The Libertine
Johnny Depp seems to go through spurts of rampant popularity. After bursting onto the scene in the early 1990s following his remarkable performance in Tim Burton’s glorious fairy tale Edward Scissorhands he was lauded as the next big thing, but then embarked on a rather eclectic series of film choices. Never opting for the obvious big budget, typically Hollywood roles, as he more than had the looks – and offers – to do, Depp has maintained his desire for the quirky, the small-scale and the unusual throughout his career.
Since his turn as the Rolling Stone pirate Captain Jack Sparrow in the hugely popular (and great) Pirates of the Carribean a couple of years back, and as Peter Pan scribe JM Barrie in last year’s Finding Neverland, however, he has found himself once again with a public – and critics – clamouring for more – and even a couple of Oscar nominations under his belt.
Yet still he refuses to choose roles that guarantee success, only those that interest him. And so we find him, under another flowing wig and with a hideous prosthetic nose that renders him nearly as unrecognisable as he was playing Edward Scissorhands, as the 17th century poet and utter cad the Earl of Rochester in a rollicking period piece packed with debauchery, lechery, drunkenness, wit and disease that attracted controversy even while it was filming thanks to rumours of wild scenes of orgies and nudity. It sounds like it must have been immense fun to film – and as Depp seems to pick his roles for either fun or challenge, you can see the appeal straight away.
Yet this is not a mere bit of fun for a successful star who has enough money to do what he wants. Based on the play of the same name by award-winning British playwright Stephen Jeffreys, this is a far more complex beast than the early reports would have one believe. Depp’s Rochester is a complex antihero, a classic study of self-destruction, and a part that would challenge any actor to pull off. Depp is more than up to the task, having dabbled with self-destruction himself many times in the past, as his frequent tabloid appearances throughout the 1990s are a testimony to.
The prototype rock star-like behaviour of Rochester was a scandal at the time, and still has the power to shock even now, yet his tale is a tragic one, reminiscent of any number of lost geniuses whose talent was only appreciated after their deaths, a combination, if you will, of Vincent Van Gough and Kurt Cobain.
Aided by a strong and eclectic supporting cast ranging from John Malkovich, on top form as King Charles II, to Brits Samantha Morton and, bizarrely, comedian Johnny Vegas in a vast ginger wig, were it not for Depp’s assured central performance this film could have easily ended in failure. As it is, this is yet another piece of evidence to add to the file suggesting that not only is Depp one of the most interesting and surprising actors working today, he is also one of the most enjoyable to watch.
The Brothers Grimm
Former Monty Python animator Terry Gilliam’s first film in seven years couldn’t help but be much anticipated. Especially since the well-documented failure of his Don Quixote project, so painfully revealed in the superb documentary Lost in La Mancha, which brought back industry memories of his big-budget, underrated flop The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, the idea that Gilliam could ever get a project funded – let alone finished – ever again was but a vague hope for his many fans.
The idea of a fantasy biopic of German fairytale maestros the Brothers Grimm, played in deliciously over-the-top style by Matt Damon and Heath Ledger, where their stories are based on a reality which they reluctantly have to confront, sounds like perfect Gilliam material from the get-go. His ongoing obsession with the blurring of fantasy and reality is one that has cropped up throughout his feature film making career, from Time Bandits through the truly outstanding masterpiece that is Brazil, the sprawling visual feast of Munchausen and the more character-focussed The Fisher King and Twelve Monkeys. The only idea that could have been any more perfect for Gilliam is an adaptation of the original tale of confused reality, Don Quixote itself. But that was not to be…
In the States, the film was greeted with a bizarrely mixed reaction. Some loved it, some found it very disappointing, others didn’t seem to understand it at all. All these responses are fair. It’s an utterly confusing film – especially considering how long it’s been since Gilliam’s last outing, it’s easy to forget just how damn odd, and how improvised in feel his stuff can be.
