Reviews

"Based on a true story" - five words that usually signal an emotionally powerful tale of triumph over adversity. Attaching them to Everest, the latest in a veritable avalanche of biopics heading our way this autumn (with Legend, The Walk, Steve Jobs all joining the melee), all but guaranteed a tale of Man conquering a treacherous Mother Nature.

Not quite.

Relating the events of a 1996 expedition, Everest the movie makes the occasional, perfunctory attempt to understand why otherwise sane human beings feel compelled to spend tens of thousands of dollars risking their lives on the slopes of Everest the mountain, but never really succeeds in answering this question. Elsewhere there are rudimentary pokes at the dangerous and polluting commercialisation of extreme mountaineering not to mention an inadvertent swipe at an industry that so easily expends the costly resources of a developing country (not to mention the lives of its countrymen) plucking wealthy Westerners off the side of a mountain they shouldn't have been on in the first place.

Certainly, Everest is one of vanishingly rare handful of movies that uses 3D to stomach churningly good effect. Swooping and gliding through the resplendent Nepalese landscape, Aerial DP John Marzano's vertiginous shots are the perfect showcase for Everest's imposing Himalayan vistas, a glorious virtual tour to be enjoyed from the warm, oxygenated safety of one's seat.

Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur spends the first hour setting up his man vs. mountain movie, introducing us to a handful of protagonists (including Jason Clarke's dad-to-be Rob, John Hawke's improbable mountaineering mailman Doug and Josh Brolin's brash Texan, Beck), presumably in the hopes that we will come to root for them as they take on one of the most fearsome peaks on the planet.

Instead, it is the mountain itself that dominates both the narrative and the visuals, whether beguilingly calm in the background or unleashing its formidable fury upon the trespassers scattered across its slopes. Once our 'heroes' embark on the final ascent, it's difficult to distinguish one day-glo, puffa clad individual from the next. Not only does this dampen the emotional impact for most of the second, catastrophic half of the movie, it also underlines the film's frankly depressing marginalisation of female and ethnic characters. The most visible are Keira Knightley, Robin Wright and Emily Watson, relegated to the role of worried wives (surrogate wife in Watson's case) waiting back at their respective homesteads, characters with less depth than the resplendent scenery. Most galling is the treatment of Naoko Mori's Yasuko, a diminutive Japanese mountaineer attempting to summit the last of the Seven Peaks, who is insultingly sidelined in favour of virtually every male in the film.

Having spent two hours relating the cataclysmic events of May 1996, Kormákur inexplicably shifts into overdrive, wrapping up its devastating finale in mere minutes. For anyone (like me) unfamiliar with the details of the '96 expedition, the result is unsatisfying, lacking an emotional pay off that no number of over-the-credits photos of the real-life people featured in the movie can replace.

Still. Notwithstanding these flaws, Everest is at the very least a thing of flawed beauty that best hits home when lingering over the majestic Himalayan landscape. Ironically, the film's success in conveying the sheer doggedness of its protagonists' inexplicable pursuit of the peak is what eventually undermines it. Kormákur may get you to root for his headstrong mountaineers but while he had no control over the events he had to portray, a badly mishandled ending sours the entire endeavour.

Extra Ordinary

Jumping on to the reboot bandwagon, 2015′s Fantastic Four wipes the slate clean of 2005′s harmless puff piece starring Jessica Alba and Chris Evans as it (re)tells the tale of a group of scientists transformed into superheroes after an experiment goes catastrophically awry.

At the time, both the 2005 film and its no less silly sequel (Rise of the Silver Surfer) were widely derided. So imagine what it would take to make those look like masterclasses in superhero storytelling. Answer? Fox's latest addition to its muddled back catalogue of Marvel movies.

To be fair, F4 starts promisingly. Notwithstanding the predictable outpouring of rage that greeted news that the new quartet would be young, restless and (gasp!) not all white, the casting was bold enough to pique interest. Michael B. Jordan's natural charisma seemed a lock for the swaggering Johnny Storm/Human Torch, while Miles Teller's intense turns in movies like Whiplash signalled an interesting interpretation of obsessive scientist Reed Richards.

