Starring: Nicolas Cage, John Malkovich, John Cusack & Steve Buscemi
Directed by: Simon West
UK DVD Review * 1/2
It's a boys film to be sure, but there are boys films and boys films. And not since... well, The Rock as it happens, has such a fun packed bomb-fest been handled so well, with producer and star of the good ol' Alcatraz fiasco reteamed to terrific effect.
This time, Cage is a good boy con, a military type who has served out his self-defence manslaughter sentence as a model prisoner. On his release day - and before he can meet and greet his gorgeous wife and sweetie-pie lil' daughter he's hitherto yet to see - he has to hitch a lift home with a plane load of the baddest muthas you ever laid eyes upon. The maximum security flight is diligently overseen by Colm Meaney and John Cuasck, and naturally everything goes quite horribly and spectacularly wrong.
It's alternately nail biting, thrilling and just durn fun, with (somewhat inevitably) things teetering wildly towards farce before it all stops. But it's never less than hugely entertaining, with a cracking good script based on a tight premise, uniformally fine perfomances and the kind of slick direction we've come to expect from producer Bruckheimer's protegees (his longtime Top Gun partner Don Simpson now deceased). Cage has some wonderful moments, Malkovich is an excellent baddie "team leader", and Steve Buscemi radiates so much latent evil that his subdued persona - Hannibal the Cannibal style - is almost morbidly comic.
That curious mixture of serious and silly is done wrong so often, it really is refreshing to see it so well handled here - better even than The Rock. This was no sure fire winner, but the right combination of talent has resulted in the ultimate in-flight entertainment. So please extinguish all cigarrettes, fasten your seat belts, prepare for take off - welcome to Con Air...
Starring: Jodie Foster, Matthew McCaunaghay, Tom Skerritt & James Woods
Directed by: Robert Zemeckis
DVD Review *****
For a five star movie, there is a lot wrong with Contact. Some of its characters are unconvincing, it is occasioally too sickly sweet and even Jodie overdoes it once or twice. But compared to the plusses, these problems pale. Contact is a rare film whose breadth of imagination is off the scale. It contains ideas and images which stay with you for days and weeks after the closing credits and, even when it doesn't quite succeed, it at least is trying be about something.
Enough plot to explain up to the title and no more - Foster is a driven astronomer, endlessly looking into the endless sky for signs of little green men. Her funding is taken away, and she moves base from Pueto Rico to New Mexico, on the way falling deeply in bed with a strapping ex-priest who has none other than Bill Clinton's spiritual ear. Awkward enough to ask about her feelings towards her deceased father, Jodie promptly drops him and heads off with her science partner to listen to radio static for several more years. And then one day - it happens. She hears a radio signal from another world. Simple as that.
Like Close Encounters only even more so, this is a film routed in science fact and sound science theory, but spends much time debating the spiritual implications of all this. Yet as events unfold, so much is grounded in the world with which we know so intimately, it all seems highly believable.
As hinted at earlier, the Foster/McCaunaghey relationship is less than convining, too shallow for a true bond to form. James Woods too, a government advisor, is given little to do. For the most part, the film only has room for one person - Jodie. Fortunately - for the most part - that is enough, bringing a winning combination of intellect, pain, vulnerability and, oh let's say it, damn fine looks to the screen. Scientists didn't look like her in my day...
Men In Black - Contact's polar opposite - is a more rounded and stronger film on it's own terms. But there again, you'd forgotten you'd seen it before you'd finished your now watery Coke on the way out. Contact is a long film at 2 1/2 hours - but don't be surprised if the mental replays last longer than that.
Starring: Holly Hunter & Sigourney Weaver
Directed by: Jon Amiel
Hey! Here's a thought. Why not make a derivative thriller about serial killers featuring a derivative serial killer? Yes sir, this is man whose M.O. (Modus Operandi, or Particularly Unpleasant Method Of Killing to you or I) is to copy the M.O's of other serial killers. But here's the clincher: it won't seem too derivative, because both cop and hero are women! Will gender-bending know no bounds?
Top criminal psychologist Weaver has been the recipient of threats from a jailed madman-killer she indicted (Harry Connick jr - very good). When he nearly kills her after an escape, she herself is tipped over the edge into acute acrophobia, with her entire housebound life being conducted either via the internet or with the practical help of a male gay assistant. The ineptitude of Holly Hunter (and the rest of the San Fransisco Police Department) whilst handling a new case causes Sigourney to volunteer her support, whereupon she again unwittingly switches from observer to potential victim.
This is a movie carried by strong performances and the sheer novelty of a gender switch in this most male of genres (albeit one half anticipated by Silence Of The Lambs). Director Amiel generates some shocks and a good deal of suspense, all the more impressive for almost hiding some dreadful contrivances, holes and cliches. Indeed, the script is the weak link, with several nice ideas undermined by stupid characters (this is police squad that Frank Drebin would be ashamed of), some clumsy set-ups and plain lack of logic - if you eventually see this movie, just think about how they use that old song by The Police...
But here's the worry. Any film which simultaneously tries to score points at the media's expense in sensationalising violence and itself ends up doing the same is treading on dodgy ground. Yet again we are in stalking-vulnerable-single-women territory - lots of killer's point of view shots. So although there will be dozens of worse thrillers made this year, this hypocrisy is perhaps is where Copycat copies most seriously.
Starring: Gene Hackman and Denzil Washington
Directed by: Tony Scott
"Testosterone feulled" is of course 90's speak for "no women". Whatever your preferred phrase, the producers and director of Top Gun here bring you more sweaty men than an entire WWF season, bonding in a US nuclear submarine to the now standard-military-issue Martha Reeves and the Vandellas whilst merrily heading straight for World War III. With ten years gap between the Cruise Missiles and the Cruise Navy-pilot, the good news is that at least it amounts to something more than a military recruitment film.
The set-up may be paranoid, but it's not totally whacked out. A barking mad and dangerous communist faction has taken control of a Russian nuclear base. Constituting the first and last line of defence, the good sub USS Alabama is dispatched with seasoned captain Hackman at the helm and last minute squeaky clean replacement Washington as Commanding Officer. Mutual respect despite ideological descrepancies is put under strain in the heat of the action, as a Ruskie sub turns on them, cutting off their communication with the outside world. This naturally includes the Pentagon who, having issued an order to strike, were half way through sending a new message when disaster struck.
The claustrophobic tension is superbly led by Hackman and Washington, both on top form as they carry the weight of the world on their shoulders, and director Scott in easily his best film to date. The script offers a strong premise and, like A Few Good Men, probes well the psyche of the military system (when the uncredited Tarantino re-write isn't embarrasing us with already tiresome and here wildly innapropriate pop culture references). It is testimony to the strength of the scerenplay that no
Inevitable comparisons with The Hunt For Red October show this to be less epic but more lean and mean, even if the last reel cannot quite live up to the others. As blockbuster entertainment goes, this is good if not outstanding stuff, and is a mighty fine way to spend a Friday night out with - naturally - the lads.
All reviews / articles copyright Guy Rowland (1998).