Dan's Papers - October 6, 2006 - Dave Evans' Mini-Movie Reviews

Martin Scorsese's on familiar territory here with this epic tale of the battle between the police and the Irish mafia in Boston. It's all very Boys Own Adventure with a strong line in honor and justice, mouthed out by a cast boasting Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen and Matt Damon to name but a few. Not for everyone but very polished for what it is.

The continual fame of the utterly talentless and charmless Jessica Simpson is perhaps the precursor to the arrival of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. No longer content to haunt the radio and MTV, this sees her cast as the stunning lady for whose attention Dane Cook and Dax Shepard must fight for as they vie for the title of Employee of the Month. There is no justifiable excuse for watching this film.

Leatherface is perhaps the least enigmatic of cinema's serial killers. Freddy Krueger has wit, Halloween's Michael has a backstory, while Leatherface is mostly just a moaning screaming beast. Alas, this attempt to flesh out his history is less than impressive. Extremely gory and harsh, in the manner of the original, this lacks the empathy it so badly needs.

The combination of formerly-successful actor Kevin Costner and would-be successful actor Ashton Kutcher doesn't exactly sound like box-office dynamite. Indeed, this drama about the Coast Guard flops around with beautiful special effects but no emotion. Director Andrew Davis, the man once responsible for the taut and action-packed 1993 remake of The Fugitive, has very much lost his way.

Oh my god, make it stop! The summer's orgy of sub-par CGI children's films shows no sign of stopping for fall with this dreadful tripe about a bear and a deer trying to escape the hunter's bullets. Like the awful Barnyard before it, this really feels like not an ounce of thought has gone into it. Vocal stylings come from bargain bin actors Ashton Kutcher and Debra Messing among others.

Director Todd Phillips, of Starsky and Hutch, Old School fame, may not have the most inspirational track record but this adaptation of the 1960 British comedy is deeply funny. The plot concerns a young man's (Napoleon Dynamite's excellent lead, Jon Heder) attempts to become a better man. With actors such as David Cross and Sarah Silverman in supporting roles, this is too enjoyable to miss.

It's been a while since Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O and Wee Man have been on our screens indulging their masochism and perhaps it hasn't been long enough. There's plenty of wince-inducing violence here and some genuinely funny (if obviously excruciating) physical comedy but the sense of excitement seems to have gone out of this circus of pain.

Tony Bill is a director most recently famous for working on episodes of "Monk" and the long-dead "Felicity." How he came up with the money to float this wretched tale of American soldiers fighting for the French in World War I is anyone's guess then. James Franco (Harry in the current Spiderman franchise) leads a dreary cast through the necessary cliches of commercial war cinema.

Allegedly the master's last martial arts film, Jet Li is going out on a high with this biopic of Chinese master Huo Yuanjia. As ever with such fare, much of the excitement comes from a visceral thrill of violence, but there is a real beauty in just watching Li move. A brutal kind of ballet.

This remake of the 1949 classic seems to come at a perfect time: New Orleans is in the spotlight and the world itself is visibly in the clutches of debased, power-gorged politicians. That said, this is lifeless stuff lacking the verve of the Robert Rossen classic or Robert Penn Warren's original text. A strong cast (Sean Penn, Patricia Clarkson, Anthony Hopkins) seem to be hungry for more to get their teeth into than director Steven Zaillian will provide.

I have a dream that one day all the children of the world will be given the love and care and financial assistance that will keep them from being either "down and out" or from "the wrong side of the tracks." Alas, in the meantime, Hollywood will continue to produce films such as this in which The Rock teaches a rag-tag bunch of kids that football can save them. Ugh.

Who better to direct a film about the real-life sensational murder of starlet Kay Lake than the master of stylishly enmeshed sex and violence, Brian De Palma? Adapted from James Ellroy's novel, this is a classy affair all round, excellently acted by Scarlett Johansson as Lake and Josh Hartnett as the police officer involved.