Bovie Movie

At the beginning of the 19th century, Napoleon’s forces controlled much of Europe. In Russia, one of the few countries still unconquered, the army prepares to face Napoleon’s troops in Austria. Among the soldiers are Nicholas Rostov (Jeremy Brett) and Prince Andrei Bolkonsky (Mel Ferrer). Pierre Bezukhov (Henry Fonda), a friend of Andrei’s and self-styled intellectual who “knows what’s right but still does wrong,” is not interested in fighting. Pierre’s life changes when his father dies, leaving him a vast inheritance. He is attracted to Natasha Rostov (Audrey Hepburn), Nicholas’s sister, but gives in to baser desires and marries the shallow, materialistic Princess Helene (Anita Ekberg). The marriage quickly ends when Pierre discovers his wife’s true nature. Andrei is captured and later released by the French, and returns home only to watch his wife die in childbirth. During a visit to the country months later, Pierre and Andrei meet again. Andrei sees Natasha and falls in love, but his father will only permit the marriage if they postpone it for one year. While Andrei is away in Poland on a military mission, Natasha is drawn to Anatole Kuragin (Vittorio Gassmann), a scoundrel and libertine. Pierre tells Natasha of Anatole’s past before she can elope with him. Napoleon (Herbert Lom) invades Russia. Pierre visits Andrei on the eve of the battle, and observes the battle that follows. Traumatized by the carnage, he vows to kill Napoleon himself.

In 1501, in the Western Europe, in a period when the black plague is jeopardizing the populations, an army of mercenary peasants leaded by Martin (Rutger Hauer) fights side-by-side with the noble Arnolfini (Fernando Hilbeck) to retrieve his castle, with the promise of a huge reward. However, the band is betrayed by Arnolfini, and decides to pay him back, assaulting and stealing a caravan under the command of Arnolfini and his son and student, Steven (Tom Burlinson). In one of the wagon is traveling the fiancée of Steven, Agnes (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who is accidentally kidnapped and later raped by the group. Agnes becomes Martin’s mate, and the mercenaries decide to invade a castle, without knowing that the army of Arnolfini is chasing them.

Based on Antonia Fraser’s book about the ill-fated Archduchess of Austria and later Queen of France, ‘Marie Antoinette’ tells the story of the most misunderstood and abused woman in history, from her birth in Imperial Austria to her later life in France.

Buckles are truly swashed and derring-do effectively done in this 12th-century adventure, which simply sets out to entertain handsomely and does so with a great deal of dash, flash and panache. Kevin Costner is more “Indiana Hood” than the Locksley lad of yore and Alan Rickman is a joy to behold as the panto-styled Sheriff of Nottingham, while Morgan Freeman’s cultured Moor — Robin’s early saviour — is a commanding, though unlikely, medieval presence. But it’s director Kevin Reynolds who deserves the most praise for disguising such overfamiliar events with imaginative staging and a constantly roving camera, and turning in such an enjoyable popcorn epic. And, yes, this is the film where Bryan Adams sings (Everything I Do) I Do It for You during the final credits. 

Director Martin Scorsese brought his fascination with the New York underworld back to its bloody, primal roots with this brutal, occasionally muddled but always riveting dream project that centres on Manhattan gang warfare in the 1860s. It begins with a gruesome street battle between the Nativists (gang members of Anglo-Saxon descent) and the Dead Rabbits (more recently arrived Irish-Americans), during which the latter’s leader, Priest Vallon (a brief but striking appearance from Liam Neeson), is slaughtered in front of his young son. Sixteen years later, Priest’s son, Amsterdam (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in a disappointingly one-note performance), returns to the Five Points district in New York where the Nativists now rule supreme and insinuates himself with the gang in order to avenge his father. However, his evolving relationship with Nativist boss Bill “the Butcher” Cutting (a searing performance from Daniel Day-Lewis) tempers his anger and provides the young man with a dilemma. If the film never marries its complex political intrigue with the more simplistic personal stories — the surrogate father-son set-up between Amsterdam and Bill or Amsterdam’s spiky romance with pickpocket Jenny Everdeane (Cameron Diaz) — the epic sweep is breathtaking, the attention to detail intoxicating and Daniel Day-Lewis’s turn is unmissable. 

