FILM REVIEW

I Mo‘ Money(15) Pretty dire attempt at an

action-filledcomedy

starringthe Super Wayans Bros asacoupleofcon

artists being alittletoo

fricndlywiththeirflexible friends. Big bruv Damon

tries to win the heart ofa

rising exec while keeping one step ahead of a gang ofkillers. but as credit card comedy. it‘s not even close to Norman Lamont. I The Muppet Christmas Cami (U) You know the story: nasty ol‘ Scrooge (Michael Caine) is whisked away to reassess his life by three Christmas ghosts. Seasonal candy in celluloid form that is stamped with typical

I Straight Out OfBrooklyn (15) Matty Rich got in on the moviemaking act even quicker than Boyz N The Hood‘s John Singleton by directing this gritty study ofurban deprivation at the tender age of nineteen. A raw and urgent drama. it follows the travails of a black family struggling to get by

amidst the inhospitable background of the Red Hook housing project. Father of the house Ray

Brown is bitter towards white people for his inability to provide properly for his children. but takes out much ofhis resentment on his long-suffering wife. Frankie. Caught in the midst of this seemingly unending cycle of alcohol-fuelled domestic violence. their eldest son Dennis comes up with a

. misguided robbery plan

Is that Miss Piggy with those lovely curls? No, it’s Gerard Depardieu in a 17th century wig. And as ifthat wasn’t enough, The List reviews all of the new films opening in Scotland over the next four weeks.

Muppet charm. as the whole team pops up in Dickensian garb. crooning the odd Paul Williams song.

I Slacker(15) L'nclassifiable piece of independent American moviemaking which doesn't have a plot as such; instead it providesa snapshot ofover 1le ‘slackcrs' young. happy-go-lucky drifters— as they get through their

daily lives. Structured asa

monumental relay (each character briefly appears. meets the next. and so on). it has a loose. experimental. almost jazzy format that you'll either love or hate.

he hopes will get him ‘straight out of Brooklyn'. Shot on modest resources. much ofthe action is rather rough hewn by polished Hollywood standards and at times the functional style and relentlessly downbeat material threaten to make viewing more of a duty than a pleasure. On the other hand. with performances that stream authenticity from every pore. the very rawness of it all works

cumulatively in the piece‘s

favour. building up to moments of brute power as the finale moves deeper intotragedy. Beside the likes of Boyz andJuice. Rich‘s movie looks lumbering and overstated. but it certainly does get its point across in punishing fashion. From one so

young. it remains a debut

of no little promise. (TJ)

l I Horror Film Festival

i ‘Dead By Dawn'. a one-off three-day horror film festival. promises to set the Edinburgh Filmhouse screaming with such gems as the British premiere ofJohn Landis‘s vampire flick Innocent Blood. starring .Vikira's Anne l’arillaud. and the first Scottish screeningof l’eterJackson‘s splatter masterpiece. Bruindead. The event kicks off with a party for ticket holders on

Fri 15 Jan. The following evening. author Ramsev Campbell is around for a reading and signing session and at midnight the fun begins with the original Nosferatu Videodrome and Meet The I’eebles. as well as surprise video screenings. Tickets are only available in advance by post from Adele Hartley. 1F213 Panmure Place. Edinburgh. Iil l3 9i ll’ (0312292551).

28iThe List 18 December 1992— Wan-nary 1993

THE BODYGUABD

Despite twisting and turning in Cold War thriller No Way Out, coping with Capone in The Untouchables and swashing his medieval buckles in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, it’s difficult to think oi Kevin Costner as a true action hero. Nevertheless, here he is in tough guy mode as personal minder of pop icon Rachel Marron (played by genuine pop icon Whitney Houston). A former Secret Service agent now gone freelance, the closest Costner’s Frank Farmer gets to Harrison Ford territory is the ridiculous haircut he sports, which seems to have wandered unwittingly out of Presumed Innocent.

Farmer is drafted into the Marron camp when the singer begins to receive threatening letters from an anonymous tan, and after initial animosity— hey, it's just so unprofessional to show your emotions in their respective fields— they inevitably fall for each other. So far, so cliched. But then the threats become a bit more physical, and it could well be thatthere’s a professional hitman with his sights trained on our songbird as well as the epistolary nuttercurrently at large. Or they could be one and the same. 0r

: something like that. lthink. Because

the problem with Lawrence Kasdan’s screenplay (which has been kicking

around Hollywood foryears— I wonder

why?) is that it is a complete mess from beginning to end, with no sense of

characterornarrative development whatsoever.

_ A FEW coon MEN

Rob Reiner's roundly engrossing screen version of Aaron Sorkin’s long-running Broadway success follows the endeavours of Navy lawyers Tom Cruise and Demi Moore, drafted in as defence counsel in a murder case linked to decidedly dodgy goings-on at a US base in Cuba. A struggling Marine recruit has met his demise at the hands of two of his comrades (Gladiator's James Marshall and newcomer Wolfgang Bodison), who now stand in the dock at the court martial. The prime issue at stake, however, is whetherthe defendants were actually encouraged, oreven ordered, by theirsuperior officers to do what they did.

Refusing to enter a guilty plea, Cruise and Moore take on the might of the military establishment by investigating the network of uncompromising values and unquestioned command maintained on the base. As the course of events becomes clearer, the spotlight falls on Jack Nicholson’s hawkish base commander, Keiler Sutherland’s disciplinarian lieutenant

and J.T. Walsh’s weak-willed voice of

conscience to explain their actions. Yet even it a watertight case can be patched together, there’s still no guarantee that the defence’s inexperience in court will better a wily old hand like Kevin Bacon’s sharp prosecuting counsel.

0n paperthe odds are certainly stacked against our heroes, and out there on screen Cruise’s deceptively

The acting isn’t that bad: Kevin’s his reliable self, Whitney makes a convincing debut (not that the part involved much research), and even

turns in a suitably slimy performance as Rachel’s press agent. But who can really sympathise with Frank Farmer? This is a man who sees himself as a latter-day samurai - he claims to have seen Kurosawa’s Yoiimbo 62 times but whose tragic flaw is that he was at his mother’s funeral the day that President Reagan was shot, and so he couldn’t get in the way of the bullet.

Hollywood excrement with a light

{ romantic coating and a couple of chart-topping numbers thrown in for good measure. (Alan Morrison)

, The Bodyguard (15) (Mick Jackson, US,

ex-Spandau Ballet guitarist Gary Kemp

' . _. J ‘Hollywood excrementwith a

' light romantic

coating and a

couple of chart-

topping numbers thrown in for good measure.’

! 1992) Kevin Costner, Whitney Houston,

3 Gary Kemp. 130 mins. From 26 Dec. General release.

crisp naval white that is Demi Moore are pretty pushed in the thespian stakes too, pitted against Keiter’s bristle-headed netariousness and a

. cherishable return to real acting by the t venerable Mr Nicholson. His

, high-voltage presence raises

3 uncomfortable issues aboutthe means i necessary to uphold our security, while ( Sorkin’s carefully balanced finale

) complicates the easy option of

one-note triumphalism. It's the sort of

. superiorall-star Hollywood

middlebrow entertainment you thought they’d forgotten how to make and definitely the holiday movie to see. (TrevorJohnston)

A Few Good Men (15) (Rob Reiner, US, 1992) Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Jack Nicholson. 138 mins. From 2 Jan. General release.

i ‘lt’sthe sort of

superiorall-star Hollywood

; middlebrow entertainmentyou

thought they’d

; forgotten how to

make.’

i