Current Releases
ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 A favorite of critics and cultists alike, John
Carpenter’s 1976 Assault On Precinct 13 was a nifty little “B” flick
about an LA street gang that descends upon a police station with the sole purpose
of wiping out everyone inside. This flashy update is a competent but entirely
generic action opus in which it’s a group of rogue cops who attack the precinct
in order to kill a captured crime lord whose testimony would put them behind
bars. Laurence Fishburne plays the cool-under-fire kingpin, who reluctantly
teams up with an honest officer (Ethan Hawke) to ensure his own survival. Expect
few surprises from yet another needless remake. 
THE AVIATOR This sprawling biopic about Howard Hughes (played by Leonardo
DiCaprio), the notorious billionaire-industrialist-producer-flyboy, employs
all the cinematic razzle-dazzle we’ve come to expect from Martin Scorsese, yet
there’s an added layer of excitement as the eternal cineaste finally gets to
step back in time via his meticulous recreations of the sights and sounds of
Old Hollywood (look for Cate Blanchett in a show-stealing turn as Katharine
Hepburn). Still, the behind-the-scenes movie material takes a back seat to other
aspects of Hughes’ life – namely, his adventures in the field of aviation and
his lifelong battle with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. At its best, the film
is a stirring tale about a man whose inner drive allowed him to climb ever higher
and higher, grazing the heavens before his inner demons seized the controls
and forced the inevitable, dreary descent. 1/2
COACH CARTER This works the usual underdog cliches fairly well as it
tells the true story of Ken Carter (Samuel L. Jackson), a high school basketball
coach in California who manages to turn a team that won only four games during
its previous season into a statewide powerhouse. But at the height of their
success, Carter elects to bench the entire team once he discovers that most
of his players are performing poorly in their classes. Carter’s selfless actions
against a failed education system register even when the movie surrounding him
turns on itself: All pertinent points are made after a full two hours, but the
picture drags on for another 20 minutes simply so viewers can be treated to
a climactic Big Game. Ultimately, Coach Carter‘s sincerity gets trumped
by its savvy at milking the sports formula for all it’s worth. 1/2
ELEKTRA Talk about a house of flying daggers: The multiplex is filled
with them once Marvel’s blade-wielding superheroine springs into action in this
spin-off of 2003’s Daredevil (in which she appeared as the sightless
superhero’s romantic interest). But while this lady in red often kicks it into
high gear, the movie itself rarely moves beyond a stroll. The story finds the
assassin-for-hire (Jennifer Garner) balking when her latest assignment requires
her to kill a single dad (Goran Visnjic) and his teenage daughter (Kirsten Prout,
whose annoying performance does the film no favors). Elektra elects to protect
them instead, which in turn pits her against an evil organization known as The
Hand. Inexplicably, no one ever deadpans, “Talk to The Hand,” but then again,
a sense of humor is noticeably missing throughout. 1/2
FINDING NEVERLAND After numerous film versions of Peter Pan,
we now get a fanciful tale that seeks to explain how playwright J.M. Barrie
initially came up with the idea for this children’s classic. What ends up on
the screen is as much fiction as fact (probably more so), but it’s the sort
of moving saga that will make audiences wish this was the way it really
happened. A gentle Johnny Depp is just right as Barrie, whose inspiration comes
from a widow (Kate Winslet) and her four sons, particularly the moody Peter
(Freddie Highmore). Director Marc Forster (Monster’s Ball) and scripter
David Magee have made a film full of warmth and wit.
HIDE AND SEEK Robert De Niro, in full paycheck-gorging mode, is miscast
as David Callaway, a New York psychologist who, after his wife (Amy Irving)
commits suicide, moves upstate with their traumatized 9-year-old daughter Emily
(Dakota Fanning). Still struggling to cope with the tragedy, Emily invents an
imaginary friend named Charlie, and a subsequent string of disasters leads David
to wonder whether Emily suffers from a split personality, whether another person
is manipulating his daughter, or whether there’s a supernatural presence in
their new home. It’s becoming increasingly rote to review junky, generic thrillers
like this one: Critics would do well to simply cut-and-paste their slams of
last year’s Secret Window (this film’s doppelganger) and leave it at
that.
1/2
HITCH A warm and witty comedy that unfortunately runs itself into the
ground, Hitch benefits immeasurably from the presence of Will Smith,
who may or may not be a great actor but who is most assuredly a great movie
star. There’s something to be said for effortless magnetism, and in that respect,
Smith has more in common with the sophisticated comedians of the past than the
coarse jokesters of today. He’s at turns sly, suave and sexy as Alex “Hitch”
Hitchens, who earns a living by advising other men how to land the woman of
their dreams. Yet even as he tries to pair up a clumsy accountant (Kevin James)
with a supermodel (Amber Valletta), he unexpectedly finds his own attention
drawn to a gossip columnist (Eva Mendes). Viewers who go with the flow will
gladly put reality on pause in order to enjoy this movie’s modest pleasures
– it’s just a shame the picture reverts to rigid formula in its final half-hour.
