"Cop Land" (15) Savoy, Virgin, Omniplex, UCI, Dublin
So much has been made of Sylvester Stallone putting on weight to play the central role in Cop Land that one could be forgiven for anticipating a physical transformation as radical - and as powerfully effective - as Robert De Niro's reincarnation as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull. That, however, would be expecting too much.
This, for a change, is a shy Sly - an unconfident, sweaty, flabby man whose Rambo/ Rocky musculature has turned to fat. As a welcome relief from playing superhuman heroes in noisy action movies, Stallone put his exercise regime on hold and piled on the pounds for his most low-key role in years as the New Jersey sheriff, Freddy Heflin, in Cop Land. Written and directed by James Mangold, the film is set in the New Jersey town of Garrison which is home to a large number of New Yorker police officers - hence the town's nickname which gives it its title. Although most of the cops are reeking of corruption, they are admired by Sheriff Heflin - whose own dreams of joining the NYPD were dashed by deafness in one ear, the result of a heroic underwater rescue he undertook in his teens.
Bloated from booze, Freddy spends his days directing traffic and keeping an eye on the local kids while the NYPD officers spend their free time devising criminal scams. "They think they're high priests," observes the wife of one of the officers. The turning point in their interlinked lives comes at the beginning of the movie when a young NYDP officer (Michael Rapaport) is on his way home across the Hudson River to Garrison. Crossing the George Washington Bridge, he comes under attack from two young men who seem to be aiming a gun at him. When he crashes into their car, killing both of them, a cover-up is called for - and is arranged by his uncle, a corrupt cop played by Harvey Keitel.
Robert De Niro plays the internal affairs officer who smells a rat and puts pressure on Sheriff Heflin for information. Meanwhile, the hapless Heflin is still hopelessly in love with the woman he rescued in his teens. Played by Annabella Sciorra, she is married to another NYPD officer (Peter Berg) who is having an affair with the Keitel character's wife (Cathy Moriarty).
In this multi-charactered scenario, there is the further distraction of watching the stellar cast come on screen one after another. And there's more to come - Ray Liotta, Janeane Garofalo, Robert Patrick, Deborah Harry - all assembled by the shrewd Miramax company for a fraction of the fees they generally command. Despite its contemporary setting, Cop Land is, in all respects, a western in modern dress, with explicit references to High Noon in its closing stages as Sly Stallone, following in the tentative footsteps of Gary Cooper, has to bring in his man. This is an absorbing movie which has enough character and incident for a movie about twice as long its 105-minute duration, and its often untidy compression smothers the development of several characters and situations. The result is that many of the more promising male characters are reduced to mere cyphers, while the women in the movie are relegated firmly to the sidelines.
By Michael Dwyer
"The Borrowers" (general) Nationwide
Fans of Mary Norton's children's novels, and of their recent adaptation for British television, may be a little taken aback at first at the liberties taken with the original story in this engaging and well-crafted version, but they should soon find they are in good hands. The Borrowers - the diminutive Pod and Homily Clock and their two rambunctious offspring Arietty and Peagreen - have been transplanted to a vaguely Anglo-American 1950s suburban setting, where everybody drives Morris Minors and dresses in brown.
Happily ensconced under the floorboards, and borrowing whatever they need from the "human beans" of the Lender family, the Clocks' world is thrown into turmoil when the house is taken over by evil Ocious Potter (John Goodman, not the only dastardly Potter on view this week). In the ensuing scramble for safety, the family become separated, leaving Arietty and Peagreen alone to fend for themselves in the terrifying outside world.
With an excellent cast (in particular the always reliable Jim Broadbent as Pod and Flora Newbigin as Arietty), and a fine villain in Goodman, this is enjoyable stuff, enhanced by superb design and deftly handled special effects. The general tone is almost Ealingesque, with cameo comedy appearances by Hugh Laurie and Ruby Wax, and the adventures of the Borrowers in the outside world should keep younger viewers gripped. A good option for Christmas family viewing.
By Hugh Linehan
"Paradise Road" (15) Savoy, Dublin
In a chequered directorial career, the Australian film-maker Bruce Beresford's two recurring preoccupations have been the clashes between antagonistic cultures and the strengths of women in adversity. Both themes are present in this prisoner of war drama set amongst a group of European women held by the Japanese during the second World War. Unfortunately, Beresford's style can be a little stolid and predictable, as is the case here.
Based on a true story, Paradise Road boasts a starry cast, including Glenn Close, Frances McDormand and Pauline Collins, all thrown together in the brutally-run prison camp in Sumatra after their ships are sunk while escaping from the fall of Singapore. Forced to cope with living conditions worse than they have ever imagined, the women are reduced for a while to just concentrating on survival. But Close and Collins come up with the idea of creating a vocal orchestra as a means of asserting their humanity, and despite the violent reaction of the camp guards, and the reluctance of many of their fellow inmates, finally achieve their goal.
