MODERN \‘I’l S l LHN ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE MIDLANDS (15) 104mm 0...
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Warm tale of love, hate and failure in the suburbs
Shane Meadows, the director of TwentyFourSeven and A Room for Romeo Brass, has returned after three years with the final part of what he calls his Midlands Trilogy. It will be, he claims, his last film made in Nottingham for some time. Which is something of a shame for beneath Meadows’ deceptively simple tales of love, hate and failure in the suburbs there lies a deep warmth to this young director’s work.
When petty criminal Jimmy (Robert Carlyle) sees his childhood sweetheart and ex, Shirley (Shirley Henderson), on the Vanessa Feltz show, he decides to take the proceeds of a bungled robbery and travel down from Glasgow to win her back from her geekish boyfriend Dek (Rhys lfans). There are, however, a few obstacles in the way for the avenging ‘cowboy’. First, there’s his 12-year-old daughter Marlene, who prefers Dek to him. Then there’s his crazy step sister (Kathy Burke) and her estranged C&W- obsessed husband Charlie (Ricky Tomlinson). There will have to be a showdown.
Meadows directs his all~star cast with skill, calcifying the pebble dashed windy streets of Calder in Nottingham into an amalgam of a Western staging post. He has learnt from the best — most notably Mike Leigh’s Meantime and Alan Clarke’s Rita, Sue and Bob Too — that the best domestic stories are those that are told with simplicity and emotion. Moments in this film can be clawing, not least the treacIe-ambushed ending, but Meadows aim is true and compared to his UK filmmaking contemporaries he is the Goliath with a tender heart. (Paul Dale)
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CHIll til FRAILTY (15) 100mm 0000
Already one of Hollym'xood's rnost IrkealJIe actors. Brll Paxton now makes a second stab at directrng rhrs trrst was 1982's Fish Heads) n'rrth thrs rntellrgent lrttle chiller. Frarlty hegrns wrth Fenton Merks (Matthew McConaugheyi going to the Texas FBI headguarters to reveal that the infamous 'Hand of Goo' serral killer was hrs late brother, Adam. He tells the chref agent Wesley DOyle (Powers Boothe) him and hrs brother's story. starting when their father (Bill Paxton) had a vrsion from God. commandrng him to km the 'demons' that live on Earth in human form.
Havrng WHIIOU for the rrght directorial project to coinc- along. Paxton she's/s real talent henrnd the camera. He has a sure touch and does not try over drrect, Instead Iettrng Brent Hartley's cleverlyplotted scrrpt take centre stage. lhrs is an old style lilin rn ‘.'.’ltl(lIl the vrolence rs lll‘l)ll(,’(I rather than shout/n. Great care has heen taken over the photography and look of the lrln‘, and rts fléif‘JtIXtthf; generate
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l )l «‘A tut/x PLATFORM (ZHAN TAI) (15) 155mm 0.0
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lll‘tl‘. i. i it THE TRESPASSER (18) 98min «0
Most Erkeij, the r"‘;:g<2 n‘ost c lt("";i goers have of Bra/ll l()(tzt\, has lt‘trii". to do mirth the frin‘s of \."-.’alter Satres. partrcularly Central SfElflO/T \.'.'nrc.'i presents the country as rrizpoyerrsned but quarnt. The Trespasser arms to show clrtferent srde.
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THE LIST 25