big song and dance numbers that punctuate his hand-wringing angst, confronting his dysfunctional relationships with the opposite sex and in so doing finally being able to get on with the job and call ‘action’.

Switching between colour and black and white, it must be said the film looks ravishing and while Marshall certainly knows how to bring visual panache to a musical number. With the disappointing exception of Kidman’s contribution, the film comes alive every time the music starts up and one of the female stars takes to the spotlight. Cruz bumps and grinds, Fergie delivers a knockout routine in the sand, Hudson shimmies through Cinema Italiano’s razzle dazzle number with more life than in any of her last few films put together, Cottilard gets to do the big emotion-tugger and even Dame Judi gets to belt out a Folies Bergere showstopper with unbridled gusto.

It’s just unfortunate that the surrounding melodrama is so deadly dull and,  attempting  a Richard Harris by speak-singing his number,  Day-Lewis never really engages as a character for whom you feel the slightest sympathy or indeed get to understand what his problem is. Nine?  Nein.

The Kreutzer Sonata (18)

Axiom From April 26

Made in 2008 but only now just surfacing, this reteams director Bernard Rose and star Danny Huston for the second in a trilogy of Tolstoy adaptations following on from the overlooked but brilliant Ivansxtc.

Just as that transplanted The Death of Ivan Illych to Hollywood for a vitriolic attack on tinseltown, so this sets Tolstoy’s titular novella in contemporary LA. Huston plays Edgar, a wealthy philanthropist married to Abby (Elisabeth Rhom), a beautiful former piano concert pianist. The film opens with Edgar, hands bloodied, calmly walking into his bedroom and calling for an ambulance. It then flashes back to a concert in aid of an African charity at his Beverly Hills home in which his wife and young violin Chinese-American violinist Aiden (Matthew Yang King) perform Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata. In voice over, Edgar declares how he hates classic music and how what he is watching fills him with “rage and horror”. You know by now, things aren’t going to end well.

Further flashbacks show how he and Abby first me, he seducing her away from her then lover and, in a series of explicit, heated sex scenes, taking his place and eventually becoming her husband. However, it’s clear from the outset that Edgar has an obsessive jealous streak, so when she and Aiden become a musical partnership, he’s persuaded there’s more to it than that.

You never know if there is anything going on between the couple, but that’s not important. What drives this searingly intense drama is Edgar’s pathological conviction that she is cheating on him, a feeling compounded by the way Rose and Rohm ambiguously suggest Abby’s sexuality.

Suffice to say, it’s not hard to figure out whose blood is on Edgar’s hands well before the savage climax when everything erupts in unbridled fury.

Exploring, as in the novel, the way both sex and music (the Sonata flares up throughout) can inflame the passions beyond rational control, it’s not an easy film to watch. The language is as explicit as the sex and the mounting tension is palpable as Othello-like suspicion and distrust gnaws away at Edgar’s sanity. However, part improvised between the two leads, it is a compelling watch. Rohm is outstanding, even if she only has one full scene to herself while Huston continues to prove one of the most outstanding actors of the age. There’s also a rather nice frisson when, taking himself off to Florida, he meets up with his sister to discuss the management of family foundation; the sister being played by his own real life sibling, Angelica Huston.  Extras include a making of documentary.

OSS 117 – Lost In Rio (15)

ICA DVD From Apr 12

Created in 1949 by Jean Bruce and the hero of 265 novels, Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath aka French secret service agent OSS 117, pre-empted Bond by four years in print and six on the big screen, his last cinematic outing being way back in 1970. However, his latest revival as an arrogant, culturally ignorant blundering buffoon is a rather less reverential incarnation. 

Director  Michel Hazanavicius' admirably straight-faced spoof  and Jean Dujardin's suavely doltish obliviousness is far closer to Maxwell Smart and Austin Powers that Ian Fleming’s spy.

A sequel to 2006’s Cairo:Nest of Spies (only released here two years ago), looking every pastel-coloured inch like a vintage 60s movie, complete with multiple split screens, dodgy back projection and cheesy soundtrack, this time the plot finds Hubert despatched to Brazil to meet a Nazi blackmailer and purchase a microfilm containing (in a fairly daring plot theme for French cinema) the names of top ranking French wartime collaborators.

He’s not the only one with an interest in the colonel. Israeli intelligence Mossad want him for war crimes, leading, once again, to 117 being teamed with a beautiful femme fatale with a women’s life attitude to facilitate a stream of gags about his blithely chauvanistic sexism as he expects her to do the cooking and run errands.

Since she’s Jewish, there’s also plenty of opportunity to parade his crass anti-Semitism. Plus, of course, racist cracks about Germans and, basically, anyone who’s not French. Though the sly script finds room to take a pop at them too.

Nor is it just the Nazis and masked Mexican wrestler bodyguards they have to worry about. There’s a bunch of Chinese seeking revenge for the opening ski chalet sequence in which 117 massacres an entire hit squad, not to mention accidentally mowing down a bevy of  beautiful women who also happen to be in the room.

There’s plenty of Bond allusions (a towelling suit identitail to the one that Connery wore in Goldfinger), and while some (such as laughing, swearing CIA agent Trumendous’ Felix Leiter send-up)  don’t quite work, the film is so full of such splendid silliness as 117 asking the German Embassy where he can find the Nazi social club that you’ll happily forgive such slips.

With pertinent satire on the prejudices and xenophobia of post colonial (and present day)  France, an Amy Winehouse lookalike Brazilian hitwoman, a hippie orgy, LSD trip and a climax straight out of Hitchcock, this is hilarious fun, even with subtitles.

The Greatest (15)

High Fliers From Apr 12

 Largely of interest for pre-fame appearances by An Education’s Carey Mulligan and Nowhere Boy/Kiss-Ass star Aaron Johnson, this is basically an Ordinary People update about a grieving family in need of healing after being torn apart by the tragic loss of the eldest son

The film opens with Mulligan and Johnson making love for the first time. Driving home, he stops the car in the middle of the road to say he loves her. And then a truck comes from out of nowhere. Next thing you know it’s the funeral. Maths professor father Brosnan suppresses his feelings and seems aloof while devastated mom Susan Sarandon falls to pieces, visiting the other driver as he lies comatose in hospital, waiting for him to wake so she can learn the minute details of her son’s last moments. Meanwhile, their other son (Johnny Simmons) is angry that he never got to say goodbye and turns to drugs.

Then into their lives comes Mulligan who turns up at the doorstep to announce that she’s pregnant with their dead son’s child. Sarandon pretty much freaks out, but Brosnan welcomes her in to become part of the family. Suffice to say, peppered with flashback to the relationship between the ill-fated lovers, this sets out to wring the heartstrings as everyone works through their grief, finds catharsis and rebuilds relationships.

Yet writer-director Shana Feste manages to do so without indulging in mawkish sentimentality, catching the very real pain of those involved and, to a large extent, making their actions feel believable rather than melodramatic, despite some contrived plotting and narrative holes in the later stages. 

Sarandon has been this route before, while it’s new territory for Brosnan who uses his familiar calm persona to make his eventual emotional implosion all the more effective. However,  it’s Mulligan’s tender, sensitive performance that is the film’s heart and soul, resoundingly underscoring An Education’s  announcement that a star is born.

Tenderness (15)

Lionsgate. From April 26

Four years on from delivering DeNiro turkey Hide & Seek, director John Polson returns to make amends with a slow burn drama about a cop, a killer and a potential victim. One, however, which stitches familiar threads into an original and unsettling pattern.

The film stars Russell Crowe as Detective Cristofuoro, the weary, but dogged semi-retired cop with a hospitalised comatose wife. However, this is a low key rather than grandstanding performance, with Crowe effectively playing a support role which may go some way to explain why the film had a small London only cinema release with no publicity. It deserved better.

Jon Foster is Eric, a teenager who regards human emotions as a weakness and is being released from juvenile detention after serving three years for murdering his parents while, he claims, under the influence of anti-depressants.

However, Cristofuoro is convinced that he remains a psychopath who, although never proven, is also guilty of killing two girls to experience the tenderness of their death. And that it’s only a matter of time before he does so again.

Trailing him to prevent such another tragedy, matters become complicated when, unwittingly, Eric becomes involved with Lori (a stand out Sophie Traub), a 16 year old runaway with an unhappy home life, a scrapbook full of cuttings about his case, a past secret and a death wish. Together they hit the road as Eric drives to a meeting with a girl he briefly met while in detention.

Exploring obsession and the yin and yang of pleasure and pain, it’s a film rich in complex, conflicted emotions, not least those of Eric who, trying to put the past behind him, is clearly torn between indulging and resisting his urges as he finds himself with previously unencountered feelings. Effectively playing with mood, the narrative is also provocative in the way it shifts the balance of sympathies in its notion of exactly who is the stalker in this entwined trio of damaged souls.

There are flaws and unanswered questions, but this remains a tense, gripping psychological thriller road trip, a jigsaw puzzle with pieces that only fall into place in a bitter ending that’s impossible to see coming until it’s actually upon you. Well worth seeking out.

March 2010

2012 (12)

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Out Now

He destroyed ciities in Independence Day and Godzilla,  and gave us a new ice age in The Day After Tomorrow, but this time Roland Emmerich goes for broke and puts an end to the entire world as we know it. But still finds time for sentimental broken family healing.

In The Day After Tomorrow, it was global warming and the gulf stream that wreaked havoc,, here he takes  his cue from a misread ancient Mayan prophecy that the world will end in 2012 and has the sun sending out the mother of all solar flares, causing the Earth’s core to overheat and melt, resulting in displacement of the crust that keeps the continents in place. Building slowly with early warning signs and gathering plans to save as many as possible along with vital cultural artefacts, things finally erupt when what starts as minor earthquakes and cracks in the road suddenly sends all of California tipping into the ocean.  CGI disaster effects don’t come much more spectacular than this.

Trying to stave off the complete extinction of humanity is Chiwetel Ejiofor as the  geologist who broke the doomsday news to the White House and is working with Presidential Chief of Staff  Oliver Platt on a secret project to save as many of possible, or (though he doesn’t yet know it) at least those with the wealth to help fund it, the well conencted and those deemed essential to carry on the species.

Naturally, no one’s telling the public, but, having stumbled into a restrccted area duringh a visit to the soon to be mega volcano Yellowstone Park with his two kids and encountering a radio ham crackpot broadcasting warnings of disaster, failed novelist John Cusack soon realises what’s happening. And next thing you know, him, the kids, his ex wife (Amanda Peet) and her new boyfriend (Tom McCarthy) are escaping the devasation by the skin of their teeth, first by limo and then in a light aircraft, as entire cities collapse all around them.

Pausing only to hook up with his Russian billionaire boss, his kids and mistress (with the obligatory cute dog) who, thankfully, has a ticket for salvation and a humungous plane that can get them to China, Emmerich proceeds to destroy India in a tsunami, bring down the Vatican and wipe out Washington DC where the President (Danny Glover) has elected to remain behind with his people after ensuring his daughter (Thandie Newton) is safely out of harm’s way.

While the world’s going to hell around them, there is, naturally, time for Cusack and his lad to have  heart to heart, ensuring you connect on a personal level while faceless millions are being consigned to oblivion.

Climaxing with a race against the clock suicidal mission to relese the inevitable trapped machinery, there’s not a cliche overlooked (not even the swamped cruise ship and phone call between seperated fathers and sons to say a last goodbye) and you can easily pick out those who aren’t going to make it to the credits (don’t worry, the dog does). But while it may be cheese, it’s a undeniably tasty cheddar, peppered with sardonic wisecracks, heroic moments, self-sacrifices and life-affirming messages about how compassion makes the human race worth saving.  And, on a nice note,  it all ends where mankind is thought to have begun, back in the cradle of civilisation. Of course, it’s a huge tub of popcorn nonsense, but for two and a half hours your hand won’t be out of the bucket.

Extras include commentary, deleted scenes and an alternate ending that, pushing the corn a little too far, was wisely left in the editing room.

Cold Souls

Universal From March 15

Playing a version of himself, actor Paul Giamatti is having a  problem rehearsing for a new stage production of Uncle Vanya. The character is getting on top of him and he’s feeling depressed and burdoned. Which is when he sees an article about a company who offer to remove your soul and place it in storage. Intrigued, he makes an appointment and, having had the procedure explained by Dr Flintstein (David Strathairn), he agrees to the procedure.

Other than being horrified to discover (in a very funny scene) that his soul is the size of a chickpea, Giamatt’s initially pleased with the results. The acting comes a lot easier now. Unfortunately, it’s all a bit, well, soulless.

Since it’s also creating problems with his wife (Emily Watson) and colleagues, he decided to get his soul back. Which is when he discovers that it’s gone missing from the storage vault and has to rent a temporary one, supposedly that of a Russian poet.

It is, though, no substitute and, in a quest to find out where his has gone, Giamatti learns that Flintstein has been trading with the Russian soul black market where those strapped for cash sell theirs off to be smugged into American by soul-mule Nina (Dina Korzun). Her soul-traffiker boss is married to a Russian soap actress who, in an effort to boost her talents, has been demanding he get her the soul of an American star, like Al Pacino. 

As you’ll have guessed, with Pacino’s unavailable, Nina has brought back Gimatti’s. And Sveta’s not about to part with it in a hurry.

A surreal existentialist fable about what makes us who we are and the meaning of life, it does get overly self-referential at times, but, the debut of writer/director Sophie Barthes,  it’s also possessed of a mischievously cold scalpel sharp humour with Giammati clearly having fun playing himself as a self-absorbed precious neurotic.

Zombieland (15)

Paramount From March 15

With most of America turned into a zombie infested post apocalyptic wasteland  by some plague or other, those who have survived need their wits about them to avoid becoming dead meat.

One such is Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), a cowardly college nerd with a bad case of Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Columbus isn’t his name, though. One of the film’s running gags is that the characters are only ever called by the place they come from. Or at least that’s the way Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) prefers to refer to then. He’s a bald, Bourbon swigging redneck in cowboy boots with a shotgun, and a mission to blow away any zombie that crosses his path.

Meeting up early one, the pair form an unlikely alliance as Tallahasee continue shis quest to seek out every last remaining Twinkie bar in America. Then along comes Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) and  Wichita (Emma Stone), a pair of femme fatale grifters who have also developed their own unique survival methods. As Columbus and Tallahasee soon learn to their chagrin.

Surviving each other may be harder than surviving the  zombies but, suffice to say that despite cons and double crosses, the foursome find their journey and fates inextricably linked in an uneasy alliance as things come to a head at a zombie infested fairground.

As you’d expect – and want – from any self-respecting zombie pic, there’s plenty of gore and splatter, but, since this is also a romance and a road movie,  along with the horror and mayhem there’s a rich vein of wickedly funny comedy running through the film. The plot may, ultimately, be just a series of sketches, incidents and satirical gags (look out for the pink clad kiddie zombies), but it’s packed with smart one liners, pop culture references and snappy banter. Shaun Of The Dead in the USA, basically.

Harrelson has great fun chewing on the scenery and playing up the machismo while Eisenberg keeps things low key, narrating his rules for surviving zombies as the plot progresses. Breslin and Stone too deliver their fair share of snarky humour and self-preservation attitude to balance the testosterone, and the film rattles along with an anarchic glee to its carnage packed climax.

Hugely entertaining Friday night popcorn shlock, yhere’s also a sly cameo from Bill Murray though, to reveal more would only spoil the surprise.

Bonus features include deleted scenes, special effects features and commentary.

Johnny Mad Dog (15)

Momentum From Mar 15

Featuring a cast of young Liberian actors who lived first hand the sort of events shown in the film, this French adaptation of a novel by Congolese writer Emmanuel Dongola about African child-soldiers packs a mighty punch.

Set in an unnamed African nation torn apart by civil war, we first meet Johnny Mad Dog (Christopher Minie) and his band of adolescent rebel soldiers (who sport names like No Good Advice, Jungle Rocket, and Pussy Cat) as they terrorize a small village looking for money and food, force a young boy to kill his father and then drag him away to be brainwashed as their latest recruit in the war against the Dogo. This is mild stuff compared to the torture, rape and murder that comes later.

Coke rubbed into cuts on their foreheads to get them hyper by their adult commanding officer, General Never Die,  Johnny and his men then attack a government radio station, slaughtering all the Dogo employees before moving on to take control of the city  in their quest to bring down the president.

Meanwhile, devoutly Christian 16 year old Laokole is desperate to get her infant brother and amputee father away from the conflict. Inevitably her and Johnny’s fates will cross.

It’s harrowing viewing, but also a morally provocative examination of the exploitation of childhood. Johnny Mad Dog and his cohorts are undeniably brutal but then the film will throw you with moments of unexpected tenderness and caring amid the savagery.  Director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire's deliberately seeks to disorientate the emotions with staccato, frenzied cutting, discordant score, cacophonous dialogue, almost incessant gunfire and nightmarishly surreal images such as the sight of child soldiers in a santa hat or bridal gown.

