K 19 The Widowmaker
REVIEWED 07/02, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Admittedly, when I'd heard that Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson were pairing up to co-star in an historical suspense thriller taking place on board a 1960's Russian nuclear submarine this Summer, I started salivating. These guys are two of my all-time favourite actors. Both are armed with enough natural charisma, brooding pathos, and finely honed leading man ability to lift any mediocre script to the heights of greatness on their own. Together, I drooled Pavlovian, they'd be guaranteed to command this movie in to the stratosphere of Hollywood legend. A 'Das Boot' for a new generation. Well, I was wrong.

"K-19 The Widowmaker" is more a poorly made TV documentary than a big screen film. It stinks, because we're never really given any reason to care about any of these characters or the calamitous situations they're faced with. This film is based on real life events. Actual people lived this terrible experience. We saw this similarly played out recently, in the grim news coverege of the Kursk disaster. Very little of that truth or immediacy transpires on the screen here. It pissed me off, because a dope like me could have come up with a better script for this one. Don't believe me? Well, apart from nothing consequential happening other than a handful of men becoming deathly ill from radiation poisoning while attepting to repair a coolant leak in the sub's reactor core, any obligatory friction between the 'cold fish' captain (Ford) and either the dreary crew or their sympathetic commander (Neeson) thuds and sinks like a dud torpedo.

The main story as it's been presented would have actually worked much better as a backdrop for a more personal story. Something the audience could have hooked in to and easily empathized with. Such as, say, us following the stories of four or five of the crewmen as they're signed on for duty. Young men in awe of their assignment, giving us insight in to their individual thoughts and likes/dislikes about the officers and their substandard working conditions. Building on and straining their existing comradrie as they come to grips with the bigger story relentlessly unfolding. Us watching them reacting in different ways. Showing us what things like honour and duty and loyalty - even Communism - meant to young Russian men of that brink-of-war era. That's the kind of script I would have come up with. And, they did try to do this later on. Having a few of the same guys joke around and moon an American destroyer that's shadowing them. Having the keener reactor officer pine for his sweetheart, and break down in cowardly terror over the destructive horror of nuclear contamination. However, sporatic scenes like this were really too little too late. It's obvious that the director wasn't out to make another action-packed 'Hunt For Red October', or even a remake of any of the more satisfying Naval movies of the 1950's. This is a contemporary flick - an emotive actor's potential delight - about tested personal conviction and courage under extreme circumstances, that just ended up being a watered down and murky vehicle for two extremely talented stars and a boat-load of supporting cast members who should have steered clear of this miserably boring wreck.

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The Kid Stays in the Picture
REVIEWED 09/02, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Based on the unbelievable autobiography, this brassy yet slightly melancholic documentary traces the blazing rollercoaster-like life of one of the most notorious figures in recent motion picture history. Robert Evans had already given up a failed acting career to co-build a lucrative business with his brother, manufacturing women's trousers, when sheer coincidence landed him a choice role playing opposite screen legend James Cagney in 'The Man of a Thousand Faces', in 1957. That same year, his self-professed dumb luck landed this then-twentysomething pretty boy a rather memorable part in the original movie adaptation of 'The Sun Also Rises' - much to the chagrin of Hemingway and most of the starring cast, and spurring the phrase that would become this flick's title. Clearly, this was a very different era than exists today.

So much so that Evans quickly found himself in an unrivaled position of incredible power at the reborn studios of Paramount Pictures by the second half of the 1960's, spearheading the release of such cinematic landmarks as 'Rosemary's Baby', 'Love Story', and 'The Godfather'. This film specifically covers almost three decades' worth of Evans' seemingly Midas touch reign as wunderkind producer, bombastically highlighting the most interesting bundle of hilarious and scandalous anecdotes with wryly off-the-cuff, sometimes self-effacing candour. In his heyday, there's no doubt in Evans' mind that he had the elephantine cajones to singlehandedly bend tempestuous celebrities and industry moguls to his will, and yet bond loyalties that brought some of those same people to his aide in times of personal crisis. He dishes these memories so convincingly that you can't help but gleefully gobble them up. Regardless of whether his version is completely factual or not.

All that said, I thoroughly enjoyed this big screen swansong. However, it's obvious that it won't be everyone's cup of tea. Co-scripted and gruffly narrated by Evans, and heavily laden with old footage and computer-enhanced stills, it's a kind of love story intended for those folk who love the movies that Evans produced during the height of his Machiavelian-like dominance of Tinseltown. 'The Odd Couple'. 'Marathon Man'. 'Chinatown'. 'The Cotton Club' (aptly featuring James Cagney's last on-screen performance, which surprisingly goes unmentioned here.) Told, by all accounts cited, by the driving force behind these and several other contemporary classics, for a now aging generation who're interested in sitting through gloriously unabashed reminiscences of the meteoric rise and fall of this truly one of a kind Hollywood maverick.

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Knockaround Guys
REVIEWED 10/02, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Growing up under the shadow of an infamous parent can be a blessing or it can be a curse for any kid. In this rather light dark drama, the latter is obviously the case, since Matty (extremely well-played by Barry Pepper) has spent his entire life being the well-kept yet unfortunate son of Brooklyn Mob Underboss Benny 'Chains' Demaret (Dennis Hopper). He's had it bad at both ends, really. Never being allowed to live down him failing a cruel initiation into his father's violent world when Matty was only twelve, and him continually failing to go legit as an ordinary citizen because of his 'family' connections as a man. His only refuge being his three close friends - who are also Mafia sons similarly stuck between a rock and a hard place.

At the end of his rope, after a last chance job interview falls flat, Matty concedes to his underworld fate. He jumps at an opportunity for meagre paternal acceptance when Benny, suspicious that somebody within his organization is skimming from him, agrees to bypass the usual channels by letting his boy vouch for a bungling pilot-licensed buddy (Seth Green) to fly down and pick up an especially important out of town payment. Seems easy enough. Of course, the bag of cash goes missing during a stopover in small town Montana. Forcing Matty and his chums to personally clean up this humiliating mess, like fish out of water, before Dad ends up in the East River wearing cement shoes (do they still do that?) Their problems escalate even further when they discover that the money has found it's way into the greedy hands of the local ex-Marine Sheriff.

There's a lot here, in this fairly entertaining movie. Loads of well-developed, angst-riddled comradeship from this cast of young men desperate to make their mark in a world that should be their oyster but isn't. The cold menace of their parent's dangerous criminal livelihood chillingly presented by the likes of Matty's charismatic and manipulative Uncle (John Malcovitch). The Gambino versus Garth culture clash of tough guy city slickers facing off against good ol' boy rednecks. And, a handful of surprisingly goofy laughs thrown in by a few of the supporting characters. This flick could have easily fallen apart at the seams as a stupid comedy of errors, but instead succeeds in weaving a complex tapestry of juxtaposed threads held together by a well-paced plot and some extraordinary talent.

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Kill Bill 1
REVIEWED 10/03, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

The Bride (Uma Thurman) is out for revenge. Four years and six months ago, she was left for dead with a bullet in her head, on the dusty wooden floor of a small El Paso, Texas chapel where this lithe then-pregnant beauty's simple wedding ceremony was brutally interrupted by the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad - a quartet of killers that she was formerly a part of, led by a masochistic and shadowy figure named Bill (David Carradine). Apparently, nobody leaves the Squad alive. So, after escaping continual rape and certain death in the Perdido Hills Hospital's Coma Ward, and discovering that she has lost her unborn baby to that past carnage, The Bride sets out with the all-consuming purpose of systematically murdering each of these snake-aliased assassins until she can mete out her final vengeance upon Bill. However, he's the fifth and last name on her dwindling hit list, and a long ways off, as her blood oath hunt leads first to an adrenaline-thumping vicious knife fight that also trashes Vernita Green's (codenamed 'Copperhead', played by Vivica A. Fox) quaint Pasadena family home and then to the merciless single-handed slaughter of the contemporary sword-wielding Crazy 88 Gang over lorded by powerful Oriental-Asian crime boss O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) in Tokyo. What remains to be seen is if The Bride's merciless lust for mortal payback will inevitably destroy her on this bloody path to ultimately killing Bill, in Volume 2...

