'tortured artist' hallmarks of the .IM
arrie story Prod/rig Never/and. Another Weinstein brothers production. the narrative similarities extend right down to the thwarted love element. this time in the form of a tepid dalliance wrth publisher Norman Warne (IV/air McGregorl.
As Wlllt most literary biopics. there's absolutely no sense of Potter actually domg any writing: her daily routines seem to revolve around nothing more substantial than simpering and handing pictures of rabbits to publishers. Richard Maltbys script offers such a sketchy feel for Potter's work that any notions about the difficulties of being an Independent woman in socier are quickly abandoned. Instead. director Chris Babe Noonan serves up weird animated sequences in which Potter's drawings come alive in a way that's meant to be heartwarming. but actually seems to suggest that the author might well be Iosrng her mind. this failure to suggest any kind of interior life for its central character ensures Miss Potter collapses into a Iarne ‘girl draws rabbits. girl meets boy. girl loses boy. girl draws more rabbits' narrative well before a Katie Melua song arrives as a knockout punch over the final credits.
(Fddie Harrison) I General release from lrr :3 Jan.
GANGS'IER ll lRllt ER SMOKIN’ AGES (18) 108min 00
With Narc. director .Joe Carnahan made a sterling contribution to the cop genre. Notev.rorthy for its grim bad cop bad cop partnership the film was Completer different to the usual dross. So it's even more cringing that Smokrrr' Aces is such a poor effort. packed ‘.‘/|ll) sub par Tarantino-esque anecdotes.
A convoluted opening sequence. in which we are bafflineg introduced to seven hit n‘en (ranging from the benign to the absurd With a call sheet comprising such luminaries as Ben Affleck and Alicia Keysi who are all after the 81m bounty on mafia inforn‘iant Ruddy 'Aces' Israel's (Jeremy Piven; head. Ihis sequence in tone and slick ster is reminiscent of Paul McGuigan's l ucky Number S/evin and Wayne Kramer 's Running Scared. which is faint praise indeed.
Despite the numerous storytelling problems. the action still manages to illicit interest and good performances from Ray I iotta. Ryan Reynolds and Andy Garcia as the detectives in charge of protecting Aces. Nevertheless. the laboured build-up demands a decent set-piece a la
Simon West's Con-Arr as an adequate pay-off for the initial verbal diarrhoea. and instead we're given a predictable shoot-em up that is straight from the comic book. (Kaleem Aftab)
I General release from I rr I 2 Jan.
[DRAMA
A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION
(PG) 105 mins .00.
'lhe death of an old man is not an occasion for tragedy.’ concludes the master of ceremonies Garrison Keillor in A l-’rarrie Home Companion and it's hard not to hear in these words the veice of the film's director Robert Altman. who died a few weeks ago aged 81. Intimations of mortality abound in this comic table. which in many ways fits snugly into Altman's oeuvre: there's the ramshackle narrative. the backstage milieu (see also Nas/ivr/r’e and lhe Company). the concern with performance. the overlapping dialogue. and the
ii is;
HISTORIC/\I, ADVEN I t 1le
trademark camera zooms.
The premise is that it's the final night of a long running variety radio show. based on Keillor‘s real-life A Prairie Home Companron. which is boing broadcast in front of a live theatre audience in St Paul. Minnesota. A lexas corporation. represented by lommy 1 cc .lones's Axeman. has decided to close down the programme and redevelop the venue. I or the owlish GK (played by Keillor himself. sporting a suit and red trainers). this is not the time for sobbing speeches - after all. there are
THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND
(15) 122min 0000
The only similarity that the Nicholas Garrigan of this film has with his namesake in Giles Foden’s book is, indeed, his name. The Garrigan of the book is a dull-witted, slightly ignorant and rather un-endearing Scot, whereas in the movie James McAvoy, under instruction from Peter Morgan’s (The Queen, The Deal) script plays him as a lovable rogue, able to pull African girls by batting his eyelashes and smooth-talking his way
out of the most impossible situations.
