www.list.co.uk/film Index Film
gangsters in Havana, Rolo (Porto). The strange new environment following the triumph of the Revolution proving alienating to the accomplice, Rolo embarks on one final gold-hunting mission. Part of Cine Cuba season. Glasgow Film Theatre. Orphan (15) ●●●●● (Jaume Collet- Serra, US, 2009) Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, Isabelle Fuhrman. 122min. See Also Released, page 24. General release. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (PG) ●●●●● (Steve Carr, US, 2009) Kevin James, Keir O’Donnell, Jayma Mays. 90min. Adam Sandler’s regular cohort James plays a big- hearted, small-time lawman who takes on a gang of acrobatic skateboarding thieves after a lengthy set up introducing him as an over- zealous store detective. Despite the vanilla blandness of the conceit, James provides a likable enough hero and scattered moments of self-referential wit will be appreciated by older audiences. Glasgow Film Theatre. A Perfect Getaway (15) ●●●●● (David Twohy, US, 2009) Steve Zahn, Timothy Olyphant, Milla Jovovich. 97min. Holiday from hell as killers stalk a group of hikers on a Hawaiian island. Selected release. The Proposal (12A) ●●●●● (Anne Fletcher, US, 2009) Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds, Mary Steenburgen. 107min. Odd- couple comedy follow-up to 27 Dresses with a plot that blatantly reworks Peter Weir’s considerably superior Green Card. Bullock plays a bullish publisher who faces deportation to Canada. Her only route to remaining in her swanky job involves bullying her put-upon assistant Andrew (Reynolds) into a fake marriage. Soulless, manipulative fare. General release.
✽✽ Public Enemies (15) ●●●●● (Michael Mann, US, 2009) Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard. 143min. Depp is typically mesmerising as depression-era bank robber John Dillinger, a folk hero to a disenchanted public, and number one target of J Edgar Hoover’s fledgling FBI. Mann’s gripping hand-held
Cine Cuba This season celebrating ‘50 Years of Revolution on Film’ hits its stride with Pavel Giroud’s ageing gangster drama Omertà and the queer politics of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s Strawberry
and Chocolate. Also showing later in the season are Manuel Pérez’s moving meditation on aging Diary of Mauricio and Giroud’s earlier film An Awkward Age about an adolescent’s coming-of-age during the dawning of Castro’s Cuba. www.cuba-solidarity.org. ■ GFT, Glasgow & Filmhouse, Edinburgh until Sun 30 Aug.
style and real locations heighten the authenticity and immediacy and overcome minor niggles, such as the occasional distortion of history, for a powerful result as Mann does what he does best. Selected release. Race to Witch Mountain (PG) ●●●●● (Andy Fickman, US, 2009) Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Ciaran Hinds. 98min. Sympathetic revival of 1975’s Escape to Witch Mountain as a vehicle for The Rock. Jack Bruno, a Las Vegas taxi-driver picks up two alien children (Anna Sophia Robb) and (Alexander Ludwig) and attracts the attentions of FBI-man Henry Burke (Hinds) in this solid time-passer that makes up in speed and slick production values what it
lacks in character. Empire Clydebank; Cineworld Edinburgh. The Reader (15) ●●●●● (Stephen Daldry, US/Germany, 2008) Ralph Fiennes, Kate Winslet, David Kross. 123min. In a West German town at the end of the 1950s, 15-year-old Michael (Kross) starts a passionate affair with Hanna (Winslet), a tram conductor more than
6–13 Aug 2009 THE LIST 27