The List: 17 Dec 1993 (30/108)

FILM REVIEW

BACARDI BLACK

GREEN

STE]. ,- I

Are Clint ’n’ Kev cinema’s Christmas dream ticket? Find out as The List reviews all the ﬁlms opening over the next four weeks.

I Carlito’s Way ( l8) Ten years after Scarface. Al Pacino and director Brian De Palma team up again for this 7()s-set noir gangster movie about a former drug-runner. just out of prison. who struggles to come to terms with the new codes of honour on the streets of Spanish Harlem. The period detail is well realised. particularly in Sean Penn's flamboyant Jewish lawyer. complete with receding frizzy perm and red nostrils from his coke habit. As ever. the set pieces are stand-out material. but unlike some of the De Palma's other past efforts. story. character. mood and theme aren't sacriﬁced for visual style. See feature. I Farewell My Concubine (15) An achineg beautiful account of two Peking Opera actors. whose roles as warrior king and concubine spill over in their real lives. The central tale of unrequited love. ﬁlled with the colour and spectacle of the ()pera. is set against the ever-changing backdrop of 20th century Chinese history. blending intimacy with world-sliattering political events. A genuine epic. not only in form and narrative. but in its emotional and artistic depth. See preview. I IP5 ( l5) Two Parisian street kids find themselves out in the countryside when they dump the van they are driving. but meet up with an old man (Yves Montand) who rambles on about a lost love. A generation gap road— movie with more than a touch of the mystical. Il’5 shows Jean-Jacques Beineix relying less on the showy visual style of his past work — although the landscape photography is magniﬁcent — and stressing instead the emotions of his protagonists. Montand. in his last role. is a digniﬁed. charming presence. I The Professional Golgo 13 ( l8) For the ﬁrst time.

i._.-

those folks at Manga Video — home of cult. action-packed Japanese animation — have brought

one of their titles north of

the border for a one-night- only screening in Glasgow. Edinburgh and

3 Dundee. Wanted by the ' FBI. CIA. the Pentagon

and just about every other

- security force. a hired hit- man (codename Golgo . 13) goes to Sicily to hunt

down a Maﬁa killer who assassinated a bishop‘s

entire family. but ﬁnds out

his prey has intimate links

‘ with his own past. Violent ‘ fare that is certainly worth

catching if you liked (the

I admittedly better) Akira.

A PERFECT WORLD

After the maiestic Unforgiven, Clint’s latest almost inevitably comes as a slight disappointment, but it still contains enough inversions on the routine prison-break drama to lift it firmly above the level of most Hollywood formula fare. Kevin Costner is Butch Hayes, a career criminal who’s just sprung himself from the pen and landed up in the company of seven-year-old Phillip (a reasonath unprecocious T..I. Lowther), taken hostage after an unsavoury incident involving his mother and the fugitive’s soon-dispatched psychotic accomplice. 0n the trail is Clint’s experienced Texas Ranger Red Garnett, helped and alternately hindered by attendant criminologist Sally Gerber (Laura Dern), who’s been assigned by the state governor himself.

So far, so familiar, but John Lee Hancock’s screenplay rings the changes by casting Clint’s law enforcer as a model of grizzled befuddlement and laying most of the narrative onus on the developing relationship between Costner and the 2 boy. The survivor of an unhappy,

é deprived and possibly abused childhood himself, the hard-bitten captor turns his automotive flight from justice into a journey of self-discovery and adventure for his young charge, previously denied many of the fun- filled accoutrements of modern

A Perfect World: ‘awkwardly structured'

childhood by his mother’s strict Jehovah’s Witness religious beliefs. Although not entirely free of special pleading, there’s still enough indication of dark personal demons to give this aspect of the movie a compelling edge. Frankly, we might have done without the twin storyline involving Clint and Dern’s burgeoning mutual respect, but there it is, and the result is an overlong climax necessitated by the need to tie up too many dangling plot strands. Despite neat setpiece moments along the way, this awkwardly structured picture needed tightening to make more of the evident qualities of insight in the writing. Worth seeing nonetheless. (Trevor Johnston) A Perfect World (15) (Clint Eastwood, DS, 1993) Kevin Costner, Clint Eastwood, Laura Dem. 138 mins. From

; Sun 26: General release.

I Ruby In Paradise (15) A young woman leaves behind the closed life of Tennessee and heads for Panama City in West Florida. where she drifts through work. love and friendship. Cataloguing each development in a diary. she is able to ﬁnd her own way by examining her decisions and desires on a day to day basis. An optimistic ﬁlm which may reveal its low-budget. independent roots from time to time. but nevertheless sees actress Ashley Judd in a more fully rounded role than Hollywood could

- i provide. (AM)

inoem HDDD: MEN m TIGHTS

Robin Hood: Men In Tights: ‘hobbling along on a comet” llmmef-ltame'

‘ If Mel Brooks has his finger on i cinema’s pulse, then it must be i showing signs of advanced rigor i mortis. Ten years after Star Wars came E Spaceballs; and now two years behind ; Costner and Bergin, along comes his version of the Sherwood Forest : legend. Maybe five years from now * we’ll be treated to Mel Brooks’ ; Dracula. The plot structure is what tradition I demands - Robin, Merry Men, Sheriff, = Maid Marian, King Richard at the 1 Crusades, etc - but the jokes are what i no one deserves. Hobbling along on a 5 comedy zimmer-frame, they squeeze ' more embarrassment than laughs from ' an audience who can only have i themselves to blame for going to a Mel Brooks’ movie in the first place. j We’ve even got characters called - l hey! - Asneeze and Ahchoo, a ioke ! belaboured more often than even a l school panto would dare.

Casting Cary Elwes as Robin was a bad move, as we’ve already seen him do the perfect parody of a swashbuckling hero in The Princess Bride. In fact, there are absolutely no

I new ideas on offer here, just lame rip-

l offs of other genres. One particular

; gag says it all: the camera pans up to

i a window and breaks a pane when it

3 comes too close. Brooks is

i regurgitating his own past: the same

i idea was used in High Anxiety, but

E there it made sense to ridicule a

Hitchcock technique. Here, like so

‘ much of the dialogue, it’s just thrown in for no other reason than to mark

time until the final credits are mercifully allowed to roll. (Alan Morrison)

Robin Hood: Men In Tights (PG) (Mel Brooks, 08, 1993) Cary Elwes, Richard ‘ Lewis, Roger Rees. 104 mins. From Fri 1 17. General release.

The List: 17 Dec 1993 (Issue 217)