www.list.co.uk/film
COMEDY THE LOVE eunu (LZflF’Gm‘n ”_ .
IIIIII
Aside from his ongoing Shrek and Austin Powers properties, Mike Myers hasn‘t come up with a new comedy character in over a decade. Myers claims his latest creation, Guru Pitka. has been honed by comedy-club appearances. but there's little evidence of such fine-tuning in The Love Guru. a patchy selection of playground double entendres unlikely to kick-start another franchise.
As with Adam Sandler's upcoming You Don ’t Mess With The Zohan, Myers has taken his inspiration from Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat with another 'funny foreigner' persona, Guru Pitka. who is portrayed as a vainglorious figure obsessed with besting real-life rival Deepak Chopra in the popularity stakes. Pitka is challenged to calm the turbulent love life of ice hockey star Darren Roanoke (Romany Maldo) whose girlfriend has been stolen by goalie Jacques ‘Le Coq' Grande (Justin Timberlake).
The Love Guru packs a few laughs. mainly thanks to Ben Kingsley's shameless parody of his Gandhi role as Pitka's mentor. But Myers has saddled first-time director Marco Schnabel with routines over-familiar from the Powers movies, with pointless cameos (Kanye West.
Stephen Colbert), cruel gags at the CRIME/DRAMA/BIOPIC (Happy Go Lucky, Atonement) as the Ioveable rogue
expense of Mini-Me Verne Troyer and CASS adopted by a white mother as a baby and seriously
redundant musical sequences. And 8) 103W" g _ _ H _. _ _ 7 confused about his own identity. He grows into a
what kills The Love Guru is the pivotal figure in the ICF and the film pivots on his
insistence on cut-away shots of other Films about football hooligans have resulted in some of relationship with his wife (Nathalie Press), his best
characters cracking up at Myers' the worst examples of British filmmaking in the last ten friend Freeman (Leo Gregory) and his dear old ma
gags; it's the cinematic equivalent of a years - Green Street, Rise of the Footsoldier, The (Linda Bassett).
sitcom laugh track and suggestive of a Football Factory have all scored own goals. So it As with Shane Meadows’ This is England, the
lack of faith in Pitka's ability to amuse. comes as something of a surprise result that Cass influence of Thatcher on working class lives is heavily
(Eddie Harrison) stands alongside Alan Clarke’s hitherto untouchable played on, but this is a far superior film in delivering a
I General release from Fri 7 Aug. hooligan yarn The Firm at the top of the filmmaking message about racism and what it felt like to be part of 3 table. Whether West Ham’s notorious Inter City Firm the black working class. Indeed, the clever camera g (ICF) was ever the toughest supporter’s crew is work, pacing and social message is closest to Isaac debatable, but what is for sure is that films detailing the Julien’s 1991 cult classic Young Soul Rebels. shenanigans of this band of East Londoners during the Cass isn’t simply a football hooligan movie for the Thatcher years have certainly proved to be the most arthouse crowd; there are plenty of well choreographed j cinematic. fighting scenes and the movie ends with Cass at war
Based on the true story of Cass Pennant, the most with an Arsenal fan (rising star Bronson Webb in a
prominent black football hooligan to be accepted by brilliant cameo). Some dodgy dialogue and poor white working class yobs as one of their own, Cass characterisation aside, writer/director Jon S Baird . tells an eminently cinematic story. It’s helped here by a performs a blinder of a debut game. (Kaleem Aftab) ‘ man-of-the-match performance from Nonso Anozie I General release from Fri 7 Aug. 7
DRAMA
BEFORE THE RAINS (12A) 98min 0»
Inspired by Israeli short Red Roofs. scripted by the late American Cathy Rabin (to whom the film is dedicated), directed and photographed by Bollywood filmmaker Santosh Sivan, starring Brit Linus Roache, yank Jennifer Ehle and Indians Nandita Das and Rahul Bose, and released under the Merchant Ivory banner. Before the Rains is a truly international production. Set in 19308 southern India, and anticipating the end of the Raj less than 20 years later, it’s a metaphor-laden drama that uses a tale of doomed inter-racial romance to address the inherent failings of British colonialism.
Roache plays an idealistic spice farmer who has an ill-advised affair with his housemaid (Das), a local girl who’s married to a man in the nearby village. When the inevitable happens and the pair are discovered, a tragic chain of events is set in motion.
Sivan (who's best known as the director of Tamil language feature The Terrorist and as cinematographer on Gurinder Chadha's Bride 8. Prejudice) has loaded the film with visual metaphors that complement the figurative storyline. the most striking of which is the mountain road that Roache's altruistic but ignorant colonial constructs and scars the beautiful landscape with. These, along with the political backdrop, make for a richer period drama than most. (Miles Fielder)
I Fi/mhouse, Edinburgh and selected release from Fri 1 Aug. See profile in Index.
31 Jul—7 Aug 2008 THE LIST 23