It would be easy to just parade a catalogue of horrors, but the film demands its viewers question how these children (themselves victims of brutalisation by adults) come to be what they are and, in a powerful non redemptive climax, the notions of retribution and forgiveness

Confrontational and intense with a particularly potent image that conjures thoughts of Lord Of the Flies, a classic examination of childhood’s descent into savagery, it’s not an easy watch, but it’s an almost mandatory one.

Talk To Me (15)

Verve DVD From March 22

60s Washington and, having conned an early parole from prison where he was resident DJ, streetwise motormouth Ralph Waldo 'Petey' Greene (Don Cheadle) hustles uptight programme director Dewey Hughes (Chiwetel Ejiofor), whose brother (Michael Epps) was a fellow con,  into giving him a shot on WOL-AM's morning show.

And, following his comment about Motown's Berry Gordy being a pimp exploiting black talent for white dollars, is instantly canned by nervous white station boss Sonderling (Martin Sheen). However, barroom chatter persuades Hughes to risk another chance, barricading themselves in as Greene lets rip with his  keep it real patter. The phone lines go berserk and Greene's an instant hit.

Reputation cemented by his broadcast in the wake of Martin Luther King's assassination and introduction to James Brown's subsequent memorial show, Hughes sees a chance to take Greene to the big time. Part R&B jock, part community radioactivist, Petey becomes a stand-up and TV chat show host before securing the ultimate accolade, a spot on Johnny Carson.

However, fame proves to have a bitter taste, straining the two men's friendship and hurling the essentially insecure Greene into a tailspin of career suicide disillusionment and drink, his star waning as Dewey's rises.

Although little known today, Greene was a hero of the civil rights era, a prototype Richard Pryor credited (along with Hughes, who went on to become an Emmy winning TV producer and whose son co-wrote the screenplay) with calming the Washington riots in the wake of King's assassination. When he died of cancer in 1984, a staggering 10,000 or more lined up to pay their respects.

With help from Terence Blanchard's score and classics like Sam Cooke's poignant  A Change Is Gonna Come, director Kasi Lemmons creates a strong sense of time, place and hairstyles. But she never quite negotiates the awkward shifts of tone and sprawling narrative while, as fellow WOL  jocks, Vondie Curtis Hall and Cedric the Entertainer are little more than set dressing and Sheen simply disappears from the story.

 However, Taraji P. Henson blows through the film like a force of nature as Petey's sassy but steel fibred girlfriend while, different embodiments of racial pride, Cheadle and Ejiofor share terrific chemistry, delivering towering performances as contradictory, conflicted, complex and complementary men searching for their own identities in the changing social fabric. Tune in.

The Horseman (18)

Kaleidescope.  From  March 1

When he learns his estranged daughter died from booze and a heroin overdose after filming a porn movie, grieving dad Christian (Peter Marshall) sets out to track down all involved, from the distributor and producer to the other actors and wreak bloody vengeance. Carrying her ashes in an urn as he drives from future murder scene to murder scene, he also picks up pregnant hitchhiker Alice (Caroline Marohasy) along the way, developing a surrogate father-daughter relationship when he’s not beating his victims to pulp.

Basically an Ozploitation rework of Hardcore (in which George C Scott raises hell among the LA porn industry after seeing his runaway daughter in a sex movie, bonding with a young hooker in the process) with some added DeathWish and Get Carter, this quickly dispenses with any moral debate in favour of a steady, repetitive stream of increasingly brutality, including introducing one bound and naked man to a novel use for fish hooks.

With a plot that simply involves Christian finding his next target, tussling round the floor a bit, engaging in some mutilations and gougings then beating them to death with a blunt instrument (crowbars and tyre irons a favourite) before moving on to the next, the repetitiveness is only leavened by increasing excesses of sadism. Even when, Christian himself winds up on the receiving end, it’s inevitable that he’ll resiliently find a way to endure the torture and pull of a Houdini-like escape and finish the job.

It’s undeniably efficient at what it does with Marshall doing his best to inject some character drama, but you can’t help but find its appeal to torture porn voyeurism all rather ironic.

Mr Lonely (15)

ICA DVD  From  March 8

Anyone who’s seen previous films by American independent maverick Harmony Korine will know they can be a little, shall we say, odd.  Taking its title from the Bobby Vinton song, this is no less idiosyncratically loopy than Julien Donkey Boy and Gummo, but it’s also a lot more accessibly playful and romantic.

Once again, he's attracted to society outsiders. Here, it's celebrity impersonators. A disillusioned Diego Luna works in Paris as a Michael Jackson lookalike. At an old folk's home gig (with real old folk enjoying the show), he meets 'Marilyn Monroe' (Samantha Morton) who tells him she's married to 'Charlie Chaplin' (Denis Lavant) and their daughter (Morton's own, Esme Creed-Miles) is 'Shirley Temple'.

She invites him to their  castle on a  Scottish island where he finds a community for other impersonators - among them the Pope (James Fox), the Queen (Anita Pallenberg), James Dean, a foul-mouthed Abe Lincoln, Madonna and the Three Stooges - all free to live their lives as other people.

They're working towards putting on a grand show, but there's obvious tension in the air as her husband’s domineering, control freak nature fuels a mutual attraction between Michael and Marilyn. Interspersed with all this is another story, set in Panama where director Werner Herzog plays (rather badly) a German priest who, after a nun miraculously survives a fall from his plane, sets about persuading the other sisters to go sky-diving without parachutes.

Not, on the face of it, anything to do with the other plot, there's actually subtle thematic connections as Korine explores notions of identity, faith, community,  individuality and the masks people wear in order to be themselves.

It’s too long, the skewed eccentricity and mannered quirkiness become wearisome and the ideas scatter out of control rather than coalesce. But there's some lovely performances and moments of real tenderness and charm that ultimately make it worth the effort.

An Education (12)

E1 DVD From March 8

Deservedly earning relative newcomer Carey Mulligan a Best Actress BAFTA and an Oscar nomination, not to mention Best Film nominations for both, director Lone Scherfig and screenwriter Nick Hornby’s sensitive adaptation of Lynn Barber’s 60s memoir was easily one of the best films of the last decade.

A sixteen-year old at an all girls prep school in 1961 London, Jenny (Mulligan) has her sights set on Oxford; or at least her father Jack (BAFTA nominee Alfred Molina) has, paying the fees in the hope that she’ll  fulfil his own ambitions of rising above working class origins to a world of intelligent convesation and material success.

Jack is insistent that Jenny is seen as a ‘joiner-inner’ rather than someone who rocks the boat, as he says, they don’t want people at Oxford who think for themselves. Nor does he think she should waste her time listening to Juliette Greco when she should be revising her Latin.

Invitable then that, when rebellion comes knocking at Jenny’s door, she throws it open wide and embraces it eagerly. Liberation takes the shape of David (a marvellous Peter Sarsgaard) whom she first meets when he offers to give her cello a ride home to keep it from the rain.

Older, worldly wise, suave, cultured, and silver-tongued, the Jewish David represents to Jenny – who smokes and likes to talk in French to seem cool - all the excitement the world beyond the one mom (Cara Seymour), dad and schoolboy admirer Graham (Matthew Beard) represent.

 She’s swept away by his charms. As is the vain Jack, who, seeing David as a better prospect than Oxford, is first seduced into allowing her to attend a concert, then agrees to a weekend in Oxford with David (who claims to know CS Lewis) and his equally sophisticated friends Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Helen (Rosamund Pike), and, eventually a trip to Paris for her 17^th birthday treat and what becomes full initiation into womanhood.

Blinded by the exciting new world that’s opened before her, a wilfully naïve Jenny ignores the cautionary advice of her bluestocking teacher (Olivia Williams) and fiercely anti-Semitic headmistress (Emma Thompson) and is even prepared to accept David and Danny’s dodgy business dealings in the art and property world. It goes without saying, there are hard lessons to learn ahead about appearances and deceit.

As much a coming-of-age film about  the end of an era (in two years The Beatles would change youth forever) as that of Jenny’s awakening, it’s beautifully observed and tenderly written, subtly registering social attitudes and the different aspirations of divided generations.

Led by Mulligan who, hailed as the new Audrey Hepburn also recalls Audrey Tautou and Emily Watson, and a superb Molina, the cast are faultless, not least Pike who makes the Barbie-thick Helen both funny and poignantly sad.  Things may be wrapped up rather quickly and tidily once the anticipated discovery rears its head, but it’s a small quibble about a film destined to become a classic of British cinema.

Extras include several deleted scenes, including an alternate ending that, looking to tidily wrap up loose ends in regard to David, was wisely subjected to editing room scissors. 

Amelia (PG)

20^th Century Fox Home Entertainment. From March 8

Born in 1897, Amelia Earhart became the first female aviator to make a solo flight across the Atlantic. In 1937 she and navigator Fred Noonan were engaged in the first attempt to circumnavigate the globe by plane when, shortly after refuelling on a small island, they disappeared over the Pacifoc Ocean, never to be heard of again.

It’s an inspirational story and you have to say that Hilary Swank not only looks remarkably like Earhart but she fits the role like a pilot’s leather jacket.

A pity, then, that, told largely in flashback, Mira Nair’s film should be such a ploddingly pedestrian journey through the highlights of Earhart’s life and career, each arriving on screen with little dramatic momentum before moving on to the next.

Thus we have her first becoming famous when chosen by publisher George Outnam (Richard Gere) to take part in a transatlantic flight (piloted by a man), her romance and eventual marriage to George, 1932 solo flight, her elevation to female role model, friendship with Leanor Roosevelt, affair with Gene Vidal (Ewan McGregor) and eventual determination to fly round the world.

Certianly there’s stuff here the history books ignore (she advertised cigarettes even thiugh she never smoked), but it still plays like an uninvolving checklist of chapter headings though, wisely, Nair makes no attempt to speculate on her fate.

It’s well enough acted. Swank perfectly captures Amelia’s feistiness and spirit as well as some of her less attrartive traits, while Gere provides a solid movie of the week turn as her supportive husband and Christopher Eccleston manages to put some flesh on the underwritten role of the alcoholic Noonan.

But, at the end of the day, it’s a workmanlike rather dull and passionless affair that explains why,  after all the advance Oscar touting hype, it vanished off the awards radar once it hit the screens. It looks beautiful but, unlike its subject, it just never takes flight.

Bright Star (PG)

20^th Century Fox Home Entertainment, From March 8

Her first film in four years following misfiring thriller In The Cut sees Jane Campion returning to the world of  costume drama she last visited in 1996 with The Portrait Of A Lady.

Inspired by Andrew Motion’s biography of John Keats (Ben Wishaw), it’s a fictionalised telling of the ill-fated secret love affair between the poet and, since they shared adjoining houses in Hamsptead, quite literal girl next door Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), a seamstress and fashion student not averse to dressing to outrage or speaking her mind. Especially on matters of literature, about which she was generally unimpressed.

The pair met in 1818 when she was 18 and he 23, drawn together over her concern to help his sick younger brother.  An initially prickly relationship soon gave way to a deep mutual love. However, struggling to get his work published,  Keats was in no financial position to marry and, to avoid scandal, it was necessary to keep their union clandestine, especially from his disapproving boorish friend and sponsor Mr Brown (Paul Schneider) and her mother (Kerry Fox).

Never in the best of health, three years later Keats would be dead from from tuberculosis but, during that time, inspired by the depth of their feelings, he would have broken his creative block and written not only his poems to Fanny (one of which provides the film title) but also Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode to a Nightingale.

Told primarily from Fanny’s perspective, it’s a classic tale of tender doomed romantic obsession told without sentimentality but with a burning erotic undercurrent that heats up the screen without ever feeling the need to go explicit.

Beautifully, one could say poetically, filmed with some resonant use of imagery and language that avoids period starchiness without sounding anachronistic, it’s understated but profoundly emotionally moving; thanks in no small way to the consummate subtle performances by Cornish and Wishaw who share a chemistry of quiet volcanic intensity. Rarely alone (walks in the woods are chaperoned by her younger brother and sister, engagingly played by Thomas Sangster and Edie Martin), their rare moments together take on a burning intensity.

A love story that will linger in your heart, as Keats himself put it, it’s a thing of beauty that will be a joy forever.

Extras include making of  and background features and  several deleted scenes.

February 2010

Army Of Crime (15)

Optimum. Out Now.

If there’s anything assured of getting the French hot under the collar, it’s uncomfortable reminders of  the Vichy government’s wartime collaboration. Robert Guédiguian’s drama focuses on a very specific story in its account of  a group of  Paris based  multi-ethnic Communist Jewish immigrants who, under the leadership of  exiled Armenian poet Missak Manouchian (Simon Abkarian), formed their own underground resistance to take on the Nazis and the  Vichy Police collaborators.

Initially a pacifist, Manouchian is converted to the armed struggle in the heat of  the moment  and with the help of  wife Melinee (Virginie Ledoyen) and his passionate but sometimes hotheaded unit , is soon orchestrating a series of shooting and bombings, each followed by the inevitable reprisals. However, when a mixture of  enflamed anger and hotheaded foolhardiness eventually leads to the assassination of high ranking Nazi officer, the SS put on the pressure and, with the assistance of a French collaborator detective, eventually capture, torture and, after a show trial, execute the members of what they have dubbed the Army of Crime in an attempt to portray them as a Red threat.

There’s a certain tension as the cat and mouse game plays out to its inevitable conclusion (the opening sequence having already  delivered a roll call of those who were executed),  the performances are strong and scenes of the French police rounding up Jews for the death camps will undoubtedly open old wounds. However, it is excessively long and episodic with its assortment of subplots while a more intellectual than emotional approach to the subject matter  makes it  hard to engage with the characters even while you applaud their bravery.

Away We Go (15)

E1. Out Now.

After the large canvas melodrama of Revolutionary Road, director Sam Mendes slips into something smaller, mellow and intimate, swapping dysfunctional marriage for a well adjusted relationship in a road movie about nesting and the importance of family. This is a film in which the big dramatic moment involves two people lying on a trampoline, looking at the night sky, and just talking.

Happily unmarried middle class Denver thirtysomethings, Verona (Maya Rudolph) and Burt (John Krasinski) get a shock when they learn they’re to become parents. Deciding they want to raise their child in the best environment possible, with Verona’s parents deceased the plan is to move closer to Burt’s (Jeff Daniels, Catherine O’Hara), leaning on them as a support system. However, that all goes up in smoke when mom and dad inform them they’re fulfilling their own dream and moving to Belgium. A month before the baby’s due.

Deciding this might be a cue to make a change, the pair pack their bags and head off across the USA, visiting their eccentric friends and relatives looking for a new place to set up home and a parenting role model.

Starting off with Verona’s loud lush ex-boss Lily (Allison Janney) in Phoenix, they hook up with Verona’s single sister in Tucson, Burt’s overbearing new agey earth mother  ‘cousin’ LN  (Maggie Gyllenhaal) in Madison, college friends Tom (Chris Messina) and Munch (Melanie Lynskey) in Montreal and, finally, Burt’s just separated brother (Paul Schneider) in Miami.

Suffice to say, for various reasons, all of the stopovers give pause to reflect on relationships and parenting, on sacrifices that need to be made, about the nature of love and on how you really don’t want to raise your kids. Taking all of this on board, coming to understand the responsibilities that lie ahead, they finally come to discover the home for which they’ve been searching.

Some of the amusingly salty dialogue might be a little uncomfortable for some, but it’s impossible not to warm to either the film or, as superbly brought to life by  Krasinski and Rudolph’s easy going unforced rapport, its two protagonists.  A laid back, funny and often touching blend of comedy and drama, while it may (as in LD who declares baby buggies are a force of evil) sometimes edge on caricature, it never strikes a false emotional note as, accompanied by the wistful heartfelt songs of Alexi Murdoch, things roll gently along to an ending ripe with tentative optimism. A real grown-up treat that they should have on loan from every ante-natal clinic.

The Time Traveller’s Wife (12)

EV From February 8

It was never going to be easy adapting Audrey Niffenegger’s best-seller for the big screen. This, after all, is the non-chronological story of a lifelong love affair in which the man randomly slips through time, involuntarily coming and going between past, present and future. When librarian Henry first encounters the woman who will become his soulmate, he’s a grown man and she’s six. By the time they meet for the ‘first’ time as adults, although she doesn’t yet realise it, Clare will have known him her entire life.

As both a romance of enduring love and a metaphor for how men are always leaving, if you go with the narrative device, this works well enough on the page. On screen, it’s a different matter. Not least for having Henry (Eric Bana) first meeting the young Clare (Brooklynn Proulx) completely starkers, his clothes not being subject to the same laws of time travel as his body.

It also means that the narrative requires both Henry and the grown Clare (Rachel McAdams) to keep delivering big chunks of exposition to enable both each other and the audience to keep up with where things are in the timeline. Given that an older Henry can turn up to replace his missing younger self  at crucial moments (like his wedding) or  that two versions of him can exist simultaneously, it gets even more confusing.  Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what’s flashback and what’s the here and now.

