patrick3201's Reviews

Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

4/10

21 October 2002

Warning: Spoilers

*****Warning: Spoilers below, don't read if you don't want to know what happens*****

Okay, well, I think the main problem (and there are many many others) with Insurrection is the basic plot. Here it is, in a nutshell:

A tiny number of space colonists (called the Baku) land on a planet and find a fountain of youth there. None of them age or die or even get ill. They stay on the planet for a couple of centuries and there's now a population of 600 there (gosh, either they're VERY inbred or they don't have kids very often!).

The Federation (within whose territory the planet lies) would like everyone in the galaxy to have access to this fountain, and not just the 600 space colonists. To do this they want to move the colonists to another similar planet while they set up equipment to make the fountain available to everyone (including the 600 space colonists).

Picard & co think the space colonists should be entitled to stay on the planet as long as they like, with the planet to themselves, and no one else is allowed to touch the planet.

Now, in case you can't spot the flaw in this already, allow me to assist:

Why are the 600 Baku colonists entitled to the ENTIRE PLANET FOREVER while the rest of the Galaxy shouldn't set foot there? I could at least understand the moral argument if the Baku were native to the planet, but they're not, they're interstellar colonists (many of them first generation settlers) just like the people trying to evict them. What is the moral argument for Picard taking sides in what's clearly a straightforward turf war?

Worse than that, why are the 600 Baku entitled to ETERNAL LIFE (having already enjoyed several illness-free centuries of bonus time) while countless millions suffering elsewhere (including the supposed villains of the whole film!) aren't given access to the fountain?

Now, I know the Federation is meant to be an idealistic vision, but it's not meant to be an absurd parody. Even if the Baku had been native to the planet (which they're not), the 600 figure is just way way way too small to sound plausible as a reason for Picard's rebellion (goodness me, there are more people on board the Enterprise!).

Yes, I know Picard gives a speech where he says "how many before it becomes immoral?", but by that logic he would have rebelled against the federation even if there was just 1 colonist. Can you imagine how plausible the film would have seemed then? ("Don't worry, Mr Baku, we and our entire crew of hundreds will die to protect your illness-free immortal lifestyle on your own private planet!")

To sum up, this film supposedly tries to make a point about ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and elsewhere, but by removing all traces of the horror (the murders, the death camps, the torture, the rapes, the mass graves, the genocide, the bloodfeuds, the poisonous nationalists on *all* sides) and by making the Baku first-generation colonists rather than natives, what you have left is a comparatively minor, questionable and extremely boring treatise on international property rights.

It's like watching a film discussing Norway's claim to Antarctica. Who cares?

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The Italian Job (1969)

9/10

There's a picture of the Queen in it sir!

21 September 2002

I was a little startled by some of the reviews on here doing this film down, implying it's some kind of two-bit farce with little to recommend it except a few big names.

Startled because, as far as my own opinion goes, The Italian Job is the best British comedy I've ever seen, and certainly in my top 10 of all films. I think some of its critics either just don't get it, or aren't familiar with the whole 'muddling through' kind of humour that was a staple of the post-war UK. The famous Ealing comedies of the 40s and 50s were precursors (albeit rather more prim ones) to The Italian Job, and if you don't like any of them either then you're definitely missing something here too.

I don't know if I want to write a huge complex essay preaching about how wonderful The Italian Job is, but I hope that some of these plus-points will help get across why this film was re-released nationwide in the cinema for its 30th anniversary and had normally timid audiences spontaneously joining in with the dialogue:

The whole thing feels really cool and stylish. The opening Matt Monro song is wonderfully mellow, Michael Caine was a young and well-dressed guy in 1969 and the spectacular Italian scenery together with London's 'swinging' status and Noel Coward's urbane charm all make for a convincing package.

It's really really funny! Once you get into it, almost every scene is memorable and the quality holds up right through to the end. There is a reason why all Michael Caine impersonations (except for 'My name is Harry Palmer') are lines from The Italian Job, and that's because they're so witty and so numerous and delivered by Caine so well. Benny Hill is on top form, and as someone who hates his tv series I was pleasantly surprised by what must be the greatest performance of his career. Even Noel Coward gets some of his wittiest-ever screen dialogue, and considering his distinguished career that's really saying something.

