Film Reviews by Steve

During the economic slump of the 1970s, the music career of a US singer-songwriter ends in failure and he goes on to earn a meagre wage on the mean streets of Detroit... Half a world away in South Africa, his records touch the lives of millions, and get tangled up in the protest against apartheid.

That set up is pure Frank Capra! Except today, optimistic, serendipitous melodrama can't be done as fiction because it doesn't compute with our hard lived lives. Or the ubiquitous cynicism. But as a true story, well maybe that's ok... Sure, the facts have been worked on. But actually, who cares? 

And how sublime that Rodriquez is such a stalwart fella anyway; a blue collar survivor and family man. And his folk-rock protest songs hold up pretty well. Happily, the film became part of the mythology when it led to some late life record sales, and an Oscar! And yes, I bought both the albums too.

Later on when the old man is on stage in Cape Town playing to a full house of fans who are as overwhelmed as he is- well, who isn't choking back a few tears? This is an entertaining, inspiring and incredibly moving documentary which is made with love and delivers a pay off of delicious sentimentality. 

Influential crime-vérité which depicts the futile resistance of a team of Parisian narcotics officers against an incoming tide of drugs, and the further lawbreaking this provokes. If it seems drawn out at 145m, the many tv series it inspired are far longer. Didier Bezace plays the ordinary cop who is the hub of a colourful melange of informers.

His police squad is based in a caravan, indicative of the rapid spread of drug crime and the meagre resources opposing it. They are neither idiots nor academics. Although this is seminal, it avoids most future genre clichés: so there's no funeral for a hero, or corrupt/addicted officers, or moles... Or the cops portrayed as just another gang.

But there are some... such as the neglected wife. The plot is episodic without a single narrative arc, because the war on drugs is ineffectual. Crime is too deeply embedded in the ordinary lives of the poor. Director and co-writer Bertrand Tavernier doesn't actually bother with the criminality of the rich, other than a few sardonic asides.

And there isn't much about the pushers, who are immigrants, with their own ethnic divisions. This is about the disorganised, traumatised narcs, locked into a conflict which is already lost and mostly destroys the destitute, uneducated users rather than the traffickers. The title is the number of French laws related to illegal drugs.

Astonishing pre-code western which isn't as well known as it should be. This is a truly epic adventure shot on location, but from the period when such films were in abeyance because of the limits of sound technology. Yet the audio is complex for 1930. Most impressive of all, this is shot in a revolutionary widescreen format.

Unfortunately, only two cinemas in the US could show it; there was also a release in academy ratio but it bombed and John Wayne had to wait another decade to become a star. He plays the wagon master leading a cast of thousands west along the Oregon trail, and surviving the trials of the Cheyenne and the bushwhackers...

And the hostile desert sun... When the film opens with the spectacle of covered wagons strung across the panorama, emerging in a cloud of dust, it's tempting to wonder if Raoul Walsh- not John Ford- should be considered the pioneer of the sound western. There are phenomenal action scenes across rivers and canyons.

Plus the buffalo stampede. Wayne romances a prickly pioneer played by Marguerite Churchill. There is folksy comedy, some foolin' and prayin' and a square dance. What a night at the cinema for the few! It's even not always bigoted towards native Americans... while still of its time. Of course, it's dated, but also, a landmark.

This is adapted by Claude Chabrol from a script by Henri-Georges Clouzot which he began to direct himself as Inferno in 1964, but abandoned due to illness. So yes, it's a collaboration between both the French Hitchcocks! But this isn't exactly what that suggests; a twisty suspense thriller leading to an astonishing climactic bombshell...

It starts out like it’s going to be a psychological drama with François Cluzet as a bourgeois hotelier married to a sexy/beautiful younger woman who is charmingly flirtatious. And they have an adorable son. The wife is played by Emmanuelle Béart and it's not difficult to empathise with how insecure she makes him feel! All that sexual tension...

The cast gathers in an upmarket hotel full of tourists, but this doesn't turn into an Agatha Christie murder mystery; the uncharismatic manager becomes increasingly jealous. His possessiveness develops into psychosis until he ultimately presents as a violent threat to his family. We do get a big payoff, but it's harrowingly plausible.