As if struggling with a relationship in which your other half might disapear at any moment and reappear either younger or older isn’t hard enough to cope with, there’s also the problem of  Clare’s recurring miscarriages and the possibility that Henry’s genetic disorder might be inheritable.

Played with serious intent, it’s certainly a different kind of romance and, to their credit McAdams and Bana (who, his female admirers will be happy to know, is regularly naked) manage to invest it a tender bittersweet warmth that just about manages to overcome the narrative’s inherent contradictions and defiance of basic logic.

In The Electric Mist (15)

High Fliers From February 8

The setting is post-Katrina Lousiana and hard-boiled alcoholic Iberia Parish detective Dave Robicheaux (Tommy Lee Jones) is called in to investigate the grisly murder of a local prostitute. She turns out to have a connection to wealthy mobster Julie ‘Baby Feet’ Balboni (John Goodman), once Robicheaux’s childhood friend and now a bitter enemy, who’s back home as producer of a Civil War movie that’s being shot in the parish.  Matters are complicated when the film’s equally alcoholic star,  Elrod Sykes (Peter Sarsgaard), and his actress girlfriend Kelly Drummond (Kelly Macdonald) find a chain-wrapped skeleton in the swamps, sparking Robicheaux’s memories of  the murder of an escaping prisoner he witnessed as a teenager but failed to report.

A discovery of another woman’s mutilated body brings in the FBI and, as the investigation throws up the murders of other runaways and prostitutes from the bayou the links to the swamp corpse and Balboni grow stronger. An attempt to set up the tenacious Robicheaux for shooting an unarmed woman and the death of another in a case of mistaken identity would seem to confirm he’s getting close to the truth, but just as he’s  closing in  things take a dramatic turn that make it very personal.

All of this is pretty standard film noir crime thriller. However, when someone laces Robicheaux’s drink with LSD at a party and he crashes in the swamp and apparently starts hallucinating encounters with a long dead Confederate General also trying to come to terms with his demons, the film takes on a more otherwordly mood as it explores the nature of understanding what you see. 

Directed by French legend Bertrand Tavernier from the novel by James Lee Burke, it proceeds at a deliberate pace that engages the attention even when developments start to verge on the perplexing and, at times, somewhat contrived and convoluted. Sarsgaard’s underused as the permanently drunk film star and Mary Steenburgen could have had more to do as Robicheaux’s wife. But, with cameo appearances from The Band’s Levon Helm and blues veteran Buddy Guy (who, it must be said, shouldn’t think of quitting his day job for acting), Goodman’s scene stealing obnoxiousness and a gritty underplayed turn from Jones, this mist is well charged.

Michael Jackson’s: This Is It (PG)

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. From February 22

It’s unlikely the perfectionist Jackson would have ever wanted his public to see the meticulous rehearsals for his comeback concerts, but this assemblage of footage meant for his personal library gives a fascinating look at his working methods and, with extracts from several routines, a glimpse of what a true spectacular the O2 shows would have been. Directed by Kenny Ortega, it was being billed as the greatest show on Earth. They weren’t exaggerating.

Of course, saving his voice for the real thing, Jackson’s not giving 100% as he runs through the songs that will appear in the show but even so, cut together from a number of different rehearsals with him frequently stopping to change the tempo or give cues to the dancers and backing singers, that unique magic is still obvious. Even a quickie crotch grabbing version of Billie Jean has the hairs prickling at the back of your neck and when he pulls out all the stops for the I Just Can’t Stop Loving You duet, it’s breathtaking.

   Intercut between the rehearsals there’s footage of Michael overseeing and discussing the music (softly, patiently but insistently explaining a keyboard change in The Way You Make Me Feel to his musical director he says “you’ve got to let it simmer, bathe in the moonlight”), the choreography, the set and the effects.

It has to be said that the visuals and the specially shot film footage would have looked stunning. Watching the filming of soldier clad dancers against green screen and then seeing the finished multiple clones version that would have been used as the backdrop for They Don’t Really Care About Us is fascinating.

But that’s nothing compared to the new footage shot for Thriller’s graveyard ghouls, the eco message Earth Song, Man In The Mirror and Smooth Criminal where Jackson’s seamlessly inserted into scenes with Rita Hayworth and Humphrey Bogart, even having a machine gun shoot-out with the latter.

From stage hands to backing singers, everyone seems genuinely thrilled to be working on the show and, if there’s some gushing comments they still sound like they come from real admiration and respect rather than simple fawning.

While it’s obvious that the last word remains with Jackson who, even if he can’t always articulate his ideas,  knows what he wants and is duly indulged, there’s no sense of the diva about him. When, during Black Or White, Australian guitarist Orianthi Panagaris moves stage front to take her guitar solo, Jackson steps aside, saying “It’s your time to shine”. It may be his show, but he pitches in like one of the team.

The film may be a bit slow in places and, as it says at the start, it is primarily for the fans, but it’s also an engaging insight into the working process and, away from all the publicity baggage, a reminder of what an inspired dancer and sensational singer he was. And, perhaps the thing that strikes most, is how almost positively normal he appears.

Naturally there’s bonus extras by the truckload. The Single Disc version comes with an in depth Making-of Documentary, a discussion of the final rehearsals and the purpose of the film, a featurette about designing Jackson’s costumes, the cast and crew’s memories of working with Jackson, the dancers’ auditions that whittled over 5000 applicants down to a final 111, and a look at two extravaganza production concepts that never made it into rehearsals.

In addition to all that, the Two-Disc Special Edition also includes separate mini-features on the dancers, musicians and backing vocalists.

January 2010

Passchendaele (15)

High Fliers. Available from Jan 25

One of the biggest and bloodiest battles of World War I, the struggle for the Belgian village near the town of Ypres lasted some six months and claimed some 325,000 Allied and 260,000 German lives before it finally fell in November 1917. Only to be retaken by the Germans, without resistance, five months later.

Few may be aware, however, that along with the British troops, a significant part in the battle was played by the Canadian Corps, who actually took the town on Nov 6. It’s their story that, as writer, director and star,  Paul Gross (from 90s TV series Due South) tells here. Gross plays Sgt Michael Dunne who, wounded in the fighting and suffering shell-shock trauma after putting a bayonet through a boy soldier’s forehead (an incident based on Gross’ grandfather’s own experience), is sent back to Calgary to recover. Here he falls for Sarah  (Caroline Dhavernas), a morphine addicted nurse of German parentage,  and becomes friends with her asthmatic younger brother, David. Dunne’s assigned to deliver morale boosting recruitment drive talks where the blustering Brit in charge regards him as a coward and malingerer. However, when (in a tangled romantic storyline about a snobby posh doctor trying to prevent him marrying his daughter) David’s fixed up with a fraudulent medical certificate so he can prove his worth at the front, Martin connives to get sent back too so he can look after him for Sarah. Rather inevitably, things get all a bit brutal and heavy while the plot contrives to have both Martin and Sarah reunited on the battlefield.

The mud swamped trench warfare battle scenes are, quite simply, stunning and, complete with a barbed wire crucifixion, make the carnage of Saving Private Ryan look like something from a Disney movie. Unfortunately, whenever Gross turns his attention to the romantic weepie element it all sinks into the sort of plodding soft focus melodrama, cliched dialogue and narrative contrivances that makes Pearl Harbour seem hard-nosed and just leaves you wanting to get back to the final hand to hand battle scenes of bodies being hacked and blown to pieces. Which surely wasn’t the intent. It goes without saying the theme song is of Celine Dion proportions.

Fame (PG)

Entertainment In Video

Released in 1980, while not the classic to which nostalgia has elevated it, Alan Parker's ensemble film about New York High School for Performing Arts students grappling with self-identity and ambition had a gritty urban edge that tackled themes of race and homosexuality, liberally peppering the dialogue with expletives and featuring an uncomfortable scene where a distressed Irene Cara was bullied into going topless out for a 'screen test'.

This being the Hannah Montana generation, directed by Kevin Tancharoen, the updated remake tackles themes of, er, inflexible parents who just don't get their kids talents and whether you should stick with your studies or take that job on Sesame Street.

Racial chips have been removed from angry shoulders, homosexuality has been diluted to  underachieving ballet dancer, there’s some mild swearing and the 'screen test'  becomes just an arrogant teen TV actor pawing a naive student.

Structurally, it faithfully mirrors the original (with even some identical shots) in following its main characters from auditions to graduation with bite size segments marking each of the four years and various life lessons in between. Disappointingly, however, the screenplay has only one half-developed back story (Collins Pennie's embittered actor-rapper) and character development is largely reduced to changing hairstyles.

Between them, the there for one another kids (among them insecure sparrow singer Kay Panabaker, anondyne boyfriend Asher Book, camcorder geek Paul Iacono, keyboardist/composer Walter Perez, hot dancer Kherington Payne, and not so hot dancer Paul McGill) variously get to experience mild angst, rote romance, melodramatic rejection pangs and soapy self-realisation epiphanies. Meanwhile the staff  (Kelsey Grammar, Bebe Neuwirth,  Megan Mullally, Charles H Dutton and - from the original - Debbie Allen) trot out firm but caring cliches.  Sweat barely comes into it.

However,  with more bland than bite, while it may not live forever on its own terms and for its target audience (tweeny girls who reckon High School Musical is Citizen Kane) it undeniably succeeds.  The young cast's likeable and the exuberant set pieces - canteen jam session, Halloween CarnEvil, big finale and, as the closet R&B diva classical pianist, Naturi Naughton's showstopping version of Out Here On My Own - are genuinely exhilarating. Mind you, with not a bitching or self-absorbed backstabber in sight, none of the class of 2009  stand much chance of a showbiz career.

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The Hurt Locker (15)

Optimum. Out Now.

There has yet to be a truly commercially successful film about the Iraq war, but, marking a return to form for director Kathryn Bigelow, this has done better than some. It’s also reaped a mass of critical acclaim and earned itself Golden Globe nominations for Best Director, Best Drama and Best Screenplay.

Written by Mark Boal, it draws on his experiences as a journalist embedded with a Baghdad bomb squad for four years so there’s a real smell of authenticity as it explores the explosive cocktail of testosterone and war’s dangerous adrenaline high.

That death can strike at any moment is made clear from the opening sequence when the three man unit moves in to detonate another roadside bomb and its commander is killed in the process. The fact that he’s played by Guy Pearce, who you’d expect to be the film’s lead, warns you to keep your wits alert and to expect the unexpected.

His replacement is Sgt. Will James (Jeremy Renner), a man who, within days of arriving, has removed his protective suit to disarm a rigged car outside the UN building and attempted to help a man reluctantly wired with timed explosives. It may affirms his cool maverick fearlessness but it also suggests he has something of a death wish. Not an ideal attitude when there’s other lives at stake than your own.

Understandably, there’s tensions between him and his by-the-book deputy, Sgt. J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) whose job is to keep an eye out for snippers and trigger men while James deactivates whatever explosives they find.

The intensity already  cranked high, Bigelow takes it up another notch when James strikes up a friendship with a young Arab kid that you just know isn’t going to end happy.

There’s plenty of sweaty palm tension and, as the team come under fire in the desert after becoming involved with a bunch of British mercenaries (led by Ralph Fiennes), some requisite firefight action too. But, prefaced by the quotation that ‘war is a drug’, this is first and foremost an impressionistic character study of  the psychology  of soldiers who find themselves unable to function without the high.

Heart of Fire (12)

Metrodome. From January 18

A simplistic and sentimental script seriously undermines a potentially powerful story about children pressed into service as soldiers during one of Africa’s many civil and ethnic conflicts.

Inspired by but at some remove from Senait G. Mehari’s controversial memoir about her experiences as a child soldier with the Eritrean Liberation Front (the rebels deny they ever used child soldiers), this German-Austrian co-production is directed by Luigi Falorni, the Italian born co-director of The Story of the Weeping Camel. He brings the same sharp visual eye and elicits yet another strong performance from a non actor with the expressive-eyed young  Letekidan Micael who plays 10 year old Awet.

The year is 1981, Eritrea’s in the throes of civil war and, left behind by her mother, killed trying to flee the fighting, the headstrong intelligent Awet has been raised by Italian and Eritrean nuns. Then, one day, her older sister, Freweyni, turns up saying their father, a member of the rebel army, wants to reclaim her.

Leaving the haven of the orphanage clutching an image of the Virgin Mary and a Sacred Heart, the Heart of Fire of the film’s title, she’s delighted at being reunited with the man she believes to be a rebel hero. However, a rude awakening awaits as she discovers he’s a lazy bullying braggart who quickly hands her and Freweyni over to the ELF to become ‘daughters of Eritrea’.

However, she’s fired up by Ma’aza, the female revolutionary put in charge of their training and, although too small to be given a gun like the others, is eager to do her part.  Then,  following a run in with ethnic rivals the Shabia, even the youngest kids are given weapons, much to the objections of Mike'ele, a teacher who’s keen to get the children away from the fighting.

Inevitably, as the conflict intensifies, Awet finds herself involved first hand in the messy realities of war as childhood innocence is rough handled away by the demands of  brutal experience and she comes to question why rival revolutionary factions spend more time fighting each other than their Ethiopian rulers.

The intention is to see war through the eyes of a child, but, in trying to make it a universal rather than a specific story, the script reduces everything to unsubtle simplistics and cliches, offering stereotypes rather than fully dimensional characters.

Led by the engagingly inquisitive and charismatic Micael, the cast – non professionals recruited when the Eritrean government brought pressure to bear on the original actors to withdraw – acquit themselves well, but it’s clear that limitations of time meant Falorini often had to resort to dramatic shorthand to get across the narrative and message. It’s undeniably worthy, but it rarely does more than scratch the surface and for a real gut churner about child soldiers you should check out Innocent Voices, Luis Mandoki’s true story drama of the 80s civil war in El Salvador.

Bustin’ Down The Door (15)

Metrodome. From January 18

For surfheads who felt Riding Giants wasn’t hardcore enough, Jeremy Gosch’s documentary charts the moment in 1975 when a group of  Australians and South Africans came to Hawaii and broke all the rules and boundaries to turn surfing from a hobby into a fully fledged sport and international culture. Narrated by Edward Norton, it features a wealth of archive footage alongside present day interviews with pioneers Wayne 'Rabbit' Bartholomew, Shaun and Michael Tomson, and Ian Cairns, but it never really  explores the sociological aspect of surfing, an omission of which Stacy Peralta’s film was also guilty. And, while it may note that the arrogantly cocky upstart newcomers didn’t exactly get a warm welcome from the natives when they arrived to take over the Hawaiian beaches, it doesn’t ever really address the controversy about how they stole the indigenous culture and repackaged it as a global industry. For hang 10 freaks only.

December 2009

Bandslam (PG)

E1 Out Now

Bullied at school and lacking self-esteem, teenage music buff Will Burton (newcomer Gaelan Connell) regularly pours out his troubles in unanswered e mails to his hero, David Bowie. Things take a turn for the better, however, when his devoted but overprotective single mom (Lisa Kudrow) tells him they’re moving to New Jersey, where no one at his new Junior High will know who he is or call him (for reasons poignantly explained later) ‘dewi’.

  To Will’s amazement, not only does he strike up a friendship with bookworm loner classmate, Sa5m - the 5 is silent – (Vanessa Hudgens)  when they’re paired on a class project to explain who the other is, but also with Charlotte (Disney Channel pop starlet Alyson Michalka), a senior and the most popular girl in school.

Charlotte used to be in a school rock group with ex-boyfriend Ben and has put together a new trio playing Cheap Trick covers as well as their own material. Impressed by Will’s musical knowledge and gentle nature, she first invites his opinion of their playing and then appoints him their manager to guide them to the annual state high school rock competition, Bandslam. In which Ben’s group will also be playing.

 With one platonic friendship, one hesitantly blossoming romance, and one rapidly improving and expanding band, now christened I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On, the film reveals itself as an underdog coming of age comedy drama as Will, Sa5m, and Charlotte all get to discover who they really are, overcome their own fears and the obstacles life throws at them and emerge better, more self-confident people.

Directed and co-written by Todd Graff (who tackled similar themes in the equally competition-based Camp), this terrific feelgood family film is very much in the tradition of John Hughes high school movies like Pretty In Pink and The Breakfast Club or Cameron Crowe’s music literate romcoms such as Say Anything.

Famous for High School Musical, Hudgens will be the most recognisable face here and while she may not be the focus of the plot, her smile is the film’s heart and she does get to perform a fabulous ska styled version of Everything I Own.

Smart, funny, well acted, featuring characters (even minor ones) you care for, with emotional moments that will have everyone reaching for the tissues, a great soundtrack and a tears and cheers payoff, it’s this year’s Hairspray and deserves to become a teen classic.  And yes, there is a certain rock star cameo! The DVD comes with director commentary, two music videos. A making of and 20 minutes worth of deleted scenes. A Christmas present must.

