bond-jb Reviews

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

A well-made, entertaining horror film

[7/10 · 27 November 1999]

Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow is a wonderfully enjoyable film, complete with top-notch acting and first-rate direction. Burton solidifies his position as one of the premiere visual filmmakers in Hollywood. Johnny Depp stars as Ichabod Crane, a constable (in this version, anyway) who is sent up from New York by his frustrated superiors to solve a series of spooky murders.

Depp is superb as Crane. He plays the constable not as the generic fast-thinking gun-slinging detective; instead, he paints Crane as an intelligent romantic with a slight touch of cowardice. It's fun to see such a smart, believable performance. Christina Ricci has a nice supporting turn as Katrina Van Tassel, Crane's young love interest. And then there's the always watchable Jeffrey Jones, who, in my mind, will always be known as the principal in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Burton's use of the camera is masterful. He creates a haunting, eerie mood not seen in a horror movie since Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula in 1992. The dark tone of the cinematography combines well with Danny Elfman's score, producing a remarkably engrossing effect.

Sleepy Hollow loses steam late, and its ending, although satisfactory, is not incredible. The screenplay jumps around a little too much, and one character is sort of tossed in at the end and is in need of more development. Unlike the far superior Dracula, which had several excellent supporting roles to beef up the film, Sleepy Hollow is pretty much one-dimensional. But this movie isn't supposed to be a cerebral masterpiece but a visual one, and it certainly is that.

The Thin Red Line (1998)

A visually extraordinary disappointment

[7/10 · 10 August 1999]

Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line" is a good film, peppered in numerous areas with wonderfully directed scenes, several complex and interesting characters, and a terrific ensemble cast. But several great qualities don't make a movie great, and the problem with "Thin Red Line" is that those positive attributes don't help the central movie. It's interesting to watch, and Malick's direction combined with John Toll's excellent photography work is at times astounding. But rather than heading for an interesting story, Malick's screenplay instead focuses on the "poetry" of war, for lack of a better word.

Malick uses horribly annoying voice-overs throughout the movie, as his characters make profound comments on the nature of evil and the like. One major problem with the voice-overs is that the camera is often focusing on one character while a different person is speaking his mind to the universe. During the first half of the movie, I was annoyed because I had no idea who was talking. During the second half, I didn't care.

The movie's two best performances come from Nick Nolte and Elias Koteas, and Sean Penn and Jim Caviezel also make interesting characters. But as the movie drags and lags, the audience loses all interest because, although the characters are complex, they have no connection with the plot.

The result is a movie that is brilliant to look at, boring to listen to, and long to watch in the theatre. After finishing this movie, I felt betrayed because I realized that I had just watched a good film that could have been a great one.

The Break (1997)

Not "The Crying Game"

[4/10 · 6 June 1999]

In "The Crying Game," Neil Jordan and Stephen Rea combined to create a masterful, suspenseful thriller. However, "The Break" fails to reproduce that effect, ultimately resulting in a disappointing film. After an intriguing opening sequence, in which Rea, as an Irish terrorist (surprised?), breaks out of prison, the movie really has nowhere to go. Ronan Bennett's screenplay tries to tell the sympathetic tale of a complex man attempting to go straight. The concept is good, but the movie gets bogged down in a poor relationship and runs into a complete dead end halfway through. Of course, Rea eventually returns to his terrorist techniques, this time to help the woman kill an oppressive Spanish general, or something ridiculous like that.

The movie simply doesn't have any firepower in the second half. The audience doesn't care about Rea's character. If you want to see a terrific movie with powerful performances and a fascinating story, check out "The Crying Game." Twice, instead of this once.