This period adventure attempts to retell the first half of Homer’s epic poem The Iliad in gory Gladiator style and, for the most part, succeeds handsomely. The Trojan War was fought for the love of a woman, the legendary beauty Helen, Queen of Sparta (played by Diane Kruger), who was seduced away from her much older husband, Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson), by the impulsive Paris, Prince of Troy (Orlando Bloom). Here the aggrieved Greek forces demanding her return are led by Brian Cox’s Agamemnon, who numbers the near-invulnerable Achilles (a physically imposing if rather uncomfortable-looking Brad Pitt) among his allies. On the Trojan side, Eric Bana excels as noble Hector, the older brother of Paris. Having proven he can do claustrophobic chills with Das Boot, director Wolfgang Petersen shows tremendous command of wide-open spaces, with the battle scenes being particularly stupendous. Purists may complain about the amount of dumbing down — the dialogue is occasionally more Hollywood corn than Greek tragedy — and the performances are uneven, but overall this is a visceral and exciting epic. 

Director Phillip Noyce once again tackles explosive issues of racial persecution following Rabbit-Proof Fence, his film about Australia’s forcible integration of mixed-race aboriginals into white society. This true story begins in South Africa in 1980 as Patrick Chamusso (Derek Luke), a black oil-refinery foreman, is called in for routine questioning when the plant is sabotaged. Unable to account convincingly for his whereabouts at the time of the blast, Patrick and his wife are both subjected to rather more intense interrogation by state security forces under the supervision of the creepy Colonel Vos (a rather too avuncular Tim Robbins). The brutality of their treatment in detention helps to radicalise the previously apolitical Patrick who then joins the outlawed ANC (African National Congress) and becomes an active participant in the battle against apartheid. Noyce’s movie is decently made and acted, but it is also oddly uninvolving and offers no new insights into this explosive era in South Africa’s recent history. 

This workmanlike thriller is based on the true story of a Soviet nuclear submarine that sprung a radioactive leak and almost started the Third World War in 1961. Harrison Ford plays the captain at loggerheads with his second-in-command, Liam Neeson; Ford is willing to sacrifice anything or anyone for the good of the Soviet Union, while Neeson has only the welfare of the crew at heart. After about an hour of these two locking horns, interspersed with shots of doomed sailors looking at photos of their loved ones, the nuclear reactor leaks and the film gets interesting. The horror of the radiation effects, the race against time, the claustrophobic tension — all of this works, but it’s too little too late. By then we barely care what happens. And it boasts the least authentic accents since Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins — Neeson tries his best until he hears Ford’s paltry effort and then decides not to bother after all. 

Steven Spielberg’s lengthy historical courtroom drama has its moments of pure visual poetry, but it fails to ignite the same moral outrage that Schindler’s List so poignantly evoked. In 1839, a shipload of slaves heading for America overpower their captors, killing all but two crew members needed to navigate them back to Africa. Betrayed, intercepted and charged with murder, the slaves’ only hope for justice lies with the Abolitionist movement and an inexperienced lawyer. Anthony Hopkins and Matthew McConaughey lead the all-star cast, and there’s an amazing debut by Djimon Hounsou as the leader of the slaves. Although flawed, this chilling portrayal of outright racism further reveals Spielberg’s skill as an expert film-maker unafraid of tackling heavy political issues. 

This formulaic, gung-ho war drama is based on the bestselling memoir by war correspondent Joseph Galloway and Lt General Harold G Moore, who led a battalion of the Seventh Cavalry into the first major confrontation of the Vietnam War in November 1965. Randall Wallace’s second film as director is an overlong account of how Moore’s men stood their ground in the Ia Drang river valley against overwhelming numbers of North Vietnamese soldiers, but this is no American equivalent to Zulu. Instead, the film earnestly treads familiar ground as Wallace manipulates the audience between violent action, sentimental pep talks and scenes from the homefront as the telegrammed notices of death begin to arrive. This is a straightforward tribute to the fighting man, devoid of political comment or historical background and with no real characterisation — although Sam Elliott does wonders with his few lines as Moore’s second in command. Mel Gibson is mesmerising as the valiant Moore, but this is a portrait of war in the style of The Green Berets rather than Platoon and his role is too flawlessly heroic to ring entirely true.