Reviews

This is the first Australian film in a long time to be built upon a first rate script, beautiful dialogue, absolutely exemplary direction, wonderful cinematography, first class set dressing, and good costuming and casting.

Others have reviewed this film, some have praised it, some have called it good, some, alas have canned it as a failure. Too many have analysed the story as sad, even depressing, others have claimed that it is a drama with comedic moments etc.

Last Cab to Darwin is a drama, no drama can function well, without the essential comic relief, and this is no exception, but let me say that here is a film that takes no account of contrived entertainment, neither does it preach, or dictate moral terms; Last Cab to Darwin simply tells a story, and stories within that story, via fine direction, one of the best scripts, and some of the finest dialogue ever recorded in this country.

The direction is sensitive and well paced, and there is evidence of the actors actually having been directed and shepherded by a director with a real knowledge of the craft and process of acting.

Michael Caton is fine as Rex, and he deserves every accolade that has been thrown his way, but having watched his work for more than 35 years, I know that he can at times show a tendency to overplay, especially when the character is driven by deeply felt or complex intent; yet here he is restrained, almost underplaying at times, but always compelling and moving.

The support cast is largely divine, some critics have accused Mark Coles Smith of overplaying, this is absolute nonsense from critics who know nothing of good acting or screen work, Mr Coles Smith is wonderful, a kind of indigenous James Dean, whose character of Tilly is at various times frightening, amusing, endearing, wise, foolish, enigmatic, and utterly charming.

Ningali Lawford is quite breathtaking, as she drives her character Polly, moving so smoothly from harsh and angry via practical, warm, funny and heartbreaking, to tender, vulnerable and deeply loving.

Emma Hamilton keeps a firm controlling hand on her wonderful characterisation of Julie, the UK backpacker and nurse, who takes charge of Rex in his final phase. With only a couple of exceptions, the lesser supporting roles are fine, and for once, directorial attention has been given to even the smallest of roles (I mention this because it is all too often that Australian directors lavish time and screen time only on the leads, and leave the rest of the cast to their own devices) Last Cab to Darwin is a fine film, better than that, it is a masterpiece of theatrical screen production.

The film opens beautifully, but after a promising overture, there follows immediate discordance and a slow tempo that retards into a staggering and halting one. The direction is to blame for most of what ails the film. Hazy focus, sloppy framing, and lame theatricality are all in evidence. A sad tale, cannot generally sustain itself with low key and sad faces throughout, Maggie is no exception.

The tempo did lift as the thin story progressed, but rarely kept its promise of drama, which eventually sank into puppet like manipulation, just before a lovely conclusion too late to redeem the film entirely.

Much has been said already about the work of Arnold Schwarzenegger in this film, his touching and beautifully sustained performance throughout is, I suspect down to his long experience in the business (you can't give the kind of service he has given and not learn a thing or two about acting/directing) rather than anything that may have come from the director.

The script, though good, is lacking in dialogue and in story; characters appear on cue as if they were lined up and waiting in the wings, and the cops are cops, the doctor is a doctor, the neighbour is a neighbour. Characters in a story need to be connected and need to have lives outside the obvious, but the direction here was concentrated upon genre and sadness above all else. The actors were working their socks off to give good performances, which they all did. Abigail Breslin was very fine, too bad she was so devoted to what she was doing, or she might have told the director that her character had cut a finger off in a much earlier scene than the rather long one in which she was clearly seen to have all five.

I enjoyed the film, but my ability to suspend disbelief was seriously challenged by the very person who should have helped me to do it.

The great Ralph Richardson in the very final phase of his magnificent career.

Early Days is not a movie, it is not strictly a play, but it is a piece of theatre that manages, via fine acting and magical writing (David Storey) talented setting and sensitive direction, to transfer the magic of the theatre onto the screen via video tape.

In Early Days, you have the rarest of treats, waiting for you to fill the role of audience and complete the magic circle of staged Drama.

Ralph Richardson plays Sir Richard Kitchen, a retired politician who was once leader of his party and would surely have been Prime Minister. At the opening, Kitchen is living out the last moments of his life, at the home of his daughter and son in law, where the absence of personal authority and power, the loneliness of seclusion and old age, and his family's inability to accept either his right to self determination or his version of the truth, forces him to reflect upon his early childhood and his lifetime of numerous regrets.