In a world where you're a failure if you're not a tech billionaire by the time you're 30, it's hardly inconceivable that a motley crew of barely post-pubescent prodigies would be at the vanguard of a once-in-a-generation breakthrough. And it's not a massive leap to think that it would take a young, reckless (and mildly inebriated) group of kids to precipitate the ill-fated mission that forever alters their lives.

Throw in Josh Trank (whose freshman effort was 2012′s excellent found footage superhero movie Chronicle) and colour me intrigued.

And for a while, it works well.

The reboot at its best when its rag tag braniacs are doing their science thing. Sadly, that is a staggeringly low benchmark for a contemporary comic book movie. Despite its length, none of the characters are given room enough to breathe. Fitful attempts at backstory and characterisation all peter out into loose ends rather than being woven into a richer tapestry - Ben Grimm's (Jamie Bell) unlikely friendship with Richards, the weaponisation of The Thing for special ops, the Storm family dynamic - all are picked up and then inexplicably cast aside, seemingly at random.

So by the time the faecal matter hits the fan, no wonder it's difficult to care about what happens to anyone on screen (with the possible exception of Reg Cathey's mellifluous patriarch Franklin Storm).

But it's the action setpieces that are weakest, Trank's inexperience with big budget pageantry thrown into stark relief by shoddy pacing and anti-climactic showdowns. The portrayal of the fab four's powers is cringeworthy, with lousy physical acting (particularly from Teller and Kate Mara), but the real shocker is a Dr Doom (Toby Kebbell) lumbered with an incarnation even worse than that sported by Patrick McMahon in 2005).

It doesn't help that key narrative sequences are also missing - there's no 'learning to use my powers' montage, nor any trial and error adventures as they start to work as a team. In fact, they're kept apart for much of the time until Doom bursts violently - and incongruously - into the movie for reasons that remain at best, inexplicable. By the time F4 slouches towards the finish line, it feels as though the film-makers just want to get to the end as quickly as possible.

Which is a real shame. This was clever casting with a bittersweet, reality based grittiness that promised to leaven DC's despondency with some of Marvel's trademark wit. Had Fox invested in a stronger crew with more blockbuster experience (a quick check on IMDb reveals cinematography and second units which are woefully under equipped for this sort of venture) it might have at least delivered on spectacle.

Alas, this is a poorly executed adaptation and judging by the critical and box office opprobrium, it's unlikely they'll get another chance to prove themselves - if only Fox would learn their lesson and just hand back the reigns to Marvel.

Proving without a doubt that Marvel do their best work when putting themselves out on a dangerously twiggy limb without a safety net, Guardians of the Galaxy has made one hell of an entrance.

I was prepared for it to be little more than a curio. With Marvel's standard teaser trailers revealing some out of context attempts at humour and little in the way of storyline I'd already made my peace with the possibility that this would be Marvel's first, well-meaning misstep.

On paper, it's a potentially epic fail. A largely unknown property that straddles the no man's land between comic book fantasy and space opera, populated by a cast of not exactly household names and fronted by the chubby guy from cult (i.e. beloved but little seen) mockumentary Parks and Rec, it features a band of initially charmless felons that include a talking tree with a 3 word vocabulary, a double crossing thief and a trigger happy raccoon.

Instead, like the Jon Favreau's Iron-Man and Joss Whedon's Avengers, James Gunn's Guardians is - in defiance of all logic and expectation - a beautifully bonkers triumph.

Like the best comic book movies, it downright revels in the flaws of its heroes from the monosyllabic Groot (surely the easiest paycheck Vin Diesel has ever earned) to the narcissistic self regard of roguish leader Peter Quill aka Star Lord aka the newly buff Chris Pratt. It's also laced with Marvel's trademark tongue-in-cheek humour which, as ever, extends to the slickly conceived comic book violence (watch Groot take out...pretty much anyone).

If anything, between the wisecracking Quill and Rocky Raccoon (Bradley Cooper in possibly a career best turn - and yes, I have seen Silver Linings Playbook) and the beatific Groot, Zoe Saldana's Gamora and Dave Bautista's homicidal Drax do come across as marginally less interesting.

