FILM REVIEW
Depardieu last issue, Madeleine
Stowe this one. To see how she fares
with both psycho cops and buckskinned frontiersmen, take a look at The List’s review spread of
all films opening in Central Scotland
over the next fortnight.
I the Crying Game An IRA terrorist with a conscience finds himself falling in love with the girlfriend ofthe British soldier whose death he caused. Absorbing character drama that is as daring and unpredictable as British cinema could ever hope to be from the director of Mona Lisa. See feature.
I Glengarry Glen Ross James Foley glides his camera around David Mamet’s verbal assault in this hard-hitting tale of Real Estate agents struggling to keep their
heads above water. Pacino, Lemmon. Arkin. Harris. Spacey, Baldwin, Pryce: you won‘t see a better group of actors on top form for quite some time.
I Peter's Friends A group of college friends reunite after ten years for a weekend in which their financially secure lifestyles are pitted against unsettled personal relationships. Kenneth Branagh‘s ensemble piece is funny, full ofinsight. but maybe a little too eager to send up his media image. See preview.
I Scandinavian Film Festival Hot on the heels of a very successful French Film Festival, the Edinburgh Filmhouse and Glasgow Film Theatre‘s cinematic eyes look a little further north for a week of recent films from Scandinavia. Popular misconceptions that
Scandinavian film falls
either into the gloomy Bergmanesque or raunchy stag night categories should be blown away by the cream offilm production from Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Highlights
I Simple Men Two brothers — one a small-time crook, the other a bookish college kid — go off in search of their father, a former baseball player turned political radical, who has been on the run for 23 years following the bombing of a government building. Simple men in a simple formula on a not so simple journey that uses their meetings with a nation of bizarre characters in ordeato
include Soren Kragh-Jacobsen‘s wartime coming-of-age chronicle. The Boys From St Perri, which caught
’decent reviews at this
year‘s Edinburgh International Film Festival; Suzanne Ostman‘s The Guardian Angel, which was highly regarded at the 1990 European Film Awards in Glasgow; and the international seminar in Edinburgh‘s Scandic Crown Hotel, chaired by Peter Cowie, which rounds the whole event off on Sat 14 Nov.
come to terms with each other. But Hartley turns some of the traditional buddy cliches on their heads with his patented ear for quirky dialogue. The presence of their absent father suffuses the movie: he is the Godot to their Estragon and Vladimir, and like the stage piece, the wordplay and wayward philosophising en route becomes more important than the journey itself. See preview. (AM)
SNEAKERS
Heading one of the starriest casts assembled in recent years, Robert Redford is Martin Bishop, computer hacker and fugitive from the law ever since the late 60s when he tempered with Republican Party accounts to transfer donations to the Black Panthers. A couple of decades or so on finds him heading a team of misfits and reprobates (Messrs Aykroyd, Poitier, Phoenix et al), each of them with specific hi-tech skills, who are paid by banks and institutions to break into their computers and pierce their surveillance systems as a way of testing their security arrangements. Such is the daily round of these so-called ‘Sneakers', until one day a couple of government agents turn up threatening to expose them unless they undertake a covert mission on their behalf, involving the theft of a revolutionary new Soviet code-breaking device. Given no choice but to proceed with the operation, Bishop is soon to be faced with a mysterious face from his past (Ben Kingsley) and playing for higher stakes than ever before.
Having brought an agreeable quirkiness of touch to previous projects, including Field of Dreams and his screenplay for All of Me, director Phil Alden Robinson’s latest effort turns out to have all the soul and spirit of the VDU screens it lingers over with such frequency. Despite the presence of big names in almost every speaking | part (to the extent that the likes of River |
Sneakers: ‘tortuouslytechnological plotting'
Phoenix are given virtually nothing to do), the tortuoust technological plotting always has the upper hand, i reducing the characters to mere i diagrams and severely limiting our desire to care terribly much about them. Sure, there's a few insights into the way that today’s ultimate power lies in the hands of those who control computer information, but this does not ‘ necessarily an entertaining movie make. Clever, but somehow disappointing. (TrevorJohnston)
Sneakers(12)(PhilAlden Robinson, f l , US, 1992) Robert Redford, Dan 3 i - Aykroyd, RiverPhoenix. 126 mins. i From Fri 13. Cannons: Sauchiehall l Street, Edinburgh, Falkirk, Kirkcaldy, l Kilmarnock. Odeons: Ayr, Hamilton. ' All UCls. Glasgow: MGM Parkhead. '
' After a break-in at their home in the LA
_ UNLAWFUL ENTRY ,.
suburbs, professional couple Michael and Karen Carr (Kurt Russell and Madeleine Stowe) call in the police and are pleasantly surprised by the amiable and dedicated response they get from officer Pete Davis (Ray Liotta), who seems so concerned over the pair’s safety that a personal friendship soon forms between the three of them. Soon Pete is helping with the security arrangements on the new nightclub Michael’s designing, while the cop invites his new ‘civilian' pal to come out on duty with him one night. Coming across the burglar who committed the break-in, the patrolman offers to let Michael kill the assailant, the first sign that Pete might not be as benign a presence as they thought he was. As Michael tries to persuade , . Karen that they should stop all contact "me Chaueng'w '" "‘9 "3V 0'
with him, the scene is set for a battle of ‘ char?°te”§a"°"’ hm "hm “"9 '9" WI": mars about to “came "no with IS basrcaly the same old creaking
“clam conmmanon. ! thriller-yuppies in peril, threatened Jonathan Kaplan’s film certainly ! by "'9 'ami'ia"’h?t we,“ already
touches a to" raw nerves, expressing l yawnedthrough this year with the likes
the mounting paranoia that urbanites 0' 09‘9"“ and The “a,” The" "mks
"owners can we" relate to, The Cradle. Or maybe I ve lust seen too
exposing the class tensions that create many mo"“' “'9‘” J°h"s‘?")
an atmosphere of ever-present unease, Unlawful Entry (18) (Jonathan Kaplan,
and exploring the need to trust the law us, 1992) Kurt Russell, Madeleine
Bfliomememaflenfles increasingly i Stowe, Ray Liotta. 111 mins. From Fri
discredited on an almost daily basis. 6. Odeons: Glasgow, Edinburgh, Ayr,
With such emotive issues at stake, it’s 3 Hamilton. All UCls. Glasgow: Cannon
a pity then thatthe filmmakers have Clarkston Road, Grosvenor, MGM. l
i opted for a ratherdrearin Central: Allan Park. Fife: New Picture ' . House. Strathclyde: Kelburne, WMR. l
a ‘ i m.» _ - . SE3 ‘1
playing up the mechanical ‘shock’ elements to numbineg predictable effect. Liotta in particular looks as though he could handle something
UnlawfulEntryz‘basicallythe same old creaking thriller“
crowd-pleasing approach to it all,
18 The List 6— 19 November 1992