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New releases: Tough guy as poet
By STEVE PERSALL
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 14, 2002
Heist (R)
[Photo: Warner Bros. ]
Gene Hackman, left, and Danny DeVito star in Heist, the story of an aging thief who must do one more job before ending his career. |
Gene Hackman plays Joe Moore, an aging gold thief ready to retire when a job goes wrong and another robbery is necessary. Danny DeVito co-stars as the "fixer" applying pressure on Joe, while the terribly underrated actor Rebecca Pidgeon (The Spanish Prisoner) plays the femme fatale role. Heist was written and directed by David Mamet, whose gift for making tough guys sound profanely poetic lifts the movie above its cliched foundation.
First impressions: "This is a movie in which someone says 'Nobody lives forever' for no reason other than to let someone else reply: 'Frank Sinatra gave it a shot.' Mamet's words are as eloquently piercing as usual, but the circumstances provoking them are arbitrary. . . .
"Heist is a good movie that could be a groaner if not for the brilliant dialogue lifting it to a level of art, sort of like a Glengarry Glen Robbery. Mamet's forte isn't action but the words that become it. He isn't able to take this story smoothly from A to Z, but he juggles the alphabet like nobody else."
Second thoughts: An actor's workshop, guided by a master of wordplay.
Rental audience: Admirers of Mamet's style.
Rent it of you enjoy: Glengarry Glen Ross, The Spanish Prisoner, Ronin, Homicide.
Sexy Beast (R)
[Photo: Fox Searchlight]
Ray Winstone, left, and Ben Kingsley, star in Sexy Beast. Kingsley is a favorite in the Oscars’ best supporting actor category.
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Retired gangster Gal Dove (Ray Winstone) is bullied into another heist by ferocious former accomplice Don Logan (Ben Kingsley). The caper isn't as important as the venom Logan spews in Dove's direction, a constant barrage of intimidation that can make viewers cringe.
First impressions: "Kingsley is a jaw-dropper in this role. He's an actor relishing every moment of shattering his screen image, not relinquishing an ounce of the humanity normally invested in his roles. Logan isn't human (but rather) a screaming ball of hate wrapped much too tightly. . . .
"Sexy Beast transports film noir conventions into broad Mediterranean sunlight, with the cheeky cynicism of modern crime dramas. Everyone is interesting, partly because of what the script doesn't tell us about them. . . . I don't know what's sexy about all this, but Kingsley makes a memorable beast."
Second thoughts: Apparently, Academy Awards voters agree, making Kingsley a favorite in this year's best supporting actor category.
Rental audience: Art-house audiences with a streak of nasty in their viewing choices.
Rent it if you enjoy: The General; Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; Snatch.
Zoolander (PG-13)
Ben Stiller stars as Derek Zoolander, a pouty fashion model at the end of his catwalk, watching a new stud (Owen Wilson) capture the paparazzi's attention. Things get complicated (and silly) when a fashion mogul (Saturday Night Live's Will Ferrell) brainwashes Zoolander into assassinating a Malaysian prime minister who wants to close down that nation's sweat shops.
First impressions: "Zoolander has enough sarcastic insight about the fashion world to suit a late-night comedy sketch, not a 90-minute movie. Stiller, who also directed and co-wrote the screenplay, scores when he focuses on egos and media fascination but stumbles when required to construct some kind of plot around them. . . .
"Smaller touches make Zoolander mildly amusing and downright hilarious on some occasions. Derek's vapidity is a surefire gag, as when he delivers a eulogy and pronounces it 'ew-googly' or complains that an architectural model of a school for children 'who can't read good' is too tiny for students to fit in the door. Stiller's performance, with his mealy voice and absurdly furrowed brow, is smartest when Derek is at his dumbest."
Second thoughts: This one fell out of favor faster than corduroy underwear.
Rental audience: Stiller's cult following; K-Mart shoppers.
Rent it if you enjoy: Outtakes from Austin Powers movies.
DVD: New and noteworthy for digital players
A menacing 'Joy Ride'
Joy Ride (Special Edition)
John Dahl's road-trip thriller was one of last year's guiltiest pleasures, a confidently unpleasant blend of slasher-flick conventions and trucker nightmares previously established by Duel and Breakdown. The film's best quality was Dahl's breakneck progression through the cliches. Now, a DVD version demonstrates how much material was lost to accomplish that.
The disc contains deleted and alternate scenes like many DVDs, but the amount of footage that Dahl chose to excise is unusual. Most of it focuses on the film's climax, which was a minor letdown in its theatrical state. Now Dahl reveals the original ending that was filmed, a 28-minute segment that would have sent Joy Ride in a more macabre direction.
