egalwaat.lu

Being alone in her United Nations sound booth after hours, interpreter Sylvia Broome (Nicole Kidman) overhears an assassination plot that puts despotic African leader and president of the Republic of Matobo Edmund Zuwanie’s life in jeopardy. After reporting that the assassination will take place during Zuwanie’s speech at UN headquarters in New York City, the secret service around Tobin Keller (Sean Penn) begins its investigation. Discovering that Sylvia herself is from Matobo, her parents and sister killed by one of Zuwanie’s land mines and she being one of only eight people in the US able to understand Matobo’s tribal dialect inevitably puts her on the suspect list. As the plot develops, dramatic confrontations ensue, a platonic love grows and a conspiracy theory unfolds while the audience is riveted to their seats and begins to question Sylvia’s integrity and real motivation.

After The Firm and Three Days of the Condor, Sydney Pollack, the master of the political thriller, delivers yet another at-the-edge-of-your-seat experience. Thanks to a close friendship with Kofi Annan, Pollack was the first director allowed to shoot inside UN headquarters on New York City’s East River (in the United Nations General Assembly as well as in the Security Council buildings). With fascinating in and outside shots of the UN building, captivating aerial shots of New York and interesting characters played by two of today’s most critically acclaimed actors (Kidman and Penn), the movie convinces both plot-wise and technically. With a slightly disappointing ending the movie unfortunately doesn’t conclude with the brilliancy of its first half. With its old-school feeling The Interpreter is nevertheless a welcome change in the era of modern film-making. Go see it before you indulge yourself in not so demanding flicks when the summer movie season officially begins.

Would you sacrifice another family to save your own?

After a hostage negotiation gone awfully wrong, the world’s most renowned negotiator Jeff Tally (Bruce Willis) decides to quit and becomes a county sheriff in a sleepy Californian pueblo. In the mean time, a three juvenile punks’ attempt to steal a car ends up with a whole family (a widowed dad, his adolescent daughter and a little boy) being held hostage by them. What complicates the situation is that the captured dad is a mob accountant holding incriminating data and mysterious gangsters kidnap Willis’s own wife and daughter in order to force him to retrieve the material from the mansion while subverting the ongoing investigations and negotiations. With the help of the family’s youngest member who managed to escape and hide in the ventilation shafts, Willis tries to save the day and both families.

With a clever premise and artful credits the movie delivers for most of its first half before literally all hell breaks loose. What follows is a loud and ridiculous gun blasting and explosion-heavy finale that makes you scratch your head more than once. Seemingly superhuman bad guys throwing Molotov cocktails and Willis killing off his offenders in brutal shootouts in best Die Hard manner makes this movie drift off into the outright ludicrous. (“Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker”). Instead of delivering utterly idiotic flicks such as this one director Florent Emilio Siri (Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow) should stick with making video games which he does better. Only Bruce Willis’ performance would to some extent justify the ticket price but that being said you had better to rent the Die Hard trilogy (you might skip the 2nd installment) and watch action flicks that do not pretend to be something else.

(1 out of 4 plotholes)

Come out come out, whatever you are.

After his wife’s (Alias’s Amy Irving) apparent suicide, Manhattan psychiatrist David Calloway (Robert De Niro) takes his daughter (Dakota Fanning) away to live in a remote house in upstate New York. Against the advice of the girl’s therapist (Famke Janssen), father and daughter seek a fresh start in this isolated summer community that houses creepy woods and even creepier neighbors. The real threat, however, does not come from the outside. Having lost her beloved mommy, the withdrawn girl develops a friendship with an imaginary friend by the name of Charlie. Mutilated dolls, bloody messages appearing on the bathroom walls and the girl developing circles under her eyes that make us think of Christina Ricci in The Adam’s Family make this a challenging experience for daddy who thinks his daughter has gone loco.

After Meet the Fockers, Robert De Niro tries something completely different by starring in this awfully lame horror flick. Even though he is more or less convincing as the caring father, it is Dakota Fanning who steals nearly every scene she is in. As one might guess, Robert De Niro must have learned from previous stinkers like Godsend to actually read scripts before signing for a movie but probably didn’t for this one either. The most annoying thing is that nearly everything in this movie has already been done before; and in a much better way. Creepy woods, isolated houses, dimly lit cellars and cats jumping out of closets are no ground-breaking additions to the horror genre. Moreover, the frustratingly slow pacing of the movie makes it even harder to give it any credit besides Fanning’s possessed child acting.

Stay away stay away, whoever you are.

Hell wants him. Heaven won’t take him. Earth needs him.