This is utterly unlike the work of pretty much any Hollywood director. The closest to his style is probably Tim Burton – but Burton has always had a far glossier feel than the often rough and ready approach of a Gilliam movie. The fact that it has been such a long time since his last outing as a director makes it even worse, as many have forgotten just what his movies used to be like – and many teenagers, who used to be among his core audience, are now too young to have even heard of him.
To compound the problem, this is old-style Gilliam – the Gilliam of twisted live-action cartoons like Baron Munchausen and Time Bandits, not the more grown-up Gilliam of The Fisher King, Twelve Monkeys or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
It has been seventeen years since he last completed a movie of this type, and in the meantime he has been consistently lauded by critics as some kind of genius. Which he is, but not in the way many imagine. His genius was always in the concepts – not necessarily in their execution.
Gilliam’s early work was always great fun, but generally had some parts that didn’t quite manage to work – yet they were always still well worth watching, and had a tendency to grow with each subsequent viewing as more and more subtle ideas that he’d worked into the background came to the fore. The same is true here. It may not immediately leap out as a classic, it may not leave you thinking it was great after one viewing, but the experience – as with any Gilliam film – is more than worth it, and you might just find that it starts to grow on you.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Val Kilmer’s name on a film poster is, these days, enough to drive anyone away. He’s been associated with more high-profile duds than pretty much any actor currently working, be it the awful The Saint to the sprawling Alexander, has built up a reputation for being an arrogant and unpleasant person to work with, and by most accounts he hasn’t managed to put in a genuinely good performance since 1993’s Tombstone, where he was truly superb as the slowly dying gunslinger Doc Holliday.
Robert Downey Jr has likewise not had much luck in recent years. Though he won wild praise for his turn in the title role of Richard Attenborough’s ambitious biopic Chaplin back in 1992, for the last decade or so he’s been more prominent in the tabloids for drug offences and imprisonment than for anything he’s managed to achieve in front of the camera, and is probably best known these days for being in an Elton John video and playing yet another in a long string of Ally McBeal’s boyfriends.
Putting these two together as the headline leads in a movie is, therefore, either utterly insane or a very bold move, depending on how much faith you have in their abilities to shake off their respective reputations and actually start to bother acting again.
Written and directed by the screenwriter behing the insanely successful and continually endearing Lethal Weapon series, the news that this is another take on the “mismatched men have to overcome their differences to solve a crime” idea that lies at the heart of that franchise might also suggest a certain lack of originality. The fear might be that this is merely a rejected script for Lethal Weapon 5 that Mel Gibson didn’t want anything to do with now that he’s not only richer than God but in the big man’s good books for The Passion of the Christ to boot.
Somehow, though, this combination of talent with chequered pasts has merged to bring out the best in all concerned. Though there may be little logic to the plot, centred around Downey Jr’s petty thief trying to make it as an actor in Hollywood under gay detective Kilmer’s tutelage amidst an LA underworld that becomes increasingly strewn with bodies, the two leads are both back at the top of their game.
This kind of movie, undoubtedly a buddy cop film in the fine 1980s tradition of Lethal Weapon, 48 Hours and Beverley Hills Cop but with a noughties twist, succeeds purely on the charisma and on-screen relationship of the lead actors. With Downey Jr and Kilmer on top of their game, as they are here after a long famine of good roles, even with the most ridiculous premise the movie would work. They both, when on form, can exude such an easy presence and charm that either alone could buoy up an otherwise poor movie. Neither have done so for such a long time, the sight of both working expertly together is a real joy.
This is by no means an excellent movie – it’s a bit too silly to become that. It is, however, great fun, solidly entertaining, and a long-overdue return to form for two of Hollywood’s finest bad boy actors. More than worth the price of admission.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
If the title doesn’t ring any bells, if you don’t know which number in the series this is, there’s little hope that this film will hold any interest – although if you’ve managed to avoid the Harry Potter phenomenon this long, either you have no interest in anything that’s going on around you, or you’ve been locked up in some far off distant land for the last few years.
Yes, it’s that time of year again, so the latest film version of JK Rowling’s still insanely popular children’s novels about the young wizard at boarding school is ready for release. With the once young and innocent cast looking ever more grown-up, the Hollywood types behind this celluloid version of the franchise must be getting worried.
