Reviews

Not as much a sequel as a rethinking of John Sturges' own and earlier "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" (1957) - minus all the latter's glamor; starting with the casting (Garner and Robards instead of Lancaster and Douglas) and not ending with art direction, costume design or framing. Despite "Gunfight's" reputation, "Hour of the Gun" is the far superior film. An elegy about killing and the its prize to be paid by the dead and the living. Overwhelming acting all around, though Jason Robards almost walks off with the hole picture under his arm. Sturges' deliberate pacing allows for the viewer's eye to have a closer look on the "heroes" faces and looks. Indeed what one sees in them becomes more important than their dialog - as in every myth-making-scheme, but here used to the reverse effect. Just great. Not only one of the 60's best - and sadly still so underrated by many.

Oh yes, one senses what "Panic Room" is about. Is the loss of ones freedom the necessary price to be paid for total security? And what´s total security worth, when there´s nothing but?

But one doesn´t see it on the screen. On the scree we have a perfectly staged, lit, set designed, orchestrated, written, directed, scored and last but not least edited cat and mouse game between Ms. Foster and mainly Mr. Whitaker. Nothing less. Nothing more.

The premise being that the houses of the very rich contain "panic rooms" as in when in panic go there. No intruder can invade that room and its inhabitant can last longer than the best equipped burglar.

David Koepp´s screenplay introduces a very weak McGuffin but then again that keeps the McGuffin in line with the surrounding script itself. For all the stylishness of Mr. Fincher´s staging, it´s let down by the other David´s writing. It´s only too evident that there once was a brilliant movie idea that pitifully enough never materialized into a real movie.

Keeping that in mind you just have to marvel at what a masterful director Mr. Fincher is, even when his material sucks.

Bertrand Tavernier is without any doubt one of the leading french, and not only french, filmmakers. That he is also a leading conservative filmmaker has been evident from his very beginnings and not just since "L.627" (1992) or his documentary on the french-algerian war "La Guerre sans nom" (1992). With his latest film though Tavernier has taken conservativism to the extremes of historical revisionism. "Laissez-passer" emerges both as a technical masterpiece and a political embarassment.

On first sight the 170-minutes film seems to deal with the day to day life of filmmakers in german-occupied Paris during World War II. The revisionism comes on different levels:

At first there is a somewhat film-in-film revenge on the french nouvelle vague of the late 50´s and 60´s. Had the able craftsmen of the time only been given the chance to develop their taste and make their ideas come true, Tavernier seems to argue, they would have revolutionized french cinema long before the likes of Godard, Truffaut (whose "Le dernier metro" receives a special nod), Chabrol and all the others; critics and filmmakers Tavernier didn´t really like when he was a critic himself. Thus he rehabilitates the french cinema of quality of the 50´s, a cinema the cahiers-du-cinema bunch dismissed almost entirely. It helps to know that "Laissez-passer" deals with and stars real-life-protagonists Tavernier not only knew but worked closely with (for example Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost, scripters of Taverniers first feature films), but knowing this Tavernier´s argument gets only more dubious.

The second and even more questionable level of revisionism is a thoroughly political one. "Laissez-passer" tries for nothing less than the justification of collaboration by pointing out that it wasn´t really collaboration with the nazis but enduring them. The film´s protagonists stresses more than once that he may be working for a german film company but works only on french films. That these films were part of the propaganda war Tavernier conveniently doesn´t deal with at all.

When everything´s said and done, according to Tavernier the collaborators were even the real resistance fighters. Vichy civil servants are shown as a resistance group who utilize their official status to inform the british intelligence about german plans (the Brits themselves being rather pathetic and more preoccupied with their tea than with winning the war). Communist resistance members on the other hand are shown as dogmatic opressors of their most faithful members. And since nothing else is heard or seen from Vichy officials, even the Vichy regime seems not to have been that bad alltogether. Michael Curtis "Casablanca" was more radical in this point, as Claude Rains alias Capitain Renault tosses an empty bottle of Vichy water into a wastebasket. And "Casablanca" was made in 1942.

