Reviews

A guy meets a girl on a train and their personalities click, but he fails to get her name or phone number. So he embarks on a comic campaign to find her amongst the Chicago commuters. But the involvement of his hapless frat boy house mates, former schoolmates and employer threaten to derail the plan.

The movie isn't sophisticated. There isn't much complexity to the characters or plot. Most people would describe it as a teen movie. But it is competently produced. I find it difficult to fault the acting - the actors are quite adequate for the type of film. The camera work and soundtrack are both good. If you're looking for an art movie, avoid this film. But as easy going, feel-good entertainment it's a winner!

Five minutes into Love Actually, I thought it was going to be a marvellous, laugh-a-minute romantic comedy. Bill Nighy's eccentric washed-up rocker is brilliant and makes a great opening scene. But unfortunately none of the other performances are in the same league.

The film awkwardly straddles the divide between drama and comedy, and many of the scenes are painfully predictable. It's a rehash of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones's Diary, with a bit of Friends cut in. There are some funny scenes, but overall the movie didn't satisfy me. The comic characters are just too poorly developed. It's watchable, but lacking in originality. It could have been so much better.

In "The Rainmaker" Matt Damon plays Rudy Bailor, a fresh law graduate who gets involved in a major lawsuit against a health insurance company which denies a claim brought by the family of a leukaemia patient.

All the performances are very strong; it's difficult to fault any of them. Where the film goes wrong is that it concentrates solely on Rudy Bailor's story. I can't think of a single scene in which he doesn't feature. His opponents are only ever seen in the courtroom. To me, this single thread wears a bit thin when expanded to fill a two-hour film. Several concurrent threads would have helped to maintain the pace. Mickey Rourke, as Rudy Bailor's mafia lawyer boss Bruiser Stone is sadly under-used. The same goes for Jon Voight as Rudy's legal opponent Leo F. Drummond.

Ultimately this film is an endearing but slightly depressing story about a young lawyer getting "in over his head" in a landmark case. It's almost a good thriller, but it lacks the action and variety which make a fascinating and gripping film. It's worth watching to pass the time, but it isn't a match for other John Grisham adaptations like "The Client" and "The Pelican Brief".

The plot of Boys and Girls is simple. A boy and a girl (Freddie Prinze, Jr and Claire Forlani), who at first seem a most unlikely couple, gradually discover their similarities. To me, the film gets off to a slightly slow start, but becomes increasingly watchable as it progresses. The plot is similar to that of When Harry Met Sally, but the style of the film is totally different. It's essentially a teen movie in the vein of Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. But it matches up to other teen movies well and offers some good laughs (mainly from Jason Biggs as the womanising, compulsive liar of a room-mate). For anyone interested in the technicalities of film-making, the final scene in which the plane takes off is very smartly edited, too. In summary, if you like teen movies you'll enjoy this, otherwise you'll hate it.

I can't watch this. "Heat" is one of a few highly-regarded movies which I just cannot endure. I've tried to watch it several times but I can never get past the first hour. It's neither a feel-good action movie nor a decent drama. It seems to be aiming for a fresh take on the cops and robbers theme but misses entirely. The characters are deeply unlikeable, the performances are weak, the movie drags like anything and it exhibits no flair or style. "French Connection" is this movie done properly; it has a great performance from Gene Hackman, some excellent supporting characters and some funny scenes to add some warmth to the gritty story. "Heat" has none of these. It is dire.

In my view this film doesn't live up to its reputation. Although released in 1988, the formula behind the film is much older, and it bears a lot in common with 1960s and '70s comedies like "Dad's Army". It isn't the best comedy of this type and looks rather dated now, although there aren't too many topical references to the 1980s. The humour is mainly derived from the grossly exaggerated personalities of the characters, and for me this wears thin rather quickly. To me, John Cleese's English barrister is like portraying the typical American as a gun-toting, doughnut-eating 300lb redneck in a Hawaiian shirt and baseball cap; it's funny for a few minutes but it isn't enough to sustain a whole movie. Having said this, the insane Otto (Kevin Kline) is a delight and adds some much-needed life to the film. But the film falls between two stools; it doesn't sport the unconstrained silliness of slapstick movies like "Police Academy", and neither does it feature deeper characters and a moving story like "The Full Monty". It just lacks the spark necessary to make a great comedy.

This movie is a teen slasher flick along the lines of "Scream" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer". It bears no resemblance to Mary Harron's dramatic 2000 film. Having (through some strange, unexplained sequence of events) killed Patrick Bateman from the original film, a teenage girl (Mila Kunis) makes it her life's ambition to track serial killers and bring them to justice. Then she arrives at college and starts to kill fellow students in an attempt to eliminate her competition and land a top job with the FBI. The killing becomes increasingly frantic and comic as the film progresses. Although the plot is shallow and ridiculous, the film is amusing in parts with some witty one-liners and a fair performance from Geraint Wyn Davies as the killer's psychiatrist.

One to watch on TV to pass the time, but not worth paying to see.