It's unique. There's almost nothing out there with a similar balance of adventure and humour, which makes a great combination as you can take the plot as seriously as you want. Sure you'll find car chases elsewhere, sure you'll find bungling thieves and dry remarks, but this kind of balance is very rare. I can only think of perhaps Raiders Of The Lost Ark as being another film so happy with its semi-serious status.

It's British, or perhaps English. Now, I'm not really patriotic at all but it's always nice to see something that feels true to the people who made it. It's very depressing to see British film makers trying to half-heartedly copy Hollywood, and it's also very depressing to see Hollywood feeling somehow scared of being American when it does epics like Gladiator (all performed for some reason in posh English accents). The Italian Job revels in the declining state of the UK instead of ignoring it, and makes a point of showing how ill-prepared and incompetent the crooks are. There's also a wonderful torch-passing moment where former English icon Noel Coward squares up to future English icon Michael Caine in the prison toilet, one face distinguished but elderly and the other full of sparkle and ambition for the future. If you're unaware of who these people are, the scene probably won't mean much to you and that might hold true for a lot of other things in The Italian Job.

It's a non-macho action film. From 'camp' Freddie to Noel 'everybody in the world is bent' Coward, from the gormless crooks with migraine to a cigar-eating Benny Hill, right down to the diminutive Minis themselves, this isn't a film that Schwarzenegger or Stallone would be seen anywhere near. The bullets are non-existent, the violence isn't excessive and the car chase isn't so much an adrenaline rush as a wonderful cinematic spectacle. One of the filmed scenes edited out of the final cut had the Minis and police cars stumbling into an ice rink where they accidentally perform pirouettes round each other to ballet music (the writer felt this looked *too* silly and ordered it cut).

As others have pointed out, there's also just a certain something that makes The Italian Job punch far above its theoretical weight. For some inexplicable reason, in a way very much like Star Wars in America, The Italian Job has entered the British public's consciousness to such an extent that people still quote it and recognise quotations from it (Eddie Izzard does an entire routine based around the film), 'self-preservation society' is sung in football grounds by thousands of fans, remixes of the theme and samples from the film regularly appear on the radio, Italian Job pinball machines are a not uncommon sight, and there's even been a hit Playstation game (rather a good one too).

If anyone is wondering why there's so much trepidation in the UK over the American remake, imagine if a film company announced they were going to remake the original Star Wars film. It'd be pointless because people don't watch Star Wars for its clever plot or basic concepts. Just like The Italian Job, the charm of Star Wars lies entirely in the finished product, the final combination of actors, music, editing and visuals. Remaking it from scratch would be like completely changing the recipe for Coca-Cola, and no one would be that stupid, would they? Well, okay, they were, but look what happened...

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Random Hearts (1999)

7/10

You have to be in the right mood for this

10 August 2002

Yes, I can see this film is never going to pack cinemas or win awards, but it's not trite and is quite well acted. This isn't a film to watch because you want a story, or escape, or a smile. It won't make you feel better about life.

But if you're feeling morose, and quiet, and aren't feeling particularly optimistic about how things will turn out, you might find some kind of solace in the aimless wandering of Ford and Thomas' characters. When something very bad happens to you, you do feel confused and battered, and the lead characters in Random Hearts reflect this well.

The criminal sub-plot does feel a bit redundant, like it's strayed in from another film. Perhaps it was some kind of attempt to keep a fig leaf of commerciality on what is basically a couple of hours of numb meditation, although I haven't read the original novel so I don't know if it had some greater significance that I missed.

Some of the other reviews on here quite rightly call Random Hearts noir and cathartic, the film equivalent not so much of watching paint dry as watching a river flow.

