Dave Evans’MINI – MOVIE REVIEWS

The Messengers

Hong Kong horror aficionados make the move to Hollywood with this tale of a sunflower farm in North Dakota that suddenly falls prey to dark forces, which only the children seem to understand. There’s nothing revolutionary here but if it’s classy 21st century frights you want then look no further.

Because I Said So

The last few years have seen Diane Keaton stick closely to a certain, mildly successful and somewhat charming role. Here she plays an overprotective and interfering mother to Mandy Moore but it’s hard to distinguish this from her work in Something’s Gotta Give or The Family Stone. This is good light-hearted fare but Keaton can and should be so much better.

Factory Girl

For such a fascinating time and place, the Andy Warhol years of New York have produced very little in terms of interesting biopics (Studio 54 anyone?). This alas fails to buck the trend and while the style may be immaculate here and there, the substance is clearly amiss. Sedgwick may have been little more than a preening, narcissistic party girl but Sienna Miller seems unable to convey even that.

Raising Flagg

Following his excellent turn in Little Miss Sunshine, this deeply minor Alan Arkin vehicle is seeing perhaps too much of the light of day. Arkin plays a cantankerous handyman who, upon deciding to give up on life and retreat permanently to bed, finds himself swamped by curious and supportive relatives and neighbors. This is a lovely afternoon TV movie but nothing more.

Smokin’ Aces

Jeremy Piven’s is cruising his wave of Entourage-success and is seemingly confident enough to risk sharing the screen with Ben Affleck, an actor whose recent films have proved as popular as syphilis. Here Piven plays a snitch who finds himself on the run from any number of potential assassins. Slick and entertaining, this is above-average comedy-action fare.

Blood and Chocolate

Director Katja von Garnier has her work cut out trying to keep her story of a werewolf torn between love and family loyalty from slipping over into absolute farce. She’s not always successful and the film is never thrilling, frightening or exciting enough to take off but the young couple, Hugh Dancy and Agnes Bruckner have promising faces.

Catch and Release

Jennifer Garner stars as a recently bereaved woman struggling to come to terms with her husband’s less than saintly past and find new love with one of his childhood friends. This is every bit as uninspiring as it sounds and really does make one wonder how Garner has achieved star status. Supporting turns by Kevin Smith and Juliette Lewis do nothing to alleviate the tedium.

Epic Movie

From the writers responsible for the Scary Movie franchise and the yet-more-lackluster Date Movie comes this parody of Hollywood’s most bloated products. It’s lightweight trash but the targets of this silly satire are worthy of attack and the cast seem to be enjoying themselves enormously. Jennifer Coolidge shines like the comic star she is.

The Hitcher

Graduating from One Tree Hill to the big time B-movie world of the horror remake, Sophia Bush plays the female lead in this remake of the 1986 ‘classic’. The story’s simple enough: young, happy couple pick up ghoulish looking stranger with predictably unfortunate results. Sean Bean, once flying high as a strong British export, crash lands as the murderous title character.

The Dead Girl

Brittany Murphy plays the eponymous corpse whose demise brings to light various other strands and characters who hold the clues to her murder. The film’s focus could do with being tighter and perhaps enough isn’t made of the excellent cast (including Giovanni Ribisi and Toni Collette) but with some stunning and tender moments, Karen Moncrieff is certainly a director to watch.

The Good German

Steven Soderbergh returns with this heart-on-sleeve homage to Carol Reed’s classic The Third Man. Although this never reaches the dizzying heights of that classic, George Clooney plays a convincing lead as a hapless American journalist who falls into a murder-mystery. Strong support comes from Cate Blanchett, Tobey Maguire and the excellent Tony Curran.

Freedom Writers

Hilary Swank continues her streak of deathly dull, soon-to-be-Oscar-nominated, social justice stories with this tale of a young teacher trying to improve the lot of her class of at-risk children. It’s not that this is bad but it feels too much like painting-by-numbers for all involved, especially in the light of last year’s similarly-themed but extraordinarily realised Half Nelson.