Film Reviews by RP

Al Pacino won the 'Best Actor' Oscar for his performance in this excellent film. Lengthy at over 2½ hours and very American (although it is a remake of a 1974 Italian film), nevertheless I thoroughly enjoyed it. The story is of the relationship that grows between a US high school student (well, Ivy League prep school, I guess equivalent to one of our leading 'public' schools) and a blind, obstreperous, retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade. Student (Charlie Simms, well played by Chris O'Donnell) applies for a house-sitting job to look after the Colonel (Al Pacino) over the long Thanksgiving weekend. Colonel has plans for a wild - and final - time in New York, with much drinking, women, and a Ferrari followed by suicide. Student talks him out of the suicide, Colonel helps student with a disciplinary hearing at his school and all ends happily. Al Pacino plays one of his many intense, fast talking roles and is quite convincing as a man who has not made the most of his own opportunities and doesn't want to see Charlie do the same with his life. Philip Seymour Hoffman has a role as a fellow student - in fact all the high school students seem to be played by actors in their twenties rather than by 17 year olds... Pacino's character is not only obstreperous but also dislikeable in many ways, so it's a bit of a surprise when he comes to the aid of Charlie at the end of the film. Pacino deserved an Oscar for other films - his roles in 'The Godfather' I and II and 'Serpico' come to mind, and he finally won it for this film although in my opinion it isn't one of his best. I enjoyed it and rate it as 4/5 stars - it made me smile in places :)

I've waited quite a while before writing a review of this film because I'm honestly in two minds: is it a sentimental pile of old horse manure, or is it a masterful adaptation of a well-loved children's book + successful stage play?

Well, it's certainly emotional and I'm not ashamed to say that it brought a slight tear to my eye at the end when Joey the horse is auctioned. The majority of Steven Spielberg's films tread a fine line between good family entertainment and outright schmaltz and this one is no exception. A broad streak of sentimentality runs through the film and in many ways it is just so predictable: father buys horse, boy rears horse, boy is parted from horse, both have bad experiences, boy is reunited with horse, they live happily ever after.

The film is populated by a host of well known British acting talent from Peter Mullan (who seems to make a habit of playing drunks, from his own 'Neds' to Paddy Considine's 'Tyrannosaur'), through Benedict Cumberbatch to the always excellent Eddie Marsan (who has a small part near the end) to name but a few. Spielberg manages to portray both the futility and horror of World War I via a cavalry charge against machine guns (starting out brave and optimistic, ending with riderless horses) and via a futile advance across no man's land. Unfortunately it also includes a very clichéd scene where an Englishman and a German co-operate to free Joey the horse entangled in barbed wire, a scene too silly for words. Add to this the fact that the Germans speak English with silly faux-German accents and I think I'm coming down on the 'horse manure' side of the verdict.

The film is well acted but clichéd, well photographed but over-pretty, the dialogue is trite and while it is well directed it is simply over sentimental. Yes, I enjoyed it but found it generally unsatisfying and that is perhaps reflected in the fact that it was nominated for 6 Oscars and 5 BAFTAs but won none. I'm sure many people loved it, but I can only rate it at 3/5 stars.

