September Film Reviews

September film releases include: RocknRolla, The Woman, Tropic Thunder, Righteous Kill, The Duchess, Pineapple Express, Death Race and Swing Vote

RocknRolla
Releases 5 September

It’s hard not to feel just a little bit sorry for Guy Richie. Over the last decade, Richie’s repeated failures in his attempts to come up with a movie that could even come close to the success and quality of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels has begun to get embarrassing.
After all these disappointments, it’s hardly a surprise that Richie’s latest offering – yes, another gangster movie – is hardly the most anticipated film of the year, nor that US distributors have reportedly got cold feet about putting it out across the pond. Yet the comparisons made between Richie and Quentin Tarantino at the time Lock, Stock came out were entirely justified. His characters were unpleasant yet likable. His dialogue was stylised and over-the-top, yet witty and engaging. And his sense of cinematic style was unlike anything the British film industry had put out for years – fast-paced, slick and trendy, and about as far away from the kind of lightweight romantic comedies Britain was then most associated with that you could wish for. But at the same time Lock, Stock – unlike its follow-up, Snatch – didn’t seem to be trying too hard. The sense of style was effortless, the feeling of cool permeating almost every frame.
But after so many disappointments and so many years of being best known as “Mr Madonna”, can Richie rediscover whatever it was that helped him make Lock, Stock one of the films of the Nineties? Well, we’ll have to wait and see. Although the cast list is known and modestly impressive – with Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkinson and Thandie Newton heading an array of decent character actors – and the gangster-based plot is decidedly reminiscent of Lock, Stock, more details have been kept under fairly tight wraps. The only thing that is certain is that Richie himself is feeling confident – he’s planning this as the first film in a new trilogy.

The Duchess
Releases 5 September

Keira Knightley is undeniably beautiful, of that there has been little argument since she first appeared on the public radar with 2002’s Bend It Like Beckham. But since her rocketing rise to global stardom, thanks largely to the Pirates of the Caribbean films, one thing has constantly been in dispute: can Knightley actually act, or is she just another in a long line of good-looking girls who can wear a corset and speak with a crisp middle-class English accent?
Knightley’s defenders have, to date, mostly pointed to her Oscar-nominated turn in the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice as proof of her acting mettle – and, more recently, her part in last year’s much-praised Atonement. Yet her die-hard critics have not been convinced, perhaps unable to get past the good looks and accent that have been the hallmark of all her cinematic outings to date.
The Duchess, as the name might imply, is unlikely to silence these critics. Once again, Knightley is playing a posh young woman in a corset – this time the 18th century Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire.
It’s all too easy to write this off as more of the same from Knightley – and, to an extent, it is. Only not only does this particular Duchess of Devonshire provide ample material for a genuinely engaging biopic – combining an unusual involvement in politics with an equally unusual private life revolving around an ongoing ménage à trois with her husband and his mistress – but the character also gives Knightley plenty of scope for some genuine acting.
In this she is helped no end by one of her most talented co-stars to date, Ralph Fiennes. Playing the Duke to her Duchess, his subtlety and gravitas is the perfect foil and catalyst, prompting one of her best performances to date. Perhaps it’s that he’s twice her age, perhaps it’s his decades of experience and reputation as one of Britain’s finest living actors, but Fiennes’ understated, naturalistic reservation in his acting seems to have rubbed off nicely on Knightley.

Pineapple Express
Releases 12 September

There’s been a sizable, if not quite noble, tradition of stoner comedies in American cinema going back the last forty years or more. This has been largely since the arrival of the late sixties counterculture generation and the realization that people who smoke cannabis are not only easily amused, but can also be quite amusing to watch. The idea was itself an offshoot of the age-old comedies of drunkenness that have been a part of human entertainment pretty much since the first caveman ate the wrong sort of mushrooms and started to walk into things.
But, of course, in the very best stoner comedies the cannabis itself is little more than a minor device – something to lure in the largely teenage/student target audience by making them think that what they’re going to see is a bit risqué.
This one revolves around one habitual user and his layabout dealer who end up being hunted by police precisely because of the unusual strain of cannabis they’re both partial to.So far, so unoriginal. But the key is not the plot, but the chap who’s the mastermind of the whole thing – writer and star Seth Rogan. Because the thing to remember is that although Rogan is still best known as the chubby slacker star of last year’s smash hit romantic comedy Knocked Up, he was also the writer of the similarly big hit Superbad. Rogan’s old buddy Judd Apatow, writer/director of Knocked Up and producer of Superbad, has also tackled the fortysomething crisis of confidence in his The 40 Year Old Virgin. This latest offering – for which Apatow gets a credit for helping come up with the story – seems more focused on those of student age.
Yes, at its heart this may be a fairly old-fashioned chase movie with a drug-induced paranoid twist, aimed squarely at the student market. But as the previous films from Rogan and Apatow have shown, these guys have a strange talent for widening their films’ appeal far beyond what, on the surface, they should have. Knocked Up appealed to all ages, as did Superbad and as did The 40 Year Old Virgin – if you enjoyed any of those, you’ll not regret giving Pineapple Express a try.

