"Richard III" (15) Screen at D'Olier Street, Dublin
A fresh and vibrant adaptation that's bursting with energy, Richard Loncraine's Richard III brings Shakespeare to the screen with an unprecedented vigour and dynamism. Inspired by Richard Eyre's acclaimed stage production featuring Ian McKellen in the title role, this radical interpretation scripted by McKellen in collaboration with Loncraine pares down and opens out the play with admirable skill, cutting and re ordering the original text and astutely transposing it to an imaginary London in the 1930s with explicit overtones of Nazism, fascism and the Hollywood gangster movies of the period.
The body count escalates as the cunning, scheming and manipulative Richard and his black shirted cronies ruthlessly destroy everyone who gets in his way on the pathway to power. Some purists will doubtless be aghast at the liberties taken by McKellen and Loncraine, but the film ultimately stands as a tribute to the enduring power and allure of Shakespeare's original work.
The play explodes into life in this precisely delineated new context, so much so that it seems entirely reasonable for Richard to deliver the opening "winter of our discontent" soliloquy from a ballroom stage, to end it in a lavatory with a knowing nod to the audience, and to declare, "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse", from a besieged tank.
This exhilarating movie registers above all as a lucid reflection on power, corruption and megalo mania, and its technical achievements entirely belie its small budget the dazzling images lit by cinematographer Peter Biziou, the remarkable costumes designed by Shupa Harwood, the opulent production design by Tony Burrough and the robust and rousing Trevor Jones score.
At the core of the film's achievements is the hypnotic and virtuoso performance by Ian McKellen as the jack booted dictator with slicked back hair and pencil thin moustache. He is accompanied in an exemplary cast by, most notably, Annette Bening as the enraged Queen Elizabeth, Nigel Hawthorne as Richard's trusting but doomed brother, Maggie Smith spitting fire as his mother, Kristin Scott Thomas as the morose Lady Anne and Adrian Dunbar as the cold blooded lackey, James Tyrell.
"Nothing Personal" (18) Virgin, Omniplex, UCIs, Dublin
Set during, an uneasy ceasefire in Belfast in 1975, Thaddeus O'Sullivan's Nothing Personal was originally titled All Our Fault, after the Daniel Mornin novel on which it is based, and was retitled Fanatic Heart when it had its world premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh last summer. Since that Galway screening the real life IRA ceasefire is over, the movie's graphic torture sequence has been toned down, and the film has yet another title, Nothing Personal It opens here today on both sides of the Border, but its British release has been deferred to October by its nervous distributors in London.
Like Jim Sheridan's In The Name Of The Father, O'Sullivan's film opens with an explosion the senseless bombing of a pub by the IRA. In another part of the city, the loyalist and nationalist paramilitaries are discussing a ceasefire. John Lynch plays Liam Kelly, a Catholic singer and father in his 30s who becomes unwillingly caught up in the subsequent violence when he finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Kelly is captured and tortured by cold blooded loyalist thugs the determined Kenny (James Frain) and the psychotic Ginger (Ian Hart) despite his protestations that he is "not involved". Set over the course of an edgy 24 hours, the film captures a mood of clear and desperation and it reflects on the endemic nature of the violence as impressionable youngsters from both sides of the divide are drawn into it.
In a recent interview Ian Hart complained that, because of cuts made in the editing process, audiences do not get to see the other, side of the sadistic Ginger when he is with his family. Edited downs to a lean 89 minutes, Nothing Personal clearly suffers from several elements of the movie ending up on the cutting room floor, with the result that it tries to cram far too many characters and incidents into such a concise running time to the detriment of the development of those characters.
That facet of the film is emphasised by Mornin's screenplay which relies all too heavily on narrative contrivances and unlikely coincidences, and it is most unconvincing in the awkwardness of its melodramatic resolution. That said, O'Sullivan elicits vivid performances from his three central actors Frain, Hart and Lynch. The film's anti violence stance is firm and uncompromising and its sincerity is evident throughout.