Mid-August Lunch (U)

Artificial Eye Out Now

It’s a hot August weekend in Rome and, as ever, middle aged bachelor Gianni (writer-director Gianni Di Gregorio) is tending to his demanding 93 year old mother, Valeria. On top of which, the fellow residents of the apartment block are insisting he be thrown out for not paying his share of  the service charges.  However, building administrator Luigi has an offer. If Gianni will look after his elderly mother for the day then he’ll waive the charges.  He’ll even give him a private key to the lift.

It sounds a doddle. Until Luigi turns up with, not just mom Marina, but her sister Maria as well. And if trying to look after three strong-willed, bickering golden girls wasn’t headache enough, when word gets out, his doctor asks if he can keep an eye on his mother, Grazia, too. Too polite to say no, Gianni soon finds himself having to cater to their various culinary and medical requirements, tracking one down to the local bar and having to stop another tucking into food she’s not allowed. Fortunately, he’s a bit of a whizz in the kitchen.

You do have to surrender to the film’s very particular and very Italian charms, but there’s gentle pleasure to be had in its celebration of the simple joys of  sharing good food, drink and company as well as serving reminder that old age is not necessarily a  barrier to vitality  and having fun.  And lunch looks pretty tasty too.

The Hangover (15)

Warner Home Entertainment. Out Now

Doug (Justin Bartha) is getting married in two days time. So, as best friends do, he, smooth talking teacher Phil (Bradley Cooper), henpecked dentist Stu (Ed Helms) and misfit future brother-in-law Alan (Zach Galifianakis) borrow a precious Mercedes convertible off the bride’s father and head off to Vegas for a bachelor party.

The next morning, Phil, Stu and Alan wake up in their Caesar's Palace hotel suite to discover it’s been trashed, that Doug is nowhere to be seen, Phil’s wearing a  hospital tag,  Stu’s missing a tooth and that they can’t remember the first thing about what happened the night before. Or how they acquired a baby. Or why there’s a tiger in the bathroom.

Understandably not keen to tell the bride, the guys set out to retrace their steps and try to find Doug in time get back to LA for the wedding. But ever moment that clicks back into place just reveals how crazy everything got and just how much trouble they’re in. Not to give too much away, but it all involves a very annoyed naked Asian gambler, a chicken, a stolen cop car, tazer guns, drugs,  and the discovery that one of them’s managed to get themselves married to a stripper (Heather Graham). Something he really would rather girlfriend from hell Melissa (Rachel Harris) didn’t hear about during her constant check ins to ensure he’s behaving himself.

Rivalling In The Loop as comedy of the year, it only stumbles once with a leaden sequence involving Mike Tyson playing himself. Badly. Directed by Old School’s Todd Phillips, it’s a step up from the usual beer and boobs male buddy movies.  Those staple ingredients may be present and correct, but the cleverly plotted narrative doesn’t rely on them or the usual gross outs for its laughs.

Indeed, unfolding as a classic farce with each new predicament making things worse, it’s very much character driven and, with each of the trio having to face up to their lives, bad decisions and relationships, unexpectedly sharply observed, poignant and rather sweet.

Save for Graham’s cameo, there’s no star names but the performances are top wattage with great chemistry between the three confused buddies while Harris scores high as the controlling harpy. Some films are funny once. The Hangover is funny forever.

Extras include a gag reel, a look at the real locations as the guys retrace their movements and a song apiece from Cooper, Helms and Galifianakis.

November 2009

Star Trek XI (12)

Paramount Home Entertainment. Out Now

After the last two lamentable Next Generation movies, Insurrection and Nemesis, the odds of Star Trek ever returning to the big screen would have seemed less than zero. But then, no one had factored director and fan JJ Abrams into the equation. Although he’d only got one previous feature to his name as director, that did happen to be another franchise resurrection in the form of Mission Impossible III. On top of which, this was the man who created Lost.

With nowhere really left to take the saga forward, the obvious option was to do a Batman and  Superman and go back to the beginning. Not as a reimagining, but as an early years prequel taking the original TV series pilot as the template to show how the crew of the Enterprise came together.

If that was, perhaps, slightly obvious, the  idea of linking Star Treks new and old with a time travel plot by way of a cameo involving one of the original cast meeting his alternate reality younger incarnation was positively inspired. It’s unlikely anyone out there doesn’t already know who I’m talking about, but on the off chance let’s just say it wasn’t William Shatner.

However, while Shatner isn’t there in person, Chris Pine does a remarkably good job of summoning his spirit as the young James T Kirk, perfectly capturing the familiar inflections and body language. Literally born to the breed in the heat of a battle against the Romulans that saw his starship commander father heroically sacrifice himself, the rebellious young Kirk’s challenged to rise to his inheritance by Chris Pike (Bruce Greenwood), the Captain of the newly build Enterprise, by joining fellow new Star Fleet recruits Bones (Karl Urban), Chekov (Anton Yelchin), Sulu (John Cho) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana).

He does, however, get off on the wrong foot with the ship’s science officer, the half-human, half-Vulcan Spock, brilliantly portrayed by Zachary Quinto looking and acting every inch like a young Leonard Nimoy, and the heart of the film lies in revealing how their enduring friendship was forged in the fire of opposite personalities with equally strong wills.

With an unrecognisable Erica Bana leading the Romulan forces in the misguided vengeance quest that drives the narrative that has Earth’s survival as its stake, the film delivers spectacular action sequences but also comes with a screenplay that realises both the importance of solid character development and the need to keep viewers from examining the nuts and bolts of the internal logic too closely.  

Balancing tense thrills with playful humour, in jokes and an unexpected romantic connection between two of the crew, in the best tradition of the classic series it also weaves thoughtful and emotionally weighty themes (especially in the scenes involving Spock and his father) into the fabric of the storyline rather than simply serving up slam bang action and special effects.

Although the late arrival of Simon Pegg as Scotty doesn’t quite work, it’s a magnificent rebirth of the franchise and, with a sequel already in the works, it will, it is to be hoped, live long and prosper.

Released as a double disc, extras feature making of and behind the scenes documentary, a variety of featurettes, commentary, gag reel and a handful of deleted scenes that include the only actual on screen appearance by Klingons.

My Sister’s Keeper (12)

Entertainment DVD. Out Nov 23

Devotees of  Jodi Picoult’s novel may wonder if they’re having a  memory lapse and have somehow blanked the bit where leukaemia sufferer Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) has a brief terminal romance with a dreamboat fellow cancer patient  (Thomas Dekker). They’re not. It’s not actually in the book, and even if it were, you can be sure that Picault would never have written the line “If I didn’t have cancer, I’d never have met you.” But then this so little resembles the source material, there may even be a case for claiming the title to be trading under false pretences.

Born to be an ongoing generic match donor to her older sister, when she’s asked to donate one of her kidneys Anna (Abigail Breslin) decides enough is enough and brings in a lawyer to sue her family  for ‘medical emancipation’.  Naturally, this creates a few ripples in the domestic harmony. However, while Picault’s book was hardly a rigorous debate on parental duty and medical and moral ethics it did raise provocative issues. Director Nick Cassavetes, however, tones down even what survives, ramping up courtroom melodramatics (complete with Joan Cusack as a judge with her own child grief issues) and glossing over  the reality of the family dynamics. Instead, you get firefighter dad (Jason Patric) prevaricating and sympathetic to Anna’s case while mom (Cameron Diaz) turns into a screeching, whining harpy accusing her youngest of being selfish.  They have a dyslexic son too, but since the film isn’t much interested in him, he spends most  of the running time off screen until suddenly returning after running away (blink and you’ll have missed that) to chip in his few cents of self-awakening to back up the denouement.

This, by the way, is by far the worst fault.  Having bombarded you with soft focus flashbacks and courtroom arguments (auto pilot Alec Baldwin providing the comic relief as Anna’s shyster lawyer with his own medical condition), it suddenly throws in a narrative cheat twist that completely explodes the entire moral issue and sends the film spiralling into a pit of  tissue-soaking saccharine.

The performances are variable with Diaz piling on the whine and theatrics and Breslin doing what she can with her deliberately unsympathetic character, but Vassilieva steals all the acting honours as the bald, ailing, vomiting Kate keeping up emotional spirits and winning smile as the inevitable draws closer and everyone learns the value of life and accepting death. Those who enjoy a good weep will doubtless be moved, cynics may just tear up their donor cards.

Crossing Over (18)

Entertainment DVD. Out Nov 23

 LA cop Max Brogan (Harrison Ford) may spend his days busting illegal immigrants, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t got sympathy for those he deports. Heck, he inquires after their health and when one young mother’s put on the bus back to Mexico, he even tries to reunite her with the young son she had to leave behind. Meanwhile, his dedicated Iranian-American partner Hamid (Cliff Curtis) is proud that his father’s about to receive his citizenship but not too happy that his sister’s morals are becoming increasingly Westernised.

Elsewhere in the sprawling plot, British Jewish atheist musician Gavin (Jim Sturgess) is trying to persuade people he’s a Hebrew scholar so he can stay in America, his wannabe Australian actress girlfriend Claire (Alice Eve) has agreed to spend two months as sex slave to Green Card adjudicator Cole (Ray Liotta) in return for his approving a work permit while his lawyer wife Denise (Ashley Judd) is trying to find a new family for an orphaned African girl and having to arrange the deportation of a 15 year old Muslim whose classroom essay has seen her accused of being a potential suicide bomber by a paranoid Homeland Security officer.

And, just to ensure you’re paying attention, a Korean teenager awaiting naturalization has got mixed up with the wrong company, a choice that will lead to a supermarket shoot out and a lengthy monologue about citizenship.

Directed by Wayne Kramer, it’s basically a Crash copycat about post 9/11 US immigration policies rather than race issues. As such, there’s some solid performances  but, with too many vignettes and loosely connected storylines competing for space there’s no room for any character development beyond one dimension (Ford, scowling but honourable, Liotta sleazy, etc) while the insubstantial script serves up coincidence, yawning predictability, sanctimonious dialogue, melodrama and manipulative sentimentality and passes it off as cultural critique. 

The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee (15)

Icon Home Entertainment. Out Now

Robin Wright Penn can be a hard actress to like, but she’s gives an undeniably powerhouse performance here as a woman who, now her two kids have grown up, finds her life consumed by playing hostess at their new retirement village home. With the dinner guests mostly friends of her self-absorbed, celebrated publisher husband Herb (Alan Arkin) who, at 80, is 30 years her senior and apparently showing signs of dementia, she’s understandably feeling a bit hemmed in by the predictability of their routine. All the more so since she was a bit of a wild child when she was younger.

Then she meets Chris (Keanu Reeves), the son of a neighbour who, unlike Herb and her screwed up manipulative mother (Maria Bello), is willing to give his time to listen to her. As a tentative romance begins to simmer, Pippa begins to reconnect to her true, suppressed self. However, life still has some unexpected curve balls to throw her way, not least the discovery that Herb is having an affair with one of her friends (Winona Ryder) and that the nocturnal sleepwalking raids on the fridge aren’t being carried out by her husband.

Adapted and directed by Rebecca Miller from her own book, it’s a rather cold, dry and slow study of trapped wife syndrome and mid-life crisis with an uneven tone that never quite manages its balance of prickly humour and sober emotion. Reeves gives his usual blank slate performance, but for once it serves his directionless, confused character well, Arkin is superbly unlikable while both Blake Lively as the teenage Pippa and Julianne Moore as her aunt’s lesbian lover give dynamic spark to the flashback sequences. Bu it’s Wright Penn turn as a woman whose world and identity is unravelling that makes this worth the money.

Public Enemies (15)

Universal Home Entertainment. Out Now

Too long and too sprawling for its own good with hand held HD digital camerawork that feels awkward in the period setting and too many underdeveloped subplots, nonetheless director Michael Mann’s biopic of John Dillinger, the notorious Depression era bank robber, jailbreaker and America’s first Public Enemy No 1, has much to recommend.

Spanning the period from  1933 as Dillinger (Johnny Depp) actually breaks into the Indiana state penitentiary to free the former cellmates who will become part of his gang  to July 1934 when, following an elaborate series of law-enforcement engineered betrayals (including that of crime boss Frank Nitti),  he was gunned down leaving the Chicago cinema where he’d just been watching Clark Gable in Manhattan Melodrama, Mann seeks to both indulge the cinematic romanticising of the gangster and show the darker realities behind the myth.

For the most part, he succeeds admirably while, acting with his eyes to electrifying effect, Depp giving an awards-worthy turn as the charismatic and fiercely intelligent Dillinger, a folk hero to those hit by the Depression for his targeting of the banks rather than the public but also ruthlessly cold when the situation required.

Less well served is Christian Bale who, as Melvin Purvis, the G-man who shot Pretty Boy Floyd and the dogged top agent of the fledging FBI put together by J Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup),  is saddled with an intense, enigmatic but largely reactive role that never really lets you inside his head. Likewise, Marion Cottilard as Dillinger’s loyal and devoted French hat check girlfriend Billie Frechette who, while delivering a strong performance, isn’t given enough attention in the screenplay to get beneath the surface and examine her moral and emotional choices.

  There’s plenty of typical Mann action with shoot-outs, chases and jailbreaks, most notably a forest cabin gunfight between Dillinger’s crew and the FBI that echoes the legendary set piece of Heat. But it’s actually in the quieter moments where the film works best, most specifically the surreal – almost otherworldly - scene where, with Purvis and his agents all out looking for him, Dillinger coolly walks into the police station operations room, looks around and even engages those still there in a conversation about the big game.

With a cast list that also includes Channing Tatum’s brief cameo as Pretty Boy Floyd and David Wenham, Stephen Dorff, Giovanni Ribisi and Stephen Graham as, respectively, Dillinger gang members, Harry Pierpoint, Homer Van Meter, Alvin Karpis and the sociopathic Baby Face Nelson, the film keeps the suspense ratcheted through to Dillinger’s whispered last words.

Ultimately, in terms of the century’s gangster sagas to date, it comes in third behind  Jean-Francois Richet’s magnificent Mesrine two parter, Killer Instinct and Public Enemy No 1,  and time alone will tell if it eventually achieves the same status of similar period crime classics like The Untouchables, Bonnie & Clyde, and White Heat, but as bullets for your bucks go it’s got a very well stocked magazine.

Bonus features include a making of, profiles of Dillinger and Purvis, and features on Dillinger and the real locations.

The Other Man (15)

Metrodome. Out Now

An object lesson in how precarious the movie business can be, director Richard Eyre’s last film, Notes On A Scandal, earned four Oscar nominations and a BAFTA  nomination as Best British Film. His follow up didn’t even get near a cinema screen. But then, perhaps that’s understandable. Adapted by Eyre from a  story by Bernhard Schlink, author of The Reader, it’s another tale of unhealthy obsession, in this case nursed by Liam Neeson who, after his shoe designer wife, Laura Linney, dies of cancer (though you don’t learn this until later) discovers she was having an affair. Tracking down the mysterious lover, the suave Antonio Banderas, to Milan he engineers a chance encounter but doesn’t tell him who he is. Instead, he strikes up a close friendship, regularly meeting up in a café for both literal and metaphorical games of chess and he gets him to reveal more and more intimate details about the affair.

However, there’s more to this romantic triangle than there first appears. Flashbacks show Linney and Banderas together in Italy while the present day reinforces the sense that, like Neeson’s relationship with daughter Romola Garai, the marriage may not have been as perfect as it seemed. On top of which, Banderas isn’t what he appears either.

All of which seeks to throw you off the scent, pointing you in one direction before hitting you with an unexpected twist. Unfortunately, Eyre’s not very good in sustaining interest in the psychodrama and with much of the film revolving around two men sitting opposite each other talking, the patience soon begins to wear thin while, when the truth finally emerges, it’s all anti climactic and rather dull.

Although Garai isn’t given much to do, the performances are worth a look with Linney suitably complex while Neeson reins in the emotions and Banderas deftly plays with his perceived persona. Upscale art house audiences may find rewards, but anyone hoping for something as juicy as Scandal is doing to find this very dry indeed.

The Wizard Of Oz  Sing-Along-Edition (U)

Warner Home Entertainment. Out Now

Dorothy, Tin Man, Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion, Toto, Yellow Brick Road, Wicked Witch, Emerald City. Who doesn’t know the film!  But you won’t have seen it looking quite so amazing as in the first revitalised Blu-Ray edition which brings you everything in incredible detail, right down to the freckles on Judy Garland’s face. It’s like seeing it for the first time.

This three disc special features two Blu-Ray discs, containing commentary, restoration feature, sing-along feature, documentaries, outtakes, deleted scenes and three shorts, The Magic Clock of Oz and Patchwork Girl of Oz from 1914 and 1925’s The Wizard of Oz. A single disc DVD contains the standard definition version of the film and sing-along edition.