Eddie Morra (played by Bradley Cooper) is a struggling wannabe author. He meets his ex-brother-in-law who offers him a drug (NZT-48) which he claims will help him. And it does - Eddie is transformed into a man with vision and drive, tidies up his flat, writes the first part of his book - but is hit by withdrawal symptoms. He goes back for more NZT but finds his ex-brother-in-law dead, steals his stash of NZT and becomes a user. Under its influence he becomes a whizz kid, wins back his girlfriend, borrows $100k from the Russian mafia but forgets to pay it back, becomes a wizard investment analyst, makes shed loads of money, meets and impresses powerful businessman Carl Van Loon (what?!?) (Robert De Niro in a cameo role), becomes addicted, suffers serious withdrawal symptoms, kills a woman in a hotel room (or does he?), fights off Russian mafia, sets up his own NZT manufacturing lab etc etc etc... You get the confusing picture. This is a fast moving sort of sci-fi thriller, plenty of fast talking, fast camera work and assorted chases and fights - and while I enjoyed the thriller aspect, there were other parts that I really didn't like. I most definitely did not like the message that drug use is positive and if being an obnoxious loud-mouthed big-headed city trader is what passes for a successful man in New York, then count me out. It's certainly watchable, Bradley Cooper seems well suited to a role as scruffy down-and-out turned yuppie, and the always excellent Robert De Niro exudes power, but he's only on screen for 15 min or so. But there are all sorts of loose ends and oddities (why would genius Eddie forget to pay off the bad guys? slashing a bad guy's face with ice skates - still on a child?). And the ending is just so Hollywood. An enjoyable mess, if you like that kind of thing. 3/5 stars.

Filmed in black-and-white with tinted yellow/orange opening and closing sequences, this is a superb early 1960s period sci-fi disaster film. Sharp dialogue (the film won a BAFTA for Best Screenplay), good acting (some of it isn't acting - the recently retired editor of the 'Daily Express' played himself), topical even today (end of the world through climate change, anybody?).

The story goes like this: simultaneous nuclear tests at the North and South Poles tilt the earth on its axis and cause extreme change of climate. Later it turns out that the orbit of the earth has also been changed. That's clearly improbable, but the story is told through the eyes of individuals whose lives are affected by the changes and that's what makes it gripping stuff. Humanity is very fragile.

The story is built around a reporter (played by Edward Judd) working for the 'Daily Express', his colleagues (including the always excellent Leo McKern) and the girl he meets at the Met Office (Janet Munro). The glimpses of the 'old' Fleet Street and the workings of a real-life newspaper of the period give the film a realistic feel (although the Canadian accent of Bernard Braden who plays the news editor seems a little out of place). Period details abound: typewriters, carbon paper, telex, Roneo copying machines, printing presses, smoking, Morris Minor cars, a working Battersea power station, Battersea funfair with wooden roller coaster, police in 'proper' helmets and uniforms, CND rallies, boys in short trousers, even the nuclear bomb tests themselves - all give a glimpse of a world gone by, but in this case place the film firmly in a period of near history.

The film ends on a downbeat note with a countdown to a corrective nuclear explosion - and a nicely ambiguous ending is provided by newspaper headlines. Superb stuff - 5/5 stars - highly recommended.

[Aside 1: In its day this was X-rated and was regarded as quite risqué, with a brief glimpse of Janet Munro's chest :) I remember sneaking in to see this at the cinema when I was far too young for an X certificate film. The DVD also appears to be a direct transfer from film, as the original British Board Of Film Censors certificate is still included.]

[Aside 2: My copy of this film came in a Classic Sci-Fi Collection box set which when I bought it was excellent value - you can probably pick it up second hand on eBay]

This is a survival / chase thriller - but here the characters are being chased by wolves. John Ottway (played by Liam Neeson) works for an oil company in Alaska. His job is to shoot wolves (what?!). He is on a flight back home with other oil workers. The plane crashes (of course). There are seven survivors who (of course) come under attack from wolves. Liam Neeson (of course) becomes the leader, the wolves (of course) eat the survivors one by one, and (of course) a couple die from other causes, until (of course) the only one left is Liam Neeson. He (of course) prepares to fight the pack leader bare handed (well, not quite bare handed - armed with just a knife + some broken miniature whisky bottles). Err, that's it. Looked at coldly it's a very predictable film and frankly, it's a pretty miserable tale.

Liam Neeson plays Liam Neeson in his usual role these days as a middle aged (even elderly) action hero. He is definitely the best actor in the film. The story itself is quite well done, even though we've seen many similar survival-story films before and there is definitely an air of menace throughout. There is a nicely ambiguous ending - hint: watch the credits through to the very end.

