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The Untouchables (15) (Brian De Palma, US, 1987) Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Robert De Niro. 110% mins. After recent disappointments Brian De Palma finally delivers the goods with a truly outstanding film of the type he has always seemed capable of making but never yet produced. From the arresting opening titles and insistent Ennio Morricone score the promise is of something memorable and it is a promise that the ensuing two hours admirably fulfils.
Set during Prohibition when every sherry-swilling granny was technically a criminal and bootlegging was a two billion doilars-a-year industry, The Untouchables is a blood-drenched morality tale on a grand Shakespearean scale. Eliot Ness is the young, Federal Treasury agent entrusted with the task of ridding Chicago of crime kingpin Al Capone. The two men could not have been more starkly contrasted; Ness is a quiet, anonymous, homeloving figure of incorruptible integrity determined to uphold the law of the land, Capone a flashy, llamboyantly volatile hood with half Chicago on his payroll.
Ness soon discovers that he is not only fighting Capone's machine but a city that has sold-out from the corner precinct to City Hall. Then he meets Jim Malone, an ageing, down-at-heel Irish cop who becomes his mentor; part Jiminy Cricket, part Obi Wan Kenobi,
Germany/France/Italy, 1986) Sean Connery. F. Murray Abraham: 131 mins. Marvellous medieval mystery with the masterful Connery on the trail ofa monastery murder. Glasgow; GF'I‘. Strathclyde; Odeon Hamilton
0 New York New York (PG) (Martin Scorsese. US. 1977) Robert De Niro, Liza Minnelli. 163 mins. Scorsese revisits the golden age of the studio musical with this elaborate personal drama. The seductive surface is redolent ofA Star Is Born era, but underneath the Big Band nostalgia there lurks a characteristically bitter struggle. Edinburgh; Filmhouse
o Nobody’s Fool (15) (Evelyn, Purcell. US, 1986) Rosanne Arquettc. Eric Roberts, Mare Winningham. 105 mins. The fictional small town of Buckeye Basin is the setting for this offbeat romantic drama. Arquette is a cocktail waitress who has become a social outcast among the local community ever since she attacked her boyfriend with a fork in a Chinese restaurant. Anyway, along comes a touring company of thespians with a production of The Tempest and Arquette tumbles for the eccentric charms of stagehand and lighting manager Eric Roberts. Folksy Americana with some good performers. Edinburgh; Filmhouse o On the Waterfront (PG) (Elia Kazan. US. 1954) Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint. Rod Steiger. 108 mins. Winner ofeight Academy Awards this is a powerhouse drama of corruption among the labour unions of New York‘s docklands
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he offers advice and sage teachings, eagerly grasping a last chance to combat the malignancy that has soured his years as a good cop. ‘If he pulls a knife, you pull a gun. If he puts one of yours in hospital, you put one of his in the morgue. That's the Chicago way. That’s how you get Capone.’
Recruiting an elite force Ress takes the advice to heart and embarks on a crusade that results in bloodshed, violence and ultimate victory but at a colossal price including the loss of his own baby-faced innocence. At the film’s conclusion he reckons: ‘I have become what I beheld and I am content that I have done right.‘ The end, it appears, justifies the means.
with a brilliant, brutish Brando as the dim-witted, ex-boxer mercilessly exploited by the racketeers and eventually moved towards an act of atonement by the power of love.
Edinburgh; Filmhouse 0 One From The Heart (15) (Francis
Coppola, US, 1982) Frederic Forrest, Teri Garr, Raul Julia. 101mins. Lovely to look at, less delightful to watch, Coppola’s kaleidoscopic Valentine‘s Day in Las Vegas is a bloated, unwieldy beast in which the mechanics overwhelm the heart whilst miscasting and unsympathetic characters do not help the cause. An interesting misfire. Edinburgh; Cameo 0 One Man’s War(15) (Edgardo Cozarinsky, France-West Germany, 1981) 106 mins. Fascinating documentary-montage covering the occupation of France during the Second World War that effectively belies newsreel footage and home movies. Edinburgh; Filmhouse o Outrageous Fortune (15) (Arthur Hiller, US, 1987) Bette Midler, Shelley Long, Peter Coyote. 99 mins. Feuding, fussing thespians Long and Midler team up to exact revenge on the boyfriend that done them wrong only to discover that the jerk is a CIA turncoat holding the country to ransom with the stolen prototype of a deadly virus that could destroy all of California. Chased by the CIA, the KGB, the boyfriend, Indians etc, our intrepid gals ultimately wind up the best of chums.
Dumb, bland, horribly overplotted cartoon of a farce that even Midler lovers may find hard to endure.
