FILM REVIEW: Simon Pegg in ‘Hot Fuzz’

Posted on February 14, 2007 by admin

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By Ray Bennett

LONDON – It’s fast and furious; it’s loud and there’s lots of gunplay but screenwriters Edgar Wright (who directs) and Simon Pegg (who stars) fail to deliver the comic goods or thrills in their cop show lark “Hot Fuzz” the way they did in the zombie spoof “Shaun of the Dead”.

Everyone can relate to a zombie picture, but “Hot Fuz” is “Point Break” meets “The Vicar of Dibley”. It’s most unlikely that outside the U.K. the twain’s devotees know one another. Non-Brit action fans won’t know or care about the village stereotypes and those who find the excitement of “Midsomer Murders” quite sufficient will be turned off. The film has done well at home so there could be a quick and possibly healthy box office return in its U.S. release based on the promise of “Shaun”. It’s more likely to enjoy a longer life on DVD.

A good lampoon requires affection as well as a sharp eye for mockery but it appears that Wright and Pegg love their shoot-’em-up flicks a touch too much. When Pegg, as an ace city cop assigned to a rural backwater, and Nick Frost, as a bumbling village constable, get their shotguns pumping and 9mms blazing, comedy goes out the window.

The film begins promisingly enough as all-action copper Sgt. Nicholas Angel (Pegg) solves crimes and catches villains across London. He’s so good that he makes the rest of the Metropolitan Police look bad. He has this explained to him drolly in quick succession by senior officers played by Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan and Bill Nighy. If the story had played out in the capital with those actors involved, things might have gone better.

But Wright and Pegg have smaller fish to fry. Angel is assigned to a quiet and sedate West Country spot that has been named village of the year for as long as anyone can remember. He soon meets the local uniforms: Jim Broadbent as a police inspector with Frost, Paddy Considine, Bill Bailey and Olivia Colman among his force. The initial encounters bode well although probably not for teenaged moviegoers eager for the guns to go off.

When that happens, the killings get truly gory as Angel uncovers a plot in which locals murder anyone who might prevent the village from winning its annual prize. The filmmakers evidently took great satisfaction in casting performers well known to British television viewers and theatergoers as village folk with a taste for high-powered weapons. It’s doubtful that audiences in the U.S. will recognize many beyond Stephen Merchant and Timothy Dalton.

All the action is staged with energy, but it gets relentless without anything really funny going on. Pegg shoots for laughs by playing it right down the middle like Dan Aykroyd doing “Dragnet”. Again, Pegg’s stupid fat sidekick, Frost, remains bereft of any observable talent for comedy. When the two start flying through the air with automatics kicking, you’d bet they would give anything to be in a Robert Rodriguez film and not in a comedy at all.

Released: UK Feb. 20 / US:April 20; Cast: Simon Pegg; Nick Frost; Bill Bailey; Tim Barlow; David Bradley; Jim Broadbent; Adam Buxton; Olivia Colman; Paddy Considine; Steve Coogan; Ron Cook; Timothy Dalton; Julia Deakin; Kevin Eldon; Patricia Franklin; Martin Freeman, Stephen Merchant; Director: Edgar Wright; Screenwriters: Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright; Director of photography: Jess Hall; Production designer: Marcus Rowland; Music: David Arnold; Costume designer: Annie Hardinge; Editor: Chris Dickens; Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Nira Park; Executive producer: Nathascha Wharton. UK rating: 15, running time 116 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter and Reuters

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BERLIN FILM REVIEW: Marianne Faithfull in ‘Irina Palm’

Posted on February 13, 2007 by admin

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By Ray Bennett

BERLIN – Marianne Faithfull (pictured) is unforgettable as a middle-class, middle-aged frump who takes a job at a sex club in order to raise enough money for her grandson’s life-saving operation in Sam Garbarski’s crowd-pleasing comedy-drama “Irina Palm.”

Cheers and applause erupted following the Berlinale press screening Tuesday, and that reaction should accompany this competition film on the way to awards and audiences everywhere.

Mixing pathos and comedy expertly, with many funny lines, the screenplay by Martin Herron and Philippe Blasband, based on an original script by Blasband, shows a knowing hand in scenes involving stuffy Little England villagers and the cynical operators of the sex business in London’s Soho.

