VIDEOS
reviews
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RENTAL Face/Off
(18) 133 mins arm: is
FBI agent John Travolta‘s personal vendetta against terrorist Nicolas Cage takes a unique IWist when radical plastic surgery allows each to 'become’ the other. Both actors Obvrously have fun trading roles (and personal quirks), but there's more to this John Woo actioner than an intriguing concept and Jaw-dropping stunts, SCIence fiction, mistaken identity comedy and Frankenstein horror all merge as two adversaries literally become their own worst enemies. (Buena Vista) (AM)
Nil By Mouth
(18) 123 mins Mrs it is
Gary Oldman’s searing, no-holds- barred debut as director is a revelation. In this astonishingly personal take on alcoholism and domestic Violence in South London, Ray Winstone delivers a heavyweight performance as a man caught in a self-aggrandising macho world where thuggish values are passed on father-to-son. Comparisons to Leigh and Loach give the context, but Oldman proves less sentimental than the former and eshews the political stance of the latter, opting instead for his own raw honesty See competition below (Fox Pathe) (AM)
The Peacemaker
(15) 120 mins x it
A fuse must have blown somewhere on set, because there’s absolutely no electricity between George Clooney and Nicole Kidman in this action thriller. Clooney is a t0ugh, tight-mouthed SpeCiaI Forces intelligence officer, Kidman is an obligatorin beautiful nuclear soentist. Together they dart around the world, tracking down a Bosnian armed With a live warhead. The film shows no real conscience aboiit using Bosnia's sufferings as the basis for a slab of pulp entertainment (00 (AM)
The Winter Guest
(15) mins is e rs- is
The manner in which Alan Ricikman’s directorial debut shifts its focus from
one pair of characters to the next betrays The Winter Guest’s origin as a stage play Nevertheless, the indiVidual stories and Wider themes of loss and emotional dependency become absorbing. It's a beautifully realised work, with an my metaphor that runs through the characters' inner lives and the impreSSIVe Snowy landscapes of Fife. Phyllida Law — starring here With her daughter, Emma Thompson -- proves to be Scottish film's hidden trea5ure. (Film F0ur) (AM)
RETAIL
Dog Day Afternoon (15) 120 mins ii-
In 1975, already a maior international star, Al Pacino played a homosexual who stages a disastrous bank raid to finance his lover's sex-change From this unlikely premise, Sidney Lumet created a masterpiece Dog Day Afternoon is terrifically tense, shot through With great humour, tenderness and sensitivity The post- Watergate and Vietnam context give an IHJCCIIOH of counter-culture cool This is the first time the film has been available in the Widescreen format (Warner Maverick Directors £12 99) (PR)
Thieves Like Us
(15) 123 mins
Robert Altman's 1973 version of the Edward Anderson novel about heisters With hearts sees Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall finding love in the Depression. She accepts his part in the crimewave in times of desperation, but a bungled and bloody raid changes everything. Often funny, sometimes movmg, this has a naive charm which makes it a preCursor to the likes of Pa/ookavi/le and / Went Down (Warner Maverick Directors £12 99) (BD)
X-Files: Patient X
(12) 87 mins a
In Kha/akstan, a group yearning to be alien abductees are found burned to death. The same happens in America, and there's eVidence that the US Government could be involved With
reviews VIDEOS
RENTAL Regeneration (15) 109 mins ‘* at 1k *
Gillies Mackinnon follows Small Faces with a very different take on male interaction. During WW1, the poet Siegfried Sassoon (James Wilby) is sent to Craiglockhart Hospital in Edinburgh, placed among victims of shellshock because of a letter he wrote condemning the war. There he meets the estimable Dr William Rivers (Jonathan Pryce) and psychiatric patients, including shy fellow poet Wilfred Owen (Stewart Bunce) and Billy Prior (Jonny Lee Miller), a young officer rendered mute by his trench experiences. Through them we see the price of war on the minds, rather than the bodies, of a generation.