I quite enjoyed it so I'll give it 3/5 stars - and if it hadn't been so unremittingly miserable I'd probably have given it another one.

With Oscar-winning director Steve Soderberg and a cast including Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, this should be a good film - right? Wrong - it's complete, boring twaddle from beginning to end. And there isn't even an end - the film just stops.

The film appears to be a vehicle for female cage fighter Gina Carano who plays the role of sort-of-special-ops person Mallory Kane - and at least with her fighting background she brings a degree of realism to the fight scenes. Fighter she may be, but an actress she is not. Wooden acting, silly dialogue (it sounds as if her lines were all slowly dictated at a re-recording session after the filming was complete) - is there anything else wrong? Yes - the confusing storyline is the same old, same old one we have seen so many times before: double-crossed agent seeks revenge on those who have betrayed him (or her, in this case).

It's all very weak stuff and the better-known actors who have lent their names to this tripe have only bit parts. I'll give it 1/5 stars. One to avoid, I'm afraid.

I wrote a review for the first of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes films that began "I'm honestly not sure whether to be appalled or impressed." Now that I've seen the second one I am certain: I'm appalled.

This is tripe, pure and simple. Yes, there are a few good bits - Jude Law comes across well as Dr Watson, Noomi Rapace (the original 'Girl With The Dragon Tattoo') is OK as a gipsy fortune teller - but these are seriously outnumbered by the bad bits. The plot is so ludicrous as to be embarrassing, the CGI digital effects used to produce the 'period' backgrounds are obvious, there are far too many anachronisms, and most serious of all: Robert Downey Jr's characterisation of Holmes is too loud, brash and generally over the top.

Perhaps I should have guessed - I have a rule of thumb that while Stephen Fry may be a polymath, any film with him in is bound to be rubbish. And so it proved.

As for the very silly plot, it goes along these lines: evil genius (Professor Moriarty) buys up an armament manufacturing company and attempts to make vast profits by inciting a war (sort of WW1 but 25 years early) via a series of assassinations of diplomats. The good guys (Holmes + Watson) are out to stop him. They (of course) succeed while evil genius perishes. All too silly for words - and tediously long at over 2 hours.

While there is banter between Holmes and Watson the dialogue is sloppy and contains references to a supposedly gay relationship between them - a bit silly since Watson gets married half way through - but Holmes does get to cross-dress, wear lipstick etc. And if the dialogue and story is played for laughs then it is a failure - it is deeply unfunny.

The film is rated as a 12 certificate - if you're that age then you may well enjoy it. I'll give it 2/5 stars because I really have seen worse, but my honest opinion is: don't waste your time. It's tripe.

Hmmm.... Much as I like and admire the work of Clint Eastwood, and particularly his work as a director, I regret to say that I was disappointed by this film. It is told in snatches of flash-back and flash-forward in a somewhat confusing cut-up style, and while that is OK, it does not make for a flowing story. It tells the story of J. Edgar Hoover through his own eyes as he dictates his autobiography - and while we learn a good deal about the foibles and weaknesses of the man (allegedly: a 'mommy's boy', eager to take the credit but less than eager to lead his men, over obsessed with 'communists' and 'radicals', keeper of secret files, blackmailer of presidents, latent homosexual, cross dresser in his mother's clothes) we learn little about his achievements. The man must have had a great deal about him other than his weaknesses to have built the FBI into a renowned law enforcement agency, introduced modern forensic science and scene-of-crime procedures to investigation work etc - and while these are mentioned in passing, the film tends to de-emphasise the achievements. Clearly this is a drama and I didn't necessarily expect a detailed history, but somehow there didn't seem much substance to it. And a comment about the make-up as the lead characters aged: heavy prosthetic make-up is OK, but surely it's not necessary to make them look like Klingons? On a more positive note, Leonardo DiCaprio acts better here than in many other of his films. But I still can't give this more than 3/5 stars.

