Back Catalogue: Reviews 1

Back Catalogue: Reviews 1

Cast: Michael Caine, Brendan Fraser, Hai Yen
Director: Philip Noyce

If Michael Caine hadn't at least won an Oscar nomination for "The Quiet American," there would've been no justice in Hollywood. Caine's long career is filled with illustrious performances, even in pictures unworthy of his talent, but now, at 69, he's better than ever as he triumphs in a part that demands everything that has made him such a good actor.

"The Quiet American", adapted from Graham Greene's novel, has a screenplay by Robert Schenkkan and Christopher Hampton and has been directed by Phillip Noyce, who has made another mark this season with his riveting "Rabbit-Proof Fence." You may have heard of the controversy surrounding the film, the release of which has been held up until now because of concerns that it might be taken as anti-American in the light of the wave of patriotism and fight against terrorism since 9/11.

However, seeing the film as anti-American is utter nonsense. Though it is decidedly against the American attempt to replace the colonial French in 1952 Saigon in the face of Vietnamese resistance and we all know where that mistaken U.S. policy led. If anything, the film assumes extra importance today in pointing to the need to be alert to actions that can once again get America into deep trouble.

Caine plays the role of British journalist Thomas Fowler, who is living in Saigon and, although married to a wife in London whom he would like to divorce if she'd only agree, is deeply in love with a young Vietnamese woman named Phuong (played by the beautiful Hai Yen), who has worked as a dance hostess. It's more than a matter of love for Fowler. He would be utterly crushed if he lost her. The huge age difference doesn't bother Phuong - what does is his inability to marry her and take her to London when he returns.

At the outset we learn of the mysterious murder of an American aide officer found dead in the Saigon River, and a flashback begins to fill us in on what happened. The young American is Alden Pyle, played earnestly by Brendan Fraser. When he meets Phuong, he flips for her and in a scene that isn't altogether believable, he proposes to her right in front of Fowler. Pyle wants to marry her and take her to the United States, which is tempting to her and to her sister who wants a better life for her than being the mistress of a married man.

This competition for Phuong is scary for Fowler, who attempts to maintain his hold over her, and Caine masterly shows his fear combined with the confidence of a man of worldly experience and the lurking pain that could overtake him if he lost. But the plot is much more complicated. Fowler is beginning to have suspicions that Pyle has a secret mission, and the journalist is also becoming increasingly disgusted with the violence and terrorism he sees as the Vietnamese battle to free their country and the French desperately try to hold on. As a newsman, he is getting bylines reporting on events - as a man he is trying to keep his personal life together. He and Pyle become uneasy acquaintances, and as events unfold, Fowler gets an unexpected opportunity to protect his turf while at the same time acting against the immorality he sees.

Noyce, his screenwriters and his production crew build an exotic but perilous atmosphere into which the personal stories fit, and a feeling of background reality is communicated thanks to the convincing location work. Adapting a Greene novel is a tough job because of the author's nuances and intricacies. But however viewers may feel about the relationship to the book, the film stands tall on its own merits and unfolds intelligently with considerable suspense. It is another of 2002's best films, and apart from every other plus, the performance by Caine should not be missed.

Bowling For Columbine

A few months after the 9/11 incidents, a large truck had an accident in northern Columbus, Ohio. As it was turning a corner, it slipped, turned over on its side, and ran into a restaurant. The resulting noise frightened people in the neighbourhood, as the police and fire units came to the scene. Next day, an article about the accident appeared on the front page of the local newspaper, The Columbus Dispatch. The headline wasn't "Truck Slides and Slams Into Restaurant", but rather a quote from a local resident, saying "We Thought It Was a Bomb". This scenario engages the tone for a stunning documentary.

Michael Moore's BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE examines the state of firearms control in the United States today, and one of the main conclusions he draws is that the pictures of violence painted by the news media perpetrate an atmosphere of fear that puts Americans on the defensive and causes them to react more rashly to the actions of those around them. It is telling that firearms sales went up over 30% in the months following 9/11, when fear seemed to reach its apex throughout most of America.

Moore, ever since his first documentary, has taken centre stage in his work. He is a large, shambling man who dresses in casual clothes and a baseball cap, and approaches all of his documentaries from his perspective. His first film, Roger And Me, detailed the economic hardships of Moore's hometown on Flint, Michigan, and Moore (who was often seen on camera), interviewed everyone from game show host Bob Eubanks and singer Pat Boone to the man whose job it was to serve eviction notices for the sheriff's office.

Since that film, he has gained in notoriety, to the point where he actually manages to land an interview with National Rifle Association bigwig (I use that term appropriately) and ageing movie star Charlton Heston. This closing seen is unmissable as he subtly gains the confidence of this doddering right wing buffoon before verbally humiliating him in full view of the camera.

