Bovie Movie

Despite returning to Las Vegas where the series began, Steven Soderbergh’s second sequel to 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven fails to rediscover the sheer insouciance of the original. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and the rest of the cast reprise their roles as the charming conmen, who this time target the hi-tech casino of ruthless Vegas businessman Willy Bank (Al Pacino). The strength of the series was always its breezy enthusiasm, but here there’s a chronic lack of fun: Pacino barely gets out of first gear, while Clooney seems to have his mind on other things. Only Ellen Barkin appears to be enjoying herself, shining in a comic role that sees her dosed with potent pheromones and seduced by a heavily disguised Matt Damon. Apparently there won’t be an “Ocean’s Fourteen”; clearly, Soderbergh’s under no illusions that Ocean’s winning streak has dried up at last. 

George Clooney and Nicole Kidman attempt to save Manhattan from nuclear destruction in this pacey thriller from director Mimi Leder. When a Russian train is blown up to disguise the theft of a nuclear warhead, the stage is set for a nail-biting countdown to disarm the device. Kidman isn’t entirely convincing as a government scientist, but Clooney’s confident lead performance as a Special Forces officer helped his transition from small-screen idol to international movie star. The first film to be released by DreamWorks SKG — the studio founded by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen — this failed to ignite at the box office. But action fans will doubtless enjoy the irresistible combination of explosions, car crashes and shots of the ticking bomb. 

This truly tempestuous drama has to be the most waterlogged film since Titanic. (Those prone to mal de mer should take sick bags along with them.) Based on a true story, it concerns the Andrea Gail, a fishing vessel that, while sailing in the North Atlantic in 1991, was caught up in the 20th century’s worst storm. A stubbled George Clooney and a smooth-talking Mark Wahlberg, last seen together in Three Kings, head the crew, while director Wolfgang Petersen, who made the submarine epic Das Boot, takes a deep breath and plunges the audience in and out of skyscraper-tall waves. 

This superb — though very violent — mix of comedy, drama and action is set at the end of the Gulf War. Hearing a rumour that Saddam Hussein has stashed stolen gold in bunkers, US soldiers George Clooney, Ice Cube and Mark Wahlberg embark on a secret field trip with the help of a map they find concealed about an Iraqi soldier’s person. It seems simple enough: grab the bullion and be rich for the rest of their lives. However, their quest for wealth is diverted when they reluctantly agree to help a group of Iraqi dissidents who are being tortured by Saddam’s men. Wittily scripted by director David O Russell, it boasts terrific performances (especially from Clooney) and takes some well-aimed stabs at the late-20th-century phenomenon of war waged on television. It’s reckless, gripping and unmissable. 

Using the same multi-stranded technique as he did for his Oscar-winning screenplay of the drugs drama Traffic, writer/director Stephen Gaghan here weaves the threads of small, apparently barely linked narratives into a giant tapestry, revealing the global oil industry in all its hideous, venal and corrupt glory. The story is so labyrinthine that an adequate description is impossible (and indeed its deliberate complexity will be an irritant to some), but individual plot elements include George Clooney as a worn-out CIA agent involved in arms dealing and assassinations, Matt Damon as a grief-stricken energy analyst and Christopher Plummer as the head of a powerful Washington law firm. These seemingly disparate tales move at a relentless pace and, as a result, the whole picture is sometimes difficult to grasp — again deliberately so. Gaghan’s technique is not to convince you that you’re following a single set of characters involved in a coherent story, but rather to give you the jittery, exhilarating feeling that you’re eavesdropping on conversations you were never meant to hear. It’s an approach that makes this a compelling, richly detailed and, in the end, terrifying experience. 

After 20 years in the film-making wilderness, Terrence Malick released this belated third feature — a magnificent account of the Second World War battle for Guadalcanal island in the South Pacific. Based on James Jones’s novel of the same name, first filmed in 1964, it’s a long, discursive and deeply philosophical evocation of war, beautifully shot by John Toll. Although the film boasts an all-star cast, big names such as John Travolta and George Clooney make only brief appearances, though Sean Penn as a cynical sergeant and Nick Nolte as an uncompromising lieutenant colonel make deeper impressions. The principal role, however, goes to the then-little-known Jim Caviezel as Private Witt, the nonconformist and idealist who seems completely at one with the tropical surroundings, while British actor Ben Chaplin gives a convincing performance as the ordinary Joe who dreams of his wife back home. But it is Malick himself who provides the real star turn with his extraordinary direction. This is a modern masterpiece. 

This is by far Joel and Ethan Coen’s most expensive film and also their first working from an existing script. That it turns out to be their weakest effort so far may not be unconnected. A slick, colourful screwball comedy (like their own Hudsucker Proxy without the period setting), it follows the quest of ultra-successful divorce lawyer Miles Massey (George Clooney) to marry professional gold-digger Marylin Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones) using his own cast-iron “pre-nup”. This being a Coen brothers film, it’s populated with wonderful, often grotesque supporting characters including Edward Herrmann’s philandering millionaire, Billy Bob Thornton’s dozy oilman and Jonathan Hadary’s eccentric trial witness. But when these turns distract from rather than add to the central plot, you’re in dangerous territory. There are moments of inspired, slapstick brilliance (not least those featuring an asthmatic hitman), and Clooney works his socks off, but it lacks a hard centre and plot keeps racing ahead of character. It’s neither as unhinged as their Raising Arizona nor as warm as Fargo; let’s hope this is an isolated blip on the Coens’ graph. 

With the Batman franchise looking decidedly tired, Caped Crusader Mark 3 was introduced in the shape of George Clooney, who was at the height of his ER popularity, in an attempt to pep up the flagging formula. The rugged former TV medic doesn’t disgrace himself in this wild special-effects extravaganza that is as close to a cartoon adventure as director Joel Schumacher could get. There’s a decidedly two-dimensional Arnold Schwarzenegger as a heavily accented Mr Freeze, while Uma Thurman gave birth to a million copycat hairstyles as villainess Poison Ivy. Schumacher piles on the action, but this is still the least satisfying entry in the series. 

In The Good German, director Steven Soderbergh has made painstaking efforts to re-create the ambience of 1940s American studio pictures, most notably Casablanca. Yet, by setting himself up to be compared to the old masters, he is easily overshadowed. Even so, he has crafted a seductive thriller set against the Potsdam Conference in Berlin at the end of the Second World War. George Clooney and Cate Blanchett play erstwhile lovers divided by politics, dirty secrets and a dead body. Elements of film noir are also introduced: Blanchett’s portrayal of the Teutonic femme fatale is powerfully redolent of Marlene Dietrich and Clooney’s US war correspondent is as hardnosed as they come. However, the sense of carefully manipulated artifice permeates everything, and, although the intrigue is deftly handled, the romance that is so pivotal to the story isn’t entirely convincing. But fans of the Hollywood old school will surely get a kick out of it. 

In the early 1950’s, the threat of Communism created an air of paranoia in the United States and exploiting those fears was Senator ‘Joseph McCarthy (II)’ (qv) of Wisconsin. However, CBS reporter ‘Edward R. Murrow (I)’ (qv) and his producer ‘Fred W. Friendly’ (qv) decided to take a stand and challenge McCarthy and expose him for the fear monger he was. However, their actions took a great personal toll on both men, but they stood by their convictions and helped to bring down one of the most controversial senators in American history.