In 2001 Tavernier clads all this in well known images of frenchness; note the heavy bicycling. The film´s last sentence informs us in voice over by the director himself that the film´s protagonist had told him, that given the chance he would do everything he did just once again. Which means that it was ok to make films a n d to collaborate. Combine this with the film´s title and you get the message to leave bygones be bygones. Take the film´s dedication into consideration - to those who lived through that time, a time when there were more important things than stubbornly sticking to idealistic ideas - you get the message that anybody who didn´t live through that time has no right to judge.

Au contraire, mon cher Bertrand, au contraire!

"Tigerland" is a mixed bag.

As for being most definetly a career move, it´s a very clever one. Right after the intriguingly flawed "Falling Down" (1993) Mr. Schumacher was trying to kill his reputation by playing the hired-gun-director in a both megalomaniac and boring string of alternating John-Grisham- and Batman-movies. Somebody must have told him or maybe he sensed it himself, for "Flawless" (1999) and even "8 MM" (1998)tried to be real, stand-alone-movies and not part of a merchandising campaign. "Tigerland" looks like an even more radical departure from mainstream-big-bucks-movie-making. No stars, hand held camera, bleached out colors, blurred images: any- and everything in here - while Mr. Schumacher starts increasingly resembling a real director, an artist who cares about his art again - is shouting: ART! IMPORTANT! MESSAGE!

But that´s exactly the point where the problems start to overshadow the movie´s clever performance. Not for a single moment does "Tigerland" know weather it wants to be an anti-Vietnam movie in particular or an anti-war movie in general or a study on the effects of harsh, often even inhuman military training on young, unsuspecting males or a melodramatic comedy or a buddy movie or a too-clever-for-its-own-good-remake of Walter Hill´s masterpiece "Southern Comfort" (1981). If you don´t believe me check out the young leading man´s motivations and actions. He is introduced as a troublemaker who just can´t help causing trouble because the army and he match like heaven and hell. Keeping up some pretense of staying in character the film makers show him arranging to go A.W.O.L while constantly fighting his somehow dim witted and brutish superiors. But they´re not that brutal and dim witted as not to notice that our anti-war-hero is the best soldier in the whole rookie-platoon and a born leader too. Consequently he doesn´t leave camp but acknowledges his responsibilities. The longer the movie is running the more does it back my suspicion that for box-office-reasons Mr. Schumacher secretly wants his audience to root for "Tigerland"´s hero because of his warrior´s abilities and not because of his contrasting, alas half-hearted tries to desert the army. Needless to say that this attitude undermines any of the film´s pretenses to be more than the average war-is-hell-but-someone-has-to-do-the-job-flick.

Don´t let "Tigerland´s" visual design fool you. And in case you want to see a really good movie about the effects of war an young men, give John Irvin´s much underrated, and unjustly so, "Hamburger Hill" (1987) a second chance.

In recent years I have come to reevaluate most of Elia Kazan´s films. "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951) looks more and more the stagebound it is and belongs rather to its actors than to its director. "On the Waterfront" first of all is an elaborated excuse for informing (something Kazan had done some years earlier in front of the HUAC). "America, America" (1963) is the sort of tale immigrants who have made it tend to tell at family gatherings over and over again. On the other hand "Panic in the Streets" (1950) now emerges as a powerful thriller about paranoia. "The Visitors" (1972) - more or less a home movie - is a painfully depiction of America´s guilt with regard to the Vietnam War and as such much ahead of its time (most certainly much ahead of Brian De Palma´s "Casualties of War" (1988), that tells are rather similar story). The most astonishing film being "The Arrangement" (1969), a film that has been dismissed that often as a downright bomb that this verdict was taken for granted for a very long time. Well, it´s high time for a change.