The situation is established quickly. Maggie’s small grandson Olly (Corey Burke) will die unless he gets to Australia for an operation that’s only available in Melbourne. The treatment is free, but it will take £6,000 for Maggie’s son Tom (Kevin Bishop) and his wife Sarah (Siobhan Hewlett) to get him there.

The boy’s parents are broke and Maggie, a widow, already has sold her home to pay for Olly’s treatment. Turned down by her bank and employment agencies, Maggie spots a job offer for a hostess in a Soho doorway.

Full of trepidation, she enters a world she has never experienced and of which she has not the slightest knowledge. In a very funny scene, the world-weary Eastern European club owner, Miki (Miki Manojlovic), patiently explains that “hostess” is a euphemism for “whore.” He examines her smooth hands and says she could make a lot of money by masturbating men that she wouldn’t see as they placed their organs through a hole in the wall.

Outraged, Maggie flees. But seeing once again how distraught her family is, she returns and takes the job. Another sex worker, Luisa (Dorka Gryllus), patiently instructs her in the techniques of the job: “The first time is embarrassing, but after that you’ll wank for England.”

Miki gives Maggie her own booth and the professional name Irina Palm, and soon men are lining up for her exceptional ministrations. She even decorates her little booth with pictures and knickknacks from home. With the promise of making a lot of money, Maggie decides to keep doing it though she is desperate to make sure no one in her family or her village finds out what she’s doing.

That, of course, is where the tension lies as both her son and the prissy members of her bridge foursome become ever more curious about her daily activities in the city. The inevitable revelation and the various reactions to it are hilarious, sad and warming. The only discordant note in the picture is in Tom’s behavior when learning of his mother’s sacrifice, but it does serve to heighten the response of Sarah and the other women.

The film’s guitar score by Ghinzu does much to amplify Maggie’s path from obeying conventional mores to casting away worries about what people will think. Garbarski does not shrink from the harsh realities of the sex industry, but he also takes time to develop an unlikely romance between Maggie and Miki.

Manojlovic deserves high praise for his handling of the club owner’s reluctant corruption, but it is Faithfull’s compassionate and knowing performance that will leave audiences smiling.

Venue: Berlin International Film Festival; Cast: Marianne Faithfull; Miki Manojlovic; Kevin Bishop, Siobhan Hewlett, Dorka Gryllus, Jenny Agutter, Corey Burke, Meg Wynn-Owen, Susan Hitch; Director: Sam Garbarski; Writers: Martin Herron, Philippe Blasband, based on an original script by: Philippe Blasband; Director of photography: Christophe Beaucarne; Production designer: Veronique Sacrez; Music: Ghinzu

Costume designer: Anushia Nieradzik; Editor: Ludo Troch; Producer: Sebastien Delloye; Production: Entre Chien et Loup, Pyramide International; Not rated; running time, 103 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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BERLIN FILM REVIEW: ‘The Life and Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal’

Posted on February 13, 2007 by admin

By Ray Bennett

BERLIN – Concentration camp survivor Simon Wiesenthal, who lost 89 relatives to the Nazis, was for many the conscience of the Holocaust. An extraordinary man who died at 96, outliving almost all of his enemies, Wiesenthal celebrated his 90th birthday at the Hotel Imperial in Vienna. It was where Adolf Hitler always stayed. Continue reading →

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BERLIN FILM REVIEW: ‘When a Man Falls in the Forest’

Posted on February 12, 2007 by admin

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By Ray Bennett

BERLIN – One of the characters in Ryan Eslinger’s joyless drama of wasted lives, “When a Man Falls in the Forest,” listens to a self-help tape called “An Exploratory Guide to Lucid Dreaming.” It’s too bad the writer-director didn’t come across one for lucid filmmaking.

Sharon Stone is an executive producer of the film, and she plays a woman preoccupied with the fact that she has lost her looks, though the only evidence of that is that she doesn’t wear makeup. Stone fans are not the only ones unlikely to flock to this dull, wearying picture.

