Reviews

(In theaters, February 2006) No one really asked for another interpretation of Jane Austen’s classic novel so soon (relatively speaking) after either the now-definitive BBC miniseries or the Bollywood take-off Bride & Prejudice. But there is now another version, and it’s not bad at all. Kiera Knightly can’t fill a dress, but she does looks cute as a bookish brunette. Fortunately, she manages to tie the whole film together. Given that most viewers are likely to be familiar with the story, it all boils down to how well the interpretation is handled. Here we see that the director has fun with a few fancy camera moves and occasional flights of fancy. (The ballroom scenes are particularly good in this regard.) Less pretty but just as distinctive is the often-unromantic view of life during that period, with omnipresent dirt, soiled dress hems and a definitive lack of modern medical facilities. Clocking in at a relatively springy 127 minutes, this story is focused on the romantic comedy, with a side-helping of wonderful dialogues. Otherwise, well, you already know what you’re going to get from this film, don’t you?

(On DVD, February 2006) You have thirty seconds, tops, at the start of Murderball to feel sorry for the wheelchair-bound stars of the movie. After that, it’s a macho sports fest until the end. A documentary about the sport of Quad Rugby, Murderball features trash talk, intense competitiveness and unbelievable action. There’s plenty of conflict to go around (Canadians even get the bonus of seeing “their” team beat the Americans) and the film is snappy from start to finish. The sport sequences themselves have a good energy to them and the rest of the documentary is as slick as you want it to be. The film definitely doesn’t allow you to “forget” that its protagonists are in wheelchairs, but it certainly goes past that simple evidence to something far more interesting, and definitely enjoyable. Yet another solid documentary in a very strong field, Murderball is worth a good look.

(In theaters, February 2006) It’s a musical with naked ladies: what else can I say? Judi Dench has a fine turn as a matriarch with a flair for controversy, presenting a nude musical revue in WW2 London. (Nervous viewers can relax: she does not disrobe in this film.) It’s a slight comedy that would go well with Calendar Girls in tone and subject matter, which is to say so innocuously naughty that it could very well pass for family entertainment. The nudity certainly isn’t anything to be concerned about, given how unremarkable it quickly becomes. Otherwise, the script is fine (despite an ill-advised tragic subplot and a last-minute speech that overlays higher motivation over a crass business decision) and the film is nicely wrapped up. A minor film, but a good show.

(In theaters, February 2006) Few people expected Woody Allen to tackle a crime/romance thriller as his next project, but he did so, and Match Point is the honourable result of the experiment. Far from the kind of whiny self-referential comedies that have become a staple of Allen’s oeuvre for the past decade, Match Point tackles luck and rotten characters underneath sociable exteriors. The romance gradually cedes way to drama, and then to suspense as Chekhov’s rule comes into play. It’s not bad at all, especially given the lack of such drama on big screens these days. Acting credentials are all good, as would befit a character study. The directing could use some tightening-up, but there are a few good suspense sequences, and some awfully confident camera shots throughout. Devotees of funnyman Allen won’t be surprised to note the wry humour running through the entire film, or the superbly ironic final twist. Despite a few lengths, this isn’t a bad time at the movies at all.

(In theaters, February 2006) On paper, this has all of the characteristics of a quirky black comedy: An ordinary man accidentally meeting a neurotic assassin, joining forces in order to solve each other’s problem. It’s not difficult to imagine the kind of riotous material that could come out of this premise. Alas, The Matador falls flat more quickly that you can imagine, neither stretching nor embracing the limits of its own tunnel vision. While Pierce Brosnan turns in a fabulous lead performance as an amoral assassin on the precipice of self-destruction, his character transcends the film around it, making the rest look hollow and faded. Hope Davis makes the most out of a thin character, but she and Greg Kinnear are pretty much the average couple they’re supposed to portray, and that’s part of the problem: For all the uncouth world-weariness of Brosnan’s anti-hero, The Matador grinds to a halt whenever Kinnear is involved. More sarcasm, more self-awareness might have helped, but instead we’re stuck in low-budget, low-imagination limbo. The film chuckles over its last bit of edginess, not realizing that it had created higher expectations for itself.

