Reviews

Sports movies, with very few exceptions are usually dire fare, and football movies in particular tend to be nonsensical montages weaved around clichéd sub plots. "Goal !" doesn't entirely eradicate these problems but its does make a substantially better fist of it that any that have gone before. It has to be said that one of the most significant reasons for this considerable improvement was the choice of the hugely experienced Lucinda Syson as casting director. Kuno Becker in the lead role was a revelation, not only did he have the acting chops to cruise through the non-football segments but he was entirely plausible as a player, with the build and movement of a decent professional. Anna Friel was perfect as the Geordie love interest and one of the most pleasing performances in the movie was Marcel Iures as Newcastle manager, Erik Dornhelm. Iures' research for the role was obviously extensive and he came over as a perfect amalgam of Mourinho, Wenger and Eriksson, with his authority and intelligence to the fore every time he was on screen. A special mention also has go to Alessandro Nivola who I didn't know or recognise prior to watching the movie and it was only while browsing through DVD special features that I saw to my surprise that he was in fact, American. He had absolutely mastered the London accent and was entirely convincing as the over-paid, over-sexed Cockney wide-boy. To the plot and the action then, both of which were mostly satisfactory and often appealing but quite some way short of perfect. While it was at least remotely conceivable that an amateur player from the barrio could be spotted and coaxed to the U.K., it was after Munez' arrival in Newcastle that the contrivances happened a little too regularly, the most blatant being his overwhelming luck at being in the taxi that was called off course to pick up a wayward star and the second chance that came with that startling co-incidence. The football action was as convincing, in my opinion, as any "staged" football will ever get, and this was helped by weaving footage of the actors into genuine game tape, a process which, it has to be said, was done almost seamlessly and is unlikely to be bettered. In summary then, Danny Cannon has made a pleasing movie, with a great cast, that at long last does some justice to the world's biggest game. It's not perfect, but its fast, it's fun and for the most part, fairly convincing.

This may well be an accurate interpretation of one mans experience of Desert Shield / Storm but if that interpretation was little more than a random meandering of frustration, boredom and pent up aggression then, valid as these emotions may be, one wonders why it was deemed film worthy. One of the film's core issues did offer some interest , specifically the question, " how does a man who is trained to kill react when he is not offered the opportunity to put his training into practice"? The answer though was as deeply unsatisfying as it was trite. The answer, according to Marine Swofford, is childish tantrums and kitchen sink moralising. It was always going to take some delicate handling to find the precarious middle ground that exists between the gung ho soldier movie and the soul searching emotional exploration and , to this reviewers mind at least, Mendes has not even come close. Jarheads was loud, brash and noisy but, ultimately, had very little to say. We continue to wait then, for a gulf war movie that tells us something that we don't already know.

Lets be honest, Mike Leigh's films are not for everyone. No effort is made to make them commercially viable, the cast are almost always, largely unknown and certain scenes are so harrowing that even the strongest viewer can find themselves distressed and perturbed. While these factors keep some people away, they also keep many others coming back time and time again. Mike Leigh is quite simply, a national treasure. And I don't mean that in the same fluffy "Gawd Bless 'Em" manner that people applied to Thora Hird and the Queen Mother. I mean that he is simply one of the finest and most honest chroniclers of contemporary Britain that we have produced.

Make no mistake, the British have always enjoyed social realism. We can gauge that through that great yardstick of social self-perceptions, the soap opera. While the Americans produce soaps full of tanned, successful oil barons and their supermodel / actress mistresses, and the Australians show us their blue collar bungalow owners who like a beer with their mates and a barbecue on Sundays, the British make soaps full of characters who are little more than diluted, softened incarnations of Leigh's own subjects. People who work at checkouts and in launderettes, people who are trapped by poverty, alcoholism, violence and stifled or strangled ambition.

But through it all , there's a hope, an anticipation of a better day just around the corner and that's what makes these films ultimately uplifting. Leigh has always shown that no matter how dire the circumstances, how forlorn the existence, love and hope, friendship and family, will find a way to offer support, comfort and succor.