This is terrain that has been covered before, in the similarly-themed television series Tenko, for example, and it could be argued that the slower rhythms of serial drama might be better suited to the story. Here, each major character must be established relatively quickly to keep things moving, which leads to a kind of it's-your-turn-for-a-speech approach. That might be fine for a gung-ho Great Escape-type tale, but is less effective when applied to long-term strategies of quiet resistance enacted over several years, as here. The suspicion lingers that some of the harsher edges of the story have been softened in the mix, and that Beresford's tendency towards sentimentality, seen at its most extreme in Driving Miss Daisy, has infected parts of the script, which he wrote himself. However, Paradise Road has some scenes of considerable emotional power, and is never less than watchable.
By Hugh Linehan
"Will It Snow For Christmas?" (members and guests only) IFC, Dublin
Sandrine Veysset's debut feature film has been warmly received in her native France for its authenticity and unflinching vision, but it's hard to see it doing as well elsewhere. Couched in an uncompromisingly realist style, it tells the story of a mother (Dominique Reymond) and her seven children, who live in grinding poverty on a farm owned by the children's father, who is married with another family elsewhere, using Reymond for sex and the children as cheap labour.
As summer passes into winter, the brutality and misery of the family's situation become more and more apparent, coming to a crisis when the father makes a pass at his own eldest daughter. With no apparent means of escape, the mother is faced with what may be a final crisis point as Christmas approaches. Veysset's cinematic style is almost puritanical in its simple framing and use of available light, matched by the ultra-naturalistic performances of the cast.
The grinding misery of repetitive manual labour is depicted in a way not usually seen on screen, and the minutiae of poverty and humiliation observed with forensic precision. All of this packs a certain emotional punch, but it's hard not to feel worn down after a while by the film's bleak vision, and easier to admire than enjoy its refusal to employ any of the usual cinematic tricks. The overall effect is of taking a cold shower in midwinter - good for the soul, perhaps, but not something you'd care to repeat in a hurry.
By Hugh Linehan
"It's A Wonderful Life" (general) Virgin, Dublin
The anniversary reissuing of Frank Capra's extraordinary moral fairy tale would probably seem strange to the cinema-goers of 50 years ago, who shunned the film on its initial cinema release. As a result of that failure, this marvellous, richly textured, deeply influential masterpiece has slowly released its secrets to generations of fans through the small screen , particularly in America, where it has become a staple of the Christmas TV schedules. All the more welcome, therefore, to see It's A Wonderful Life, in a gleaming new print, projected in all its glory on a cinema screen, because some of its many pleasures - the luminous black and white images and the relentlessly driving narrative, for example - are best appreciated in a darkened auditorium.
James Stewart gives one of the finest performances of his career as George Bailey, a good and gentle man who finds that he has sacrificed his life and his dreams for nothing. Faced with ruin at the hands of his malicious rival Henry Potter (Lionel Barrymore), he decides to commit suicide, at which point Heaven intervenes, in the unlikely shape of the portly Henry Travers. From one perspective, George Bailey is the quintessential Capra hero, the little man who embodies the best and most decent aspects of American life, and whose efforts are the glue that hold society together. From another, the hellish vision of "Pottersville" and the clearly unsafe sands on which George's finances stand offer a glimpse of the dark void beneath the American dream, while Stewart's lurch towards suicide on the bridge is mirrored in his near-hysterical happiness at the end. The threat of destitution and madness hovers at the edge of the frame at all times.
In this sense It's A Wonderful Life, whose "sentimentality" was compared unfavourably on its original release to dramas of post-war disillusion like William Wyler's The Best Years Of Our Lives, can now be seen as the antecedent of the cinema of unease, from Douglas Sirk to David Lynch. But Capra's genius, and James Stewart's triumph, lies in making us believe in George Bailey, crying and laughing with him along the way. It's one of the great emotional roller-coasters, and if you haven't seen it you're in for a treat. If you have seen it, you should definitely go again. (On a note of seasonal serendipity, the company releasing It's A Wonderful Life in Ireland is Clarence Pictures, named after Henry Travers's bumbling angel.)
By Hugh Linehan
This year's Film Base Christmas table quiz will take place on Tuesday, December 9th at the Norseman pub on Eustace Street, Dublin 2. As usual, the quiz-master will be Irish Times Film Correspondent Michael Dwyer. Tables cost £20 each, and are already selling fast. To book, contact Teresa at Film Base (679 6716) or email your booking to filmbase@iol.ie