This makes for a rather incongruous introduction to the Uganda of Idi Amin with Garrigan hooking up with an older woman (Gillian Anderson) in a rather pointless relationship that should have been left on the cutting room floor. It’s as if director Kevin Macdonald doesn’t believe that Scots men (such as Roger Livesey’s Torquil MacNeil in his grandfather Emeric Pressburger’s 1945 film I Know Where I’m Going) are still tenable romantic leads in cinema. Macdonald, making his first foray into fictional filmmaking after his excellent documentaries One Day in September and Touching the Void, has made the bold and correct choice. For once his Garrigan meets up with the towering presence that is Forest Whitaker’s Idi Amin, the story becomes action packed and rolls out with a pace largely absent from the
book.
Whitaker has received the bulk of the critical acclaim for his turn, and rightly so. It’s a career best performance, far above even the work he did in Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog. His Amin is as towering, threatening and incredibly charismatic as you can imagine from watching Barbet Shroeder’s excellent documentary General Amin. He does what Will Smith couldn’t do in Michael Mann’s Ali, capture the essence of an iconic figure. An Oscar may be Whitaker’s fitting reward. With Garrigan being a character from Foden’s mind it’s okay that Macdonald takes the ultimate story liberty by having his protagonist impregnate Amin’s third wife Kay (Kerry Washington). It makes for an exciting dénouement to what is a commendable action film rather than astute political portrait.
(Kaleem Aftab)
I General release from Fri (2 Jan. See feature. page I 8 and Profile rn listings.
Film
fake commercials about duct tape to deliver. guests to introduce. and songs to perform about the Joys of rhubarb pie. And among the stage acts are the bickering .Johnson sisters (Meryl Streep and lily lomlin) and the crooning cowboys (Woody I Iarrelson and .John C Reilly). whose taste for bad IOKOS is limitless.
Not everything pays off in the digitally shot A Prairie Home Companion. not least the clumsy storytelling dewce of Virginia Madsen's trenchcoated angel of death. But it's a pleasure to observe the public and private personas of the artists. to eavesdrop On thew rambling backstage anecdotes. and to Witness the impenections of their acts. You're left wondering how many other filmmakers could have fashioned such a genial. warm hearted meditation on mortality itself. ('Iom Dawson)
I Selected release from Fri :3 Jan. See feature. page 4' l .
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Employee of the Month (12A) 107min 0 Zack Bradley (Dane Cookl doesn't believe in hard work. he keeps people's expectations of him as low as his profile in work. But when sexy cashier Amy (.Jessica Simpson) ]()|IIS his store’s staff. and rumors circulate that she only dates winners. he has to change his game plan. this formulaic. unfunny. flaccid and badly performed v-rorkspace farce begs comparison to Mike Judge's underrated 1999 comedy Office Space. The trouble is that this is pure unadulterated garbage -- corporate garbage that is. of course. General release from f rr 5 Jan.
White Noise 2: The Light (15) 98min .0 A man sees his whole family killed. then flatlines before being brought back to life. From this point on he believes he can tell when people are about to die. Fairly nonsensical follow up to the surprise hit 790:”) supernatural thriller. Ihings. predictably. take a slightly more pro~Christian slant in this sequel. Ihis unnecessary retread is rubbish but innocuous and pretty ‘.'\.’£‘tl(:ltill)l(}. General release from In :3 Jan. Masjavlar (15) 98min
.0 Mia (Sofia Helinr returns to her parents home in a small town in vareden to celebrate her father's 79th birthday. Her older sisters. I ivor (Kasja lrnstl and Gunilla iAnn Petrenr welcome her but Mia's time in Stockholm means that she finds it difficult to communicate with them. Ihings come to a head on the day of the big celebration. Sub / ester; angsty. hysterical. familial comedy drama. which never really finds a decent tone or pitch for its mysterious and darkly suggestive set of Scandinavian characters. lr/m/rouse. Idi/iburgr'i from In :'3---Sun 7 Jan.
,1 I8 .r'an I’ii.‘ ' THE LIST 43