Collateral
NOW SHOWING
Thriller/US/English (Japanese subtitles)/119mins
Starring: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith
Director: Michael Mann
Dreamworks
Cab driver Max (Jamie Foxx) picks up a fare,
a good-looking woman named Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith) and they banter
about the fastest route through LA. They get on terribly well —
luckily, because they are both important for the story. As the cabbie
and his fare natter away, they reveal more and more about themselves.
She is a prosecutor. Before a big trial — and this is before
a big trial —she gets so nervous she wants to throw. Max wants
to trade in his cab for a fleet of limos and start his own up-market
chauffeuring company. As the lights of LA slide by the windows and
the dialogue gives real shape and meaning to these characters, you
feel that you are watching a Robert Altman version of a Raymond
Carver short story.
Max’s next fare is Vincent (Tom Cruise) who
waves a sheaf of hundred dollar bills in his face and then drops
a corpse onto the roof of the cab from a great height. Yes, it’s
one of those movies.
Vincent is a contract killer who bullies and coerces Max into driving
him around for the night while he makes various stops to kill people.
Max is not very happy about this, but Vincent
has the gun. This could be a film about tension and death and splatter,
but it isn’t. As with the first fare (I am not going to drop
a spoiler as to how she is important for the story) cabbie and customer
get to know each other. Vincent mocks Max for his dreams and his
lack of gumption to get them off the ground. Vincent, the killer,
thoroughly believes he is the one living in the real world. Max
is too decent to ever amount to anything, while Vincent with his
brutal pragmatism is a mover and a shaker.
This is a theme that resonates well beyond the
confines of the movie theatre. Just take a look at your newspapers.
So, who is living in the real world — Max or Vincent? As the
film winds up you will have lots of opinions about that.
Head in the Clouds
NOW SHOWING
Drama/US/English (Japanese subtitles)/132mins
Starring: Charlize Theron. Penelope Cruz, Stuart Townsend
Director: John Duigan
Sony Pictures Classics
Guy (Stuart Townsend) is minding his own business
in his college dorm when the ravishing Gilda (Charlize Theron) appears
out of the night begging for succour and shelter. What’s a
bloke to do? He lets her stay. And so Guy gets acquainted with this
terribly complicated Gilda for whom perhaps no other actress other
than the enormously talented Theron would do.
Gilda is something of a live wire. With bottomless
energy she zooms around the world getting into all sorts of scrapes
and throwing herself into one successful career after another —
not to mention all the affairs she throws herself into, and not
only with men.
Gilda winds up in Paris where she is a photographer
and living with her friend and occasional model Mia. Mia is learning
to be a nurse and plans to return to her native Spain to lend her
medical skills to the armies fighting Franco’s fascists.
Yes, these are the thirties and Hitler and Mussolini
are stalking peace and democracy. Everyone in the film is politically
committed when not in the throes of sexual jealousy.
Poor Guy. He watches like a lost puppy the relationship
between Gilda and Mia. But Gilda’s a good sort and she kind
of likes Guy too, which means that Mia gets her turn to be a lost
puppy.
War breaks out, the trio is separated and the
next time Guy is in Paris the place is occupied and he is a British
spy. Gilda is still there, but now she’s shagging a top Nazi.
What is she doing? Has she gone over to the other side, or does
she have something up the sleeve of her elegant frock? I’m
not telling you.
A word about Gilda’s dad. He is a millionaire
and French and is played by Steven Berkoff on one of his occasional
forays into the movies to make money to support his own theatre
of the eccentric in the UK. This guy has presence. You can sense
the audience stiffen with fear when he walks onto the set.
The politics and the relationships might not convince
all viewers, but the acting definitely will.
Film Reviews: Chris Page
Also playing
The Whole Ten Yards
The Whole Ten Yards is a sequel to The Whole Nine
Yards, a patchy but functional comedy about hit men. You have to
wonder about moviemakers that can find humour in killing. Anyway,
the sequel follows the further fortunes of our happy hit men.
Hit man Willis has married his hit girlfriend Amanda Peet and they
are now in hiding in Mexico as hit husband and hit wife. The gangster
father of one of the men Willis killed in the first movie gets out
of prison and is looking for revenge and the movie struggles to
find a reason to exist.
Comedy thriller/US/English (Jap. subtitles)/99mins
Starring: Bruce Willis, Matthew Perry, Amanda Peet
Director: Howard Deutch
Warner Bros. Pictures
Taking Lives
This is a stock serial killer flick that makes
huge demands on the viewer's suspension of disbelief, but is anyway
an engaging little thriller. Someone
is killing a succession of people and stealing their identities.
To make sure we understand killing is bad, he is made to slaughter
his victims in a number of inventive and gruesome ways. Angelina
Jolie is that special kind of cop with uncanny abilities to empathise
with killers and victims and spot the small clue everyone else misses.
Good performances, good direction, and a terribly complicated plot.
Suspense/US/English (Japanese subtitles)/103mins
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Olivier Martinez, Ethan Hawke
Director: DJ Caruso
Warner Bros.
House of Sand and Fog
Hold on to your hats: this is a thoughtful and
complex film. Kathy (Jennifer Connelly) is a recovering alcoholic
who has also been deserted by her husband. She ignores demands for
taxes and is evicted from her house. An Iranian family buys the
place and Kathy is overcome with resentment. Enter the local sheriff
who takes a shine to Kathy, despite having his own family. He abuses
his position in order to help Kathy and brings suffering to both
her and the Iranian family. Moving and never sentimental.
Drama/US/English (Japanese subtitles)/126mins
Starring: Jennifer Connelly, Ben Kingsley, Ron Eldard
Director: Vadim Perelman
Dreamworks
Atomic Cafe
This is a digital re-release of the 1982 classic.