"The Arrangement" deals with an advertising executive´s alienation from his job, his family, his world and even from himself. This Eddie Anderson is one of Kirk Douglas´s most touching and least mannered performances. He manages to keep the audience interested in a guy who is lost in almost every sense of the word. A gripping psychodrama, a film for adults and therefore out of place even at a time when traditional Hollywood was blown away by America´s very own New Wave. "The Arrangement" may at times annoy you, but it won´t insult your intelligence for even that long as a second. Cudos to the director, Kirk Douglas and both Richard Boone and Deborah Kerr who gave two performances to crown their already sterling careers. Faye Dunaway, by the way, has never before and never since been that erotic on screen.

Since a lof of people have offered their comments on "Thirteen Days" I want stress two aspects only:

Number 1: The fact that we´re all here to discuss this and other movies is ample evidence that somehow the then world-leaders in charge did manage not to blow earth to smithereens. Whether it worked exactly the way it is shown in the movie is beyond my knowledge, but the way that is highlighted in the movie will serve as a number one example about how to do a thriller whose ending is public knowledge without losing your audience from the word go. In fact it´s a nailbiting suspense movie that´ll keep you at the edges of your seats.

Number 2: After all that facts and fiction about the Kennedys (thank you very much Oliver Stone!), we tend to forget how young these people actually were when they had been given the power to preserve or destroy the earth. "Thirteen Days" reminds one of these fact and that´s another reason why this films keeps holding you in its grip from start to finish.

"Thirteen Days" is not a Kevin-Costner-flic. The main function of his invented character (how much it basically is a supporting role becomes evident in the major crises scenes, where he has to take the back seets) seems to be the one scene when his wife mentions that not only the Kennedys but he himself was also bright, to which he responds with deeper insight, "no not like them", thereby gloryfying them once more. Maybe that´s why "Thirteen Days" ironically reminds one of why Mr. Costner was considered a major star and acting force in Hollywood once.

Right after the masterful achievement that "Gladiator" beyond any reasonable doubt is, Ridley Scott hit the pits again with this obscene film disguising as artful celebration of state-of-the-art-set-designed horror chic. If feeding a young child with fried human brain is your idea of a humorous exit line, "Hannibal" may be your cup of tea though.

Because of a violation of traffic regulations an architect is put in prison. There he witnesses the grim reality of life behind bars: corrupt staff, corrupt inmates, an inhuman judicial system and the power of the Mafia.

"L´istruttoria e chiusa: dimentichi" - which translates into "The investigation is closed: forget about it" is one in a series of political thrillers Damiano Damiani (when he was good, he could to some extent rival Francesco Rosi, when he became pretentious and preachy he was intolerable) specialized in in the late 60´s through the 70´s. Its overall target is the corrupt Italian state of that day and age. Its means is classic melodrama of the wrongful accused who has to live through purgatory. Because he is wrongful accused, an intellectual and played by the then handsome Franco Nero we pity him for that (there is ample space for the suspicion that we would perceive his private hell in public custody as appropriate were he a criminal).To prove his case Damiani this time took the easy way out and that´s why his film is - judged by Damiani´s own best abilities - bordering on the mediocre side - and still worth watching; which is an achievement in itself.

"Die innere Sicherheit" features a family on the run, the parents seeming to be former terrorists and their fifteen year old daughter the involuntary hostage of the state of things she had the bad luck to be born into. Things start getting complicated when its not just the never vanishing state of paranoia which has to be coped with, but when the young daughter starts to revolt against a life that does not allow her to have her own life.

When everything´s said and done Christian Petzolds film is an inofficial remake of Sidney Lumet´s much and unjustly underrated "Running on Empty" (1988) from the word go. And though Lumet´s film may be the better executed, Petzold´s is the more intimate one. Its two major strongholds being its bleak style on the one hand (with the family´s car being almost the only place in the world where the three are safe; which is in fact one meaning of the title: the security of the interior) and Julia Hummer´s sensational performance as the terrorists young daughter.