This is, after all, only the fourth in the series, and though there are a couple more books – and so a couple more films – left so far, Rowling seems to have slowed down the speed of her writing now that she is officially richer than the Queen, and pretty soon the films will have caught up. Not only that, but pretty soon leads Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint will be far, far too old to continue playing schoolchildren.
This particular tale is set in Harry’s fourth year at Hogwart’s wizard school – he should technically be fourteen. Not only is actor Daniel Radcliffe already sixteen, but he looks rather older. Does this matter? Well, it means that the films are becoming ever more unlike the books. The tall, muscular Radcliffe is hardly much like the rather small and weedy Harry that Rowling seems to envisage any more. And if Rowling has yet to change the way she writes the character, those hoards of children and adults who have already read all the novels are increasingly going to come to see the screen Harry as little like the one from the page.
Yet though they may be diverging from the books, the film version of Harry Potter is at the same time going from strength to strength. Much as the first two books in the series weren’t really that great – at least in comparison to the more assured sequels, the first two films were, if we’re honest, really rather shoddy. They showed very little imagination, the special effects were dire, the child actors weren’t up to much, and the only thing that they really had going for them was being excessively faithful to the originals.
With last year’s outing, and change of director from hack Christopher Columbus to proper, talented director Alfonso Cuarón, the film franchise shifted into something more grown up, just as did its (formerly) child leads. This time the director has shifted again, but they have once again opted for a proper, experienced man behind the camera rather than a talentless figurehead – and considering this is effectively an ensemble cast picture with a bunch of very well known British actors, they have opted for one of the best possible choices – Mike Newell, probably best known for Four Weddings and a Funeral.
As such, with Newell at the helm, although this may not be as visually assured and interesting as last year’s outing, the confidence of the director in handling his vast cast, featuring as it does some of the biggest names in British screen acting, ensures that this is a worthy addition to the franchise. Even if Harry really is looking a tad big these days, he has yet to grow out of the public’s love.
The Proposition
It’s not often that you get a western these days. It’s even less often that you get a Australian western. Rarer still is the attraction of an Australian western written by cult Aussie singer Nick Cave, erstwhile lead crooner in The Birthday Party and now best known as the deep-voiced head of slightly weird music troupe The Bad Seeds.
Set as it is in 1880s Australia, as that vast island was just beginning to grow some kind of civilisation out of its penal colony status, this is a perfect yet original setting for an old-school western, the lawlessness of the Outback an ideal substitute for the Wild West of so many countless predecessors.
Chuck into the mix a cast featuring Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Emily Watson and John Hurt, at the very least you’re going to end up with an interesting curiosity that would be well worth a look for novelty value alone. As it is, the final result is a very welcome surprise indeed.
Ignoring the foul-mouthed TV antics of Deadwood, yet to make it onto terrestrial in the UK, the western has been much maligned over the last couple of decades. With the advent of Star Wars and special effects, old-style gunslingers out on the open plain seem to have lost their appeal, even as many of the themes spiralled out into the expanses of the universe. The recent Joss Weedon flick Serendipity was, after all, a western in everything but setting – and even in setting in a few scenes, as the rag-tag crew got into scrapes on a desert world. But in terms of proper westerns, with the rare exception of the likes of Clint Eastwood’s superb Unforgiven, released thirteen years ago now, there have been but few since the heyday of the likes of John Ford and Sergio Leone.
This is very much a western of the Leone school – bleak, philosophical, and beautifully shot. Much as with Leone’s best work, the central theme is of one man and his conscience, as captured gunslinger Guy Pearce is forced to decide which of his fellow outlaw brothers he should betray in the wake of a brutal killing and his subsequent capture by Winstone’s gruff yet sensitive Sheriff figure, Captain Stanley.
The stark, twisted harshness of the Austalian bush is a superb setting for such a tale, recalling at once both the sandy wastes of Leone’s spaghetti westerns and the surging majesty of Ford’s favourite locations around the iconic Monument Valley. The landscape here is as much of a character as any of the actors, and it does its job superbly.