They don't make them like this any more! Superb acting, excellent dialogue, 'proper' actors, goodies and baddies, black-and-white.

Directed by Carol Reed and based on the Joseph Conrad novel, the film tells the tale of Peter Willems (Trevor Howard) as a downright cad who first cheats his employer, becomes a social outcast, meets up with old friend Captain Tom Lingard (Ralph Richardson) who takes pity on him, and takes him to a remote trading outpost. There he becomes infatuated with a native girl, betrays the trust and friendship of Captain Lingard - and ends up as a total outcast.

Robert Morley, Wendy Hiller, George Coulouris all have excellent parts and even Robert Morley's daughter plays a part. A classic. 5/5 stars - highly recommended.

Excellent. I really enjoyed this film. Yes, it's a vampire film - but not some silly 'undead' coffin-sleeping virgin-attacking fang-toothed count-in-a-cape tale, nor yet a host of bloodsuckers attacking an unsuspecting town, or whatever the latest craze might be.

Set in 1982, it is a gentle tale about a bullied 12 year old schoolboy, who is befriended - and protected - by the newcomer girl next door, who just turns out to be a vampire. There's a lot of social mileage covered here if you look beyond the headline story - the role of drink in Swedish society, marital breakup, bullying, incidents happening unnoticed on our doorstep, the reluctance to report things to the police.

There is violence but, while shocking, it is not gratuitous in-your-face violence but plays an effective part of the story. There are no make-you-jump moments, but the film is all the more effective for that as it forces you to think ahead to what the conclusion might be. And when the conclusion arrives it is satisfyingly bloody and tastefully gruesome if there is such a thing...

The film includes deliberate ambiguity: is Eli (the vampire) a girl, or a boy? Is the ending a dream sequence?

Superb stuff. 5/5 stars - highly recommended.

Lovable mockney wide boys get into and out of scrapes - yes, it's yet another Guy Ritchie-wannabe Brit gangster comedy flick directed by Alex De Rakoff. While it has some good moments (the always excellent Brenda Blethyn has the best lines) it really is very average stuff. It also seems to have one eye on the US market, with Curtis Jackson (aka rapper 50cent) having a part, and shots of the Thames and Big Ben. And the director has even given his American wife Monet Mazur a role as the lead character's girlfriend.

The silly storyline goes like this: loveable hard man Nick (Tamer Hassan) has borrowed £100k from loan shark Mr Thigo (Curtis Jackson) who now demands his money back within 24 hours, or else Nick's mother (Brenda Blethyn) gets it. Nick and his loveable wide-boy pal Bing (Danny Dyer) proceed to hustle for the money via a bareknuckle boxing match, a bet at the dogs, selling heavily cut coke, and a hit in Manchester. Of course, all ends happily.

There are a couple of obvious plot twists and it's mildly amusing in places - as I mentioned, Brenda Blethyn (who is a 'proper' actress) has the best lines. The biggest weakness is that the film comes across as a series of separate episodes poorly stitched together into an unconnected whole and the use of 'actors' who can't act (Curtis Jackson is just one of these) doesn't help.

There's really not enough crash-bang-wallop to carry it along, the dialogue isn't sharp enough, and although mildly amusing it's not a patch on 'Lock Stock' or 'Snatch' with which it will inevitably be compared.

I also note that footballers Rio Ferdinand and Ashley Cole are credited as Executive Producers, which I think means that they put money into the production. I hope they didn't lose too much money on it :)

I suppose it's worth viewing to see Brenda Blethyn in a gangster film and Tamer Hassan isn't bad as the lead character. See it if you like Danny Dyer, but it's major advantage is that at 90 minutes or so it's pretty short. It really isn't up to much so I rate it as 2/5 stars - I've seen a lot worse, but giving it 3 stars would be too generous.

