"Absolute Power" (15s) Savoy, Virgin, Omniplex, UCIs, Dublin.
In the movies it's always that one last job that goes wrong, isn't it? The criminal is on the verge of retirement, vowing to go straight, and on that obligatory one last job something happens that places the protagonist in jeopardy.
In Absolute Power, directed by Clint Eastwood, the criminal is Luther Whitney, a veteran cat burglar played by Eastwood. A decorated veteran of the Korean war, Whitney is a loner and perfectionist who goes about his thefts with meticulous precision. His only interest in life is monitoring the progress of his estranged daughter (Laura Linney), who works on the opposite side of the law as a county prosecutor, and his home is a shrine to her.
His one last job involves stealing a fortune in money and jewels from Walter Sullivan (E.G. Marshall), one of the wealthiest and most influential men in Washington D.C. Whitney is raiding the billionaire's vault when Sullivan's young wife (Melora Hardin) enters the adjoining master bedroom with a drunken middle-aged man (Gene Hackman), and when their foreplay turns violent and she resists, a murder is committed. Readers who don't want to know any more before seeing the movie should skip the next paragraph.
Whitney is shocked to recognise the drunken attacker as the president of the United States. What follows is a reworking of an archetypal plot from one of Eastwood's westerns, as a maverick individual is unwillingly drawn into a confrontation with corrupt and powerful figures, and cannot in conscience shirk his personal mission to take on the system. In this scenario the amoral authority-figures represent evil while the solitary criminal becomes the good guy and angel of vengeance.
The long early sequence in Absolute Power, as Whitney sets about robbing the mansion and then witnesses the murder, is a lesson in confident, unhurried exposition - a deeply intriguing and perfectly judged sequence which is virtually wordless, and its tension is heightened by the jangling, jazzy score of Eastwood's regular composer, Lennie Niehaus.
This taut, polished thriller, radically adapted by William Goldman from the novel by Daniel Baldacci, stumbles into a number of implausible coincidences in a second half that is rather too pat. What pulls it back towards credibility are Eastwood's solid, unshowy direction and the expert cast which he heads and which notably includes Ed Harris, Judy Davis, Scott Glenn and Dennis Haysbert along with the aforementioned Hackman, Marshall and Linney.
"Big Night", IFC, members and guests only
Stanley Tucci, who so memorably played the suave and sinister Richard Cross in Murder One, and actor Campbell Scott, who made such an impressive debut in Long-time Companion, join forces to co-direct the tender and touching Big Night, which does for Italian food what Babette's Feast, Tampopo, Eat Drink Man Woman and Like Water For Chocolate did for the preparation and serving of cuisine from other countries.
Set in the late 1950s in a small New Jersey town, the bittersweet scenario of Big Night involves immigrant Bolognese brothers. Primo and Secondo Pilaggi (Tony Shalhoub and Stanley Tucci) daring to serve authentic Italian food in their struggling restaurant, The Paradise, while rival establishments serving conventional Italian fare draw full houses.
"To eat good food is to be close to God," declares Primo, the shy but temperamental older brother and The Paradise's master chef, a purist who dismisses the rival establishment, Pascal's, with the comment that "the rape of cuisine occurs there every night".
In his pursuit of the American Dream, the pragmatic Secondo envies the success of Pascal's and wishes his brother would compromise his cuisine. Secondo is already having it both ways, in his personal life, going out with the good-natured Phyllis (Minnie Driver) and having an affair with GabrielIa (Isabella Rosselini), the hostess at the rival restaurant and the lover of its owner, Pascal (Ian Holm).
Pascal assures the brothers he can convince the popular Italian-American bandleader, Louis Prima, and his orchestra to dine at their restaurant, bringing invaluable publicity to The Paradise. Believing him, Primo and Secondo risk their savings on one spectacular dinner, and as in The Commitments - where the struggling Dublin rock band anxiously awaited the promised appearance of soul singer Wilson Pickett - Big Night builds to the anticipated arrival of Louis Prima.
First-time directors Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott skilfully collaborate on this low-key, well-observed movie which is sharply scripted by Tucci and his cousin, Joseph Tropiano, and made with a firm sense of period. The cast is expert down to the smallest roles, with Tony Shalhoub (from the TV series, Wings) and Ian Holm outstanding. Taking a lesser role than his co-director, Campbell Scott also features in the film as a pushy Cadillac salesman.
A consistently engaging film all the way to its beautifully sustained final scene, the accomplished Big Night rightly drools over its set-piece, Primo's banquet for Prima and guests, as mobile cameras circle the table to feast our eyes on the mouth-watering food.
. Michael Dwyer interviews Big Night actor and co-director Campbell Scott, and Absolute Power screenwriter William Goldman in tomorrow's Weekend supplement.
"Larger Than Life", (General) Savoy, Virgin, Omniplex, UCIs
It's a mystery why Bill Murray who has proved in the past that he can be one of the funniest actors working in America, continues to appear in so many terrible films. This drab and dismal comedy is no exception, with Murray playing a narcissistic "motivational speaker" who tours the lecture circuit of conventions and corporate get-togethers, urging his audience to Get Over It!. When his long-lost father dies, Murray is bequeathed a circus elephant, which he must transport across the United States. Along the way, of course, he discovers the value of kindness and charity, becoming a better and a nicer human being.
Murray has done this selfish-worm-redeemed-by-adversity schtick before, first in the uninspired Scrooged, and then in the utterly delightful Groundhog Day. Third time isn't lucky - an unfunny script and Iaboured gags make this one to avoid at all costs.
The only member of the cast who comes out with any credit is the elephant, who gives a more convincing performance than any of the humans.
"Irma Vep", IFC, members and guests only
There's an honourable French tradition of film critics turning to direction, and Olivier Assayas's latest film is as clever, playful and cine-literate as might be expected from a former Cahiers du Cinema contributor.
Assayas has created a hall of mirrors in this low-budget film, which documents a French TV film production of a remake of Louis Feuillade's series of silent films from 19l5, called Les Vampires. The female star of this series is a cat-suited thief called Irma Vep (an anagram of vampire), who is to be played in the remake by the Hong Kong action star, Maggie Cheung.
When the burnt-out nouvelle vague director, Rene Vidal (Jean-Pierre Leaud) realises the futility of trying to recreate the innocence of Feuillade's imagery, he goes spectacularly off the rails and another washed-up director is brought in. Grappling with self-loathing and angst, Vidal is almost a parody of the auteur, buckling under the burden of cinema history, stifled by his knowledge of the medium and his excessive reverence for his predecessors.
All the characters' obsession with cinema make this a film buff's treat: it also casts a cool eye over the pettiness, insecurity and rampant egomania of the film people.
Vidal's efforts are concentrated on the creation of a single image: of a lithe, kohl-eyed woman in a latex catsuit - as iconic as Garbo's white face and arched eyebrows. Assayas is both recreating and commenting on the trope of men looking at women on film; in time-honoured fashion, Maggie Cheung's face is the blank screen onto which male desire is projected, but here she is also the object of female desire, from the wardrobe mistress (Nathalie Richard) who interprets Maggie's courtesy as a signal of sexual interest.
What remains, after the histrionics of the film crew fade, is the film-within-a-film: the edgy video footage edited by Vidal, which he has scribbled all over so that the bleached, unfocused images of Maggie's face are defaced by squiggles and jagged lines, emerging like streaks of lightning from her eyes and mouth. It's a suitably self-aggrandising final gesture, which holds the promise of energetic creativity behind its destructiveness.
