Late Winter Reviews
A film review by Michael John Legeros
Copyright 1995 Michael John Legeros
Contents ========
- JUST CAUSE - THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE - A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE - DR. STRANGELOVE
JUST CAUSE 120 min. / Rated "R" ==========
Sean Connery stars as a Harvard law professor who heads back into the courtroom, by way of the Everglades, to defend a young, educated black man (Blair Underwood). The guy is on death row for the murder of a white girl, and says that his confession was coerced from the region's tough, black cop (Lawrence Fishburne).
Watching Connery and Fishburne bump heads for two hours is amusing enough, but the plot's a joke. There's no logic at work here. Tone is also an issue--there is none. Director Arne Glimcher never establishes exactly what his film is trying to say. Is it a statement on human rights? Is it a knock-off of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS? Glimcher never tells. Instead, he forces his characters to jump through hoop after hoop, over drawbridge after drawbridge, hoping that the audience won't notice what's missing.
Just awful.
Grade: D+
THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE 107 min. / Not Rated ==========================
Still wondering who Nigel Hawthorne is? Then check out his Oscar- nominated work in THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE, still playing in both Raleigh and Chapel Hill. Stage director Nicholas Hytner, in a remarkable screen debut, has adapted Alan Bennett's 1991 tragic comedy to fine effect. Sumptuous-looking and only mildly stuffy, the film charts the madness that plagued King George III (Hawthorne) almost 30 years into his reign.
Grade: A-
A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE 98 min. / Rated "R" ======================
In Suri Krishnamma's A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE, Albert Finney disappears so deeply into the role of a lovable Dublin bus conductor that it's a shame when the film gets so serious around him. His character is a conductor with a passion for Oscar Wilde. He reads to his riders, and once a year, with their help, he tries to stage one of the author's plays.
This year it's "Salome."
For about an hour, there's a sweet magic behind Finney and his troupe of working-class stiffs. Conflict arises, but it's small stuff--an administrator from the bus company here, an outraged Catholic pork butcher (Michael Gambon) there. But with Finney at the wheel, so to speak, the film rolls smoothly over these plot points--just like the gorgeous Leland double-decker bus in the story.
Where things get serious is toward the end of the film, when the plot takes a turn that the bus never would, and the story heads down a very dark alley that marks the end of an enjoyable ride. The twist makes sense--and helps paint a complete picture of Finney's character--but the trip to get there betrays the light, airy atmosphere of what had come before.
It's not a fatal misstep, mind you, and it doesn't send the story soaring into the realms of incredulity. It's just a turn off.
Grade: B
DR. STRANGELOVE 93 min. / Not Rated ===============
Mein Fuhrer! The most fun that *I* had last month was in Durham, at the Carolina, at a mid-week screening of Stanley Kubrick's pitch-black comedy DR. STRANGELOVE (OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB). The 1964 film stars Peter Sellers (in three roles), George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, and Slim Pickens. Their antics brought the house down, which, to my surprise, was packed by an audience younger than the film.
No mineshaft gap here.
Grade: A+
-- Michael J. Legeros Raleigh, North Carolina
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