reviews
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In The Company Of Men
(18) 93 mins 1% * t t Misogyny in the workplace and the
dog-eat-dog culture of corporate America are laid bare as two buddies assigned to a branch office of their firm deCide to date the same deaf typist only to deliberately dump her when she falls in love With one of them. The emotional callousness on show is indeed shocking, but not laddish or gratUitous. This is a serious mowe that ultimately says plenty about male inseCUrity. (Alliance) (AM)
Uri Air De Famille
(15) 109 mins t t at
The director of the delightful When The Cat’s Away again Wittin dissects the foibles of a group of people, this time a single family gathered together to celebrate a birthday. The film's stage roots show through — essentially it’s set in one location on a single evening — but the cast relish the cruel edge to the comedy, as the outspoken comments bUild to a bitchy crescendo. (Tartan, also retail £15.99) (AM)
Kiss The Girls (18)111mins * it t
Morgan Freeman finds himself back in serial killer territory here, but the re5ult is neither as desperately dark nor as heart-stoppineg thrilling as Seven. He does, however, bring a bit of human depth to the over-familiar scenario so typical of mainstream Hollywood. When his neice goes missmg from college, Freeman becomes conVinced she’s been abducted by a 'collector’ with a store of bodies. By the end, it’s way too contrived. (CIC) (AM)
Liar (18) 107 mins 1k * Arrogant rich boy Tim Roth is strapped
to a lie detector machine by cops Michael Rooker and Chris Penn,
French farce: Jeremy Irons and Gerard Depardieu might as well get ready for panto after their embarrassing turns in The Man In The Iron Mask (MGM, 12, 135 mins, t). Available to rent from Mon 28 Sep.
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suspected of the murder of a prostitute. Truth remains eluswe, however, as the pychological power struggle between all three shifts constantly. Filmmaking twrns Joshua and Jonas Pate try their hardest to keep the audience guessmg, but the tone is unremittineg misogynistic and the structure annOyingly over-stylised. Top acting, though. (First Independent) (AM)
A Nightmare On Elm
Street (18 88/82/93 mins
Fre dy Krueger is back to stalk your dreams in digitally remastered form as the first three instalments in the series are re-released for rental and retail. The original A Nightmare On E/m Street (at it t t) is a gory delight, scaring you silly with brilliantly staged shock scenes; the sequel, Freddy’s Revenge (i * ), treads the same creaky floorboards and exists only to provide Jump-inducing set pieces; but the pace picks up again with Dream Warriors (t it *). A burnt-faced, razor-gloved modern horror icon has been added to the list of greats. (Entertainment £14.99 each/£24.99 box set) (AM)
RETAIL A Life Less Ordinary
(15) 99 mins him it
The third film by Boyle-McDonald-
reviews VIDEOS
; TwentyFourSeven : (15) 92 mins stand:
Twenty-four hours a day, seven
Boxer; but while that film used its
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days a week: life, if you're young and restless on a Nottingham council estate, can grind you down until every road leads to a dead- end. Alternatively, you can take that time and make the best of what you've got. That's the philosophy of Darcy (Bob Hoskins), a well-meaning, middle-aged man who's tired of seeing local lads waste their lives. Better, he reckons, to channel their pent-up aggression into boxing, so he establishes a club that might also provide the boys with the means to win back some self-respect - if only the community at large would give them proper support.
TwentyFourSeven’s general premise isn't far away from that of the Daniel Day Lewis film, The
story to push a political agenda about contemporary Northern Ireland, TwentyFourSeven avoids stepping onto a soapbox. That's perhaps surprising, as the most obvious stylistic references are Mike Leigh and Ken Loach. Young director Shane Meadows has his own style, however - he allows each character to grow, scene by scene, into an engagineg
realistic individual; and each scene to build, block by block, into a narrative
whole that’s simultaneously sharp, funny and touching. (Alan Morrison) I TwentyFourSeven is released by Fox Pathé on Mon 28 Sep.
. Face/Off
(18) 133 mins *ttkir
bouncy, indie-influenced soundtrack also adds to the summery feel. (Entertainment £12.99) (AM)
Take two mortal enemies: a government agent With a happy family life and a psychotic terrorist. Add prototype plastic Surgery that allows the good guy to become the bad guy in order to gain vrtal information. TWist it so the bad guy then assumes the good guy’s image and insmuates himself into his opponent’s life. What you’ve got is an admittedly far-fetched tale that merges scrence fiction, horror and non- stop action from the hands of master director John Woo. Nicolas Cage and John Travolta have a ball in their dual parts; suspend your disbelief, and you will too. (Buena Vista £14.99) (AM)
Hard Eight
(18) mins at x t t
A mysterious, middle-aged gambler (Philip Baker Hall) takes a luckless drifter (John C. Reilly) to the Reno casinos and teaches him how to wrn big. Murder, blackmail and prostitution inevitably follow in Paul Thomas Anderson’s gritty debut. Boogie Nights was Goodfe/las With a hard-on; this gritty gambling movie is more of a hard-up Casino. (Entertainment £12.99) (PR)
Shooting Fish
(12) 100 mins Ari”): *
One of the smartest British comedies of last year brings together two contrasting con men and a beautiful female aSSistant who then set about fleecing the complacent rich to line their own pockets. Fast-paced, with an easy-gomg humour, the film benefits from SOme well-worked comic set pieces, neat double-crosses and a touch of ineVitable romance. The
Hodge could never have lived up to the expectations created by Trainspotting, but it’s infinitely more imaginative than anything Hollywood could come up with. Ewan McGregor plays a janitor who takes out his anger at being sacked by kidnapping his boss's daughter (Cameron Diaz). The leads make passable romantic heroes as love on the run becomes the name of the game, but the scenes With angels/bounty hunters Holly Hunter and Delroy Lindo are badly misjudged. (PolyGram £14.99) (AM)
Regeneration
(15) 109 mins it * tar
Early on in Gillies Mackinnon’s verSion of the Fat Barker novel, the camera pans across the llVlflg, dead and dying in the grey mud trenches of WWI. The sombre tone lasts throughout, more Last Post than strident anti-war indignation. Here the price of war is shown as psychological: at Edinburgh’s Craiglockhart Hospital, traumatised men are treated by kindly doctor Jonathan Pryce. The acting is excellent across the board, but some of the themes don't emerge as confidently as they do in the book. (Artificial Eye £15.99) (AM)
South Park
(15) 150 mins 1: hi *
Watching two and half hours of America’s most scatalogical 'toon at one sitting is like givmg y0urself a frontal lobotomy with a pooper scooper. Here are the salient plot events of this box set: a fat kid has aliens in his ass, Patrick Duffy forms the leg of a mythological beast, the fat kid gets fatter, a gay dog finds acceptance, the new kid at school IS the Anti- Christ. This is The Wonder Years meets Driller Ki/ler. (Warner £10.99 each two episode tape/£34.99 box set) (PR)
REVIEWERS THIS ISSUE: Alan Morrison, Peter Ross
STAR RATINGS
t *tt* Unmissable
v: t t it Very ood
* i ii Wort a shot
t 11' Below average
it You’ve been warned
24 Sep—8 Oct 1998 THE lIST 88