Frankly, I wasn't looking forward to reviewing this already critically-acclaimed first installment of writer/director Quentin Tarantino's two-fisted double feature after leaving the theatre. I'm a huge fan of his previous flicks, but was actually left feeling as though a longer and more finished effort - that didn't waste so much screen time paying homage to ‘chop-socky’ cinema and the glut of cheesy samurai movies cranked out of the now defunct Shaw Brothers' Hong Kong studios in the 1970's - would have been a wiser choice for this otherwise visionary director's self-professed fourth picture. Sure, the unrelated yet cute two or three Bruce Lee connections (including the 'Game of Death' (1978) yellow jump suit minus Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's big footprint, and Carradine himself - who starred as Kwai Chang Caine in Lee's originally co-created 'Kung-Fu' 1972-75 television series), and the heavy doses of subtitling and Anime sequences, were remotely fun but fairly peripheral to the plot. There's a lot of this sort of stuff peppered throughout, as though our favourite gritty wunderkind, who’s renowned for his schizophrenic non-linear editing, was attempting to be coyly hip while clumsily dunking a paying audience headfirst into his love for these utterly sociopathic genres. Sadly, he quickly runs out of steam at the deep end. Thurman, while interesting enough in her own as-yet patchy back-story, really isn't compelling or believable as a supposedly ruthless super human blade master here. The amazingly fluffy script actually fails her a number of times, both with bouts of silly dialogue and unfulfilled character development, as she basically lopes around in this alternate Soap Opera-like universe that's light years from anything we've seen from Tarantino in the past. I mean that in a bad way. On it's own, 'Kill Bill: Volume 1' is little more than a vacuous mish mash of violence visually sexed up for the MTV generation. I'd like to believe that the second part (due for release in February 2004) to this gory soup will be better, but I have a gnawing sense that - just as The Bride doesn't actually Kill Bill in 2003, as the trailer promised - we've been had and that a lazy, laurel-resting cash grab was the real motive behind this slickly disappointing and boring teaser.

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Kill Bill 2
REVIEWED 04/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

"The one creature where death is most assured," one-eyed Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) coolly recites from hand-scrawled notes to her painfully writhing former compadre from the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, "Is the Black Mamba." How true that is. It's been four long years since Bill (David Carradine) and that death-dealing quartet of cold-hearted mercenaries turned The Bride's (Uma Thurman, as Beatrix Kiddo) - aka 'Black Mamba' - small nuptial rehearsal at El Paso's sleepy Two Pines Wedding Chapel into a grizzly, bullet-riddled massacre. Kiddo was left for dead with a bullet in her head by Bill's own gun. Lost in a coma all that time, unaware of what had happened to her then unborn child. However, this once most dangerous woman in the world is back, more dangerous than ever and bent on a brutal rampage of scornful revenge. Systematically hunting down and slaughtering those responsible for the murder of her unwitting groom and friends, striking the murderers off her list one by one in bloody satisfaction that each corpse leads her closer to the main man responsible for destroying her dreams of a new life. Bill's younger brother Budd (Michael Madsen) is next on that list, before The Bride crosses her finely crafted Hanzo sword with the sociopathic Driver. That was the plan. The plan went wrong, though. And, Beatrix soon finds herself buried alive in a Texan cemetery, struggling for her life with only her wits and the deft training of Master Pei Mei (Chia Hui Liu) to give her the unbridled strength she needs to complete this furious vendetta. As Bill points out in his usual round about manner, Beatrice is a lot like the comic book hero Superman. Not so similar in their motives, but certainly in how they both stand out above their peers. Naturally born to be who and what they are. Needing to disguise themselves in order to seem ordinary. Well, the time for hiding is gone now, because the Black Mamba's venomous streak is laying waste to anyone in her seething path - from the Badlands of America's Southwest to Tokyo's hydra-like crime world and back again - towards coming face to face in a relentless blood oath against her aged ex-lover...

When the apparently critically canonized by defacto yet stylishly goofy and gory first volume from writer/director Quentin Tarantino hit the big screen a number of months ago, I was skeptical that this second half would be much more than a completely lazy cash-grabbing let down. Being a huge fan of pretty well all his previous films, I secretly hoped that I was wrong in my prediction. Unfortunately, I wasn't. What you get this time around is a fairly contrived hybrid Spaghetti Western slash Kung Fu slash Seventies' Blaxploitation slash fest predominantly showcasing a lot of ridiculously hackneyed acting cradled by a snail's pace live action cartoon plotline that's punctuated with relentlessly mindless violence. There's not as much exasperating carnage this time out, and there are traces of sparklingly meandering Tarantino-esque dialogue and wonderful imagery barely breathed in from time to time, but those fleeting moments of familiar genius are quickly pushed aside by wasted time spent clumsily attempting to flesh out the sorely uninteresting remaining supporting characters and Thurman's woman on a death wish mission role's back story. As though this cinematic wunderkind suffered major bouts of creative block trying to make a departure into new territory, and simply opted to rehash cool stuff from the past. Both his, and memorable highlights from other great movie maestros such as Orson Welles and Roman Polanski. Sure, as with 'Kill Bill Volume 1' (2003), we're given a one or two truly inspired scenes that make a paying audience sit up in their seats for a couple of minutes, but quite frankly, they're not enough to sustain those same ticket-holding moviegoers' initial enthusiasm from dissolving into boredom throughout this two hour and sixteen minute screening. Sadly, it's evident by the second reel that this borderline turkey could have been so much better (and easily combined with the first offering into a tighter, completely satisfying single three-hour offering) in more assuredly capable hands helming a different - much-needed far more captivating - troupe of players here. 'Kill Bill Volume 2' is basically a continuation of Tarantino's playtime genre-morphing experiment gone awry at his fans' expense. Both parts are still worth renting as hip curiosities, but there are so many thoroughly entertaining movies out there far more worthy of attention that I can't really recommend going out of your way to spend time with this blood-splattered celluloid anesthetic, as anything other than fodder for water cooler banter. Disappointing.

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King Arthur
REVIEWED 07/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Clive Owen stars as neither a king, nor any real resemblance to previous screen incarnations torn from the famous Arthurian legends, portraying homesick rebellious outpost Centurion leader Lucius Artorius 'Arthur' Castus during the last days of the Roman Empire's bloody occupation of Britain. Sure, this rather grimy hundred and thirty-minute flick does apparently pluck slightly recognizable bits from Welsh poet Aneirin's original circa 590 AD battle saga 'Gododdin'; believed to have inspired Bishop of St Asaph Geoffrey of Monmouth's (1100-1154) Merlin-based 12th Century trilogy volumes that included the Arthur-citing 'Historia Regum Britanniae', former knighted UK Parliamentarian and convicted criminal Sir Thomas Malory's (1405-1471) famed 'Le Morte d'Arthur' first published in 1485, Bombay-born naturalist Terence Hanbury White's (1906-1964) series of fantasies that began with his 1938 book 'The Sword in the Stone' (adapted by Disney Studios in 1961), and American co-founder of the Society for Creative Anachronism and feminist writer Marion Zimmer Bradley's (1930-1999) best selling 1983 novel 'The Mists of Avalon', among numerous others. However, you won't find too many believable references to those or Hollywood's tuneful ménage a trios 'Camelot' (1967), sexy Oscar-nominated gore fest 'Excalibur' (1981), or even irreverently goofy favourite 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' (1975) anywhere in David Franzoni's fairly bleak and horribly contrived screenplay here.

I'd read that director Antoine Fuqua cast horse-shy Brit character actor Owen in the leading role because he wanted a virtual unknown who was unattached to any previous blockbusters, and yet this hugely disappointing celluloid stinker ironically retells the story of King Arthur as a completely unrecognizable big action morality play, as though everyone knows of the principal players without having the remotest of clues about the story itself. No, I'm not miffed because Merlin (Stephen Dillane) is depicted as a magic-less scraggly old blue guy, or because Keira Knightley's Queen-to-be Guinevere weirdly combines Katherine Hepburn's pointed wit seen in 'Robin and Marian' (1976) with Mel Gibson's machismo from 'Braveheart' (1995) throughout. I wanted more of them. Frankly, what a paying audience ends up sitting through feels more like a lazily different mismatched jigsaw puzzle movie rip-off of Malory's chivalric hero, where producer Jerry 'high octane cheeseball' Bruckhiemer's Tinseltown lawyers managed to get the names changed to more recognizable ones at the last minute in order to ensure more ticket sales. A badly made, incredibly boring different movie rip-off. This Arthur knew Merlin as a boy, but in what ways? The back-story is only slightly touched upon in a noisy confusing flashback. The Saxons, led by snarling cardboard cutout villain Cerdic (Stellan Skarsgård) lay siege north of Hadrian's Wall, but why have these Roman-led Knights of the Round Table failed to vanquish them or the Picts during the past three years? Why should we care about these eight remaining knights anyways? Answering those and a few more questions, instead of loading up this terrible disaster with over-long scenes of CGI enhanced posturing and coma-inducing dialogue, might have put 'King Arthur' back in the saddle towards a worthwhile story. Maybe. Yawn.

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Kyun! Ho Goya Na...
REVIEWED 08/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

When gorgeous young blue-green eyed brunette orphanage worker Diya Malhotra (former Miss World 1994 and famed ex-advertising model Aishwarya Rai ('Devdas' (2002)) needs to take her Masters of Social Work exam in Mumbai, man child race car competitor Arjun Khanna's (Vivek Oberoi) parents welcome her into their comfortable suburban bungalow as a favour to her coffee plantation owner father - much to the chagrin of Arjun, who's own father has beckoned him back home from his free-wheeling bachelorhood in Sakleshpur at the same time. Love is definitely in the air, but these two head strong personalities face a long and troubled road ahead before they're both ready to fully realize and share their true feelings for each other. Particularly young Khanna, whose credo, "Defeat and love are not in my vocabulary," tends to get in the way as precisely the wrong time, forcing Diya to seriously contemplate marrying somebody else.