The theatre piece consists of a chain of scenes involving his daughter, his son in law (who he heartily detests) and his granddaughter, with whom he has the most successful and yet the harshest relationship, and Bristol, a seriously flawed and troubled man, who works for his son in law, but who has been engaged temporarily as be the old man's companion.

Kitchen's only respite seems to be with his newly appointed doctor, and his granddaughter's boyfriend, a very pleasant poet and intellectual.

All performances are fine, but Ralph Richardson, at the very end of his actual life and career, and clearly coping with the ravages of old age, plays the dying Kitchen with great, and at times frighteningly powerful forces.

Here is a magnificent play and screenplay, beautifully written and conceived. Much has been made of the performances of Michael Redgrave and Jean Kent, both of whom are brilliantly cast in a physical sense. Good as Redgrave and Kent both are, it is to the supporting cast that we must look for the strongest and most credible performances; Nigel Patrick is rock solid as Frank Hunter, the popular science teacher who transforms from thoughtless philanderer to decent human being, and Wilfred Hyde White is at the peak of his game as the headmaster who is self seeking, self satisfied, unfeeling and ultimately rather cruel. Michael Redgrave, for some unknown reason decided to give Crocker-Harris a rather thin dry voice which is obviously "stuck on" he also fails to show any vestige of the human being behind the persona of the school master until it is far too late, his performance is just that, a surface study of a rather frail failure, rather than a man who tries and fails. He is expected to be unpopular, but Redgrave's characterisation is, unfortunately, rather cold. Jean Kent is brilliantly cast in the physical sense, here is woman who could well be the wife of a rather lacklustre school master, but also has the magnificent womanliness, and frankly, sex appeal, to stir any man's biological chemistry. For all this, her performance as Millie Crocker-Harris is patchy, at times so very believable and at others driven by a surface petulance, a false grandeur and an unnecessary viciousness which guilds the lily of the already powerful writing. I have seen Ms Kent's work in other roles, she was well capable of more subtle work than this, which leads me to feel that the direction by Anthony Asquith may have been rather heavy handed or just plain careless in her case. Michael Redgrave has the more difficult role with which to contend, and in my honest opinion, his characterisation, flawed from the start, fails him absolutely at the vital moment of Taplow's gesture, and in spite of an effective gear change in his defiance of the headmaster and a fine delivery of the final speech, the overall performance is under the bar for an actor of Redgrave's standing.

Here is a movie which should have been very funny and should have been one of the most entertainingly funny frolics of the age. instead, it is a stinker from beginning to end. Mr Thornton is incapable of being bad, like any good actor worth his salt, he gives the movie every chance to succeed, he never lets it down and he plays the character to the hilt entirely without fault. unfortunately, the material is not up to it and the direction is of the worst kind of "keep it in" variety. Tea Leoni is also on top of it, but her part is not well written enough to support her sterling work and she appears to be directed in two directions at once, she is supposed to be strong and determined, but she is made to fall over (too many times) and to behave like a half wit from the outset. the two leads seem to be working in different movies as a matter of fact. The jokes are thin and old fashioned and there are way too many sh*t jokes and double entendre are milked until they bleed to death. No care what so ever has been taken with the story or the character backgrounds or the sub-plot and there just isn't enough material on the surface to feed the comedy machine. What a shame and what a waste of celluloid. There are two other brothers, who do this kind of thing so much better in my opinion.

44 inch chest received mixed reviews but one thing is evident to me. Whenever a reviewer doesn't know what say, or is genuinely afraid to look beyond the obvious, he/she invariably says very little or nothing about the piece and instead, heaps praise upon the only thing they can be sure of getting right and that is the quality of those actors who have already established themselves as leading and substantial performers, in other words, they state the bleeding obvious.

Mr Roby in the telegraph even went so far (after exaggerating the facts regarding the story)as to narrow it down to three brilliant actors, presumably leaving out in the cold those wonderful actors who were not Mr Winstone, Mr Hurt and Mr McShane.

