Thriller

I feel this is an overlooked gem, and I've only just seen it for the first time -and loved it! It's got everything! Great sets; amazing make up; an all-star cast; intriguing plot; Danny Elfman music... what more could anyone ask for?
Beatty has managed to capture the old ‘40's comics perfectly and the movie oozes class and charm from every scene. Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino deserve special mention as both manage to deliver career highs (Hoffman, miraculously so as he only communicates through barely legible mumbles.. hence his name!) and even Madonna is damn fine!

This is one of the best comic adaptations, since Superman: The Movie (the others seem to lose something in translation to me) and definitely deserves to be given a second chance. More people need to see this film just for it's entertainment value!!

I loved this film, which surprised me! I'm not Guy Richie's biggest fan -actually hated Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels - so was extremely sceptical when I heard that he was directing the new Sherlock Holmes film - but it just goes to show what happens when the story's right and the actors are spot on.

And weren't they just!! Robert Downey Jr was superb! Perfectly cast as Holmes and it was refreshing to see Watson played as more of a clued in & active participant -rather than a fumbling oaf as in previous regenerations - which was down to Jude Law.

In some ways, they've reduced Holmes down to a Victorian version of James Bond - and I should be really incensed at that. But the trouble is they've done such a damn fine job!!! Holmes is ever the enigma -here we see a man who can not function without Watson, and the relationship between the two is so hazy and although it's never stressed or hinted, there's a frisson between the two that is unmistakable (the phrase, like an old married couple, springs to mind.)

The action and fight scenes are well staged and nicely break up the film without being too distracting or erroneous. There are also lots of in-jokes for those people that have actually read some of the books, without being at the expense of those who haven't.

In short, I couldn't find anything about this film that I didn't like. There will be a sequel - one that the arch-fiend Moriatey will no doubt appear in. And I must admit... I can't wait!!

A poignant look at the heartbreak following the loss of a child; The haunted streets of Venice provide the perfect backdrop for this moving and unforgettable film.
Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie give beautiful and moving performances as the parents of little Christine, who drowns at the start of the film in a red mac. They move to Venice to escape the pain -the film is filled with tragic ironies like this, and is one of the reasons why I love it so much; it works on so many different levels!- but tragedy seems to follow them as John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) is constantly haunted by images of a small girl running round in a red mac. He's told that all the time he is in Venice he is in danger, but he ignores the warnings until it becomes too late.
This film is an exercise in mood and is so subtle that most of what is happening is just below the surface, barely tangible. The opening scenes of the film are just an example of this - never have I seen such deliberate editing that encapsulates the entire film -and that mirrors so perfectly the sense shattering conclusion.

The question is, can Don't Look Now really be called a horror movie? Yes, it does have a serial killer and there is a death (well, two deaths...) but it's more about the relationship between the Baxters. The horror element is secondary -until the end and then it's inescapable - so it's not a horror film in modern parlance, but I', not sure what category or genre it comfortably sits in.
This film haunted me for weeks and is an emotionally powerful film, as well as being bleakly beautiful -mainly due to it's watery setting. This is a definite must and, to me, really highlights everything that is missing from modern film.

There is one scene in particular which sums up the entire movie for me -and it's not the obvious one either... Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro in his best performance) is in "conversation" with another cabbie in an all night diner and he's just put two alka-seltzer in a glass of water. The camera moves into an extreme close up on the seltzer as they bubble and froth in the glass. This is a mirror to Travis's own breed of madness and alienation.

This is a brilliant film and certainly one of a kind - Taxi Driver summed up a whole generation and firmly entrenched itself into popular culture with the immortal lines "you talkin' to me?"

The dialogue is sparse and direct, especially in the case of De Niro who has to be able to convey Travis's growing estrangement without making it seem too overt, and Scorcese's direction is inspired. There are several scenes where the camera moves in unexpected ways constantly keeping the viewer off guard, making it impossible to figure out what's going to happen next.
The conclusion of the film is shocking and unavoidable -there have been forebodings throughout the entire film, as if Travis Bickle becomes the city's voice box - amplifying the violence, fear and paranoid hatred until it has no choice but to explode.

The music, by complete contrast, is chilled and jazzy - courtesy of Bernad Herrman who died soon after completing the score- but also strangely disassociated as well and it acts as a perfect counterpoint to the story sometimes accentuating the mood whilst other times softening it ready for the next burst.

This is one of the most important films of the seventies - and although both De Niro and Scorcese would work together several times to me this is their best collaboration.

This is the benchmark for all detective thrillers should be based against. Razor sharp script & plot; honed and polished acting with exemplary performances by Jack Nicholson; Faye Dunaway and John Huston. This film keeps you guessing with its many winding turns - the final twist of the knife is devastating and the last line of dialog just hangs in the air: "Forget it, Jake - it's Chinatown." This film was made during the Sharon Tate / Charles Manson massacre and there is a feeling of creeping darkness and despair perpetuating the narrative. It's about the corruption of innocence where the truth is just another murky grey area and the final truth is often too much to bare.