The Woman
Releases 12 September

Over the last couple of decades, the battle for women’s lib seemed to many to have been won. Yet though the situation may be better, the fight goes on.
The situation of Hollywood actresses has long been indicative of one aspect of the problem. The glass ceiling met by women in other areas of business is even more obvious in an industry where looks and youth count for so much. Little wonder the old moan about how there are no good parts for women over the age of 40 is just as valid today as it was almost 70 years ago when the original version of The Women first came out. Based on the hit 1936 play of the same name by prolific female playwright (and later politician, winning a seat in the US House of Representatives in 1942 before becoming American ambassador to Italy during the 1950s) Clara Boothe Luce, the 1939 version of The Women was a bold experiment by director George Cuckor.
Cuckor was one of late-Thirties Hollywood golden boys, not quite an early Spielberg, but certainly a big name. Without this it is doubtful he could ever have persuaded MGM to finance a film with an all-female cast, not least one based on a play with decidedly subversive sexual innuendo. As it was, the innuendo was cut out, and the film rounded off with one of the most impressive casts that had yet been seen – including megastars Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine alongside a host of top-quality character actors. Not a single man featured on screen – and yet the film was a massive success.
That we are getting a remake 70 years on, and that the all-female cast is still seen as a bit of a gimmick, may be an indication of how short a distance we have come. This time, however, the surprise is as much in the age of the big-name actresses on board: Meg Ryan (46), Annette Bening (50), Candice Bergen (62), Carrie Fisher (51) and Bette Midler (62) are all still at the top of their game, yet how often do they get starring roles these days? With Eva Mendes, Jada Pinkett Smith and Debra Messing filling out the main roles, the cast is a superb one, and the updating both sympathetic to the original play and film while being fully appropriate to a tale revolving around the suspicions and sexual jealousies of wealthy East Coast society women.
An entertaining and amusing acting masterclass, it’s hard not to see this as a manifesto for the “good parts for older actresses” campaign and a highly effective and welcome one at that.

Righteous Kill
Releases 19 September

For any fans of American cinema from the last forty years, there are three principle giants of the screen: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Jack Nicholson. And yet despite their combined list of iconic movies stretching well into double figures they’ve worked together surprisingly infrequently.
Now we may still not have the dream team-up of De Niro, Pacino and Nicholson all together in one movie, but De Niro and Pacino are at least playing opposite each other – and that’s surely cause for celebration.
Well, yes and no. Because the trouble is that although both De Niro and Pacino were pretty much untouchable for much of the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties, in the last decade or so they’ve really not done a great deal of any note.
So, will this finally be the revival of two of the powerhouses of modern film acting, or another passable disappointment? Will this story of two policemen trying to hunt down a killer who may be a cop provide De Niro and Pacino with enough meat for the sort of thing we always used to expect from them? Or is the De Niro / Pacino team up merely a marketing gimmick? And do we really care anyway? Because, let’s face it, De Niro on an off day and Pacino on autopilot are always going to be more interesting to watch than any number of bland identikit Hollywood teen heartthrobs. These two are icons for a reason.

