Film Reviews by RP

It is estimated that up to 250,000 people lost their lives in the tsunami that followed the undersea earthquake in the Indian Ocean in December 2004. The countries affected included Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand - and this film follows the fortunes of one family in Thailand as they struggle to survive, are separated, then, against all odds, reunited.

I *hated* this film. While it may be based on a true story it is an over-sanitised, white man's tale that trivialises the sufferings of the local population and focuses on a few English-speaking tourists. The larger tragedy is simply used as background material for the central characters as they pretend to grimace in pain against a background of a terrifying natural disaster.

I also disliked the fact that the central family was Spanish and yet was changed to British for the film - is the white man better box office? But at least the film was made by a Spanish company. Over 5,000 Thais were killed (and over 150,000 Indonesians) and yet we focus on a small over-privileged British tourist family? To me, this really is trivialisation.

Naomi Watts gained an (in my opinion, undeserved) Oscar nomination for her performance, Ewan McGregor gave one of his usual wooden performances, but young Tom Holland was excellent.

It's all very prettily photographed, the tsunami scenes are well done, but I disliked it intensely. I'll give it 2/5 stars because I've seen worse, but frankly this is below average Hollywood-style trivialisation that I didn't expect to see in a European production.

Based on a play by Harold Brighouse, this is not only an excellent stage play (I saw a revival at Birmingham Rep some years ago) but also an excellent film, combining a moral message with British humour.

Widower Henry Hobson is a successful bootmaker in 1880s Salford. He has three daughters but is a little stingy with his money (other than in spending rather too much on drink in the 'Moonrakers Arms') and forbids them to get married to avoid paying marriage settlements. He regards his oldest daughter Maggie, an astute businesswoman in her own right, as being on the shelf at age 30. But Maggie has her own plans and sets her sights on Will Mossop, Hobson's talented bootmaker, bosses him, educates him, weds him, and sets up in business with him. In a year they have become more successful than Hobson, and return to take over his shop.

Acted with much humour by a broad range of British talent, I enjoyed this very much. Apart from the well known leading men Charles Laughton and John Mills, in these older films I like looking out for small parts played by others who later became famous. There is a young Prunella Scales, later best known as Basil's dragon of a wife in 'Fawlty Towers' and also John Laurie, later best known as Private Frazer in 'Dad's Army'.

Great stuff - 5/5 stars.

The 1970s abounded with 'conspiracy thriller' films - think 'Three Days Of The Condor', 'The Stepford Wives', 'The Parallax View', 'All The President's Men' etc. And here's another one, this time perhaps inspired by the conspiracy theories about the moon landings.

This time, it's a manned Mars landing that is faked - perhaps with understandable reason as the NASA space programme is under political threat and private sector profiteering sees a faulty life support system installed. So the three astronauts are smuggled off the space vehicle, forced to participate in fake TV broadcasts - only to have the returning spacecraft burn up on re-entry. So the astronauts are surplus to requirements and must escape before they are killed to cover up the fake...

The film has the right ingredients: brave lone investigative reporter (Elliott Gould), geeky technician (Robert Walden) who suspects something is wrong and is 'disappeared', heroic astronaut (James Brolin) and of course a big bad conspirator-in-chief (Hal Holbrook). It even has black helicopters - well, strictly they're olive drab, but do look black in most shots.

In these older films it's interesting to spot smaller players - here we have a poor love-interest cameo by the otherwise always excellent Karen Black and an annoying cameo by Telly Savalas as a crop-spraying pilot. We have the later notorious O.J. Simpson and the rather good Sam Waterson as the other astronauts, and Barbara Bosson (later appearing in 'Hill Street Blues' as Captain Furillo's wife) has a small role.

It's fairly slow moving but moderately tense with a good script. I like it and rate it as 4/5, although that does seem a little high - but then I enjoy conspiracy films.

[Aside 1: If you like a conspiracy movies there's quite a good list on Wikipedia: search for "List of conspiracy-thriller films and television series".]

[Aside 2: Although made in the US, the film was financed by British TV money - the production company was Lew Grade's ITC. Because of this, current distribution of the old ITC / ATV / ITV / Granada etc TV series and films - including 'Capricorn One' - is handled by TV companies and subsidies]

[Aside 3: The version I received from Cinema Paradiso was distributed by Carlton and is a poor release with a pan-and-scan 4:3 aspect ratio picture, rather than wide-screen. Because of this, I purchased a copy on eBay of the Network Distributing version. This is a 'proper' wide-screen version with reasonable extras and is a much better watch than the Carlton version]

It's in German, with subtitles. But don't let that put you off - it's a rather good film about different timelines or alternative realities.