Pat Barker's source novel (and its sequels, The Eye In The Door and The Ghost Road) concentrate principally on Prior. The class division felt by Prior in the
Battle of minds: Jonathan Pryce in Regeneration
book - he's from a bluff North of England working-class background and feels
dislocated as an officer - is only slightly touched on in the film. Miller, however, fills the character with anger and frustration, as spitefully passionate about his war pains as Sassoon and Owen are literate.
The mood is appropriately sombre throughout, the battlefield scenes muddily realistic and emotionally numbing - yet strangely beautiful too. But it‘s Pryce‘s portrait of Rivers, a dedicated doctor whose own well-being has been eroded by empathy for his charges - who emerges as the most noble, quietly dignified hero. (Alan Morrison)
a Available to rent (Fox Pathe) from Mon 25 May
Stepping Razor
(18) 97 mins w ‘1? air is
Ten years after the event, the slaying of reggae legend Peter Tosh remains a deep mystery. Told through interViews With his mum, mates and TTTUSICOlOngiS, dramatic reconstruction and live footage of the man who taught Bob Marley everything he knew, Stepping Razor is a tremendous portrayal of a forgotten icon Tosh fought to express his beliefs — anti-apartheid, pro-pot. This film insists, less than conclusively, that he died for them also IVCI/ Feature Film Co £12.99) (80)
extra-terrestrial races The now sceptical Mulder and a more believi'ig Scully investigate as the X-Fi/es series begins to lean towards a continuing story rather than self-contained episodes Here a few horror-filled moments bring thrills to a generally slow-paced section of plot development (Twentieth Century Fox £14 99) (AM)
The Harvest (13) 100 mins e sir
Any movie With a tagline like 'She stole his heart, they stole his kidney' has got to be worth your attention Sadly, Dav:d Marcoi‘i's i‘.l(’XlCc3fl noir tliriller about Central Amer-cans illicit organ
REVIEWERS THIS ISSUE: Brian Donaldson, Alan Morrison, Peter
trade fails to live up to it blurb iv’lli’fllt‘l Ross
Ferret is okay as the disillusioned \‘J’lIUT
who loses his innards, but his cousin STAR RATlNGS ,
George Clooney's 30 second cameo as * * * * * Umm'ssable ; ’ t\‘)"l "Ht / Bs' (
a t.anny tcotr .rtigc,i c, to (ancia g *1 W0rt a Shot
Carlisle is a highligltt only by default a a Beiow average
'VCl/Eeattire F'lrn Co {12 99) {PR‘ * YOU'Ve bee” warned
Real life drama: Gary Oldman directs Ray Winstone on the set of Nil 8y Mouth
Win Nil By Mouth signed books and videos
Winner of t"e Best 8'.Z'sl‘ 7 i' i a at EEes'. Cr BAFTAs, Lia"; C‘:i"ia"'s ‘. 7
tic-bins t' e sips
cizi‘al Sc ree"::‘av awards at t'i's year's Motif.” is (‘1‘.(" of the r"ost startLin'; d~'ec to?) Oldma" trained t"it:;i:il‘ i'ieincxres pf "s South Loiizler‘.chiidlieod .‘c1rtl‘s t\\"‘:i"“’3fi<‘:’r 17<3F)'lli<i'<ltdf‘1<‘i "te wonderful Kathy Burke 'an csz v. I" the Loxeted Best in t'ess Award at the T997 Cannes Film Festival, v.hzle Ray Winstone gives the iic='f:>rrri('tric'c? of his life
Nil 8); Mouth :s now available to rent, but we have two copies of the Video to give away ic neck out the review aboveI courtesy of Fox Pathe Home Entertai'iriierit, as weii as two limited edition photo books by Jack English, documenting the shooting period 'he books are not available to buy ('ift‘y"i'.'l‘-'f‘i'(), and ."ave been oersoriai‘v signed by Gary Cldr':an Ail you have to do ,s a"si.'.iei this question.
tr‘v’hic'h famous Dunk roc ker did Gary Oldman ‘i;.'a‘.' r a” Aiex Cox more) Ansvie's e". a postcard l‘y Thursday 28 May, walked
OLDMAN COMP, The List, 14 High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1TE.
I4 )8 May 1998 THE LIST 107