Film
PERIOD DRAMA COLD MOUNTAIN (15) 152min no.
V” - fl, _ 1" ‘L N ,_' waclfl I“ s, a * u. .. . I; ,{fing and Chenaplayedfowlgug .~
SICK COMEDY
STUCK ON YOU it's a very sweet film that champions (12A) 118ml“ .0. society's oddballs via this odd couple. That said. Bobby and Peter never Bobby and Peter Farrelly may have miss the oppOrtunity to throw in a made their way in Hollywood with bad cheap gag. Thus. Matt Damon's shy taste comedies such as Dumb and Bo writes home to his mother while Dumber and Kingpin. but the boys Greg Kinnear's womanismg Walt from Boston are revealing themselves shags a girl in the same bed. to have a penchant for sentimentality Now with half a dozen films under The hellish spectacle of civil war at odds with the Crudities of their more their belts. the Farrellys seem to have pleasurable. scatological humour. slipped into cruise control on their own Back in 1997, Anthony Minghella was garlanded with Oscars for directing Stuck on You. their cheeky riff on the private motorway of Hitchcockian self The English Patient. That same year he bought the film rights to another lives of a pair of conjoined twins. may reference. Funny but below par. award-winning novel - Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain. Again, it’s an epic climax with an outrageous slice of (Miles Fielder) romance set against the backdrop of war, and one which also features an sanctified homophobia. but essentially I General release from Fri 2 Jan. injured hero with an ambivalent attitude to the conflict. This time the setting is the American Civil War. The protagonist, Jude COMEDY THRILLER Law’s lnman, is a Confederate soldier who deserts after being gravely TR|GGERMEN wounded in battle and sets off on a perilous trek across the ravaged South (15) 96min 0 to reach his home in the North Carolina mountains. An American Odysseus, he goes through one trail after another, sustained by a yearning for the Andy (Neil Morrissey) and Pete (Adrian woman with whom he enjoyed a hesitant and chaste courtship before the Dunbar) are two small time British con war, Nicole Kidman’s genteel Charleston belle, Ada. She, meanwhile, is men (one a mockney. one a cheeky struggling to survive in the increasingly lawless hills with the help of an mick. wouldn't you know hit Chicago in ornery backwoods orphan played by Renee Zellweger. the hope of finding urban treasures. Despite its epic scope and setting, Minghella’s film is no Gone With the They get mistaken for a pair of hit men Wind. There’s nothing flamboyant about Inman and Ada’s passion. But who have been hired to bump off mob . . though the love story is marked by emotional restraint, Cold Mountain lynchpin Ben Cutler iPete Postlethi.-iaite‘i. Guppies out of water doesn’t flinch from the horrors of war. One scene depicts an unforgettable HI-jlllkS ensue when the real hit men image of fratricidal slaughter: hundreds of soldiers grappling in a muddy turn up (a wasted Michael Rapaport and brother of Mark. Donnie Wahlberg). crater, a hellish spectacle right out of Dante or Goya. Superbly acted This is your common or garden fish out of water crime caper — the only trouble is it's (though fans of the book might not be entirely delighted with the casting rank, filthy and rotten to the core. A disgrace for all concerned. (Paul Dalei
choices), powerful and moving, Cold Mountain may pile up yet more Oscars I Selected release from Fri 26 Dec. for Minghella. (Jason Best) ' I General release from Fri 26 Dec. TN K'NG ANNALS
GOOD BOY!
(U) 87min 0..
THRILLER .. , , . _ . . OUT OF TIME _. . _‘ ' _ V . A mowe aimed at kids whose age is still in single figures. Good Boy.’ is a half—
(12A) 105mm ... hearted attempt to rebrand Cats and Dogs for the little ‘uns.
When Owen (Liam Aiken) gets a new pooch from the local pound he's in for more than he realised. Hubble may look like a cuter-than-average Norfolk terrier. but he's actually an interstellar emissary from the planet Dog Star. the home world of all the galaxy's canines. Arriving on Earth to discover that the hounds are no longer top dog. Hubble. with the help of Owen. has only got a few days to whip the neighbourhood dogs into shape before the arrival of the Great Dane (veiced by Vanessa Redgrave). If they don't manage to pull this off. she's likely to order a global recall that will deprive man of his best friend once and for all.
Packed full of talking pooches. poo jokes and slobbering hounds. this mildly entertaining doggy flick is perfectly pitched for its target audience. Adults. though. might find that some of the gags are in need of being taught a few new tricks. (Jamie Russell)
I General release from Fri 19 Dec.
Director Carl Franklin had one of the most auspicious starts of last decade with his treacle black hick town thriller One False Move in 1991 . An exacting and often very stylish storyteller. his films began to deteriorate after his adequate 199:3 a(,lai_)tation of Walter Mossley's Easy Bawlins' detective story Dei/i/ in a Blue Dress. Despite this. his two subsequent inferior films. High Crimes and One True Thing, were not uninteresting manifestations of a director trying to work through the quagmire of cliches that bind together every classic American genre.
And so it is we come to Out of Time. a so-so quayside thriller that contains another engaging performance from Den/el Washington and enough twists : -- and turns to make for a mildly diverting Hanging out with Mr Washington
hour and a half. Matt (Washington) is the chief of is trying to do with his quirky setting police in the small Banyan Key. Florida. and noirish plot. but his doe-eyed Life is pretty low key for him until a pastiche too often borders on the brutally shocking local double cheese hall and parody. To its credit. homicide opens up a trail of blood that though. it never quite topples over. iii“ seems to lead straight back to him. (Paul Dale) -» ~ i. i It is not difficult to see what Franklin I General release from Fri 26 Dec. 0099)! mm
11 Dec .7003 8 .Jai‘ 900.1 THE LIST 35