Movies : February 2001

17 February 2001

Hannibal

I no more wanted to see this than I did Strangeland or The Cell. I did so as a favor to a correspondent, with only the dimmest of memories regarding its predecessor The Silence of the Lambs. An ambitious multi-jurisdictional police operation makes its first blunder by identifying a component as the D.C.P.D. just like Kiss the Girls did. As you can see by their cruisers, it’s the Metropolitan Police Department. Then, in a stunning bit of stale screenplay that did not seem to bother my Pennsylvanian audience, there is a reference to the mayor’s cocaine problem. Lives are lost in the operation, and Clarice Starling, FBI agent, is reprimanded. A wealthy man collects artifacts of his assailant, while the escapee Hannibal Lecter tries to start over as a curator in Florence, Italy (identified only in dialogue as far as I remember, although Sardinia gets a subtitle). There is too much reward money and organizational infighting and personal ego at stake to allow Lecter to, er, lecture peacefully at the museum and forces converge intent on his capture. Julianne Moore, so subtle and effective in Magnolia, for example, is incapable of conveying the insecurity of the character that I remember. For all the hullabaloo about the violence, most of the murders are entirely prosaic. There are no chills or jumps, just bits of flesh from the butcher's shop intended to depict human body parts. (For the details, explore Screen It!) Did I like it? You know that sketch in Monty Python where a character concludes tasting a confection by saying, That was truly horrible! Well, this is not even worth that much distaste. Plus, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer seeks to ruin The Blue Danube Waltz for the current generation by having the wealthy man (an invalid with his head entirely mutilated) play the music as he plots his revenge. (I mention M-G-M only because of 2001: a space odyssey as Universal Pictures is a co-distributor to the extent of having its animated logo at the beginning and the copyright notice therefor at the end.)

129 minutes

08 February 2001

The Gift

Cate Blanchett was so robbed. I knew it in 1999, and I felt it strongly in the first few minutes of this undermarketed thriller. Annie Wilson (Blanchett) is a widow with three young sons getting by in a small town in the South (called Brixton in the film, but played by three municipalities in Georgia) on Social Security payments and the generosity of those for whom she does readings. Since everyone she meets has problems, from major to life-threatening and everything in-between, she is one busy psychic. None of them are bothered that she uses ESP testing cards like those seen in The Schizoid Man episode of The Prisoner instead of the Tarot or anything more traditional. When the fiancée of the school principal goes missing one weekend, the modest suspense swirls around Annie as she experiences her visions. What is a courtroom scene doing in the middle of a thriller? Objection! That sheriff is giving hearsay evidence! Disregard that testimony! Did I like it? I really did. That was even before Katie Holmes (as the spoiled rich fiancée, startlingly tall next to Greg Kinnear as the principal) flashed her breasts. Honestly. Blanchett is captivating. She is surrounded by star power (Keanu Reeves, Hilary Swank) and there is at least one decent chill.

111 minutes

07 February 2001

The Pledge

Here it is, I thought, 32 years after Easy Rider and Jack Nicholson is still willing to put in a day’s work. (Of course, his career is much longer than that, but I’ve not seen any of his earlier work.) Jerry is a police officer in Reno, Nevada on his last day, at his retirement party, even, when the call comes in from an overwhelmed department in another county of a murdered juvenile. A girl has been murdered and left in the snow, and he must join the investigation. The distraught mother demands he swear on his eternal soul that he will find the killer. When his former supervisor (Aaron Eckhart, the decent neighbor from Erin Brockovich) gets a confession from a confused suspect who then kills himself, Jerry is unpersuaded that justice has been served. A little too conveniently, he buys a gasoline station and general store in the general area of the murder (the operation of which never demands too much of his time) and continues his investigation. He becomes friendly with a bartender (Robin Wright Penn, and I sure hope that scar is a little sheet of silicone, I don’t remember one in Unbreakable) who, again a little too conveniently, has a daughter of the same age and appearance as the previous victim. Did I like it? There’s a string of cameos to test your knowledge of actors. It doesn’t dwell on the grisly aspects of the crimes (there are additional murders). Director Sean Penn indulges a bit in superimpositions, flash forwards, and other distractions. Not having seen As Good As It Gets, I don’t know how his performance compares, but Nicholson is very effective.

125 minutes

02 February 2001

Head Over Heels (2001)

The Hollywood machine grinds on. A property is developed. Talent is cast. Union members give the result a professional gloss. Why did I bother? Monica Potter was on the same cover of Vanity Fair with Julia Stiles, but having missed her performance in Patch Adams and having nothing to remember from Con Air, I don’t get the same sense of presence from her. The depiction of her job repairing and restoring art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art lacks the verisimilitude one would expect from a premier institution for the display of art. Where are the hoods to take away the vapors? Where are the tacky door mats to capture dust? Why is the art being hauled about by an clumsy man down steps to the work floor, without any jigs on carts? Why would an institution put such a back-office job in the main building, anyway? (Maybe it is the less-than-flattering depiction which restricts the film to exterior shots. A Perfect Murder had much more cooperation.) Maybe it was the ethnically attractive name of Milicevic, playing one of the four models in the fabulous two-story apartment. (And how attractive should we find a woman whose sole residential strategy is serially to find some sap to move in with?) At least Freddie Prinze, Jr. is allowing his characters to age along with him. Did I like it? The credit for Canadian casting is a tip-off that the location shooting in New York City was limited. The shots of the police cruisers are a little too tight to allow us to see anything identifying (suspiciously, the cruisers are the old blue). Still, Potter is symmetrical.

86 minutes

Entries subject to editing at any time. Last edited on: 10-Oct-2008