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....a
failure on every level, except for Anthony
Hopkins...
March has kicked off with a
mixed bunch of new movies, none of them outstanding.
Hannibal
(18) is a failure on
every level, except for Anthony Hopkins, who pocketed a
rumoured $25 million for his reprise of Hannibal the
Cannibal ten years after
The Silence of the
Lambs. Ridley
Scott's
film is an insult to Thomas
Harris's
preposterous novel and continues the deterioration in each
successive
Hannibal
film.
He was
called Lecktor then......
The liver eater first
appeared in 1986 in Michael Mann's
Manhunter,
played by Brian Cox. He was called Lecktor then, and his
performance is infinitely more chilling than Hopkins' stabs
at the role. Mann is an outstanding and underrated
writer/director. His treatment of the material tramples all
over Jonathan Demme's and Ridley Scott's.
...the FBI's
ten most wanted can wander around Florence...
There's a tension and
believabilty in
Manhunter
that's absent from
The Silence of the
Lambs and
Hannibal.
Hannibal
is laughable. The story is lukewarm tosh and there isn't
even a token attempt at covering the psychology of the
twisted man. We're asked to believe that one of the FBI's
ten most wanted can wander around Florence unnoticed for
years. There's no chemistry between an overweight Lector,
who has little to do, and the new Clarice Starling, Julianne
Moore. The best performances come from the wild boars.
...about as
frightening as a scene from Blair Witch 2.
Jodie Foster and Demme were
right to walk away from this version. The last ten minutes
are both laughable and disgusting. 'That's something any
second rate director can pull off. Terrifying an audience is
not so straightforward. Gary Oldman had his name taken off
the credits. His deeply scarred survivor of a Lector attack
is a fine demonstration of makeup skill but about as
frightening as a scene from
Blair Witch
2.
Audiences
flock to see crap, and more crap is what they deserve.
The total mediocrity of
Hannibal has important ramifications. Its financial success
proves once again that there's no need for Hollywood to put
big bucks into well-written,
well-structured screenplays.
Audiences flock to see crap, and more crap is what they
deserve.
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....Keanu
Reeves, playing an out and out shit for a
change....
Cate Blanchett has made two
artistically successful films since her superb performance
in the awards drenched
Elizabeth
in '98. An Ideal
Husband and
The Talented Mr
Ripley didn't
stretch box office staff too far, and the same is probably
true of her latest,
The Gift
(15). It's set in
the deep south, where Blanchett is a single mum with a
psychic ability to see the future. It sounds silly, but the
acting by Blanchett and Keanu Reeves, playing an out and out
shit for a change, just about carry things through.
Director Sam
Raimi knows he's working with a hoary story....
Director Sam Raimi knows
he's working with a hoary story, but he covers up the holes
in the script with polished skill and the perpetrator isn't
unmasked until right at the end. If you like a quiet little
sleeper without the overkill of the
Hannibal
marketing juggernaut, then give
The
Gift a
try.
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...the
locals don't want their country despoiled by
foreigners....
Russell Crowe hit the big
time twice, first in the superlative
LA
Confidential and
then in the massive hit,
Gladiator.
His new one, Proof of
Life (15) has some
plus points, but they're outweighted by Taylor Hackford's
uncertainty over what kind of film he's making. US box
office disappointment led to a public slanging match between
Crowe and Hackford.
Supposedly taken from
Adventures In The
Ransom Trade, a
Vanity
Fair article by
William Prochnau, it tackles third world hostage taking. The
film is set in a fictional South African country, where a
dam is being built to help the construction of an upcoming
oil pipeline. Naturally enough, some of the locals don't
want their country despoiled by foreigners, an aspect of the
story worth exploring in detail. Hackford is content to use
the encroachment by foreign multinationals as merely a plot
convenience.
....his
employer's insurance company refuses to help....
Peter Bowman (David Morse),
an American engineer, is facing a difficult time in his
marriage to Alice (Meg Ryan). He's an easy target. His
captors want $3 million, and when his employer's insurance
company refuses to help, it's up to K & R expert Thorne
(Crowe) to help out.
...things go
from shit to appalling in no time.
Kidnap and ransom is no easy
negotiating job, and things go from shit to appalling in no
time. Hackford dithers between romance and suspense, opting
for a reasonably effective shoot-out between Thorne and his
cronies and the kidnappers. Naturally enough, with Hubby out
in the wilds growing a beard, Alice is attracted to Thorne,
but don't expect the usual happy ending. The final moments
may surprise you. Watch out for a neat performance by the
underrated David Caruso, whose big screen career since
leaving the cast of
NYPD
Blue has been so
disappointing that he recently returned to TV with a new
series, Michael
Hayes.
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....known
affectionately as Captain Barbiturate.
Keanu Reeves appears as
another shit in The
Watcher (15), an
urban serial killer movie set in Chicago with, just for a
change, vulnerable young women being preyed on. Reeves plays
the chilling murderer who's matched against James Spader's
drugged-up, retired ex-LA detective, known affectionately as
Captain Barbiturate. There's too little tension in a film
which tries to replicate some of the atmosphere of
Manhunter
and
Se7en.
The serial
killer movie needs a fresh angle.
Director Joe Charbanic fails
to back up his actors with a meaty handling of the material.
The script doesn't explain Reeves's background adequately.
There's nothing new here, but Reeves and Spader are fine in
their roles. Reeves' character behaves similarly to the
character in Michael Powell's classic thriller,
Peeping
Tom, likes
photographing the girls before he kills them. The serial
killer movie needs a fresh angle. It was precisely its
originality which made
Se7en
so outstanding.
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