But faced with the challenge of introducing an entirely new galaxy to an entirely new audience in 121 all too brief minutes, Guardians breathes heart and soul into its cornucopia of heroic freaks with cunning efficiency while still finding time for hordes of cameos (not least the end credits, which features the most unlikely comeback of all time).

Confronted by near omnipotent villains (Liverpudlian Lee Pace doing a storming job as an interstellar terrorist), and infused with an almost childlike nostalgia (aided and abetted by the gleefully retro soundtrack - on a mixtape no less!) it's little wonder that whispered comparisons with Star Wars can already be heard.

I count myself among those mildly alarmed by the departure of Ed Wright from the upcoming Ant-Man, but between Guardians and The Winter Soldier, my wavering faith has been sufficiently buoyed. I may not have a clue what Marvel are up to, but as long as they do who am I to argue with these comic savants when they're capable of such cinematic alchemy?

So I've been gunning for this reboot ever since Zach 'my films are what they use to break people in Gitmo' Snyder was announced as the director. Which is why it's so hard to admit that the latest chapter in the DC cannon is actually quite good.

However, it is some small consolation that this appears to be the direct result of Batman saviours Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer keeping Snyder's most garish excesses in check. Instead, they've crafted an origin story that is both familiar and new, from an overlong opener on a dying Krypton to a childhood in Kansas told in flashback to the rise of a superhero pitted against the only surviving members of his race as warmongering zealot General Zod tracks him down.

Without doubt, Man of Steel is weakest when Snyder's hyperkinetic style is unleashed. The jittery camera-work and occasionally half-baked effects detract from the otherwise bone-crunching hurly burly as near immortals throw each other across small towns and bustling Metropoli as DC seem determined to outdo their Marvel rivals in terms of on screen destruction.

It's no surprise that Michael Shannon wears the cloak of relentlessly genocidal psychopath like a glove in yet another role that he seems to have been born to play. Like Shannon, Russell Crowe sidelines memories of his predecessor as noble Jor-El. Acquitting himself with equal aplomb despite even greater scrutiny is Henry Cavill as the titular Man of Steel. Unlike the - let's face it, terminally dull - goody two shoes Supermen of previous incarnations, Cavill's Superman is good to his core thanks to his upbringing, but also unmistakably human to boot. Not for him endless martyrdom and humble forgiveness - this Supes has a temper. The rest of the cast (largely quality character actors plucked from primetime TV) put their backs into necessarily one dimensional characters. Oddly, only the usually likable Amy Adams fails to light up the screen, leaving Margot Kidder's Lois Lane the as yet unsurpassed benchmark.

Some will miss the underpants (that's right, they've been banished), Jimmy Olsen, and other much-loved tropes, not least John Williams' iconic theme music. But, nostalgic as I am for the Superman of old, it's hard to deny that Hans Zimmer's effort are at least as stirring

It's clear from the grounded look of the film (only the heat vision jars) that Nolan's Batman will not form part of the much vaunted Justice League movie. This isn't just a Superman reboot - the fate of the entire DC multiverse rests on Man of Steel's box office. And so it is - grudgingly - that this sceptic must confess to being very keen to see more.

Touted as the next Stieg Larsson (or if you prefer, Norway's answer to Sweden's other major literary export, Henning Mankell), Jo Nesbo's Headhunters had already been earmarked for a (no doubt inferior) US remake before it was even released overseas.

Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie) is a 168cm recruitment consultant with a big house, a beautiful wife and an inferiority complex that drives him to moonlight as an art thief. The prosaically named protagonist is no Thomas Crown - he steals to keep a (wildly overleveraged) roof over his head and only pockets a measly 30% of the revenue from his ill-gotten gains. Even his appearance is counterintuitive - more bug eyed Steve Buscemi than suited and booted Bond. Even so, there's more going on here than meets the eye, but suffice to say that his real troubles start when he decides to go after The Big One - the retirement score that will put an end to his financial troubles and allow him to keep his ridiculously attractive wife in the style to which he's become accustomed.

