Starring: Pam Grier, Samuel L Jackson, Robert De Niro, Robert Forster, Bridget Fonda & Michael Keaton
Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
So finally an all-new film from Hollywood's enfant terrible. But based not on his own story but on "Rum Punch", from crime novellist and Get Shorty scribe Elmore Leonard, this is a far more muted affair than his previous, now legendary, movies.
It's all familiar enough though - this time our LA hoodlums deal in guns rather than drugs, but otherwise it's the same kind of characters. Jackson plays a gun runner with a tight rein on his business, "retiring" those who threaten to squeal to the cops when arrested. Enter air hostess Jackie Brown (Grier), caught with megabucks and a small stash of drugs. The cops try to bargain with her in order to pounce on Jackson - it's time to cross and double cross, folks.
Although occasionally witty or predictably bizzare, the first half of this is paced so slow it is almost catatonic. Jackson virtually reprises his Pulp Fiction role without the afro, De Niro is good as his seemingly gentle sidekick, but it is Forster and especially Grier, the two less starry cast members, who are the most impressive, forming an unlikely bond between bond collector and small-cog criminal.
As for Quentin, this has neither the pace and adreneline rush of Resevoir Dogs or tricksy cleverness of Pulp Fiction to distinguish it. Needlessly long at over 2 1/2 hours, and astonishingly wordy (with only very sporadic violence), this may not please die hard fans, and will probably win him few new ones. By no means a bad film, this however compares unfavourably to Barry Sonnenfeld's own adaption of Get Shorty. Above all else, Quentin needs to rediscover the libertating power of a sharp pair of scissors in the editing room.
Starring: Tom Cruise, Renee Zellweger & Cuba Gooding Jr
Directed by: Cameron Crowe
DVD review ***
Word of mouth has smashed this way past the hundred million mark in the States, and with good reason. Halfway through, while you're still wondering quite what all the fuss is about, the whole thing clicks into place and before you know it, it's one of your top movie experiences for years.
Jerry Maguire is a top American Football agent, keeping dozens of clients on the go in a dealmaking frenzy. One drunken night he pours his heart out into his laptop - a 25 page thesis on the dehumanising effects of his profession. He freely distributes his memo ("mission statement") to his colleagues, is heralded a visionary genius, and fired.
Inspired by his passion, single mom Zellweger leaves with him, but they are soon with only one erratic but potentially brilliant player (Gooding Jr). This has taken downsizing too far, and Cruise's girlfriend is unimpressed, much to pining Zellweger's interest...
And it's from here that it all starts to work. Writer / director Crowe showed us in Singles and Say Anything that he has a brilliant eye for human quirks and behaviour. The film almost is Jerry Maguire - initially, fast, jumpy and nervy. But as the character is forced to slow down the film goes with him, exploring several complex relationships firmly grounded in real life, rather then the usual Hollywood stereotypes. Where most films would end with the string section in full flow after the Big Snog, Jerry Maguire shows the major problems after the metaphorical honeymoon is over.
The beauty is that the transformation that Jerry goes through is hollow, the happiness still a charade ninety minutes later. A profound thing in Hollywood, this - things may look right, but they're not, and it's virtually the stuff of revolution.
Tom Cruise begins by giving us the superslick Top Gun character we grew to loathe, and then slowly dismantles him. It's a good performance, but possibly topped by the excellent newcomer Zellweger, who displays more genuine humanity than a dozen uberbabes. Kudos also to Bonnie Hunt, excellent as her sceptical sister, Jonathan Lipnicki, the extraordinarily bizarre and scene-stealing child actor, and the hysterical Gooding Jr as the volatile athlete.
Despite the central character dominating the picture, this really is Cameron Crowe's film, a savvy virtual ensemble piece examining real people's problems. It'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry... oh heck, it'll make you love going to the movies all over again.
Starring: Christopher Ecclestone & Kate Winslet
Directed by: Michael Winterbottom
Jude is based on Thomas Hardy's last and - in its day - most unpopular novel Jude The Obscure. Since the novel and the characters it features clearly belong to a more enlightened age, it is perhaps timely that the story has been turned into a movie at long last.
The eponymous country-boy Jude (Ecclestone) dreams of gaining a university education, but his rushed marriage to the local pig farmer's daughter has not exactly advanced his plans. To their mutual happiness, she leaves only months into wedlock, and he ups for the more academically minded Christchurch.
Here he meets his cousin, Winslet, and before long the two are falling in love. Now the course of true love never runs smooth as we all know, but this is just a smidgeon of an understatement here. Suffice it to say that if Jane Austen is your thing, you'd better rent Kate's Sense and Sensibility again rather than try this.
Both Winslet and Ecclestone are superb, the adapted screenplay is excellent and director Winterbottom moves the story on at a pace. But this is a film defined by its latter section, the contents of which are out of limits for any self respecting review to mention.
I'm afraid the only advice can be - see it, and judge for yourself.
Starring: Robin Williams, Kristin Dunst and David Alan Grier
Directed by: Joe Johnston
DVD Review **
It is 1969, and Alan Fisher is plagued by being Alan Fisher. The picked-on and teased son of the wealthy town businessman one day chances upon Jumanji - a strange mystical looking board game - and decides to play dice with his friend Mary. Strange game indeed, as each roll induces a riddle and accompanying jungle style horror. Mary is instantly pursued by huge bats, but pity poor Alan, who is - eeek! - sucked into another world altogether. Trivial Pursuit it ain't, and the game continues twenty six years later (an even longer ordeal than the average family bout at Christamas), when two different children living in the same house chance upon it. Not only do they release all manner of new terrors but also - to his but not their relief - an all grown up Alan (now Robin Williams) in the process.
This is one of those films badged "special effects extravaganza", with more stampeding dangerous animals up to no good than Canterbury zoo at feeding time. The same technology as Jurassic Park here delivers considerably less in the realism stakes - nothing looks quite right, especially some malevolent monkeys and the huge spiders (which didn't even scare me, the world's most acute arachnophobe). However, it's still pretty good fun and, as the local town descends into chaos, Williams (good, not great) and the kids (ditto) have numerous high jinx done to them at the hands of director Johnston and the scriptwriters.
It's difficult to place exactly where the problem lies - the script has a smattering of clever and witty lines, but the whole is somehow less than the parts. This isn't scary enough to quite work as a horror or rollicking enough for an adventure. In other words, as big screen entertainment goes, it provides just about enough fun to justify the tickets and sweeties. But if you have them, take the kids. They'll probably enjoy it and besides, it isn't fun enough to warrant paying the babysitter.
Starring: Sean Connery and Ed Harris
Directed by: Arne Glimcher
Ludicrous "thriller" set in Florida's Everglades has only the location going for it. Police / racist attack theme done much better elsewhere - plot twist only needed subtitling beforehand to make it more obvious. Next.
All reviews / articles copyright Guy Rowland (1998).