"Noll Tolerans" may be well plotted, skillfully directed, and impressively cast it still bears a major problem indicated by its title. In making sure that its audience will never be in doubt about who´s good and who´s evil in this movie, the hero-policeman is pure as snow and the villain is downright hissable. Having that established the movie ridicules legal process, denounces legal representation (the villain´s lawyer is even more detestable than the villain himself is) and argues that Sweden´s society would be a safer place to be if it would just allow the police to do their job.

That´s not only a questionable approach to the state of law, it would have been a much better movie in case its makers would have dared to paint it gray and not just black and white. In comparison "Dirty Harry" was a more ambiguous enterprise, with ambiguity being one of the last things springing in mind when thinking about Mr. Callahan.

A downright oddity, in fact two movies in one. The first being a comedy about two possible fathers coming to terms with the idea of being a parent. The second a tough as nails russian-mafia-flic, harsh, brutal and not for the faint of heart. Logically the two don´t melt into one and the cross cutting of the two story lines in the film´s early stages only stresses the fact.

But, on the other hand, who cares about a story or its coherence or its lack of respectively? This is a reunion movie and since it´s Alain Delon who is reunited with Jean-Paul Belmondo ("Borsalino" anyone?)all you can ask for is nonchalant banter in between casual shootouts. And that´s what you get. That´s in fact all you get. And that´s why the film well overstays its welcome.

The only reason for distinguished director Patrice Leconte to do this may have been to share a credit with not one but two living legends of the French cinema. And though Belmondo and Delon may having had fun they´re way to old for this kind of physical exercise. We will be giving standing ovations in case any of the three (stars and director) would decide to do a serious crime flic or a "serious" comedy. As for "Une chance pour deux", it isn´t neither.

"But I´m a Cheerleader" (great title by the way, that begs for a change, marketingwise) is a one-joke-movie and the joke must have looked a lot more persuasive on paper than it does on the screen. Basic idea is that parents are so scared of their offsprings homosexuality that they send them away to reform-camp, in order to heal and get straight again. Problem is that the picture isn´t out there to hurt or even trouble its audience. We´re with the young and sympathetic reformees from the word go and the parents as well as the reformers are dismal jerks we can all feel superior to. The movie preaches to the converted and that´s all the more sad as such "reform institutions" for young gays and lesbians seem to exist in real life in the United States. As much as I may subscribe to this movies intentions, its execution is far from daring.

Thematically "The 6th Day" is dead on time. With Dollys alive and kicking and the human genom deciffered cloning is t h e SF-issue of the moment - both in fiction and in real life. Sadly the filmmakers prefered to come up with an ailing and tired chase movie, the chases being rather unexciting and the special effects unmistakeably not state of the art. I mean, when have you spotted so many continuity flaws in a costly Hollywood movie lately? And the casting doesn´t help either. Tony Goldwyn isn´t menacing at all even before we know about his real fate. Robert Duvall has pracitcally nothing to do. Michael Rappaport´s is just a walk on part. Michael Rooker isn´t allowed to act at all. And Arnold Schwarzenegger - whom nobody would expect to act - looks ill at ease with an action part that demands someone younger and - believe it or not - fitter. "The 6th Day" has the feel of a clone itself, part "Blade Runner" (what does it feel like to know that you are engineered?), part "Total Recall". It doesn´t live up to either.

"Space Cowboys" proofs a lot of things: How much at ease Mr. Eastwood is with all his professions within the film-industry (star, director, producer, mc...). How much it does help that Mr. Eastwood gave up his reluctance to hire other name-actors to act next to him (just imagine "Cowboys" without Jones, Sutherland and Garner - and Devane). And how much Mr. Eastwood believes in that special american machismo he helped to establish, even when having his tongue firmly in cheek. Since John Glenn made it again at 77, these things aren´t that easy to dismiss, but it´s great fun to watch our beloved oldtimers trying to match NASA´s physical fitness tests - and thus Mr. Eastwood bashing Hollywood´s ongoing youth-craze. In space it´s a different story. There Mr. Eastwood starts acting like this was a serious adventurer, with real people and real conflicts in it. The more "Space Cowboys" starts resembling "Armageddon" for the elderly, the more ridiculous it gets. The well known fact that Mr. Eastwood tends to be satisfied with the second- and third-best take of any scene and his ever prevailing goal to stay below budget add to the imperfect look (even editor Joel Cox couldn´t save it) and feel of the film´s last thirty or so minutes.