And the slow build to the shocking climax is well worth the wait.  There are no jump scares or gimmicks, just the hallucinogenic perspective of a sick man becoming a psychopath. Back then, Béart was an arthouse pinup and Chabrol gives us some glamour; but she's also a fine woman in peril. And hell, maybe she isn't so innocent...

When a writer stuck for ideas suggests making a film about making a film... groans must go around the room. It's such a cliché! And yet, that's what this is and it was a success... well, for an independent which was more or less homemade and financed by the cast and crew putting their hands in their pockets.

It's based on Tom DiCillo's experiences on Johnny Suede (1991), his debut as writer-director. Though this is much better! Plus there must be many favourite insider anecdotes included. So we see the production of a no budget melodrama where everything goes wrong, with Steve Buscemi in the director's chair.

It's a three parter, two of which are anxiety dreams. The standout is the opener with Catherine Keener as an inexperienced actor who saves her best performance for the take with no film in the camera. Her ability to either phone it in or nail it is an acting tour de force; just like Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive (2001)!

Famously there's an old rumour James Le Gros, as the narcissistic, scene stealing wannabe, based his role on Brad Pitt, star of Johnny Suede... DiCillo says no! But it's uncanny. While this is low budget, it's rich in imagination and good vibes and captures something of the lightning-in-a-bottle magic of the cinema.

This is the middle film in an unofficial Ken Loach trilogy set in conflicts overseas- with Land and Freedom (1995) and Bread and Roses (2000). While these are all polemics from his usual socialist perspective, there's an impression of the director moving away from his comfort zone in the politics of UK and Ireland.

Plus there's adventure in far off locations! It's curious he made a picture about the civil war in Nicaragua a decade after it was in the news. Maybe it was because he found a plausible amateur actor in Oyanka Cabezas to play a Sandinista exiled in Scotland, still traumatised by the brutality of CIA backed Contras.

Plus it gives Loach the opportunity to condemn US interference in central America and across the world... and really, this is the message which still resonates. He benefits from a familiar lead, with Robert Carlyle as an impetuous Glasgow bus driver who falls in love with the refugee and travels with her back into the war.

So Loach gets to choreograph battle scenes in Nicaragua and make a pitch as an action director. Yet the story lacks credibility and the agitprop doesn't cut through. What this mainly offers now is nostalgia for a time when we might expect the British working class to express solidarity with political asylum seekers.

This was nominated for Oscars for best film, director and script despite being far from the Hollywood mainstream in 1985. It's a psycho-sexual drama set in South America about a socialist freedom fighter who shares a prison cell with a homosexual man- identifying as a woman- who kills time narrating the plot of a Nazi propaganda spy melodrama.

The rebel should pay attention as the story will tell him something of his cellmate's true intensions. It's mostly a two hander set in a single location with Raul Julia as the macho rebel and William Hurt- who actually won a well deserved Oscar- as the would-be spider woman who seeks to entrap him, but falls forlornly in love. Or is s/he being played?

This is mainly of interest as an exploration of sexuality, but also a critique of fascism. So it's curious that while the novel/play by Manuel Puig is about Argentina in the 1970s, it is transferred to the Brazilian military dictatorship. Presumably this was a diplomatic decision. Either way, there is novelty in the attempt to bring magic realism into the cinema.

This is mainly about the characters and performances, as most of the plot is in the memory of an old German film; a romantic intrigue filtered through the lonely heartbreak of the collaborator. The climax set outside the prison is a chore. It's not wholly successful but there is a kaleidoscope of themes and possibilities which stand up to multiple viewings. 

Brian is a contemporary of Jesus who gets taken for a prophet and tangled up in resistance to the Roman occupation. Really, it's a collection of linked comedy sketches; but all hits and no filler. Monty Python got to use sets from the 1977 tv epic, Jesus of Nazareth, so it looks surprisingly authentic.

