Screen: Reviews

It’s not unusual for someone to completely implode after claiming the film world’s most publicised accolade.
Although it’s hard to argue that your golden pal can open doors, there’s also far more criticism when you pull a Halle Berry and end up doing dross like Catwoman and Gothika.

So have the Coen brothers truly cooked their goose by cleaning up with the gloomy No Country For Old Men?

Luckily, there’s no sign of a meltdown here, even if their new off-beat caper doesn’t exactly feature a cast of characters you would willingly invite out for a drink.

Burn After Reading combines Coen favourites such as George Clooney and Frances McDormand with newbies like Brad Pitt and John Malkovich in a movie which is closer to madness than morbidity.

McDormand and Pitt play gym instructors who discover the drink-lacquered memoirs of former CIA agent Malkovich, but, after failing to blackmail the insider, they decide to raise money by selling them to the Russians.

While you don’t get behind the characters in the same way that you did with classics such as The Big Lebowski, this is nevertheless a sharply-made and witty effort which returns the Coens to their natural stomping ground of dark with a side order of odd.

It may not be the next Fargo, but it’s certainly not the next Intolerable Cruelty. Phew.

ACTION
Eagle Eye (12A)
2/5

Is anyone seriously buying Shia LeBeouf as an action star yet?

I understand he’s Tinseltown’s great white hope and all, but so far most of his major roles have involved getting in the way of the characters we actually bought our popcorn to see in the first place.

Remember that kid who kept wittering on about romance when we wanted to see giant fighting Transformers? Or that oik that kept getting screen time when we were waiting for Indy to break his plastic hip?

Luckily he’s not really obstructing anything in this Enemy of the State-y type action-spillage. Unfortunately, that means there’s really not much to see.

LeBeouf plays an ordinary Joe with a Gary Neville moustache who suddenly finds himself in the middle of a scuffle between terrorists and the FBI – led by Billy Bob Thornton.

He also keeps getting calls from some woman who can control cameras, street lights, and probably even your coffee machine if she could get it to blow up loudly enough.

And he’s not alone. Single mum Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan) has been similarly set-up as the all-knowing voice threatens to kill her son if she doesn’t comply.

It’s an oddly plotted run-for-the-hills thriller which spends a lot of its time darting around and shrieking, but not a lot of time making sense. Slated for Steven Spielberg to direct, it finally fell into the hands of DJ Disturbia Caruso.

It may have cost a scary $80million to make, but it feels more like the Six Million Dollar Movie – a dodgy effort cobbled together with spare film parts and armfuls of computerised bells and whistles.

COMEDY
The Rocker (12A)
2/5

In The Rocker, a failed musician gets a second chance when he’s allowed to team up with a teen rock band.

Hey, wait a minute – isn’t this just a less interesting School Of Rock?

You’re not getting away with it that easily, Hollywood.

If you’re going to bring out a movie to capitalise on the success of those odd Guitar Hero and Rock Star games, at least have the decency to release it straight-to-video.

For starters, why is it a good idea to substitute Jack Black for The American Office’s Rainn Wilson?

And I thought we’d established that just stapling a love interest to a bland plot doesn’t necessarily guarantee greatness. Especially when that love interest is played by Christina Applegate – who you appear to have reduced to filling that corner of the shot that isn’t occupied by a grown man wandering around in unflattering pants.

Watching The Rocker is like sitting in one of those rocking spaceships outside supermarkets. You know it’s not going anywhere, so it’s really not interesting to anyone except toddlers and the dangerously drunk.