The film shows the same events happening three times, each with subtle changes and a different conclusion as Lola (Franka Potente, perhaps best known for her role in 'The Bourne Identity') attempts to raise 100,000 DM (the film was made before the introduction of the Euro) to save her boyfriend from the gangland baddies.

But this gangland plot about the boyfriend is secondary to the storyline about the changes that minor events bring, namely the subtle timing changes caused by Lola's encounter with a dog on the stairwell as she sets off running. And it is these minor timing changes that cause the sequence of events to change in small but very significant ways.

I've also recently seen and reviewed 'The Butterfly Effect' and the theme that small events can trigger future changes is common between the two. Another film with a similar theme is 'Sliding Doors', although there are only two alternative scenarios there.

'Run Lola Run' is excellent, and it has the added advantage of being short at only 76 minutes. 4/5 stars. Recommended.

[Aside: Lola's boyfriend Manni is played by Moritz Bleibtreu who played the central character Tarek Fahd in the psychological drama 'Das Experiment'.]

I enjoyed this psychological drama. It would be wrong to call it a ' psychological thriller' or a horror film, although there are one or two images (hallucinations, assorted demons, realistic war scenes) that some may find disturbing. And there is one section in the old hospital where the central character is taken on a wobbly wheeled trolley past some quite disturbing scenes...

The film tells the tale of one Jacob Singer (well played by Tim Robbins) a US postal worker and Vietnam vet who begins to suffer a series of bizarre hallucinations that lead him to investigate what happened to his platoon back in 'Nam only to be trapped in a bizarre conspiracy theory and yet more hallucinations.

I won't reveal any plot spoilers but suffice to say that the film's title gives the game away (if you know your Bible, that is).

I found it excellent, but I will mention two points that I didn't like: the worst is an (uncredited) appearance by a pre-fame Macaulay Culkin in an awful simpering role as Jacob's son, killed in a traffic accident, the other is that I found that Tim Robbin's too-easy smile didn't seem to fit well with the haunted character he played. But these are minor points.

Excellent - 4/5 stars. Recommended.

It's a sort of sci-fi creature-feature. In this case the 'creature' is a 'winged serpent', sort of like a flying lizard, that sets up a roost - and lays an egg - in the tower of New York's iconic Chrysler Building. From there it goes on hunting expeditions - apparently the heads of hapless window cleaners, topless rooftop sunbathers, young men in rooftop swimming pools etc are considered to be delicacies.

There is also a confusing subplot about human sacrifice bringing back the ancient Aztec god Quetzalcoatl (Q for short, hence the film's title). David Carradine (of 'Kung Fu' fame) stars as a detective taxed with getting the beast, but only Michael Moriarty (who plays a low-life getaway driver) knows where it roosts.

It's all very silly and to call it a 'horror' movie would be wrong - it's a cheesy period piece, with the odd spot of blood and bare chest on show. In fact it's one of those films that could be classified as 'so bad it's good' and for that reason I'll give it 4/5 stars.

I don't usually like Tim Burton's films - and this one isn't any exception, although it's better than much of his whimsical output.

This one tells the story of a man trying to know and understand his dying father, trying to get behind the tall stories he told, to find the truth - only to find that there's perhaps more than a grain of truth in the shaggy dog stories...

Unfortunately it's all a bit too whimsical for me, a bit too American - even though it has Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney and Helena Bonham-Carter all attempting dodgy Alabama accents.

Very average stuff. I didn't like it so I'll give it 2/5, but it may be worth a little more if you like sugary, whimsical, fantasy films...

This is one of those films that people either love or hate, and when released got mixed reviews. I enjoyed it - but then I do like sci-fi films, which is essentially what this is.

The film has a number of quite disturbing aspects to it and perhaps that's why some viewers dislike it: not only is it a sci-fi film but it deals with one of the paradoxes of time travel, where a small action may have consequences that change the future. It also covers mental illness, child sexual abuse, and includes sex scenes and nudity, prison sex and violence, drug use and prostitution, and has scenes of disability and of an amputee. Does that sound like your kind of film?

The version available that I received from Cinema Paradiso is the Director's Cut and has a different ending from the original release. 'The Butterfly Effect' tells the story of Evan Treborn, who from a small boy has a history of blackouts during specific events - he can recall nothing, and is advised to keep a journal of his life. In particular he remembers his childhood friendship and adventures with his friend Lenny, with Kayleigh and her disturbed brother Tommy. Over a period of years he accumulates many exercise books filled with handwritten memories. And then...

...he discovers that by re-reading his journals and concentrating on the 'blackout' incidents he can travel back in time to that very point. And change things. But that changes his present, also - and not to good effect. His messing about with the past has severe consequences, and he decides to 'fix' things once and for all...

Ignore the silly USAnian college fraternity/sorority scenes and it's not bad. I enjoyed it and it's worth 4/5 stars from me - but then I do like sci-fi films...