Its merits are twofold: it is an inspired and intelligent skewering of religious fundamentalism; and it's hilarious. Graham Chapman is fine as Brian but there are other legendary comic performances, such as Michael Palin as Pontius Pilate, and John Cleese as the intractable leader of Judean resistance...

Celebrated satirical routines just keep on coming; like the pessimistic, equivocal prophet, or the Roman soldier correcting the Latin of Brian's graffiti. It was a global blockbuster and is now a part of international pop culture, especially the climactic singalong Always Look On the Bright Side of Life. 

The hyperbolic reaction to the film's initial release indicated a national conversation was long overdue. Palin and Cleese's BBC discussion with Malcolm Muggeridge and an offended Catholic Bishop was notorious! Weirdly, this funny, silly, clever comedy is often at the forefront of any such re-evaluation.

This true crime gangster picture is unusual because the mafia is presented with the familiarity of an insider, rather than the iconography of a film maker. It's based on a non-fiction account by Joseph Pistone of his six years as an FBI agent embedded in the New York mob.

Which led to hundreds of prosecutions. This is a study of the psychological trauma of his assignment and how much of his personal life he sacrificed. Yet even more fascinating is the portrayal of the mafia as an ill-educated, disorganised rabble with an ultra-short life expectancy.

This is a suspenseful thriller which could almost be a comedy, but for the the violence. It's also a mano-a-mano between two acclaimed Hollywood stars, with Johnny Depp as Pistone, and Al Pacino as the mafia drone he attaches himself to. Their father-son relationship is the heart of the film.

There's a decent '70s feel, with an excellent score. And it's well cast all the way down. The vision of the mob as inept sociopaths is convincing and we get to encounter professional killers who are not mythologised. Though we know how it turns out as Pistone lived to write the book!

As with many directors, Christopher Nolan's first commercial feature is a neo-noir. Normally this allows for a preliminary artistic calling card on a low budget. But apart from a counter-narrative in b&w this isn't the case. There is no visual expressionism. But we do get an exploration of genre themes and motifs.

Most obviously, there are the ostentatious flashbacks; its whole raison d'être is the backwards narrative. Plus there's murder, a male dupe and a femme fatale, a hero who can trust no one and an aura of futility and paranoia... The extensive voice over narration pulls it together, though there isn't much literary polish...

And the dialogue lacks noir-ish wit. Guy Pierce plays a bereaved husband searching for his wife's killers... with the significant impediment of having lost his short term memory! The performances are functional, but limited because the roles are cyphers designed to serve the concept. The gimmick is the whole show.

The story told forwards would be of little interest and the trick only really works once. Continuity must have been a challenge, but there are no obvious glitches. There's a moody score and the usual locations suggestive of transience: bars, motels and diners. It's an experiment which should appeal to curious noir fans.

This is easily the best of Takeshi Kitano's early run of bloody Yakuza films. We still get his offbeat approach, but with increased dramatic weight. This is more imaginative and assured and less formulaic.  While there is the same comic absurdity, it is also deeply melancholy in subject and tone.

Takeshi plays a similar violent cop as the one in Violent Cop (1989)... but grown weary of dealing with crime. He leaves the police after his idiosyncratic law enforcement methods lead to disaster. So he holds up a bank to pay off a mob debt, and spends a final few days with his dying wife...

Which is more narrative than usual...  But the impression of existential sorrow is familiar, deepened by the saddest score Joe Hisaishi ever wrote for Takeshi. Early on there is the intractable despair rooted in the eternal struggle between the law and the gangs, with the consequent loss of life...

And then later is the tenderness in the small acts of kindness for those we love. This is more arthouse than gangster film, while still being a Takeshi picture most of all. He even created the surreal paintings which offer a wistful commentary on the events! Certainly, this is his masterpiece.

This is the final release of legendary Hammer director Terence Fisher and the last of the studio's seven Frankenstein films. The credits still name-check Mary Shelley, and this is mostly a quick shuffle of the familiar motifs. The series had run out of new ideas, but it's still a reasonable variation on the classic tale.