Dominik Graf is the best living german director and shows it with almost every film he does. Sadly the german film industry is traditionally ailing and Graf´s credits consist largely of made-for-TV-movies. But even when working for the small screen Graf never forgets that it´s equally important for a film to tell its story in images as a working storyline and good dialogue are. The TV-series "Tatort" is one of the longest running in german TV (since 1970 in fact). Always different but ever returning policemen track down criminals of all kinds. One of the most popular team of policemen were Schimanski and Thanner. "Schwarzes Wochenende" came four years after they debuted with "Duisburg - Ruhrort" in 1981 and was and is their finest hour. Graf manages to challenge the two leading actors, who are known for keeping to their shtick if a weaker director allows them to, into great performances each and thereby adding a complex character study of the troubled policeman - rare with the genre in Germany - to a (not only for TV-standards) highly complicated plot and competent thriller. This TV-movie could stand the test of a big screen showing any time.

"The Wind and the Lion" is an unbelievable film. Disguising itself as boys own paper adventure yarn, it actually is potent propaganda for its director´s fascist believes and convictions. There are born and true leaders and there is the rest. The leaders are to decide upon anything, even life and death. In this man´s world women know their station, even if they happen to be Candice Bergen. And all this does not only go for a wild Arab sheik but also for the leader of the great United States of America. Who cares about the winding, complicated and often frustrating ways of democracy after having seen this film? "The Wind and the Lion" ought to be disgusting but it is not. It´s one of the most enjoyable screen-adventures your money can buy, with Sean Connery (as the sheik) and John Huston (as Secretary of State) chewing the scenery. A fact which makes matters worse. For fascinating fascism remains fascism the fascinating it may be.

Considering that John Huston wanted to film this Rudyard-Kipling-yarn in the 50´s starring Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable, one can only sigh in relief that this plan never materialized. Because when John Huston finally was able to make the movie the result was the most engaging, the most adventurous, the most suspensefull, the best looking, the most intriguing plotted and the best cast screen-adventure of all time (it´s only possible rival being David Lean´s "Lawrence of Arabia"). Everything starts and ends with the casting of Michael Caine and Sean Connery as the two treasure-hunters who happen to stumble over Alexander the Great´s long lost city of Gold, where Connery is thought of as a God, starts acting wise and respectful and becomes alienated from his pal Caine - until in the end they are united again. There is a lot of talk around about John Ford´s theme of glory in defeat. In the last sequences of "The Man Who Would Be King" you can actually see what this means at an highly emotional level. Caine and Connery are so good together that one tends to assume they´ve made a lot of films side by side. This is tragically wrong. "The Man Who Would Be King" is in fact the only one; not considering Richard Attenborough´s all-star-extravaganza "A Bridge Too Far" (1977)where they are not to be seen on the screen together. To praise the two stars doesn´t mean to underestimate the achievement of the then veteran director. Any sequence of the film shows that this was not an easy shoot and Huston being 68 at the time of shooting didn´t spare his stars, his team and least of all himself anything. The result being that "The Man Who Would Be King", for all its air of adventure, its sense of mythical wonders, its eyeblinking exaggerations, hits the viewer with a strong feeling of honesty. This is the finest hour for anyone involved!

Well, it doesn´t make much sense and Anthony Perkins in his post-"Psycho"-mood is as one-note as a standard-villain can get. But Roger Moore - then still the reigning James Bond - as a women bashing, cold-blooded and bearded anti-terrorist expert does not just save the day but runs away with every scene he is in and eventually with the movie itself. Nothing to spoil a great evening with your closest friends for, but a pleasant joyride in case you´ve nothing better to do.