Frankly, I really wanted to enjoy this subtitled three-hour Hindi offering from beginning to its closing credits. The delightfully expressive, Drew Barrymore-like mannerisms of Rai - who is reportedly the highest paid actress in India these days - are truly captivating throughout. And, seeing legendary sixty-one year-old Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan - who's headlined truckloads of East Asian movies since the 1970's before fuelling his popularity even further on local television - playfully devour every scene as Uncle Raj Chauhan here was a sheer joy to see. This guy's so famous that even I recognized him after all of these years. Unfortunately, co-writer/director Samir Karnik's and screenwriter Rajesh Soni's rather unrefined script fails to keep a paying audience's attention for the most part, pretty well leaving you somewhat bored with Oberoi's relatively unconvincing attempts, until the next extremely well-crafted, heavily choreographed musical interlude bursts across the screen. All of the contemporary song and dance numbers are incredibly enjoyable and visually electrifying, but they're sadly not enough to keep this flick from running out of gas at key moments. The entire last half feels quickly cobbled together, as though written on the fly after sitting through each screening of dailies, without much forethought given to this family-oriented picture's over-all structure or need for compelling dialogue. Leaving these otherwise obviously capable ensemble players to unfairly rely on their individual screen presence and what sometimes looks like smatterings of last-minute improvisation, just to keep you tuned in. Rent this one as a second or third choice, primarily for the handful of beautifully shot scenes by cinematographer Sudeep Chatterjee, but this meandering over-long romance really could have been a whole lot better.

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Kinsey
REVIEWED 12/04, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Reclusive yet popular, assistant Indiana University biology professor and published zoologist Alfred Charles Kinsey (1894-1956) quickly turns his intensive twenty year study of gall wasps to human sexuality, shortly after realizing to his dismay that much of what makes up the collective knowledge of normal bedroom behavior in late 1930's America is steeped in unwavering Puritanism and bizarre old wives tales. So, much to the chagrin of some faculty, but with the blessing of friend and Dean Herman B. Wells, Kinsey (Liam Neeson; 'A Prayer for the Dying' (1987), 'Love Actually' (2003)) attempts to apply a scientific method of recording the exact history and preferences of people's sex lives by purposefully interviewing several volunteers from the school's rather eager student body. His in-depth probing soon extends far beyond that scholastic population, thrusting across the country as Alfred collects thousands of case studies for his new publication, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) - the first in an intended series of controversial, ground breaking books that is next followed by Sexual Behavior in the Human Female in 1953. However, the external forces of prudish outrage fanned by relentless media attention and a host of simmering tensions amongst his staff and at home conspire to irreparably threaten the continuation of Kinsey's important research.

Playful double entendre aside, it's clear from this mildly impressive feature that the real Kinsey's efforts to drag the public out of the Dark Ages of repressive sexual superstition was a monumental task well worth devoting the better part of his life towards. Whether or not you agree with the methodology still used by the Kinsey Institute today, it's tough to argue against knowing what's actually considered normal and healthy sexuality throughout the world, regardless of gender or lifestyle or creed. However, 'Kinsey' the movie seems more interested in simply shocking a paying audience with naughty words and porn-tinged moments than in giving you a true sense of this one man's persistent struggle beyond the obvious barriers of his era. That's where writer/director Bill Condon's ('Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh' (1995), 'Gods and Monsters' (1998)) screenplay betrays itself, never really offering Neeson the resources to pull you in and root for him. Kinsey remains just as much an enigma by the closing credits as he was before the opening scene, except for a few forgettable asides referring to his troubled childhood and rather insincerely empathetic demeanor. Important scenes seem to be missing, betraying your sustained interest in his motivations. Frankly, it's those who are interviewed who give this picture any compelling life, with actor Harley Cross as a brutalized Gay man, John Lithgow as Kinsey's brittle Methodist father (in a malevolently crustier role reminiscent of Lithgow's Bible thumping patriarch in 'Footloose' (1984)), and Lynn Redgrave as his final case subject, all candidly commiserating their individual stories with incredibly captivating ability. Everything else here, including the drawn out and fairly graphic dynamics between Alfred and wife Clara McMillen (Laura Linney; 'Primal Fear' (1996), 'Mystic River' (2003)), and sexually fickle assistant Clyde Martin (Peter Sarsgaard, 'Dead Man Walking' (1995), 'Garden State' (2004)), feels weak and unprepared by comparison. Even the irony of Tim Curry's ('The Rocky Horror Picture Show' (1975), 'Charlie's Angels' (2000)) abstinence-preaching Hygiene teacher falls flat. It's also odd that editor Virginia Katz would accept such badly shot clips of woodland animals for those brief moments of introspection, jarring you from cinematographer Frederick Elmes' otherwise unobtrusive camera work. For whatever reason, this hundred and eighteen-minute screening clicks out like an unauthorized biography cobbled together by giggly Film 101 students hoping to shock their parents with surprisingly clumsy use of nudity, while tenuously avoiding making pornography that could have undermined mainstream theatrical distribution. It comes close, but there's not much - and little else - to particularly get excited about. Steer clear of this somewhat flaccid, talent-wasting offering if you're hoping for memorable satisfaction.

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Kisna
REVIEWED 01/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

India has changed in many ways since the days when aged Lady Katherine (Polly Adams; 'Clinic Exclusive' (1971), 'L'Étincelle' (1984)) was still a small naive girl growing up there under the gilded aristocratic lordship of her father, Commissioner Peter Beckett (Michael Maloney; 'Hamlet' (1996), 'Hysteria' (1998)), in the mid-1930's. Still overlooking the secluded Northern village nestled where the Ganges River begins, their weathered and rambling, hilltop mansion is now merely a luxury hotel. And, the local media seems rather suspicious of this regal Brit's rare ceremonial visit during her birthplace's Independence Day celebrations. However, neither the passage of time nor brewing skepticism can diminish her fond memories of a young stable boy named Kisna, whose simple friendship would grow into honour bound loyalty amidst their harrowing adventure upon Katherine's last return from London in 1947. Standing on this ancient ridge of jagged Himalayan rock where they had met again as adults, she recalls the brutal uprising that had separated her family and had put her life in peril at the hands of Prince Rhagoraj (Rajat Kapoor; 'Monsoon Wedding' (2001)). How Kisna (Vivek Oberoi; 'Company' (2002), 'Kyun...! Ho Gaya Na' (2004)) had bravely protected her, risking his arranged marriage to their childhood friend Luxmi (first timer Isha Sharvani) by leading Miss Beckett (first timer Antonia Bernath) across this rugged, revolt-gripped countryside towards an almost hopeless safety. All the while, being chased by his blood thirsty Uncle and outraged brother, and keeping one step ahead of the relentless, trigger happy Prince who was determined to make Katherine his wife.

Well, this fairly rollicking, subtitled romance from award-winning director Subhash Ghai certainly has a tough time figuring out what it wants to be. 'Kisna' is more a fantasy than a reliably true drama. Factual events are cited, but almost as selective after thoughts. Frankly, the first half plays out more like a children's story lightly shaded by Hindu teachings and Harlequin novels. These children play games despite racial boundaries - until Katherine is sent away for hugging this boy - and then she comes back a lovely pigtailed twenty-something caught up in the political upheaval of a nation in the throes of tumult. The core of this celluloid disaster seems to be a love story, but even that doesn't quite materialize because of Kisna's devotion to his bride to be, despite Luxmi's thunderous jealousy and dizzying bouts of athletic brooding. More than once, when Sharvani's gorgeous-looking character dips into a pouting tantrum, she ends up dangling herself from a rope by her toes like a circus performer - the typical reaction of heartbroken young fiancéés over half a Century ago, I guess. Then, there's the truly bizarre moment where this hundred and seventy-minute picture suddenly becomes a Christianity-inspired music video for Bernath to boogie in the ruins of an abandoned monastery, accompanied by a choir in wind swept golden robes. Huh? So, what a paying audience is essentially left sitting through are a series of sporadically interesting posturing sessions captured by cinematographer Ashok Mehta ('Moksha' (2001), 'Chalte Chalte' (2003)) featuring these wayward actors basically rambling around within this aggravatingly disjointed screenplay. 'Kisna' collapses into a cinematic mess where you're forced to subjectively pick out bits of entertainment from the few vaguely good portions of acting, action, and the prerequisite sets of singing and dancing, as opposed to being treated to what could have at least been a complete movie. Tiring. And, silly. Steer clear of this unbelievably disappointing and odd jumble of wasted talent and miscalculated debuts.

