Bovie Movie

A career criminal who has been deformed since birth is given a new face by a kindly doctor and paroled from prison. It appears that he has gone straight, but he is really planning his revenge on the man who killed his father-figure and sent him to prison.

Swedish music-video director Jonas Akerlund made his first foray into feature films with this head-spinning affair. Part Requiem for a Dream, part The Salton Sea, it’s a grimy tale about “spun-out” crystal meth users that’s as hyperactive as its protagonists. Throwing together an eclectic cast that ranges from Brittany Murphy and a green-toothed Mena Suvari to Mickey Rourke and singer Deborah Harry, it takes a quirky and irreverent look at addiction and its consequences for junkie Jason Schwartzman and his misfit friends. The action unfolds over three days, during which time their dependency pushes them into increasingly bizarre situations. Frenetically shot and with enough jump cuts and imaginative visuals to give viewers whiplash, the movie has cult cool written all over it. However, its lack of morality, cheap shock tactics and sewer-mouth script mean it really is an acquired taste. 

This Tarantino-esque movie combines action (often culminating in murder) with luscious dialogue and a first-rate cast to relate the blackly comic tale of ex-criminal Thomas Jane (Deep Blue Sea), who has now taken the path of respectability, with all its suburban trappings. Cue 24 hours of hell when old buddy Aaron Eckhart turns up on his doorstep, laden with drugs and looking for a safe place to stash them. Jane and Eckhart are fine, but both are overshadowed by Paulina Porizkova, as the slinkiest, sexiest heroine in years — to call her and Jane’s memorable sexual encounter “subversive” is an understatement. It’s sick and sadistic, but in a fun way. 

In Alan Parker’s tense, unpleasant thriller set in 1950s New Orleans, Mickey Rourke plays the New York private detective who’s trying to locate a missing person for sinister client Robert De Niro. The trail leads towards voodoo rites and other “gumbo”-jumbo. Rourke’s naked romp with Lisa Bonet, as blood drips from the ceiling, caused considerable controversy and received attention from the censors, though you might think the things that really need a good snip are De Niro’s fingernails. The story is utter nonsense, dressed up by Parker with much visual hype, and with Rourke, De Niro and Charlotte Rampling contributing performances just the right side of self-parody. 

Michael Cimino’s combustible thriller stars Mickey Rourke as the psychotic gangster who invades the suburban home of Anthony Hopkins and Mimi Rogers. Cimino breaks free of the story’s origins as a Broadway play (there are some vivid scenes in the Colorado wilderness) and updates William Wyler’s 1955 version (with Humphrey Bogart and Fredric March) by having Hopkins’s marriage on the verge of collapse. While not vintage Cimino, it still bristles with drama and visual spectacle. 

This adaptation of the first book in Anthony Horowitz’s bestselling Alex Rider series is a British action adventure with Hollywood-style bombast. Alex Pettyfer plays teenager Alex Rider who reluctantly turns superspy to avenge the murder of his uncle (Ewan McGregor). Pettyfer makes a suitably good-looking hero, although occasionally clamping his jaw doesn’t really convey the bitter tragedy behind Rider’s mission. Damian Lewis plays the assassin responsible for his woes, but, sadly, writer Anthony Horowitz (adapting his own novel) pushes him aside in favour of campy arch-villain Mickey Rourke, who has an obligatory Bond-style shark tank — except this one boasts a giant jellyfish. The film has its flaws, but thankfully director Geoffrey Sax ensures it’s never dull. There are lots of audacious stunts featuring quirky gadgets, such as acne cream that eats through steel, and there are extra laughs courtesy of Bill Nighy as a deadpan MI6 official. It all adds up to bright and breezy family viewing. 

Jean-Claude Van Damme continued to work with Hong Kong’s finest directors of action (Hard Target and Maximum Risk were the Hollywood debuts of compatriots John Woo and Ringo Lam) to very little effect. Here, the former kickboxing champion plays an anti-terrorist agent who’s on the trail of master criminal Mickey Rourke. Although Tsui Hark, probably best-known as the producer of the A Better Tomorrow series, supplies a hyper-realistic surface sheen and loads of slow-motion violence, he gets no closer to drawing out a convincing performance from the Belgian star. To make matters worse, Tsui also has to cope with another non-actor, in the shape of enigmatic basketball star Dennis Rodman. His ludicrous hair and clothes do at least deflect attention from his unfunny performance as a mysterious gun-runner who helps Van Damme in his pursuit of the villain. 

Tony Scott takes his overblown style of film-making to new levels of superficiality in this frenetic action thriller. Scripted by Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly, it’s inspired by the true story of the late Domino Harvey (played by Keira Knightley), the daughter of actor Laurence Harvey, who swapped her privileged life for the dangers of bounty hunting. Yet despite the astonishing source material, only the barest factual bones are incorporated. Instead, Scott offers a male-oriented fantasy in which Domino and her reprobate colleagues (including Mickey Rourke) get dragged into a deadly case involving the Mafia and the FBI, while being filmed for their own reality TV show. The initial set-up is slick and exciting, with Knightley enjoyably tongue-in-cheek as the sultry bad girl. Unfortunately, the characters and plotline remain frustratingly underdeveloped, overshadowed by Scott’s grating obsession with visual experimentation that makes even his hyperkinetic Man on Fire look sedate.