Film REVIEWS
ALSO RELEASED
Despair ((1155)) 111155mmiinn Park Circus reissue of the Dirk Bogarde-starring, Tom Stoppard-penned identity-swap drama. Selected release from Fri 6 Jan.
Goon ((1155)) 9922mmiinn Ice hockey comedy starring Seann William Scott and Jay Baruchel. General release from Fri 6 Jan. Kurtulus Son Durak ((ttbbcc cceerrtt)) ttbbcc mmiinn A group of women become empowered together in this Turkish comedy. Selected release from Fri 6 Jan.
The Darkest Hour ((1122AA)) 8899mmiinn Moscow- based alien invasion movie starring Emile Hirsch. Selected release from Fri 13 Jan. Tatsumi ((1155)) 9944mmiinn Animated film based on the life and short stories of alternative manga artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi. Selected release from Fri 13 Jan.
Margin Call ((1155)) 110077mmiinn Star-studded Wall Street thriller, with Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Demi Moore, Zachary Quinto, Paul Bettany and Stanley Tucci. General release from Fri 13 Jan.
A Useful Life ((cceerrtt ttbbcc)) 7700mmiinn Uraguayan drama about a newly unemployed cinema staffer. Selected release from Fri 13 Jan. The Nine Muses ((PPGG)) 9900mmiinn Experimental film documenting the immigrant experience, travelling from Alaska to the UK. Selected release from Fri 20 Jan.
L’Atalante ((PPGG)) 8899mmiinn BFI reissue of the 1934 French canal-based romance. Selected release from Fri 20 Jan.
Red Light Revolution ((1188)) 9911mmiinn The opening of a sex shop sparks a Beijing neighbourhood’s sexual revolution. Selected release from Fri 20 Jan.
Underworld: Awakening ((cceerrtt ttbbcc)) ttbbcc mmiinn Kate Beckinsale returns in the fourth instalment of the vampires’n’werewolves action horror franchise. General release from Fri 20 Jan.
A Monster in Paris ((UU)) 9900mmiinn Fairly self- explanatory Dreamworks animation premise: it’s about a monster. In Paris. General release from Fri 27 Jan. Acts of Godfrey ((ttbbcc cceerrtt)) ttbbcc mmiinn Comedy drama starring Simon Callow and Harry Enfield. Selected release from Fri 27 Jan.
House of Tolerance ((1188)) 112222mmiinn French drama set in an early 20th century brothel. Selected release from Fri 27 Jan.
Patience (After Sebald) ((ttbbcc cceerrtt)) 9900mmiinn German writer WG Sebald is the subject of this multi-layered documentary from Grant Gee. Selected release from Fri 27 Jan. The Grey ((ttbbcc cceerrtt)) ttbbcc mmiinn Liam Neeson continues his tough guy resurgence by fending off wolves in this Alaska-set survival drama. General release from Fri 27 Jan.
Chronicle ((ttbbcc cceerrtt)) ttbbcc mmiinn Sci-fi thriller in which three teenagers discover they have superpowers. General release from Wed 1 Feb.
66 THE LIST 5 Jan–2 Feb 2012
THRILLER HAYWIRE (15) 93min ●●●●●
While other directors talk endlessly about the next great movie they are going to make, Steven Soderbergh keeps on quietly making films at a frequent rate, never repeating himself (Ocean’s sequels notwithstanding), and consistently bettering his contemporaries by way of exceptional filmmaking and surprising choices. Haywire is a case in point. Arriving in cinemas less than six months after his virus thriller Contagion, it’s a stripped-down action chase movie directed, shot and edited by Soderbergh with a level of energy and invention that puts most action directors to shame.
The slim plot centres on government assassin Mallory Kane (played by mixed-martial-arts star Gina Carano), who is on the run from all kinds of shady higher powers, for reasons which writer Lem Dobbs wisely deems unimportant to clarify. Big name actors play Mallory’s various antagonists (Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas and a coolly deadpan Michael Douglas), but the focus is on Carano’s Mallory, and she’s truly awesome; powerful, sexy and – like most of Soderbergh’s protagonists – very good at her job. David Holmes’ slinky score occasionally recalls Soderbergh’s Out of Sight, but mostly this is Kill Bill meets The Bourne Identity with all excess flab trimmed away. (Paul Gallagher) ■ General release from Wed 18 Jan.
TRIPTYCH MOTHER AND CHILD (15) 126min ●●●●● COMEDY THE SITTER (15) 81min ●●●●●
Mexican cinema’s love affair with the triptych continues with Mother and Child. Executive produced by Babel director Alexandra Gonzalez Iñárritu, the latest film from Nine Lives helmsman Rodrigo Garcia stars Annette Bening as a nursing home physical therapist annoyed at two figures in her homelife – her ageing mother and the occasionally present 14-year-old daughter of her maid. In easily the most interesting of the three stories Naomi Watts plays a nihilistic LA-based attorney with a penchant for sleeping with married men. The third tale revolves around Lucy (Kerry Washington), who, having failed to conceive with her husband, now wants to adopt. While Garcia’s principal preoccupation is with the
fallout from adoption, it’s the secondary storylines about women in the work place and the stresses of marriage and pregnancy that are the film’s strengths. Its weaknesses, as is often the case with movies with intertwining storylines, are the plodding pace and the over-neat segues that place too much emphasis on chance and coincidence. (Kaleem Aftab) ■ Selected release from Fri 6 Jan.
After springing to stardom in Superbad, Jonah Hill gets his first lead role in The Sitter, an amiable low- brow comedy that throws Hill’s laid-back slacker persona into a similar underworld of criminal hijinks as that of Pineapple Express. Hill plays Noah Griffith, a work-shy student whose mother persuades him to babysit for three children to allow her to go on a date. Noah hopes that cerebral but sexually confused Slater (Max Records), precocious Blithe (Landry Bender), and adopted rebel Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez) will take a back seat in his minivan but they all end up on the city streets, tangling with various drug mafia types.
Casting the passive-aggressive Hill as an irresponsibly bad babysitter ensures a few laughs, and the commendably brief 81-minute running time doesn’t let the plotting sag. But for Hill, so effective as Brad Pitt’s foil in Moneyball, The Sitter feels like treading water; his likable persona is pretty much all film has to offer other than contrived gangland situations and the familiar heavy-handed moralising we’ve come to expect from the sub-Apatow comedy genre. (Eddie Harrison) ■ General release from Fri 20 Jan.