GRECOFILM Reviews

Matchstick Men (2003)

8

[8 January 2004]

When it comes to neuroses, Roy makes Woody Allen look like the Dalai Lama.

He's the obsessive-compulsive conman played by Nicolas Cage, in Ridley Scott's enticing but defective dramedy Matchstick Men.

When he's working a scam, it's not the cops Roy gets antsy about, but the microbes floating around in the air. Everywhere. Right now. Out to get you.

His partner-in-crime and brash protégé Frank (Sam Rockwell) worries that Roy's multitudinous tics and phobias are eventually going to land them in hot water. To compound the problem, Roy's shrink (Bruce Altman) reunites him with his 14-year-old daughter Angela (Alison Lohman), and it's not long before she's kipping on the couch.

She upsets Roy's carefully balanced pattern of existence with her clutter and bad table manners, and threatens to blow the biggest swindle of his and Frank's joint career.

The premise is beguiling: Cage tortured with twitches, having to balance parental responsibilities with his commitment to ripping off hardworking Joes. It's fun for a while, but something's got to give.

Disappointingly the same goes for the plot. It engages you with the deepening bond between father and daughter, but then late in the game, Scott takes his eye off the ball and leaves their relationship up in the air.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

8

[8 January 2004]

Russell Crowe wages war on water in this rousing, old-fashioned adventure, which stays afloat despite being almost as long and self-important as its title.

April, 1805. Pint-sized French fascist Napoleon is "master of Europe", but Britain is still scrapping on the high seas. The ship HMS Surprise is defending the Empire on "the far side of the world", chasing a French frigate along the coast of Brazil.

"CROWE DELIVERS ANOTHER FINE PERFORMANCE"

But then, the tables are turned. Outmanoeuvred and outgunned, Captain Jack Aubrey (Crowe) is up against it. While his best friend, surgeon Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany), wants to scarper, 'Lucky' Jack is determined to fight on - and damn the consequences.

Crowe delivers another fine performance here, mastering an English accent (and the violin) as a gruff action-man with pretensions. The movie matches his character, as it's not quite happy to be a brain-in-the-bin swashbuckler. Oh no: Master And Commander craves importance.

"LESS GLADIATOR, MORE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC"

So, instead of zipping through the slight story (chase ship: capture it), director/co-writer Peter Weir (The Truman Show) is bogged down by a 'character-building' stopover in the Galapagos Islands. It's less Gladiator, more National Geographic, as Maturin mooches around oohing over nature like a good-looking Charles Darwin.

Sandwiching this snooze, though, is some great aquatic action. Filmed in the same giant tank as Titanic, the sea-set sequences are utterly convincing; both exciting and spectacular.

Morvern Callar (2002)

8

[8 January 2004]

With her auspicious debut "Ratcatcher", Lynne Ramsay demonstrated that she thrived on atmosphere, favouring a hauntingly sensual visual style over dialogue and an over-explained plot.

Now with her second film, Ramsay is back on equally uncluttered and mesmerising turf.

Capturing the mood and visuals of Alan Warner's eponymous novel, she's faithful rather than slavish to its spirit - no mean feat for this cult and allegedly unfilmable book - and the results are dazzling.

The film opens with Morvern (Morton), bathed in the intermittent glow of her Christmas tree lights, sensually caressing the body of her boyfriend, who has committed suicide on the kitchen floor.

Numbed by his death, she pretends that he's left town. Then, after discovering his unpublished novel, she decides to pass it off as her own.

Not so much a discredit to her boyfriend but her ticket to a new life, Morvern uses the money from her beau's bank account to take herself, and her best friend Lanna (McDermott), to Spain.

But while Lanna opts for partying, Morvern retreats from the tourist areas and negotiates a book deal that enables her to escape her former life.

Max (I) (2002)

8

[8 January 2004]

Munich, Germany 1918. The First World War is over. Germany has been humiliated at Versailles and the streets of the city are awash with forlorn, unemployed soldiers returning to find their beloved country in ruins. It's a chaotic state that's giving birth to the wondrous new art of Dada, but also to a new politics of hate.

Through this landscape scuttles a lank-haired corporal named Adolf Hitler (Noah Taylor), who has dreams of becoming a painter. Meanwhile, in another part of the city, Jewish war veteran turned art dealer Max Rothman (John Cusack) is hosting an exhibition of modernist painting.

Neither man knows it yet, but their lives are about to intersect in a moment that could have turned the tide of history.

It takes courage to make a film about Hitler, especially when it's a film that treats the emblem of evil as a human being rather than a caricature. Deliberately setting itself at the moment before Hitler was seduced by the political cut and thrust of anti-Semitic rabble-rousing, "Max" exists in a time pocket where the "What if?" questions posed by the script are given free reign to develop.

Manic (2001)

9

[8 January 2004]

Following a fight which left his classmate with 50 stitches to the head, Lyle (Levitt) finds himself admitted to a juvenile ward of a private psychiatric facility.

The new admission's fellow patients are being treated for a variety of conditions: Chad (played by co-screenwriter Michael Bacall) suffers from an acute manic-depressive disorder; the self-mutilating Tracy (Deschanel) wakes up screaming in the night; tough-guy Mike (Henson) asserts himself through violence; and the shy, diminutive Kenny (Lightning) has been sexually abused by a family member.

The clinic's psychologist Dr Monroe (Cheadle) attempts to get these troubled individuals to explore their feelings and to take responsibility for their actions in group therapy sessions.

Is it ever going to be possible for them to find real meaning in their chaotic existences?

Shot with a powerful immediacy on handheld digital video, the debut feature of director Jordan Melamed is a US indie which borrows from the spirit of the best Dogme films.

There's little in the way of a conventional story here - just a powerful concentration on character and atmosphere.

Set almost entirely within the confines of a psychiatric ward (where shoelaces are removed in case of attempted suicides), the film steers clear of the phony redemption offered by the likes of "Girl, Interrupted" and "Good Will Hunting".

Partly through some astute editing, Melamed conveys the strange rhythms of institutional life for these adolescents: the sense of boredom and frustration is mixed with frenetic bursts of energy, whether on the basketball court or in a slamdance trashing of the recreational room.

The dialogue is often biting - "Do you think being black is talking **** and wearing baggy clothes?" Monroe asks white B-Boy Mike.

The performances are also impressively convincing, while the ambiguous ending is in keeping with the rest of this edgy, sincere drama.

Merlin: The Return (2000)

8

[8 January 2004]

If, when in the cinema, children are spinning round to stare at you, it means either that the film itself is terminally terrible or you've sprouted a massive boil on your forehead that you hadn't quite noticed. The first answer is, of course, the right one. And as for "Merlin The Return", it's a stinker in a division all of its own. It's almost as if director Paul Matthews had accepted a bet to make the worst possible film. Well, he's succeeded, and his winnings are bound to be more than Merlin will ever make.

Matthews' lumbering style sees the picture heave from one gormless scene to the next, helped on its way by the most awful acting. Rik Mayall (Merlin) trots out his usual sweaty desperation and manic panic, Patrick Bergin (King Arthur) looks like an embarrassing dad (complete with silly wig and glitzy, disco-friendly pullover), while the token American (no doubt included to secure international release - some hope) is a kid who seems to be reading his lines off Merlin's forehead.