UCHABLES m_ _
From De Palma’s executin of the set
pieces and versatile camerawork to the cracking David Mamet script, to the Giorgio Armani wardrobe, to the daunting array of perfectly judged performances, The Untouchables is a film with the look and feel of greatness in every myth-celebrating frame; intelligent, exciting, moving and moral. Not to be missed especially by lovers of Connery who is quite characteristically superb; wise, gruff, purposeful, investing his character with humour and relishing every line of Mamet's infinitely quotable dialogue. If he doesn't win the Oscarthere's no justice.
(Allan Hunter).
asgow;
Odeon. Strathclyde; Cannon Kilmarnock, La Scala, Odeon Ayr. Lothian; Cannon
0 Peggy Sue Got Married (15) (Francis Ford Coppola, US, 1986) Kathleen Turner, Nicolas Cage, Maureen O’Sullivan. 102 mins. Irresistible romantic drama as Turner collapses at her high school reunion to find herself back in 1959 with a chance to do it all over again - and maybe get her life right second time around. Edinburgh; Cameo
0 Police Academy IV: Citizens on Patrol (PG) (Jim Drake, US, 1987) Steve Guttenberg, Bubba Smith. George Gaynes. 87 mins. The boys in blue get involved with a neighbourhood watch scheme and strive vainly for laughs. Strathclyde; Rialto
o The Purple Rose of Cairo (PG) (Woody Allen, US, 1985) Mia Farrow, Jeff Daniels. 82 mins. Unhappy Depression-era waitress Mia Farrow escapes her woes at the local fleapit and falls in love with a dashing fictional leading man who steps down from the screen. A shining gem of ingenious wit and dazzling invention. Who else can create so much from a one- joke scenario? Edinburgh; Cameo
O Ran (15) (Akira Kurosawa,
J apan-France, 1985) Tatsuya Nakadai, Meiko Harada, Peter. 162 mins. Kurosawa‘s King Lear is a bleak and despairing vision of mankind rent asunder by division, disunity, personal vengeance and family feuds that produce no honour, no victors, just victims.
An accomplished fusion of
Japanese history and
blood-drenched Shakespearean drama the film grows more impressive with repeated viewings. Edinburgh; Cameo
0 Rear Window (PG) (Alfred Hitchcock. US. 1954) James Stewart. Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr. 112 mins. Confined to his Manhattan apartment with his leg in plaster. photojournalist Stewart takes an insatiable interest in the lives of his neighbours and slowly realises that the man opposite has murdered his wife. His conjecture is dismissed as the working of an over-active imagination until girlfriend Kelly risks her life to seek corroborating evidence.
A superbly crafted, tense thriller with a fecund subtext on voyeurism and eroticism. Unmissable. Edinburgh; Cameo 0 Return of the Jedi (U) (Richard Marquand. US. 1983) Harrison Ford. Mark Hamill. Carrie Fisher. 133 mins. Third in the Star Wars series is more clearly aimed at the juvenile market than the previous entries but there are still thrills and spills aplenty with Oscar-winning special effects as Luke and the gang combat a powerful Deathstar. A timely reminder ofthe talents ofthe recently departed Marquand. Edinburgh; Odeon 0 Rita, Sue and Bob Too (18) (Alan Clarke. UK. 1987) Michelle Holmes. Siobhan Finneran, George Costigan. 95 mins. Two likely teenage lasses ward off the boredom of life on a rundown Bradford with a spot ofwell-paid babysitting at affluent Bob anbd Michelle‘s snazzy semi. Eagerly responding to Bob's offer of backseat sex in his flash car, the two initiate a vigorous relationship with Bob‘s ‘frozen sausage‘ that eventually parts them from their families and splits Bob‘s marriage asunder.
Blunt. funny. vivid British comedy ofsexual manners and the class divide. Love it or hate it, you‘ll certainly be arguing about it for quite a while afterwards. Glasgow; Cannon Sauchiehall Street. Edinburgh; Cameo 0 Room With A View (PG) (James Ivory. UK, 1985) Helena Bonham Carter, Maggie Smith, Daniel Day Lewis. 117 mins. Elegantly mounted with an agreeable lightness oftone this is a near perfect screen version of the Forster novel with some dandy acting.
Glasgow; Grosvenor. Edinburgh; Dominion
0 Rumble Fish ( 18) (Francis Ford Coppola. US. 1983) Mickey Rourke, Matt Dillon. Dennis Hopper. 94 mins. Electrifying expressionist visuals grace an existentialist parable about the need to forge one‘s own identity and the alienation it can bring. Edinburgh; Filmhouse
o The Secret of My Success (PG) (Herbert Ross. US. 1987) Michael J. Fox, Helen Slater. Richard Jordan. 111 mins. Country bumpkin Fox comes to big city Noo Yawk to make his fortune. Capany performed yuppie high jinks. Glasgow; Cannon Clarkston Road
0 Sexuality Reclaimed (18) 85 mins. A programme of films highlighting
16The List 18 Sept— 1 Oct