1/2
HOTEL RWANDA Set in 1994 Rwanda, this powerful film takes place during
the 100-day period when nearly one million of that country’s Tutsis were slaughtered
by the Hutu extremists. Clearly, Hotel Rwanda is about international
indifference and liberal ineffectualness, and the movie reverberates with such
topical force (Sudan, anyone?) that the ink is still drying on its condemnation
of a planet that operates with blinders firmly attached. Yet for all its indignant
ire, the movie is more than anything a humanist saga, and it’s in this area
where it draws its greatest power. Don Cheadle exudes quiet authority as Paul
Rusesabagina, the Hutu hotel manager who risked everything to save over a thousand
Tutsi civilians from falling under the machete. 1/2
IN GOOD COMPANY In Good Company works as well as it does because
its central character, Dan Foreman, is a paragon of uncompromised ideals, and
because Dennis Quaid plays him so perfectly that we can’t help but line up behind
this guy and cheer him on. Dan symbolizes not the larger-than-life morality
found in superhero or gladiator yarns nor the bogus morality exhibited in pieces
of hypocrisy like Christmas With the Kranks; instead, it’s the everyday
type to which we can all aspire, as decent people trying to make the right choices
concerning family and career. The storyline, which finds ad executive Dan forced
to report to a corporate golden boy (Topher Grace) half his age, rarely strays
far from convention, but it’s hard to dislike a picture that goes out of its
way to champion integrity in America.
MEET THE FOCKERS The drop in quality between a hit movie and its sequel
is usually so steep that just thinking about it could lead to a broken neck.
Happily, no such falloff exists between Meet the Parents and Meet
the Fockers. The freshness of the premise may have dissipated, but the attention
to the differences between the central characters – the primary reason the first
film raked in the dough – still exists. So once again we find Greg Focker (Ben
Stiller) seeking the approval of prospective father-in-law Jack Byrnes (Robert
De Niro), with the presence of Greg’s old-hippie parents (Dustin Hoffman and
Barbra Streisand) adding to the stress level. The primary pleasure is watching
veteran comedian Stiller once again squaring off against De Niro, whose recent
attempts at shtick have only worked in this series.
MILLION DOLLAR BABY The best picture of 2004 is an instant classic,
much like director-producer-star Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven. But whereas
that revisionist Western deconstructed genre conventions, turning them inside
out to expose the inherent contradictions and compromises, this movie leaves
many of the cliches intact, deriving its power not by upending them but by burrowing
so deeply that it feels like we’re witnessing familiar sights for the very first
time. Eastwood stars as a gym owner who’s urged by his only friend (Morgan Freeman)
to train a young woman (Hilary Swank) determined to make it as a boxer, yet
what starts out as a familiar (if brilliantly told) story eventually changes
course and emerges as a profound and moving filmgoing experience. There’s very
little about this movie that feels extraneous – it’s tight, taut storytelling,
anchored by three astonishing performances and helmed by a man still able to
teach Hollywood’s young punks a thing or two.
SIDEWAYS Movies in which characters hit the road in search of adventure
and end up discovering themselves are nothing new to American film – in fact,
they’re an integral part of our cinematic heritage – yet this one is idiosyncratic
enough to stand apart from the pack. Miles (Paul Giamatti), a chronically depressed
high school teacher, and Jack (Thomas Haden Church), a has-been actor about
to get married, decide to book passage to California’s Santa Ynez Valley to
tour the local wineries; while there, they get involved with two women (Virginia
Madsen and Sandra Oh) who force them to reconsider their present outlooks on
life. It should be noted that this lovely motion picture should itself be approached
like a fine wine: Uncork it, give it time to breathe, and then luxuriate in
its rich, heady flavor. It also ages nicely, holding up beautifully under repeat
viewings.
THE WEDDING DATE We expect TV stars trying to make the transition to
the big screen to find themselves saddled with subpar material, but this one
takes that notion to the extreme. To say that the script for The Wedding
Date is bottom-of-the-barrel would be too kind; this one was already decomposing
under a mountain of mulch before Will & Grace‘s Debra Messing fished
it out. Messing plays a woman whose neurotic impulses are meant to be endearing
but who instead comes off as something of a pill. Required to fly to England
to attend the wedding of her loathsome sister (Amy Adams), she can’t stand the
thought of arriving alone, so she spends $6,000 to hire a male prostitute (Dermot
Mulroney) to pretend to be her boyfriend. This was clearly inspired by the success
of such Brit-flavored confections as Four Weddings and a Funeral and
Bridget Jones’ Diary – and the comparisons end there.
WHITE NOISE This silly movie asks viewers to accept Electronic Voice
Phenomenon (EVP) – the method by which the dead communicate with the living
via televisions and radios – as cold, hard fact; it then proceeds to spin a
fantasy yarn that flubs its own narrative constraints. Michael Keaton headlines
as an architect whose wife (Chandra West) dies in a car accident. Soon, a fuzzy
figure starts appearing through the snowy static on his TV set, but rather than
assume (as most of us would) that he’s illegally receiving HBO without a converter
box, he’s convinced it’s his late wife trying to communicate with him. It’s
a coin toss as to whether this cribs mostly from Poltergeist, The Ring or The Sixth Sense; in any case, its inconsistencies prove to be the
primary culprit, as this never plays fair even within the parameters of its
own supernatural milieu. 1/2
OPENS FRIDAY:
BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE: Jeff Daniels, Dave Matthews.
CONSTANTINE: Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz.
SON OF THE MASK: Jamie Kennedy, Alan Cumming.
This article appears in Feb 16-22, 2005.