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Arlington Road (1999)

3/10

Should never have been made

19 May 2002

Warning: Spoilers

*****PLOT SPOILERS THROUGHOUT THIS REVIEW******** ******DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM!********

In real life, successful plans (especially military ones) allow for things going wrong, things not happening in the right order, unexpected events and unreliable information. The 'Fog of War' is a major factor in any situation, even with today's technologies. Clever plans have a great amount of tolerance built-in, so they can be changed to fit current circumstances as parts of them succeed or fail, especially when you have little direct control over the situation.

Not so for Robbins' character's terrorists.

Bridges' character beats up Robbins' badly enough so he feels comfortable leaving him alone but not so badly that he's unconscious. This is all part of the plan, we find out. How could Robbins' character rely on not being either restrained, knocked out, taken to the police or even killed by Bridges' character?

Bridges' character spends just long enough fighting Robbins' for a bomb to be securely planted in his car, but is in a hurry enough to leave a live and unrestrained Robbins. How could Robbins' character possibly plan for this?

Bridges' character, a civilian academic in a disturbed state of mind, has enough stunt driving skills to speed through acres of pedestrians in the middle of rush hour, so that he'll just see the noon delivery van disappearing into the FBI building. If he misses the van or arrives before it, or if the van itself isn't on time, the bomb won't get into the building.

In real life he would have wrecked the car (and maybe damaged or set off the bomb) or been stopped by the police before he was a quarter of the way to the FBI building.

What if Bridges had parked his car outside and gone in the building by foot?

Bridges character HAS ALREADY PHONED the FBI building to warn them about the bomb BEFORE he sets out. Why didn't Robbins' terrorists break his mobile phone when they planted the bomb in his car?

Why didn't the FBI building close its gates after the warning? Surely they would have at least stopped the white delivery van Bridges' character specifically tells his Agent friend to investigate.

Why the heck is Robbins' character trying to convince the world it's the work of a crazy individual anyway? How does that draw attention to or advance his cause?

Worst of all, why does Robbins' character embark on an elaborate six month charade of dinner parties, psychological warfare, deliberately injured children, campsite kidnappings, faked car crashes, hidden blueprints, hostage taking, phone tapping, name changes, car exchanges, etc etc? All he has to do is deliver a briefcase sized bomb fifty yards past a small checkpoint. Couldn't he have driven it himself? Couldn't he have abandoned a parked car just outside the building with a larger bomb in it instead?

No one would ever devise a plot anything like Arlington Road except a thriller writer desperate to keep the viewer amused.

This is why the film should never have been made, because it wraps a brainless mediocre piece of entertainment in the bodies of the 149 adults and 19 children who died in the Oklahoma massacre. It is exploiting a recent real-life atrocity purely for the sake of making money and selling videos. Death = $$$$.

It's obscene, and worst of all some people will think this is how terrorists operate in real life. Real terrorists leave arabic flight manuals in hire cars and tell instructors they're not interested in how to land an aircraft, but still manage to kill 3000 people in one day. That's what's really frightening.

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Barbarella (1968)

9/10

Not a book, this is a lava lamp

5 December 2001

Anyone who has enjoyed a Bollywood film or traditional Japanese theatre will know that realism isn't everything. Having a stylised approach can produce something that's very entertaining and (dare I say it) quite beautiful.

Some people seem to laugh at this film and call it dire because the effects aren't realistic and the plot isn't coherent. Well, I just think you're missing the point by a long way. The thing that makes something like an Ed Wood movie very funny is that it takes itself so so seriously and tries so so hard while failing so so completely. Barbarella doesn't even try to be serious, and most of the actors (regardless of what Fonda herself might have been thinking) have their tongues planted firmly in their cheeks.

