Collateral (15)
HH
Dir. Michael Mann
Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx star in Michael Mann's handsomely-shot, high-concept thriller, which pairs a well-meaning LA taxi driver with a top-level contract killer on a bloody all-night job. With Mann at the helm, Cruise playing an out-and-out bad guy, and a general
dearth of decent grown-up Hollywood product on the market, this should have been refreshing at the very least. Instead, let down by a thin script and dumb plotting,
it simply lends an incongruously-glossy surface to a hackneyed and implausible B-thriller set-up.
Code 46 (15)
HHHH
Dir. Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom's dreamily offbeat sci-fi romance takes place in a fantastical but oddly plausible near-future world of mingled languages and obtuse social strictures. Tim Robbins plays a government investigator who falls in love with a suspected smuggler, played by Samantha Morton; she's equally attracted, but
unpredictable developments conspire to separate them.
There's a thriller in here somewhere, but Winterbottom privileges the creation of a blurry, beguiling atmosphere of romantic yearning over the demands of genre.
The plotting is patchy as a result, but this unusual
film still compels, mingling distant fantasies of a
dystopian future time with
a strikingly immediate evocation of human frailty
in the face of desire.
Ae Fond Kiss (15)
5/5
Dir. Ken Loach
Ken Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty keep things wonderfully sincere and simple for this funny and touching cross-cultural romance. The story is a straightforward Glasgow-set update of Romeo and Juliet - Muslim boy meets Catholic girl, love blossoms, ructions ensue - but Laverty's witty, sensitive script and Loach's expert direction of his cast render a familiar tale entirely fresh and pertinent.
You'd expect an uncompromising message from Loach - and you get one - but who would have thought he'd deliver it with such lightness and charm?
Father and Son (PG)
3/5
Dir. Aleksandr Sokurov
The director of the
remarkable one-shot
historical pageant Russian Ark closes in with smothering tenderness upon the
relationship between a
father and son, who behave with the unguarded physical ease of lovers.
Shot in fleshy browns and pinks, it's a peculiar but touching work - interpretable on one level as simple incestuous homoeroticism, but also gently expressive of intense emotional bonds between men that usually
go unspoken.
Trauma (15)
3/5
Dir. Marc Evans
This second feature from the director of My Little Eye depicts in introspective, enigmatic fragments the mental unravelment of lonely oddball Ben (Colin Firth).
His wife has just been killed in a car crash -
but was it an accident,
or is he in some way
implicated?
What does this have to do with the recent murder of a prominent British pop star? And how much does Ben's new neighbour (Mena Suvari) know about it all?
The plot is overloaded with twists, but the exquisite production design, the creepy imagery and a possible career-best performance from Firth hold the attention.
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