Last Chance Harvey (12)

Momentum. Released Nov 6

There’s not much by way of a plot in this old-fashioned and predictable romantic drama, but there’s a lot of pleasure to be had from watching Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman as two lonely people finding love over a weekend in London. A sort of middle aged  Before Sunrise, it has Hoffman as Harvey Shine, a divorced New Yorker singles writer and failed jazz pianist who flies in to London for his partly estranged daughter’s wedding to discover that he’s not been put up with the rest of the guests and that Susan (Liane Balaban) wants her step-father Brian (James Brolin) to give her away rather than him.

Following a somewhat prickly pre-nuptials dinner where the tension between himself, his ex wife (Kathy Baker) and her new husband is palpable, Harvey takes off after the wedding ceremony rather than attend the reception, only to miss his flight and be fired over the phone.

Heading to an airport bard to drown his sorrow, he spots Kate (Thompson), the Heathrow survey taker he brushed aside when (45 minutes earlier in the film) he first landed.

A fortysomething singleton with a neurotic overbearing mother (Eileen Atkins), she’s initially resistant to his attempts at striking up a conversation but it’s not long before she’s persuaded him to go to the reception  and he’s persuaded her to accompany him. Only stopping off for a quick shopping montage on the way.

And that’s it, really. No prizes for guessing Harvey and Susan are reconciled or that, after the obligatory hiccup, Harvey and Kate’s whirlwind romance fills the hole in their empty lives. Okay, so Hoffman’s Harvey is a tad irritating and you never get a handle on Kate’s back story, but there’s great chemistry between the two stars and Thompson is always a delight to watch, one of the stars whose fluid performance feels totally natural rather than acting. A feelgood Sunday afternoon love story treat for the older woman audience.

October 2009

Dollhouse (15)

20^th Century Fox Home Entertainment. Out Now

The latest series from Joss Whedon, creator Buffy, Angel and Firefly (and, though often forgotten, co-writer of Toy Story), stars Buffy’s Elisha Dushku as Echo, the most prominent of a number of attractive women (and the occasional male) who (for reasons that take a long time to be explained) are operatives for the secret organisation known as The Dollhouse. Overseen by tough cookie businesswoman Adelle DeWitt (Olivia Williams) with Topher Brink (Fran Kranz) as the computer genius behind the technology, it provides the rich and powerful with ‘actives’, girls who have been imprinted with the personalities and skills required to serve the client’s desires. This might be sexual or, as in one episode, involve leading a museum robbery, but at the end of each assignment, the dolls have their memories wiped and the persona removed.

From the opening episode, we learn that one of the actives, Alpha (a male, naturally) rebelled and escaped, after slaughtering several other dolls and organisation workers, but leaving Echo unharmed. She now has a new ‘handler’, Boyd Langton (Harry Lennix), who’s assigned to watch over her during  missions while, believing the urban legends about the Dollhouse concern human trafficking, FBI agent Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett) is trying to learn more. He’s specifically on the trail of a woman whose photo was sent to him. The woman who is now Echo. Meanwhile, back at the Dollhouse, the wiping techniques are starting to develop flaws, leaving the dolls with residue memories of their past imprinted personas.

A sort of cross between Charlie’s Angels, Mission Impossible and The Stepford Wives, it is, inevitably, rather episodic, with Dushku becoming a new person for each adventure. However, narrative continuity teases are dropped in as you go and, with the arrival of the sixth instalment and revelations about Echo’s real life past, while it’s yet to live up to the ‘what it means to be human’ premise, things start coming together with a compelling air of complex mystery and conspiracy that hooks you in. The 4 disc box set features the entire First Season and, after rumours that it would not get renewed, a second series has been commissioned.

Anything For Her (15)

Metrodome. Out Now

Schoolteacher Julien (Vincent Lindon) and wife Lisa (Diane Kruger) are having breakfast in their French kitchen with their young son when in burst the gendarmes and she’s carted away under arrest. Next thing you know, she’s being charged with murdering her boss in an underground carpark. The evidence is circumstantial - blood on her coat matches the victim’s and her fingerprints are on the fire extinguisher that was used – but, despite protesting that she saw a woman running away from the scene, she’s convicted and sent down.

Convinced of her innocence, when the years pass, no new evidence surfaces and legal means fail, her husband determines to secure her release. Contacting a famous escapee who’s written a memoir about his exploits, Julien sets about planning a daring prison break, gathering firearms, fake documents and staking out the prison to plot every details of routine.

An implausible generic scenario perhaps, but the film plays things low key and, until a final act involving gunplay and chances, focuses more on character, the intricacies of the plotting and the consequences and implications of what an escape would mean for the family. Kruger is excellent as a woman sinking into despondency and attempted suicide while Lindon makes Julien’s brooding hangdog intensity immensely watchable, and as the mood gradually darkens and the escape attempt draws closer, the tension mounts and you’re never really sure if things are going work out. There will, inevitably, be a slicked up American remake, but this is the real thing.

24:Season 7 (15)

20^th Century Fox Home Entertainment. Out Now

Picking up the storyline following standalone TV movie Redemption, it’s four years since CTU was disbanded and Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) is back from Africa and in front of a Senate hearing into the illegal use of torture during his attempts to foil terrorist attacks. However, no sooner have the hearings started than FBI agent Renee Walker (Annie Wersching)  request an adjournment as the agency requires his input over a plot to infiltrate America’s computer infrastructure. Much to Jack’s surprise, he learns that one of those behind the plot is Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard), his friend and fellow CTU agent whom he saw die in a medical facility.

It’s not giving too much away to say that while the past four years have involved the embittered Almeida in murky waters, he’s not about to let terrorists cripple his country and is, in fact, working undercover alongside former CTU agents Bill Buchanan (James Morrison) and Chloe O’Brian (Mary Lynn Raskub) on a mission to uncover deep seated conspirators within the government in the pay of Colonel Dubaku who is working to force President Taylor (Cherry Jones) to call off the invasion of Sangala, the African nation where his ruthless boss, General Juma, is committing genocide.

With the FBI compromised and no idea how high the conspiracy goes, Bauer, Almeida and Walker are forced to work alone to try and capture Dubaku and recover the device that has already caused a mid air collision killing 300. Initially repulsed by Jack’s methods, Walker gradually finds herself realising that sometimes extreme situations call for extreme measures.

 Weaving a complex web of betrayal and conspiracy that involves a variety of connected subplots, it keeps you guessing as to who may or may not be a traitor (though if you think one character looks decidedly weaselly, you’re totally right) and while it’s relatively less violent than past series, the body count and firefights remain high.

The new characters, who also include Jeffrey Nording as Walker’s boss and romantic interest Larry Moss and Janeane Garofalo as FBI agent Janis Gold, are solidly realised and, alongside Buchanan and O’Brian, there’s several other returning familiar faces from previous seasons, including one major surprise in the final hours.

Inevitably, Jack gets puts through the wringer, variously being beaten up, arrested, freed, tortured and being exposed to a lethal bioweapon while it’s never a good idea to rely on even recurring characters making it to the end of any particular episode.

Clearing up one crisis only to launch straight into another, with yet more double crosses, it’s high on nail biting tension and action - there’s even a terrorist attack inside the White House itself - while also maintaining a provocative debate on how far it’s permissable to go and what collateral damage is acceptable in defence of your country and freedom as well as examining the psychological and emotional cost of those decisions.

One of the best and most complex seasons yet (and the first released on both DVD and Blu-Ray), bonus features include deleted scenes, behind the scenes footage, commentaries and featurettes, including one UK exclusive. Roll on Day 8.

Frozen River (15)

Axiom. Out Now

Best known for her role as Kay Howard in 90s TV series Homicide: Life On The Street, Melissa Leo earned a deserved Best Actress nomination at this year’s Oscars for her role as Ray Eddy. When her gambling addict husband takes off with the money they’d saved to buy a bigger trailer home just as Christmas approaches, the middle aged upstate New York supermarket worker’s left trying to fend of debts, look after her two sons, aged 15 and 5, and raise the cash she needs not to lose her dream house and her deposit.

Trying to track down her errant husband, she meets Lila Littlewolf (Misty Upham), a nearsighted Mohawk widow whose baby’s been taken by her mother-in-law and who earns money helping to smuggle illegal immigrants – mostly Chinese - across the frozen Saint Lawrence from Canada. Desperate, Ray strikes a deal with Lila. She’ll use her husband’s car to smuggle across the human cargo in return for half the cash. Being white, there’s less chance of the border patrols stopping the car and it looks like a quick fox to her problems.

However, just as the ice begins to get metaphorically thinner so the risks begin to mount, and with elder son  TJ engaging in his own dodgy attempts to raise money to put toys beneath the Christmas tree, when Ray persuades Lila to make one last trip you know things are going to go pear-shaped.

A story of two women with a mutual need struggling for everyday economic survival, written and directed by first timer Courtney Hunt (who earned a Best Screenplay nomination), it was hailed as one of the year’s best film by no less than Quentin Tarantino. A bleak, unsentimental affair that never strays into generic thriller territory and never passes judgements, it has a powerful emotional core and strong sense of humanity with even the troopers offering understanding and compassion. Slow burning and with a narrowly focused narrative, it unfolds a powerful tale of quite desperation and, eventually, an unexpected friendship and sacrifice that perfectly gels with the season of hope and goodwill.

SEPTEMBER 2009

Angels & Demons (12)

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

After being criticised for making the deadly dull but massively successful Da Vinci Code too slow, too long and too talky with too much plot exposition, director Ron Howard has firmly addressed matters for the Dan Brown follow up. It’s still talky and weighed down with plot exposition, but it’s a lot shorter and this time the dialogue’s largely delivered as characters rush around Vatican City trying to find a hidden bomb and rescue the four kidnapped Papal candidates who have been designated for cryptic executions at the four altars of the ‘Path of Illumination’ every hour as the clock counts down.

Called in to help, symboligist expert Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) touches down in Rome and quickly judges it to be the work of the Catholic Church’s long time nemesis, the Illuminati. Teaming with Italian scientist Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer), from whose Geneva lab the God Particle vial of deadly anti-matter was stolen, the only hope of saving the Vatican while the papal conclave elect a new Pope (the last one, naturally, turns out to have been murdered) involves getting his hands on a banned Galileo book locked in the Vatican library and cracking the clues on a 400 year old trail of ancient symbols before the batteries keeping the vial safe run down.

 It would help too if they could uncover the personal agendas of  Swiss Guard security chief Richter (Stellan Skarsgard), influential Cardinal Strauss (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and McKenna (Ewan McGregor), the dead pontiff’s assistant and – until a new appointment – temporarily in charge of the Vatican. There’s also the small matter of a deadly assassin.

It is, inevitably, as historically rubbish as its predecessor and full of glaring geographical gaffs (Brown is clearly no expert on the layout of Rome.), but the brisker 24 styled thriller pace gives less time to notice. Naturally few of those involved are quite what they appear and there’s plenty of red herrings before the film pulls back the curtains to reveal whodunit and heads into its ludicrously far fetched (and considerably different to the book) climax.

Replacing Audrey Tatou as the female interest, Zurer isn’t given a lot to do while McGregor’s Irish accent is simply all over the place, but Skarsgard is compelling and Hanks has considerably more charisma than in the Da Vinci Code, not to mention a better hairdo. It’s still B movie hokum, but at least this time it’s entertaining hokum.

Is Anybody There? (12)

Optimum. Out now.

Michael Caine gives a poignantly touching performance as Clarence,  a widowed curmudgeonly retired magician who, reluctantly checking into a shabby Yorkshire care home, slowly loses his flinty edges as he bonds with  Edward (Bill Miner), the owners’ young son who’s morbidly obsessed with trying to contact the dead. Both learn lessons about life and friendship but, with signs of Alzheimer's setting in, you know it’s going to have a bittersweet reach for the tissues ending.

A starry cast of fellow residents that includes Leslie Phillips, Sylvia Sims, Rosemary Harris and Peter Vaughan have little to do as Clarence starts bucking up their fossilising lives while David Morrissey and Anne-Marie Duff are badly served by the screenplay as the two-dimensional sad sack philandering dad and the put-upon mom. Set in an unconvincing 1987 and tonally uneven, it stumbles uneasily between pathos and slapstick delivering a mix of  wistful humour and cheesy corn, but the relationship between Clarence and Edward, which gives the film a Harold and Maude meets One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest flavour, ensures it remains an agreeable watch.

The September Issue (12)

Momentum. From September 21

RJ Cutler’s frockumentary goes behind the scenes to reveal how the record-breaking 840 page September 2007 issue of US Vogue was put together. More specifically, it focuses on its English born editor, Anna Wintour, the daughter of former Evening Standard editor Charles Wintour who, famously frosty and dubbed Nuclear Wintour, was the inspiration for Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada.

Indisputably the world’s most powerful fashionista who can make or break careers, she’s probably seen off more members of staff than she has issues with her ice-queen personality.  Driven by ambition (as a child she said she wanted to edit Vogue), disdainful, taciturn and resolutely formidable, it’s also true that she knows fashion inside out and is a brilliant business woman You don’t get to run Vogue for 20 years if you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Cutler follows her around as she visits designers to check their collections, attends shows, dismisses models (one looks pregnant, one’s too skinny, Sienna Miller’s hair is ‘a bit rubbish’) and throws out all the hard work of her colleagues. Yet, even as one says she’s “not accessible to people she doesn't need”, her staff are incredibly loyal. Most especially Grace Coddington, the Welsh former model who joined Vogue on the same day and is now regarded as the industry’s top stylist. Fuzzy where Wintour is sharp, romantic where her boss is cold, and, while constantly engaged in a battle of wills, theirs is a fascinating relationship built on mutual respect and, though Wintour might be reticent to say so, real friendship.

Regardless of your interest in the fashion world, it’s a fascinating documentary but also somewhat disappointing. There’s no real personal probing (and Wintour evades what little there is), no real behind closed doors revelations and it’s hard to imagine that someone as controlling as Wintour  when it comes to appearances didn’t have her hands involved somewhere in the process before the film went public. Perhaps that’s why there’s no mention of her controversial pro-fur stance. At the end of the day, it really just a puff piece for Vogue, it just happens to be a very watchable one.

Fireflies In The Garden (15)

IndiVision. From Sept 28

Romantic novelist Michael Taylor (Ryan Reynolds) has come to his aunt Jane’s (Emily Watson) where the family are gathering to celebrate the much belated (she put family before personal career for years) graduation ceremony of mom Lisa (Julia Roberts). However, he’s barely arrived when, driving too fast and swerving to avoid Jane’s son, dad Charles (Willem Dafoe) crashes into a telegraph pole and mom’s killed. Cue a series of flashbacks and present day scenes exploring the family’s deep dysfunctionality as we learn how the rift between father and son grew from the academic’s tyrannical behaviour and demand for perfection and how that impacted on the marriage and parental relationship, and of the younger Michael’s brother-sister (and a touch more) relationship with the younger Jane (Hayden Panetierre). Then there’s the grown Jane’s guilt-wracked  son, Michael’s alcoholic estranged wife (Carrie Anne-Moss) and, looming through all the post tragedy proceedings, the spectre of his first serious novel, a semi-atobiographical memoir of paternal abuse and the discovery that mom wasn’t quite as apple pie as he assumed.

Built around four interconnected stories, this is seriously unsubtle soap melodrama about emotional cruelty,  fractured relationships, reaching understandings and forgiveness. There’s a lot of half-written back stories and bizarre lurches of tone between black comedy and searing kitchen sink, and you have to suspend a lot of disbelief to accept Panetierre growing up to become Watson. However, it is strongly acted – Dafoe particularly powerful as the self-absorbed, insecure and bitter father with Reynolds tremendous at internalised rage – and that alone makes it worth the recommendation.

Swing Vote (12)

Anchor Bay. From September 28

An apathetic, boozing and not entirely bright slacker who’s gone to seed since his wife walked out, when Bud (Kevin Costner) gets drunk after getting fired and doesn’t turn up to cast his vote in the Presidential elections,  his overachieving, politically aware 12 year old daughter Molly (Madeline Carroll) forges his signature and casts it for him. Except there’s an electrical glitch and the vote’s not registered. Come the results and it seems the decision on who’ll become the next President, Republican incumbent Boone (Kelsey Grammer) or contesting Democrat Greenleaf (Dennis Hopper), literally comes down to one man, one vote. And so, once news gets out, the media circus descends on Texaco, New Mexico as the rival candidates and their slippery campaign managers (Stanley Tucci, Nathan Lane) seek to woo Bud’s decision as he becomes a national celebrity.

An awkward and often heavy-handed mix of Capraesque political satire and the healing relationship between irresponsible father and caring daughter, it never quite knows which to favour, veering between silly scenes of Bud being wooed for his vote and, for example, the devastating moment when Molly turns up at her runaway mother’s and is starkly told she’s not wanted.

Essentially a fable about learning to vote with your heart, it’s the moments between Costner and Carroll that stand tall and are the most affecting, though Bud’s final speech to the two candidates about principles not politics will probably ring a patriotic tear or two.