Tropic Thunder
Releases 19 September

Ben Stiller is way up there as one of Hollywood’s most successful comedians of the last ten years, as well as one of the most prolific.
Yet as entertaining as Stiller may well have been in any number of roles over the last few years, there remains one movie that stands out perfectly styled head and shoulders above the rest: 2001’s Zoolander. A near perfect 90 minutes of comic insanity in which Stiller not only starred, he also wrote and directed, surprising many with his ability to turn out such an accomplished and tightly-produced film. The surprise was largely thanks to his previous directorial effort having been the Jim Carrey vehicle The Cable Guy back in 1996, a so-so offering. Stiller was also the director of once-iconic 1994 Generation X comedy Reality Bites, a neat and stylish exploration of twentysomething love and disillusionment. Three films to his name as director, two of them top quality, and the most recent a modern classic – little wonder Tropic Thunder, in which Stiller again writes, directs and stars, has been so anticipated.
Then there’s the plot, which sounds like it could well be the kind of Zoolander mark two that so many of his fans have been hoping for. A bunch of idiotic Hollywood superstars set out to make an iconic, Apocalypse Now-style war movie, only to find themselves in the middle of a real war… and not realizing. With the likes of Jack Black, Steve Coogan and Robert Downey Jr filling out the roles of the other stars – all with Zoolander-style implausible names like Tugg Speedman and Kirk Lazarus – and cameos from the likes of Nick Nolte and Tom Cruise, hamming it up brilliantly as over-the-top producer Les Grossman, the cast is certainly there to go with the ridiculous plot, just as it was with Zoolander and its cameos from people like David Bowie and Jon Voight.
But promise is one thing – the real question is can it possibly live up to expectations? Well, the film’s been out in the US for a few weeks now, topping the box office for much of that time, and with almost unanimously rave reviews from American critics and audiences alike. This is one big budget comedy that’s not to be missed.

Death Race
Releases 26 September

This film is directed by Paul W. S. Anderson – a man best known for making movie adaptations of computer games – yet don’t despair entirely. This is also the man who brought us the intriguing existentialist sci-fi horror Event Horizon, a film many have pointed to as the inspiration behind last year’s superb Sunshine. He also put in a decent turn in his low-key 1994 debut Shopping. Plus, of course, he’s a Brit, born and bred in Newcastle, so we really ought to be rooting for him.
The trouble is, Anderson’s now spent so much of his career doing adaptations of computer games, it’s becoming increasingly hard to see him as anything other than a passably competent hack.
So is there any reason to get excited about this Anderson-written, Anderson-directed remake of the cult 1975 action flick Death Race 2000? The original, while undeniably dated now, remains iconic – not least for being one of the first films to star one Sylvester Stallone, but also for the proto-Darth Vader helmet worn by antihero David Carradine. It was also an intriguing mid-70s satire of post-Watergate political corruption, set as it was in a dystopian future America gone bad. This is epitomized by the titular death race in the film, in which state-sponsored drivers try to kill as many civilians as they can. Could the Watergate-era satire have a place now that we’re in the run-up to seeing the last of President George W Bush? Could this be intended as a film-based allegory, warning of the dangers America faces if it heads down its present course? Could it be transformed into a commentary on civilian deaths in Iraq?
Well, no. All satirical elements have been deliberately removed, the producers insisting proudly that this is a full-on, straight action film, with no subversive elements. Just over-the-top futuristic cars with guns, explosions, deaths and over-the-top stunts.
The one possible saving grace? The choice of star: Jason Statham, a man who has somehow managed to raise three of the stupidest action movies of the last few years – The Transporter, The Transporter 2 and Crank – to cult status thanks to a combination of easy charisma and an evident sense of the ridiculous. Don’t expect cleverness, but do expect similarly over-the-top testosterone-fuelled madness.

Swing Vote
Releases 26 September

With pretty much the entire press having gone gaga for US presidential hopeful Barack Obama during his European tour back at the end of July, it’s unlikely that many people will be unaware that there’s another one of those American election things coming up pretty soon – November, to be precise. There’s also a good chance that most of us will remember how close the race was back in 2004, when a Democratic candidate polled more votes than any previous winner in a presidential election, yet still lost out to incumbent Republican George W Bush.
So you might think that this film, based as it is around a US presidential election where a Democrat (Dennis Hopper) is trying to unseat an incumbent Republican (Kelsey Grammar) is a knowing reminder of the events of 2004, intended to stop American voters making the same mistakes again. Well, you’d only be half right. Because although this is certainly a political satire, and while it certainly revolves around a presidential election, the satire is not aimed at the politicians and their policies, but the American people.
The thing is that this particular satire would work far more effectively if it was set in the UK than the US. Because the premise is that the entire election will come down to the vote of just one man – regular guy Bud (Kevin Costner), a man utterly uninterested in politics. In the US, the country is currently so entrenched that such single vote deciders are practically impossible. But in the UK, thanks largely to an electoral system designed for a two party system, in part to outdated constituency boundaries, single vote deciders are all too possible.
But enough of the politics – as with any satire the real question is “is it entertaining?” Well, it’s certainly got enough to merit giving it a go – with Costner, who co-financed the film himself so much did he believe in it, on the best form he’s shown in years. It’s not just one for politics geeks, certainly. But, at the same time, it can hardly compete with the big blockbusters that are out there at the moment. It is, however, an interesting idea well delivered, and deserves more attention than it is likely to receive, not least for the central message that if you live in a democracy, your vote is vital.

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