Film Reviews by Steve

Dazzling black comedy/neo-noir/parable about three supercilious young professionals who share a highly desirable apartment in Edinburgh and elect to keep a suitcase of hot money left behind when a mysterious new lodger overdoses... Which sounds like a pitch for a high concept 20th Century update of a medieval morality play... 

So the plot is derivative, but it’s shot with plenty of élan by Danny Boyle from a fast, funny, cynical script by John Hodge. Christopher Eccleston, Kerry Fox and Ewan McGregor share exceptional chemistry as the trio of borderline sociopaths who soon regret their good fortune... and then turn on each other in a bloody fight for survival.

There's an ultra-polished surface- this is cinéma du look, Scottish style- but it also drills into the state of the nation in the greed-is-good decade; which hasn't dated a minute! Britain has been made-over by the Thatcher economic revolution, so maybe there's a joke in the real hardcore nutter of the residents being an accountant (Eccleston).

The three anti-heroes are utterly unsympathetic; who isn't pleased to see McGregor's blasé junior reporter take a kicking in the hotel toilets? And the class friction may be why US critics just didn't get it. This was a calling card for many of the cast and crew, yet it's still the best film of everyone involved. And one of the classics of UK cinema. 

Landmark social realism shot on location -in b&w- against contemporary inner city riots in Paris, and inspired by the death of young men in police custody. Though perhaps because of its worldwide influence, this no longer imparts the same bruising impact as on release. Plus it lacks an overarching narrative.

It was influential because it put unfamiliar lives on screen; the left behind immigrant families of the Parisian banlieue, and in particular the boys who turn to violent crime. We see an Arab (Saïd Taghmaoui), an African (Hubert Koundé) and a Jew (Vincent Cassel) over 24 hours of restless, futile resentment.

The actors are credible as the uneducated outsiders who cause trouble for their own community almost as much as the racist cops. Most of their scenes are bitterly comical, at least until they get hold of a revolver lost by the riot squad. There's some minor examination of the sociology, though no sermons.

While writer-director Mathieu Kassovitz looks for balance, he is broadly sympathetic to the rioters. In France this offended the police and conservatives. But they are part of the problem and the trio are not presented as heroes. These same issues are still with us now, but the shock of its innovation has passed.

This slow-moving revenge western is a good fit for Clint Eastwood's impassive star persona in the period after his collaborations with Sergio Leone. And like their Spaghetti Westerns, there's a mythic element, hinting this is happening in a state of purgatory... And it's extremely violent! There's some ostentatious style too, though not on a similar level.

Plus, it creates a realistic impression of the old west. Much of this was constructed by co-writer Philip Kaufman who was going to direct. It is adapted from a novel by a KKK activist (Forrest Carter), and apparently Kaufman politically neutralised the script before Eastwood had him sacked. This is actually quite liberal in its portrayal of Native Americans.

The star plays a rancher who gets caught up in the bloodletting at the end of the American Civil War when his family is murdered by Union soldiers. It doesn't tell the history coherently- or accurately. So five minutes on Wikipedia is useful. Or a US High School education. In revenge, the farmer/gunman leaves home and returns this violence on his enemies...

Chief Dan George is a standout as a Cherokee maverick. Clint gives his standard 1970s performance, but regrettably spits tobacco juice all over the support cast, livestock and scenery. What were they thinking? Its status as a classic of Americana feels exaggerated, but the landscapes- in Panavision- are stunning. And the anti-war theme is welcome.

A couple of small time grifters who usually roll wage slaves at business conferences step up into the big league. Posing as a fake Colonel and a wealthy Russian dama staying at a ski hotel, they make a play for a suitcase full of money. But can they even trust each other... And is he really her father?

Claude Chabrol was enough of an old cineaste to realise that's a pitch for an Ernst Lubitsch precode comedy at Paramount, including the Parisian setting, the casinos and swanky resorts. Only rather than getting duped by another fake aristocrat, the laundered banknotes lead them to the mob.

The differences between this and a Lubitsch picture are informative. In 1997 there isn't the same glamour and romance. Isabelle Huppert and Michel Serrault are fine as the swindlers, but don't suggest the cosmopolitan charm of Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins in Trouble in Paradise (1932).

And maybe the point is... there is no longer a role in modern cinema- or life- for the sophistication of Lubitsch? Meanwhile, the twisty plot is functional rather than inspired. It's an entirely satisfactory entertainment, but I wonder if directing it made Chabrol feel as regretfully nostalgic as I did watching...

The violence is the only sensible reservation to the status of Steven Spielberg's classic adventure as the ultimate family blockbuster. Including the startling body count. Its success is partly due to the lavish production; another level from anything similar in Hollywood's deep history. And it's way better than the many sequels.

The quality is unrecognisable from the old time serials which were its inspiration. There's the dense atmosphere of the sumptuous photography, the rich, evocative set design and period costumes. And the famous music score. Plus state of the art special effects, stunts and action sequences, all without a flicker of cartoonish CGI.

The casting of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones is another bullseye. He's the pre-WWII archaeologist/adventurer on a quest for some ancient, arcane MacGuffin, while skirmishing with grotesque Nazis and on-off romancing feisty Karen Allen. Plus he gets to wear the legendary outfit which made even his silhouette into a screen icon.

Any kid with with a strong stomach and not easily scared will love this... But as an action film for an adult audience, it eventually falters because there isn't much interest in the overarching narrative and the many cliffhangers bring in diminishing returns. The best precedes the opening titles. So make sure you see this before you're 16!

The band never made the UK charts so the appeal of this fictionalised biopic may be limited. In fact, they were only ever big in Japan. Their impact on pop culture is mostly due to their status as a proto-all female rock & roll band, sort of a mid-to-late '70s link between Suzi Quatro and the Go-Gos. But much more scuzzy.

Their rudimentary sound begins in glam and ends in punk. They are teenagers from broken homes in the suburbs of Los Angeles who drift into the alternative scene about the time Bowie faded into The Sex Pistols. So there's a decent soundtrack, including The Stooges and The Ramones. Plus all the sunny west coast vibe.

The Runaways only really had one song- Cherry Bomb- which we hear many times. Dakota Fanning (Cherie Currie) and Kristen Stewart (Joan Jett) are credible and about the right age, as the band were not much more than unsupervised teenagers let loose in a squalid arena of exploitation, booze, speed and knee-tremblers.

It's a familiar rise and fall story, loosely based on Cherie Currie's memoir. Yet, it's also unusual, because for teenage girls in rock this was a journey without maps. The story runs out on the hour, but until then it's worthwhile for the boomer-nostalgia and the vicarious buzz of authentic-feeling sleaze. They were lucky to get out alive.

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!