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'You
talkin' to me?'
Robert De Niro was great - make that the
greatest - in the mid-seventies to the early nineties, when
beautifully written, disturbing and moving roles like Travis
Bickle in Taxi
Driver, Jake La Motta in
Raging Bull
and James Conway kicked his career into the critical if not
the box office stratosphere. Nobody knew it then, but
writing like that was going out of style faster than you
could say Paul Schrader. Taxi
Driver was the role of De Niro's
life. It's not the fault of actors there's so little great
movie writing to grab and shake life into. Martin Scorsese
and Schrader have worked successfully since, but nothing
they have done since 1975 can hold a lighted candle to
Taxi Driver.
'You talkin' to me?' Few films can be mentioned in the same
breath.
It sums
up his career since '95
De Niro has worked hard, arguably taking to
many mediocre parts. He's set up his Tribeca company in New
York to nurture young filmmaking talent, but look at his
career dispassionately and clearly it's been going downhill
since 1995, when the brilliant
Casino and
Heat appeared
back to back. In the late '80s The
Untouchables and
Midnight Run
stand out from the later, over rated likes of
Jackie Brown
and the dreadful, laughfree comedy,
Analyze This.
De Niro's latest, Meet The Parents
(12), is a domestic comedy which
casts him as a retired CIA officer meeting and disapproving
of his elder daughter's latest, and most serious, boyfriend,
played by Ben Stiller. It sums up his career since
'95.
...tortured
geniuses like Schrader are as rare as honest
politicians.
It's lukewarm, patchy, well acted, passes
the time pleasantly, and it's not a patch on the recent
Wonder Boys.
De Niro is superb when he has great writing to work with,
but tortured geniuses like Schrader are as rare as honest
politicians. Meet The
Parents barely improves on those
warmed-over family movies Steve Martin skidded downhill with
- Parenthood
and Father of the
Bride. De Niro is treading water.
Certainly he needs a break from 'heavy' films, but we want
more.
....a
girl called Martha Focker.
The big joke is that Stiller's character is
called Focker. How Carry On. The screenplay bangs us over
the head with it, again and again, Mel Brooks style. I've
seen school plays written by fourteen year olds with more
wit than a joke about a girl called Martha
Focker.
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It's his
directorial debut and it doesn't
disappoint.....
Way of the Gun
(18) is another film which harks
back to a time of great directors and great movies. This
time it's Sam Peckinpah, the much imitated, never equalled
drug and booze addled maverick whose battered reputation has
grown since his death in 1984. Michael Mann tried
in Heat, with
a shoot-out on the streets of LA which Sam would approve of.
Now comes a dark, gloomy modern Western from Christopher
McQuarrie, writer of The Usual
Suspects. It's his directorial debut
and it doesn't disappoint ringing the action movie changes
and leaving a few philosophical threads hanging in the air
after its final bloodletting.
Smelling
shitloads of folding currency, they kidnap
her.
Two drifters (Ryan Phillippe and Benicio Del
Toro) are named Parker and Longbaugh, the real names of
Butch Cassidy
and The Sundance
Kid. To call these guys nihilistic
is like calling Tony Blair lightweight. They'll sell
anything - like semen, for example. At the clinic they
notice a heavily pregnant woman (Juliette Lewis), a
surrogate for a millionaire couple. Smelling shitloads of
folding currency, they kidnap her. The problem is that the
bankrolling 'father' is a well-connected criminal.
....how
many times did you see a Ceasarian section carried out in
the middle of a shoot-out?
McQuarrie sets up the usual ingredients and
tweaks them sideways, making his film fascinating, offbeat
and disturbing. You never saw a car chase like this before;
and how many times did you see a Ceasarian section carried
out in the middle of a shoot-out?
...a
small place in Hollywood for movies with a
brain.
The young turks are supported by old timer
James Caan as the millionaire's equalizer and Juliette
Lewis's pa, Geoffrey, as his longtime back-up. McQuarrie
insists in his publicity blurb that he didn't want his film
to be compared to Peckinpah. "In this film there's a lot of
emotional violence, not a bloodbath. It's about what is
being done, not how it's being done.~" What makes
Peckinpah's greatest films - Ride The
High Country,
the Wild
Bunch,Cross
of Iron - so powerful is prescisely
that they show the emotional cost of violence. There was no
fake nobility. That's also true of
The Way Of The
Gun. It proves that there is still a
small place in Hollywood for movies with a
brain.
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...said
to be considering politics, even though he's signed for
Terminator 3.
Big Arnie made his name blasting his
adversaries with the heaviest weapons and firepower in the
history of the cinema. He tried comedy in
Twins and
Kindergarten
Cop, and it didn't work. Now he
seems to have turned his back on the guns and is said to be
considering politics, even though he's signed for
Terminator
3.
...you'll
like this, but it's not a patch on The
Terminator...
His new one, The
Sixth Day (15), is all about
cloning, and it has plenty of shooting, but the handguns are
futuristic and look nothing like normal shooters. The look
of the film is glossy and steely and Arnie goes through the
motions without making his advancing years too obvious.
There are some neat visual flourishes - especially a creepy
lifelike doll for children - and Arnie does his self-mocking
bit amid the below-par verbals. One idea stands out; it's to
do with helicopters and it almost makes the movie worth
watching. If you like Arnie you'll like this, but it's not a
patch on The
Terminator, despite a fine
supporting cast that includes Michael Rapaport, Robert
Duvall and Sarah Wynter.
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What's
with all the sixes?
One of the megahits of last year was M.
Night Shamalyan's creepily effective big twister,
The Sixth
Sense. (What's with all the sixes? -
Ed). Shamalyan wrote and directed and made instant cinema
history with his slightly overhyped Bruce Willis-led
supernatural story, which, provided you didn't click early
on, kept you watching. His follow-up,
Unbreakable
(12), tries desperately to repeat
the success. It fails miserably.
...the
new story verges on the ridiculous.
Once again the cast is headed by Bruce
Willis, with Spencer Treat Clark, who was in
Gladiator, in
the Haley Joel Osment part. Willis had much the same to do
as he did in The Sixth
Sense, but the new story verges on
the ridiculous. It starts well enough, outside Philadephia.
Samuel L. Jackson plays Elijah Price, a mysterious stanger
with a rare bone disease, who seems unhealthily interested
in precisely why Dunn walked away without a scratch.
....the
pace is as slow as a drugged snail....
So far, so good. The underrated Robin Wright
Penn is excellent as Dunn's wife, in a part similar to her
turn in State of Grace; and that, folks, is about it.
Shamalyan tries desperately to keep his tale afloat, but it
would barely make the grade as an episode of
The Outer
Limits. the visuals are slick and
polished, but the pace is as slow as a drugged snail and
this time the "surprise" ending is risble. Sadly, it looks
as if Shamlyan's brief reign as the modern master of
suspense is over.
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