MILLION DOLLAR BABY (2004)

I am not a huge fan of boxing although I admit I can be seduced into watching the big name fights. My problem is that I feel guilty that I am entertained by a sport that depends on one person inflicting b rain damage on another. On the other hand I am a great fan of boxing movies.The undoubted drama of the ring has lent itself to some good and even great films, Edward Dmytrk's THE SET UP, Mark Robson's THE HARDER THEY FALL, Robert Wise's SOMEBODY UP THERE LOVES ME, Ralph Nelson's REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT, Mark Robson's CHAMPION and Martin Scorsese's RAGING BULL to name a few. Most, if not all these films, portray the corruption of the fight game or the personal price payed by the fighters. To this honourable tradition we can now add Clint Eastwood's MILLION DOLLAR BABY. The film centres on the ambitions of a wannabe woman fighter (superbly played by Hilary Swank) and her almost reluctant trainer played by director Clint Eastwood - looking grizzled enough to have had a life in the ring. The film switches moods abruptly two thirds of the way through and becomes something entirely different to what I expected. It is a powerful, heartbreakingly thoughful film beautifully directed by Eastwood (who has undeniably become on of the very finest of American directors. With a great performance by Morgan Freeman. One of the best American films of recent years. Rating *****

3.10 TO YUMA (2007)

Recently, after viewing his film IDENTITY, I consigned James Mangold to a box labelled "Interesting". Presented with potentially terrific material like COPLAND or WALK THE LINE, this director seems to deliver disappointingly routine movies fuelled by a few good performances (given the undeniably talented actors he has worked with this is hardly surprising). His remake of Delmer Daves classic 1957 3.10 TO YUMA is another case of seemingly director proof material but this time the result isn't just routine it is downright bloody awful. The script for the original was stripped down to the essential and Daves was a good enough director to trust the dramatic thrust of his material without the needless totally unnecessary embellishments that sink the new version. Everything that the original signalled by shorthand is laboured here over and over and then underlined to make sure we didn't miss the point. The big climax of the movie defies description and must win a prize for one of the most OTT put on film with the character played by Russell Crowe acting so illologically that it beggars belief. The final scene seems to be trying to make some rather obvious point about redemption but then totally scuppers the meaning with a joke involving the character's horse. Christian Bale's character is such a pain in the arse that I kept hoping somebody would shoot him (unfortunately this happened far too late to lift my rapidly sinking spirits) and Russell Crowe (an actor I quite like) turns in the worst performance I've seen him give. Of the supporting cast only Peter Fonda seems to make anything of his role - an embittered Pinkerton Detective. If you decide to see it then try to see the original as well...Delmar Daves, Glenn Ford and Van Heflin win hands down. Rating *

A DOUBLE TOUR (1959)

Back in the Sixties I saw A DOUBLE TOUR on the BBC and really enjoyed it. I've wanted to see it again ever since. If I knew it was by Claude Chabrol I must have forgotten because this would have made me want to see it even more. Nobody dissects the French bourgoisie like Chabrol. Seeing it again after all these years held a couple of surprises. It was indeed directed by Chabrol and it did not star Maurice Ronet (as I've always been convinced it did) and, surprisingly, I had no recollection of ever having seen it before! But, despite this, I still enjoyed it. The movie forms a sort of unofficial trilogy with two other Chabrol films - THE CHAMPAGNE MURDERS and TEN DAYS WONDER. A rich family, a chateau, family secrets and hidden passions bubbling beneath the surface and...of course...murder. This is early Chabrol and it is not very difficult to pick out the murderer (anybody who walks like that has to be a suspect!) but then the murder (which when we see it in flashback is very well done) has never been the the thing for M.Claude who is more interested in the disintegration of those caught up in the crime as it eats away at the belly of society. The star is Jean-Paul Belmondo, fresh from BREATHLESS, and a bit over the top. Rating ***

VALKYRIE (2008)

In the advertising for Bryan Singer's films it is mentioned that the screenplay is "unashamedly old school" which sounds almost like an apology for a film that the powers that be feel is rather lacking in the qualities that make box-office hits for the MTV generation. But VALKYRIE needs no apologies; it is solid film-making by a director who has confidence in a strong story and, perhaps more importantly, his own ability to tell it without unnecessary technical flashes. To complain that all the characters talk with undisguised American or English acting is like complaining that actors in, say, Pasolini's CANTERBURY TALES, spoke Italian rather than middle-english. Despite the fact that we know that the July plot to kill Adolph Hitler failed and the war in Europe dragged on for another ten months, VALKYRIE succeeds superbly in maintaining suspense. Personally, while being aware of the basic details of Graf von Stauffenberg's laudable attempt to blast Der Fuhrer from the face of the war torn planet (the attempt featured in the flawed but fascinating Anatole Litvak movie THE NIGHT OF THE GENERAL) but I had no idea of the scale of the "Valkyrie" operation and how close the anti-Hitler faction came to taking over Berlin and the entire nazi goverment. Of course, this is a commercial film with a big, if somewhat short (sorry, couldn't resist it) and it needs a hero, so Von Stauffenberg is show as somewhat whiter than white. True, he was a man of religious faith and far from an enthusiastic nazi - however the question always lingers as to whether he and his fellow conspirators would have been so eager to remove Hitler if Germany had been winning.

