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ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE
(18) 90min 0...
Here's a welcome example of that all too rare thrng rn Amerrcan horror movres: a teen slasher that's actually very good. The srmple answer to that conundrum rs that appearances can he deceptrve Mandy [.ane rsn't srrnply a teen slasher tlrck. As drrected hy trrst trrner Jonathan I evrne from a scrrpt by fellow newcomer Jacoh Forman, the lrlm mrxes generrc stalk'n'slash thrrlls wrth a harhed commentary on hrgh-school Irte.
Hrsrng star Amher Heard (who’s soon to he seen rn Davrd Gordon (jreen‘s P/neapp/e Express) plays the trtular small town heauty. whose hlonde good looks. uncommon cool and wrllrngness to party make her the most popular grrl wrth the local rocks and rrch krds. When one of the latter rnvrtes Mandy and a tew of her trrends out to hrs ahsent lather ’s farm for a rrrght ot partyrng, she readrly accepts what’s clearly a dodgy rnvrtatron to get lard. But when the horny. drunken. stoned and generally wasted grrls and boys start drsappearrng rn the mrddle ot the nrght. rt hegrns to look lrke Mandy got herself rnto a srtuatron her seemrngly unshakahle cool won't get her out of.
You‘d he torgrven tor assumrng early On that thrs rs a hy—the-numhers Chrller. The rnrtral gruesome murder rather lowers expectatrons but the lovely Iumrnous photography by Darren Genet. a mesmerrsrng performance by Heard and at least two more genurne narratrve surprrses contrrms we're rn tar more tertrle trlmmakrng terrrtory rtvtrles Freiden
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ACTION TllRlLl ER RAMBO (18) 90min on
Last year Sylvester Stallone successfully revitalised the Rocky franchise with Rocky Balboa. After a number of dud sequels, Stallone breathed life back into the pugilist by revisiting him in his decrepitude to winning effect. He tries and fails to repeat the feat with Rambo, the fourth instalment in the series that started with the dynamite First Blood in 1982.
John Rambo is now living in isolation on the border of Burma. It's not clear if he‘s still a Buddhist. content to pass out his days in the jungle and avoid engaging in combat. His peace is disturbed by a group of Christian Missionaries who want to help the local Burmese, caught in the grip of a civil war. lnevitably, our favourite ex-soldier has always hated pen pushers and liberal do gooders more than anyone and is only convinced to help them by the charms of a beautiful woman (Julie Benz).
In this post 9/11 world there is no way that Rambo could be allowed to align himself with the mujahadeen,
as occurs in Rambo III. Indeed, after a black and white flashback sequence rolls across the screen, Rambo's regret at his past is largely concerned with his failure to reintegrate into American society and his fear that he’ll always have the mentality of a soldier rather than remorse at helping the Taliban. But the real benefit of the flashback device is that it allows the filmmakers to pay homage to actor Richard Crenna who died of pancreatic cancer in 2003. A huge proportion of the audience for this Rambo will, no doubt, be uninterested in any semblance of a plot while they wait for the Vietnam War veteran to get his machine gun out and kill. In this department Rambo delivers in bullets. As director and co-writer, Stallone has upped the ante with scenes as graphic and stomach churning as anything played out in the first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. The problem is that, with no real rational or moral core to the narrative, this boils down to cinema as computer game, with Burmese military bad guys held up for target practice. Predictably disappointing. (Kaleem Aftab)
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