Moore's work though has deeper political and social agendas. When he visits Littleton, Colorado, the home of Columbine High School, he observes its proximity to the Lockheed Martin missile plant, and wonders if maybe the fact that a local industry which manufactures weapons of mass destruction might have had an effect on the Columbine killers. He also interviews rocker Marilyn Manson, a common scapegoat for violence in schools, who reveals himself to be erudite and articulately insightful on issues of violence in the USA.

What Moore is saying - is that American society has become paranoid, fearful of losses of liberty and, more importantly to some, property. News programmes in the States constantly lead on stories of death and tragedy, and then cut to commercials which advertise nice cars and state-of-the-art appliances, seemingly advising the viewers to protect their treasures from the criminals which lurk in society. It recalls a line from Gershwin's 'Porgy and Bess': "fraid somebodys goin to rob em while they's out a-makin more? What for? "

Moore also finds a tragedy closer to home, in his hometown of Flint, in which a six-year-old girl was killed in school by a classmate who took his uncles handgun. The child was being raised by a single mother who was, like so many in impoverished Flint, employed as part of a work-for-welfare program. As a result of this program, she had to be transported by bus 80 minutes each day to and from a mall in Auburn Hills, Michigan, doing two jobs. She leaves early in the morning and comes home late at night. Moore states, that even with these jobs she still couldn't make enough money to pay her rent, and after her eviction, she moved in with her brother, who owned the gun used in the shooting. So who is to blame here?

One part of the film I found immensely effective was a montage of wars and US foreign policy decisions from the past half-century, set to Louis Armstrong's 'What a Wonderful World'. Also, the wide range of incidents (the Vietnam War, the ousting of Noriega, American funding of the Taliban/Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, both of whom the States now desperately want to permanently remove from the global landscape they helped create.

This review perhaps paints Bowling For Columbine as a morbid experience, when in fact it's anything but. Moores signature man-on-the-street approach yields some wonderful moments, as when he applies for a loan in a bank which promises a free gun to all new members (understandably, he's curious whether it might not be dangerous to be handing out guns in a bank). There's also a hilarious sequence in which Moore contrasts American paranoia with the more laid-back people of Canada by going door-to-door, opening their unlocked front doors, and walking in uninvited. And those who remember Moore's failed attempts to talk to General Motors chairman Roger Smith in 'Roger and Me' will be surprised by the scene in which Moore and two injured survivors of Columbine enter K-Mart's corporate offices and ask to refund the bullets in their bodies, with unexpected results.

He also approaches US TV music-show icon Dick Clark ("Bandstand"), employer of the tragic lady whose 6 year old son shot his classmate...can you guess the response? No prizes there.

Moore wears his politics on his sleeve, never more so here than in the scene where he interviews Heston, and makes a perfectly reasonable point. Heston obviously knew Moore's reputation, but still walks out on the interview.

Recalling Pulp Fiction when Samuel L. Jackson's character says: "if my answers frighten you, you should cease asking scary questions" Michael Moore proves that scary questions often answer themselves.

Moore is to be treasured as being almost unique these days...an American man and filmmaker of morality and social conscience, with a mediabusting, trailblazing heart of gold, tempered with stone. See this film at all costs.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Darker and more dramatic than Philosophers /Sorcerers Stone, this account of Harry's troubled second year at Hogwarts possesses a greater confidence and creative flair - and is tremendous fun.

Just as author J.K. Rowling assumed a certain reader knowledge in her second book (published in 1999), so do returning director Chris Columbus and screenwriter Steve Kloves reduce exposition down to the minimum for Part 2. It's actually hard to imagine anyone seeing this who hasn't caught the original film.

Therefore it's only a matter of about 20 minutes until Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) who has endured yet another tortuous stint as a virtual prisoner at the suburban home of his monumentally tedious and obese uncle and cousin plus skinny aunt, is off again to Hogwarts to resume his study of witchcraft and wizardry.

Part of the buildup is spent back at Diagon Alley, where Harry first encounters the fabulous character of Gilderoy Lockhart - played sublimely by an excellent Kenneth Branagh - so ideally cast you'd think Rowling wrote the character with him in mind. The preening author of the autobiography "Magical Me," Lockhart is joining the Hogwarts faculty as teacher of Defence Against the Dark Arts. Also entering the stage for the first time is Lucius Malfoy (Jason Isaacs) the blond-tressed, evil-oozing father of Harry's school arch-rival, Draco.

