Bovie Movie

Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) has been Santa Claus for the past eight years, and his loyal elves consider him the best Santa ever. But Santa’s got problems (he’s even mysteriously losing weight) and things quickly go south when he finds out that his son, Charlie, has landed on this year’s “naughty” list. Desperate to help his son, Scott heads back home, leaving a substitute Claus to watch over things at the Pole. But when the substitute institutes some strange redefinitions of naughty and nice, putting Christmas at risk, it’s up to Scott to return with a new bag of magic to try to save Christmas.

Demian Lichtenstein utilises the brusque visual and verbal style of Reservoir Dogs in this tired crime comedy thriller. He also over-indulges in the camera pyrotechnics that characterised his time as a director of commercials and pop videos. Kurt Russell (who played Elvis Presley in the 1979 TV movie Elvis) gets to dress like the King once more, as the leader of a gang planning a raid on a Las Vegas casino. Kevin Costner, meanwhile, attempts to rekindle his career, playing determinedly against type as a foul-mouthed sociopath. On the whole, this is a crass and calculatingly excessive bid for cult kudos. 

Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau were one of the all-time great partnerships and this engaging comedy marked their seventh screen collaboration — the first was back in 1966 in The Fortune Cookie. In this high-concept tale, they are a gentler variation on Harry Enfield’s Old Gits — warring senior citizens whose feuding escalates as they battle for the hand of Ann-Margret. Although the script isn’t quite as strong as it could be, the chemistry between the two stars is irresistible and they are matched by an equally strong supporting cast that includes Burgess Meredith, Kevin Pollak and Ossie Davis. It certainly struck a chord for “grey power” at the box office and was followed by a not-so-successful sequel, Grumpier Old Men, which went straight to video in the UK. 

It’s GoodFellas goes to Las Vegas as director Martin Scorsese returns to the mean streets of urban America, with which he is so familiar, for Casino, a hugely underrated and shocking tale of power, money and depravity, set in a city where you can bet on everything and all dreams are sold for cash. Scorsese’s disturbing film is basically about the Mafia, adrift in the 1970s without its warped code of “moral” and “family” values to keep it in check. Robert De Niro plays Sam “Ace” Rothstein, a master bookie turned big-shot casino manager whose head for business deserts him when he marries ex-hooker Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone). But it’s when Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci), Ace’s boyhood acquaintance, arrives in town with an ambitious agenda of his own that things take a further downward spiral. Written by Nicholas Pileggi, an Oscar nominee for Goodfellas, Casino goes for absorbing realism, intriguing subplots and expertly drawn characters Stone is an absolute revelation in her demanding role who are even less endearing than their counterparts in Goodfellas, making for a more even portrayal of organised crime. Some of the scenes are squirmingly unpleasant in Scorsese’s trademark way: a victim’s head being squeezed in a vice is one of the more extreme examples of the graphic brutality that’s on display in this unflagging and compelling study of how the mobsters drowned in the sleaze of their own making. 

You can forgive Britain’s major movie magazines for not spotting the impact this audacious thriller was going to have. Few had even heard of director Bryan Singer or screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie, and there wasn’t much feature potential in the jobbing actors of the mug-shot line-up. Yet, by the end of 1995, it was vying with Shallow Grave and The Shawshank Redemption for the number one spot in most people’s top tens and Kevin Spacey was suddenly the coolest actor in Hollywood. Was it because it gave the world the criminal mastermind Keyzer Soze? Maybe it was the intricacy of the flashback-packed script and the deft sleights of hand executed by its fledgeling director. Perhaps everyone admired the outstanding ensemble acting. Yes, Spacey stole the show and fully merited the best supporting actor Oscar for his mesmerising performance, but everyone in that rogues’ gallery played their part to perfection, not to mention the mysterious Pete Postlethwaite and confused cops Dan Hedaya and Chazz Palminteri. Or was it simply that noticeboard that kept coming back to haunt everyone? Whatever the reason, it’s a film that demands to be watched again and again — this is good old-fashioned pulp fiction told in the slickest 1990s style. 

This sequel to 2000’s The Whole Nine Yards reunites Matthew Perry and Bruce Willis in their roles of nervy dentist and retired Mafia hitman respectively. Willis comes to the rescue when Perry’s wife Natasha Henstridge is kidnapped by a Hungarian mob led by Kevin Pollak (as the father of the character he played in the original). The trouble is that Willis’s usually reliable comic timing is nowhere to be seen and the actresses — Amanda Peet returns as the aspiring hitwoman who’s now married to Willis — seem bored by the contrivances haphazardly put together by director Howard Deutch. The only real winner is Matthew Perry, whose slapstick schtick shows us what we’ve been missing since the end of Friends. 

Friends star Matthew Perry made another bid for big-screen stardom in this limp black comedy from British director Jonathan Lynn (Yes, Minister, My Cousin Vinny). Perry plays the humble, henpecked dentist who’s none too chuffed to discover that Mafia iceman Jimmy “The Tulip” Tudeski (Bruce Willis) has just bought a house in his dull Montreal neighbourhood. At the instigation of his shrewish wife (Rosanna Arquette), Perry rats on Jimmy to Chicago crime boss Kevin Pollak, only to find himself up to his eyeteeth in trouble. The cast includes The Green Mile’s Michael Clarke Duncan and Species star Natasha Henstridge. But the farce is too forced, the humour too broad and the end result a far cry from such superior hitman comedies as Prizzi’s Honor and Grosse Pointe Blank. 

Old stagers Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon cruise through this unaccountably popular sequel to an equally moribund original, presumably on their way to another fat pay cheque. Ann-Margret also returns from the first film, while Sophia Loren plays a much married interloper who stirs up the boys’ bile by buying their beloved bait shop and turning it into a restaurant. The grumpy pair forget their incessant feuding to wage war on the restaurant, but resourceful Loren outwits them before kindling a little love in Matthau’s heart. Lemmon and Matthau teamed up again two years later for a belated sequel to The Odd Couple. 

The ultimate rebel Jack Nicholson has a ball playing the ultimate establishment figure in this star-laden, rather old-fashioned courtroom drama. In fact, Nicholson’s role as the obsessive, hard-nosed marine officer is little more than a scene-stealing cameo — the two leads are Tom Cruise and Demi Moore, who play naval lawyers trying to discover the truth behind the death of a recruit. It’s crisply directed by Rob Reiner, who once again shows that he is comfortable with numerous styles of film-making, and, if it becomes a little talky at times, the climactic fireworks between Nicholson and Cruise make for compulsive viewing. The fine supporting cast includes Kevin Bacon, Kevin Pollak and JT Walsh, and there’s also a chilling cameo from Kiefer Sutherland. 

There’s much to admire about this Bruce Willis outing, but precious little to really like about it. A slickly made if preposterously plotted thriller, it has Willis in dour mode as Jeff Talley, an LAPD hostage negotiator who quits his job to become a small-town police chief after an assignment ends in tragedy. Talley’s past catches up with him, however, when three teenagers break into the hi-tech home of businessman Walter Smith (Kevin Pollak), taking Smith and his kids hostage. Smith’s Mob connections result in Talley’s estranged wife and daughter also being caught up in the drama. All this is watchable enough, but without the trademark twinkle and smug self-confidence that Willis brought to the Die Hard series, it becomes just another routine action thriller with delusions of grandeur. By and large, this is a film that misuses its star by taking him, and itself, far too seriously.