I first saw it in 1986 when Ronald Reagan was in power and the cold
war was freezing and politicians talked of the military doctrine
of Mutually Assured Destru-ction as if it was a sensible idea. The
documentary mockingly pulls together official educational (duck
and cover!) and propaganda (the mushroom cloud is one of the most
beautiful things you will ever see) clippings to illustrate the
utter lunacy of the people wielding the weapons. Atomic Café
still resonates through the continuing idiocy of power.
Documentary/US/English (Jap. subtitles) /88mins
Director: Pierce Rafferty, Jayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty
Docurama Films
Around the World in Eighty Days
A remake of the 1956 classic that moves Phileas
Fogg aside and puts Passepartout (Jackie Chan) in the centre of
the action. All the elements of the original are there, but shuffled
about a bit and with more of an eye for laughs, which the rubber
Chan delivers unfailingly. For a dare Fogg is circling the world
while Passepartout is concealing some interesting booty that gangs
and cops want to recover. Some interesting cameos, most notably
from the Governor of California, who appears, improbably, as a Turkish
prince.
Comedy/US/English (Japanese subtitles)/125mins
Starring: Jackie Chan, Steve Coogan, Cecile De Frances
Director: Frank Coraci
Walt Disney
Saw
An extraordinarily brutal and gory film, this
one. Two men find themselves chained to pipes in some kind of dingy
underground place. There is a dead man on the floor. They have no
idea how they got here or what is going on. There is a hacksaw,
but it is not strong enough to cut their manacles. What are they
supposed to saw? Meanwhile the police in the shape of Danny Glover
are hunting for the serial killer who has locked them up. Tense
and inventive and with some good acting — if you can stomach
the blood.
Suspense/US/English (Jap. subtitles)/100mins
Starring: Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Leigh Whannell
Director: James Wan
Lions Gate
Catwoman
Patience (Halle Berry) works for a mega-corporation
and stumbles on the company’s dirty little secret, for which
she is killed and dumped. A passing Egyptian cat breathes life into
her and incidentally imparts considerable cat powers and a new taste
for dominatrix costumes. And then it all gets a bit silly. Disappointing
lack of story or character, but very nice looking at Halle Berry.
Fans of the genre might not be overwhelmed by this one.
SF, action/US/English (Japanese subtitles)/91mins
Starring: Halle Berry, Sharon Stone, Benjamin Bratt
Director: Pitof
Warner Brothers
Connie and Carla
In startlingly loud echoes of Some Like it Hot,
two small-time musicians witness a mob murder and have to go into
hiding for their own safety. They find themselves in a gay bar where
there is a drag show. Well, our two musicians are women, so they
hit on the idea of pretending to be men pretending to be women.
No way the mob will think of looking for them in a gay bar, right?
They start up an act — and wouldn’t you know it, are a
big hit. Do you think the mob might notice now? Hmm …
Comedy/US/English (Japanese subtitles)/xxxmins
Starring: Nia Vardalos, Toni Collette, David Duchovny
Director: Michael Lembeck
Universal Pictures
The Punisher
Frank Castle (Tom Jane) is an FBI officer. In
one operation a baddy is killed, but the baddy’s father happens
to be a super-mobster (John Travolta) who swears revenge on Frank
and his family. In scenes
of quite alarming violence the whole Castle clan is wiped out. Frank
himself is riddled with bullets, doused with petrol, set on fire
and tossed in the ocean. Naturally, he survives and returns looking
for his own messy revenge. Unremittingly dark and full of ultra-violence.
Not for kids, big or small.
Thriller/US/English (Japanese subtitles)/124mins
Starring: Tom Jane, John Travolta, Will Patton
Director: Jonathon Hensleigh
Lions Gate Films
Exorcist: The Beginning
There are some people who think The Exorcist was
the scariest movie ever made. They will not be saying that about
this prequelling sequel. Exorcist: The Beginning is a very conformist
horror flick. You have the priest and the hot chick and the dead
children and all that. The priest is called in by the Vatican (yawn)
to check out a church that was buried in Kenya 1500 years ago. The
place is of course haunted or possessed or whatever and the locals
won’t go near it. A film made for gore and sudden noises.
Horror/US/English (Japanese subtitles)/114mins
Starring: Stellan Skarsgard, James D’Arcy, I Scorupco
Director: Alexi Hawley Warner Brothers Pictures
Secret Window
Johnny Depp plays a jaded and blocked writer,
abandoned by his wife. He spends much of his time napping on the
sofa. One day his dozing is interrupted by a very scary John Turturro
in a strange hat, accusing him of plagiarising a short story. Not
content with complaining Turturro becomes a violent and unpredictable
stalker who also targets Depp’s estranged wife and new man.
Wonderful displays of petulant jealousy between Depp and the other
man. Brilliant performances and directing make this a superior and
very watchable thriller. Based on a Stephen King story.
Thriller/US/English (Japanese subtitles)/106mins
Starring: Johnny Depp, John Turturro, Maria Bello
Director: David Koepp
Columbia Pictures
Monster
Aileen Wuornos is notorious as America’s
first female serial killer, and therefore a woman demonised to the
fullest abilities of the media. A prostitute, she killed seven of
her marks to rob them and lavish gifts on her girlfriend. Monster
seeks not to explain or excuse or sympathise, it merely observes,
and the character and story are more complex than any vicarious
or prurient press coverage. In this film there are no heroes, only
perpetrators and victims of one sort or another. There is also some
extremely compelling acting from Charlize Theron and Christina Ricci.
True story, crime/US/English(Jap subtitles)/111mins
Starring: Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Bruce Dern
Director: Patty Jenkins Newmarket
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