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Kung Fu Hustle
REVIEWED 04/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

All seemed normal in Pig Sty Alley, before two strangers entered the rusted gate of that crumbling rural huddle of small shops and apartment blocks long since estranged from the hustle and bustle and total Mob corruption of upscale downtown Hong Kong. Sing (Stephen Chow) and his oafish sidekick (Chi Chung Lam) came looking for trouble, attempting to intimidate anyone who wasn't too big or too muscular or too willing to fight them, to demonstrate that they're a ruthlessly fierce, reckless couple of dangerous men. They failed. So did the notoriously murderous, black suited and top hatted ranks of the dreaded Axe Gangsters led by Brother Sum's (Kwok Kuen Chan; 'Jui kuen II' (1994), 'The Era of Vampire' (2002)) brutish right hand man, that Sing - actually a small time nobody desperately aspiring to become a full fledged, axe-wielding gang member - nervously called in as back up. They're all beaten to death or sent flying on ten-knuckle airlines by a trio of distinctly unremarkable, humble members of this dusty community of farmers and forgotten peasants. Kung Fu Masters, from different ancient schools of martial arts, known to all as Coolie (Xing Yu) the lowly grunt, the slightly effeminate Tailor (Chiu Chi Ling), and Donut (Dong Zhi Hua) the local noodle cook. Brother Sum is furious. "We're the bad guys," he irately complains, swiftly hiring and dispatching two of China's top killers - both blind musicians who mercilessly strum evil death with each sharp-fingered pluck of their coffin-shaped harp - towards meting out underworld vengeance against these venerable new foes. However, it becomes immediately clear that Pig Sty Alley hides even more secretive, powerful Masters. The job requires Sing's amazing lock picking skills to infiltrate and free the number one killer, The Beast (Siu Lung Leung), from a heavily guarded mental institution in order to brutally crush any further resistance against the steadily dwindling Axe Gangsters' mighty iron grip.

Admittedly, I was really looking forward to seeing this critically acclaimed 2004 subtitled flick. It did seem strange though, that 'Gong fu' (its original Chinese title) is lauded as being something never seen before, while at the same time being compared to Silent Era pratfall comedies and Warner Brothers cartoons. If you've seen them, you've seen the basic visual premise of this one, which also cleverly slips cinematic nods to 'The Shining' (1980), 'Reservoir Dogs' (1992) and 'The Matrix Revolutions' (2003) into its sporadically hilarious blend of campy martial arts. Unfortunately, actor/co-writer/director Stephen Chow's ('Xi you ji da jie ju zhi xian lu qi yuan' (1994), 'Shaolin Soccer' (2001)) ninety-five minute effort does run out of steam once the initial novelty and wonderfully clever spoofiness wear off approximately half an hour in, and his, Tsang Kan Cheong's, Xin Huo's and Chan Man Keung's screenplay then attempts to incorporate fairly weak back stories and disjointed peripheral plot lines out of the blue for these stereotypical characters to play with. Sure, this feature's underlying irreverent bend pokes through with oftentimes bizarre CGI enhanced effects throughout that definitely do grab your attention and try tickling your funny bone, but the point to many of the longer scenes merely seems to be that a paying audience finds it enjoyable to watch a steady supply of people and furniture and architecture endlessly slammed and tossed around as though relentless violence and destruction is good clean fun worth laughing at. Buster Keaton and The Roadrunner are still funnier. Don't get me wrong. As a mindlessly silly and overly exaggerated, overlong series of live action animated brawls caught on film, this one does have its moments. On sheer screen presence alone, Qiu Yuen's ('The Man with the Golden Gun' (1974)) ornery, chain smoking Landlady easily steals almost every scene that she and Wah Yuen's personably sleazy Landlord are in. It's also clear that if Chow and crew had remained consistently imaginative - with more of Sum's brilliant dances with axes, and a lot more oddball gags not lost in translation to fill out the second reel that's bloated with what feel like simplistically improvised dramatic dailies - this award winning homeland blockbuster would have reached its potential as a completely enjoyable peerless farce. As it stands, the fresh ideas are there but left disappointingly unfulfilled almost as soon as they're touched upon. Rent it for the eye-popping beginning and over-all great special effects, but don't be surprised if boredom sets in long before the dust settles.

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Kaal
REVIEWED 05/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Two months after a horrifying midnight tiger attack put India's thirteen hundred square kilometre Orbit National Park of thick mountainous jungle and wide open grasslands on high alert, dangerous snake-handling wild animal wrangler and National Geographic Channel investigative reporter Krish Thapar (John Abraham; 'Dhoom' (2004)) and his wife and ace photographer Riya (Esha Deol) are dispatched to the area to uncover what appears to be rampant poaching masked by tales of man-eaters roaming this government protected natural reserve. Young adventure seeker Dev Malhotra (Vivek Oberoi; 'Kyun...! Ho Gaya Na' (2004), 'Kisna: The Warrior Poet' (2005)), his girlfriend Ishyka (Lara Dutta), and their friends Sajid and Vishal also find their way into the partially quarantined park, after their strange driver Bagga tells them of the blood curdling rumours that stain this overwise thriving patch of indigenous flora and fauna. He eggs them on, giving the group little alternative to forego their planned leisure camping and hunting trip to a nearby farmhouse, and turns onto the unwelcoming dirt road over the unused bridge that leads them all deep into this overgrown forest. Krish's company jeep breaks down on a winding rocky path, where he and Bagga's eager passengers unexpectedly meet up and uneasily join forces, but it's not until Thapar's driver mysteriously vanishes - and then their guide disappears - that they all slowly begin to realize that a malevolent evil watches and waits for them in the shadows. That's when the mysterious wandering figure Kali Pratap Singh (Ajay Devgan) appears, saving them from a ferocious tiger attack, eventually offering to guide them towards safety after Sajid is found brutally murdered. With heavy rain and flooding forcing the park to be evacuated, the deadly mystery appears unsolvable as this group's attentions turn from discovering the truth to fighting for their lives against an unseen killer hungry to feed its insatiable appetite for fear and death...

Story-wise, this two-hour and fifty-minute subtitled Bollywood flick has all the makings of a potentially successful horror franchise on the level of 'Friday the 13th' and 'A Nightmare on Elm Street'. Writer Karan Johar's screenplay often crackles with morbid delight, once it turns to these unwitting characters each being systematically consumed by the terror that surrounds them. And, the wonderful use of eerie lighting truly does cast a thoroughly captivating artful gloom over the entire picture during the last reel. Fans of this unholy murder genre will undoubtedly see several resemblances here to other memorable cinematic screamers from the Seventies and Eighties, with this entire cast pulling in fairly good, stereo typically familiar performances over-all - although Oberoi does opt for his usual over the top emoting as previously seen in his recent work. Devgan and Abraham carry this picture with impressive enough authenticity for the most part. However, the main problem with 'Kaal' is that it continually flounders from the use of surprisingly poor camera tricks and low budget special effects without the writing setting a balance by thoroughly capitalizing upon its comparably clever plot involving this deadly forest environment. This one also sloths along at an aggravatingly momentum-killing slowness throughout. There was a lot of yawning coming from the predominantly young paying audience at the screening that I'd attended, which probably wasn't director Soham Shah's expected reaction. Sure, it's clear that Shah wanted to create more than a Hindi slasher film, but that's basically what this offering ends up becoming. It's far bloodier than it is scary, when it eventually gets around to actually dishing out the gory bits. 'Kaal' is also fairly cheesy in parts - which is definitely a traditional element of most horrors - but, those slightly amateurish moments do tend to unintentionally sabotage any lasting sense of fear or impending doom. Most of the dangers ultimately feel safe and uninspired - even when they involve three live tigers eyeballing these tasty human morsels while licking their chops - further ruining whatever efforts this crew obviously poured into its making. I predict that 'Kaal' will probably become a minor cult favourite in a few years, basically as a fun rental for curious fans and really only if a sequel transpires that truly capitalizes on the stronger points now established in this otherwise disappointing mess.

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Kingdom of Heaven
REVIEWED 05/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

"What man is a man who does not make the world a better place," is carved into the roughly hewn ceiling of young Balian's (Orlando Bloom) hilltop blacksmith workshop, a short distance from his prematurely deceased wife's unholy Christian burial, and miles away from this heartbroken yet extremely pious Frenchman's new life in the ancient walled city of Jerusalem. The end of the 12th Century draws near, and this Holy Land's uneasy hundred-year reign of European occupation now overseen by the Leper King Baldwin (Edward Norton) stands weakened by relentless murderous attacks by war mongering Templar Knights upon unarmed Muslim caravans. Saracen King Salah al Din 'Saladin' Yusuf Ibn Ayyub (Ghassan Massoud) wants peace with these Crusaders, but also wants Jerusalem returned to his people and sees that these unprovoked Christian raids cannot go unanswered for. Baldwin and his close Marshall Tiberias (Jeremy Irons) continue to arrest and publicly hang those treasonous Knights who bare allegiance to the Pope instead of to their young ailing King, but Templar leader and regent Lord Guy of Lusignan (Marton Csokas), husband to Baldwin's sister Princess Sibylla (Eva Green), hungers for the stench of heathen blood and the victory of unbridled battle, and brazenly ignores his King's demands for peace between all nations under God. Guy also immediately despises Balian, who has quietly settled into the Sun baked nearby thousand acres known Ibelin that he's inherited from his renowned father Godfrey (Liam Neeson), and grudgingly realizes that Balian's strengthening friendship with Baldwin and Sibylla threatens to overthrow his schemes to take the crown and conquer this land by force. However, Saladin's army of one hundred thousand soldiers soon march towards Jerusalem, and Balian rises as the only man capable of fortifying the city and protecting its inhabitants from this merciless Saracen onslaught that promises unyielding destruction and doom in the name of God.

