Bovie Movie

More an intense portrait of doomed romance than a serial-killer thriller, writer/director Patty Jenkins’s brutal biopic of prostitute-turned-multiple murderer Aileen Wuornos burrows deep into the woman’s psyche with the help of an Oscar-winning turn from Charlize Theron. While her physical transformation may have caught the Academy’s eye, Theron’s performance goes beyond the weight-gain and dental prosthetics, finding both compassion and coldness in Wuornos’s descent into homicidal mania. Aileen’s first kill is in self-defence, escaping from a “client”, but the impulse soon escalates into murder as she fights both to survive and to protect her burgeoning relationship with the naive outcast lesbian Selby (a superbly understated Christina Ricci). In other hands, this could have become overwrought melodrama, but Jenkins skilfully mines the humanity within the sensationalism to come up with something that is both tender and chilling — and ultimately heartbreaking. 

Supermodel Cindy Crawford wants to be taken seriously as an actress, but she doesn’t get much chance to show what she can do in this, her big Hollywood debut. The T-shirt clad Crawford gets chased by baddies and falls into the water a lot, and that’s about all there is to this so-called action drama. If you can believe Crawford is a high-powered lawyer then you will probably swallow the nonsensical story about Russian villains who are convinced the former Mrs Gere has some valuable information about their American operation; William Baldwin simply looks bored as the cop who comes to her aid. Some enjoyably destructive set pieces aside, the only fun to be had is savouring Steven Berkoff’s over-the-top performance. 

Die Hard provided such a perfectly structured action-movie template that Hollywood has been reluctant to leave the idea alone; cue this silly but hugely enjoyable airborne thriller. Wesley Snipes plays the security expert who finds himself on the same aeroplane as obligatory British master criminal Bruce Payne, temporarily in police custody. Of course, Payne’s henchmen have hitched a lift as well and when they duly free him, it’s up to Snipes to save the day. Despite the hand-me-down plot and dialogue, director Kevin Hooks manages to wring the requisite suspense out of some expertly staged action set pieces. He is helped enormously by charismatic turns from Snipes and Payne, and a solid supporting cast that includes Tom Sizemore, Bruce Greenwood and a then little-known Elizabeth Hurley. 

Things are certainly steamy in Florida in this eyebrow-raising thriller from Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer director John McNaughton. Scream’s Neve Campbell and Starship Troopers’s Denise Richards star as high-school students who falsely accuse teacher Matt Dillon of rape in a preposterous tale that’s more notable for its X-rated scenes — a threesome among the leads, Campbell and Richards kissing, co-star Kevin Bacon’s full-frontal — than for its great acting or script. There are a few nice twists, however, and the handsome cast clearly enjoys vamping it up in what is essentially a sexed-up, feature-length MTV video. 

Kim Basinger stars as a reformed thief who is forced back into crime in director Russell Mulcahy’s fair comic thriller. To make matters worse, Basinger is also saddled with a klutzy partner played by Val Kilmer. Mulcahy’s cinematic eye for detail is on vivid show once more — the Highlander director really is one of cinema’s most underrated visual stylists — but the handsome stars have little to do except pose in front of his eye-popping electric backdrops. And, frankly, there doesn’t seem to be much chemistry between the two leads, either. As for villain Terence Stamp’s daft southern accent, what was everyone thinking?