RENTAL Thick As Thieves
(18) 91 mins * 1r 'k *
This smart, cool thriller hoids its own against the likes of Get Shorty, Jackie Brown and Out Of Sight. Not another Elmore Leonard adapation, Thick As Thieves nevertheless boasts a hugely entertaining blend of offbeat characterisation, slick action and clever plotting. When a heist goes wrong, Alec Baldwm's dog-adoring, jazz- lovmg, Vinyl-collecting profeSSional thief is caught in a crossfire between the Chicago mob, DetrOit hoods and the cops. It's a Crime this didn’t get a cinema release. (Alliance Atlantis) (MF)
The Haunting
(12) 113 mins t a: ir
A big scary house in the middle of nowhere With a dark and troubled past. A group of emotionally disturbed insomniacs. A doctor studying fear. All essential ingredients in Jan De Bont's remake of 1963 ClaSSIC The Haunting. Lili Taylor is conVincing as the obsessive central character, while Liam Neeson and Catherine Zeta-Jones go through the motions. It’s genuinely creepy for the first hour, but when the gargoyles come to life Vla computer generated Wizardry, the chill factor goes out the Window. (Universal )(LP)
With Or Without You (18) 86 mins * t *
Directed by Michael Winterbottom
( Welcome To Sarajevo, Wonder/and), Without Or Without You centres on happily married couple ROSIe (Dervla Kirwan) and Vincent (Christopher Eccleston). Desperate for a baby, they try Just about everything but to no avail. And to make matters worse, ROSie's former French penpal's reappearance only adds to their increasingly volatile marriage. Although billed as an adult comedy, the film focuses too heavin on the relationship in crisis, leaVing the laughs too few and far between. (FilmFour) (HM)
Big Daddy (12) 89 mins * *
DisapOintingly not a teutonic wrestler mowe, but one starring Adam Sandler, who, after the kitsch charm of The Wedding Singer and the abiect torture
that was The Water 80y, has gone all schmushy. This is a comic tale of a man who adopts a child to impress his girlfriend and, when she’s not impressed, has to keep him. The plot is paper thin and contains too many ’cute kid' scenes. Less funny than a half-nelson or a Big Daddy splash. (Columbia Tristar/f19.99 on DVD) (MR)
Instinct
(15) 123 mins t rr
You can Just imagine Hollywood’s pitch: ’We go inSide Hannibal Lecter’s head'. While not strictly a psychopathic Villain, Anthony Hopkins's primatologist does exert intelligence and ferooty in equal meaSures after he spends too long in Rwanda familiarising himself with apes. But something turns the Prof may and after committing savage acts of murder he's sent home and confined in a US prison, There, c0urt- appOinted psychologist Cuba Gooding Jr tries to unlock Lecter, er Hopkins's mind. Ernest performances + portentous script = dull film. (Touchstone) (MF)
RETAIL Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
(12) 93 mins hi if 1»
How can this seguel be funnier than the original spy spoof when it merely repeats the same handful of lame ,iokes over and over? Answer: because repetition makes a Virtue of them (Mike Myers’s inspiration is the Carry On films). Thus, groans of laughter are induced every time Powers’s nemesis, Dr EVil, sticks his pinkie in the corner of his mouth and looks questionineg into the camera. Sex bomb Heather Graham replaces Elizabeth Hurley and EVil gets a sidekick, Mini-Me, otherwise its shagging as usual. (Entertainment £15.99 fab full screen/£16.99 far out Widescreen)(lv1F)
Best Laid Plans
(15) 90 mins at k r: it
One dark night in Tropico (nowhereswlle USA), college grad Bryce (Josh Brolin) picks up drifte.r Lissa (Reese Witherspoon). One drink leads to another and he assaults her. Panicking, Bryce asks his friend Nick (Alessandro Nivola) for help, and Nick suggests they
With the Oscars about to be announced (Sun 26 Mar), why not rewind with the Best Picture collection? The dozen films, which include Ben Hur, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and The Deer Hunter (all pictured), scored a collective total of 72 Oscars. (Warner £12.99/£20 for 2; £15.99 on DVD)
114 THE lIST 16—30 '.’a' ZOOC
RENTAL/DVD
Analyse This
(15) 99 mins w. + int
Robert De Niro’s the greatest living American actor, right? Well yeah, but he’s the same in every film isn’t he? He's used that trademark hang dog grimace to consider how many guns to buy in Taxi Driver, whether or not to commit murder with a baseball bat in The Untouchables, how psychotic Joe Pesci really is in both Goodfellas and Casino, how much trouble Al Pacino is going to cause him in Heat and whether to fuck Bridget Fonda in Jackie Brown. That’s because, like all Method actors, for each role De Niro looks deep down inside himself. . . and
’Wha'? Wha’? Wha’? What? Eh? Wha’?': De Niro parodies his Method
finds the same thing. Charlton Heston said of De Niro, ’It’s ridiculous for an actor that good to keep playing hoods.’ Yet he does, and he’s great at it.