This truly is a visually remarkable epic on the grandest scale, with three-time Oscar-nominated director Sir Ridley Scott recreating a richly dazzling Ancient World for these impressively strong characters to exist within. You can't help but be immediately drawn in and willingly dragged along on Balian's journey towards greatness and salvation. Sure, comparisons to 'Troy' and 'Gladiator' are easy enough to make on the surface, considering that much of all three stories take place in the same general patch of geography, and they all feature buckets of splattering gore and fiery things catapulted through the air. However, 'Kingdom of Heaven' is a more thoroughly satisfying movie simply because writer William Monahan's screenplay is heavily underpinned by an almost tangible ideal of chivalric honour. A paying audience gets a true enough sense of what the rules of combat were in those times, as well as seeing the mettle of these types of natural leaders who deeply respected and followed those rules with clear objectives reigned by noble beliefs of a bygone era. In that sense, shades of the equally outstanding 'Master and Commander' come to mind. Awesome. Bloom easily heads this wonderfully capable cast with an outstanding performance throughout, electrifying this piece as a shining example of excellence opposite Massoud's brilliantly charismatic role. Sure, this hundred and forty-five minute masterpiece does have its flaws. It lags at times when an important stretch of dramatic storytelling needs to follow one of the handful of extraordinarily overwhelming action sequences, forcing your adrenaline-thumbing senses to take a breather so that your brain can reconnect. There are also a couple of realistically silly moments, and a few times when it's fairly vague who the pivotal supporting players are who pique your interest yet are annoyingly left unexplained. However, they - along with the slight artistic license taken with with historical fact - are relatively minor aggravations when put into the much larger context of this extremely entertaining film. Absolutely check out this incredibly worthwhile, spellbinding treasure on the big screen and don't be surprised if you leave the theatre afterwards haunted by the urge to see it again.

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Kicking & Screaming
REVIEWED 05/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Ever since he can remember, Phil Weston's (Will Ferrell) entire life has been reduced to a series of competitions. Primarily, ones that left him on the sidelines. Even as a proud new father eagerly expecting the birth of his son Sam (Dylan McLaughlin), an all-encompassing spirit of one-upmanship ended up tainting that auspicious occasion. And, again, just as this macho mindset of affirming rivalry has been an overwhelming force, Phil has always been desperately aware of the fact that even though he doesn't care or really think about himself in those terms, he always loses. He's proud of Sam, despite being born one ounce lighter than the guy's baby beside him - the guy being Phil's Dad, Buck (Robert Duvall). Phil's happy with his nutritional pills store, even if he only has one location compared to Buck's sports supply warehouse's four. He's contented with his loving wife Barbara (Kate Walsh), and doesn't care that his Dad's wife is a lot younger and, well, peppier. Yes, the Law set in stone by his relentlessly overbearing patriarch for all time has maintained that he'll never win at anything, ever, against his father. He'll always come up short. He'll crumble under pressure. He'll be the loser, and he'll like it. So, when Buck - also the coach of Sam's winningest junior soccer team, the Gladiators - unceremoniously ends his Grandson's perpetual time on the bench by trading him to the worst team in their hometown league, the Tigers, Phil becomes a tornado of anger, swirling about, not really doing anything but being really really angry, but wanting his son to finally have some fun on the field. As it happens, the Tigers' coach has suddenly left, giving Phil the perfect opportunity to uncharacteristically step up to the plate and take the bull - I mean, tiger - by the, uh, tiger horns. He becomes their new coach, much to the jeering chagrin of Buck. Completely unqualified for the job, but even more determined than ever to make his Dad eat his words, and turning to Buck's next door neighbour and mortal enemy Mike Ditka for help. Ditka's first piece of advice: "Coffee is the life blood that drives the dreams of champions." Secondly, they'll need to take some short cuts, if this inept group of children want to have any hope of reaching the finals...

Playing out a lot like a Junior FIFA version of 'The Bad News Bears' (1976), most of the humour in co-writers Leo Benvenuti's and Steve Rudnick's screenplay relies heavily on Ferrell mashing his face into a variety of punch line contortions for the camera while his beleageured screen wife rolls her eyes in Prime Time-like fashion, making his starring role feel more like a recast Tim Allen or Jim Belushi showcase than what moviegoers have come to expect from this far more manicly talented and acclaimed Saturday Night Live alumnus. The comedy seems tired and rehashed, and doesn't quite fit all of the time. It's still a relatively good, family-oriented movie, though. Thanks in large part to the fairly familiar, scene-stealing 'Grumpy Old Men' (1993) caricature rivalry performances from Duvall and Ditka, this ninety-five minute romp still manages to click along at an enjoyable enough pace over-all. The main problem is that Jesse Dylan doesn't seem to know quite how to deal with his cast of children here, opting to pretty well waste this potential pool of resources by using them all as little more than living yet undefined props. The kids might as well have been trained seals or chimps in cleats, merely distinguishable by height and head shape. Sure, this adult crew of primary characters clearly burn off calories predominantly opposing each other on the screen, but the opportunity to flesh out the glut of goofy jokes by encouraging more defined characteristics from these tykes is lost. Where it's much funnier to see interesting people react to the archetypal lunatic, as opposed to watching him continually flail around with his eyes bugged out, that much needed lift is overlooked for the most part - except when Ferrell momentarily stops clowning to play straight man to his eccentric screen father or the neighbour from Hell. So, 'Kicking & Screaming' ends up feeling like a mediocre, paid vacation between vastly superior scripts. Rent this undemanding confection for its few laughs, but there's a lot of down time waiting for it to cobble together what little there is to make it a worthwhile screening.

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Kyun Ki
REVIEWED 11/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Dr. Tanvi Kharana (Kareena Kapoor) pored over the large, leather bound diary of patient 36's neatly calligraphed poetry and carefully kept colour photographs. She didn't like him much, having to use all of her will to maintain her professional composure around this troubled man being treated at her father's (Om Puri) strictly run sanatorium, but there was something about Anand (Salman Khan) that she can't shake from her young mind. Sunil (Jackie Shroff), her friend and counterpart at that asylum, had convinced her that Anand needed more than the daily dose of pills and injections that her father was willing to offer. Sunil had known this patient years earlier, and was certain that the murder charge against Anand should have no baring on finding a way to encourage a complete recovery from the mental anguish and bouts of uncontrollable rage that consumed this otherwise childish soul. Tanvi still wasn't totally sure, but it was clear that this album of treasured thoughts and images contained important clues to what had gone wrong. Why, for instance, Anand thought that flies were purposely tormenting him. Why he thinks that she's his lost love Maya (Rimi Sen), and who that woman really is. What Sunil was suggesting they do was extraordinarily unorthodox and could lead to Anand escaping from those guarded grounds still mentally unfit to return to society. He had already managed to leave once, by bribing a guard in return for his uniform in order to buy candles for another patient who wanted to pay homage, but Anand had promptly returned. Nothing made any sense. Tanvi's chances to return to London had been dashed by Anand's nonsense, but Sunil had seen that accident as a blessing in disguise. As though she actually needed to remain in India and help him with this patient's treatment. He could be right. She knows that she's already softened her feelings towards Anand - maybe a little too much - but the perfect opportunity to try something different without fear of retribution reveals itself when her father leaves on business and to collect Karan (Sunil Shetty), her betrothed fiance.

I'd read that this strangely meandering romantic Bollywood drama punctuated by song and dance interludes from writer/director Priyadarshan ('Parayanumvayya Parayathirikkanumvayya' (1985), 'Hulchul' (2004)) is a remake of his earlier film, but so much of the basic premise seems swiped from 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' with aspects of 'Veer Zaara' (2004) thrown in for a love interest glow with Kareena Kapoor ('Dev' (2004), 'Bewafaa' (2005)) as young therapist Tanvi Kharana that it's tough sitting through this subtitled hundred and sixty-one minute offering without feeling as though a paying audience is suffering from bouts of cinematic deja vu. About the only thing keeping you following along is its headlining star Salman Khan's ('Kuch Kuch Hota Hai' (1998), 'No Entry' (2005)) consistent attempts to breath a captivating enough personality into his troubled character, Anand Sharma, who's committed by his well-meaning brother to the secretly cruel care of Tanvi's militarily callous father (played by Om Puri; 'City of Joy' (1992), 'Kyun Ho Gaya Na' (2004)) and Head Psychologist at Sir Richards Mental Sanatorium in the hopes of saving his sibling from a murder conviction. Much of the story details are pure fabrication clearly manufactured to feed this wisp of a plot line that showcases Khan's on-screen charisma and little else, but co-star Jackie Shroff ('Rangeela' (1995), 'Devdas' (2002)) as soft hearted asylum doctor Sunil does manage to bring a personable stability to this oftentimes unfocussed screenplay. I liked the unorthodox treatment Sunil and Tanvi choose for Anand after the intermission, but there's no believably analytical depth attached to how it plays out - despite having one especially inspired dream sequence that's never capitalized on after the bombs and electric guitars subside - as though several great ideas were scribbled down on a napkin before the cameras rolled, without anyone bothering to do half an hour of serious research. The same holds true for the handling of Anand's borderline stalking of nun-to-be turned lost love Maya (Rimi Sen; 'Hungama' (2003), 'Dhoom' (2004)), without this picture attaching a certain amount of balanced dialogue or thoughtful character development. These failures truly are a shame, because 'Kyun Ki' certainly isn't a particularly uplifting movie or a mindless comedy where background doesn't really matter, and it does end tragically. Check it out as a second choice rental for its sporadically interesting scenes and a pretty good soundtrack, but it's fairly forgettable for the most part.