The nearest modern equivalents to Barbarella are (strangely!) Peter Greenaway's imagery-based films like "The Pillow Book" and "The Cook, The Thief..." which also have very fake looking sets and effects, apparently huge plot holes and bouts of overacting, none of which matter because Greenaway isn't trying to make a straightforward dramatic narrative. Of course Barbarella isn't at all serious or as intellectual, but it does have the same visual quality. It's possible that Barbarella's director intended to make a "proper" film and failed, in which case the brilliance of the film rests on the designers who came up with such inspired visuals as Barbarella's fur-lined rocket, the computer that flips cards to talk, the mercury tinted spacehelmet (and the entire opening sequence), the mathmos sleeping chamber, the sail-sledge, the "essence of man" bubble, Duran Duran's pleasure-torture device, the death sentence of birds, the post-coital perm, the blind angel etc.

Not everyone will like this film, because not everyone likes 1960s psychedelia, but if that period is "your bag" then this film is for you. Barbarella consists of an amazing series of images that achieve what they set out to do, and that's why this is a genuinely good film, and definitely not a "so bad it's good" affair. I'm shocked to hear people say the film is some kind of failed b-movie. The triumph of Barbarella is that every single frame is so pretty or interesting it could be sold as a picture in its own right, and that's why it's been so influential and watched over the years.

This film may not be a good yarn, and it might not be a faithful adaptation of the original comic books (Drew Barrymore is apparently to star in a more accurate version), but as a piece of sixties style this is an excellent album of striking and original visuals.

(Incidentally, as a tribute to Barbarella's 60s credentials, the company that invented the original lava lamp was so impressed by this film that it renamed itself Mathmos in honour of the glowing gunk which lies under the city.)

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The X Files (1998)

3/10

Totally Pointless

21 November 2001

Warning: Spoilers

[WARNING: Spoilers ahead throughout this review.]

There's a speech Fox Mulder makes at the end of the X-files movie which goes along the lines of "Well here we are again, we had the evidence in our hands and now we've lost it. I'm sick of it happening again, I don't want to do this any more." I felt like applauding at that point.

For me that speech was not only this film but the whole concept of the X-files in a nutshell.

Nothing of any real consequence occurs in this film, nothing at all. It's simply two FBI agents occasionally being chased, or chasing someone, or looking puzzled. They sometimes find physical evidence of a government conspiracy to do something terrible, but the evidence is without exception snatched away or destroyed (or forgotten by the writers). Sometimes we might even see the conspirators talking about these forthcoming terrible events in very vague terms. The terrible events never, ever happened in the series. However, I was hopeful that with a cinema budget they might stretch to showing an alien invasion or two. Perhaps the writers had only been teasing the audience until they had the money to give their intended cataclysm justice on the big screen. Alas, all we get is an exploding building (destroying evidence), an exploding car (destroying evidence) and some snow falling into an empty hole. Nothing you wouldn't find in a TV Movie.

The dialogue is awful too, Mulder is continuously told that he's "barely scratched the surface" of the conspiracy. I'd wager a good amount of money that he's actually gone right through the surface a long time ago and exhausted all the plot we're ever going to get out of Chris Carter. When we find out what this conspiracy involves, it's actually a very very dull mix of "Alien" and "V", about extraterrestrials conquering the earth with the help of ambitious humans with a view to feeding on human bodies. "Doctor Who" also used this plot several times over in the 60s and 70s.

In the X-Files, essentially, nothing happens, to the characters, to their status or their plans, and for the worst of reasons, because the producers want to string this franchise out for as long as they can make money from it. The aliens will never invade, but neither will Mulder ever prove to anyone that they exist, I can tell you that right now. I can also tell you that if all this *is* ever resolved in a final film or episode, it will turn out to be a disappointing cop-out.

One of the other reviewers on IMDB compared the X-Files film to Hitchcock, but Hitchcock actually satisfied his audience by showing the little guy cleverly fighting back and eventually triumphing over the dark conspiracy against him. There was methodical progression, there was movement, there was excitement, tension and engagement. Hitchcock films are thrilling because you believe the hero might win or the villain might kill him. You know the conclusion is just round the corner, whatever happens.

In the X-Files we *know* that Mulder will never be killed (the evil conspirators say they will not kill him for fear of making him a martyr). Unfortunately, we also *know* that Mulder will never win, because then they couldn't make a sequel to this single-issue drama. There is no thrill in the X-Files because the basic premise of the film (and indeed series), its ground rules, demand that ultimately nothing happens for the sake of extending the franchise. It's just aimless wandering.