But no matter, they tried and died and deserve credit for it. Performances throughout are fine with Tom Cruise acquitting himself well enough along with Bill Nighy, Terence Stamp, Tom Wilkinson, Kenneth Branagh and an unreconigzable Eddy Izzard. Rating ***

AN EVENING WITH WILLIE NELSON AND WYNTON MARSALIS PLAYING THE BLUES (2008)

If, at the end of the end of the year, I compile a "Ten Best List", I guarantee that this concert movie, directed by Danny Clinch, will be on it. Now, as my friends know, I am a huge fan of Country singer Willie Nelson but this film goes far beyond my admiration for the artist. On the same day I watched a DVD of the LAST OF THE BREED concert featuring Nelson alongside Merle Haggard and Ray Price and, while excellent, it in no way impressed me as a piece of film=making. Despite its rather unimaginative (but entirely accurate) title, Clinch has produced a film as exciting as the music it depicts and the concert it records. Although Wynton Marsalis is a world renowned jazz trumpeter, I was only familiar with his recordings of the Haydn Trumpet Concertos. Here Marsalis and Nelson collaborate on a dozen or so renditions of songs that range from classic blues, standards like "Stardust" and "Georgia on my Mind" to Nelson compositions such as "Night-Life". The interpretations are far from standard and every performance is a gem with the mutual admiration of the musicians evident not only from the music itself but also from the interviews. Give yourself a real treat, it doesn't come much better than this. Rating *****

TRENT'S LAST CASE (1952)

Miles Malleson and Michael Wilding

This third film version of E.C.Bentley's famous detective novel (the second, in 1929, had been directed by Howard Hawks) is directed by Herbert Wilcox, a director who though popular in the box-office of the time is hardly going to make it onto anybody's top director list. TRENT'S LAST CASE certainly does have its admirers although I can't really claim to be one of them. It is a puzzle story but one almost totally lacking in suspense. The eponymous Trent is played by Michel Wilding whose fresh faced charm is totally unsuited to this type of story. Margaret Lockwood is reliable as chief suspect and romantic interest and Orson Welles, while very good as the victim (at one point referring to his own stage production of Othello and saying he "didn't like the lead actor") only gets twenty minutes screen time. Lovely Miles Malleson gets a meatier role than usual and there is a funny cameo from a very young Kenneth Williams as an Irish gardener. Interesting if you are a Welles completist but be prepared not to be thrilled. Rating **

IDENTITY (2003)

James Mangold is one of the newer Hollywood directors who hovers on the edge of my consciousness with a little flashing light over his head that says "interesting" without his films ever being 100 % satsfying. So it is with IDENTITY which was released in 2003 to, generally, good reviews which lumped it in with the slasher genre but praised it for being superior. There is actually much more going on here. The film has a sort of framing story featuring Alfred Molina as a psychiatrist which gives the film a cute psychological back story that I found both intrusive and as unnecessary as the much criticised epilogue to the 1956 THE BAD SEED. If it works for you that is fine but I was having too much fun with the main section of the film and was quiite happy to take it at face value. A stormy, rain swept night and ten travellers, for various reasons, find themselves marooned at an out of the way motel complex. Attempts to get help soon lead to the discovery that the bridge is out, the road has been washed away and the phones are all down...and there is a homicidal maniac on the loose. No folks, we are not back in a 1930's old dark house thriller but that is the name of the game. One by one the motel guests are being sliced and diced. Red herrings and clues abound and at one point somebody actually utters the classic line (raising a cheer from me) of "Look, we'll just all stay together" which has been ignored by professional victims for decades. There's a head in the tumble drier and you have to go and look for something in your room, on your own, yeah, sure you do. Without ever quite spoofing the genre, Mangold, plays all the cliches and openly lets us know that he knows that we know by pointedly invoking references to THE OLD DARK HOUSE, PSYCHO, HALLOWEEN and, of course, Agatha Christie's TEN LITTLE INDIANS. The revelation of the killer is totally unbelievable but excused by that damed framing plot....but, you know what ? I'd have been just as happy to laugh it all off without the pychological mumbo jumbo. After all if I believe that my lawn can kill me when Night Shyamalan tells me, I'm game fopr almost anything. A superior cast led by Ray Liotta, John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Jake Busey and Rebecca De Mornay play without a hint of send up. Have fun. Rating ***