In achieving this, Leigh has the assistance of another of the U.K.'s finest - Timothy Spall. If ever an actor was capable of portraying at once the fragility, insecurity and yet the potential for sheer stubborn strength of the British psyche its Spall. His character in All or Nothing, Phil is an incredibly vulnerable man. A pensive, gentle man, trapped in his own doubts and in a world of people who react by lashing out, verbally or physically and so compounding his doubts and fear. He apologises constantly, and often appears to be apologising for simply existing. An under-educated but intellectual man he even apologises for having an extensive vocabulary, a character trait which Leigh uses cleverly but subtly by having Phil precede each "big word" with "wotsitsname". It appears that Phil is searching for the word, he isn't, he knows exactly what he's about to say but is reluctant to say it in case he appears educated or articulate. We hear Phil talk about destiny and saying "It's...wotsitsname..kismet". In a world of expletives and harsh words he's ashamed at his verbal dexterity viewing it as a weakness rather than a strength.

Devices such as these help us understand technically why Leigh is just such a good writer and the way in which these devices are performed help us understand why Leigh constantly looks to Spall to anchor his scripts with his marvelous humanity.

All or Nothing is a vicious, gut wrenching, graceful, uplifting gem of a movie from a master filmmaker. Its is performed by a marvelous leading man and a collection of wonderfully talented supporting actors. In a world of blockbusters and multi million dollar opening nights Mike Leigh continues to give us humanity, despair, courage and beauty. And do we ever need him.

It is a point little worth arguing that Kevin Costner, on form, is a highly capable film-maker with a marvellous sense of time and space. Its also little worth arguing that he has from time to time displayed a real propensity for picking, playing and producing some utter nonsense. With "Open Range", though Costner has not quite returned to "Dances with Wolves" levels of excellence, he's certainly in the right ball park.

The story does have a classic western plotline that could easily have fallen into cliche but Costner handles it well and gives it sufficient subtle tweaking that he keeps the audience involved, interested and sympathetic and neither the outcome of the relationship between Costners character and that of Annette Benning, nor the final fate of the two central characters is a forgone conclusion until we see it for ourselves.

The movie does have an ever so slight tendency to drag at points and its 2 hour 20 running time could most likely have been trimmed to two hours at little serious detriment to the finished piece but the performances of the two male leads are sufficiently engaging, even at quieter spots, that we can forgive this excess.

Much criticism has been levelled at the movie for being formulaic and not making sufficient effort to capture the "real west" but Costner has set out to make a piece of entertainment and not a frontier documentary and in this, at the very least, he has succeeded. His choice of Jimmy Muro as cinematographer was telling as Muro has a resume built almost entirely on high energy action flicks (Terminator 2, Fast and the Furious, Gone in Sixty Seconds) and this is reflected in the fact that the climactic shootout scene is easily the highlight of the movie rather than earlier sweeping Canadian landscapes which could have been a star in their own right but tend to pass the viewer by with an air of indifference.

The shoot-out is very well paced and a real crowd pleaser and in this sub-genre it stands right up there with Lancaster and Douglas in "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral".

A good movie with a very good closing scene and a welcome return to form for a talented actor and film-maker whose early success left him open to a great deal of criticism , much of which was , at best mis-placed and at worst mean-spirited and envious.

As a Brit living "Down Under" I have shown and suggested this movie to countless friends and acquaintances. The movie buffs among them loved it, maybe they didn't think it was a work of art but they enjoyed it immensely.

Now, there were also a number of hard nosed cynical types who would rather watch Parliamentary Question Time than anything on the silver screen and it was their reaction that was most interesting. You could almost see them trying NOT to like it. They failed. When Stephen Tompkinsons character turns round mid performance and catches site of Pete Postlethwaites (his on screen father) character on stage, every single one of them smiled and sat further forward in their seats.

Its no surprise really, when something is done this well, and performed with this degree of enthusiasm and talent and scripted with just the right levels of emotion, sentimentality, reality and despair, you've just got to love the thing. The events are based around the fortunes of a colliery band in the North of England - The coal mine is under threat from the Thatcherite governments privatisation policies and consequently the pit band and the very community itself is also in jeopardy. In these trying circumstances the band members struggle to remain focused much to the frustration of band leader Danny, (Pete Postlethwaite) who remind anyone who'll listen that "music matters". Circumstances conspire though to show Danny that when it comes to the destruction of an industry and a community, the desperate and marginal life lived by his son and grandchildren and his own ailing health, music matters little. Or does it?