There is a feeling of detachment as well, as if the audience are just observers in the drama, just like the private eye Jake Gittes so we are actually implicated in the murder and intrigue and, at the end, are just as helpless to make things right as Gittes.

This is a fascinating film, one of the few thrillers that can be called brilliant and is certainly one of the films you need to see before you die!

This was the first foreign language film I remember watching and I was held spellbound by it. It's so subtle and the sense of menace and atmosphere is palpable. Watching it again recently I loved the almost Hitchcockian attention to the mood, but where Hitchcock focused on the more technical aspects of directing Chabrol, to me, focuses on the human psychology. This was what enthralled me as a teenager.

In a bulk standard Hollywood murder film there would have the suspense of the chase; the murder and intrigue, but when the thrill of the chase is over so is the film... When Le Boucher ends the viewer is left with a lot of questions with some uneasy answers and s/he has to provide his / her own interpretation on what has just happened. I never realised films could do that - most films I'd seen had big concepts and only one resolution. This films looks at how the murders affect the town itself, and in particular the local teacher, is far more subtle and, therefore, rewarding when the story is resolved (and boy, is it resolved!).

This is a hauntingly brilliant film, one that certainly deserves to be re-watched!

*WARNING _ CONTAINS SPOILERS*
When this first came out on the cinema people were begged not to disclose the ending. It was supposed to be this great secret and would spoil the film if you knew it. I resisted the urge to see the film when it first came out - I wanted the hype to die down before I watched it and I then asked a friend to tell me the ending. Why? I wanted to be able to view this film completely independent from the build-up and publicity that surrounded it. The film should be able to stand on its own merits, I reasoned, whatever the ending was. I also wanted to know the great secret that had so captivated everyone.

Imagine my disappointment then: It was the oldest trick in the book... The main character was dead and didn't know it. (Jacob's Ladder had travelled this route nine years before with more aplomb) Apparently the director, M. Night Shyamalan, had left clues that would hint at this (I won't go to all the trouble to explain what these are just yet.. ); so on the second viewing you would pick up on these and enjoy the film even more...

So armed with this knowledge I watched the 6th Sense and was... disappointed, but not for the reasons you think. To me, the whole film was leading the viewer into a blind alley in the most obvious ways possible. Shyamalan seemed to delight in leaving these little clues that were so obvious that they overshadowed the narrative. To me, he was so busy saying "look how clever I am" that he forgot that his main aim was to tell the story.
Which is a shame, because the story is superb! Cole (Haley Joel Osment) sees dead people and is often attacked by them. He is then treated by Dr. Malcolm Crowe (a wonderfully understated performance by Bruce Willis), a child psychologist who manages to convince Cole that the reason the ghosts are becoming violent is that they are not being listened to. If Cole were to listen to them, and help them maybe they would then leave him alone.

The interplay between Osment and Willis is truly touching and special. Osment's acting -as in AI- is tender and emotive, and one can not help but feel caught up in his plight. But it is Willis that is the real surprise here. For those that are used to him being the ballsy, anti-authoritarian all-action hero get ready for a shock. In this he is underplaying his role, his tone muted, empathy present in every gesture and nuance - this film showed me that he could well and truly act.
So with such a great story, and such wonderful acting why was I so disappointed in this film?

For me the dénouement overshadowed the subtleties of the script and the acting. If the film had been more subtle and simply told the story of the two characters without involving the sub-plot of the wife; the cold breath and the basement door handle I feel the ending would have had more of a shock. I've not got a problem with Dr Crowe being dead, just the way it was handled - it was directing by numbers.

Let me give another example: The Crying Game. This was a film in the ‘90's that had another "please don't spoil the surprise" tagline. The big surprise was that the female lead was in fact.. a man!!! Doesn't mean a lot now, but in the context of the film this came as such a shock because, up until that point, we, the audience, had viewed the film as an off-beat romance. (It was about to get very off-beat.) However, if we had been paying more attention the clues were there. But they were incredibly subtle (or were they?). Jody (played by Forest Whitaker) was blatant when he described his "girlfriend" Dil as not being Fergus' (played by Stephen Rea) type. When Fergus finally meets Dil in the bar they are surrounded by transsexuals; lesbians and gays... but we are too involved in the story to notice. We don't take the hints even though they are there...

In the Sixth Sense the clues are in your face - the visible breath; the different colour door knob, the fact that no one but Osment talks to Willis. And this seems to be Shyamalan's stock in trade - the pay-off. All his films have followed this very formulaic treatment. It's as if he is a one-trick pony.

And this, to me, is a shame. Shyamalan is able to direct actors - Bruce Willis; Osment; Samuel L. Jackson (in Unbreakable); Mel Gibson (Signs); and William Hurt (The Village) have all given great performances -all subtle; underplayed and spot on - and this is a true gift. Some directors like Ridley Scott and Michael Mann are technical directors but Shyamalan can give the characters real credence.