The end result is every bit as surprising and satisfying as A Fistful of Dollars must have been when it first shook the western genre to its very roots and made a superstar of Clint Eastwood. Guy Pearce returns to his top form of La Confidential and Memento, while Ray Winstone puts in one of the best performances of his career around Cave’s surprising and deep script. Chuck in close yet epic feel of a Once Upon a Time in the West, and this makes a very good proposition indeed. A welcome return of a favourite genre, pulled off with aplomb.
The Constant Gardener
Following the near Oscar success of last year’s Hotel Rwanda, Hollywood returns again to the plight of modern Africa – this time Kenya, where British diplomat Ralph Fiennes finds his outspoken, politically-active wife, played by Rachel Weisz, murdered while travelling through the lawless outer reaches of the country. Based as it is on a novel by thriller novelist legend John Le Carré, a conspiracy lurks beneath the killing, made to look like the work of bandits.
And so lie the premise behind what appears to be one of those films that seems designed to win wild praise and multiple awards. An epic mystery centred around a strong central performance from an actor lauded by all and sundry as one of the finest working today. A tragic, complex, old-fashioned tale of love and grief spanning several continents with sweeping vistas and stunning cinematography, luscious music, and with a backdrop of timely topicality. The sort of film, we are constantly told, they simply don’t make any more.
Added to the strong base that is two fine leads, top-notch source material and a broad yet compelling backdrop of highly topical political intrigue lies a well-paced yet sensitive script from Jeffrey Caine, the man behind Peirce Brosnan’s fine first Bond outing Goldeneye. But a story so sprawling could have been lost in the hands of a less capable director. Thankfully, therefore, the man behind the camera is Fernando Meirelles, Oscar-nominated Brazilian director of the superb City of God, amply aided by the lush visuals flair of his cinematographer from that movie, César Charlone. As with that earlier movie, Meirelles and Charlone have managed to produce something that always looks harshly beautiful, no matter how grotty or run down – or even how naturally wonderful – the subject at which they point their camera.
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From the wilds of Africa, Feinnes’ mild-mannered, gardening-obsessed diplomat finds himself trekking across three continents in search of the truth behind his wife’s death, providing all kinds of excuses for yet more wonderful camerawork and ever more layers of intrigue, as he exploits his diplomatic status to unearth a conspiracy – as the genre would dictate – far wider than a mere covered-up murder.
But adhering to genre does not have to detract from a movie – The Godfather, after all, pays minute attention to the rules of the gangster genre of which it is the masterpiece, just as The Maltese Falcon adheres to the peculiarities of detective movies without ever suffering. With another performance from Feinnes so natural it almost seems like he’s not acting, a deeply involving story, well-paced script, expert direction and wonderful cinematography, The Constant Gardener will certainly vie for a position near the top of any chart of the best conspiracy thrillers of recent years. If you like spy movies, murder mysteries, or even just involving, intelligent filmmaking of any genre, this is one not to be missed. Come March, the Academy will be calling.
In Her Shoes
The “chick flick” is much derided as one of the most formulaic and unoriginal of genres. Effectively a derivation of the male version, the “buddy cop” movie (which, like the Lethal Weapon series, normally have at least some cross-gender appeal), often spliced with that other much-hated genre the romantic comedy. Chick flicks always tend to revolve around two or more women who shouldn’t really be friends, who have some kind of – usually relatively minor – obstacle to overcome, and who eventually end up bonding over one or more men, be it through love or hatred. Even on the rare occasions that a chick flick gets wider critical praise, as with Ridley Scott’s 1980s classic Thelma and Louise, it is rare that anyone male can bring themselves to see what all the fuss is about.
This could be the exception that proves the rule. Directed as it is by Curtis Hanson, the man responsible for one of the best films of the last decade, La Confidential, you’d expect something fairly special. His last two movies, 8 Mile and Wonderboys were both surprising and original in their own way just as LA Confidential was, and once again he has managed to do something different with a subject matter that could, in lesser hands, come off as little more than jaded and derivative.