The budget is either much smaller than the old days, or the crew are weary of making the most from not much. The lighting, models and sets are cursory and the monster is especially woeful. David Prowse can't be seen under his rubber costume that took minutes to zip up rather than the traditional hours in makeup.

And Peter Cushing's wig is infamous. This time the Baron is locked up in the madhouse, where he sets up a makeshift laboratory and gets up to his old tricks with body parts of the criminally insane, assisted by a posh medic played by Shane Briant whose luxuriant barnet is more Carnaby Street than gothic horror.

Madeline Smith plays a mute, as if to restate her decorative status. The series ends not with a bang or a whimper, but with forbearance as the formula holds up for anyone not in search of novelty. Cushing is now an old man, but still gives a performance. By the way, three years later, he and Prowse reunite in Star Wars!

The first of Krzysztof Kieslowski's three colours trilogy, which reflects on the ideals of the French revolution as symbolised by the tricolour; liberty, equality, fraternity. The concept has always felt tenuous to me... though the three films are clearly linked, and they individually and collectively explore the interconnectedness of our lives.

And this involves a spiritual dimension. The wife of famous musician loses her husband and daughter in a car crash and enters an extended period of shock. So her normal sense of interdependence goes into stasis. This is more profoundly felt rather than spoken, through Kieslowski's skilful manipulation of all the cinematic tools....

And this includes the use of visual expressionism, as when screen is occasionally saturated in blue. Though this seems to imply the widow's numbness and subliminal desire for rebirth rather than anything to do with liberty. Of the creatives, credit is most due to Zbigniew Preisner whose orchestral score is central to the narrative.

Plus there's a signature role for Juliette Binoche as the bereaved mother/wife; a harrowing and exposing performance, completed by that heartbreaking final closeup. It's a deeply emotional experience and if Blue doesn't- for me- quite make the same exhilarating spiritual connection as Red (1994), then I believe for others it will.

In 1981, West Germany was known for arthouse directors like Herzog, Wenders, Fassbinder et al. This is different, a combat film set in WWII which was a success in global multiplexes. But which is relatively mute on Nazi politics. It takes a while to adjust to how empathetic this is to the German U-boat crew.

When they celebrate a hit, it is on allied ships. This is 1941 with the Kriegsmarine intent on sinking cargo in the Atlantic, to starve the UK to defeat. But events also illustrate why morale is so low in the German navy; whether the deluded commanders back in Berlin, or the usual grumbles about food and leave....

And most emphatically, the hardship of serving in a submarine crew, which we witness with astonishing realism via the excellent models and sound/visual effects. There are well staged action scenes, but much of the time we watch scared, homesick young men living in malodorous squalor and extreme danger.

There's isn't much of an overview, except an impression of the war going to hell. It's too long with hardly any plot, and aside from Jürgen Prochnow as the skipper, the cast doesn't give the crew much individuality. It's about experiencing the horror. This is widely reviewed as the best submarine war film ever made.

This melancholy neo-noir is adapted from a story by Georges Simenon already made as Panique by Julien Duvivier in 1946. This time the scope of the murder investigation is considerably reduced to concentrate on the unconventional love triangle which was difficult to explore back then because of censorship; even in France.

The title character is a prime role for a male actor of a certain age who isn't blessed with film star looks. Michel Blanc plays the brainy, irascible voyeur who spies on his beautiful neighbour (Sandrine Bonnaire) and so is aware that her lover (Luc Thuillier) is the murderer of a young woman; a crime for which Hire himself is suspected.

Plus he's a weird outsider who is persecuted by his community. For Duvivier this was an opportunity to reflect on wartime collaboration and antisemitism. But Patrice Leconte almost entirely excises the social context other than a few hints the neighbours may have legitimate concerns. This is about the psycho-sexual mind games.

There are deep, subtle performances from Blanc and Bonnaire as the lonely souls engaged in contrasting manoeuvres for control of the other. Probably the new ending betrays Simenon's intentions, and it's slow, even if short. But this is the sort of mature, moody, intelligent arthouse that Brits usually go to French cinema to experience.