\.".AR "ll‘lRll l l R FEMALE AGENTS (LES FEMMES DES OMBRES) (15) 116min 000
Spring 1944, the lead up to the Normandy landings, and the technical planning and manufacture of a floating dock has been going on since January. When a British geologist ends up in a French hospital, the plan is thrown into jeopardy. So a suicidal sabotage and rescue mission, overseen by Churchill, is put in place immediately, using only female agents to be recruited by French resistance veteran Louise (Sophie Marceau). Louise puts together the impressive team of seductive Showgirl Suze (Marie Gillain), explosives expert Gaélle (Deborah Francois), prostitute Jeanne (Julie Depardieu) and radio operator Maria (Maya Sansa). These ladies are all that stands between the Nazi counter intelligence head Colonel Heindrich (Moritz Bleibtreu) and the success of D Day.
Based, allegedly, on a true story, Jean-Paul Salome’s new film goes some way towards settling the huge debt owed to the women of the French resistance. These were women who had balls of steel when brutality and betrayal were common currencies and, of course, their sacrifice for their country should never be forgotten.
As he proved with 2004’s Arsene Lupin, Salome is an arch stylist and copyist. He is at home replicating the steady minimalist tones of Jean Pierre Melville’s Army of the Shadows as he is playing to the crowd with low-fi, well choreographed Guns of Navarone/Dirty Dozen-style action sequences. The problem is that beyond Salome’s fan boy zeal and the handful of great performances by France’s loveliest actresses, Female Agents feels and looks like just another po-faced TV mini series, one begging to be cut down the middle and shown on consecutive nights. Interesting but pedestrian. (Paul Dale)
I Selected re/ease from [in 27 Jun.
50 THE LIST ": .l'ii‘ it .J.i
l-ANTASY ACTION
THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN (PG) 143min O.
In the second instalment of the Narnia film adaptations. the Pevensie children are summoned back to CS Lewis' fantasykingdom by Prznce Caspian's blomng of a magic horn. expecting lion king Aslan to rear his head and overthrow the evil Telmarine's ()(ZCtlleilOl‘ over the land's magic creatures. Hawng earlier defeated the Wh'te Witch's eternal winter. the children face a mo"e human foe this time round. and Narnia. a thousand years on. is a very different place to the place they left as Kings and Queens. Under Andrew Adamsons direction this is a slick. fast-paced romp through dark woods. underground caverns and fierce battles. but it lacks the bite and darkness of Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. playing too much on the side of caution for the children present. The plots of the Narnia novels aren't particularly complicated but the film is patronisineg simplistic. reducing the narrative and script to a dull dribble rather than bringing the strange and sometimes frightening creations of CS Lewis' imagination to vivid life. For anyone who hasn't read the hooks. the connection that the children have to Narnia. having ruled over the kingdom in their preVious visit is completely lost. and Caspian. the central character. is essentially jllSi a pretty face. Even with Prince Caspia/i's big budget. the film is fantasy by numbers: there's no feel for the magnitude of the war being waged or what is at stake. (Georgina Wilsoii-Powelli I Cenera/ re/ease from Thu 20 Jun.
lllRll l l R THE ESCAPIST (15) 101 min 00.0
SUPERHERO THE INCREDIBLE HULK (12A) 112min u
By general consent. Ang Lee's 2003 film Hulk was considered a flop. Five years on from its failure to win over fans of the Marvel Comic
monster superhero — and to clean up at the box office — comes this relaunch of the franchise now directed by action filmmaker Louis Leterrier (The Transporter; and starring Edward Norton in Eric Bana's place. Markedly more commerCial than Lee's cerebral — and actually spot on — take on the Jekyll and Hyde tale of a mild- mannered scientist who's exposure to gamma radiation transforms him into a raging, rampaging super-strong green giant. this new Hulk ditches plotting. characterisation and thematic concerns for all-out action. and little else.
Picking up where the previous film left off land including a rather insulting summary of Lee's effort during the credit sequence). the sequel finds Dr Bruce Banner hiding from the American military that wants to turn his alter ego into a weapon for use in a Brazilian favela. But events swiftly constrain to bring Banner back home. where he's reunited with lover Betty Ross i'Liv Tylei'i and relentlessly pursued by Betty's hawkish lather. General Thunderbolt Ross 'V/llilétlll Hurt). Disappointineg dumb. and lacking any feel for its source material. this anything but incredible Hulk fails even to deliver thrills. action or more cerebral chills. tJack DaVisl I Out now on general re/ease.
The origins of this smart and tough British prison escape thriller lie in a short film. 9004's Get The Picture. which writertlirector Rupert Wyatt made with actor Brian Cox as a showcase for his eVidently considerable talents. Cox subsequently suggested Wyatt write a feature with him in mind. and the story the filmmaker came up with was that of a lifer locked up in a brutal south London prison who masterminds a daring escape. Sixty years ago in Hollywood. Spencer Tracy would have played the part of Frank Perry —‘ an iiistitutionalised hard man who rediscovers the will to buck the system when he finds out his beloved daughter is killing herself with drugs. Cox brings to Perry the kind of hard-bitten attitude underpinned by a poignant emotional vulnerability for which the Golden Age star
was admired.
Cox's excellent performance as the leader of a gang of five convicts lan almost unrecogiiisable Joseph Fiennes among them) gives real heart to a cracking but grim film. Perhaps taking his lead from the kind of no nonsense B-moVIes with which lracy began his career (20,000 Years rn Sing S/ng. for examplel, Wyatt's film is paired-down to the point of being virtually dialogue-free for long stretches. The breakout itself. a nightmare crawl through dank subterranean tunnels that starts and finishes the film. is conducted largely in silence. while flashbacks filling in problems encountered during the buildup to the bid for freedom contrast with
the din of prison life. (Jack DaVIsl
I General re/ease from Fri 20 Jun. See rote/View. page 45).