Sorry to be crude, but the X-Files is like perpetual Coitus Interruptus.

The only vaguely memorable scene is Martin Landau p***ing in an alley.

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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)

9/10

Chris Columbus and Hollywood surprise the world

16 November 2001

I think it's testament to Hollywood and previously mediocre director Chris Columbus that they spent a vast amount of time and money on an entirely foreign film, while demanding nothing from it in the way of big name actors, product placement, gratuitous sex & violence or Americanisation. They really do deserve the return on their investment after demonstrating such faith in its success.

Chris Columbus has shown an unexpected abundance of flair in understanding the British setting, filming a complex revered book, and living up to the massive global hype. Can this really be the director that used to bring us dirge like Home Alone 2? This is the biggest turn-around since Volkswagen bought Skoda. Wow.

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Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)

8/10

Deserves a sequel

20 July 2001

I went to see two films last week: 2001 and Tomb Raider (don't laugh!).

2001 is a brilliant brilliant film but almost totally devoid of any characterisations whatsoever. The acting is purely functional, like an illustration from a science textbook. Despite this, it's a good film because the story and the direction are perfectly executed.

Tomb Raider on the other hand is a film with a very badly executed plot. Ms Croft's motives become very unclear towards the end, where the narrative seems to fall apart from the moment Ms Croft simply hands over to her enemies a vital artefact she's been fighting for. The climax is especially muddled, with tension in the finale practically non-existent. Earlier set pieces are much more impressive and exciting, especially the raid on Croft Manor.

However, for some reason I really liked the film, and I think I know why. Even most of the bad reviews mentioned that Angelina Jolie was the best woman for the job, and I'd have to agree. Jolie conveys something no actress since Diana Rigg has managed, to be a convincing independent action heroine who isn't driven by some po-faced desire for power or a wish to be a man. The director of the film compared Jolie to Sigourney Weaver, but I think Weaver is much more serious and much less charismatic. Jolie in this film presents something unique at the moment, a non-serious strong and playful leading woman who doesn't turn to anyone else to solve her problems. I might also add that it's a very new and strange (but probably also extremely healthy) experience to heroine-worship a woman you're also lusting over.

For me, the height of the characterisation is right at the end, where Croft is in the middle of fleeing a collapsing cave and for no particular reason she starts to beam a satisfied smile, as if she's getting off on the jeopardy.

The way Jolie's Croft just cheerfully goes ahead and does things is reminiscent of Sean Connery's Bond, and this is why I think it deserves a sequel. The first Bond film, Dr No, was pretty dull and derivative, but Connery and the whole formula of camp adventure well delivered was the thing reviewers at the time picked up on. The set-up in Tomb Raider is good too, and I could well see Croft Manor and Chris Barrie's butler being a nice equivalent to M, Q and Moneypenny.

The characters are good, the premise is good, the setting is good, Angelina Jolie is excellent (and essential to any sequel). If they could just nail down a better script and some more tension-building direction as well, I'd be first in line to see Tomb Raider II.

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Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

Good. Very good.

1 May 2001

A lot has been said about this film, so I won't repeat too much of it. I just thought the following points stood out for me as wonderful:

-The telephone Holly keeps in a suitcase so she won't hear it. Holly. Ahhhh... Holly. Like some kind of female opposite of James Bond (stick with me here), men all want her, women all want to be her. We need to see *more* eccentric women in leading roles, as opposed to the dull boring stodge of overpaid 'sex symbols' like Julia Roberts or Nicole Kidman who can be pretty or serious but never interesting.

-George Peppard in his finest role, and brilliant it is too. It's a real shock to my generation that has been more accustomed to seeing him tragically underused on trash like the A-Team. It made me want to see more of his early films, and wonder what happened in the intervening years (alcohol, apparently :-( ). An icon of male sensitivity, and there are few enough of them around too.