There are three deeply unhappy men in the film who went to high school together but haven’t been in touch for years, though two of them were drinking buddies for a while. One is caught in a forlorn marriage, another hasn’t dated in years since the woman he loved was killed in a car accident for which he blames himself, and the third, well, he can’t even dream straight.

Eslinger provides so little information about this hapless trio that it’s difficult to figure out what they’re whining about. Bill (Dylan Baker) is the kind of janitor you don’t want to be caught in the office with late at night. At work, he listens to opera to drown out the sound of the vacuum cleaner, and during the day he sleeps with headphones on listening to a woman nattering about how to improve his dreams.

Eslinger introduces some dream sequences having to do with Bill’s comely neighbor, a blonde he suspects is being beaten by her husband. He’s the hero in his dreams, but he hasn’t really mastered the bit about being lucid.

Gary (Timothy Hutton, pictured with Stone) works in the office Bill cleans, and lately he’s been staying late, snoring on his desk or crying in the bathroom. Bill senses something’s up, but even though he’s the type that corrects the alphabetical order of his opera tapes at the library, he doesn’t ask about it.

At home, Gary’s sad wife, Karen (Stone), tries to communicate with her increasingly distant husband, but when he follows her to the grocery store and tries to reignite their earlier flirtatious ways, she crumples in self-pity over how she is not a head-turner anymore.

For no apparent reason, Gary phones his old buddy Travis (Pruitt Taylor Vince), but when they get together for a beer, he just wants to leave. Travis is a touch less passive than Bill, but when he drops in unexpectedly and finds Gary asleep on the couch in his clothes and asks if he can help, Gary just tells him what a loser he is.

There’s something in the background about Gary being in trouble with the law, and Karen follows the traditional path of disaffected, once-beautiful housewives by taking to shoplifting, but these elements go nowhere.

A great mystery writer used to say that when he had writer’s block, he’d just have someone walk in with a gun, and guess what? That’s as lucid as this film gets.

Venue: Berlin International Film Festival, In Competition; Cast: Timothy Hutton, Sharon Stone, Dylan Baker, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Stacie Bono, David Williams, Nicholas Elia, Melanie Yeats; Director-writer: Ryan Eslinger; Director of photography: Lawrence Sher; Production designer: Andy Deskin; Music: Paul Michael Thomas, John Sereda; Costume designer: Ken Shapkin; Editors: Jamie Alain, Ryan Eslinger; Producers: Mary Aloe, Kirk Shaw; Executive producers: Sharon Stone, John F.S. Laing, Michael Dimanno Production: Proud Mary Entertainment, Insight Film; Not rated; running time, 85 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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BERLIN FILM REVIEW: Julie Delpy’s ‘2 Days in Paris’

Posted on February 10, 2007 by admin

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By Ray Bennett

BERLIN – Lovers in the city of romance. Jack’s American; Marion’s French. He’s a hypochondriac; she worries about the state of the world. He’s an interior designer; she’s a photographer. He’s in a foreign city, and she’s back where she grew up. Everywhere she runs into old lovers. Jealous? Jack?

Julie Delpy has written, edited, directed and written the music for “Two Days in Paris,” and as director she is well served by the other three, not to mention being smart enough to cast herself as Marion and the ineffably winning Adam Goldberg as Jack.

The result is an utterly charming comedy of sexual manners that should do very well wherever audiences appreciate savvy dialogue and smart, observational filmmaking.

The two lovers are returning from a vacation in Venice, heading back to New York where they live, but stopping in Paris for a couple of days and nights of romance. In a voiceover, Marion says their relationship has the usual ups and downs, and it’s soon evident that key to their union is a shared sense of very quirky humor.

Waiting in a line for a cab, Jack is pestered by a vocal American woman who explains that she and her companions are “Code”-breakers and asks if he can direct them to the Louvre. Jack blithely sends them off on foot to the suburbs, thus saving the museum from another assault by Dan Brown fans, and reducing the length of the queue.

They are staying at Marion’s old apartment, which she has kept not least because it’s two floors up from where her mother and father live and they take care of it. The pipes are leaky, and Jack fears the place is a Petri dish for allergens, but they settle in, arguing all the way in their friendly, flirty way.