White Lightnin’ (18)

Momentum From Sept 28

Like Johnny Cash, West Virginian Jesco White was the product of a southern white rural background, became a star and had his fair share of run in with drink, drugs, and depression. His parents believed he had the Devil in him and, spending his misspent youth self-asphyxiation, sniffing lighter fluid, boozing, self-harming and shooting up crystal meth, Jesco wasn’t inclined to disagree.

Escape came, however, through dancing. His father was legendary Appalachian mountain dancing (a sort of clogging version of tap) star D Ray White and Jesco quite literally followed in his footsteps. He proved to have a real talent, but this didn’t keep him from spending his adolescence in and out of juvenile centres before being packed off to the mental hospital. While he was inside, his dad was murdered, leading Jesco to vow to continue his legacy and find his killers. Dancing his way to fame as ‘the Dancing Outlaw’, White also fell for and married the much older Norma Jean, their on off relationship proving no less volatile than the rest of his life.

All of this is true, but as written by Eddie Moretti and Shane Smith and brilliantly directed (in black and white with washed out dabs of colour) by British film-maker Dominic Murphy, it takes the facts as a jumping off point for an increasingly surreal, lurid and ultimately rather bloody tale of vengeance, murder and redemption that, deliberately jumbling real and imagined experiences, explores White’s inner demons and mental illness. Despite the gruesome self-mutilating climax, White (the subject of another forthcoming documentary by Johnny Knoxville) is actually alive and, if not well then at least colourful.

Edward Hogg delivers a bold and visceral performance as Jesco that drags you into the heart of this disturbing film while Carrie Fisher is outstanding as his wife, renamed ‘Cilla by her husband because he reckons she’s as beautiful as Priscilla Presley. Not an easy film to watch and certainly one of the more extreme biopics in terms of accuracy, but undeniably compelling.

Fifty Dead Men Walking (15)

Metrodome. From Sept 9

Sickened by the IRA’s punishment knee-capping of a neighbour's son, cocky young west Belfast chancer Martin McGartland (Jim Sturgess) is recruited by Special Branch handler Fergus (Ben Kingsley) as an informant. Initially just feeding titbits in return for a car and easy money with which to impress new girlfriend Lara (Natalie Press), he gets a morally compromising wake up call after realising he's helped facilitate a deadly hotel bombing. 

Rising through the ranks, McGartland starts passing more vital information that helps foil several IRA operations and killings. But, now married and a new father, the pressures of living a secret double life (and a dangerous romantic liaison with temptress IRA boss Grace played by Rose McGowan) begin to tell on both the relationship and his lifelong friendship with fellow IRA member Sean (Kevin Zegers) while witnessing the torture of a suspected grass brings home the sort of danger he's courting.

When his cover's blown after Fergus is overridden and the SAS storm a planned pub hit, it becomes clear that it's time to get out. Even if that means leaving his whole life behind. Assuming, of course, the IRA don't get to him first.

Loosely based on McGartland's memoir (referring to the number of lives he helped save) but made without his blessing, the opening scene of him being gunned down in his car in Canada rather dilutes the suspense of the flashbacks. Likewise, a commendable attention to realism (if not necessarily factual accuracy) is rather undermined when the plot requires a switch into standard thriller mode.

However, there's still much to recommend this serious minded exploration of the Troubles. Archive footage, captions and Kingsley's voice over offer historical context and explanation, Sturgess, Zegers and Press all have flawless Ulster accents, while the performances and violence alike are strong. Martin's complex surrogate father-son relationships with both IRA organiser Adams (Tom Collins) and the non-Irish Fergus are also emotionally effective.

Where it scores best, however, is in addressing Martin's dilemma of betraying one community to save those of another without judgement or political agenda, opting instead to capture the desperate impossibility of the situation and leave you with some very tough questions.

Extras include director commentary, extracts from McGartland’s book, making of and deleted scenes.

Leon: Director’s Cut (15)

Optimum

Released in the UK in February 1995, Luc Besson’s off kilter surrogate father-daughter tale about a cynical hitman and the 12 year old girl who becomes his protégé after her parents are killed proved an instant box office success, introducing the world to Natalie Portman and, after a brief cameo in Nikita, turning French actor Jean Reno into an international star. Word soon got round, however, that there was a longer version, featuring scenes that had been cut after the film tested badly with  LA preview audiences, largely on account of their sexual overtones and what was felt to be inappropriate situations involving a minor.

In June, 1996 that longer version opened in French cinemas as Leon: version integrale, restoring 26 minutes of footage. The so called International Cut would subsequently appear on European and even American DVDs. Here, however, only the cut theatrical was made available. Now, 14 years later and reclassified from the original 18 certificate, British audiences finally get the chance to appreciate Besson’s classic in its full, intended glory with the first ever UK DVD release of the extended version containing scenes such as Leon explaining why he had to leave Italy when he was 19. the pair hitting a drug dealer’s home, Mathilda’s extra assassin training missions, her game of Russian Roulette and, the ones that most upset the censors, Mathilda asking Leon to have sex with her and he refusing and a shot of the two of them sleeping together in a bed.

The following is my original 1995 review.

Made in New York, filmed in English, but the sort of sentimental tale about an orphan redeeming a soft-hearted loner the French adore, while partly a gender reversal of Cassavetes' Gloria (mobster's moll protects young boy from murderous hoods) with a pinch of Taxi Driver, this is essentially Chaplin's The Kid with bullets.

Luc Besson's taken Victor the 'cleaner' (also played by Reno) who tidied up the mess at the end of Besson's Nikita, renamed him Leon and relocated him to Manhattan, as a taciturn, milk-drinking Italian hit man who, when her sleazy family are slaughtered by crooked cops (led by Gary Oldman) gives refuge to streetwise 12 year old waif next door, Mathilda (Portman). Having saved her life, she argues, he's now responsible for her. Which, in her view means showing her the ropes so she can avenge her baby brother. She teaches him to read, he teaches her to play sniper, and they both discover love in a relationship crackling with sexual tension and stalked by fate.

 A sophisticated action movie fairy tale sharing Nikita's innocence vs experience themes, it opens with a stylish multiple hit and, lacing abrupt violence (shades of John Woo) with disarming splashes of pathos and humour, just gets better. Arcing from an isolated cynic whose only companion's a potted plant to a vulnerable surrogate father, Reno (voice like buttered nicotine) is a marvel, Oldman finds new tricks for his old psychotic dog, and, in her screen debut, Portman (resembling a grungy young Winona Ryder) is, quite simply, revelatory. Heart, high bodycount and hip cool, what more could you want?

Only those extra 26 minutes. And, at long last, here they are.

Sounds Like Teen Spirit (12)

Warner Music Entertainment. From Sept 14

You know about the Eurovision Song Contest, but have you ever heard of Junior Eurovision? The first full length feature by British director Jamie Johnson, this is a fabulous popumentary about the song contest’s little sibling in which Jamie Johnson follows youngsters between the ages of 10-15 as they first compete to represent their countries and then take part in the contest itself.

The UK doesn’t enter, nor do France, Germany or any of the other major European countries, but there’s a massive representation from the Eastern bloc and, inevitably, Scandinavia, among the 17 competing.

Belgium’s the first port of call as a pair of accordion playing brothers, pink clad cowgirls the Dalton Sisters, singer Babs and teen pop outfit Trust (whose big ‘gimmick’ is putting rice on the gangly drummer’s kit) compete to become the country’s official entry. It comes down to Bab's song about how her best friend stole her boyfriend and Trust’s Eurofriendly Mama. The rice clinches it.

Next we meet Giorgos, an 11-year-old Cypriot with a decent voice who’s been given a hard time at school because he prefers singing (opera especially) to playing football. But, as he says, if it wasn’t for the bullying, he wouldn’t be where he is today.

There’s touching personal stories from the other two contestants on whom Johnson focuses. Representing Bulgaria are girl group Bon-Bon, whose 14-year-old singer-songwriter Marina has lost faith with romance since their parents split up and hopes that if she wins it might bring her dad back home because “if he's watching, that means he cares." Then there’s 13 year old Mariam, a worldly wise war refugee from Georgia living in virtual poverty with her mother and for whom taking part in Junior Eurovision literally becomes a life changing event.

There’s tears but there’s laughs too. Trust’s drummer  reveals a droll sense of teenage humour and a total inability to dance, while pig-tailed Ukraine entry Ilona causes a panic among the judges over appropriate presentation when she rips off her dress to reveal something a little too sexy for an 11 year old. 

Johnson rather over-eggs things in his light hearted montages which set Europe’s battle scarred history (most of these countries have fought one another at some point) against the camaraderie among the kids, but never once does he patronise his young subjects or use knowing irony and it’s testament to his sincerity and compassion that they are so open on camera about their hopes and fears.

You may not be wetting yourself with excitement, as the Rotterdam hostess rather embarrassingly declares herself as the contest gets underway, but you will find yourself rooting for the kids and feeling a lump in the throat as some of them watch as they slip further down the scoreboard. But there’s no real losers as new friendships are forged and brighter futures emerge for several of the children, Giorgos declaring he wants to represent Belgium in the adult Eurovision when he’s older.
 Funny, full of charm and guaranteed to leave you with a big smile on your face, it’s one of the year’s most enjoyable and feelgood  films. Extras include deleted scenes, an entertaining Q&A with Johnson and producer Stephen Woolley, the winning song in full and clips from all 17 entries. 

AUGUST 2009

Shifty (15)

Metrodome From Aug 24

Shot in just 18 days on a budget of £100,000, writer-director Eran Creevy’s semi-autobiographical debut also happens to be one of the year’s best British movies.
Back in inner city London four years after an abrupt disappearance to Manchester following a devastating incident, Chris (Daniel Mays) hooks up once more with Shifty (Riz Ahmed), his smart former best mate with whom he used to deal drugs. Chris has put all that behind him, but, Shifty’s graduated from selling dope to coke and crack
Unfolding over the course of a day and seen through Chris’ perspective, the film follows the pair as Shifty does his rounds, visiting such regulars as yuppie stoners, a father (Jay Simpson) with a secret coke habit and no money to feed it, and a crack head hippie pensioner (Francesca Annis) who lives in a flat full of stuffed cats.
Shifty also has to deal with the fall out when his devout older brother (Nitin Ganatra) discovers what’s going on and the fact that his untrustworthy supplier, Glen (Jason Flemyng) is setting him up.
Deftly juggling the tragi-comic tone, Creevy never gets on a soapbox about inner city youth issues and while Shifty’s a Muslim, the screenplay never makes a big deal about it. Instead he and his two terrific leads are more concerned in building an involving and insightful character study about friendship, guilt and remorse.
Shot without any flash camerawork, it superbly captures the claustrophobic grimness of its landscapes while the soundtrack cleverly avoids the usual hip hop/rap cliches. The support cast are well drawn (Flemyng is particularly menacing) and Creevy’s own experiences ensure the film never feels less than grounded in the realism of drug abuse (the  account of the junkie girl whose face melted while she was passed out against a radiator provided the true initial impetus for the script) and when choices have to be made or violence dished out, the emotional and physical pain hits straight to the gut. Released as a 2 disc set it features commentary, making of, behind the scenes features, interviews and script.

The Damned United (15)

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. From Aug 31

I know little about football and care less, but I do know who Brian Clough was and I do know this tremendous British comedy-drama deserves a far wider audience than saw it in cinemas.
Having done Kenneth Williams, Blair and Frost, Michael Sheen tackles yet another real life role (again written by Peter Morgan) as the film focuses on Ol’ Big Head’s ill-fated 44 day stint as manager of Leeds United.
A former star player, in 1974 Clough was manager of Derby City, struggling at the bottom of the second division. However, driven by his belief in ‘the beautiful game’ and even more so by his resentment of Don Revie (Colm Meaney), manager of Division One champions Leeds United, and the team’s dirty tactics, Clough and right hand man Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall) hauled Derby up to become champions and secure promotion.
However, unbridled egotism and one clash too many with dour Derby boss Sam Longson (Jim Broadbent) saw Clough’s resignation bluff called and he and Taylor banished to lowly Brighton. Which was when Revie landed the job of England manager and the Leeds board put in a call to Clough. Taylor refused to renege on his agreement with Brighton, but Clough had no such qualms.
He got off to a bad start, insulting the players (whom he’d previously publically reviled as cheats bringing the game into disrepute), belittling their achievements and banning them from even mentioning Revie’s name. Unsurprisingly, things got worse. The team resented him and the new players he bought in from Derby, morale plummeted and Leeds sank into a dismal losing streak that would eventually force a boardroom confrontation.
There’s plenty of amusing soccer fodder for footie fans as players (including Stephen Graham as Billy Bremner) and manager come to loggerheads and the cockily egotistical and single-mindedly ambitious Clough fires off his much quoted quips.
But, symbolised by the way Clough remains in his office during the Derby-Leeds replay,  the film is about much more. There’s a story of deep  insecurity and wounded pride behind the gradually revealed roots of the resentment Clough felt towards Revie and there’s the story of the friendship, love even, between Clough and Taylor, the former coming to realise he’s only half the man he needs to be without his old ally.  Clough may not have managed to lead United to victory, but Sheen makes this a cup winning triumph.

Let The Right One In (15)

Momentum. Released Aug 3

"I'm 12," pale faced Eli (Lina Leandersson) tells Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), the androgynous looking blonde pre-teen who lives next door with his mother in a dreary suburban Stockholm apartment block. Then she adds, "but I've been 12 for a very long time."  She only comes out at night, she doesn't feel the cold, she smells funny and, yes, she's a vampire.

Adapted from Swedish author John Lindqvist's bestseller (its title taken from a Morrissey song), set in a snowy 1982 this is essentially an arthouse gender reversal Twilight. Except, conspicuously more intelligent, far darker and, ultimately, with a much more complex love story between two social outcasts.

Bullied at school and with emotionally remote divorced parents, Oskar indulges his revenge fantasies by stabbing a tree pretending it's his pint-sized tormentor (Patrik Rydmark) and morbidly keeping a scrapbook about bloody crimes. Shortly after the mysterious Eli moves in, he's got a new batch of cuttings about a series of gruesome murders, notably that of a teenager found strung upside down with his throat cut. The killer is Hakan, not, as Oskar assumed, Eli's father, but rather the harvester of the blood (thickly black rather than red) she needs to survive.

However, when a bungled attempted murder leaves her alone, she's forced to seek her own nourishment among the local drunks and losers. The tentative friendship between her and Oskar also intensifies ("will you be my girlfriend" he asks, seconds after she's revealed her true nature), drawn together by a common loneliness as they, in turn, become each other's protector, climaxing in a scene of  silent, bloody payback in the school swimming baths.

There's plenty of blood and a couple of very striking illustrations of what happens if a vampire's exposed to light or (in a scene of piercing emotion) enters uninvited, but horror isn't the film's real concern.

Rather it's a spare, subdued but deeply intense coming of age tale of rage, sexual awakening, friendship, empathy, romantic self-sacrifice and salvation, beautifully photographed in wintry tones with terrific performances from the two young leads who imbue their characters with a shuddering creepiness yet have you wanting to reach out and hug away their pain.

With depressing inevitability, an American remake by Cloverfield's Matt Reeves is in the works. Don't wait for that, see the original masterpiece before Hollywood drains all its blood.

17 Again (12)

EV. Released Aug 10

Twenty years ago, star high school athlete Mike O’Donnell (Zac Efron) walked away from a college basketball scholarship when he learned girlfriend Scarlet was pregnant. Today, Mike (Matthew Perry) is depressed that life’s not turned out as he’d hoped. Scarlet (Leslie Mann) is suing for divorce, his kids, daughter Maggie (Michelle Trachtenberg) and son Alex (Sterling Knight), are like strangers, and he’s living with best friend Ned (Thomas Lennon), the nerd who was always bullied at school and is now a millionaire software genius. And still a nerd.

Resigning after being past over for promotion, Mike drops into his old school to reminisce over his glory days, telling a mysterious old janitor how he wishes he could go back and start over.

Driving home, he sees the old man about to jump from a bridge. He stops, goes to help and falls into the river.  Arriving home, he cleans up, looks in the mirror and sees his teenage self staring back. 

Believing he’s been given a second chance to make good, he persuades Ned to pass himself off as his dad and enrol in high school as Mark Gold. Which, of course, is where he discovers Michelle’s not the sweet innocent he thought and Alex is being bullied by the basketball team, whose obnoxious captain is his sister’s boyfriend. Befriending Alex and trying to steer Michelle right, he also gets to spend time with his unsuspecting wife, realising that the reason he’s 17 again isn’t to fix his life, but to help his kids and make up for being a bad father.

