‘THE JACK, QUEEN, KING AND ACE OF DRUGGIE F lLM-MAKING’
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ANIMAl |( )N 'l lllTllllH A SCANNER DARKLY (15) 100min 0.000
The interpolated rotoscoping technique by which animation is superimposed over live action, pioneered by Richard Linklater for 2001’s Waking Life, is put to innovative use in the same writer/director’s adaptation of A Scanner Darkly, a dark anti-authority fantasy from the troubled mind of sci-fi author Philip K Dick. The writer’s imaginative vision of a future society, where government agencies anonymously operate through scramble suits which disguise the wearer in a cloak of constantly changing appearances, would seem to necessitate such a huge budget that any cinematic treatment would be commercialised to the extent of 1990’s Total Recall. Yet Linklater’s creative use of animation fashions Dick’s hallucinatory notions into a beautifully realised study of urban paranoia that rewrites the manual as far as Hollywood sci-fi goes. By casting Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves and Robert Downey Jr as the whacked-out
inhabitants of a Californian den of substance abuse, Linklater cannin deals himself the jack, queen, king and ace of druggie film-making. But it’s the box-fresh concept of A Scanner Darkly that makes it essential viewing. An initial scene in which two characters, both disguised in scramble suits, discuss the possibility that one of the den’s carefully monitored inhabitants is an anarchist is tough to grasp, but working out the miscreant’s identity proves more intellectually absorbing than any Agatha Christie whodunnit. The solution only leads to a Twilight Zone-style double- twist ending that encourages you to question everything you’ve seen, in much the same fashion as Blade Runner’s did. Reeves’ studied lack of facial animation and Downey Jr’s motor-mouthed delivery both shine through the rotoscoping, and if you can handle the heavy demands of the dense plotting, A Scanner Darkly provides a reality-bending investigation of human identity which propels Linklater to the very front rank of today’s film-makers. (Eddie Harrison)
I General release from Fri 18 Aug.
ACTION ADVENTURE HARSH TIMES (15) 119min COO.
DaVid Ayer is best known as the scriptwriter of Training Day. His directorial debut Harsh Times shares many themes With that Den/el Washington vehicle: this time out it's Christian Bale in the tough guy on-the-edge role and his easHy influenced sidekick Mike is played by SIX Feet Under star Freddy Rodriguez. Bale plays Jim DaVis. who discovers that it's pretty tough for an unstable Gulf War veteran to get a iob in LA. His best pal Mike is also Jobless and. seemingly worse. is being nagged by his Wife SyIVia (Eva Longoria. provmg that she's not Just a pretty Desperate Housewife) to get a new iob fast. Jim's power over Mike is strong, and pretty soon the duo are cruising the streets. smoking weed and cursmg out the yokels instead of priming their CVs. Just when the film seems to be heading fast into a tedious cuI-de-sac of a thousand wayward gangsta mowes. it surprises by flipping the script to reveal Jim's tender Side. As with Taxr Driver's Traws Bickle. it's a chick that leads to the volte-face. Jim has a squeeze in Mexico and experiences emotional turmOil when asked to choose between her and a JOb busting drug cartel in Columbia. Remarkably. director Ayer manages to make the tough talking Davis likeable Without ever showing him as anything other than a Jerk. The Mexican landscape provides a sharp contrast to the urban metropolis. but it's the emotiOnal extremes of Bale that are the most intriguing aspect of Ayers impresswe debut. (Kaleem Aftabi
I General release from Fri 18 Aug.
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THE BEST FILM & DVD RELEASES
* Taxi Driver Seminal brilliance in this new print of Martin Scorsese's classic drifter movie from 1976. Robert De Niro stars as young, disaffected and increasingly unhinged loner Travis. while Jodie Foster makes her screen debut as the 12-year-old prostitute who initiates the film’s apocalyptic climax. Much imitated but never beaten. this noirish thriller's re-release proves it has lost none of its edge. Fi/mhouse, Edinburgh from Tue 30 Aug.
It A Scanner Darkly Stylish paranoia theories leave Keanu Reeves with his best confused-and-aghast face in Richard Linklater's slacker adaptation of sci-fl master Philip K Dick's visionary novel. See review, left. General release from Fri 18 Aug.
33 Rebecca One of Hitchocock's finest, not to mention eeriest films. Honeymooners Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine find themselves haunted by the presence of Olivier's rancorous dead ex in this classic adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's classic novel. GFT, Glasgow from 18 Aug.
* Harsh Times Christian Bale plays unlikely ghetto superstar in this gangster movie. Drugs, violence and girls make Bale's life hell as he cruises round LA South Central in David Ayer’s post Training Day directorial debut. See review. left. General release from Fri 18 Aug.
* The Squid and the Whale Offbeat humour in this 70s-tinged comedy of errors that wades through the messy divorce of Laura Unney and Jeff Daniel '3 pleasineg dysfunctional couple. See DVD reviews. page 20. Columbia Tn'star (out now).
10—17 A'l') 200‘) THE LIST 19