After directing the highly successful and admired Vietnam war film 'The Deer Hunter' Michael Cimino went on to direct what was at the time the most expensive film ever made, the epic western 'Heaven's Gate'. When it was first shown it was critically panned, then re-edited down to a shorter version, but when released it was a major box office failure. It is credited with causing the bankruptcy of the film company United Artists and is cited as not only one of the most expensive but also one of the worst films ever made.

The major characters are played by well known actors including Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, Isabelle Huppert, Jeff Bridges, John Hurt - so surely it can't be all bad, can it?

Intrigued, I sought out a copy to see for myself - and hit the first hurdle. It's quite hard to track down a complete copy: the most complete version has a running time of 219 minutes and I eventually bought a copy from the Amazon Germany site that has a running time of 210 minutes, the PAL DVD equivalent of the film length.

The story is based on the so-called Johnson County War, a range war that took place in Wyoming in 1892 between settlers and larger established ranchers and culminated in a shootout between the small ranchers, gunmen hired by the Wyoming Stock Growers Association (WSGA), and a sheriff's posse, eventually requiring the intervention of the Cavalry on the orders of US President.

It's a drama, so don't expect historical accuracy. The small settlers are portrayed as immigrants, almost entirely from eastern Europe and there is much speaking of Serbo-Croat etc - but this dialogue isn't subtitled, so a thumbs down for that. The film opens at a Harvard graduation celebration which introduces the principal character Jim Averill (played by Kris Kristofferson) and also Billy Irvine (played by John Hurt, who looks very elderly for a new graduate!). The street scenes were filmed in Oxford, and there are plenty of recognisable locations.

The film then moves out West, where Irvine is somehow involved with the WSGA who are recruiting gunmen to hunt down and kill 125 named settlers. Averill is romantically involved with Ella Watson (played by Isabelle Huppert) who runs a brothel. Nate Champion (played by Christopher Walken) is a gunman who works for the WSGA, but is also a friend of Averill and a rival for the affections of Ella Watson. It also turns out that Ella's name is on the list to be eliminated. Confused? You will be...

After assorted long drawn out scenes, the film climaxes in a lengthy and bloody battle sequence as Averill leads the settlers using almost medieval-style siege machines into battle against the hired gunmen. Just about everyone dies - and that's it, apart from an ambiguous ending on rich-man Averill's yacht which shows him with his Harvard sweetheart.

So that's the story - but what's the film really like? Is it a turkey? Is it a stinker? Well, it's certainly over-long and somewhat disjointed, but the bustling western townscape scenes are well realised and it is very prettily photographed. But I never felt any empathy for the characters who all seemed unrealistic, and the battle climax also seemed unrealistic, sort of like an old-fashioned Western where encircled wagons are surrounded by wheeling Red Indians - only here it's the baddies being encircled by the immigrant settler goodies. And the characterisation of a goody goody Jim Averill falling for a goody goody local whore is all very silly stuff. Kris Kristopherson may be a good songwriter, and perhaps even a good country singer, but he is certainly a wooden actor.

Whatever the director's intentions, this lengthy film is over complex, the characters and the story confusing, the acting stilted. So yes, it's a turkey, I can't recommend it - but I have seen worse. It's worth seeing for curiosity value - or am I missing something? Unfortunately life is too short to watch a 3½ hour film again to find out. 2/5 stars.

The US action in Vietnam was long and bloody, and when you consider that over 3 million Americans served in the war, that over 58,000 servicemen died not to mention all the casualties, and that an estimated 4 million Vietnamese (on both sides) lost their lives during the conflict perhaps it's not surprising that there are so many films dealing with the war. It touched the whole of US society - and one small section of that society is the subject of this film.

It follows the lives of a group of friends who work together in a steelworks in a small town in Pennsylvania. After work they drink beer together, at weekends they go hunting together, they know each other's families, wives, girlfriends, go to the same church (Russian Orthodox - they are from eastern European stock), they quarrel over small things - they're just normal working class guys. They are part of their community.