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Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
REVIEWED 11/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

The dame was a beautiful corpse. That's how these things usually start. Y'know, in the old detective novels. Where some dime-a-dozen gumshoe's buxom brunette client ends up being dredged from the river after hiring him to protect her, or kill her husband, or find the black bird before Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre do. That was a classic. Funny how that never happens in real life, though. Maybe in Hollywood screenplays bashed out by black listed writers writing McCarthy-era scripts under pseudonyms to keep eating, but not here or now, among the beautiful people of Los Angeles. Here, in this movie, it starts at a party, thrown by some old rich nobody who's trying to impress a lot of young nobody wannabes and their agents that he's a somebody with clout in this town. In this case, it's a birthday party. Welcome to the party, by the way. Leave your car keys and scruples with the valet. That guy over there, the nobody who really is a nobody and knows it, standing by the pool, is Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.). He's a small time thief from New York, turned actor. You saw the ad on TV, so you know how that happens. He'll be your narrator during this movie. Or, rather, has been your narrator during this movie so far. You're kind of coming in around halfway through a point in the movie, where Harry goes back to more stuff about the party, but that's okay. This is back story stuff, without the other really way back story stuff, just to bring you up to speed without giving too much away. It's the synopsis about this movie. But, you knew that. That's how these things work. You read it, you like it, you go see the movie, the movie chain is happy, the studio executives are happy, and another party is thrown to keep the cycle going, right? Anyway, the other guy standing beside Harry, the one looking fairly miffed and trying not to get any of Harry's blood on his clothes, is Gay Perry. That's not his real name. His real name is Perry van Shrike (Val Kilmer). He runs a private detective agency here in LA, and has been hired by Harry's producer to teach Harry some of the finer points of, well, being a private detective, for an upcoming movie that Harry's supposed to be in. He's not succeeding. Perry's also Gay, hence the nickname "Gay Perry". Did I mention that Harry bleeds a lot in this movie? He bleeds a lot in this movie. He also finds a lot of dead people, and gets his finger chopped off and eaten by a dog, but that's probably giving away too much of the story. So, the best thing to do now would probably be to read the review.

Wow. This ridiculously irreverent, nudity-tinged flick from screenwriter ('Lethal Weapon' (1987) and its three sequels) and actor ('Predator' (1987), 'RoboCop 3' (1993)) turned debuting director Ray Brady is such an hilariously entertaining ride from beginning to closing credits. Robert Downey Jr. ('Air America' (1990), 'Gothika' (2003)) seems absolutely tailor made for his brilliantly performed co-starring role here as burned out New York petty thief Harry Lockhart who's up to his old tricks in Los Angeles, when a narrow escape lands him a part in a movie, assigned to detective lessons grudgingly tutored by hugely sarcastic Private Investigator Perry van Shrike (Val Kilmer; 'Tombstone' (1993), 'Alexander' (2004)), and dunked head-first into a double death mystery involving his Emery, Indianna childhood friend Harmony Lane (Michelle Monaghan; 'Unfaithful' (2002), 'The Bourne Supremacy' (2004)) that seems torn from the pages of the pulp crime novels Harold vaguely remembers reading decades ago and that Harmony still cherishes. There's so much great stuff here. It's clever. Bizarre. Funnier than the ads let on. And, Downey Jr. and Kilmer are probably the best odd couple duo paired together by Hollywood since seeing Robert Di Niro and Eddie Murphy in 'Showtime' (2002). From Brady's heavy nods to the gritty pot boilers of famed novelists Samuel Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) and Raymond Thornton Chandler (1888-1959), to the wonderfully weird banter effortlessly tossed around amongst these extremely captivating characters, 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang' - reportedly a long standing playful reference to spy film icon James Bond 007 coined in Japan - is absolutely one rollicking great escapist adventure. It's packed with wry quips and plot twists beautifully wrapped up in a kind of screwball self-referential and effacing romp that's slightly similar to 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' (1986), but with swearing and bullets flying and a few raw moments, to keep its intended mature audience locked in and laughing out loud for the majority of its hundred and twenty-three minute run time. Awesome. My only problem is that the actual crimes they're awkwardly attempting to solve tend to careen off of the radar a few times, to the point where I really can't remember exactly what corpse belongs to which sub plot, but those murders merely exist to keep the story pumping along at the same accelerated pace as what successfully sustains your interest in the foreground. Absolutely do yourself a huge favour and check out this riotously original comedy for the best gratuitously immature time for adults at the big screen enjoyed in months.

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King Kong
REVIEWED 12/05, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Maybe he would've preferred a tasty banana, but any usual synopsis of 'King Kong' seems fairly unnecessary. You know this one. It's also tough to comment on this eye-popping second remake of what's arguably American Cinema's penultimate icon of Golden Age horror B-movies, without acknowledging just how deeply RKO Pictures' (short for Radio Keith Orpheum Pictures (1928-1957)) original 'King Kong' (1933) has become entrenched in the imaginations of generations of moviegoers and film makers worldwide. Mention Kong - apparently the Malaysian word for "gorilla" - and pretty well everyone likely chuckles with fondness at legendary stop motion technician/inventor Willis H. O'Brien's (1886-1962) rabbit furred model clinging to a miniature of the then world's tallest skyscraper - Manhattan's Empire State Building, in reality only two years old at the time - while the animated creature clutched the flailing puppet of blonde starlet Ann Darrow and jerkingly swatted at insect-like biplanes to a loud tinny soundtrack. Its "fifty foot tall" monster - reportedly dreamed up by former WWI POW and co-producer/co-writer/co-director Merian C. Cooper (1893-1973), apparently inspired by African expedition footage and explorer W. Douglas Burden's 1926 New York display of two captured Komodo Dragons - innovatively brought to life on the silver screen from an uncharted prehistoric South Pacific island (later named Skull Island by promoters) to the Depression era modern world, has been lovingly spoofed and swiped from by Hollywood and television innumerable times. It spawned an unintentionally goofy sequel the same year, called 'Son of Kong' (1933), and a few subsequent films featuring a robot, a towering mutant or Japan's heavy hitter Godzilla in the frame, but the first motion picture remake was an updated, Oscar-winning 1976 version starring Charles Grodin and Jeff Bridges that added eco-environmentalism and humourous anthropomorphisms, while introducing Jessica Lang playing opposite special effects wizard Rick Baker's edited-in monkey costume in a fairly pedantic jungle and atop the World Trade Center towers. That one also had a sequel, 'King Kong Lives!' (1986), in which the gargantuan galloot falls for a girl his own size. No, not the Statue of Liberty. Sheer volumes have also been written about the big guy over the decades, from relating Man versus Nature criticisms, to unrequited love comparisons with French writer Madame Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve's (c.1695-1755) 1740 fairytale Belle et la Bête, funny giant woman clutching tiny ape twists and allegorical links to the slave trade, as well as being a trivial footnote in the biographies of both Adolf Hitler (this was apparently the Führer's favourite movie) and of reclusive magnate Howard Hughes (who, according to the Wikipedia online encyclopaedia, sold his pre-1948 RKO film library to a national TV broadcaster, inspiring small screen audience interest in such nearly forgotten bygone treasures as the hundred-minute 'King Kong', 'Top Hat' (1935), 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' (1939), 'Citizen Kane' (1941) and 'It's a Wonderful Life' (1946)). The more you look, the more fascinating historical connections you can unearth regarding this undisputed king of the movie primates. When Alberta-born Vina Fay Wray (1907-2004) - the 1933 film's live action Ann Darrow and author of On the Other Hand, A Life Story (1989) - described a lunch with acclaimed actor Sir Laurence Olivier for a Toronto Star interview in 1990, Wray reportedly said the only thing "Larry" wanted to talk about was how they got the ape up that building. Too soon, the lights of the Empire State Building were dimmed to honour Wray shortly after her death, as a telling tribute that pretty well sums up this classic's overwhelming public impact.