Keanu Reeves plays John Constantine, an edgy exorcist, in this film noir adaptation of the Hellblazer comic books and graphic novels. Armed with crucifixes, holy water, and mirrors, chain-smoking suicide survivor Constantine fights with satanic minions and rescues possessed mortals in modern-day Los Angeles. After Isabel Dodson’s (Rachel Weisz) unexplained suicide, her twin sister, LAPD detective Angela Dodson (guess who), joins forces with Constantine in order to solve her sister’s mysterious death. Together, they embark on a journey that literally takes them to hell and back, featuring the angel Gabriel (androgynous Tilda Swinton), the Spear of Destiny which apparently inflected Jesus’s deadly wounds, and the man downstairs himself.

On the surface, Constantine is a special effects laden mystery thriller that for the most part unfolds at a break-neck pace. However, this R-rated flick has more to offer than CGI demons and Rachel Weisz in a wet shirt. Constantine has more depth than you would expect from a movie made by a former music video director. Francis Lawrence, who directed for example Justin Timberlake’s Cry Me a River video clip, made this movie, rich in symbolism and interesting even for nonbelievers. On the whole, the cast is doing a good job (the most kudos have to go to Rachel Weisz) and even though we can’t help but thinking that Keanu Reeves is still the One, he does a decent job portraying JC.

Constantine delivers gorgeous special effects combined with an original and intriguing storyline about salvation and forgiveness. Start your prayers.

(2.5 out of 4 nicotine patches)

Everyone is looking for the next big hit.

In this sequel to the 1995 hit Get Shorty, John Travolta picks up his role as the Miami mobster turned Hollywood producer Chili Palmer. After his friend, music executive Tommy Athens (James Woods) is killed, Chili, who was fed up with the movie business anyway, decides to jump-start his music industry career with the help of Tommy’s widow Edie (Uma Thurman). Soon however, when Chili tries to win over a young up-and-coming singer (Christina Milian) he realizes that the music industry is quite a biatch as he will have to deal with such twisted gangstas as Sin LaSalle (a music kingpin played by Cedric the Entertainer) and his party posse, Dabu (a trigger-happy gang-banger played by Outkast’s André 3000), Raji (Vince Vaughn’s character who has a preference for acting black) and Elliot (Raji’s gay bodyguard played by former wrestling star The Rock).

As it often is the case with movies with A-list laden casts, Be Cool is heavily character driven while the plot remains somewhat secondary. Nevertheless, the movie gives a hilariously stereotyped view on the music business and especially the hippy-hop genre. With additional music from Aerosmith, the Rock as a freakin’ funny Samoan bodyguard who participates in a Polynesian lap dance, a scantily clad Christina Milian, and a Pulp Fiction reminiscent Travolta/Thurman dance scene, Be Cool is over-the-top with comedy and music and features more cameos than you might spot on a first viewing. Even though Be Cool lacks some of the appeal and charm of its predecessor Get Shorty, John Travolta keeps his fingers crossed that a musical number can save his career one more time.

Yo homie! Be Entertained. (3 out of 4 Grammies)

Some men dream the future. He built it.

Leonardo DiCaprio stars in this nearly 3-hour biopic portraying Howard Hughes, a man who managed to present his life as if it was a movie and who became an icon in American history. Howard Hughes produced movies (Hell’s Angels for one) and set airspeed records. The public and a long list of beauties were fascinated by him. The truth however was that he was a lousy businessman whose only gift was determination and a huge amount of money. Hughes totally lacked personal charm and yet he dated the most famous actresses and was one of the best known men of his time. The Aviator tries to reawaken the myth behind Howard Hughes and gives us a glimpse into 20 years of his life, including the making of Hell’s Angels, his numerous affairs, his record-breaking flights, his crashes, his trials, his eccentricities and a foreshadowing of his eventual downfall.

After a disappointing Gangs of New York, The Aviator is Martin Scorsese’s best work since Goodfellas. With stunning shots, huge sets, striking visuals, excellent actors (except of course Gwen Stefani) and an atmospheric score, this movie is Oscar material. And even if one isn’t exactly a Dicaprio fan (and I am most certainly not) one has to admit that he does an awfully good job portraying Mr. Hughes for which he might even be rewarded with an Academy Award. Scorsese proves that he hasn’t forgotten how to make outstanding movies. He takes us on a tour behind the myth that was Howard Hughes and does so in a highly fascinating way.

After Alexander and before Ray, The Aviator is already the second biopic that opens this season and heck, it’s probably gonna be the best one too. The Aviator flies very high.

(3.5 out of 4 bars of soap)