REVIEW FILM

E31113!!- THE MANGLER

w worldview strangely attractive, there’s a sense of delight and a wistful comic N A" DEMARCO touch in the great man’s own no J" contribution that pulls the whole Quite how writer-director Jeremy levin picture along with it. indeed, the

assembled such a heavyweight cast scenes where his long marriage to with such a lightweight script shall Faye Dunaway begins to spring to life

remain a mystery, but the again are moderately touching and a performances are pretty much the only definite counterpoint to the deranged thing of note in this wafer-thin Depp’s cumulatively wearing tall tales

entertainment that’s undemanding in of derring-do.

the extreme. Johnny Depp, continuing Unfortunately, Levin has little idea of in his quest for the whimsical, is how to vary the structure, so we cut probably the only actor around who back and forth ’twixt fantasy and could make something of the romantic reality to thumpingly obvious effect, kook he has a bash at here, an while his use of camera displays all ordinary Joe who’s so convinced he’s 2 the flair of an industrial training

the legendary Don Juan, dashing video. Sadly, a movie that needed the seducer and swordsman of yore, that most sophisticated of directorial

he’s swiftly dumped in psychiatric aplomb just doesn’t get it. Ergo, a

The Mangler: ‘Iame effort’

One would expect a horror movie about a

care, where Marlon Brando’s miss: but Marlon, for all the travails dctttottiwlly Possessed unconventional shrink is to access his he’s been through lately, offers laundry PW“ ‘0 Put the sanity. something to treasure. (Trevor ““‘."°”f“ “""f‘gh m.“ wm‘ some small sense 0' se"_ Johnston) wringcr. Instead. this , . . tedious Stephen King parody, Brando s first line is an uh ~ .,. ,

, , t . ptation takes the two- oblique reference to his welght Don Juan DeMarco (15) (Jeremy dimensional characters of problem, which is indeed _ levm, US, 1995) Johnny Depp, Marlon the source story and considerable, but as he begins to find Brando, Faye Dunaway. 90 mins. From \ squashes them even his young charge’s idealised Fri 19. Genera] re|ease_ Don Juan DeMarco: ‘wafer-thin entertainment’ flatter. Robert ‘Frcddy

Krueger‘ Englund and

'l‘exus Chainsaw Massacre

mm streetwise English butler Cadbury with director Tobe Hooper last

some gusto, providing a much needed teamed up on the note of sarcasm just when the mm abysmal. straight-to-video Yet another comic strip turned into a needs it. t $162186 Nix/"(Hare (aim 06 big budget movie, this inoffensive And it all works well enough. A few imlle)‘ f2” ‘f’h‘Chh‘h‘s ‘3 "0 story of the world’s wealthiest child, iokes are designed to tickle adults “$313135”; mfg-“13:3 played by none other than the world’s dragged along to see the film by Mac’s Buffalo’ B,“ {n 5,185“, of wealthiest child actor, has several core audience - such as Rich Senior The [mom rails to get advantages over other, brasher efforts. explaining economics in the simplest inside the skin of his For a start, Macaulay Culkin is given a terms to a dense, silver-haired jaded cop who is role that is essentially an up-market American President - but the film investigating a series of

variation on his Home Alone character, touches all the right comedy and mYStCttOUS industrial accrdents at the grim.

important when you consider that, slapstick buttons for younger I t D. k 9. B] while he is undoubtedly the most members of the audience. While both Eggs“ Cigaf'ficu“ bankable kid in the movies, he is by no young and old may be suitably bonmmshing‘ limb means the most talented, nauseated by a climactic moral that severing mayhem centres lie is also surrounded by a first rate eettldtt't belle been mete etaSSIY on an ancient machine cast who gamely indulge in the communicated, Richie Rich is still a jealously guarded by knockabout mayhem that ensues when bteelV lam"! comedy With Plenty 0' “usable Owner Bi“

his father’s ‘trusted’ business advisor energy and enough broad humour to gartlcy (Englund). who plots to kill the Rich family and take make it worth the effort. (Anwar Brett) i dunks around 0“

. . . “lltvb ».

over their vast wealth. It is left to - catficrmm young Richie to save the day which. Richie Rich (PG) (Donald Petrie, us, mishap of his own.

you can’t help feeling, is familiar 1995) Macaulay culkin, John Although the mechanical

territory for Mac. Larroquette, Jonathan Hyde. 95 mm beast itself is a fearsome

\

., .9 t 15415; a J

Richie Rich: 'breezy rantily comedy’ Jonathan Hyde plays Riehte’s From Fri 26. General release. “canon and Some 0f “‘6

mangling gratifyingly gory. the bizarre rantings of the cop‘s veggie mystic

woman; his mother (Vanessa

. Redgrave) is slowly and painfully “Ci hbour _ about "DESSA dying; his brother Reuben (Edward Faugshan pacts and the The Sic'l'a" mafia mine" 0‘ The Furlong) is in danger of being drawn sacrifice of sixteen-year- Godfather series may have been into Joshua’s violent world. old virgins take some supplanted in American cinema by the Gray’s screenplay is weighed down Swallowing “indeed ‘10 "et'ettc "1i action 0t contemporary by a tragic sense of inevitability, but thist‘g‘gyhgfigggr Siteet 9309 Sheet'eutS, but thete’t‘t this is a necessar veil of loom that SC‘ 6 " v definitely an old world feel to 25-year- lies over the what: pmduci'm The tltté'tftgzzfqattd dodgy old debut director James Gray’s little Shapira household, designed and We‘ve been here before Odessa. Set in a downbeat Brighton photographed in sepia tones, belongs with Graveyard Shift, and Beach miles away in tone "0m Neil to another age and homeland; the the shudders provoked by Simon’s flew York playground - the once fine wallpaper now appears to this sense ofde’jd vu are film tells of a Russian Jewish family’s peel as we watch it and the scarier than anything this crumbling dignity faced with the atmosphere is so evocatively realised, 'amc effort has ‘0 9””- ltressures of a modern new world. we can almost smell the mustiness. 51“” O“ the Cheap ‘”

South Africa. this was financed by a company called Distant Horizon, which is where one has to

Joshua Shapira (Tim Roth) reluctantly Roth may, once again, have a gun in agrees to carry out a hit on an Iranian his hand, but don’t expect the hip ieweller for the city’s Russian mafia, pacing of Reservoir Dogs; this is slow,

despite the fact that it brings him poetic, at times depressing cinema - a look for the last decent back into home territory and into despairing elegy on the death of one Tobe HOOPCr movie-

- contact with his family. His father family’s American dream. (Alan (Nigel Floyd) (Maximilian Schell) - once a Morrison) ' " distinguished intellectual, now Little odessa (15) (James cray us 3;," him," ('8) (“he

. . . r i ()pcr. Canada, [995) reduced to life as a faded immigrant - 1994) Tim Roth, Edward Furlong, Robert Erie/14ml, Ted has cut him off, shamed at his son’s Maximilian Schell. 98 mins. From Fri Levine. Daniel Matmor. profession, despite his own 19; Edinburgh Filmhouse. From Sat 3; . . . . . 105 mins. From Fri 25. hypocritical affair with a younger Glasgow rum rhearre “we "ms" "39": 5”“ °' "WWW" General release.

The List 19 May-l Jun 199519