CELEBRITY SNAPS

Reviewed - PAPARAZZINot since The Devil's Advocate, in which Taylor Hackford suggested that lawyers might quite literally be emissaries of Satan, has a profession been so harshly traduced as are celebrity snappers in this operatically appalling film directed by Mel Gibson's barber (honestly). Paparazzi argues with touching passion in defence of an oppressed minority - tragically over-paid movie stars - forced daily to flee from photographers who look variously like Tom Sizemore, the fattest Baldwin and (significant this, I suspect) that guy who played the prostitute-murdering psychopath in Heat.

Who could blame an unfortunate celebrity if, after seeing his family seriously injured in a Diana-esque crash caused by these rogues, he dropped one off a cliff, battered another to death with a baseball bat and arranged for a third to be mown down in a hail of bullets? Not detective Dennis Farina, who rumbles Cole Hauser's irritated action hero, but seems uninterested in pursuing a prosecution. Does this suggest that the real Mr Hauser, enraged by this irresponsibly unkind review, should be allowed to murder me with impunity? Such is the script's implication. Gibson, whose company produced and distributed Paparazzi, may, when his number is up, require all the credit The Passion of the Christ established with the Almighty.

Mind you, this is one of those rare films whose badness achieves a kind of holy transcendence. Everything about it - Sizemore and Baldwin's Dastardly and Muttley act, Cole Hauser's feeble attempt to pretend that he could be more famous than Cole Hauser, the celebrity cameo by someone called Matthew McConaughey - points up the lie that no film can be so bad it's good. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.