Mysteriously prevented from passing through the barrier to platform nine and three-quarters at King's Cross station, Harry and his best friend, Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) are forced to travel by car - Ron's dad's flying Ford Anglia, to be specific -- which lands the boys safely on the school grounds, but none too smoothly in the mighty branches of an ancient tree that takes great offence at the intrusion. Look out for a lovely cameo as Mr. Weasley by the ever-brilliant Mark (Fast Show) Williams

Although Harry's voice has dropped an octave or so since the first year, he's not really a teenager yet; all the same, there is a new ardour in his excitement over reuniting with Hermione (Emma Watson) the top student in their class. Appropriately, Harry, Ron and Hermione seem much more assured as best friends and co-conspirators this time around; a little self-consciousness is evident, but the young leading thesps indulge in moments of spontaneity that reassuringly suggest they now feel more at home in their roles.

Although Hogwarts is still dominated by the same figures - headmaster Albus Dumbledore (the late, great Richard Harris), Professor McGonagall (wonderful Maggie Smith) Professor Snape (the outstanding Alan Rickman) and Hagrid the Giant (reliably played again by Robbie Coltrane) - and classes begin promisingly with Lockhart and the new professor of Herbology, Sprout (Miriam Margolyes), who performs a particularly amusing demonstration of the proper method of topping mandrakes, all is not well. Harry starts hearing a malevolent voice of unknown origin urging him to kill, and a pet cat is found hanging in a hallway.

These and subsequent events, in which students are found "petrified," lead to speculation about Hogwarts' legendary Chamber of Secrets, which is thought to have been reopened. Professor McGonagall tells her charges such a chamber, the alleged home of a terrifying monster, has never been found, which only encourages Harry, Ron and Hermione to dig into its mysteries.

Conflict hinges on the supposition that whoever opened the chamber must be the descendent of Salazar Slytherin, the renegade co-founder of Hogwarts who insisted only pure-blooded wizards and witches should be permitted at the school. Suspicion naturally falls upon Draco Malfoy (snidily portrayed again by Tom Felton) whose father is ardently committed to ridding the institution of "Muggles," or the children of normal human beings. To this end, Hermione begins preparing an exotic potion to enable her and her two friends to interrogate Draco on the subject.

But the possibility cannot be ignored that, in the manner of "Star Wars"' Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter himself is the unknowing descendent of the most accomplished and evil wizard on the books. Certainly others think so; Harry conveniently turns up wherever an unseemly incident occurs, and he surprises even himself by being a Parselmouth, someone able to converse with a snake.

In a nicely rendered sepia sequence, Harry learns a good deal from the "interactive" diary of a long-ago student named Tom Riddle, whose exploits in the chamber reveal the involvement of Hagrid and Dumbledore and the portentous escape of a spider. When Hermione becomes petrified and is removed to hospital, and the school's very existence becomes threatened by all the disturbances, Harry and Ron undertake a visit to Hagrid's, then to a spider-infested forest, to crack the puzzle.

Ultimately, however, Harry must enter the chamber himself, sword in hand, to confront the beast. The nocturnal spider sequence may well spawn many a childhood nightmare but the climactic serpent battle packs genuine tension and parents might want to think twice about taking their genuine small fry tiddler offspring along to "Chamber of Secrets."

With the newfound confidence shown by Columbus and the continued shrewd stewardship of producer David Heyman, improvements over the first film are to be found in all departments. Cinematographer Roger Pratt ("Batman," "The End of the Affair"), has Columbus moving the camera much more than before, which gives the film increased momentum and visual energy; greater contrasts between light and shadow add a darker tone.

Production designer Stuart Craig adds to his accomplishment here with superb creations for Dumbledore's office, the spider's lair and the massive chamber itself. Costume designer Lindy Hemming ("Topsy Turvy") has added to the imaginative costumes established by Judianna Makovsky with witty creations for the outrageous Lockhart and the sinister Lucius, among others. Even the new Quidditch match is much better achieved than the blandly computerized-looking counterpart last time out.

The greatest relief of all: The volume and aggressiveness of John Williams' hellish score for the original has been reduced several times over, to the point where the musical accompaniment, which still remains more ever-present than absolutely necessary, nonetheless functions in a properly supportive and helpful manner.

Near-epic running time might prove wearying to some, but it really won't be a barrier. At 161 minutes, the picture is nine minutes longer than "...Stone," although final credits run a full 10 minutes. At the end of them is a very short filmed coda revealing the humorous fate of one of the principals - so dont leave early!!

For the next series entry, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," which begins production in Spring 2003 - Alfonso Cuaron will assume the directorial reins from Columbus, who will remain as executive producer. It's a prospect that has fans curious already as to the different inflections the talented Mexican helmer might bring to this very British franchise.

In the meantime, the series has already taken a step in the right direction.