Marion’s mother (Marie Pillet) and father (Albert Delpy, Julie’s real dad) tease Jack mercilessly, but he gives as good as he gets, although he doesn’t think so. The only genuine embarrassment is when her sister Rose (Aleksia Landeau) produces a picture Marion took of Jack when he was naked apart from helium balloons attached to his genitalia.

The 48-hour stopover soon seems destined to introduce Jack to the myriad ways that beautiful French women attract and deal with the attentions of men, sometimes smooth but often crude. When several of the men they run into are revealed as Marion’s ex-lovers, their relative states of mind regarding love and fidelity are tested to the utmost.

Delpy writes very well and many of the jokes and lines are extremely funny. She handles actors well, and there’s an amusing cameo by Daniel Bruhl as an otherwise agreeable animal rights activist with a grudge against fast-food restaurants. Delpy has genuine comic chops and Goldberg handles every situation with the New York equivalent of Hugh Grant’s insouciance. Together they do nothing to rob Paris of its reputation for joyful romantic adventures.

Venue: Berlin International Film Festival; Cast: Julie Delpy; Adam Goldberg; Daniel Bruhl; Marie Pillet; Albert Delpy; Aleksia Landeau; Adan Jodorowsky; Ludovic Berthillot; Director, writer, editor and composer: Julie Delpy; Director of photography: Lubomir Bakchev; Production designer: Soraya Mangin; Costume designer: Stephan Rollot; Producers: Christophe Mazodier, Julie Delpy, Thierry Potok; Production: Polaris Films, Rezo Films International; Not rated; running time, 93 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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THEATRE REVIEW: ‘A Moon for the Misbegotten’

Posted on September 28, 2006 by admin

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By Ray Bennett

LONDON – The Old Vic’s revival of Eugene O’Neill’s 1947 drama “A Moon for the Misbegotten” is a powerful demonstration of how superlative acting – in this case by Kevin Spacey, Eve Best and Colm Meaney  – can elevate a flawed play so that the whole thing resembles a masterpiece.

The story is of a mismatched couple who on one moon-spangled night finally cut through the false images they present to the world and each other to find deep but transitory solace.

The characters are rooted in Irish romantic fatalism and the stereotypes of a self-loathing poet and a long-suffering earth mother. Their desperate loneliness and longing are universal but O’Neill’s mournful indulgence of weakness and obstinacy is illuminated on stage by the passionate humanity invested in them by Spacey and Meaney (pictured top) and Best (pictured with Spacey below).

Irish coot Phil Hogan (Meaney) has buried his wife and driven off his three sons with his hard ways. Only daughter Josie (Best) remains and that is due largely to the fact that she is tougher and more ornery than her father.

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Their landlord is a loquacious traveler and sometime actor named Jim Tyrone (Spacey), who spends his inheritance on drunken Manhattan frivolity but stops by now and then to engage in fierce banter with Hogan and to flirt with his daughter.

Never without a drink, Tyrone claims to find the rough and ready Josie, who boasts of her easy way with men, the most beautiful woman in the world. Josie harbours a great love for the wastrel but she buries her feelings beneath the pretense that she is too hard-bitten to care.

When father and daughter humiliate their rich neighbour, T. Stedman Harder (Billy Miller), he seeks payback by offering a fortune to buy the land from Tyrone, who has promised never to sell it except to the Hogans.

Outraged, Josie joins in a plot to seduce Tyrone and cause a public scandal in order to blackmail him into giving them both the land and the money that Harder has offered.

The clunky plot and motivation in all of this does not bear close inspection but they are merely pegs on which O’Neill hands his story of self-deception and compassion with some gorgeous words and phrases to light the way.

Spacey wears Tyrone’s defeat like a whiskey-soaked suit. He spurns the obvious temptation to be lyrically Irish and shows instead the ruin of a man too far gone to save himself. Best in no way resembles O’Neill’s description of Josie as being “so oversized for a woman that she is almost a freak” and so she takes as her guide another of the author’s phrases: “the map of Ireland is stamped on her face.” With breathtaking simplicity, she inhabits a character whose inner strength emerges only when she sets aside the carapace of denial.

Meaney anchors the story of the two younger walking wounded. He commands the stage as Hogan and finds the humour in the man’s bluffness and the sadness in his jokes.

