"The Butcher Boy" (15) What was an extraordinary work of the imagination on the page in Patrick McCabe's 1992 novel is fully complemented in Neil Jordan's surreal, startling and richly cinematic treatment of The Butcher Boy. With its internal structure and stream-of-consciousness narration, the novel seemed unfilmable, but Jordan and McCabe's collaboration on the screenplay has cracked it triumphantly in this riveting movie.
At its centre is the bravura performance Jordan elicits from the gifted 13-year-old newcomer, Eamonn Owens, as Francie Brady, an outwardly cheerful youngster growing up in a small Irish town in the early 1960s with his morose, alcoholic father and his manic depressive, suicidal mother. Losing each of his parents, and then the company of his cherished best friend, Francie is left perplexed, insecure and alone in a big, threatening adult world.
This remarkable picture precisely catches the repression and hypocrisy of an Irish town at a time when talk rarely sounded so small and the lace curtains of the squinting windows were kept firmly drawn against anything that shattered the cosiness of the superficial contentment of daily life. The wild black humour which permeates the movie and erupts uproariously at some of the most unlikely moments effectively counterpoints the intensity of the drama, as the smiles are abruptly wiped off the viewer's face.
"The Boxer" (15)
Jim Sheridan's accomplished new film is a thoughtful and highly topical drama which operates most effectively as an acute picture of Northern Ireland during a fragile ceasefire, and as a moving love story between a boxer who has relinquished his Provo past and his ex-lover who married his best friend while he was in prison. Daniel Day-Lewis is powerfully expressive and on peak physical form as the boxer, heading a solid cast that features Emily Watson, Brian Cox, Gerard McSorley, Ciaran Fitzgerald and Ken Stott.
"Good Will Hunting" (15)
Following Drugstore Cowboy and To Die For, maverick director Gus Van Sant moved comfortably into the mainstream with this touching rites-of-passage story, while keeping a firm rein on its sentimental potential. In a career-making performance, Matt Damon plays a young South Boston janitor revealed as a mathematical prodigy. Abused in childhood by his foster father, he attracts the concern of an Irish-American psychologist (Robin Williams), himself emotionally scarred after the death of his wife. This absorbing and regularly witty picture won this year's best original screenplay Oscar for Damon and his co-star and co-writer, Ben Affleck, while Williams took the best supporting actor gong for his unusually restrained performance.
"The Edge" (15) Directed by Lee Tamahori (who made Once Were Warriors) and scripted by David Mamet, The Edge features Anthony Hopkins as a well-read billionaire who goes on a photo-shoot to Alaska with his model wife (Elle McPherson) and her photographer (Alec Baldwin) whom he suspects is having an affair with her. The film circuitously brings the two men together in isolation, after a truly alarming plane crash scene in the Alaskan wilderness. However, despite their earnest efforts, both Hopkins and Baldwin are defeated by the narrative contrivances in this handsome but laborious production.
"Prisoner Of The Mountains" (15) The Siberian-born director, Sergei Bordov transposes a Tolstoy novella, Caucasian Captive, to Chechnya in the mid-1990s for this compelling anti-war drama. With a deceptive simplicity, it explores the relationship forged between two Russian soldiers - played by Oleg Menshikov (from Burnt By The Sun) and the director's son, Sergei Bordov Jr - and the Chechen ambushers who capture them and hold them as hostages. Filmed in a mountainous settlement 300 kilometres away from the war zone, Brodov's film is briefly hopeful as it builds inexorably to a tragic conclusion.
"Good Burger" (PG)
This American comedy yarn is set in a burger joint whose future is threatened by fierce competition from the unscrupulous Mondo Burger chain. Not likely to be grouped with gastronomic cinema delights like Like Water For Chocolate or Babette's Feast, it features Kel Mitchell, Kenan Thompson and Sinbad, who will be familiar to younger television viewers. Brian Robbins directs.