So, it makes perfect sense that De Niro should choose to send up his own goodfella persona in Analyse This. Using the same set up as The Sopranos, De Niro’s Mafia hood suffers a nervous breakdown under pressure of an impending mob war. So, he seeks counselling from shrink Billy Crystal, which is given with understandable reluctance. Cue the goodfella jokes: ’Why do you have a mistress? Why don’t you have sex with your wife?’ asks Crystal. ‘Are you nuts?’ shouts De Niro. ‘My wife uses her mouth to kiss our
children!’ Etc, etc.
Only De Niro could have played this part; if you’ve seen King Of Comedy you’ll know he's also the greatest living American comedy actor. (Warner
£19.99 on DVD) (Miles Fielder)
Bl Analyse This is released on Mon 20 Mar.
murder the girl. From this pOint (mere minutes into the firm, Best Laid Plans flips the characters from one frying pan into another in this wildly inventive thrilier, The yOung cast are as cool as the s0undtrack which features Massive Attack, Craig Armstrong and Gomez. (Fox £12.99) iMFi
South Park: Bigger,
Longer & Uncut
(15) 78 mins a)- ‘t- a x:
The studio didn't get the rude Joke title of South Park’s big screen outing. Nevertheless, subtlety isn't this filthy film's strong pomt; it contains 399 profane words and 128 offensive gestures. The plot, which sees Outraged moral middle America gOing to war with Canada over the Terrence and Philip mowe, Asses Of Fire, allows Parker and Stone to comment on censorship. But Kyle's mum in a German scheiBen Video and Satan and Saddam Hussein's S&lvl romance is what we're really interested in. (Warner E14.99/£15.99 widescreen/E1999 on DVD) (MF)
Bride Of Chucky
(18) 86 mins 6- ii-
lf the thOught of seeing two eVil chunks of plastic fornicating with one another gets some jUICES inside you movmg, then part fOur of the Child’s Play series is for you. If self-consciously bad dialogue, obVious shock effects and a sub-Marilyn Manson SOundtrack make yOu want to soueal a la Jennifer Tilly, then dOn’t bother. Her starring role as the rubber fetish dame whose SOUI :s flooded into Barbie's nemeSis is One of the few bright moments in this tired run. (Metrodome £14.99) (BD‘
Buena Vista Social Club (no cert) 110 mins t it On the big screen, Wim Wenders’s
record of Ry Cooder's musica: JOurney to Cuba charmed audiences With its SimpliCity. On the smalE screen, it looks like a dOCumentary that someone’s forgotten to edit. It was always an unlikely proyect. Wenders, best known for Wings Of Desire, accompanied Cooder on a return JOurney to Havana in 1998 in the wake of the musicians Grammy- Winning album from which the film takes its name. Yes, it has charm, but it's laid-back to the point of aimlessness. (FilmFOur/VCI £14.99/ £19.99 on DVD) (MFF)
Romance
(18) 98 mins t r:
Explicit sex scenes — including alleged actual intercourse between star Caroline Ducey and real-.ife ltalian porn stallion, Rocco Siffredi — caused some controversy about Romance’s premiere at 1999’s Edinburgh international Film Festivai. Certainly, said controversy overshadowed filmmaker Catherine Breillat’s intentiOn to challenge audiences with a portrait of a woman taking controi of her sex life thrOugh increasingly disturbing fantaSies. But since the film’s unCut theatrical and now video reiease, Romance has proved to be a rather empty piece of modern French cinema. (Blue Light £16 99/£19.99 on DVD- (MF)
REVIEWERS THIS ISSUE:
Brian DOnaldSOn, Miles Fielder, Mark Fisher, Helen Monaghar‘, LOuisa Pearson, lvlark Robertson
STAR RATINGS
v» 5 Av w t Jnmissable
s z a at Very 900d
4. i t: \i'VOFIl'l a ShOt .~. 1* Below average
You've been. warned