To say anything more about the plot would be superfluous, but I will take a moment to admire the confidence of the director Morten Tyldum. Headhunters is, in a sense, typically Scandinavian - stark, brooding and with as much silence as dialogue. The style here serves the substance - the camera is often completely immobile, forcing the audience to concentrate on what's going on, a complete contrast to the craftsmanship/gimmickry more typical of glossy mainstream thrillers coming out of the US. Rather than spoonfeeding the audience every single clue, Headhunters isn't afraid to lead the unwitting watcher on a merry dance. Naturally the whole enterprise rests on the small but perfectly formed cast, particularly Hennie, with whom we slowly come to empathise, and the more typically suave Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau as the former exec with a murky past.

If Headhunters has a particular weakness, it's that it spends most of its time descending into increasingly dark (and occasionally graphically violent) territory, while occasionally veering into light hearted caper. This does feel slightly bewildering, but to be honest, it's a relative minor criticism. Headhunters is definitely worth catching (particularly given the woefully slim pickings over the past few months), if not now, then 6 months from now when it premieres on Film Four in the middle of the night. Scandinavians (and cinéastes with a penchant for Northern European film) may be used to this kind of thing, but for the rest of us it's a wonderfully welcome arctic blast through the land's tat filled cinema screens.

The Artist has swept into UK cinemas on a tidal wave of critical acclaim, and a raft of increasingly major awards. Set in the late 1920s, just as the advent of sound overturns the Hollywood status quo, The Artist tracks the pride and fall of George Valentin (Jean DuJardin, best known over here for the OSS 117 espionage parodies) following a chance encounter with Peppy Miller (personified by the delightful Bérénice Bejo).

It's a credit to those involved, particularly writer-director Michel Hazanavicius, that what is in effect one of the oldest tales in Hollywood, spun in everything from Singing in the Rain to Sunset Boulevard, is a beautifully crafted homage rather than the empty, prattling cliché it could so easily have become. DuJardin is terrific as the charming but conceited Valentin, with all the old school grace and swagger of Old Hollywoodland heartthrobs, from Douglas Fairbanks to Rudolph Valentino. By the same token, his co-star Bejo, though slightly sidelined at times, is captivating as the aptly named Peppy, big-eyed and beguiling from start to finish.

Yet it's worth pausing to consider that The Artist is not, strictly speaking, a silent movie - it's actually a movie that happens to be silent, an admittedly specious, but nonetheless important distinction. It's a modern movie shot in black and white with only a single line of dialogue and virtually no sound apart from the musical soundtrack. But silent movies were a distinct genre. The absence of sound and dialogue necessitated a different approach to storytelling, with an emphasis on movement and action, not to mention brevity - the average length of a silent movie in 1910 was about 30 minutes.

By contrast, The Artist is 100 minutes long, positively curt by modern standards. But without the crutch of dialogue to lean on, 100 minutes is perhaps too long in this case. Instead, the audience is virtually required to spend portions of The Artist lip reading during scenes which, had they been cut, would undoubtedly have strengthened as well has shortened the film. Because The Artist works best during the (majority of) scenes that require little or no speaking. Shots of audiences applauding, of Valentin wandering the streets alone, the discovery of an anonymous but humiliating act of charity - all of these moments are as gripping, perhaps more so for not being accompanied by hackneyed dialogue. Bejo and DuJardin excel at pratfalling, their shameless mugging and jazz age japes only serving to highlight the pathos they evoke elsewhere, all the more startling for being totally reliant on their physical performance alone.

What I'm trying to say I suppose is that The Artist is a wonderful movie, but one that perhaps panders to critics and fans of early Hollywood movies a little more than the average modern cinema goer - the final line (spoken out loud), may feel a little anti climactic for some, but it's rich with meaning and Tinseltown history. It's a film that wants to be clever (the much mooted dream sequence) as well as heartwarming (any scene involving James Cromwell's Driver or Valentin's adorably faithful mutt), but occasionally finds it difficult to reconcile the two (the final set of intertitles are the punchline to a joke that feels a little jarring). And yet by the time the final foot has tapped, all such minor (and in the grand scheme of things, they are minor) flaws will be forgiven.

Go because the media has stoked your curiosity, but stay because of the unabashed feelgood factor. If you can escape the relentless buzz around The Artist, it is a gem of a movie that will help you relocate the cockles of your heart.