Robin Williams won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and Matt Damon + Ben Affleck won the Best Screenplay Oscar. And thoroughly deserved these awards are too - pity that Brit actress Minnie Driver didn't win her Oscar after being nominated for Best Supporting Actress.

Robin Williams is usually a bit too over the top for me, a manic comedy actor, but this film and also 'One Hour Photo' show a much more restrained side to his acting abilities.

The storyline goes like this: Will Hunting (Matt Damon) is a lowly janitor at MIT who is also a genius mathematician. He lives in Southie (South Boston) and hangs out with his blue collar friends, drinking beer etc. He is arrested after a brawl and released into the care of an MIT professor on condition he attends therapy sessions with a psychologist. Will sees off several therapists and eventually ends up with psychologist Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) who is able to understand the emotional damage he has suffered from his abusive childhood, forms a bond of trust and friendship, and encourages Will to follow his girlfriend (Minnie Driver) rather than a career as a mathematician.

Yes, it sounds implausible (and it is) but it works really well and the excellent script and excellent performances allow you to suspend any disbelief you may feel and enjoy what is a very moving story. Great stuff - 5/5 stars.

The film is now (2013) well over 50 years old so it is most definitely a period piece - and even more so, as it's based on George Bernard Shaw's play from 1936. But is it any good?

Well, Sophia Loren gets to show off a little of her voluptuous figure, her limited acting skills, and lots of gorgeous Balmain dresses. Peter Sellers proves he is not only a comedian but also quite a gifted actor, most certainly better than La Loren. But the film is most definitely of its time, and the idea today of a white actor playing an Indian doctor would be regarded as definitely not PC :(

The story is of course very stagey and is similar to other GBS plays. Here Dr Kabir is a socialist (that's what La Loren refers to him as, anyway) and a dedicated doctor who runs a clinic serving the working classes. Epifania is a rich capitalist who fancies Dr Kabir and buys up local property and builds a modern clinic to attract Dr Ahmed's patients, but they find it too bureaucratic and return to him. In her plan to fulfil the terms in her father's will, she gives Dr Ahmed £500 (which he promptly tries to give away), at the same time she spends 35/- (=500 rupees) building a pasta making sweatshop into a successful business in an attempt to prove she is worthy of Dr Kabir's mother's wishes. All ends happily of course and capitalist and socialist declare their love.

The film was successful and spawned the hit comedy song 'Goodness Gracious Me', which doesn't appear in the film.

None of that answers the question, is it any good? Well, the GBS play wasn't very successful when first performed but was successfully revived in the 1950s. There are liberties taken in the film (eg in the play the doctor was Egyptian, it was a garment sweatshop etc etc ). The film is an interesting period piece, but hasn't aged particularly well, and doesn't show off the talents of its main characters to their best advantage, nor any of the array of stalwart British character actors who appear, of whom Alistair Sim is the best.

It's worth seeing, but it's pretty average stuff - and far too stagey. 3/5 stars.

'Coogan's Bluff' is a film that marks the transition between Clint Eastwood's western roles and his cop role as 'Dirty Harry'. In fact, it combines both of them as he plays a young Arizona deputy sheriff sent to New York to collect a prisoner - he's at home in the Arizona deserts, but like a fish out of water in 1960s New York, with its hippies, drug culture and - to him - far too little emphasis on getting the job done.

Finding the prisoner in hospital after an LSD overdose, impatient Clint springs him but loses him, and the rest of the film is spent tracking him down in the alien world of New York, culminating in a motorcycle chase around The Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park.

I like it - it's most definitely of its time and has a period feel to it, a period now lone gone - perhaps enhanced by the view from some 45 years on. Just a few: hippies, the song 'Pigeon Toed Orange Peel', the dancing in the nightclub with body-painted characters, a lesbian kiss (in 1968!), the projection on the screen in the club, including a clip from 'Tarantula', the 1955 sci-fi film in which Clint has an uncredited role as the squadron leader on the final napalm attack on the creature, the motorcycle chase using Triumph bikes, the helipad on the Pan Am building (Pan Am went bankrupt in 1991 and the building is now the MetLife building) and the New York Airways helicopters (New York Airways is now defunct, and the helipad closed after an accident in 1977).

Clint went on to make several more films with director Don Siegel, including 'Dirty Harry'.

The DVD is pretty grainy and has been cut from the cinema version leading to jumps in continuity, most notably where Clint is (apparently) never given any assignment but cuts straight from Arizona to his helicopter flight into New York. But these are minor quibbles...

I like it. It's a pretty average film but I'll give it a bonus for the period memories it brings. 4/5 stars.