(On DVD, February 2006) I’m sure that some people, somewhere, like this film. They call it “a touching portrait of family values”, “a small-scale American tragedy”, “a heartfelt meeting between city and country” or even “a complex drama in shades of complexity”. Fine. They had a good time; I can only envy them, because as far as I’m concerned Junebug vaults at the top of the pile of the dullest movie experiences of the year. More boring than even Aeon Flux, if that’s possible. Granted, I really don’t go for small-scale family drama films: It took the film’s lone Oscar nomination to convince me to seek it out. Still, you would at least expect a plot of some sort, or even a way to stay awake. Instead, the film drips heavily like molasses, featuring scene after scene of uncomfortable bonding experiences and small-scale miseries. No wonder one character spends the entire movie sleeping on the couch: it doesn’t take much time for us to identify with him. By the time Something Horrible happens, we’re way past caring. It ends without a conclusion, with people driving away from the havoc behind them, saying something like “I’m glad this is over.” Seconded.

(On DVD, February 2006) Don’t be surprised to see the MTV film logo at the beginning of the film, seeing how it’s all about the power of music in getting someone out of the ghetto. It’s a bit more complicated than that, of course, but not by much. The protagonist may be a middle-aged pimp seeking a last chance at past dreams (in an exceptional performance by Terrence Howard) and the ending may be a touch unconventional, but the underdog story remains intact. What’s different are the details, from the characters’ squalid lives to the way they put together their shot at glory. A long but enjoyable sequence depicts the making of a demo tape while later, talent has to be complemented by a bit of hustling in order to triumph. MTV movie indeed. The film itself isn’t particularly pleasant (it’s hard to be a pimp without some misanthropy) and some sequence run for too long, but the strength of Howard’s performance and some of the background details make it all worthwhile.

(In theaters, February 2006) Frankly, I’m still not too sure what to make of this film. An uneasy hybrid between drama and thriller, with a sprinkling of social issues that never completely melts into the main plot-line, Freedomland attains a remarkable middle ground between quality and boredom. Some parts are so familiar that they play on auto-pilot: Samuel L. Jackson turns in another effortless performance as a intense policeman, and Julianne Moore delivers yet another performance as a bad mother who can’t find her child. The dialogues are similarly cut from other films of the same genre, while the direction, especially when it works, has no distinguishing characteristics. But it doesn’t always work, and Freedomland ofter veers into self-serving stylistic moments that seem consciously tacked-on. It doesn’t help that Julianne Moore’s character immediately evokes feelings of loathing: that the film then spends its duration proving us right is no recipe for surprising twists. But worse is the feeling that some weighty issues about racial tensions, middle-aged alienation and criminal tendencies are raised in service of an insubstantial story. Freedomland brings to mind weighter fare such as Mystic River or L.A. Confidential is how it does not manage to successfully integrate wider social issues in a thriller template. Indeed, Freedomland feels somewhere between drama and mystery, not as a successful hybrid, but as a failed attempt that couldn’t commit to either one of those storytelling poles. Even Crash, as wildly preposterous as it was, ended up being a far more satisfying film.

(In theaters, February 2006) Action grandpa Harrison Ford is back throwing punches in this limp thriller, at a time where even his stunts doubles are more likely to worry about broken pelvises than landing a good hit. Yet another suspense film in which a man must save his family from ineffectual criminals, Firewall gamely tries to get on with today’s technology, but only succeeds in highlighting how silly it is. The technical details are wrong (Hurrah for continental wi-fi coverage!), but even nit-picking IT jargon pales in comparison to the script’s other problems. Paul Bettany’s villain is weak enough to be stopped by a good spanking, but Ford himself doesn’t look so dynamic at an age where he should be contemplating retirement-home hobbies. (We’ll let the whole marrying-a-woman-twenty-years-younger shtick slide on the basis that Hollywood producers are always fond of wish-fulfilment fantasies, and that Ford himself seems to be having no problem dating younger women.) Actually, Ford isn’t half bad as either a security expert or an older family man, but it’s when he starts playing the action hero that Firewall becomes very amusing: a better script would have recognized the problem and played the character to his strengths. But that’s a tall order for a script that simply goes through the motions of a thriller without much conviction, peppering the dialogue with technical terms it doesn’t understand and making only the most cursory efforts at drawing credible characters. Some twists happen too late for us to care, which is to say that Firewall can’t hold anyone’s interest for more than a few minutes. It may do if all you’re looking for is a very conventional thriller… but otherwise, forget about it.