Reviews

It turns out, as revealed in the first part of "Making It So: Continuing ST:TNG" (a retrospective documentary that appears on the Blu-ray release of season 2), that this story was originally written for the projected (but never made) "Star Trek: Phase II", with Captain Kirk et al plus three new characters. With the Hollywood writers' strike looming, rather than come up with a new story, "The Child" was revised, with the parts originally written for the new characters of Phase II given to Riker, Troi and Data. Of course, some new elements were necessary: introducing Dr Pulaski, explaining the decision of Wesley Crusher to remain with the Enterprise, and so on. This would explain many of the complaints in earlier reviews published here: notably that the plot isn't up to the standard of other ST:TNG scripts of the time. Simply put, it's not really a ST:TNG script, but a composite of an older script with new characters transposed into it. And, to my mind, it's done pretty seamlessly.

Normally a fan of The Professionals, I found this episode pretty much a waste of the time I spent watching it. The plot, involving the disturbed Lt-Col Lawson, played by Michael Culver, who goes AWOL from a military hospital after a breakdown on exercises, is more far-fetched than ever, and the characters flat, uninteresting and hard to believe.

Michael Angelis and John Hallam play two ex-soldiers who are recruited by Lawson, apparently accepting his tale of a secret high-profile mission at face value without question. CI5 play an almost peripheral role, always one step behind, despite locating Lawson and his recruits before his plans even get under way and somehow failing to apprehend him. True, Bodie and Doyle play their part in the rather tame climax, in typical derring-do fashion, but there's little other excitement to be had.

Not a keeper, this one.

I guess "The American" was always going to be a film that divides opinion. If you appreciate nuances, minimal distraction and diversion, a thoughtful and thought-provoking story and screenplay, understated acting, artistic cinematography and inventive direction, you'll get a lot out of "The American". If you're expecting an all-action shoot-up, never a quiet moment, and like to have everything spelled out for you, you'll soon be bored.

I'm not usually a fan of Clooney's films, but here I thought he was very good. It was possible to see him suppressing his emotions, to discern his thoughts, to begin to understand what it might be like to live such a life as his. And that, I think, is the point. It's almost a film about nihilism.

One of the best episodes of this classic British TV series, "Wheelman" has everything going for it: a canny script with some great lines and a fast-moving story, great parts for Barber and Brandon as they infiltrate a gang of jewellery thieves posing as a sharp crime writer (Makepeace looking at her best) and a drug baron's American getaway driver (Dempsey), a classy villain played by a classy actor (Tom Georgeson on top form) supported by a good cast of quality British TV actors (including Lois Baxter, Terence Budd, George Irving and Niall Toibin). There's a staged car chase and some good cars, the always excellent Ray Smith as the irascible Spikings (at one point posing as a taxi driver), and even an appearance by Acker Bilk and his Paramount Jazz Band, performing on a leisure boat cruising the Thames. What more could you want? Recommended.

I wasn't even aware of this 30-year-old US TV film from HBO until it was aired recently on the Movie Channel in the UK. I am so delighted to have discovered this bitter-sweet romance, it is an absolute gem.

It is a tale very well told, of renewed comradeship, of rediscovered romance, of tension and understanding between the generations. The emotions are real, the performances superb, especially Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr, who bring a special something to this understated but well-nigh perfect script. The rest of the American and British cast are excellent too, but I thought the standout performance was that of Judi Trott as the idealistic teenage granddaughter.

This film satisfies on so many levels, and I shall be watching my recording of it again, I know. Highly recommended.

I'm surprised by some of the rave reviews of this film. It's good in parts, and I suppose I quite enjoyed it, but it's not a film I shall want to watch again. Which is surprising, because I generally quite enjoy subtle comedies, especially when they involve themes of teenage angst or coming-of-age.

Craig Roberts impressed me. I haven't seen him before, but I though he made a good fist of a pretty uninspiring lead character. Others seem to have found Noah Taylor and Sally Hawkins to their taste, playing the protagonist's parents, but I found them dull and uninteresting. Maybe that was the point, but if so, it passed me by. And the Paddy Considine character (the mother's weird ex-boyfriend) left me cold, I'm afraid.

I found myself comparing it, as I watched "Submarine", with Bill Forsyth's brilliant "Gregory's Girl", made some 30 years earlier. Both films are made from the young male's point of view, with very similar themes of real teenage awkwardness, that feeling of trying to find one's way into an adult world without really understanding it, subtle British humour (this in Wales, that in Scotland). But there really is no comparison: "Gregory's Girl" has stood the test of time, and I still enjoy it. I doubt somehow that people will be remembering "Submarine" with the same fondness 30 years hence.