-That chap who sells them the telephone dialler in Tiffany's. A tiny role that achieves its aims perfectly and makes life seem better, which is what you want really.

Many have said Tiffany's is too saccharine and cheerful, but I think it actually hits the perfect balance of cynicism and sentiment. There are moments of intense depression (which people often forget) as well as hopeful optimism, and these two working together are what make the film so uplifting and memorable.

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SpaceCamp (1986)

So-so 80s kid flick

28 April 2001

Why does every 70s and 80s film about space try and crowbar in either a cute robot, a cute chimp or a young child? When I was little I always hated these intrusions on the proper action, and found 'Wesley Crusher' characters that I was supposed to relate to just intensely irritating. The 'cute' robot in this film is annoying, and is so unrealistic that you wonder whether he was tagged onto the script at the last minute by some executive worried about selling the picture to 'family' (i.e. 'braindead') audiences.

Incidentally, don't be fooled by the setting, this is a 1980s 'isn't it hard being young, rich and middle class in a developed nation?' film featuring ambition, whining and cliches.

One interesting thing to note is that the fault in the shuttle that causes the launch in SpaceCamp is rather unfortunately a problem in one of the solid fuel boosters, the same location of the fault that caused the Challenger disaster.

The film implies in a moment of Strangelove-style propaganda that the booster fault has a one-in-a-million chance of actually happening, but the truth of the matter is that space travel is a very risky business. Were civil airliners to have the same failure rate as spacecraft there'd be several jumbo crashes a day. There was none of that risk brought across in SpaceCamp, where the only criteria for success in space are how much above average you were your exams and how you cope with the emotional turmoil of making a mistake.

If you like kids-as-adults films of the Disney Family Movie saccharin variety, then this is for you.

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Thunderbolt (1995)

Standard but solid

21 April 2001

I saw a very brief summary of this in the paper and wasn't going to watch it because I assumed it was some crummy US tv movie. When I saw it was actually a subtitled hong kong actioner I perked up no end. All kinds of bizarre visions await you in this film including a pachinko parlour fight featuring twenty semi-naked tattooed men which ends with the place filling with pachinko balls, and Jackie Chan being beaten up by his room.

This is slick, expensive-looking stuff, especially the early street-racing scenes which are much more interesting than the standard track racing that dominates the rest of the film. I don't know if it was the effect of the subtitles, but it seemed as though all the english dialogue was really really badly acted, but all the chinese (and japanese?) dialogue was convincing.

However, the main reason for seeing this film must surely be that it's the only kung fu film featuring (former UK Conservative Party Chairman) Chris Patten's haircut.

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The Shadow (1994)

A couple of points

21 April 2001

Generally go along with what some others have put on here, that the setting and design of the film is nice, the cast are ok, but the script is just completely up the duff.

I especially hated the use of that awful unmemorable catch phrase by Baldwin. I can't even remember what it was... something like 'You *know* I will'. Why did mid-90s film makers do that? Were they trying to ape Arnie's 'I'll be back' line? At least that had some relevance to the plot of The Terminator.

Two points I'd like to raise though:

Why does Alec Baldwin's nose become square when he transforms? Was this really what the writers of the radio series had in mind? I wouldn't have kept this in the film version as it just looks a little silly. Imagine if Clark Kent's eyebrows went hexagonal when he turned into Superman.

The ending is a direct copy of many other films, including Big Trouble In Little China which does a much better job of being a comedy action film.

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Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

Despite all appearances, not a bad film

9 April 2001

At first glance, this feels like just so much Chuck Norris-style trash. There's no great plot, acting, or effects.

But... watch this for about 20 or 30 minutes and you begin to realise where it's coming from.

For me the moment I started to enjoy myself was just after lots of inexplicable fights and flying magicians with lampshades on their heads have entered the scene. Kurt Russell sits down in the kitchen of an urban chinese mystic who explains the over-complicated plot to him in full detail, as if for the benefit of the audience. Kurt's got his mouth full of food and still looks totally baffled, managing an oafish 'hughsghuughhhhh???' in total empathy with the people in the cinema stuffing their faces with popcorn and uttering a similar question. For me, in terms of cinematic cheek, that moment was up there with Indiana Jones shooting the swordsman in 'Raiders'.

