POMO

Lucky Number Slevin is black-humor gangster flick that wants to be a Tarantino and/or Ritchie film, but it just does NOT have what it takes because of the immature screenwriter. I’m just surprised that director Paul McGuigan thought it did. After the brilliant Wicker Park, I expected more from him.

This film’s technical brilliance and orgiastic creativity in its visuals will cause film connoisseurs’ jaws to drop and the plot with a powerful theme and even more powerful scenes will melt the hearts of children and adults of all ages. Even though Alfonso Cuarón and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki show off a bit in the manner of “Look what we can do!” in places, their film will leave absolutely no one cold. In a packed cinema, Children of Men is an excellent collective experience, with people clutching their heads, laughing and groaning as if they themselves had been hit in the mouth with a car battery. I believe that just as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Francis Coppola and co. got a dying Hollywood back on its feet in the 1970s, Cuarón, Alejandro Iñárritu, Paul Greengrass and co. will now take it to another level in this age of calculated digital confections. *** FILM OF THE YEAR ***

I wanted to avoid comparisons with the Asian smash Infernal Affairs, of which The Departed is a remake. But if you know the original, in which the given story is filmed more briskly and more clearly, not a single character in it is a superficial poser (Jack Nicholson), and the Asian visuals are more exotic for a European than the worn-out “gritty America”, there is absolutely nothing stunning about the The Departed. Of course – Martin Scorsese and his court cinematographer are masters at what they do, so the film is never boring for even a second and we get to spend time in the company of the world’s acting elite, from whose characters the director gets maximum psychological enjoyment. But the film as a whole gives the impression that its makers didn’t approach it with as much love as they did The Aviator. Leonardo DiCaprio is the only one who gave his full commitment to the project and put his soul into it. With a few more roles in this vein, I will rank him among my personal top five actors. Otherwise, however, The Departed is merely a solid cops-and-mafia drama that leaves American audiences startled thanks to its ending, which is not what they’re used to from a Hollywood flick. The Departed deserves four stars in the context of current American productions, but definitely not in the context of the director’s filmography. I will gladly watch it again, but I can’t hide my slight disappointment.

Silent Hill is a visually captivating horror flick, particularly in the first half. It draws all of its power from its impressive sets, sound and solid acting. However, the more it reveals what’s hidden, the more predictable it becomes in terms of content, which is constructed only for effect. That said, it is the clear winner among game adaptations such as Resident Evil and Doom. It is, after all, a solid top-tier production.

This is pure filmmaking in the mold of Kubrick, with a unique combination of theatrical and cinematic means of expression. Though I’m not particularly a fan of Haneke’s cold (slow and quiet) composition of (almost exclusively interior) scenes, the director’s perfectionism is obvious in every minute of the film and is often breathtaking. And at one point it is brutally brought to a halt (though this shock is winkingly foreshadowed in the scene involving the telling of a “joke” at the table). Hidden is a different kind of film that you will definitely not forget, regardless of how much it does or does not appeal to you. Of the roles in which I have seen him so far, this is Daniel Auteuil’s most substantial and well-played.

By today’s standards, The Hills Have Eyes is an almost delicate slaughter flick whose climax lasts practically the the final two-thirds of the film. It’s juicy, morbid and visually attractive, with the right amount of action and black humor. And the screenplay is a significant upgrade of Wes Craven’s simpler 1977 original.

Even if the drama United 93 had not been based on real events, it would still transcend certain boundaries of the medium called “film” and become one of the most important media works of the beginning of the new century.

A comic-book romance at a cost of 260 million dollars? In relation to today’s Spider-Man and X-Men movies, shifting focus from dynamics and action to a love motif is a very bold move in a 150-minute film. Superman Returns doesn’t conceal the fact that it’s a different kind of comic-book movie, but viewers longing for an exciting adventure won’t care about that. Brandon Routh is cool, but the cloying Kevin Spacey comes across as a caricature in his fascist jackboots and thus doesn’t inspire respect. I wasn’t bored by this film, but I would have liked more excitement.

Beyond Borders is a solidly filmed drama that can be faulted for only one thing, but it’s an important thing – the lack of chemistry between the central pair of actors. However, the fim’s story is too powerful and the various global locations are two nicely filmed for the film to be anything less than above average, and viewers will not regret spending two hours with it. I’m putting it in the same basket as Hackford’s thriller Proof of Life and I will remember it for its ending and the scary digital black boy, which must have taken a bigger bite out of the budget than Clive Owen’s fee.

In terms of directing and acting, The Sentinel is a GREAT genre flick, but it unfortunately suffers from a moment of screenwriting weakness in the climax. And that’s a shame.