BACARDI BLACK REVIEW HLM _ Russo’s annoyance at having to act _ °"’°"“f. ‘i' ’"ml-‘id'i'h'ls’i’ifilest lth ll‘l rea l DANGEROUS GAME vavorlTligadonna hair done. Whether Shot under the title Snake Eyes, this audiences will want to see a film in ‘ R
which three people tear each other apart, while making a movie about three people who are doing the same thing, is a moot point - because, as the film Keitel, Madonna and Russo are making disintegrates, so does the one that we are watching. Ferrara and his favourite scriptwriter llicholas St John have indulged themselves to the maximum here, offering a cinematic psychotherapy session that may have not too much meaning for anyone other than those involved. (Higel Floyd)
Dangerous Game (18) (Abel Ferrara, US, 1993) Harvey Keitel, Madonna, James Russo. 107 mins. From Fri 10. Glasgow: GFT. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
intense, grimy and claustrophobic movie from Bad lieutenant director Abel Ferrara casts Harvey Keitel as the jaded director of a film-within-the- film. His low-budget movie, “Mother Of Mirrors’, stars Madonna and James Russo as a pair of ageing, drug-crazed swingers who have come to a parting of the ways. Russo wants to continue with their decadent, self-destructive lifestyle, while Madonna no longer wants nor needs to punish her body and soul. As filming continues, the intimate relationship between volatile director Keitel and his female star increasingly parallels that between Abel Ferrara and Madonna.
Constant references are made to
Dangerous Game: ‘intense, grimy and claustrophoblc’
N0 ESCAPE
The year is 2022, the prison service has been privatised and the most incorrigible cases are slopped out to fend for themselves on an inhospitable island. The prisoners have divided themselves into two tribes - one a civilised farming community whose grandparents must have dropped out during the 60s to form collective, agrarian peace camps; and the other, a warlike group of bikers, skins, primitives, techno-
‘ I warriors and hedge hoppers who have . got their greedy, rolling eyes on the
‘ ~ peaceniks’ organically grown grub. As you might expect, one man with a dark . . past and ‘a pathological aversion to authority’, Marine Captain John Robbins (Ray Liotta) is thrown into the maelstrom, bucks the system and
s . things are never the same again. Eager to clear his name, Robbins
~- reluctantly takes refuge with the
.3. Insiders - the hippie lot - and plots
‘ V his great escape. But there’s a spy on _ the island who’s working for the sadistic Warden (Michael Lerner), scuttling the Insiders’ plans for
-1 . getting away in an escape ship. A
llo Escape: “testosterone-fuelled violence’
‘ volunteers to raid the Outsiders’ - you . guessed it, the bad guys - camp for l the vital missing engine part. ' This is very much a night out for the boys, with the emphasis firmly on ; action and adventure. Forget the plot 3 and watch the bodycount rise in any ; number of ingenious and nasty ways. The costumes and set look like I they’ve escaped from a Mad Max movie, which is no bad thing, but the film lacks any of the atmosphere, tension or surprise which E characterises good mayhem movies. Still, Stuart Wilson playing Marek, the king of the belligerent crusties, does manage to inject a few moments of black humour and Lance Henrikson is suitably sage-like as the leader of the peaceful colonists. llot that it really matters: if you want testosterone- fuelled violence and outlandish characters then piffllng quibbles about the lack of plot, characterisation and narrative drive are swiftly silenced by brute force. (Jonathan Trew) llo Escape (15) (Martin Canpbell, US, 1994) Ray Liotta, Lance Henriksen, Stuart Wilson. 118 mins. From Fri 3. Glasgow: Ddeon, MGM Parkhead.
} Edinburgh: Ddeon, UCI. Fife: Robin’s. l Strathclyde: Ddeon Ayr, UCls.
, loner through and through, Robbins _ Wilton tut-tuts in the background, as well she might, for the imperatives of , THE SECRET RAPTURE 80s enterprise culture see the 5
If David Hare had known how badly theatre director and debutant filmmaker Howard Davies would mess up this screen adaptation of his much- trumpeted play, would he have gotten behind the camera again himself? That’s lust one of the questions posed by this embarrassingly inept exercise in Brit Lit psycho-drama, a movie that wants so desperately to be taken seriously it forgets the little things like basic honest-to-goodness credibility.
Still suffering from shock at the death of her father, Juliet Stephenson tries to tame the old boy’s slightly unhlnged and much younger second wife (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, titanlcally misguided) by letting her get involved with the graphic design business she runs with boyfriend lieil Pearson. Dverbearlng sister Penelope
company’s new broom making radical l ; changes, upping the trading stakes immeasurably and building a fine old head of financial, sexual and emotional tensions. It all rises to a melodramatic last reel, but by this point, you’re hard pressed to care too much.
The cast try their best, but the viewer simply never believes in the course of the plotting or in Whalley- Kilmer’s overwrought, abysrnally performed nutball who drives it along. And Davies’s remarkable facility for putting the camera in the wrong place every time is just about the last thing the film needs. (Trevor Johnston)
The Secret Rapture (15) (Howard Davies, till, 1993) Juliet Stephenson, Joanne Whalley-llllmer, Heal Pearson. 96 mins. From Fri 3. Glasgow: MGM Film Centre. Edinburgh: Cameo.
Th
spammed by BACARDI
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e Secret
Rapture: ‘embarrassingly inept exercise’ ‘
BLACK
Fausto: ’undeniable but slight charm'
Sometimes British distributors choose to release foreign language films that are so deeply moderate. you wonder why they bother. Fausto isn‘t a bad movie by any means. but surely there have been a lot more French movies around in the past couple of years that might have impressed a bit more than this one.
As you might imagine from the running time. it‘s a slender tale. to say the least. Teenage orphan Fausto Barbarico (a gamin Ken Higelin) gets a gig as an apprentice tailor with old-school tradesman Mietek (French character stalwart Jean Yanne). and under his mentor‘s guidance and support. lets his imagination run free on a series of fantastical couture designs that bring him fame and fortune. cementing his relationship with flatulent pal Raymond (Francois Hautesserre) and win him the heart of Tonic (Florence Darel).
That's pretty much it. actually. Just when you're ready for some conflict to rear its head and give the narrative some ballast. up come the credits and you're out in the street again. pondering the undeniable but slight charm of a movie that dares to be so cheerily winsome. Fausto‘s creations — suits covered in grass and the like — are fun. and Yanne puts in a really warm turn as the hunchback bespoke merchant learning to change his ways. All in all, it's not much. but it certainly won‘t make you unhappy. (Trevor Johnston)
F ausm ( l 5) (Remy Duchemin, France, [992) Ken Higelin, Jean Yanne, Francois Hautesserre. 8] mins. From Fri 10. Edinburgh: Cameo.
The List 3—16 June 1994 27