There's no pretence that the storyline matters, it's more of a case of 'that's that out of the way, now lets get out there and shoot the b**trds!'.

Great fun, doesn't insult the intelligence.

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Noel's House Party (1991–1999)

Noooooooooooo

8 April 2001

Please make the pain go away.

I'd rather have my leg gnawed off by a herd of depraved yaks being driven slowly mad through cranial injections of battery acid than sit through another 'hilarious' alleged celebrity having a bowl of custard poured on their head.

The format was vaguely amusing for 6 episodes, but they carried on with this tat for eight long years.

Noel Edmonds literally built a theme park based around this series, but a euthanasia clinic would seem more appropriate.

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Midnight Caller (1988–1991)

There is a word for this, and it is offbeat.

7 April 2001

This series has been consistently overlooked and underscheduled, but to me that just adds to it. I don't know how things are elsewhere in the world, but in Britain it occasionally appears on TV in and around midnight, and even excepting the title it fits in perfectly.

The action feels quite lonely, like the people listening to late night phone-ins. Although it is often sentimental in its message, it is underplayed and well acted. This is a detective series that definitely doesn't end with a freeze frame of the regular cast laughing.

When I do find this on television, I feel like I've stumbled across a minor gem, in the same way you might enjoy finding a good CD from an underappreciated band.

I've heard that the lead actor Gary Cole doesn't have much of a reputation in the US, although I've never seen him in anything else and know nothing about him. He does a good and convincing job in both the conventional dramatic segments of Midnight Caller, and the urban philosophical monologues that begin, join together and end the episodes of this unusual and surprisingly engaging series.

And of course the theme tune is absolutely top whack brilliant.

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The Exorcist (1973)

3/10

Not a horror film.

27 March 2001

Like many others on here, I recently saw this on its first UK network showing on channel 4.

I have to say, there's nothing like banning or hyping a film to utterly distort the audience's expectations.

Yes, there are definitely controversial images on screen, such as the girl stabbing herself with the crucifix, but on the whole they seem to rely upon simply combining religious and horrific elements in a fairly simplistic way. There doesn't seem to be any logic behind it except throwing one special effect at the audience after another. The effects aren't always good either. Did audiences ever really find an obviously fake head spinning around anything other than laughable?

The excellent opening scenes in Iraq are no guide at all to the rest of the film. The girl is possessed in her bedroom, her parents and various professionals go in to look at her, she swears and vomits at them and they leave the room. Then a few minutes later a different combination of adults go back in and repeat the process. Even the actual exorcism takes this format of endless repetition supposedly enlivened by the odd touch of levitation, cursing or glowing light.

Ultimately, there doesn't seem to be any kind of driving force behind the events. Instead of the action peaking at any point, we have a dramatic plateau, reached within the first 20 minutes. At least other non-eventful horror films like The Shining and The Omen had a situation steadily getting worse, or a threat to the protagonists slowly getting closer.

If this isn't a horror film, what is it? Some have noted that it was intended as an affirmation of religious belief, that if there was demonic possession, then there must be angelic salvation, but little more than angst-filled lip service is paid to any of the complexities behind faith and spirituality in this film. The hamfisted dismissal of medical science by an anxious mother in the face of moving drawers and levitating beds is not anything like a reason to become more interested in the higher purposes of life.

Perhaps this could have been a brilliant psychological thriller, if they hadn't kicked all scientific explanation in the teeth through obviously supernatural special effects early on. Some disturbed people *do* exhibit symptoms of possession and multiple personalities. Hollywood always opting for the supernatural explanation over the more frightening possibility that the girl's mind (or brain) had created the demon within her doesn't help society's understanding of mental health.

Moody, well shot and well acted, but plotwise of little more value than an episode of the X-Files. Sorry.

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