Director Howard Davies deserves some credit for these three extraordinary performances and the look and feel of the production. Bob Crowley’s atmospheric design, Paule Constable’s subtle lighting and Dominic Muldowney’s bluesy music similarly are first-rate.

What begins as a folksy tale that threatens a cup full of blarney ends up as a deeply moving drama that brims with emotion and fortitude; made unforgettable by actors at the peak of their powers.

Venue: The Old Vic, runs through Dec. 23; Cast: Kevin Spacey, Eve Best, Colm Meaney, Eugene O’Hare, Billy Carter; Playwright: Eugene O’Neill; Direcyor: Howard Davies; Designer: Bob Crowley; Costumes: Lynette Mauro; Lighting designer: Paul Constable; Music: Dominic Muldowney; Sound: Christopher Shutt; Presented by the Old Vic, Elliot Martin, Nica Burns and Max Weitzenhoffer.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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MUSIC REVIEW: 50th anniversary of Fender Stratocaster

Posted on September 26, 2006 by admin

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By Ray Bennett

LONDON – Grinning like the Nashville cat that got the cream, Albert Lee showed up just often enough to lighten the mood in a long and surprisingly sober Wembley Arena charity concert by top guitarists called the Miller Strat Pack to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Fender Stratocaster.

Jeff Beck, one of the billed headliners, withdrew “due to unforeseen difficulties”, organizers said, but heavy-duty rockers on hand included Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, Queen’s Brian May, the Eagles’ Joe Walsh, Roxy Music’s Phil Manzanera, Mike Rutherford from Genesis and Ronnie Wood from the Rolling Stones.

The Crickets kicked off the almost three-hour show, which benefited the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Centre, in very lively fashion. Guitar player Sonny Curtis (pictured with Wood, Lee and May) took vocal duties on songs that he and drummer J.I. Alison wrote with Buddy Holly  – “Oh, Boy”, “Maybe Baby”, “More Than I Can Say”, ”Every Day”, and “Peggy Sue” as Albert Lee chimed in. Curtis sang his own “I Fought the Law” and May took over for the Holly classic “That’ll Be the Day” as Ronnie Wood lent a hand.

The pace slowed down as Hank Marvin of the Shadows played five of his best-known instrumentals including the hypnotic “Sleep Walk” and his biggest hit, “Apache”. Smiling and relaxed, playing beside his guitarist son Ben, Marvin was received deliriously by the 10,000 crowd and he had the best line of the night: “Thank you all for coming along to support a very worthy cause. Old men”.

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There were lots of gray and balding heads in the audience but no less fervent for that as, to contradict Marvin, out came New Orleans-based blonde Swedish singer/violinist Theresa Andersson to declare: “I’m On My Way” with Lee. The smiling Englishman raised the bar on picking expectations with a glorious performance of Ricky Skaggs’ “Country Boy,” his long white hair as still as his flying fingers were fast.

Mike Rutherford followed, accompanied by Paul Carrack from Ace, as they played respectful tributes to Jim Hendrix with “All Along the Watchtower” and George Harrison with “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”. They added the Genesis track “I Can’t Dance” and Ace’s “How Long (has this been going on?)” for good measure.

But then Belfast-born Gary Moore blew the roof off with a long, outstanding barrel-house rendition of Hendrix’s “Red House”. After a break, singer/pianist Jamie Cullum volunteered his version of Hendrix’s “Angel”, and Amy Winehouse offered “Out of the Box” and “Stranger than Me”.

Paul Rodgers, of Free and Bad Company, who was in fine voice, lit the house on fire with a vigorous set that included “Muddy Water Blues” and “Drinking”. Brian May provided a guitar solo for Free’s anthem “Alright Now”, which prompted a standing ovation, and then Joe Walsh stepped in to play on Bad Company’s “Can’t Get Enough”.

The Eagles man, who appeared tired but played well and got a big hand, stayed on to perform “Life’s Been Good”, “Life in the Fast Lane”, “Lucky Mountain Way” and “Funk 49”.