With all of that in mind, I was a little more than slightly skeptical about checking out the final result of co-writer/director Peter Jackson's ('The Frighteners' (1996), 'The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring' (2001)) reported nine-year journey in making his 2005 remake that pretty well caps off a twelve-month glut of disproportionately awful movie rehashes and multi-million dollar flops. Thankfully, Jackson's 'King Kong' is an absolute masterpiece during much of its hundred and eighty-seven minute run time that's more like two and a half hours without the credits. The storytelling throughout is incredible, adopting the best aspects of both previous big screen incarnations while wonderfully fleshing out the primary characters for a paying audience to easily get swept up with. You're immediately immersed in this bygone world of Hooverville squatters and dapper top hats, high seas adventure on the rusted tramp steamer Venture and death defying dangers facing ferocious dinosaurs that seem straight out of 'Jurassic Park' (1993) - only better. Awesome. Naomi Watts ('The Ring' (2002), 'I Heart Huckabees' (2004)) gives the best performance of her impressive career playing intellectually strong yet emotionally fragile unemployed New York stage actress Ann Darrow, who allows struggling film maker and opportunistic huckster Carl Denham (Jack Black; 'High Fidelity' (2000), 'The School of Rock' (2003)) to manipulate her shy hero worship of playwright Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody; 'The Pianist' (2002), 'The Village' (2004)) towards replacing the opted out starlet of Denham's threatened new feature. Fans will undoubtedly love the dialogue's brilliantly coy nods to the original Kong film made here. It's also mesmerizing to watch how Watts' Darrow masterfully conjures up shades of primatologist Jane Goodall / 'Gorillas in the Mist' (1988) magic while slowly bonding with a far more complex Kong than previously realized. This computer animated Kong is incredibly believable in the same ways as seen in 'Hulk' (2003), completely benefiting from Andy Serkis' ('The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King' (2003), '13 Going On 30' (2004)) digitally aped gestures and subtle nuances much like for his Gollum role in the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy. However, with all of its hugely entertaining embellishments and captivating sub plots, this effort is still a relatively faithful adaptation of the black and white original, down to using some of the same props, and with Jackson imitating Cooper's cameo as a biplane gunner. Like 'Titanic' (1997) - with which it shares a few other similarities - you already know how the whole thing ends before you buy a ticket, because you've likely known the legend since childhood. At the same time, wow, what truly worthwhile embellishments... until the final act. The last reel is where this Academy Award contender suddenly runs out of juice for no reason and becomes rather silly, as a weird kind of artistic license and lazy editing takes over. I actually liked the possibly contentious Central Park frozen pond scene, but the importance of detailed specifics that are pure gold throughout the majority of this rollicking fantasy is suddenly ignored from then on - such as the consequences of artillery spitting fighter planes being smacked out of the air above a metropolitan city, and the oddity of Darrow easily standing in lacy silk and high heels on a smooth metal surface perched well over a hundred floors above a wintry, ocean breeze swept Manhattan. You get the impression that Jackson had his hands over his eyes during Kong's entire Empire State Building battle and subsequent death. It's a shame, because obvious opportunities to honour the original while sustaining the momentum enjoyed during the first couple of hours could have, and should have, been accomplished. Ultimately, the most familiar part is ruined, and you're more likely to exhale a groan of disappointment immediately before the closing credits roll, regardless of how utterly fantastic the rest of this one is. Absolutely do yourself a huge favour and check out 'King Kong' at the biggest screen that you can find to truly enjoy this almost perfect story and cast, as well as the incredibly inspired CGI work, but I'd also be inclined to suggest you walk out of the theatre to rent the 1933 classic when the biplanes appear here if you want to avoid any lasting disappointment. Over-all, it's hugely entertaining, but in certain wrong ways, unfortunately bittersweet.

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Karla
REVIEWED 01/06, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Claiming to be based on actual police reports and court room transcripts - but changing most of the real names to protect anyone whose name won't fill theatre seats - this fairly low budget feature of disjointed flashbacks traces the dysfunctional relationship between its depictions of Southern Ontario veterinary assistant Karla Homolka (played by television's 'That 70's Show' co-star Laura Prepon) and her unemployed fiancé turned cigarette smuggling husband Paul Bernardo (Misha Collins; 'Girl, Interrupted' (1999)), from what is reportedly Homolka's actual account of events leading up to and yet barely touching upon the high profile true life Homolka/Bernardo murder trials of the mid-Nineties. The longstanding publication ban that unwittingly proliferated wild rumours and a hike in online American newsgroup visits from North of the border back then - and that somehow continues to generate sensationalistic tabloid journalism from national media outlets apparently hungry to perpetuate those horrifying cases almost thirteen years later - remains a source of uneasy controversy for what seems like many Canadians.

It does appear as though this ninety-nine minute dramatic adaptation attempts to capitalize on the real Karla Homolka's 2005 return to Canadian society after fully serving her twelve-year prison sentence for the senseless 1990 death of her fifteen year-old sister (rewritten as being sixteen in this film), while the real Bernardo - eventually accused of being the Scarborough Rapist and then convicted of committing two nightmarish murders before capture - remains tucked away in prison for life. It's tough to separate personal bias from what transpires on the big screen, but it seems unlikely that a paying audience will leave the theatre afterwards feeling as though 'Karla' got everything right. It doesn't try to be a clinical documentary, nor is it an all-out horror flick or good enough to be considered a psychological crime thriller. It's certainly less graphic than 'Munich' (2005) is. Vague shades of the far more captivating 'The Boston Strangler' (1968) and the Oscar-winning 'Monster' (2003) do surface, but it's actually difficult to figure out why this effort exists at all - beyond it clearly being blatantly exploitive in the same manner as any headline inspired Made-for-TV Movie of the Week is. However, 'Karla' is reportedly a product of the States that suspiciously seems specifically made for Canadian moviegoers. Who else would care by now, unless it was set in Los Angeles? While Prepon's and Collins' performances sporadically feel accidentally interesting without them really bringing anything memorably fresh to the script, director Joel Bender's ('Gas Pump Girls' (1979), 'Rich Girl' (1991)) lazy obsession with this depicted couple's sexually-driven individual pathologies tends to sabotage any sense that real work was accomplished in presenting an insightful glimpse into why people become killers. The only notable highlight is Sarah Foret's ('Pope Dreams' (2005), 'American Crude' (2005)) relatively strong appearance as a victimized teenaged school girl renamed Caitlyn Ross, clearly fighting to inject believable humanity within her few short scenes here. Homolka herself is essentially vindicated as a beaten and desperately needy subordinate exerting less physical and intellectual energy than a crumpled sheet of paper for the most part, but then the last few lines of Prepon's narrative and the closing paragraphs of text weirdly try to draw Karla's court accepted side of the story into question in what seems like Bender's clumsy last ditch effort to stir up controversy when there have likely already been more than enough yellow-tinged articles wasted on this flick - my own review of it included. In fact, the majority of this surprisingly boring picture is extremely amateurish looking - relying on somewhat laughably cheap post production tricks in a series of failed attempts to supposedly illicit a sense of foreboding dread - making it fairly forgettable over-all. In more capable hands and without breaking the court's ban, 'Karla' probably could have at least been an interesting cinematic interpretation of both documented court cases, Homolka's contentious plea bargain implicating Bernardo, the political meddling and the mishandling of evidence, but most of those details are completely ignored by co-writer Bender's screenplay, or are tossed in as an after thought in Bender's editing room.

It's not an absolute stinker as is, but 'Karla' is definitely a superficially tempestuous amateur reel of unanswered questions and vicarious pedophilia that probably wouldn't have gained much interest or any lawful distribution beyond the director's basement if all of the names had been changed.

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Kinky Boots
REVIEWED 05/06, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Chiwetel Ejiofor ('Dirty Pretty Things' (2002), 'Inside Man' (2006)) steals the show as fabulously audacious Lola, starring Drag Queen stage singer of London's Blue Angel night club in Soho, in this delightfully entertaining and oftentimes riotous Brit comedy from director Julian Jarrold, where pale and beleaguered fourth generation Northampton men's foot wear manufacturing heir Charlie Price (Joel Edgerton; 'King Arthur' (2004), 'Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith' (2005)) ventures southbound for Lola's theatrically bombastic help to save the hundred and ten year-old Price Shoe Factory from a slow death by enticing the untapped niche market of women who are men who wear women's thigh high boots at their heels' peril. Or, as Lola calls them, twenty-four and a half inches of irresistible tubular sex.

Holy cripes, this movie is hilarious. Better still, 'Kinky Boots' is a smart flick that screenwriters Geoff Deane and Tim Firth have cleverly created as a straight forward drama with an interesting story that's tinged with a little romance, that's hit sideways by the sheer outrageousness of Ejiofor's over-the-top caricature. This isn't a one-punch line cross dressing comedy, though. If it was, I'd merely suggest renting something that plays along the same lines, like 'The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert' (1994) or perhaps 'Connie and Carla' (2004). Thankfully, a paying audience is introduced to the man behind the glossy lipstick and false lashes, in the form of Simon (Lola's alter ego), in a believable and compelling enough manner that allows you to have a blast when Lola then turns around and does such wildly funny things as lift up a burgundy boot like it's a rancid fish and starts growling in mono syllabics at Charlie one side splitting scene that's worth the price of admission on its own. However, like I've mentioned, Jarrold and his writers take the time to fully develop all of this hundred and seven-minute movie's primary characters so that you're truly given reasons to care about what happens to them in their attempts to deal with each other and their plight to save their jobs. I'd read that 'Kinky Boots' is actually inspired by a true story. What I also enjoyed is that it contains exceptionally realized peripheral arcs involving Charlie's ambitious fiancé Nicola (Jemima Rooper), feisty laid off factory worker Lauren (Sarah-Jane Potts; 'Young Blades' (2001), 'Breaking Dawn' (2004)), and the shop's macho blue collar bloke Don (Nick Frost; 'Shaun of the Dead' (2004)). Good stuff. Absolutely do yourself a huge favour and check out this delightfully clever, memorably laugh-out-loud and crowd pleasing sleeper hit.