44inch chest is a refreshing break with the standard London gang land film and manages to explore well below the surface of the characters and the world in which such people live and operate. It is a story of people , who happen to be Crims, rather than another tale woven around brutal murder, robbery and guns. Much(too much)has been made of the profanity, for goodness sake, you can hear this level of language in any London pub, in any garage workshop or factory in England, what do people expect from such men and women? they must use this level of profanity to be credible. From the start, where, like an overture, the camera beautifully creates the atmosphere, to the very end, the film is brilliantly constructed with the exception of one scene, a scene which I would have cut out and thrown far away. So as to avoid spoilers, I will identify the scene I hated, as simply "Pink car." The only other change I would have made was to set the white bedroom scene where it belonged, that is in the hell hole and acted out rather than visited and viewed.

The story is a beauty, the characters are to die for, the work from all, I say this again the work from ALL the Actors was first class. I cannot recall a film ever where the performances were all quite so equal as they are in 44 inch chest, there is not a dud moment from any one of them. This is the kind of film that will stand up on its back legs in 30 years time as the granddad of a genre all its own. Here theatre is brought closer to film than at any other time.

Those who have complained that the film lacks drive and contrast and variety are alongside those who have claimed that it is anti climactic. This says much more about the reviewers than it says about the film, which, by the way, never lacks drama or drive and neither does it end without considerable climax. In fact, it is one of those wonderful stories that nags at you for months after you have finished watching it. I would have given it 9 out of ten but for that one scene.

This movie is like a patchwork quilt, a quilt made up of oddly sized squares of material cut at random from a roll of "tear jerker" one of "soap opera" and one of "syndicated romance paperbacks." The direction is corny at best and up to the standard of a moderately priced TV commercial at worst. The driving force of the story depends heavily upon the unlikely, the characters are largely one dimensional, and the few genuinely deep and emotional scenes, are forced and/or predictable.

Diane Lane and Richard Gere battle, not with each other, but with the script (I suspect with the director also) to do all in the considerable power of their individual talent to make this movie work well, but alas even this great effort cannot breath enough life into the work to give it credibility.

There is much to be thankful for in the individual performances of Viola Davis and Scott Glenn, who manage to bring real personalities to the minor characters they have been given, or have won the right, to play.

For a movie this corny and predictable to work, it must be told simply and as quickly as possible, this one was plagued with sub plots and background details, with action seen in flash back and then told again in dialogue straight after; it is never allowed to settle much while telling it's story, but its density forces it to take way too long about it.

This film walks in its own way, and with the exception of one or two alcoves or nooks and crannies, it walks along new roads and byways.

I wanted so strongly to give this picture 10 out of 10, but it was spoiled by two very silly and deeply regrettable scenes. I say regrettable, because they were so foolishly overlooked, and so easily fixable, that I can never imagine why they were allowed to remain in the finished product. One could have been omitted altogether, the other re shot very simply. The first is the lunatic scene with the so called overweight American tourists, this was like a bad moment in Screwballs or Dumb and Dumber, and should never have happened at all, given that it did happen, it would not have harmed the story in any way to have committed it to the canvas bag or to the cutting room floor. The second regrettable scene was in the restaurant, when, for some reason best known to the director, the direction takes on an amateur theatrical or painting by numbers technique. She exits to go to the ladies room, he blows smoke and an arrogant diner complains, he snaps it and calls the diner by inviting him to repeat his complaint, this leads to an over injection of testosterone on both sides, they stand, punches are thrown, and the hero decks the diner, his date then swings a bottle and he decks her, the table breaks away, as many a card table did in the old westerns, and both decked characters remain decked, she returns from ladies room (right on cue)just in time to clock the situation; to this point, nobody has stopped eating, the waiters are all out the back having a smoke, and the restaurant manager has gone for a Pee, or is taking a shower in the next building, because nobody attempts to stop the fight, or even pay it the slightest attention. In order to avoid any further collapse in the suspension of disbelief, the director cuts to "exterior night two" and the couple out in the street walking away from the restaurant. The time that would have been saved by cutting the Fat Tourist scene, could well have been used to support the utterly unbelievable restaurant scene.

Such a shame, because the film is a beauty, and the combined efforts of all concerned in this production, have provided the world with a work of nearly true greatness.

Regards, Dracher