It's difficult to know what to make of a film that has proved nearly as divisive as its protagonist, even among those who haven't even seen it. Viewing the life of former PM and now Baroness Margaret Thatcher from the present day via a series of flashbacks, The Iron Lady has stoked ire from both the Right (who decry the decision to show Thatcher's mental faculties in decline) and the Left (who are howling because, well, it's a film about Margaret Thatcher). Such is the level of opprobrium being heaped upon the film from both sides that it requires Herculean efforts to judge its merits as a film.

Setting aside party politics, The Iron Lady is after all, the story of one of the most powerful and prominent women in recent history, a grocer's daughter who rose to the very top at a time (first elected to parliament in 1959) when women were still largely tied to the domestic sphere. In a century where women in politics are still judged based on their membership of one of the two rival harems camps known as Blair's Babes or Cameron's Cuties (pauses to weep quietly for a moment), a biopic about the UK's longest serving PM who was also the first - and to date, the only - woman to occupy the role, is surely worth celebrating?

Sadly, therein lies the rub. Margaret Thatcher is both a legend in her own time, and the proverbial boogie man - it's virtually impossible to separate the woman from the politics. It's equally implausible to attempt to cover eight decades of remarkable private and notorious public events in barely two hours. Like its obstinate protagonist, The Iron Lady is felled by its own ambition. Thatcher's private life and personal relationships are tantalisingly glimpsed, but never explored. Based on their fleeting treatment, her early life in Grantham, relationship with her parents, courtship with Denis Thatcher, and later family life (particularly with her children) would all make for fascinating films in their own right. By the same token, the Falklands conflict, the riots, the strikes and any number of other nationally significant events during Thatcher's premiership would all form the basis of compelling movies.

Instead, Iron Lady is the cinematic equivalent of a scrapbook, a story told in bits and pieces, but never in depth. It's too brief to do more than gloss over every significant event in her life, not least the assassination of Airey Neave, and often requires a more than passing knowledge of contemporary political figures and events in order to understand the narrative. The result is a film that fails to portray with any depth or conviction either the personal or political history of - love her or loathe her - one of the most significant individuals in British history. The film has prompted complaints that it glosses over the upheaval of the miners' strikes, but one could easily argue that Thatcher's liberal stances on homosexuality and abortion are equally absent, if not more so. Jim Broadbent's Denis Thatcher is relegated to a slightly clownish figment of MT's imagination in the present, and virtually written out of her past.

In fact the film's saving grace is, unsurprisingly, Meryl Streep. Despite the confused and ambivalent material, Streep has crafted a riveting performance (amply supported by Alexandra Roach as Maggie the Younger), somehow managing to believably inhabit the shoes of someone whose story is till being written.

Suffice to say a definitive biopic, if such a thing is possible, will almost certainly have to post date the lady herself, and while I rarely argue in favour of overtly biased film-making, will probably require at least two passes by both her detractors and lionisers. For now, The Iron Lady is a tantalisingly prologue, and abridged version of an engrossing life. It's definitely a celebration of a talented, powerful woman occupying the upper echelons of her profession - but that woman is Streep, not Thatcher.

The hash of a trailer suggests that Immortals is a messy Clash of the Titans style sword and sandals epic that fails to capture the cheesy charm of 70's classics like Jason and the Argonauts, and on the surface, it is. Despite (or perhaps because of) a cast that acts its socks off, Immortals takes itself too seriously - barely a smile is cracked during two hours of blood, guts and some rather grim torture. The creative team can't even decide if they want to make a pure fantasy, or a reality based re-telling of a legend: the gods are real, but for some reason the Minotaur is a man suffering from an Ancient Greek version of 'roid rage. As for the plot, it's downright nonsensical, plucking a handful of characters and events from Greek mythology, and weaving them into sorry mess that bears as much resemblance to the original legends as a MacDonald's hamburger does to a Kobe beef steak.