Soberly dressed Phil Manzanera did his “6PM” and stepped back to allow the very serious David Gilmour (pictured above) to take center stage for “Marooned” and “Coming Back to Life”. Gilmour was given a rapturous reception and he delivered an epic performance of his ethereal, beseeching music, which finished with the subterranean growl of “Sorrow”.

Ronnie Wood was presumably booked to top off the show with some typical Stones good times but the rocker perversely came on without a hard-bodied guitar for a lackluster performance of “Ooh La La,” in which he was saved by the backup singers.

The evening ended with a delivery of “Stay With Me” led by the energetic Rodgers and every picker in the show. It was a good time but the memories of Lee, Moore and Gilmour will linger longest.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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VENICE FILM REVIEW: Alfonso Cuaron’s ‘Children of Men’

Posted on September 5, 2006 by admin

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By Ray Bennett

VENICE – In his gripping new thriller “Children of Men,” director Alfonso Cuaron takes the classic movie formula of a cynical tough guy required to see an innocent party to safe harbour and shoots it to pieces.

Set in 2027, with the world gone to hell in a hand basket, the film paints a bleak portrait of a future in which complete global human infertility has meant that no babies have been born anywhere in 18 years. Disease is rampant and military governments everywhere are out of control, even in the U.K. despite plucky TV captions that declare: “The world has collapsed — only Britain soldiers on.”

Former activist Theo (Clive Owen, in top form), now a bored civil servant, finds himself in the thick of the resistance when his former lover, rebel leader Julian (Julianne Moore), persuades him to obtain transit papers for a young woman, Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) who must flee the country.

With vivid imagination, Cuaron plunges the reluctant hero and the girl into a terrifying chase that takes them from the fearful squalor of a terrorized London to a nightmarish refugee camp with both soldiers and rebels trying to kill them.

Based on a novel by British mystery writer P.D. James, the film works both as a thriller and as a satisfying political and social drama. The Venice competition entry should prove a winner at the box office in all territories.

According to Cuaron, and his exemplary cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and production designers, Geoffrey Kirkland and Jim Clay, the London of 2027 will be a far cry from the city seen in recent films by Richard Curtis and Woody Allen. Dressing real locations to look as awful as possible, the English capital has never appeared so grim.

When a Fleet Street cafeteria is blown up just after he’s walked out the door, Theo is reminded of just how bad things are. A fan who only wanted an autograph has just assassinated the world’s youngest person, an 18-year-old, and the dead boy is mourned just like Princess Diana.

Julian’s request that Theo use his connections to obtain a travel pass for the young woman comes with a chunk of cash but it’s clear he has other motives, and so does she. When things go wrong, Theo takes the girl to the country hideaway of his only real friend, a retired newspaper cartoonist named Jasper (Michael Caine, having a great time), who looks after his invalid wife and smokes a lot of dope. Trouble soon arrives, however, and after that there’s barely a pause for breath.

Cuaron and co-scripter Timothy J. Sexton do the important little things that help make characters believable and take sufficient time to register the deeper impact of things that are troubling the world. They make a place without children’s laughter truly a place of horror.

The sign over the refugee camp saying Homeland Security is a sly touch and there’s a splendid sequence in which Theo goes to visit a wealthy contact at the revamped Battersea Power Station to the sound of King Crimson. It’s a savvy cue among several others provided by John Taverner.

Owen carries the film more in the tradition of a Jimmy Stewart or Henry Fonda than a Clint Eastwood or Harrison Ford. He has to wear flip-flops for part of the time without losing his dignity, and he never reaches for a weapon or guns anyone down.

Cuaron and Owen might have created the first believable 21st century movie hero.

Venue: International Venice Film Festival; Released: UK: Sept. 22 / US: Dec. 25 (Universal Pictures); Cast: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Clare-Hope Ashitey, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Charlie Hunnam, Danny Huston; Oana Peter Mullan; Director: Alfonso Cuaron; Screenwriters: Alfonso Cuaron, Timothy J. Sexton, from the novel by P.D. James; Director of photography: Emmanuel Lubezki; Production designers: Geoffrey Kirkland, Jim Clay; Music: John Taverner; Editors: Alex Rodriguez, Alfonso Cuaron; Costume designer: Jany Temime; Producers: Marc Abraham, Eric Newman, Hilary Shor, Tony Smith, Iain Smith; Executive producers: Thomas A. Bliss, Armyan Bernstein; Production: Strike Entertainment, Hit and Run Productions; Rated: UK: 15 / US: R; running time 114 mins.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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VENICE FILM REVIEW: Binoche in ‘A Few Days in September’

Posted on September 1, 2006 by admin

By Ray Bennett

VENICE – The title of Santiago Amigorena’s atmospheric post-Cold War thriller “A Few Days in September” sounds almost casual until it becomes clear that the year is 2001 and the few days are those leading up to Sept. 11.

