Reviews

FILMS

Hotel Harabati

Directed by Brice Cauvin, starring Laurent Lauvin, Helene Filliere, Anouk Aimee, Julie Gayet.

Brice Cauvin's debut feature is an enigmatic affair with a storyline that declines to add up, and whose gestures at larger, complex meanings are not entirely successful, but it's still intriguing.

The main characters are a harassed professional couple, Philippe and Marion, played by Laurent Lucas and Helene Fillieres, with two children, pretty short on cash, but happy enough; just about to head off on holiday, they bump into what appears to be a charismatic Syrian businessman who leaves his bag behind for them to find. Of course it's stuffed with cash. There is no name on the label, just the mysterious words "Hotel Harabati".

From here on, the couple's actions, their motives and the consequences of their actions are all obscure. This simple, arbitrary glimpse into a better, or different future has in some sense unhinged Philippe and Marion's sense of themselves. Absorbing and frustrating in equal measure.

He Was a Quiet Man

Directed by Frank Capello, starring Christian Slater, Elisha Cuthbert, William H Macy, Sascha Knopf.

Here is a real oddity of a film: a satire of corporate office despair. Christian Slater is Bob, a put-upon paper-shuffler, bullied by his superiors. One day he snaps and brings his handgun into work, intending to do a Columbine. But just as he's about to cock his weapon, fate intervenes, and Bob's destiny is turned upside down. William H Macy is his oleaginous boss, and Elisha Cuthbert is very good as the co-worker for whom Bob had lusted after so hopelessly, and with whom he now finds himself thrown together.

You Kill Me

Directed by John Dahl, starring Ben Kingsley, Tea Leoni, Luke Wilson, Dennis Farina.

It has been a while since John Dahl gave us anything comparable to his highly entertaining noir thrillers of the '90s, such as Red Rock West and The Last Seduction. His latest isn't in that league, but it isn't bad: a goofy yet dry comedy thriller with Ben Kingsley as Frank, the in-house hitman for a crew of Polish-American gangsters. Frank's alcoholism is affecting his work; he's getting sloppy, and important opponents are not getting whacked.

So the wiseguys sponsor his removal to a new environment: San Francisco, where he will join AA and get clean. They also find him a respectable job: mortuary attendant. Comedy is not his metier, but Kingsley carries off his role with his usual beady-eyed presence. Sheer silliness and some good lines keep things moving; Kingsley's performance is a sort of B-side to his classic performance as Don Logan, the terrifying hardman in Jonathan Glazer's Sexy Beast.

The Killing of John Lennon

Directed by Andrew Piddington, starring Jonas Ball.

Why did Mark Chapman murder John Lennon? Why, for the fame of course - and his wish has now been amply granted by this obtuse, fatuously lenient and uninsightful picture about his life leading up to the killing. It features actor Jonas Ball looking more or less like the famed police mugshot, lumbering about with Chapman's own interminable (but avowedly authentic) prison-diary ramblings recited in voiceover.

The Guardian

(China Daily 12/11/2007 page20)