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REVIEWED BY BILL HARDING

Hannibal

The Gift

Proof of Life

The Watcher

Meet The Parents

Way of the Gun

The sixth day

Unbreakable

Bedazzled

Space Cowboys

Wonder Boys

Gladiator

Stigmata

Circus

Double Jeopardy

Toy Story 2

The Beach

Chicken Run

Frequency

Deception

The Next Best Thing

Shanghi Noon

Cherry Falls

American Beauty

Snatch

Blair Witch 2

Skulls

Shaft

At the top of the current pile of recent releases - probably the whole year's - sits.........

American Beauty (18), the first film by acclaimed British theatre director and now Golden Globe winner Sam Mendes, most famous for Nicole Kidman's kit off appearance in The Blue Room. The "beauty" refers to a rose, not some Yankee totty. Shucks. It has the best acting you'll ever see and subject matter not a million miles from the recent Fight Club. It's brilliantly funny, seriously moving and an instant classic.

Kevin Spacey's been a star since Se7en. With American Beauty he shows, quite simply, that he's the best living American actor. Like many of the greats - Jimmy Stewart, Spencer Tracy, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro - he keeps his private life private. This unknown quality works superbly in American Beauty. Spacey's Lester Burnham is in middle-aged meltdown, knocked sideways by an obsession with his daughter's 16 year old friend.

Films like this are rare as teetotallers on the Micklegate Run

He junks his exec job, works out, smokes pot, and buys a sports car. The uncannily judged performance is Spacey's best. It's balanced by another brilliant turn from Annette Bening as Lester's seemingly perfect suburban wife. Mendes says he's surprised the way it worked out. He should be. Films like this are as rare as teetotallers on the Micklegate Run.


"What, me? I never dunnit, yer honour..."

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Much more mundane is Double Jeopardy (15), an implausible retread of The Fugitive which pulled in an inexplicable $100 million in the US. Tommy Lee Jones plays another desperately seeking lawman (kind of) who never quite catches up with his quarry. She's delightful mother of one Ashley Judd, whose wealthy husband is called Nicholas Parsons (Bruce Greenwood). He's dead in slightly more than just a minute and the fun really starts. Where The Fugitive was a guy thing, Double Jeopardy concentrates on a chick-in-shit, but this is TV movie stuff. The plot has more holes than Tupac Shakur's body and the locations include a cemetery that could be the one in Easy Rider.


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Stigmata (18) is a weak Exorcist wannabe with the Third World prologue, ancient scripts and dodgy priests seen in The Omen and a hundred rip-offs. The priest is Gabriel Byrne and the girl with the hole-y hands is Patricia Arquette, who appeared recently in an empty cinema near you in Bringing Out The Dead (18), Martin Scorsese's slightly below par return to the edgy New York nightscape of Taxi Driver.

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The Beach (18) sees the long-awaited return of the luminous Leonardo DiCaprio. Directed by Danny Boyle, the story is taken from Alex Garland's mega-successful novel. It's a beautiful film, with stunning Thailand locations and an equally scenic leading lady, Virginie Ledoyen.

Unfortunately, Boyle can't decide whether he's making a travelogue or a grown up Lord of the Flies and it all slides down the gully after a kickstart from an unhinged Robert Carlyle. So Southeast Asia's the white man's asylum and paradise turns to hell pretty damn fast. Didn't we know that already?

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Toy Story 2 (U) is a rare sequel that beats its illustrious predecessor. Once again astronaut Buzz and cowboy Woody (voiced by Tim Allen and Tom Hanks respectively) head up the motley crew of toys in Andy's bedroom, this time shocked into action when a nasty toy dealer kidnaps the beloved cowboy, who's worth several fistsful of dollars.

Both story and screenplay improve on the original, the characterisation is deeper and the minute detail - hair, clothing, cars - is superlative. Toy Story 2 is state of the art digital film-making spoiled only by shameless product placement.

 

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