Yet another spin on It’s A Wonderful Life and the ‘you don’t know what you’ve got till you lose it’ message, there’s no surprises here. The film’s careful to soft peddle any inappropriate attraction between teenage Mike, Michelle and the older Scarlet while a rather irritating subplot sees social misfit Ned trying to romance Jane Masterson, the school principal  (they share a common Lord of the Rings geekness), but it does have its fair share of amusing and touching moments. Bookending the story, Perry, rather inevitably, has little to do other than mope and then cheer up but, when not having to cater to his High School Musical fans by dancing, shooting hoops, juggling basketballs and flashing his torso, Efron gets to show a nice line in charm and comic timing that suggests he’s this generation’s Michael J Fox. Undemanding feelgood fluff, but none the worse for that.

Traitor (12)

Momentum.  Released Aug 31

A devout African-born Muslim-American who, as a child, saw his Sudanese father killed by a car bomb, we next meet Samir Horn (an effectively subdued Don Cheadle) selling explosives to the al-Nathir Islamic terror cell. The deal's interrupted by an FBI sting, landing Horn in a Yemen prison where he bonds with al-Nathir member Omar (Said Taghmaoui), before a breakout takes them to Marseilles where, after a planned suicide attack goes awry, Horn bombs the US Consulate in Nice. Then it's on to London and Canada where he's enlisted by Omar, urbane deputy leader Fareed (Aly Khan) and Nathir himself in a far bigger plot designed to strike terror across America.

Meanwhile, FBI agents Clayton (Guy Pearce) and hot tempered partner Archer (Neal McDonough) are on Horn's tail, discovering that he was a Special Forces operative Afghanistan but subsequently went off the radar and, apparently, over to the other side.

It will come as little surprise when a senior CIA spook (Jeff Daniels) turns up and Horn's revealed as a deep cover agent, but it's to the film's credit that (in keeping the repeated need to 'become like your enemy') the enigmatic Horn's conflicted conscience and loyalties are kept in play throughout while making the terrorists recognisable human beings rather than stock villains.

Although no Syriana, while packed with suspense and obligatory explosive set pieces, as war on terror thrillers go it's also smartly intelligent, raising thorny questions about means and ends and the acceptable limits of collateral damage. On the downside, it does over-egg its theme about the misappropriation of religion, from Carter's reference about the Klan to various characters justifications for jihad, and, just in case you miss the point, Samir declaring 'they used us for our faith'.

In the end, there's some frustrating gaps in Horn's character profile, a couple of credibility denting plot turns, and the final act sacrifices psychological complexity for a neatly resolved 24 style race against the clock, but as thoughtful pulp it does the job admirably.

Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus (15)

Metrodome. Out Now

As you’ll gather from the title, Shakespeare it’s not. A creature feature B-movie with bad effects, terrible plot, lousy dialogue and ludicrously awful acting, this serves up exactly what Ed Wood fans might want from a Friday night no brainer.

Basically, shortly after marine biologist Emma (80s teen pop star turned wide-eyed ‘actress’ Debbie Gibson to whom time clearly has not been kind) discovers a, er, mega shark and giant octopus entombed in ice under the Alaskan sea, a military experiment accidentally frees the prehistoric behemoths and next thing you know tentacles are being wrapped around an oil rig and jaws is leaping 15000 feet into the sky to take down an airliner.

So, some American Government agent with a bad pony tail forces Emma, her Irish former professor and her Japanese counterpart and new lover, to figure out how to stop them.  After conventional weapons fail, Emma hits on the idea of using pheromones to bring them together so they’ll kill each other. Cue lots of bad lighting and underwater shots of plastic submarines and rubber models. Which is all and indeed probably more than you need to know. Profoundly silly, incredibly stupid and enjoyably guilty fun.

The Lucky Ones (15)

Momentum. From August 17

Returning from a tour of duty in Iraq, Sgt Fred Cheaver (Tim Robbins) has retired and Sgt TK Poole (Michael Pena) and Pvt Colee Dunn (Rachel McAdams) are on 30 days leave after being wounded. Fred’s returning to his wife in St Louis, TK’s visiting his fiancée and Colee’s returning her dead boyfriend’s guitar to his family. Arriving at JFK to find all flights cancelled, Fred agrees to share a car rental and drive to St Louis, where the others will catch a plane to Vegas. Bonding ensues.

However, arriving home, Fred’s greeted with some unexpected news that sees the three of them back on the road, looking to realise their hopes (money to pay a son’s college, a cure for impotence, a family) and get their lives (like TK’s wounded manhood) working again.

A comedy-drama road trip buddy movie about self-discovery, friendship, and rediscovering faith and purpose that serves as allegory for the mutual support among soldiers, not a great deal happens and some of the vignettes feel more about padding the running time than narrative necessity.

 But, while references to risk and luck are laid on a bit thick and commentary about the ignorance of the war among those back home feels shoehorned in, the film works as a slowly unfolding character study of three flawed but likeable personalities trying to find where they fit in, the nicely measured and unforced performances ensuring that time in their company is well spent.

The Burning Plain (15)

High Fliers. From August 24

Dumped in the cinemas on a very limited release with virtually no publicity, this really deserved better. The directing debut of Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel writer, Guillermo Arriaga, it too is a contemporary melodrama that involves overlapping, non-chronological, non-linear narratives.

The film comprises three plot strands. The manager of an Oregon restaurant, behind her cool public poise Sylvia (Charlize Theron) is consumed with a guilt-fuelled self-hatred that manifests itself in disdainful promiscuity and self-harming.

In Mexico, an adulterous affair between lonely all-American trucker’s wife Gina (Kim Basinger) and the gentle Nick (Joaquim de Almeida) ends in tragedy when their desert trailer love nest catches fire. Meeting at the funeral, as her daughter Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence) and his son Santiago (JD Pardo) try and make sense of what happened, so their own secret romance develops.

Meanwhile, when her crop-duster father Santiago (Danny Pino) is injured and confined to hospital, he entrusts his friend to take his young daughter Maria (Tessa Ia) to America on a special mission.

Cutting back and forth between cross-generational narratives, present day and flashbacks, the film’s symmetrical strands gradually converge to reveal the unforgivable act at its heart and how the repercussions impact on all involved. But while undeniably sombre and bleak, there’s an emotional punch of hope and redemption waiting at the end of the tunnel.

It’s not too hard to see how the pieces of the puzzle fit together, but that doesn’t detract from the pleasure of watching them lock into place nor from the terrific performances by a bruised Theron, a yearningly vulnerable Basinger and, arguably the film’s strongest turn, the conflicted emotions of sensational newcomer Lawrence. A neglected minor classic that you really should seek out.

JULY 2009

Flame & Citron (15)

Metrodome. In store now

Based on eye witness accounts, this is the little known true story of  cool redhead Bent Faurschou-Hviid (Thure Lindhardt) and the more volatile Jorgen Haagen Schmith (Mads Mikkelsen), the most famous members of the Danish resistance group which fought the Nazi occupation.
Better known by their titular codenames, the pair worked together for years  killing both Nazis and sympathisers (as ordered by London via their controller) with a ruthlessly cool efficiency. With Citron as the driver and Flame the trigger man, they methodically carried out the assassinations by questioning their target to ensure it was the right person, firing a single shot and calmly returning to their vehicle and driving away.
However, the film shows the killings gradually taking both a personal and moral toll, with the neurotic Citron’s marriage collapsing and Flame starting to question the integrity of their leaders and their own actions they become uncertain of  whom they can trust, wondering whether the targets are legitimate or victims of personal vendettas.
Bent’s certainty is shaken when he falls for Ketty (Stine Stengade) but is unsure of where her loyalties life and again when he’s walks away from shooting charismatic German Colonel Gilbert (Hanns Zischler) . Then, when their commander refuses to allow them to take out local Gestapo leader Hoffman (Christian Berkel), the duo decide to take direct action themselves. Suffice to say, things don’t go smoothly or end happily.
Less of a straight wartime thriller and more a study of  paranoia under pressure and the clash between common humanity and justifications for wartime expediency, director Ole Christian Madsen elicits suitably intense performances from Lindhardt  and Mikkelsen while an almost total lack of humour keeps the overall tone taut and dour, pulling viewers into the mindset of its conflicted protagonists.
The narrative could be a little clearer about the background to the Occupation (the Danish government had a policy of cooperation and, in the early 40s at least, public opinion was against violent resistance) and is prone to occasional repetition, but it sustains its thriller edge about the nature of trust and loyalty right to the downbeat climax of the pair’s inevitable fate.

The International (15)

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Fortuitously chiming with a popular mood of distrust about bankers, Tom Twyker’s intelligent, suitably cynical Bourne style thriller stars the scruffily laconic Clive Owen as former Scotland Yard detective Louis Salinger. Now an Interpol agent, he’s working in tandem with New York, District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) on an investigation into dodgy arms dealings and political destabilisation involving the International Bank of Business & Credit.
When both his partner and a potential insider informant suffer fatal ‘accidents’ soon after their meeting, and then an Italian weapons company boss and prospective Prime Minister is assassinated minutes after volunteering information on the IBBC, the investigation gets cranked up several notches as Salinger and Whitman realise the bank’s used the same hitman. Find him and they can hang the bank and its board out to dry. Whether they can get to him before he’s silenced is another matter entirely.
It’s a touch murky about the conflicted conscience of Wexler (Armin Mueller-Stahl), the former communist who now serves as the banks ‘advisor’ and the assassin’s handler, while the mechanisms by which IBBC chairman Skarssen (Ulrich Thomsen) runs the complex arms negoitations will probably only make sense to experienced financiers. However, despite that, some hurriedly explained Salinger backstory and some contrived detective work that would make Poirot look like a bungling amateur, Twyker drives things along nicely with a series of verbal showdowns and action set pieces, most notably a stunningly inventive massive shoot out at New York’s Guggenheim Museum that would do Michael Mann proud.
Though her role’s primarily reactive, Watts has a convincing presence, Owen, who can sometimes be a bit of a blank, delivers his best work since Children of Men and while the film is solid rather than inspired, it keeps you involved from opening to closing credits. Of course, if they’d really want to take the bank down, it would have been a lot easier just to take out a 100% mortgage.

The Secret of Moonacre  (PG)

Warner Home Video from July 20

When 13 year old orphan Maria Merryweather (Dakota Blue Richards) has to go and live with her uncle (Ioan Gruffudd) in the country, she discovers an ancient feud between the Merryweather and forest-dwelling De Noir families (led by Tim Curry) over a set of magical pearls. She also learns she’s the valley’s last Moon Princess and it’s her task to find the lost pearls and end the centuries long conflict. If she fails, a curse will destroy Moonacre Valley for ever. Richards is good as Maria, but everyone around her seems to be either embarrassed to be there (Gruffudd, Natascha McElhone) or (as with Curry and Juliet Stevenson’s  flatulent, belching governess) determined to be as hammy as possible. Add to that a clumsy screenplay, naff dialogue and some seriously disappointing effects and this is one secret that really should stay that way.

JUNE 2009

The Wrestler (15)

Optimum Home Entertainment. In store now

Consolidating a comeback that began with Spun in 2002,  Darren Aronofsky’s fourth feature his tour de force turn as washed up grappler Randy 'The Ram' Robinson saw Mickey Rourke win the BAFTA for Best Actor and, though ultimately pipped to the post by Sean Penn, receive an Oscar nomination in the same category.
A heavily autobiographical role for Rourke, Robinson was a star in the 80s, but now pain and drugs have taken their toll and, reduced to living on a trailer park, he struggles to pay the rent by stacking supermarket shelves and performing in local schools and gyms, pumping steroids, dyeing his dreadlocks and visiting tanning salons to keep up the image.
He has plans to make a comeback on the pro-circuit, but a heart attack forces him to confront his mortality, as well as his relationships with estranged daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood) and ‘Cassidy’ (a dynamite Marisa Tomei), the world battered but hardened single parent stripper he occasionally frequents for company. Like Randy, she’s realising that she’s getting too old for this sort of thing, but has few other options open. Although she resists his tentative romantic overtures, there’s a close connection between the two and it’s Cassidy – or rather Pam who, after his heart attack, encourages Randy to try and repair the rift with his daughter. It’s not an easy process.
Nor is trying to adapt to normal life and a job working behind a deli counter. And, eventually, whatever the risk to his health, he has to accept that the only place he can feel comfortable with the world and himself, is in the ring.
The bouts themselves are bloody and brutal, but the film also offers often humorous behind the scenes insights into the staged choreography and camaraderie among wrestlers who may be rivals in the public eye but are also men with real friendships, real problems and real lives.
With Randy presenting a tough front that, quite literally, conceals a fragile heart, it’s as emotionally intense as it is physically, with a deeply committed Rourke investing his all on both levels, and never afraid to be unsympathetic. His final big speech, faced with accepting that, in the end, wrestling is all he has even if it costs him his life, is straight from the heart.
The storyline may tread a path familiar from Rocky to Million Dollar Baby, but the combination of grit, comedy, poignancy and a narrative that touches on the sentimental but never looks for pity slams you to the canvas hard.
Extras feature a making of documentary and DVD exclusive interview with Rourke though, disappointingly, not the video for The Wrestler, the Springsteen title song written specifically for the film.

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (12)

Warner Home Video. In store from June 8

 WWI's just ended and, horrified that the baby his wife died giving birth to looks like an 80 year old, New Orleans button magnate Thomas Button (Jason Flemyng) dumps the kid on the steps of an old folks home where he's taken in and raised by Queenie (Taraji P. Henson), the sassy African-American who runs the place.
As time passes, Benjamin (Brad Pitt) grows taller, less wrinkled and younger. Ageing backwards, he becomes friends with young playmate Daisy but, turning 17 (now looking merely 60) takes off to join a boozy Irish tugboat captain (Jared Harris) and see the world. A first love affair in Murmansk with a British diplomat's wife (Tilda Swinton) is abruptly ended as Benjamin goes to war, returning home after tragedy at sea to again meet Daisy (Cate Blanchett), a rising if somewhat self-absorbed ballet star.  Now physically roughly the same age, after assorted false starts they eventually become lovers but inevitably as she grows older, he keeps getting younger. Very loosely based on F Scott Fitzgerald's short story, it more closely resembles writer Eric Roth's earlier decades-spanning Forrest Gump but, with a prologue about a man (Elias Koteas) who, in memory of all the sons lost to the war, creates a railway station clock that goes backwards to cheat death, with a tone reminiscent of The Legend of 1900 and Big Fish.
Framed by hospital scenes as (symbolically) Hurricane Katrina rages and a dying aged Daisy gets 40ish daughter Caroline (Julia Ormond) to read from Benjamin's memoir, it deals melancholically with the big themes of love, mortality and (notably in a what if sequence about a traffic accident) fate.
But, while it looks fabulous with fastidious attention to detail, surreal flourishes and vaulting imagination, it does so at such length and such elegantly  slow pace (dare I say it lacks zip)  that, compounded by rather muted romantic chemistry, it remains emotionally distant. And don't even contemplate the flaws in the internal logic.
That said, as chameleon-like as ever Blanchett is tremendous while Harris, Henson and Swinton's support turns add depth and lustre. But playing Button from birth to death with the aid of digital manipulation and prosthetics, this is Pitt's triumph, his quiet, compelling performance a reminder of just how underrated an actor he truly is.

 He’s Just Not That Into You (12)

Entertainment In Video. In store June 15

 Given the stellar cast and comedic talent, it’s amazing at just how dull and clunky this rules of attraction romcom is. When she was 5, Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin) was told that when boys are mean to you and act like jerks, that’s because they secretly fancy you. So, now she’s grown when dates don’t call back, she just assumes that’s a sign of their interest. Having not heard from her latest, Conor (Kevin Connolly), she visit’s one of his regular Baltimore haunts on try and see him and instead ends up getting a lesson in the dating game ‘signs’ and who makes what moves from his bartender friend Alex (Justin Long).
Meanwhile Conor would like to reignite his old romance with Anna (Scarlett Johansson) and is confused when she blows hot and cold with the relationship. She, in turn, has fallen for Ben (Bradley Cooper), the guy she met in the supermarket. Eventually the pair embark on an affair, He, however, is married to Janine (Jennifer Connelly) who just happens to work at the same place as Gigi. And Beth (Jennifer Aniston). Beth? She’s frustrated that, after seven years living together, boyfriend Neil (Ben Affleck) insists he doesn’t want to get married. To make matters worse, the biological clock’s ticking and her younger sister’s about to walk down the aisle. Did I mention that Neil is best mates with Ben.
Back with Gigi, she keeps contriving to meet up with Alex, but does that mean he likes her or is she misreading things again? And, somewhere among all this, there’s Mary (Drew Barrymore), who doesn’t seem to have any particular reason for being in the film at all.
It’s not so much that there’s too many interconnected relationships, the problem is the film just never really keep a grip on any of them, rambling along like a series of advice columns (the film’s based on a self-help book based on a line of dialogue from Sex And The City and is divided into chapters) without any sense of direction or what it actually wants to say, often leaving the cast valiantly struggling  to keep things afloat and find something more than slender sitcom motivations to their characters. That none of them are particularly likeable – and in the case of Gigi, downright irritating – doesn’t help matters much. The performances are fine, and there’s a couple of good jokes and the odd tug on the heart string, but if it were a date you wouldn’t call back either.