"Cyclo" (members and guests only) IFC, Dublin
The Vietnamese born, Paris raised writer and director, Tran Anh Hung, follows his memorable first film, The Scent Of The Green Papaya with the urban drama Cyclo. It could hardly be more of a contrast the serenity of his first film gives way to a torrent of shocking violence in Cyclo which is set in present day Ho Chi Minh City and features an expressive newcomer, Le Van Loc, as an 18 year old orphan who works as a cyclo, driving a pedal taxi.
When the cyclo's vehicle is stolen and he is beaten up by the thieves he gets drawn deeper and deeper into crime, from sabotaging business properties to working as a heroin courier. Parallel to his loss of innocence is that of his older sister who is lured into prostitution by the same gang boss, played by the always, impressive Tony Leung Chiu Wai from Bullet In The Head and Chunking Express.
Cyclo makes for consistently visually arresting cinema, as cinematographer Benoit Delhomme's mobile camera glides through, the bustling traffic and the sinister underworld of the city. However, despite the hold exerted by the gritty social realism of the movie's early stages, Tran Anh Hung unwisely allows the drama to turn muddled, incoherent and pretentious. And his use, of violence is explicit and excessive.
"Executive Decision", (i5s), Adelphi, Omniplex, UCIs
Take heart it is possible to wear a dress suit and still be an action man. So we are reassured by Stuart Baird's hi tech action thriller, set aboard a 747 aeroplane bound for Washington. When the plane is hijacked by Middle Eastern terrorists volatile and fanatical, naturally muttering darkly about "the infidel" and possibly in possession of a toxic nerve gas targeted on Washington, the Pentagon is presented with a dilemma whether to destroy the plane, sacrificing its 490 American passengers or allow it to land, risking a greater catastrophe.
We are kept amused during the agonising international deliberations by a bombardment of gadgetry from sappy computer graphics video conference miniature came probes digitally programmed bomb devices to the mid air Trojan hors vie transfer of US commandos into the body of the 747 from an experimental aircraft that sucks on to the bottom of the plane like a giant vacuum cleaner.
Sophistication is reserved for the technology the human element is supplied by the heavily sign posted conflict between brain and brawn. Will the desk bound intelligence analyst, David Grant (Kurt Russell), catapulted into the drama from a Washington soiree, be able to hold his own among the commando bomber crew? Guess.
With generous dollops of tension and suspense, and action sequences well orchestrated by this editor turned director notably Grant crashing spectacularly through all the other aircraft on the runway, as he attempts to land the plane, surrounded by bodies and terrified passengers this is a reasonably successful exponent of the genre, especially when it sticks to action and doesn't stray into, er, psychology.
"White Squall" (12s) Virgin, UCI, Omniplex
The great thing about Ridley Scott's movies is that, even when they're not very good, like Black Rain or 1492. Conquest Of Paradise, the pictures are always worth looking at. In White Squall, Scott's compositions are at times breathtaking (unusually for a director, he tends to operate the camera himself). It's a pity, though, about the predictable and sentimental storyline.
Based on actual events which took place in 1961, White Squall tells the tale of the travels of 13 young men aboard the "Ocean Academy", a sort of finishing school for the American upper class male. Under the captaincy of enigmatic skipper Christopher Sheldon(Jeff Bridges), they undergo various adventures in the Caribbean and South Pacific aboard the sail ship Albatross. But, in the last month of the voyage, the Albatross is hit by a freak storm the eponymous squall which kills four of the students and two of the crew, including Sheldon's wife. At an investigation, the students defend Sheldon against charges of poor seamanship.
It's easy to see why Scott was attracted to the story his handling of the various maritime ad ventures is compelling, and the squall scene itself comprises 15 minutes of virtuoso film making that surpass as most previous cinematic depictions of disaster at sea. But there's far too much sub Dead Poets' Society rites of passage material, with the students learning to become adults under the stern but fair tutelage of Bridges. It's unconvincing, pedestrian stuff, and takes all the energy out of the film. The worst thing about White Squall, though, is the cringemakingly soppy ending, which plays fast and loose with what really happened and is likely to have audiences rolling in the aisles.