In these dire straits music lifts everyone, if only momentarily, above the drastic reality of their lives. It binds them, unites them and fills them with pride and self-respect that is being slowly eroded by their circumstances. Watch out for some remarkable "set pieces" that in other hands and with other actors could have been flat or hackneyed, specifically the performance of Rodrigo's "En Aranjuez Con Tu Amor" to the backdrop of heated discussion between union and management. We see another wonderful and powerful moment when Phil (Stephen Tompkinson's character)is in full clown costume and turns to face the crucifix in a moment of puzzled despair. Don't rent it, buy it. This is a movie that can be enjoyed time and time again.

What a fantastic movie. I usually cant rest on transport of any kind but on a recent 12 hour flight from London to Tokyo "The Big Bounce" had me sleeping like a baby within minutes. When I did wake up and , suitably refreshed, decided to give the movie another go, I sat through the entire thing in a semi-catatonic state , waiting for something, anything to happen.

Owen Wilson is a small time conman / surfer dude who winds up in Hawaii and falls foul of local property developer and jet-set thug , Gary Sinise. In the meantime he finds himself cavorting with thrill-seeking, outlaw-loving supermodel, and "bit on the side" squeeze to Sinise, Sara Foster. He becomes bosom buddy and employee to local judge and hotelier Morgan Freeman and runs afoul of Sinise's henchman Charlie Sheen and foreman Vinnie Jones.

As capers go, and as casts go, it could have been, should have been, a a much better movie. Elmore Leonard is a sensational creator of quirky, multi-level characters but they just dont seem to work on screen. This movie failed for many of the same reasons that another Leonard adaptation, Get Shorty , couldn't make the grade. Great cast but falling someway short of embracing the spirit of the characters. Tarantino and his buddies came closest with Jackie Brown but the definitive Leonard movie has yet to be made. Wilson is likeable if limited as always, Sinise is fine in his occasional appearances, Foster is a capable if uninspired debutante and Morgan Freeman breezes through the movie with the casual indifference of a man who knows he's too damn good for it. A quick mention to Charlie Sheen who steals each scene he's in (admittedly the competition is minimal). Not desperately poor but not even in the same zip code as good.

I hired this movie on a recent return to Scotland and sat through all of it in spite of myself. It is utterly lamentable. Bobby Duvall sets the tone by attempting a 'Scottish' accent that had me laughing and grimacing in equal turns. By striking co-incidence my neighbours used to have a gardener from Belarus who sounded very similar to Bob so I understood what he was saying. Michael Keaton was in it too but his appearances were so infrequent and so utterly pointless that he gave the appearance of a confused crew member wandering on to the set. "Super" Ally McCoist is about the best thing in it and he never rises above "Days of Our Lives" levels of pseudo-acting . Apparently Bobby struggled to get studio funding for this (No ! Surely not !) and had to fund much of it personally as it was a labour of love. Maybe for him. For me it was a dreadful waste of time and money.

Briefly, Billy Elliot is a charming movie which , despite having to deal with an every so slightly cliched plotline, manages to overcome this by some strong performances and a slightly off-centre approach. Its definitely worth seeing and is both a decent reminder of the necessity to find ones own direction in life and a reasonable snapshot of an important period in recent British social history. One final word, there seems to be much confusion as to the accents involved here. For those who are not familiar with the intricacies of U.K. accents, none of the actors concerned, other than Jackie (Jamie's father) are speaking in their own dialects. The film is set in Easington, Co.Durham which, for those who are interested, is set part-way between the larger towns of Sunderland and Hartlepool and although most Sunderland natives wont thank me for saying it , the accent to an untrained ear, is somewhere between Geordie and Cleveland. However, Julie Walters is from Birmingham, the actor playing Jamie's brother is from Manchester and his father is a Glaswegian so if any of our American cousins struggled to find uniformity in the accents then dont be too hard on yourself.