Mickey Rourke as King Hyperion actually manages to reign himself in, but only because his character, as written, is so psychotically over-the-top dishing out a constant stream torture and disfigurement to anyone unfortunate enough to be within striking distance. Henry Cavill and Frieda Pinto spend the entire film looking gorgeous enough to have been chosen for their looks alone rather than their talent, looking like couture models even when covered in grime. Elsewhere, Stephen Dorff and John Hurt are left to potter around on the periphery of the film apart from conform to the stereotypes of Reformed Tea Leaf and Wise Old Goat (Hurt is even credited as 'Old Man'). Every other character in the movie is a mere redshirt - someone likely to be sliced, diced, or otherwise dispatched. All of which is indicative of director Tarsem Singh's strength (and weakness), namely his ability to make more of an impact with a 30 second shot of rippling silk than with two hours of dialogue.

What the trailer fails to impart however, is that Immortals works best if you tune out the dialogue and just let the film wash over you. Singh is notorious for his glorious visuals, responsible for the stunning but incoherent 'The Cell' as well as the beautifully esoteric 'The Fall'. For Immortals, he again prioritises style over substance. If you can ignore for a moment the monumental pretension of a director who wants to be credited simply as 'Tarsem', and instead enjoy the fruits of his labours: every frame of Immortals is a work of art.

The film abounds with dozens of shots that would make beautiful stills, from a serene Frieda Pinto against barren, earthen backdrops to Henry Cavill in mid-air, battle ready and full of rage, looking every inch the living sculpture. Even slightly tired effects like bullet time are dusted down and used to separate the mighty immortals from the awe stricken men. Mythological purists may well howl with rage at the perceived desecration of the original legends, but that would be to miss the point - Ancient Greek mythology is merely a convenient pretext that allows Singh to weave a moving tapestry. Even the decision to depict Hellenic civilisation as more multicultural than 21st century London appears to be an aesthetic choice rather than a politically correct one, as different shades of humanity swarm across the screen.

My abiding hope is that the DVD includes a director's cut which exorcises the talk track and dishes up an extended music instead. Without the distraction of the absolute hash of a plot and overly portentous direlogue, Immortals would make a remarkable video installation in a quiet gallery somewhere - it makes next to no sense, but looks wonderful.

The Ides of March zeroes in on the rise and fall of Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling), media relations manager for the campaign of presidential hopeful Governor Mike Morris (George Clooney). Although Morris is a nominally a Democrat, his political allegiance is immaterial. The film's core question is whether changing the person at the top makes any difference - is Morris a paradigm shifting candidate you can believe in, or is he just the same old wolf in particularly well tailored sheep's clothing? The source material Beau Williams' 2008 play Farragut North named after a metro station which serves K Street, the dark heart of Washington DC's political lobbying industry, and loosely based on Howard Dean's bid for the 2004 Democratic Presidential nomination. It's no small irony (on several levels) that Williams, who worked with Clooney to adapt his own play, himself later worked as a press secretary for Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign.

Initially Ides feels overwhelmingly like a campaign trailer for Clooney's own run for elected office (despite numerous denials both before and after the release of Ides that he harbours any kind of political ambition). It's hard not to interpret Ides as a 2012 warm-up ahead for Obama, if not Clooney when it's so liberally peppered with Vote Morris campaign materials that so ostentatiously mimic Obama's 2008 posters, right down to the pithy one-word slogans. Rousing stump speeches are strewn across the film: clarion calls for clean power, ending American dependence on oil and restoring the US to it's rightful position as world leader could all be drawn from Democratic Campaigning 101. Interestingly, with hindsight, the film even appears to keep a distance between the feel good flag waving of Morris' public campaign, and the cynical manoeuvrings taking place behind the scenes.

It's only a third of the way in, once the film starts to mine a rich vein of cynicism that it becomes clear that this is no rabble rousing, feel good cheerleading effort. After initial scenes of bonhomie and even a whiff of romance, the rug is swiftly pulled out from under the audience as Morris and his public campaign move offscreen, becoming a catalyst rather than a locus for the film's backroom action. Likewise, and even more symbolically, the three female characters (Marisa Tomei's hard nosed journalist, Rachel Evan Wood's out-of-her-depth intern, and Jennifer Ehle's criminally pared down appearance as the governor's wife) are bit players, and occasionally pawns. It's a disheartening echo of reality in which journalists, candidates and women (more often what they're wearing rather than doing or thinking) may seem to make the headlines, but the real power broking is done in the shadows, behind closed doors, and on remote park benches between anonymous (and almost entirely male) figures.