If you love movies, you will love "The Stunt Man". It stands in line with the best movies on film making: Vincente Minnelli´s "The Bad and the Beautiful" (1952), Jean-Luc Godards "Le Mepris" (1963) or Francois Truffauts "Le nuit americaine" (1973). It discloses the wonders of direction and camera and manages to maintain them the same moment. Wonderful performances (especially by Peter O´Toole as the mad genius director), an air of high risk and adventure and a great score by Dominic Frontiere add to Richard Rush´s magnificent direction. It´s a shame that he has never lived up to this film before ("Hell´s Angels on Wheels") and surely not after ("Color of Night").

Ok, it has some good acting in it and it was Redford´s first outing as a director. But the Academy Award Winner for Best Picture? In the year of "Raging Bull"? To establish a real ranking of this family drama of nowadays and then standard TV-proportions just ask a few people which films they remember from 1980. And I mean people who care about movies...

"Heaven´s Gate" is by far not the disaster its contemporary critics condemned it to be. And its by far not the pristine achievement its defenders want us to believe. As a movie, it has too many sequences that drag, to many "lyrical" moments that are great to watch but a major violation of the film´s momentum and too many actors evidently not knowing where they are (leading players Kris Kristofferson and John Hurt pitifully among them). But it features Isabelle Hupperts still best performance in a non-french-language movie, one of Jeff Bridges finest performances and a storyline that is willfully political, anti-establishment and anti-Reagan. In fact Cimino seems at times more concerned with the contemporary overtones of his film than with the historic tragedy itself. Coming from a director who just two years before that had made the most conservative and pro-american film about the Vietnam experience (not about the war!), who ran away with the major Academy Awards for doing so, and who had - not to forget - co-written the Dirty-Harry-sequel "Magnum Force" together with John Milius of all people, "Heaven´s Gate" must have come as a surprise with some impact. Being released in the launching stages of what was to become the Reagan-era, both Cimino and the film were dutifully punished for their conduct unbecoming. "Heaven´s Gate" was resurrected as the flawed masterpiece it is at the Cannes film festival four years later. Michael Cimino still hasn´t recovered from the massive blows his career had to take.

"The Empire Strikes Back" belongs to that rare breed of sequels being better than their hailed forerunners. There is more suspense than in "Star Wars" (1977), there are deeper developed characters than in "Star Wars" and it is better written (Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett no less!) than "Star Wars". After all, and especially after that computer animated waste of anyone´s time called, among other things, "The Phantom Menace" (1999), the suspicion that George Lucas might have invented the Star-Wars-Universe but isn´t its major artistic force is rooted in evidence.

Would anybody have complained about this movie in case its complicated production history would not have become public knowledge at the time of its belated release? Fact is "The 13th Warrior" works. And if there ever was an adult boy´s own film, this is it. The direction (whether by McTiernan or Crichton) knows how to handle adventure and the grim photography reminds one at the same moment that these were hard times for anyone around. All the actors, even Banderas, are perfect. And if you see this film on the big screen, you get lost in its time and space. One of the most underrated movies of the nineties and unjustly so.

There´s no real reason why this tale about the coming of age of a nerdish teen and the loves and life of her outlandish mom in the sixties should be the delight it definetly is. Except for the bunch of actors evidently enjoying themselves and thus the audience and an excellent screenplay that couldn´t even be harmed by various directors. Between laughing out loud you will sport a constant smile watching this.

In retrospect it´s hard to understand why Powell´s seminal film on film and voyeurism met with so much hostility and hatred at the time of its release. Thus becoming the perfect showcase for the exception to the rule that directing a masterpiece helps your career. While Hitchcock showed us the pleasures of watching in "Rear Window" (1954), Powell deals with the terrors of watching. Therefore the latter is a more unpleasant experience but a more rewarding one intellectually. If you don´t like to be intrigued intellectually in cinemas, "Peeping Tom" comes across as a competent horror film/thriller also, which adds to its excellence. Luckily we don´t know how many fantastic films Powell would have made afterwards, if his critics would have been more perceptive - one could get just mad at them!