The Spanish Prisoner (1998) has no prisoners and has nothing to do with Spain. It is the story of a young, hard-working, Boy Scout kind of guy who invents a process which will make the company a fortune. Much admired for his intellectual plots and his crackling dialogue, David Mamet is a film critic’s darling, but precisely what keeps this movie from going beyond good to excellent is the stilted dialogue. Campbell Scott, as the Boy Scout, is in character as a non-verbal computer/math guy when he mumbles stilted lines, and Ben Gazzara could say that he’s the distant corporate CEO, but Rebecca Pidgeon, Mamet’s real-life wife and the love interest in the movie, is too self-conscious to be believable or likable. Steve Martin, as the rich con-man, gets away with some stilted language because he is supposed to be a bit snobby and because he delivers the lines with savoir faire. But the language hinders rather than powers this movie. Rebecca Pidgeon, predictably, delivers the theme: “There’s some bad people out there, and you have to learn to deal with them.”
The Recruit is a stock movie without an original idea, and I enjoyed it. A young guy is recruited for the CIA, goes through the training where he, naturally, falls for a beautiful and talented woman, is given an unusual assignment—and then he becomes suspicious of some of the activities he is naively involved in. Good acting by Colin Farrell and Al Pacino.
Panic is a quiet, low-budget movie with a very solid cast and an interesting premise which I really liked. William Macey plays a 44-year old having a mid-life crisis. He wants to quit his job and he wants to have an affair. Unfortunately for him, his job is killing people. It’s a family business, and his dad (Donald Sutherland) got him into it somewhat against his will. He is also married to a good wife (Tracey Ullman does a fine job) with a brilliant and amusing 6-year-old son (the kid is, refreshingly, homely). This movie is above the ordinary because the family dynamics are complex and because the whole premise is interesting—mid-life crisis in extreme. The title has nothing to do with the movie. It is the opposite. But I guess a title like “Slowly and Ineptly Trying to Leave the Family Business and Get a Life” doesn’t have as much shelf appeal. I liked this movie.
in a terrible marriage and working a run-of-the-mill waitressing job after she dropped out of the nursing program at the local college, and her passion is a hospital soap opera. When her no-good husband is brutally murdered in their livingroom as she peeps out from the TV room, she flips out and cheerfully goes to Hollywood to meet the “doctor” of her dreams. He thinks she is trying out for a part on the soap, but she is delusional and sincere. Meanwhile, the two hired killers figure that the dope is in the trunk of the car she took from her husband’s car lot, and they track her down to kill her. The eldest killer (Morgan Freeman) falls for Betty (Rene Zellweiger) because, amidst life’s garbage, she is so naïve and pure. Every man in the movie is a reject, a pig, but, as the eldest killer observes, “”She’s sorta got this Doris Day thing goin’” and she does it wonderfully.
Moulin Rouge!—I liked the over-the-top, campy, music-video style, particularly of the first 10 minutes or so. I also liked the singing. Although I would not see this movie again, I admire the film maker’s work. His first film, Strictly Ballroom (1992), is one of the best movies to come out of Australia, and one of the only movies I’ve ever watched over again immediately. His second film, Romeo + Juliet (1996), captured a youthful and Shakespearean energy. Apparently Baz Luhrman is leaving behind this theatrical style which he and others call the Red Curtain style, and moving onto something different with a movie called Australia (2008).