Oliver Stone takes a cast that most film-makers would give their right arm for, a budget to match, and gives us "Major League" with face-cages. I assume that Al Pacino had a couple of beers too many the day he picked up this script and thought, "I'll give it a go". Given that sports movies are notorious for being almost uniformly awful, one would have thought that someone needed to exercise more caution on this project. Either approach it with a "Necessary Roughness" or "Mean Machine" air of light hearted abandon or go for exploring the psyche of the celebrity sportsman and the nasty, heartless underbelly of professional sports. Combinations dont work and I'm afraid that its exactly this kind of middle ground that "Any Given Sunday" finds itself languishing in. For those who havent seen it, imagine "Bull Durham" with a coach and you're pretty much there, without the engaging performances of Costner or Robbins. Don't get me wrong, Pacino almost, but not quite, manages to overcome the cliche of the "old timer" coach with a heavy heart and trouble adjusting to the modern game, but Dennis Quaid and Jamie Foxx are given so little to work with that their roles are, I'm afraid, beyond redemption. After one particular defeat D'Amato (Pacino)announces "this stinks". I felt obliged to agree.

Men of Honor succeeds on many more fronts than it fails. It is, primarily, consummately entertaining, it is also thought provoking and technically accomplished. I found myself in the fairly rare situation of being pleasantly surprised by a movie that I was already looking forward to. As the basis of the plot has already been explained ad infinitum above, I'll just add my own thoughts.

Firstly, a lot of the reviews above seem to have missed the point a little. See the thing is, Carl Brashear wasn't a hero. He was a brave man, a resourceful and talented man and an extremely tenacious one, but as his wife pointed out in the movie "It was all about him, it was ALWAYS about him". Ego and ambition were stronger incentives for Brashear than the selfless altruism that defines heroism.

Secondly, this movie was most certainly not a tribute to the great institution that was or is the American Armed Forces. The entire film shows us an organisation that just 30 years ago denied a man a position solely due to the colour of his skin, an organisation that systematically discriminated at every level against an African American's desire to serve his country, and one that promoted an individual that was prepared to see a man die rather than pass a course.

If there is a hero in this movie....this story, then it is Master Chief Leslie W. "Billy" Sunday. Sunday had nothing whatsoever to benefit from helping Brashear, rather he faced demotion, exclusion, disfavour and disgrace, yet he still made the right choice. Sunday was the hero here, not Brashear.

Turning from the characters to the players, Gooding Jr was his steady self and managed intensity and humanity without obvious cliche. De Niro was almost faultless and carried large segments of the movie with his portrayal of Sunday, striving for integrity and respect while haunted by his own, very real demons.

The direction was pleasing, if unspectacular and the casting was sound. The climactic "12 paces" scene was obviously contrived and, were it not for the conviction of the performances, could have been little more than an insult to viewers that had previously been credited with sufficient intelligence to make up their own minds. Sweaty determination to the tune of ooh's and aah's from a nearby audience are best left to Stallone et al and serve no purpose here. 9 out of 10 for Bob De Niro and an extremely capable 7 for Gooding Jr and Tillman.

Let me start by saying that, for my money, few people handle an action movie in quite the way that John McTiernan does....lets face it Predator, Die Hard and Hunt for Red October are right up there with the very best of them. Whilst this recent offering is not nearly as bad as his almost unforgivable Last Action Hero, The 13th Warrior is one that should be watched and discarded without much ado. Suspension of disbelief was difficult to maintain, not least due to the almost laughable range of accents adopted by the principal characters. We'd expect that with Banderas who has, to his credit never attempted to disguise his latin tones, but the "Northmen" discuss their business in a dreadful mish-mash of Eastern European, Scottish, Irish and Cockney which, towards the end of the movie, I found increasingly irritating.

Michael Crichton's book "The Eaters of the Dead" , on which the movie was based, made much more of Ahmed's problems in adjusting to the cultural, religious and philisophical differences between his own race and the Northmen and even allowing for the fact that time and script constraints mean that such subjects cannot be fully explored in the movie, one comes away with a feeling that the entire opening hour of the movie serves no purpose other than to set the scene for the battle. Lastly, I should say that while I'm no fan of Antonio Banderas he does bring a pleasing presence and subtle humour to a movie that, in almost every other way, lacks substance.