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Krrish
REVIEWED 06/06, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

An alternative spin on the big screen superhero genre of movies plays out in this somewhat awkward and yet otherwise hugely romantic, subtitled Bollywood sequel of 'Koi... Mil Gaya' (2003) from co-writer/director Rakesh Roshan ('Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai' (2000)) that predominantly focuses on the sheltered, simple mountain village life of extraordinarily agile Krishna Mehra (played by Roshan's popular and multi-talented son Hrithik; 'Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham...' (2001), 'Lakshya' (2004)), whose naive love for opportunistic Star Channel reporter Priya (Priyanka Chopra; 'Andaaz' (2003), 'Aitraaz' (2004)) during her brief and accident prone camping trip in India eventually spurs him to accept her invitation to Singapore under the false expectation of marrying Priya - who's simply trying to keep her job by presenting this "Super Indian" to the world - while Krishna's doting Grandmother Sonia (Rekha; 'Umrao Jaan' (1981), 'Lajja' (2001)) fears the attention of outsiders will bring the same mortal fate that exploited and destroyed her beloved son and alien empowered scientist Rohit (also portrayed by Hrithik) twenty years earlier.
Quite frankly, I had a tough time getting past Hrithik's strange green eyes and impishly distorted smile while screening this surprisingly drawn out family flick. Don't get me wrong, though. Roshan is clearly one of the most perfectly versatile showmen in South Asia, effortlessly switching gears from coy humour to graceful dancing and from richly textured drama to adrenaline pounding action. However, 'Koi... Tumsa Nahin' (this picture's alternative title) invariably ends up becoming a predominantly bland grind thanks in large part to how it's been marketed as a high velocity, masked avenger style crime fighting adventure, and yet is more an empty but pleasant romantic fantasy that jerks sideways into the action mold near the end. Its release here less than a week before 'Superman Returns' might help to fill seats, but really just attempts to cash in on that one. Walk in during the last quarter and it comes close, but 'Krrish' spends the majority of its hundred and fifty-minute length taking its sweet time over-emphasizing this burgeoning hero's uncanny abilities to out pace a galloping horse, leap through treetops, smash rocks and scale cliff walls while being at one with nature and all of his animal friends. Forget what the ads tell you, and this movie invites you to enjoy a playfully soft, uncomplicated romantic drama that doesn't really want to go anywhere beyond that for the most part. This would be fine if that first hour or so was carefully used in order develop any of these primary characters, but it's not. Imagine a civilized, G-rated Tarzan raised on Martial Arts movies, but bereft of conflict and given nothing much else to do in his picturesque woodland world, until he rescues his Jane-like modern love interest from falling to her death and the well choreographed musical interludes begin.

The expected story of daring heroics doesn't really heat up until the middle of the second half. While the couple of actual fight scenes that appear later on do have the same edgy eye-popping fury that's reminiscent of those seen in 'The Matrix' (1999) and 'Hero' (2002), they seem hesitantly tacked on and don't quite fit in with what's already been painstakingly established. The entire show is quaintly entertaining for different reasons, as an atypical Masala spiked with fantastical athletics, as though Director Roshan has a tough time embracing the familiar North American comic book aspects of this type of motion picture and sees those clichés as opportunities to capture meaningless bouts of intensely violent posturing shot in slow motion that fail to push along the main plot. For instance, Krrish attacks a biker gang that's stolen Priya's engagement ring, as opposed to him adopting Singapore as its selfless new guardian. Yes, the choreography is amazingly good throughout most of the songs included here. Yes, the stunts and wire work are impressive. This cast is given a fairly good portion of interesting enough dialogue to match their effectively contagious natural screen presence as well. It's the pacing's curious lack of tangible momentum that unnecessarily sabotages this effort for any ticket holder who bought what the ads promised, to the point where 'Krrish' could have easily been a better feature if it ran half as long and had started at the intended intermission. At least that way you'd be able to enjoy discovering Krishna's various feats of strength and speed within the context of him consciously keeping a promise and protecting his identity by becoming this mysterious do-gooder - who's quickly celebrated by scores of cheering, homemade mask wearing children, as the media scrambles to reveal his identity, and evil rears its ugly head in the guise of Technotronics' diabolical Dr. Siddhant Arya (Naseeruddin Shah; 'Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Ata Hai' (1980), 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' (2003)).

It's fairly violent near the end, but rent this one as a relatively fun Bollywood escape for kids who might be too impressionable for the relentless grittiness of 'Spider-Man' (2002) and 'Batman Begins' (2005) - just keep in mind that its notable good points have nothing at all to do with anyone leaping tall buildings or saving the day, and the super hero aspects are overly hyped by comparison to what's actually depicted over-all.

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Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna
REVIEWED 08/06, © STEPHEN BOURNE
www.ofrb.gov.on.ca | www.rcq.gouv.qc.ca


REVIEW:

Acclaimed writer/director Karan Johar ('Kuch Kuch Hota Hai' (1998), 'Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham...' (2001)) returns to Bollywood with this richly superior subtitled tear jerker primarily shot in New York City, in which an odd friendship that's eventually struck between unhappily married DIVA Magazine editor Rhea Saran's (Preity Zinta; 'Veer-Zaara' (2004), 'Krrish' (2006)) bitterly insolent husband Dev (Shahrukh Khan; 'Devdas' (2002), 'Paheli' (2005)) and naively pragmatic Manhattan Public School teacher Maya Talwar (Rani Mukherjee; 'Chalte Chalte' (2003), 'Bunty Aur Babli' (2005)) - intended to help Maya save her emotionally devoid four year marriage to boyish PR Agency owner Rishi (Abhishek Bachchan; 'Phir Milenge' (2004), 'Sarkar' (2005)) - unwittingly evolves into a passionate secret affair that threatens to destroy these four lives. Wow. It's reportedly the most expensive South Asian film to hit the big screen so far, but in so many ways, 'Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna' is absolutely the most captivatingly romantic contemporary Masala enjoyed in a long time. Superstars Khan and Mukherjee are electrifying forces of nature here, effortlessly packing their scenes with a stunning depth of nuance and gesture that powerfully transcends Johar's and co-writers Shibani Bathija and Niranjan Iyengar's wonderfully strong screenplay throughout. Each moment that Maya shares with Dev is a miniature epic of legendary proportions that immediately rings true and grabs your heart. Simply lovely.

Full marks also go to Zinta and Bachchan as their perpetually tormented screen spouses, each truly bringing a significant wealth of fully realized insight to their supporting roles as part of this hugely impressive, high caliber cast that includes the immensely talented Amitabh Bachchan ('Don' (1978), 'Black' (2005)) and Kiron Kher ('Bariwali' (1999), 'Rang De Basanti' (2006)) - although, their roles don't really amount to much until later on. At the same time, and despite the relentlessly droll Sexy Sam stinger, this is arguably the most successful on-screen pairing of Amitabh and actual son Abhishek since their entirely different, Corleone Family inspired 'Sarkar'. Also noteworthy are the periodic detours of playful mature comedy that deftly lighten the underlying serious mood of this hundred and ninety three minute cinematic gem, often making clever use of simple misunderstandings that erupt into riotous fits. As an unabashed fan, seeing Rani uncharacteristically trussed up in an S&M bodice while she clumsily slaps around a whip and sneers for her "naughty boy" is memorably hilarious. 'Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna' isn't particularly outrageous, but it's clearly geared mainly for a PG-13 audience. Good stuff. Sure, several of the minor supporting characters do tend to tilt towards garishly cheesy theatrics, and the tumultuous events that play out after the intended intermission are a bit overtly weepy for my tastes, but at least those seemingly relentless outbursts of sometimes painful emotion that undoubtedly had cinematographer Anil Mehta reaching for an umbrella during Murkhergee and Khan's rather robustly tearful close ups admittedly do work well within the over-all context of this heavily dramatic movie. As well, the half dozen musical interludes sprinkled throughout feature more than a few enjoyable toe tappers penned by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. However, what's even more satisfying about those melodic asides is that their art direction (Sharmishta Roy) and choreography (Farah Khan) are absolutely sensational, masterfully adding yet another level of notable extravagance to this luxuriously fascinating crowd pleaser.

Absolutely check out this thoroughly compelling romantic drama for its incredible cast and vastly superior storytelling well worth seeing on the big screen.

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