FILM REVIEW
BACARDI BLACK
It’s all for one and one for all, as The List reviews the films opening in Scotland over the next fortnight.
I Bodies, Rest a Motion (15) Beth (Bridget Fonda) and Nick (Tim Roth) decide to move from small-town Arizona. leaving behind only Carol (Phoebe Cafes). Beth's best friend and Nick's former lover. But the unpredictable Nick heads off on his own. Meanwhile. Beth has met Sid (Eric Stolz). the painter whose job it is to decorate her house for the new tenents. but who is distracted by his instantaneous love for Beth. Pretty soon. their bodies are in motion with little time for rest. Director Michael
Steinberg makes the most of Roger Hedden‘s script — a perfectly witty account of twentysomething restlessness - but gives too much loose rein to the quartet of young actors. who seem to be treating this more as a drama workshop indulgence than a movie. Shallower than sex, lies & videotape. but unreeling its concerns in the same dimension. See preview.
! I In The flame Of The
. Father(15) In 1974, two i bombs in pubs on the
. English mainland went
3 off. killing seven people. 2 ln I975. Gerry Conlon
and three others were
found guilty of the
murders, while Conlon’s aunt. father and relatives
were also imprisoned for making explosives.
Fourteen years later.
Conlon was freed and a
.' disturbing miscarriage of
justice was discovered. These are facts. Jim Sheridan's film dramatises
these facts. Other details
are shifted and altered. with the effect that dramatic impact is heightened at the expense of a straight-down-the- line rendition of truth. Such an approach may aggravate certain viewers. but there is no doubt that.
i taken as a film in its own 1 right. In The Name Olete
Father is a searing piece of filmmaking. powered
. towards a victorious
climax by impeccable acting and an unflinching sense of its own integrity. See preview.
I A Bronx Tale (15) According to its writer and co-star Chazz Palminteri, A Bronx Tale began with a real-life childhood incident when one man shot another over a parking space as the boy watched from his Little Italy doorstep. This shocking incident is the foundation stone of the movie. as nine-year-old Calogero (Francis Capra) witnesses local hood Sonny (Palminteri) ice the irate motorist but refuses to point him out to the police. ‘You did a good thing for a bad man.‘ says his bus-driver father Lorenzo (De Niro) - and so begins the moral dilemma that will follow Calogero into adolescence. He is lured to the material gains of the gangster's world by mentor Sonny, but his hard-working father is
saying. the man with the gun or the man who has to struggle everyday to put food on the table for his family?
De Niro’s directorial debut is steeped in the atmosphere of period and place. it’s a subtle morality tale. where the good and bad angels are not overdone and well- thumbed coming-of-age themesjust spin out naturally. As long. fluid camera movements pull us along the streets to the accompaniment of 60s doo-wop and soul. we can't help thinking that the influence of Martin Scorsese is hiding ‘ust round the comer. is undoubtedly De Niro's own, the violence more grittin immediate. the brutal codes of honour
‘ _ THE AGE OF INNDCENCE Scorsese’s latest movie positively invites divided opinion. Ills lavishly detailed screen re-creation of Edith Wharton’s novel about 1870s flew York high society dares the viewer to knee- ierk conclusions that its maker should stick to today’s streetwise brutality, and that Viscontl did tortured costumery so much better. To rush to judgment in such an obvious way, however, would be tantamount to going in with your eyes closed: visually opulent, emotionally dessicated, The Age Of Innocence is Scorsese’s most darineg conceived
The King Of Comedy.
lip and coming lawyer llewland Archer (Daniel Day-lewis, extraordinary as usual) is engaged to prissy May Welland (Winona Ryder), yet within him there still lurks a soul that longs for the freedoms denied to all by the social conventions of the time. The arrival in town of scandal- shrouded Countess Dlenska (Michelle Pfeiffer, a revelation) throws these two kindred spirits into a collusion that beckons romance. But where T codes of behaviour are as strict as a they are here, the risk of defying the done thing may be a life destroyed.
At first, the sheer superabundance of visual detail seems gimmicky or overstated, yet the longer the movie goes on, the more apparent becomes Scorsese’s intention: a society’s ritualised and rigorous codes for talking, eating, partying, visiting each
other, and so on, are the prime 9 indication of the extent to which it
and artfully achieved film since 1984’s :
t:- r...‘ .‘t. also strait-jackets human desires. In this case, the passions aren’t allowed ; to rage; they implode, causing the I narrative’s anguished characters : enormous intemalised pain. There is . , no release from this torture for its participants or indeed the audience, 1' which may not altogether endear it to those who revelled in the romantic i - pleasures of The Piano, but Scorsese manages magnificently to be faithful to his source while painting its troubled emotions with an eloquent camera. America’s greatest working filmmaker he remains. (Trevor Johnston) The Age Of Innocence (ll) (Martin _ Scorsese, US, 1993) Daniel Day-lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder, Richard E. Grant, Mirian Margoles, Alec McCowen, Sian Phillips. From Fri 18. Glasgow: Ddeon. Edinburgh: Ddeon, UCl. Strathclyde: DCI Clydebank.
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‘Scorsese manages magnificently to be faithful to his source while painting its troubled emotions with an eloquent camera’
l _ ; THE THREE musxsresns
' Take the Robin Hood: Prince or
! Thieves approach to historical
f adventure, add the youthful glamour of
i the Young Guns crew, and the result is
g an undemanding but undoubtedly
' entertaining piece of cinema fluff that bears a passing resemblance to a
. certain novel by Alexandre Dumas. The
; latest in a long line of Three
. Musketeer adaptations, this rollicking
Disney affair uses 17th century France
: as a colourful backdrop for a series of
. action set-pieces played out by an
_ equally colourful collection of
caricatures. But in-depth character analysis and period accuracy aren’t
the goal of this swashbuckling crowd-
ipleaser: here, the sword is definitely
; mightier than the pen.
Young D’Artagnan (D’Donnell) aims to follow in his father’s footsteps and join the elite band of musketeers - the king’s personal bodyguard - but
m. style arrives in Paris just after the devious
Cardinal Richelieu (Tim Curry) has disbanded the troupe as the next .stage in his plan to seize power. Various comic scrapes bring him into
balanced with a little more contact Wm. Amos, Pom“); and
heart. The evidence is all up on screen that this
Aramis (Sutherland, Platt and Sheen),
((‘Cttfc’cxg‘ll
plans, save the monarchy, snog the wenches, drink their fill, and do those other things that are all in a day’s work for a 17th century hero. Straightforward common- denominator fare this may be, but it never pretends to be anything else. Its modernised jokes and cartoonish sense of honour have a certain unpretentious charm that makes it a
' clear contender for a 903 matinee
favourite. A value-for-money recommendation. (Alan Morrison) The Three Musketeers (PG) (Stephen Herek, US, 1993) Chris D’Donnell,
‘an undemanding but undoubtedly entertaining piece of cinema fluff that bears a passing resemblance to a certain novel by Alexandre Dumas’
i i l l l l :
a trio of musketeers who refuse to reat actor has another gm" of men, just waiting Isurrender their swords. Together the to be tapped, (AM) [foursome set out to foil Richelieu’s
i Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, ' Dliver Platt. 106 mins. From Fri 11. l General release.
.s‘prms'nred by BACARDI BLACK
always on hand with more spiritual advice. Who's tougher. Lorenzo keeps
16 The List l l—24 February 1994