The Unseen Movie Review

Alfie

We’ve already had remakes of two Michael Caine classics, the God-awful Mark Wahberg vehicle Italian Job and the truly dire Sylvester Stallone ego-trip Get Carter. You really have to ask yourself when will they learn?

When Michael Caine has been good, he’s been up there with the best, and the original Alfie was his break-out and possibly all-time best performance. The Alfie character was a charming yet heartless (even vicious) rogue, pottering along in a late 60s Britain which had already evolved beyond him. He was the epitome of the kind of wide-boy chauvinist who was, in the age of women’s lib and the emergence of the Pill, increasingly anachronistic. In many ways he represented everything the 60s counterculture was rebelling against – a money-fixated con-man who womanised not out of hippy notions of free love, but utter selfishness.

For anyone who loves the original, and especially for fans of Michael Caine who have already seen the memories of two of his best-loved films sullied with simply appalling remakes, the prospect of seeing Jude Law take on one of the best characters British cinema has ever seen is a worrying one indeed, especially when you learn the action has been transplanted to contemporary New York. The original was so rooted in the sensibilities of 1960s London it seems impossible to imagine how it could work anywhere else. It seems especially impossible, considering the sizable number of women Alfie gets through, that this could possibly work in a post-AIDS setting.

Incredibly, despite all common sense and expectations dictating otherwise, this is anything but a disaster. Jude Law for once puts in the kind of performance – inspired a great deal by Caine’s sublime original – which deserves the kind of plaudits he always seems to receive for his half-hearted efforts. The Jude Law of this movie is a very different one to that of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, also released this month. He has charm, charisma, and humour in abundance. He’s still, like Caine’s Alfie, a thoroughly unpleasant character but, again like Caine’s version, impossible not to like.

The only way to be fair to this film is to ignore all comparisons to the original, and look at it in its own right. As such, it is a top-notch movie – a fine supporting cast including Marisa Tomei, Susan Sarandon, Omar Epps and a bevy of sundry sultry beauties combine with nicely timed directrion from Charles (Father of the Bride) Shyer and music by the likes of Mick Jagger and Dave Stewart which almost manages to compete with the original’s superb score.

However, without wanting to give anything away, the ending here lacks the closure and impact of the original, which sent the character on an emotional journey from which he may – just may – have learned the error of his ways. Here Alfie’s charm and comedy is played up more than his sadness and tragedy, and the film loses out because of it. For this reason above any other, the original will remain the true Alfie. If this version points any cinemagoers in its direction that can only be a good thing, but at least they won’t have wasted their hard-earned cash on watching a rubbish take on a classic – unlike the poor fools who paid money for the Stallone Get Carter…

posted by Nosemonkey @ 12:00 AM