Film

NEW PRINT MANHATTAN (12A) 95min COO.

(Paul Dale) In 1979 at the age of 44 years old Woody Allen made his one true masterpiece. Wonderfully enjoyable films Take the Money and Run. Bananas. Love and Death and Annie Hall were behind him and there was much to follow. But in Manhattan Allen briefly dropped the slavish imitation of Bergman he had already begun adopting (his first 'serious' drama interiors had flopped the year before) and found a tone that was his own.

To say that this slight. urban. amoral romantic comedy about one divorcees attempts to find love with his best friend's mistress (Diane Keaton) is the only film in Allen's impressive canon w0rth seeing is perhaps overstretching it. but there is something timeless here that Allen never came close to again. Maybe it's Gordon Willis' gorgeous black and white photography of those legendary cityscapes. maybe it's Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue welling up in the carefully spaced interludes. Or maybe it's the knowing cheeky

Dec.

(15) 85min 0.

Fargo

universal.

GANGSTER/THRILLER LONDON TO BRIGHTON (18) 85min 0..

'One year they wanted my ho to be a poster girl . . . for birth control.’ Jackson Brown, US comedian, pimp.

It’s just after 3am in a rundown London toilet and seasoned prostitute Joanne (Georgia Groome) is trying to console a tearful young girl called Kelly (Lorraine Stanley). How they came to be there, and how they are going to get themselves out of the hole they are now in, is a tale to behold. For their fates lie in the hands of pushers, pimps and kingpin London gangsters.

Paul Andrew Williams’ very impressive debut feature is powered by two film school commandments - ‘keep it minimal’ and ‘kill your darlings’. Like a death knell to the cheeky wink wink 90$ wideboy flicks of Ritchie and co, Williams is all too clearly working to a very different template. This is vintage ‘wedge in the Iockup’ or petty criminals on the lam stuff, think John Mackenzie's The Long Good Friday or Neil Jordan’s Mona Lisa, this is British cinema of the underworld working to a model

44 THE LIST 30 NOV—14 Dec 2006

borrowings from Fellini, Bergman, l Visconti. Lelouch. Godard. Truffaut I and so on. It is of course all these l things and much more (Allen's ' screenplay and the performances here ' are astounding). Watched at this reserve the film has certainly dated. but as a dislocated hymn to the Big Apple and the burgeoning middle age meltdown that all men fester unto themselves. it cannot be bettered. The romantic comedy of this or any year.

I Fi/mhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 8

COMEDY/THRILLER BIG NOTHING

Sometimes things just don't work out. Particles and elements shift and design gets de-railroaded. That's how you end up with a koala bear instead of a kangaroo or in this case a Big Nothing instead of Blood Simple or

Big Nothing is a smalltown blackmail comedy in which call centre l employees Charlie (David Schwimmer) and Gus (Simon Pegg) decide to use some financial records at their disposal : to blackmail a pederast priest. It should be a case of making the phone call and picking up the dosh but chaos. as Charlie (who is a big reader of Stephen Hawking) well knows. is

French director Jean-Baptiste Andrea (Dead End) and screenwriter l

audience as much bang for their buck as possible there's Robert Aldrich

' style multi screens. absurdist dialogue, manic ultra violence. a sexy devilish side kick in the shape of Starter for

I Ten 's Alice Eve (Trevor's daughter),

l axes. snuff movies, animated inserts.

l Colombo style turnarounds and an

I artfully inventive pop soundtrack. And

: yet nothing sticks. Schwimmer is, as

! ever, a non presence, Pegg tries his

l

I

l i Billy Asher certainly try and give the

best to work some shtick out of the weak script but it’s difficult getting past his variable American accent, while Jon Polito, Natascha McElhone and Mimi Rogers are wasted in cliched support roles. The filmmakers seem to want to make a lot of their sadism, , tight plotting and viciously cruel : references (advanced diabetes. serial ; killers. sex rings that kind of thing) yet i it feels patchy and overlong at its very j reasonable running time. Go rent the I 1974 film Dirty Mary Crazy Larry; it's i got a similar-ish plot and the car chases are better. (Paul Dale) I Selected release from Fri 7 Dec.

exemplified by John Cassavettes in Gloria. Indeed, Williams and his editor Tom Hemmings have a fine feel for cadence and structure which allows them to start in the middle and work all ways at once.

London to Brighton is, however, a curiously joyless experience - there’s precious little badinage or give in the tone here, it’s as if William’s is scared to let go of the ‘hard boiled flick’ formulae that he and a million seminar- giving screenwriters have concocted, lest it float into the fire of parody. Like Eric Red’s Cohen and Tate or John Dahl’s Red Rock West (and a million straight to DVD releases), here’s a film written by adherence to golden rules, but as we all know, rules are there to be broken.

All that aside, Williams’ film deserves the praise it has garnered at film festivals; the performances are great and the film does grip you like a jealous pimp (even if you can see the ending coming a mile off). There is nothing here you will not have seen before, but you’ll be pushed to recall a more visceral or seamlessly executed recent British film. (Paul Dale)

I GFT. Glasgow; Cameo, Edinburgh and selected cinemas from Fri 7 Dec.

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