I'd love to see this film remade, in the old-fashioned way, where content matters more than style. I think the end result would be far more interesting and resonate with people at a deeper level - because, at the end of the day, this is an uplifting film and very spiritual because it's about realising that there is life after death, and that there is more to life than what we think. This film could have worked on so many levels that it's a crime, to me, it was hampered by this superficial pre-occupation with the "gotcha".

But in saying that, The 6th Sense does deliver its fair share of shocks; the building up of suspense prior to the hauntings is deftly handled and it shows the true depth of Bruce Willis's acting ability, and together with "The 5th Element" and "Pulp Fiction" highlights just how gifted he is.

This is a story about a frog and a scorpion and of learning to be true to your nature.

The first half of this film is a political thriller: A British soldier, Jody (Forrest Whitaker), is taken hostage by the IRA only to be befriended by one of his captors, Fergus (Stephen Rea). On the eve of his execution Fergus promises Jody that he will travel to England and look up his girlfriend and pass on his dying words. It is then that the British army raids the camp and Fergus escapes to England where he makes good on his promise to Jody -who ironically dies in the raid.

It is there that the film changes tack completely and becomes a, slightly screwball, skewed romance- of sorts - as Fergus falls for Dil (Jaye Davidson) the very woman he was supposed to deliver Jody's final words to. And this is where the lines become blurred - the lines that separate gender; politics and identity.

It's impossible to review this film without giving away the surprise twist so I apologise now.

In the first twenty minutes of the film Jody tells Fergus the story of the frog and the scorpion to illustrate how people behave according to their nature. At the time Fergus doesn't understand the story as he has no idea who he really is and what he stands for. At the time he's a volunteer for the IRA but I get the feeling that his heart isn't really in it - he's not as cold hearted as the rest of the volunteers and even befriends Jody despite the knowledge that they will have to execute him the next day. It is this vulnerability - for not knowing who you really are makes you extremely vulnerable - that Jody exploits as he gets Fergus to promise to deliver his dying words to Dil - when Fergus comments on Dil's attractiveness Jody warns him to leave off; she's not Fergus' type (never were truer words spoken... ) And Fergus is easily manipulated, with no real understanding of why he's upholding his promise; except that he's a man of his word. He's like a leaf in the wind; aimless - and when he escapes to England he works on a building site, trying to build the courage up to confront Dil. When they finally meet it's as if the spirit of Jody is watching over the two of them -there are pictures of him at Dil's place and she even comments that Fergus reminds her of him. Fergus finds himself attracted to Dil's enigmatic personality but is shocked when he realises that Dil is in fact a man -hence Jody's comment "She's not your type.". In many Hollywood films the story would either have descended into farce or slipped into "Fatal Attraction" territory. Not so in Neil Jordan's film, for in many ways The Crying Game now becomes more akin to the Fred Astaire screwball comedies where double entendre's and double-speak run rife. It's the repartee between Dil and Fergus that supply this spark: Dil has fallen for Fergus completely but he is unsure exactly which way his land lies. His whole world has been rocked - he still has obvious feelings for her but does not know how to reconcile them.

It is then that his past catches up with him: two of his former IRA companions (who also survived the raid) arrive in London and accuse him of betraying them. The only way that Fergus can prove his innocence is to assassinate a government minister -thereby signing his own death-warrant.

The Crying Game is about making choices and discovering your true identity. Three of the main characters - Fergus; Dil and Jude (an astonishing Miranda Richardson) - all undergo identity changes but their core nature stays the same. In some cases this core nature is obvious: Dil wears her heart on her sleeve and, even though she is made to look like the man she really is later on, by her very nature she is feminine. Jude, on the other hand, starts the film as the "bait" -she uses her feminine whiles to entice Jody, which leads to him being taken hostage, but by the end of the film she has become something far more masculine and sinister by way of ‘90's power dressing. (for all those people who remember Richardson from her Blackadder II days, be prepared for a major shock!) They say clothes make the man, and Jude is shown for being cold and ruthless.
Fergus becomes Paddy when he's in England but seems helpless whenever he's confronted by strong personalities. - he is dominated by Jude (both at the start and end of the film); manipulated by Jody and finally entranced by Dil. It's not until the end of the film that he discovers his true nature, and understands what he will sacrifice himself for - this is beautifully illustrated when he tells Dil the tale of the frog and the scorpion when he's in jail; the story has come full circle and Fergus now realises who he is and what's more he knows that Dil will be there when he is released.

This is a very enjoyable film and once you can look beyond the shock twist and the surrounding hype it's actually a very tender love story.

I have to talk about this "shocking" twist... there are clues to Dil's real "identity": she's a hairdresser in a very "camp" salon, frequents an obvious "gay" bar and the relationship she has with Dave is ambiguous, to say the least, but we are so focused on the developing relationship between Dil and Fergus that we don't see these clues, even though they are obvious. (Watch the film and you'll laugh at how you managed to miss all the blatant hints and nudges) This is partly down to Neil Jordan's assured direction, but also down to the tightness of the script. Left in the hands of lesser writer / directors this film would easily have fallen prey to cliché's and "Carry On.." territory. Thankfully it doesn't, and actually ranks in my list of favourite films of 1992.