Centered around two excellent performances by the often underrated Cameron Diaz and the often forgotten Toni Collette, best known for Muriel’s Wedding but one of the best young female character actors in the business, while following the chick flick formula much as LA Confidential followed the Film Noir manner, Hanson and his leads have managed to transcend the restrictions of the genre to produce a chick flick that, amazingly, will also manage to appeal to the boyfriends who will inevitably get dragged reluctantly along.
Diaz is the glamorous sister, Collette the plain one – putting on a lot of weight again for the part as she did for Muriel’s Wedding, and then losing it during the shoot to reflect her character’s evolution. After a breach of sisterly trust, Diaz finds it expedient to get away from it all, tracking down a long-lost grandmother played, in a now rare screen outing by the near-legendary Shirley MacLaine, on form again after her disappointing outing in the recent Bewitched movie. As the sisters embark on their separate lives, this could so very easily have turned into a bog-standard film about family responsibility and the nature of friendship.
Somehow, however, almost all of these kinds of genre pitfalls have been skilfully avoided – something that the trailer has little chance of convincing anyone of, coming across as it does as merely the usual opposites clashing nonsense that we’ve all seen countless times before. Thanks to some skilful direction by Hanson, some perfectly on-the-ball acting by Diaz and Collette, an attentive supporting cast and a great script by the woman behind Steven Soderbergh’s Erin Brockovich based on the novel by the woman behind the story of that other great almost chick-flick, this is much more than any trailer could lead you to believe. An engaging, entertaining and intelligent movie about life and love that will leave you more than satisfied.
Everything is Illuminated
Adapted from the critically-acclaimed faux-autobiographical novel of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer, this could well be the film that allows Elijah Wood to shake off the Frodo associations which, following the insane success of The Lord of the Rings movies, threatened to haunt him for the rest of his career. Following outings in both Sin City and Green Street in which he was evidently determined to play against type, Wood here shows that he can indeed do more than merely gaze in wide-eyed terror at computer-generated beasties with a performance that is at once sensitive and quirky.
The novel on which the film is based is so sprawlingly complex that almost everyone who has read it will tell you that it is utterly unfilmable. Then again, fans of The Lord of the Rings and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas said much the same, yet Peter Jackson and Terry Gilliam respectively managed to come out with superb, if not entirely faithful, adaptations which mostly satisfied existing as well as won over countless new fans to those cult books. Liev Schreiber, best known as a solid character actor whose face you would recognise but never be able to put a face to, in his directorial debut and working from his own screenplay, has done a masterly job of translating the intricacies of the eclectic prose of the novel into a truly unusual cinematic experience.
Where the novel was a bizarre mix of folk tales, bizarre English and absurdity, Schreiber has managed to whittle away the utterly unfilmable and end up with the odd road movie that lay at the core, as Wood’s almost obsessive-compulsive Froer sets out on a journey to find the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis, deep in the heart of Slavic eastern Europe. It is a part of the world rarely ventured into by Hollywood except as the venue for dodgy deals between Cold War spies. But here Schreiber exposes the heart, the cultural richness and the humour of the place, thanks largely to the filter that is Elijah Wood’s really very odd, yet pretty much perfect central performance, and aided by a range of excellent supporting actors, most notably the relative newcomer Eugene Hutz as the slacker travelling companion.
This should really be no surprise – for Schreiber, like Foer, is a descendant of Ukranian immigrants and first met the author before the novel had even been finished. The agreement for Schriber to turn what was then just a short story into a film has, therefore, had just as long a genesis, and is perhaps just as valid a take on the story, as Foer’s own novel. And it was largely on the initial short story which formed the core of the book that Schreiber based the movie.
Though the company is truly weird, and the journey aiming to go deep into the murkiest, most unpleasant depths of Europe’s past, thanks to some expert and sensate adaptation and some truly memorable performances, this is a journey you will not regret taking.