It's not a bad film, and I think Richard Ayoade shows promise with his directorial debut, but for me, it's eminently missable, I'm afraid.

This is the movie the critics loved to hate, its inaccuracies, its cheesy story lines, and its blatant pandering to the "all-American hero" spirit of the 80s all cited as reasons why it should not be taken seriously.

I agree with all the above, and yet, why do I keep coming back to it? I must have seen it a dozen times. It gets the adrenalin going, I know every line, every cliché, and I look forward to hearing and seeing them all over again. And I'm not even an American!

It's just one of those movies where the whole is somehow greater than the sum of its parts, which work together to make something special. The acting is one of the reasons: Tom Cruise hits the spot perfectly, the chemistry with Kelly McGillis is electric (and surely she has never looked more stunning!), the heart warms to Anthony Edwards and Meg Ryan, while Val Kilmer, Tom Skerritt, Michael Ironside and the others do just what they're good at without ever distracting from the central characters.

And Tony Scott's direction is surely much underestimated: with perhaps the sole exception of that love scene (presumably just a vehicle for the backing track "You Take My Breatb Away"), the action is tight, superbly cut, and the action sequences unequalled of their kind. He surely made a star of Tom Cruise, bringing the best out of him after a number of merely promising earlier performances (a feat he sadly failed to repeat 4 years later with "Days of Thunder").

I watched "Top Gun" again tonight, over a quarter of a century after its release, in memory of that great British director who has just been so tragically lost to us. It has lost none of its ability to keep one's attention riveted to the screen. Tony Scott, you will not be forgotten.

The moment you see those opening credits in monochrome brown-sepia, you know you are in for a treat. This is a film by someone steeped in the tradition of the best film noir, and though not a style one associates with Polanski, his sense of drama and of pacing, and his painstaking care to make every shot add to the overall atmosphere, is perfectly suited. Though lacking the distinctive low viewpoints, close-ups and heavy shadows of traditional film noir, this is one of the few later films which manage perfectly to capture the atmosphere and the understated tension of the genre.

The writing and the acting, too, is straight out of the best tradition of film noir. Robert Towne's excellent Oscar-winning script, written with Jack Nicholson in mind for the central character of LA private detective J.J.Gittes, is written entirely from Gittes' perspective (I don't believe there's a single scene in which he doesn't figure). If Bogart was the epitome of Chandler's Marlowe in the 40's, then Nicholson is a worthy successor, and I wonder whether Towne ever considered writing another screenplay around the same character. When I first saw this film when it came out, I hadn't seen Nicholson before, and I remember being just blown away (I didn't see Easy Rider until a couple of years later). Faye Dunaway and the superbly cast John Huston complete the triangle, and we only discover their relative roles in the mystery as Gittes gradually pieces the complex jigsaw together, which of course is just how it should be. The supporting actors are more than adequate, secondary to the story but never detracting from it, with Perry Lopez doing a great job as the struggling but confident lieutenant (who of course is a former colleague of Gittes).

But for me, Polanski himself is the star of this film (and I don't mean his nice little cameo part). I'm glad he wasn't tempted to shoot in black-and-white, though it wouldn't have been out of place -- the consistently washed-out colour so well delivers the sense of the heat and the desert (only the blue of the ocean and the bright lights of Chinatown itself stand out), and his choice of shot, variety of speed, and attention to detail never distract the viewer, nor detract from the acting and the unfolding tale. It's only after the film is over, when you sit back in admiration, that you realise there really wasn't a single moment when you were impatient to move on, or lost track of the plot, or felt a wrong note had been hit. I regard this, along with his recent superb version of Oliver Twist, to be his best works. And that's not an easy choice to make.

I did not find this, as some reviewers here suggest, a really bad movie. It has its redeeming features. But in the end I found myself frustrated and disappointed. It could have been so much better.

The plot is an interesting one, and maybe one day a really good film will be based on a similar plot. I try not to include spoilers, so I'll say no more than the trailer does: Gooding and Mirren are professional killers who are faced with a dilemma when they are contracted to kill a crime boss's wife (Ferlito) who they discover is pregnant. The ramifications of their choice changes their lives. But though the film was billed as a thriller, there was little suspense, except in the final act, and the choices made by the three central characters, though necessary for the plot, simply didn't work. I could find no believable basis in the characters themselves for their actions. I'm sure you can explain their actions if you try, but for me it only works if you suspend your belief in the characters and admit "well, I guess that's the plot, so that's why they did it".

The cinematography is striking, but the script, unfortunately, is pedestrian, one-paced, and cliché-ridden. Given the one-dimensional nature of the characters, the cast, Gooding and Mirren in particular, deserve significant praise for making much more of their roles than the material offers. If you are tempted to watch this for Helen Mirren, however, you'd do much better to pick one of the 'Prime Suspect' films off the shelf.

