HORROR PARADISE LOST (18) 93min 0.
Having already flopped under the title Tirrr'sfas in the US last November. John Stockwell's limp lettuce of a thriller finally emerges in the UK as little more than a smudged photocopy of Eli Roth's Hostel.
It's not Slovenia but Brazil that young backpacker Alex (Josh Duhamel) and his friends find themselves marooned on when their bus rolls off a cliff. The beach front sanctuary they stumble across turns out to be anything but safe as it is next door to an informal centre for compulsory organ donation.
Getting into trouble with the natives abroad has been a zeitgeist notion in US cinema of late. but the bland directorial hallmarks previously established in Stockwell's anaemic exploitation flicks Blue Crush and Info The Blue (nice locations. pretty girls. underwater action) don't lend NTOlllSOIVOS to any kind of interesting political analogy. The subtext is in fact limited to a few passing cracks about ‘gringos'. Appealing only to the small subsection of horror fans who haven't seen Hostel and its forebears. Paradise Lost is a grubby knock-off of a considerably smarter and better-executed film.
(Eddie Harrison) I General release from Fri l Jun.
DRAMA ROMANCE WATER (12A) 117min 000
After 2002’s abysmal effort at cinema fusion Bollywood/Hollywood, Toronto based Indian filmmaker Deepa Mehta serves up Water, the final part of her elements trilogy. The good news for those who missed Fire (1996) and Earth (1998) is that this is a trilogy in its most loose and ambiguous form as the movies are not connected by characters or storyline but thematically.
Set in 1938, Mehta’s moving, engrossing film plucks at the heartstrings from the moment eight-year-old Chuyia (Sarala) is asked by her father if she remembers getting married, only to then be informed that the husband she will never know has died. The girl is sent to an Ashram run by a despotic old woman, Madhumati (Manorma), who ignores the law of the land that stipulates that widows can remarry. Madhumati’s stranglehold over the women is, however, about to be challenged as never before.
During the filming of Water in Varanasi, India, word got out that this film was a rebuke of outmoded social traditions. Consequently, production of the film was delayed for years by protestors who staged demonstrations, torched the sets and threatened Mehta’s life.
The result is a film that feels slightly compromised, but a riveting tearjerker that’s stunning to look at and registers more than a passing nod to Indian master filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s remarkable 1964 melodrama Charulata. (Kaleem Aftab)
I Fl/lll/lOt/SO. Edinburgh from Fr: l Jun.
ACTION ADVENTURE FLY OYS (12A) 138min oo
nasty prang in the old cabbage patch.
(Eddie Harrison) I Selected release from Fri 1 Jun.
Film
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Based on true stories about American pilots flying for the French Lafayette Escadrille in WI. director Tony Bill's 890m film opens here nine months after crashing and burning spectacularly at the US box office. And despite being delayed until after Spider/nan 3 in anticipation of a wave of James Franco- mania sweeping the country. Bill's film looks to be on course for yet another
Franco plays reluctant hero Blaine Rawlings. although the name “Brick LampJaw' would have fitted the daft tone of this romp through war mole cliches. including the tearful goodbye to the sweetheart at the railway station. the cynic carping from behind his newspaper in the pilot's bar. and even the faithful pet waiting at the end of the runway. in this instance. a lion. After 35 minutes of gee—shucks goofing and grim banter wrtli authentically Gallic Captain Tlienault (Jean Renol. Flyboys finally gets its 'cliocks away!‘ wrth some colourful Avrator-style aerial (‘logfights but shallow performances and a certain lack of pace ensure that this well intentioned film falls well short of the lofty standards set by Jack Gold's 1976's airwar classic Aces High.
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