www.list.co.uk/film ACTION/THRILLER NINJA ASSASSIN (18) 98min ●●●●●
‘He doesn’t look like a ninja, he looks like he should be in a boy-band,’ comments a police investigator on first sighting of Ninja Assassin’s pyjama-clad killer Raizo, played by pop-star Rain. Given Rain’s pedigree as a crooner, it’s a comment that nails the central problem of James McTeigue’s daft yet dull thriller; Raizo must be the most girlie-looking ninja ever captured on film. Re-teaming McTeigue with his V For
Vendetta producers the Wachowski brothers, Ninja Assassin sets itself up nicely with two blood-drenched set pieces which promise the kind of deliriously daft Euro-thriller that Luc Besson has made his own. But as police agent Mika (Naomi Harris) enlists Raizo’s help to track down the secret ninja brotherhood led by Ozunu (genre veteran Sho Kosugi), McTeigue’s film bogs itself down in mundane dialogue, drab Berlin locations and tedious fistfights. With games like Assassin’s Creed 2 flying off the shelves, there’s clearly an audience out there for a decent covert action flick, but apart from a couple of lively fire-fights, McTeigue’s film is all filler and not enough ninja killer to appeal even to a teenage audience. And casting an actor who looks like an X-Factor contestant makes this ninja more ass than assassin. (Eddie Harrison) ■ General release from Fri 8 Jan.
Reviews Film
DOCUMENTARY CRUDE (15) 104 min ●●●●●
This complex yet absorbing cinema-vérité documentary from American director Joe Berlinger (Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, Revelations: Paradise Lost), concerns a multi-billion dollar legal action in the field of environmental compensation. Back in 1993 a lawsuit was filed on behalf of 30,000 Amazonian tribes people in Ecuador against Texaco. The plaintiffs argued that the oil-drilling and waste dumping activities of the company, which merged with Chevron in 2001, had destroyed their natural habitat: safe drinking water had become polluted, incidences of teenage cancers had rocketed, and babies suffered from mysterious skin complaints.
Chevron’s lawyers continue to argue in this still
ongoing case that their corporation is not responsible for this catastrophic pollution, putting the blame instead on PetroEcuador, the state organisation that took over their operation in 1992. Some fascinating characters emerge from this David versus Goliath tale. There’s the humble Pablo Fajardo, the lead attorney for the indigenous people, who was
once an oil-field worker and who shows indefatigable commitment to the cause. Also on his side is the fiery Manhattan human rights lawyer Steven Donziger, powerfully driven (not least on financial grounds) to secure a favourable verdict. Berlinger demonstrates that the battle is fought out
as much in the media as in the courts. An important development is the backing Fajardo receives from Vanity Fair magazine and from Trudie Styler and Sting and their Rainforest Foundation, which brings global attention to Fajardo’s campaigning. Berlinger works hard at preventing Crude from becoming a dry legal debate, setting up visual contrasts between the Amazon basin and the offices of corporate America, as well as filming the open air judicial investigations in Ecuador, where the various lawyers make their speeches in front of crowds and a judge at the sites of pollution. If there’s little doubt where the director’s sympathies
lie, he does allow Chevron representatives to defend their position. Justice, however, could yet be a long time coming. (Tom Dawson) ■ Filmhouse, Edinburgh and selected release from Fri 15 Jan.
COMEDY ALL ABOUT STEVE (12A) 98min ●●●●●
Sandra Bullock follows twin box office strikes The Proposal and The Blind Side with supposedly kooky comedy All About Steve. Combining the male charms of The Hangover’s Bradley Cooper and Sideways star Thomas Hayden Church must have seemed like a safe bet, but in the inept hands of first time director Phil Traill and with Bullock’s comic touch deserting her, All About Steve is just toe curling. Mary Horowitz (Bullock) is a dowdy crossword-compiler who, after a blind date with news cameraman Steve (Cooper), embarks on a cross-country chase to stalk her unwary quarry. While Steve assists vain television reporter Hartman Hughes (Church) as a cameraman, the daffy Horowitz turns up to interrupt their attempts to cover newsworthy events including the birth of a three-legged baby.
With repeated non-jokes about rape, child deformity and an idiotic finale that reprises Billy Wilder’s Ace In The Hole as Mary finds herself trapped in an abandoned mine-shaft with a deaf child, All About Steve regularly attempts to flaunt its many lapses of taste to wearisome effect. The performers may be qualified, but Traill’s mirthless direction of a desperate-looking cast demonstrates just what a difficult business making comedy can be. (Eddie Harrison) ■ General release from Fri 15 Jan.
7–21 Jan 2010 THE LIST 45