dlscally Reviews

When Time Ran Out... (1980)

Excellent multiple personality disaster movies.

[9/10 · 31 May 2002]

I am relatively indifferent to most action movies but I am willing to make an exception in this case. I was strongly attracted to the multiple personal stories and thus cared a lot about which of these fictional characters survived and which perished. Thus, I am surprised by the cold reception given this film by many writers, both amateur and professional. The characters were all carefully developed, quite an accomplishment for a movie that tells so many personal stories. Examples: We have a ratfink male whose greed gets lots of people killed. He doubles as one third of a love triangle involving two ladies with plenty of misplaced loyalty and very little common sense. We have a reluctant hero who leads many to safety. We have a retired tightrope walker whose former trade will be put to good use before almost everything melts away in the finale. We are treated to the complex relationship between a gentleman crook and his pursuer; the former risks his own survival by going out of his way to render assistance when the latter becomes disabled. A lot of the characters are caught participating in a sadistic cockfight when all hell breaks loose. What happens to most of them before the movie is over seems like a severe penalty, even for cockfighting.

Hollywood first realized the merits of multiple plot movies with the introduction of "[Vicki Baum's] Grand Hotel", circa 1932. This pattern has since been followed many times, usually successfully. Examples: "Stagecoach", "The Bridge of San Luis Rey", "Airport", "[Arthur Hailey's] Hotel", "Lone Star", "The Big Chill" and "Matewan". I believe that those responsible for "When Time Ran Out..." also did an excellent job of multiple character development and I loved every minute of it.

Mission: Impossible (1996)

Unfaithful to the TV series which emphasized clever teamwork.

[10 March 2002]

This movie supports the theory that there is no movie idea so good that it can't be ruined if the producer and director have too much money to spend. Once upon a time there was a TV series called "Mission Impossible" which employed an ensemble cast of actors portraying espionage agents very dependent upon clever strategies, accurate timing and teamwork to carry out their risky assignments. They all had plenty of work to do and, for the most part, played their parts extremely well. It came as quite a shock to me that the concepts of mutual dependence and trust were abandoned in this new movie, replaced by the concept that nobody can be trusted and nothing is what it seems to be. Three of the world's most talented living actresses, Emmanuelle Beart, Vanessa Redgrave and Kristin Scott Thomas, appear in the new movie and none of them have anything significant to get across to the audience. I was especially disappointed that Ms. Beart, of `Manon des Sources' fame, did not have a better part. Her English is almost flawless in an era when many American actors are rewarded for their ability to speak unintelligibly. I hope that she gets a better English language script soon. It's been quite a while since any new work of Ms. Bearet, in any language, has appeared on US coded DVD or VHS! Worst of all, I got sick of seeing Tom Cruse doing most of the espionage work that had previously been assigned to a team of actors portraying specialists in the old TV series. Rightly or wrongly, he came across as an egomaniac.

Gosford Park (2001)

The dialogue did not cross the Atlantic successfully.

[2/10 · 28 January 2002]

Why do modern British movie makers insist that their actors employ dialects that cannot be understood on this side of the Atlantic? There was a huge cast of about 30 major parts, some played by very famous actors. What most of them had in common was their speech delivery, a combination of mumbling and slurred speech that was impossible to follow even with the theatre microphones turned up to a painfully loud volume. As is typical of the modern British movie, the first 20 minutes failed to grab my attention and failed to clarify plot development. Most of the story was told in narrative fragments inserted throughout the movie, with very little important action taking place on screen. Because the dialogue was not understandable on this side of the Atlantic, or at least by me, I could not follow the plot.

There are occasional recent British made movies that can be understood on this side of the Atlantic, but they are the exception. It is even rarer to find a recent British movie that grabs the viewer's attention at the start as the 1947 "Great Expectations" with John Mills and Hitchcock's 1940"Rebecca" do. The introduction of the DVD with English subtitles partially solves the first problem, but it can do little to to get the story going.