Paranoid_Android Reviews

Cruel Intentions (1999)

Sexy fun

[8 April 2000]

Ever since the success of "Clueless" - Jane Austen's "Emma" set in a modern-day high school - there's predictably been a flood of high school films adapted from the classics ("Romeo and Juliet", "The Taming of the Shrew", etc). Here we have one that has actually got real potential - the debauched, manipulative world of "Dangerous Liasons" translated to a modern American high school for the privileged. It's a brilliant idea - with echoes of "Heathers" - and, up until the contrived ending, it's the best and sexiest of the bunch.

As the modern day Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil - the unsrupulous couple who manipulate the lives of those around them for their own jaded amusement - Ryan Phillippe and Sarah Michelle Gellar have a real chemistry together, both of them convincingly evil and cunning. The film works best when they are on screen together, constantly trying to upstage one another with plans of deviousness.

Gellar steals the film largely because she doesn't have to go through the sudden, unconvincing change of heart that Phillippe does. As the brazenly sexual Kathryn, she's allowed to remain delightfully evil throughout, weather it be snorting cocaine hidden in her crucifix, provocatively teasing Phillips to destruction, or, in the films hottest scene, teaching the innocent Selma Blair how to french-kiss - a lingering scene, complete with zoom-in, that makes the Denise Richards-Neve Campbell gropings in "Wild Things" look half-hearted. Reece Witherspoon does her best with the more thankless (and difficult) role of the virtuous good girl that wins Phillips heart.

Jackie Brown (1997)

Tarantino sees off the backlash

[8 April 2000]

Quentin Tarantino is clearly finding it difficult to follow the phenomenal success of "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction", which made him the hottest writer-director of his generation. In the six years since then this is the only time that he has returned to the directors chair. "Jackie Brown" - his "difficult third film" - seems to be his response to criticism of his first two films that he could only make movies about other movies, but not real life. He cleverly anticipates the backlash by adapting a tightly plotted, character driven Elmore Leonard novel, still set in his familiar world of LA low-lives, but keeping to a minimum his trademark comic-book violence and pop-culture references, while emphasising the novels more mature themes - such as ageing and the feeling of time running out for the middle-aged characters. The result is a slick, interesting, if slightly draggy thriller, which ultimately lacks the freshness and audaciousness of those earlier films.

Tarantino still has his maverick streak though, as displayed in his trusting of Pam Grier to carry the entire movie. The casting of a middle-aged black actress with no box-office clout in the lead role can't have been easy in an industry notorious for it's scant regard for actresses after they reach 30. You can bet that the studios would have at least insisted on the safety of a Sharon Stone or a Demi Moore. But Tarantino, as he did when casting Travolta, stuck to his gut-instinct, and once again it proved an inspired choice. Grier, bringing with her the memories of her 70's blackploitation movies, gives a convincingly tough, wise and sympathetic performance.

Actors love to work with Tarantino because the roles he gives them will be invariably jucier than usual. That is once again the case here, although the casting isn't quite as inspired as it was in "Dogs" or "Pulp" (or "True Romance"). Samuel L. Jackson is reliably good - if hardly stretched - as an unscrupulous hustler who is not as smart as he thinks he is, and Bridget Fonda has fun as his conniving beach babe girlfriend. Robert Forster jumps at the chance to play a role with depth after years in made-for-tv hell. Robert De Niro though, despite providing some amusing moments, is disappointingly wasted as Jackson's dim-witted partner.

At times this feels like just another thriller, but every now and then Tarantino reminds you what all the fuss was about. Jackson's brutal (off-screen) dispatching of Chris Tucker in the boot of a car, as the camera slowly cranes up into the sky, is masterfully conceived and a scene, which is subtly built up to, involving a teasing Fonda and a p*****-off De Niro is as unexpected and as shocking as anything Tarantino has done before. By refusing to make a Pulp Fiction 2, Tarantino may have missed out on some easy money, but this film has enough to suggest that he will be more than just a flash in the pan.

Zandalee (1991)

Gratuitous nudity livens up dull melodrama

[8 April 2000]

Nicholas Cage is mis-cast as an irrestistable sex-god/brooding artist who comes to stay with an old friend (Judge Reinhold) and proceeds to VERY unsubtley seduce his wife, Zandalee (Twin Peaks' Erika Anderson). Despite his lank, greasy (thinning) hair, scraggy goaty, boorish manner and an unfortunate fondness for spouting pretentious philosophy, rather than find him hilarious she is inexplicably drawn to him.

The only thing that keeps the interest from flagging throughout this film are the strong sex scenes and the gratuitous nudity involving the stunning Anderson, which begins, promisingly enough, before the opening credits have even finished and is sprinkled generously throughout the film. On the downside, you also have to see Judge Reinhold's butt - not such a pretty sight - but sometimes sacrifices have to be made.