I must confess that Tom Cruise isn't one of my favourite actors. The roles he chooses are often too goody-goody, too good looking, too straight - yet here he plays a baddy, so that's a change for the better. He's also quite a 'wooden' actor - he always seems to play Tom Cruise [Aside: Even in the v. poor 'Valkyrie', he played Tom Cruise playing a too-good Nazi - but perhaps he picked himself for the lead role in that film because he owns the film studio...]

Michael Mann is a director whose work I like - one of his films, 'Manhunter', is a favourite of mine - and he always seems to get the best out of the actors, even getting some of the more 'wooden' ones to act, for example Russell Crowe in 'The Insider'.

And here, although Tom Cruise is still somewhat on the wooden side, the director not only gets him to act a little, but gets him to give an effective performance as a deadpan, sociopathic contract killer. I like it - seems to fit Mr Cruise quite well :)

Max (Jamie Foxx) is a cab driver. Max is a self-deluding dreamer, drifting along, with big plans but lacking the motivation to put them into action. At the start of the film an attractive woman lawyer gets into Max's cab and after some banter gives Max her card. So it's obvious that she's going to reappear at the end. The Max picks up smoothy but baddy Vincent (Tom Cruise) who hires the unsuspecting Max for the evening to drive him around while he makes five hits, one of whom (of course) just happens to be the attractive lawyer. In the process Vincent manages to motivate Max just enough so that the goodies win and the baddy (of course) perishes.

It's all a bit predictable, but the film is stylish and well directed - and I did quite like the idea of Mr Cruise being a baddy. I enjoyed it and it's above average so I'll give it 4/5 stars, but that does seem a bit on the high side...

[Aside: Look out for a brief cameo appearance by Jason Statham as the airport bagman at the very beginning]

Set in Iraq at the height of Saddam Hussein's regime in the late 1980s / early 1990s and his invasion of Kuwait, the film tells the (supposedly fact based) tale of Latif Yahia, who claims to have acted as the body double for Uday Hussein, Saddam Hussein's psychopathic eldest son.

The storyline (such as it is) covers the selection of Latif, his coercion into the role by violence and threats of torture to his family, his observation of the debauched, power crazed, drug-fuelled, sadistic, violent life of Uday, his affair with Uday's woman, his escape from Iraq and his return for a failed assassination attempt. Lots of violence, lots of f-ing and blinding, assorted crudity and nudity. Err, that's it.

Frankly, it's a poor film which is lifted out of mediocrity by the central acting role of Brit actor Dominic Cooper who plays both Latif and Uday. My criticism here is that he plays Uday in such an over-the-top manner that, whether or not he was like this in reality, it seems unrealistic. It does however provide an atmosphere of smouldering violence and unpredictability bordering on insanity that may be true to life.

None (?) of the women shown appears Iraqi - indeed, the country appears to be populated entirely by Westerners, all speaking English with a bogus middle eastern accent.

I'll give it 2/5 stars.

It's a sci-fi action thriller. It's got Bruce Willis in it, which means there's got to be guns. It's got time travel in it, which means that it will have much silliness and inconsistency. It's got telekinesis in it, which means there's going to be yet more silliness.

The plot is silly: undesirables from the future are sent back via time travel to the present, where they are assassinated by persons known as 'Loopers'. Young Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a Looper, busy doing his job when his next victim proves to be his future self, old Joe (Bruce Willis). Old Joe doesn't take kindly to this and hops it, leaving young Joe to track him down and finish the job. Err, that's about it.

It's confusing in parts and the TK ending is all a bit silly. The female roles are poorly done and include Brit actress Emily Blunt attempting a dodgy USAnian accent. Overall, the film is reasonably enjoyable - but it's certainly no masterpiece. I found it all very average and rate it as 3/5 stars.

[Aside 1: I'm not a great fan of the so-called 'Extras' included with DVDs, but it's worth watching the 3 small items that cover how the musical score for the film was created. I didn't realise it was such a creative exercise]

[Aside 2: if you want to see a thinking man's film that shows the complex paradoxes of time travel, check out the excellent low budget 'Primer']

Clint Eastwood plays Clint Eastwood in his first US western after starring in Sergio Leone's spaghetti western 'Man With No Name' trilogy.

Clint is Jed Cooper (see - he does have a name after all) who is first wrongly accused of cattle rustling, lynched and left for dead, rescued by a conveniently passing marshal who takes him to the local 'hanging judge' who clears him, signs him up as a marshal, and sends him out to bring back his attackers alive. There are some good scenes - the mass hanging is well handled - and some wooden acting (the love interest is pretty dire).

While this film frankly isn't in the same league as the spaghetti westerns, it's not bad - but it is laboured in parts. That's probably down to the somewhat moralising tone as Clint is forbidden to take revenge but to let the law take its course. My course is to give it 3/5 stars. It's pretty average stuff.