Pleasantville Directed by Gary Ross Starring Tobey Maguire, Reese Witherspoon, Joan Allen, Jeff Daniels, William H. Macy, J.T. Walsh
THIS very witty and clever social satire takes its name from the title of a fictional 1950s TV series in which everyone's as sweet as Mom's apple pie. Maguire and Witherspoon play a pair of present-day American teens catapulted back into the past (don't ask how) and into the roles of the show's squeaky-clean siblings, eventually throwing the community into turmoil, with the forces of conservatism taking on those tending towards individuality - and who are identifiable because they are now in colour within this literally black-and-white world. Combining the paranoia of Invasion of the Body Snatchers with the postmodern wit of The Truman Show, the ambitious and very clever Pleasantville is mildly subersive without ever resorting to heavy-handedness, played with deadpan panache by a fine cast, and assembled with excellent colour effects.
Welcome To Woop Woop Directed by Stephan Elliott Starring Johnathan Schaech, Rod Taylor
SCHAECH plays an American opportunist who flees to Australia in this adaptation of Douglas Kennedy's novel, The Dead Heart , which is treated with characteristic flamboyance by Stephan Elliott, who directed Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Schaech's character finds himself seduced, drugged and married, and unable to escape the remote area of Woop Woop ruled over by his domineering father-in-law (veteran Taylor at his most deadpan) and populated by eccentrics. After the deceptive lightness of, this is fairly overwrought stuff which sags in the centre, although it bursts back into life for an exuberant resolution.
Payback Directed by Brian Helgeland Starring Mel Gibson, Kris Kristofferson, Gregg Henry, Deborah Kara Unger, David Paymer, Lucy Lu, James Coburn
IN this relentlessly and exceptionally violent thriller - from the same source material as the far superior Point Blank - Gibson plays Porter, the gravel-voiced narrator and anti-hero, who, double-crossed and left for dead by his wife and his former partner in crime, sets out on an obsessively single-minded mission of vengeance. In his directing debut Brian Helgeland, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of LA Confidential, shows a good deal of flair in setting up the many action set-pieces. After disagreements, however, Gibson, actually brought in his hairdresser to re-shoot some sequences and to film additional material.