The story, however, is not about the terrible events of that day nor anyone directly involved in them. Set in Paris and Venice, it is about a small group of people who know in advance that something cataclysmic is about to happen and seek to profit from it.

A Few Days in September poster x325Deeply cynical about world financial and political affairs, the film suggests that curious activity on the stock market in the period prior to the attack on the World Trade Center meant that a few investors were able to exploit it ruthlessly.

The film, due for U.K. release on Sept. 14,  boasts sharp performances by Juliette Binoche, as a government agent, and John Turturro, as a neurotic assassin, and there’s an off-centre love story that involves Sara Forestier and Tom Riley.

It combines intrigue, suspense and black humour and with dialogue as much in English as in French, it should find boxoffice rewards in the substantial market for thrillers tinged with conspiracy theories.

Binoche is charmingly convincing as a sophisticated French female James Bond named Irene, who speaks several languages, is handy with an automatic, and has kept a pet turtle longer than she keeps her men. When she gets word that an American spy named Elliot (Nick Nolte), with whom she used to work but hasn’t seen in 10 years, wants to see his two grown children urgently, she sets up the meeting. The reason for his sudden reappearance and wish to see his kids is shrouded in mystery and dangerous for all concerned.

Orlando (Forestier) is Elliot’s daughter by his first wife, a Frenchwoman who was murdered in Baghdad a decade earlier, while David (Riley) is the son of his second wife, an American who subsequently died of cancer. Not only are the two strangers to each other, but also Orlando hates her father for abandoning her after her mother’s death, while David adores him.

The sparks of their growing relationship from non-blood siblings to something rather more intimate, as the seen-it-all Irene looks on, provide the warmth of the film, which is otherwise about spies still very much out in the cold. Forestier and Riley develop real chemistry with the bland American boy proving sharper than he looks and the tough French cookie a little more vulnerable than she sounds.

Elliot remains unseen for most of the picture, using a sinister pair of bankers to pass messages to Irene as she deals with watchers and go-betweens in order to protect her charges from a relentless CIA assassin named William Pound (Turturro). Traveling from Paris to Venice for the meeting with Elliot, Irene stays one step ahead of Pound who leaves a trail of dead bodies behind him. Turturro is darkly humorous as a killer who loves poetry and who telephones his analyst for reassurance while on assignments.

Helped considerably by cinematographer Christophe Beaucarne, Buenos Aires-born screenwriter Amigorena makes a fine impression directing his first feature. They have managed to come up with sparklingly fresh images of the two cities, and contrast them vividly with nighttime sequences that are pure noir, with rainy streets, blinking neon and dripping blood.

Venue: Venice International Film Festival, Out of Competition; Cast: Irene: Juliette Binoche; William Pound: John Turturro; Orlando: Sara Forestier; David: Tom Riley; Elliot: Nick Nolte; Younger banker: Mathieu Demy; Older banker: Said Adamis.Writer, director: Santiago Amigorena; Producer: Paulo Branco; Director of photography: Christophe Beaucarne; Art director: Emmanuelle Duplay; Editor: Sarah Turoche; Music: Laurent Martin; Gemini Films, Les Films du Rat, France 2 Cinema, Production Group; Running time: 110 minutes.

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THEATRE REVIEW: ‘Frost/Nixon’ at the Donmar

Posted on August 22, 2006 by admin

Frost/Nixon

By Ray Bennett

LONDON – President Richard Nixon had a great many enemies, real and imagined, but the one that finally did him in was television, as playwright Peter Morgan shows in his insightful and entertaining new play “Frost/Nixon” at London’s Donmar Warehouse. Continue reading →

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