Bovie Movie

In this bungled hi-tech thriller, Jeff Bridges plays a bomb disposal expert with Tommy Lee Jones as his former colleague who wants Bridges blown away. To show us just why he does, the film takes us back to Northern Ireland (always a risky subject for Hollywood). This aspect of the movie is neither interesting nor particularly relevant to the main thrust, which aims to deliver a tense sequence every 15 minutes or so. Bridges and Jones can make nothing of the thinly written, not to say tasteless, material, and Lloyd Bridges and Forest Whitaker struggle in badly realised roles. 

This military thriller from director William Friedkin is far-fetched in the extreme, but luckily the action sequences have a terrific, visceral impact — despite there being very little in the way of character development on which to hook them. A traumatised US veteran of the conflict in Kosovo (Benicio Del Toro) is loose in the woods, gruesomely dispatching game-hunters, and the man who taught him how to kill (a typically gruff Tommy Lee Jones) is brought in to track him down. In a case of individuality sacrificed at the altar of efficiency, the two leads have a hard time bringing distinct personalities to their rather clichéd characters (they run, they fight, they run again), though both have enough presence partly to overcome this. Friedkin’s film eventually runs into a blind alley, but until then it’s an enjoyably gritty ride powered by star charisma rather than logic. 

After the futuristic drama of AI: Artificial Intelligence and Minority Report, director Steven Spielberg backtracks to the 1960s for this stylish slice of effortless entertainment. Leonardo DiCaprio exudes movie-star charisma as Frank Abagnale Jr who, while still a teenager, charmed and cheated his way across America, posing as an airline pilot, doctor and lawyer in order to cash forged cheques. Tom Hanks turns in a generous, unshowy supporting performance as Carl Hanratty, the dogged FBI agent who obsessively pursued the larcenous young man. Sentimentality is allowed to intrude with the depiction of Abagnale’s family life, but not into Christopher Walken’s superb turn as the conman’s father. Despite these momentary dips in the bright and breezy feel of the piece, the deft blend of comedy and suspense, great period detail and sheer directorial class ensure that this is one of Spielberg’s most purely enjoyable movies.