DVD reviews
The Age
Friday August 28, 2009
NEW RELEASE The International 118 min; MA, Sony (2009)GERMAN filmmaker Tom Tykwer€™s update of the paranoid thrillers of the 1970s had an unexpectedly nostalgic bent. Perhaps it was the concept of pitching a vast bank as the villainous entity €” the idea of a fictional investment house commissioning murders, selling arms and generally running amok was quaint given how the real banks were tottering during the movie€™s release. Clive Owen and Naomi Watts play archetypes and the film is as equally professional and devoid of defining character as its two leads. Tykwer (Run Lola Run) is an adroit technician and his characters are overwhelmed by the conspicuous architecture they€™re pitched against. The most notable is New York€™s Guggenheim museum, which is extensively shot up in an action set piece; don€™t fret, a featurette on the extensive extras shows how it was a 1:1 scale replica constructed in Germany. CMSCORE! Hilary and Jackie 95 min; MA, Roadshow (1998), $6.98, JB Hi-Fi, Bourke St, cityWHETHER it's on Brothers & Sisters or in Beautiful Kate, Rachel Griffiths is the sibling of choice. But she was never better at it than playing a woman who gives way to her sister in the name of genius. Anand Tucker's biopic begins with world-class cellist Jackie du Pre (Emily Watson) but the fulcrum becomes her sister, Hilary (Griffiths), in this bitterly emotional picture. CMMUSIC Ted Nugent: Motor City Mayhem 123 min; M, Eagle Vision/Shock (2009)ONE for the fans. In one big night in Detroit last year the city's own Motor City Madman, Ted Nugent, celebrates July 4 with his 6000th show. The right-wing, Obama-hating good ol' boy celebrates as you'd expect, complete with a bikini-clad blonde in a cake and a stage flanked by US soldiers. After 40 years in the biz and at 60 years of age, the Nuge's voice €” much like his politics €” has lost none of its abrasive impact. JROFF THE SHELF The Insider 151 min; M, Buena Vista (1999)SOMETHING is not quite right thematically with Michael Mann's Public Enemies: it could be that Mann has allowed himself to be seduced by Johnny Depp's swagger, or the way he lets Christian Bale tighten his character's emotional screws to the point of calcification. The two are plainly Mann protagonists €” skilled, masculine obsessives twinned even when in opposition to each other €” but the director's most nuanced application of this world view occurs in The Insider. The connection between American 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) and tobacco company whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe) is forged on an intimate scale, even as the machinations of the media age play out around them. Mann's film, an epic composed with surging energy, never overwhelms the grip each man has on the other. CM
© 2009 The Age
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