Goal 3 – Taking On The World (12)

Metrodome Home Entertainment. In store June 15

The first part of the trilogy got things off to a cracking start with its cocktail of comedy, poignancy and credible football footage. The second half kept the laughs centre forward but mostly left any drama sitting on the benches. Gate admissions were predictably down, so now it comes to extra time and the final match gets shunted straight to DVD. Deservedly so too. After the cliffhanger at the end of Living The Dream with Santiago (Kuno Becker) riding high with Real Madrid but unware girlfriend Roz (Anna Friel) is pregnant, the third instalment simply ditches the whole storyline, along with several of the original cast (including Friel and Allesandro Nivola’s playboy soccer star Gavin though sadly not Nick Moran’s cockily flash agent), and relegates Santi to the narrative sidelines. Instead the focus is on new characters, his Real Madrid team mates Charlie (Leo Gregory) and Liam (JJ Feild) and their selection for the England squad in the 2006 World Cup.
Seemingly written on a hot dog wrapper during half time, the screenplay is a lacklustre affair, throwing in personal crises, self-realisations, new and rekindled romances, lessons about taking responsibility, parenthood and even an eleventh hour death but singularly failing to put any of its balls anywhere near the net.  The scene where Charlie takes his mates to see him film a bit (literally) part in a cheesy foreign B-movie vampire-bondage flick is as painfully embarrassing to watch as it must have been to act. And let’s not even mention the return of the ‘comic relief’ Geordie Boys, one of whom sports a Northern Rock t-shirt. While the actual football action is good (it was, after all shot during the actual World Cup by Michael Apted), the film around it is just cheap, flat, shoddy and dull. Tear up your season ticket now.

Bigga  Than Ben (15)

High Fliers.  In store June 22

The subtitle, A Russian's Guide To Ripping Off London, gives a good idea of the tone to expect from this first full length feature from writer-director Suzie Halewood, but while there’s a healthy supply of innocents abroad comedy, it’s balanced with serious drama too.
Based on the diaries of two real Russian immigrants, it stars Ben Barnes (unrecognisable from and vastly better than his bland turn as Prince Caspian), as Cobakka with Andrei Chadov as his mate Spiker, a pair of self-proclaimed Moscow scum who, dodging the draft, have fetched up in London.
Told the place is a con artist's paradise, when making an honest living proves impossible, with the help of professional parasite Artash (Ovidiu Matesan) and his mate Spartak (Hero Fiennes-Tiffin), they're soon engaging in shoplifting, mobile phone scams, fake credit cards and cheque fraud to beat the system. And if the ID red tape involved in opening a bank account proves bewildering, they're particularly delighted to discover the supermarket cash-back  concept. Sadly, introduction of pin numbers cuts that one short.
However, they're not the world's best scammers and moping over his girlfriend back home, Spiker sinks into crack addiction, friendships are strained and Cobakka begins to realise this isn't the life he wanted;  that he doesn't want to be part of  the way "Russians tend to crap all over the planet."
Hilariously politically incorrect, there's gleeful racial stereotyping and satirical jibes at English bureaucracy while Spiker's to camera request for a subtitles button faced with an incomprehensible Irish accent and explaining a gag twice "for the American audience' offers a playfully self-reflexive take on the filmmaking process.
The second half loses the comedic momentum as Halewood's screenplay swerves into morality tale drama, but scenes such as being mistaken for muggers as they forcibly try to help old ladies with their shopping and the pair's tendency to overreact to perceived slights ensure there's plenty of laughs along the way. Think of it as Withnailski And Ivan.
If you saw this in the cinema, you’ll notice there’s been a few tweaks to the captions and titles, sadly including the removal of the amusing ‘Sky, Europe’ in the opening montage as the guys fly in from Russia.

MAY 2009

 Major Movie Star (PG)

Lionsgate DVD. In stores May 18

If you thought Jessica Simpson’s hopes for a movie career hit rock bottom with The Dukes of Hazzard and Employee Of the Month where she was acted off screen by her shorts and product placement respectively, think again.

In a shameless rework of Goldie Hawn’s Private Benjamin, here Simpson is Megan Valentine, a pampered talentless bimbo C list movie star (at least they got the casting right) who can’t get taken seriously and let’s everyone else make her decisions. Discovering her boyfriend in bed with her manager Nigel on the night of her latest comedy turkey premiere and learning her financial manager cousin’s made off with all her money, she crashes her car and, in a daze, wanders into an army recruiting office and signs up.

However, the moment she arrives at boot camp she discovers that army life is about more than cute uniforms and that she can’t get out as the film heads down a yawningly familiar path of fish out of water gags, clumsy farce and self-discovery epiphanies as the ditzy Megan clashes with the obligatory tough drill sergeant (Vivica A Fox), gets on the wrong side of a private (Cheri Oteri) with a chip on her shoulder and, after initially antagonising them, gets to bond with her motley crew of fellow enlistees (among them Olesya Rulin from High School Musical), all of whom have signed up to prove themselves for reasons of their own.

Originally titled Private Valentine: Blonde & Dangerous (which at least made more sense than the UK rebranding) and directed by TV hack Steve Miner, while not unwatchable the tired, predictable plot’s not improved by the lack of laughs, some poor and hammy acting (watch for an orange tanned and now hamster-cheeked Steve Guttenberg as Megan’s agent)  or the fact Simpson’s comedic range barely extends beyond raising her eyebrows or gawping with her mouth open.  It’s about time Hollywood gave her a discharge.

 Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants 2

Three summers ago, four best friends discovered a pair of jeans that miraculously fit them all.  They each wore them for a week at a time before passing them on along with details of how their lives had changed as a result. Now in their early twenties they’re again apart for the summer and playing round robin with the well travelled pants.

Lena (Alexis Bledel) is taking art classes to get over her heartbreak on finding the Greek boy she fell in love with has married.  Having an epiphany about family while on an archaeological dig in Turkey, Bridget (Gossip Girl’s Blake Lively) visits the grandmother (Blythe Danner) she's not seen in years and learns the truth behind her mother's suicide.

Film student Tibby (Amber Tamblyn) is having a pregnancy scare and commitment issues about  boyfriend Brian. And, having followed Yale chum Julia to theatre school, confidence-challenged Carmen (Ugly Betty's America Ferrara) is astonished to land the lead in The Winter's Tale and find herself falling for Brit drama student Ian (Tom Wisdom).

 Each storyline takes its turn in the spotlight as the girls move from youth to adulthood and  learn lessons about friendship, romance, family and themselves, before they end up in Greece searching for lost denims and misplaced love.  Again adapted from Ann Brashares’ best-sellers, it may wallow in romantic cliches, but with charismatic performances and characters for whom you genuinely care, it's a teens Sex And The City but full of heart rather than cynicism.

Available on Warner Home Video DVD from May 18 with extras that include extra scenes and  the girls’ preparations  for the 25 foot cliff dive, CLICK HERE TO GO TO OUR COMPETITION FOR A FREE COPY

MAY 2009

30 Rock Season 2 (12)

Universal Playback DVD. In store from May 25

Her first starring role feature film, Baby Mama may not have been a runaway blockbuster, but with $60m at the box office it showed that, unlike some TV stars, Tina Fey can open and sustain a big screen comedy. However, it’s her ongoing sitcom that remains the anchor of her career and, with two consecutive Emmy awards for Outstanding Comedy Series, the flagship of her success. Writer, producer and star of the show, it reveals Fey to be both funny and smart in front of and behind the camera alike. She plays Liz Lemon, the head writer on TGS With Tracy Jordan, a TV sketch show that once toplined the insecure Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski) but is now built around Jordan (Tracy Morgan), the irresponsible, immature, unpredictable low brow comic hired by Lemon’s new (and subtly surreal) boss, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin). As such each of the 15 episodes follows a fairly standard formula variously involving Liz dealing with Jenna’s failed attempts to restore her fading star, Tracy’s crazy antics and Jack’s often barkingly unfeasible demands. All the while trying to get a handle on her unravelling personal life after breaking up with boyfriend Floyd during the summer hiatus as the show spins from one crisis to the next.

With the cast joined by Jack McBrayer as the over-eager to please new intern, Season 2 builds upon the first’s reputation for sharp dialogue and inventive character, giving Baldwin the chance to really show his underestimated comedy skills (Jordan’s therapy session where he channels him and his estranged father is pure genius) and featuring a string of guest cameos that include Jerry Seinfeld (in the opening episode Jack’s planning on digitally inserting him into other NBC shows), Matthew Broderick, Carrie Fisher (hilarious as a needy former Rowan & Martin writer to whom Liz gives a comeback break), John McEnroe and, as a seedy private eye Jack hires to investigate himself as he puts in for promotion to CEO, Steve Buscemi.

 Fey hits every note with impeccable comic timing, not afraid as writer or performer to sometimes make herself the target of the humour while all around her you’ll find inspired, often ground breaking comedy, from insightful situational developments to off the wall moments like Jordan’s novelty hit Werewolf Bar Mitzvah and background throwaways such as a news item that reads Anne Heche Leaves Husband For Pony. With extras that include deleted scenes, outtakes, 30 Rock Live at the UCB Theatre in NYC and Fey’s stint as guest Saturday Night Live host, this is American TV comedy at its very best.

APRIL 2009

Red Riding Trilogy (15)

Optimum. Out Now

Adapted from David Pearce’s acclaimed quartet of  novels and a critical hit when screened on TV earlier this year, variously set in 1974, 1980 and 1983 the three self-contained but connected films about life up North cover a grim account of Yorkshire police corruption, child murders and the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper. Directed by Julian Jarrold, 1974 follows cocksure new Yorkshire Post crime reporter Andrew Garfield as he seeks to find a link between different child abduction and murders and finds himself running up against the greed and corruption that links high ranking officers, fellow hacks and a menacing property developer (Sean Bean). He also becomes involved with the widowed mother of one of the missing girls. It’s a little slow and the surreal fantasy scenes don’t really work, but, painting a dark portrait of desolate bleakness it builds to a frighteningly intense showdown climax. Picking up the threads, 1980, directed by James March, finds Paddy Considine’s police inspector brought in to take over the Yorkshire Ripper case, something guaranteed to go down badly with the officers currently working the murders, several of whom he previously investigated in regard to the bloody club shooting in the first episode. Needless to say, this too ends badly as it terrifyingly reveals the depth of corruption within police ranks and the lengths to which those involved are prepared to go.

The final episode, directed by Anand Tucker, dips back and forth in time between the events in the first of the trilogy and those in 1983 as, his conscience troubled by the things he’s done  police officer David Morrissey seeks redemption and inexperienced lawyer Mark Addy agrees to mount an appeal on behalf of the mentally impaired man coerced into confessing to the child murders. Revealing many of the hitherto hidden links between the cases and further exploring the roles played by corrupt officers Warren Clarke, Sean Harris and Jim Carter as well as that of local pastor Peter Mullan, by comparison, it’s almost upbeat. Assuming that more murders, more corruption and the failure of good to triumph is your idea of upbeat. Not one for those who like their crime thrillers packed with action and chases, but for intelligent, unsettling, bold and at times brutal viewing it’s unmissable.

Transporter 3 (15)

Icon. From April 20

The third ill-thought out instalment of the Jason Statham series sees Frank Martin press-ganged into driving kidnapped - and really irritating - Ukranian Valentina (Natalya Rudakova) from Marseilles to Odessa. Meanwhile her ruthless abductor (Robert Knepper) puts pressure on her environmental protection agency dad (Jeroen Krabbe) to sign a deal with corrupt corporate types who are shipping toxic waste.

  To ensure Frank sticks to the plan, he and the girl have been fitted with explosive bracelets that will detonate if they get too far from the car. Naturally, the couple start off bickering and, after she winningly if ungrammatically  informs him  "I want to feel the sex one more time before I die", wind up in love.

 En route to a suitably  ridiculous climax that has Frank driving his car on to  the roof of a moving train, he'll also flash his rippling six pack torso by using his shirt and jacket as weapons and there'll be any number of badly directed, badly edited preposterous action  and car chases.

Charismatic as ever, Statham keeps the cool factor high but simply hasn't been given any dialogue worth saying while the film's riddled with plot holes and such continuity errors as Frank diving feet first through the shut car window and it being intact again just a couple of scenes later.  But if all you want are fast paced thrills that don’t require you to engage the brain, this is your kind of ride.

Australia (12) ***

Fox Home Entertainment

From April 27

Never knowingly understated, Baz Luhrmann's ambitions for  a Down Under Gone With The Wind manifest themselves with a grandiose overblown, overlong epic in thrall to the Golden Age of Hollywood. The opening credits alone let you know you're in for romance, adventure and a condemnation of the country's shameful treatment of Aboriginal half-caste  children, the so called 'creamies' of the Stolen Generations.

  Delivered in a  knowingly heightened style that flirts with camp and references everything from Red River and Rabbit Proof Fence to, very specifically, The Wizard Of Oz and Pearl Harbor, it opens in 1939 with the arrival of prim Englishwoman Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman in full Julie Andrews mode) to take charge of the family cattle ranch, Faraway Downs, and deal with her errant husband.

Finding him murdered and discovering ranch manager Fletcher (David Wenham) has been diverting her prize stock to rival cattle baron King Carney (Bryan Brown), she resolves to stand her ground. With the help of rugged rough diamond and eventual romantic interest Drover (Hugh Jackman in full Strine accent) and Nullah (Brandon Walters), the half-caste aboriginal boy who stirs her maternal instincts (and serves as the film's narrator), she intends to drive her 1500 head across the Northern territory to sell them as army beef in Darwin. All the while secretly watched over by Nullah's Aboriginal mystic grandfather (David Gulpilil).

All of this takes up barely half of the running time, ending on an upbeat note as the bad guys get their comeuppance and an unconventional 'family' is forged. Unfortunately, there's still a massive third act to go which will see the Ashley and Drover split up, Fletcher's further murderous machinations, Sarah having to protect Nullah from enforced assimilation into white culture, and (in some very dodgy CGI) the Japanese attack on Darwin.

   Mingling humour, rampant sentimentality, righteous indignation, lavish set pieces and unabashed melodrama, it's undeniably ambitious. Knowing just how far to insert tongue into their cheeks, Jackman and Kidman are terrific while, as the film's social conscience, young Walters proves a scene stealing natural. 

It certainly never bores, but, with a screenplay that frequently goes walkabout (theer's a whole subplot about Nullah's granddad initiating the kid into manhood), far too many false endings, stock characters, sudden swerves of tone from breezy to tragic, unwieldy big emotions and far too many tear-jerking appearances of Over The Rainbows, artifice ultimately overwhelms emotion, leaving you admiring the canvas rather than the portrait. Still, Jackman does cut a fine figure in a white tuxedo in the rain.

A Bunch of Amateurs (15)

Entertainment In Video From April 27

Inexplicably selected as a last minute replacement for last year’s Royal Film when Harry Potter was yanked because it wasn’t finished, this isn’t quite as dreadful as some reviews suggested. But it’s still pretty awful. Looking particularly paunchy and acting as if on medication and searching to read cue cards, Burt Reynolds is Jefferson Steel, an ageing faded action star whose career has hit rock bottom. That, however, doesn’t stop him acting like a preening egotistical Hollywood diva. An attitude that doesn’t go down too well with the English amdram locals when he arrives in their sleepy village to star in their production of King Lear.

Oh, hang on, let’s backtrack. He’s there because, in order to get him out of his hair, his equally washed up agent (an embarrassingly bad Charles Durning looking very old and not at all well) has led him to believe he’s been invited to Stratford and the RSC. It’s Stratford all right, just that’s it’s in Surrey and not upon Avon. Dorothy (Samantha Bond), the company’s director, was hoping that securing even a has been Hollywood name might attract enough media attention and punters to save the Stratford Players from having to close up shop. But she hadn’t reckoned on having to deal with someone demanding to be treated like a superstar, who hadn’t read the play and wanted to cut it, rewrite it and give it a happy ending.

With Imelda Staunton as the b&b owner with a crush on her ungrateful guest and Derek Jacobi as the pompous Nigel, bitter that his thespian star has been eclipsed by this arrogant uncultured upstart, the film clumps along in  standard fish out of water mode as Steel throws a tantrum about rehearsing in a barn and finds himself accused of having an affair with the fitness trainer wife of the production’s sponsor.

Naturally, the intrinsically insecure Jefferson gets to learn some life lessons about humility and genuine love of the theatre while, wouldn’t you know, his eventual immersion in the role provides a wake up call about his relationship with his own estranged daughter.

It’s all incredibly creaky, decidedly low budget and, despite being co-written by Private Eye’s Ian Hislop, all rather toothless and low on chuckles. There are some almost inadvertently charming moments, but it all feels incredibly dated and low rent Britcom, the sight of Jacobi demeaning himself with a pratfall into a pig sty probably a far better comment on the film than any review.