And then they serve in Vietnam - and their lives change forever. Michael (Robert de Niro), Nicky (Christopher Walken) and Steven (John Savage) are taken prisoner by the Viet Cong and are forced to play Russian Roulette while their guards bet on the outcome. They escape, but Steven's legs are broken. The war continues, they go their separate ways, the war ends, they return home to rebuild their lives - if they can. Michael finds that Steven is hospitalised, disabled and confined to a wheelchair. Someone sends him money regularly from Saigon. Michael goes to Saigon, tracks down Nicky who has remained there, traumatised and mentally disturbed by the war and - horrifyingly - still playing Russian Roulette.

I found this film to be quite extraordinarily moving. It isn't really about the Vietnam war - it could be any war - and in fact the war scenes form only a small part of the film. It is about the aftermath of war and how it affects those involved, both the soldiers and their wives/girlfriends, and how those effects will last for the rest of their lives. There are arguments about how realistic the story about Russian Roulette is, about the hunting scenes, the use of non-Pennsylvania locations etc. But this is a powerful film and the performances by de Niro, Meryl Streep and particularly by Christopher Walken are superb. This was also the last film made by the always excellent John Cazale.

Highly recommended - 5/5 stars. [Aside: There are very many films about the Vietnam war - for an extensive list search on Wikipedia for "vietnam war in film"]

I recently saw the excellent 'Lantana' directed by Ray Lawrence; I searched for other films directed by him and came across 'Jindabyne', so here we are... The first thing to say is that it won't be to everyone's taste: it's a very slow moving film, and although it starts with a murder there is no crash-bang-wallop, no action, no thrills. But I found it excellent. It's a film about moral dilemmas, about relationships, about the racial tensions in Australian society, about the devastation caused by the loss of a loved one, the effect of such loss on children, the fragile nature of love and about Aboriginal relationship with the land. If you're looking for fast-moving entertainment then you won't find it here: what you will find is a moving story about human relationships.

The story itself goes like this: an Aboriginal girl is murdered and dumped into Lake Jindabyne. Four friends from the nearby small town of Jindabyne find the body while on a fishing trip, but delay reporting it until the trip is over. They come under criticism for this, racial tensions flare, marital relationships are strained. And the tensions arising from their actions are piled on top of existing ones: one of the wives has lost her daughter, leaving her to care for her part-Aboriginal granddaughter who is struggling to understand her mother's death. The wife of the leading character has had an earlier breakdown and left her husband for a time, is pregnant but considering an abortion. Her well-meaning attempts to atone to the murdered girl's family are rebuffed. A complex web of relationships comes under severe strain and is only partially resolved by the end of the film. The killer is never apprehended and the ending is ambiguous.

If that describes your sort of film, then you will appreciate 'Jindabyne'. If not, then you'll probably hate it. Me, I found it an excellent, beautifully photographed, emotionally moving film and one which I can highly recommend. 4/5 stars.

[Aside: Just a note - the sound quality on the DVD is poor and there are no subtitles to help with this...]

Hmmm... It's a made-for-TV version of the classic 1971 sci-fi film, so the question is: does it suffer from the 'remake syndrome', that is, is it boring and by definition unoriginal? Well, if you haven't seen the original or read the book then you might think it's quite good. It's certainly not awful, but then it's not excellent either. It really is just run-of-the-mill US TV fodder. There are some good bits: the updating to modern technology works quite well (the original at over 40 years old looks pretty dated now), the effects are reasonable, and it generally looks good (although the spread of the virus shown as the land turning yellow is pretty naff). But then there are many jarring notes: US politics and the re-election of the president creeping in, unnecessary conspiracy sub-plot, politically correct multicoloured scientists with the obligatory gay member, silly unscientific science, intrusive background music, wormholes / time travel / hidden coded messages / environmental consequences of undersea mining, and the really low point - the so, so, silly 'thumb throwing incident' (you'll know it when you see it). I've seen a lot worse but I really can't recommend it - it's very average stuff so I'll give it an over-generous 3/5 stars.