Much is made in the film's publicity of the unusual relationships between the central characters, but they are barely explored and still less explained, simply taken for granted and illustrated in a few dramatically shot scenes.

Given the plot, I didn't find the violence or the occasional nudity gratuitous. By its own standards, the film works: it's a good story (if somewhat unbelievable at times). I just wish the standards had been a little higher.

If this film had been made in black-and-white in the 1940s, it would surely by now be regarded as a classic. But shot in sweeping colour, set against panoramas of the Texas outback, to a backdrop alternating between isolated bars and run-down motels, sunny plains and dark rainstorms, this must be one of the best modern films noir I've seen in a long time.

The four main characters -- played brilliantly and understatedly by Quaid, Ryan, Caan and Paltrow -- are bound together as events unfold and their layers are gradually peeled back for us: aspects of the darker side of human nature that raise questions about blood ties ("flesh and bone") and feelings, guilt and conscience (or the lack of it), and responsibility.

I'm surprised I haven't come across this film before, and delighted to have have it now in my collection. An unsung gem, tersely written and thoughtfully directed by Steve Kloves, and brilliantly visualised by cinematographer Philippe Rousselot and editor Mia Goldman. There are no excesses, great little touches and observations, hidden depths, and a lean story. Definitely one to see again.

This is a film above all about the triangular relationship between John Lennon, Stuart Sutcliffe, and Astrid Kirchherr (four-sided if you include Astrid's boyfriend Klaus Voormann, five-sided if you include the band John and Stu were members of: the Beatles) -- a film about real events, about love and life and tragedy -- played out to a backdrop of the Beatles' visits to Hamburg and their performances there.

Based primarily on interviews with Stuart's mother and sister and with Astrid Kirchherr, it's been often criticised as a 'crude caricature', for its factual inaccuracies about the Beatles' time in Hamburg, about the musical performances portrayed, for the one-dimensional portrayal of the "minor" characters, including Paul, George, Pete and John's girlfriend Cynthia, and even for the fact that the actors aren't exact doppelgangers for the characters they portray (they're pretty good likenesses, though).

I can accept all these criticisms, but somewhat to my surprise they didn't spoil the film at all for me. If you want detailed accuracy about the Beatles, this is not for you. Read the books. But if you want to see a film which tells a good story well, and which will give you a real feel for the vibes of the time and for the characters it claims to portray, and an insight into one important aspect of the early history of the Beatles, I think you will enjoy this. I thought I wouldn't, but I did. And I will watch it again. And, did I say? it's about the Beatles.

This is not a biopic, nor does it pretend to be, but it does claim to tell the story of Stu and Astrid, and I thought it did that very well. I don't object at all to the use of some artistic licence, such as Astrid's excellent English. Contrary to some other reviewers, I found the portrayal of the quiet, enigmatic Stu by Stephen Dorff quite excellent, a perfect foil to the bitter, sometimes thoughtful, and wholly charismatic John Lennon, portrayed just as well by Ian Hart.

I first heard the Beatles just before their first British record "Love Me Do" became a minor hit in Autumn 1962. This film portrays events mostly more than a year before then, and even longer before their last stint in Hamburg, at the Star-Club in December 1962, the subject of a famous amateur recording. Apart from the Polydor recordings by Bert Kampfaert, we have little to judge objectively what the band sounded like in 1960-61, but judging from the 1962 live recordings, and the comments of those who heard them before they were famous, I'm quite prepared to believe the Beatles sounded then very much like the band used for the soundtrack to this film. OK, the band aren't the Beatles, and some of the details are a bit askew, but the rock-and-roll standards portrayed were all part of the Beatles' act, and are performed much as they performed them. Everyone tells how Stu Sutcliffe often played turning away from the audience, as often seen in the film. It's hardly a realistic portrayal of the Hamburg clubs on the Reeperbahn in the early 1960s, but I've seen worse, and if you have little idea what life was like for the band before 1962, this will not be a bad introduction.

Comparisons with "A Hard Day's Night" are ingenuous: that was a film made by the Beatles early in 1964 after they were famous (in Britain at least); this is a film about the band when they were teenagers, before pretty much anyone knew them outside Liverpool and Hamburg. Not the same at all. And of course, they didn't sound back then like the Beatles' later recordings, or even like they did on their tours of the US and elsewhere. Perhaps the only recording you can really compare is their first album "Please Please Me" (and the live Star-Club recording, if you have it).

It's a film, for goodness' sake. I enjoyed it as one, and I hope you do too. The characters rang true, especially Ian Hart as John Lennon, and the story is well worth telling, and well worth watching. And, did I say? it's about the Beatles.