By that time, viewers should be enjoying the story of two brothers (Paul Walker, Steve Zahn) and a friend (Leelee Sobieski) driving cross-country, dodging a faceless trucker calling himself Rusty Nail who didn't appreciate a CB radio trick they pulled on him. The movie has been a series of cat-and-mouse encounters resulting in Sobieski's character being kidnapped and rigged with a shotgun booby-trap. The theatrical ending wraps up things fast and furious. Dahl's original idea is more luxuriously menacing, bloodier and more effective.
But that's not all. Another, shorter alternate climax takes yet another narrative detour, and yet another reverses Sobieski's role from victim to avenging angel. Finally, there's a fourth finale that wasn't quite completed, but Dahl fills in the gaps with storyboards filmed with camera zooms and rapid edits making those sketches more exciting than the typical pause-and-admire presentation.
Dahl, Sobieski and two of the film's producers contribute alternate commentary tracks for the discarded endings, reasoning why they weren't chosen. Rather than using the disc's bonus capabilities for back-patting analysis, Joy Ride makes the exercise a lesson in creative decisionmaking, with all of the satisfaction and regret that involves.
Viewers can also see the difference within the film's context. The DVD provides a clever screen icon -- one of those mud flaps with a shapely woman's silhouette -- whenever those deleted portions were supposed to appear, allowing them to be included with a couple of remote control commands.
Since Rusty Nail was portrayed in the movie only as a CB voice, the actor making those threats was a key element for Dahl to consider. The disc contains audio comparison between the line readings of Ted Levine (The Silence of the Lambs' Jame Gumm) who got the part, and two other actors (Eric Roberts, Stephen Shellen) who auditioned for the role. More imagination is displayed in the bonus material than the movie they're explaining, but the movie's a decent ride, too.
Rewind: Videos worth another look
Caine's prodigious career
[Times files]
Michael Caine plays a weary professor, above, who becomes a mentor to a young woman in Educating Rita. In Hannah and Her Sisters, below, Caine won his first Academy Award for a story of adultery and forgiveness.
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Michael Caine delivered a memorably honest Golden Globes acceptance speech when he picked up the best musical/comedy actor award for Little Voice in 1999.
"I've made a lot of movies," and a lot of them weren't very good, Caine said dryly, "But I made a lot of money."
Nicely said by an actor with 126 films and television roles listed on the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), including such notorious dogs as Jaws 4, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure and Blame It on Rio. Then again, there have been sublime films including Oscar-winning roles in Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules and nominations for Sleuth, Educating Rita and Alfie. Caine's bank account is his business, but it must be a tidy sum.
Caine was born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite on this date in 1933, the son of a fishmonger and a charwoman. The name "Caine" came from the marquee of a theater playing The Caine Mutiny when his agent suggested a change. Theater work and bit parts in films preceded his breakthrough in Zulu (1964), followed in quick succession by The Ipcress File and his starmaking turn as the Cockney bounder Alfie.
If you have a spare month, check out each of Caine's performances. In case you don't have time, here's a list of suggested titles:
Alfie -- Caine charmed audiences as a ladies' man successfully avoiding emotional ties until the intrusions of pregnancy, poor health and an urge to commit. Great title song by Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
Funeral in Berlin -- Caine reprised his Ipcress File role as British spy Harry Palmer in one of the genre's best examples. Palmer is sent to retrieve a Communist defector, less dynamic than Bond but probably closer to the Cold War truth.
Get Carter -- A nasty piece of gangster business with Caine as a heartless hit man avenging his brother's murder. Shame on the actor for appearing in Sylvester Stallone's loud, dumb remake two years ago.
Sleuth -- A two-actor tour de force with Caine and Laurence Olivier playing murderous games. Both actors were Oscar nominated. Anthony Shaffer's dialogue is deliciously British and comfortably confounding.
The Man Who Would Be King -- Rudyard Kipling's epic tale of British soldiers mistaken for gods in India is superbly directed by John Huston and acted with extraordinary charisma by Caine and Sean Connery.
Dressed to Kill -- One of Brian De Palma's better Hitchcock impersonations, thanks in large part to Caine's portrayal of a psychiatrist with a secret.
Educating Rita -- A twist on Pygmalion with Caine as a professor instructing a housewife in literature and the finer things in life. Julie Walters deserved the Oscar, but Shirley MacLaine (Terms of Endearment) was in the way.
Hannah and Her Sisters -- Caine won his first Academy Award as part of Woody Allen's romantic flow chart of adultery and forgiveness. Co-stars Oscar winner Dianne Wiest, Carrie Fisher, Barbara Hershey and Mia Farrow.
Little Voice -- Caine dropped his debonair persona to play Ray Say, a greasy, unscrupulous talent agent squeezing every shilling from a singer (Jane Horrocks) who can mimic famous voices.
The Cider House Rules -- Caine won another Oscar as a compassionate abortionist and foster father figure. Caine's most famous line will probably be his epitaph: "Goodnight, you princes of Maine, you kings of New England."
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