On the plus side, as rival campaign managers, Paul Giamatti and Phillip Seymour Hoffman are given free rein to chew up the scenery whenever they appear on screen, even as they disabuse us of any lingering belief we might naively hold in the fairness of a democratic system.

However, there's no denying that it's Gosling's sensational turn which gives the film its centre of gravity.His metamorphosis from a superficially cynical but naive believer, to a deadened manipulator (warning: pretentious film analysis ahead) that serves as a depressingly fitting metaphor for modern Western political democracy. It's a powerhouse performance, and his transformation from sleepy eyed charmer to dead eyed power broker can be justly compared to Al Pacino's rise and fall and rise in The Godfather (the final shot of Ides is eerily reminiscent of Pacino's final blank eyed expression in Coppola's classic). Gosling deploys his trademark internalised style to devastating effect, a muted performance that makes his Bambi eyed response when his house of cards starts tumbling down all the more painful to watch. For all it's subtlety, it's at least as layered as some of the more bombastic performances, adorned with Obama-esque body language and fleeting twitches in facial expression.

But what really differentiates Ides from the (many) politically inspired films before it is the refusal to sugar the pill. Visually Ides doffs its cap to the stoic investigative and campaigning films of the Seventies, as the colours and sets reflect the growing bleakness of the films events (the end credits look as though they belong to a film starring Warren Beatty or Gene Hackman in their heyday). But by eschewing the paranoia of films like Nixon or The Parallax View, and the cynical humour of Primary Colours, Wag the Dog or Bulworth, Ides delivers an even bigger sucker punch.

Ides strips away the usual Hollywood figleaves to expose the dirty reality of the complicated mind games being played in pursuit of dubious ideals (one of the many quandaries of the film being whether ugly wrongs can be overlooked in the name of what is right). Even more refreshingly, it refuses to spoonfeed moviegoers the narratively convenient answers to such questions. Go for the performances and Clooney's bleakly assured direction, but prepare to have the curtain pulled back to reveal something very ugly - you definitely won't be in Kansas any more.

I won't try to pretend that this is a good film. Quite how not one, not two, but three Academy Award winners came to participate in Gigli is a conundrum the solution to which ought to result in a Nobel Prize. Not pointing any fingers, but the characterisation, direction and plot are all AWOL. It would appear that every poor soul appearing in front of the camera decided to ham it up in the hope that it would complement the inescapable cheese that crops up in every frame.

That said, I believe that this film is destined for greatness. This is "Showgirls" for the gangster genre, a one star film that gets an extra star for effort. There are more laughs (admittedly unintentional) in this movie than in the last three Farrelly Bros. movies combined. At times jaw dropping in its absurdity (the infamous "gobble, gobble" invitation issued by J-Lo is a pale shadow of the other direlogue on offer here), this (romantic thriller? crime caper? redemptive drama? who knows what the creators were thinking?) is the kind of movie to watch while sitting round with a bunch of mates and an overabundance of snacks brimming with E-numbers. The comedy is cruelly underlined by the thin veneer of resigned desperation that inhabits every scene. In fact only the former Miss Lo appears to be playing it completely straight, apparently oblivious to the cinematic Rome in flames around her, and as a result, she gives her most enjoyable performance since Out Of Sight.

Scenes to look out for include the Incident In The Diner, Yoga Before Bedtime and J-Lo On The Art Of War. I would also like to give a special mention to the fine individuals in charge of the music – for those of us who are blind (and lobotomised) the sound editing team have done a Grade A job of adding ceaseless crescendos of 'heart-warming' music, thus kindly providing the audience with emotional cues. Add to this the fact that J-Lo is possibly the worst lesbian in the history of cinema, and one half of the most inept pair of career criminals ever to sully the good name of organised crime, and what you have is a film that will form the keystone of many a student DVD collection for years to come. In fact, the only real criticism is that the film is about twenty minutes too long (but even here, the 'dramatic' pauses will no doubt have you smirking into your carbonated beverage). But Gigli: The Director's Cut? Now that's on my must have list