Film
Reviews
THRlllER MIAMI VICE (15) 132mm .000
Ah Miami Vice - white suits, rolled up sleeves, fast cars, South Beach shore line; and rock’n’roll soundtrack. That may have been true for the quintessential 80’s cop show (1984-89), but those expecting a big budget glossy tribute to Don Johnson et al are in for a huge disappointment. Series executive producer Michael Mann has opted to double up as writer and director, ditching the glamour of the show in favour of a gritty realism that mixes the distorted narrative of Heat with
the HD digital visuals of Collateral.
It’s becoming a Mann trademark that his movies will have more style and last just as long as Milan fashion week. This one spends the opening hour rambling through a series of undecipherable events starting with a drug bust going wrong that serve only to tell us that there is a group of white supremacists operating in Miami that are a small part of a global drugs cartel
ANIMATION ADVENTURE THE ANT BULLY (U) 88min 0.
In the short histories of CGI animation ants have proved hugely popular. Popularity. though, has not equated With quality. A Bug '3 Life was Pixar‘s least impresswe offering and Antz was as lacklustre as vOice star Woody Allen's writer director output from the lastdecade.
Ant Bu/lv is no exception to the rule. although there IS a certain curiosny value and some fun in an American movie that so brazenly propOunds the merits of the hardworking collective over the individual. But then again.
18 THE LIS‘I’ 3—10 Aug 2006
being run out of Haiti. The drug cartel have an inside man in the FBI that keeps them one step ahead of the game and it’s down to Crockett (Colin Farrell) and Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) to work out just what is going on,
with the viewer in desperate need of help too.
While the sullen atmosphere is perfectly in tune to the TV show, our heroes bear little relation to their small screen counterparts. Farrell, with his unkempt facial hair and heavy paunch looks like a man for whom work is an inconvenient distraction from the pub. His only link to the TV character is his name and a disastrous personal life that sees him get involved with one of the drug runners (Gong Li). Foxx has a much smaller part to
play in this story and cuts out his usual exuberant
ants have always seemed the most Marxist of species.
10 year-old Lucas (veiced by Zach Tyler Eisen) is rather frustrated; not only IS he a badly animated human. he is also the victim of bullying from his Sister. so he takes it Out on the far more spectaCuIarly drawn ants in the garden. The ants. led by reSident Wizard Zoc iNicolas Cagei shrink Lucas down and inSist that he learn to live as part of the community rather than as an individual. Kazam! It's a predictable coming-of-age story by numbers. (Kaleem Aftabi I Genera/ release from Fri 4 Aug.
REISSUE HORROR THRILLER THE INNOCENTS (12A) 100min «on
AlongSide Robert Wise's 1963 The Haunting, The lnnocents remains the finest ghost stony ever committed to film. Like that earlier film. Jack Clayton's 1961 claSSic is a brilliantly ambiguous tale. which only improves Wllh repeated \ l€\‘.’lngS. ls beautiful Victorian governess Miss Giddens iDeborah Kerri correct in her conclusion that the malevolent spirits
acting style to portray Tubbs as a methodical man dedicated to his work. These two ‘heavy on attitude’ loners have zero chemistry together and make for a rather disappointing duo, but they’re carried through by the visuals, style and terrific action set pieces that bring the story to a rather neat conclusion. (Kaleem Aftab)
I General release from Fri J Aug.
of the previous governess and her lover. the late valet are possessmg her two pubescent wards? Or is Miss Gidden's )USl an old spinster imagining things? Or worse. is her delusion a Symptom of her love for the children. which verges on the unnatural?
Seeing this film again won't provide a final answer. and that's the eerie beauty of Clayton's masterly adaptation of Henry James" genre redefining stery The Turn of the Screw. Shot at Shepperton Studios and in East Sussex inot far from Clayton's Brighton birthplacei in striking. ironically unambigu0us black and white by the great
C "e'iiatog'.itfher Freddie Francis. and sc'iz‘tea t‘. Tramal‘ Capote and
war“ Arctut‘aht «she's only other s."een c'edit is Hitchcock‘s / Ce'"ess‘ .-.ith attitmnal dialogue l‘. .lnhi‘. Llortinter. "te ."".\‘e"fs is. beyond beina a great w and still shocking e psychosexual supernatural chiller Simpl, one of the best British films ever made Miles fielder)
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Omssit‘ RE issuf THE PASSENGER (PG) 123mm 00.00
The last in a trio of Englishlanguage films Antonioni made for MGM, The Passenger hasn't been seen in cinemas for years owing to copyright disputes. Pie-issued here in a newly restored director's cut. it showcases an impressively restrained performance from Jack Nicholson in his rind-1970s heyday as the burnt- out TV reporter Locke. who exchanges identities in Chad With a dead acquaintance Robertson, himself a gun—runner for an African revolutionary group.
‘Wouldn't it he better if we could throw it all away?‘ muses Robertson in a tape-recording made before his fatal heart attack. SOlllllllQlilS which chime vrith Locke’s desire to free himself of his current obligations and responsibilities and to escape to a new life. Through The Passenger. Antonioni explores the imposSIbility of evading our own personal and national histories. and of truly knowrng ourselves and our loved ones. and it also shows how chance — here the discovery of a corpse in a next door hotel room — shapes our futures. As Locke is pursued across Europe by the authorities. by business associates. and by his Wife (Jenny Runacrei. Antonioni and his English co-writers Peter Wollen and Mark Peploe draw on certain thriller conventions: there are car chases. assassinations. and a female romantic interest. in the form of Maria Schneider's resourceful. unnamed passenger. Thanks to Luoano Tovoli's magnificent Cinematography of the African desert and the and Spanish countryside. we gain a potent sense of Locke’s internal emptiness. And the film climaxes With a Virtuoso seven- minute Single take. beginning from behind the Window-bars of another hotel room. before heading out into a dusty plaza. It's a stunning way for Antonioni to bring together the various narrative strands. whilst preserVing his protagonists fundamental mysteriousness. (Tom Dawson)
I Fr/mhouse. Edinburgh from Tue 8 Aug.