SAN ANDREAS

SAN ANDREAS is a hokey but surprisingly effective earthquake disaster movie.  Dwayne Johnson plays an all-round nice guy father who happens to work a helicopter in LA Fire and Rescue.  His ex-wife (Carla Gugino) is currently living with a rich real estate developer (Ioan Gruffudd) but as with all nice family in peril films, we learn that they didn't really divorce because they hate each other and the rich guy is evil.  They have a spunky daughter (Alexandra Daddario) who hooks up with a junior nice guy Brit played by Hugo Johnstone-Burt and his regulation adorable kid brother. And so the movie unravels in a very predictable way. Hero-dad first has to save mum from LA earthquake, then save kids from San Francisco earthquake and tsunami. Meanwhile we have Paul Giamatti as the earnest desperate-to-warn-everyone scientist Archie Punjabi as the journo who helps get his message out.

It's hokey because the good guys are good and the bad guy is bad and it's all about family. But even thought the story holds no real surprises the disaster scenes are effectively done and there was no small tension in the big set pieces.   Overall, I can see why the movie was popular and I think it comes down to the fact that Dwayne Johnson is just very likeable in a hulking earnest way and without the wise-ass ironic jokiness that has become the norm for Hollywood protagonists. Overall, this is well put together wholesome family fare.

SAN ANDREAS has a running time of PG-13 and is rated 114 minutes.  The movie is on global release.

Martha Fiennes retrospective - CHROMOPHOBIA

"Well, I'm seeing a woman with a mustache about my parenting flaws and my residual bulimia. And I'm doing autogenic self-hypnosis to try to keep the low self esteem at bay. I'm getting back to work and - But anyway, it's just really exciting for me at the moment because I am beginning to find the real me."

Writer-director Martha Fiennes throws up a rich portrait of supremely successfully, but deceitful and narcissistic Londoners in her second feature film, CHROMOPHOBIA. Their vices vary from a sort of desperate, void-filling materialism to sexual exploitation of the worst kind. Perhaps their most over-riding flaw is their self-deception. No-one really thinks they're a bad person, do they? Their world of material ease but self-inflicted paranoia is exposed when a tabloid journalist exploits a drunken indiscretion by one of his best friends. Well, it's a savage world.

Martha Fiennes' film is beautifully rendered. The over-designed, polished interiors are spot on, as are the rather pathetic problems that obsess our protagonists. Kristin Scott Thomas is particularly good as a sexually frustrated, spend-a-holic wife. But I would have had more time for this film had it not tacked on a rather ludicrous fairy tale romance between a terminally ill "heart-of-gold" Spanish hooker (Penelope Cruz) and an earnest social worker (Rhys Ifans). These characters are cliches, although Ifans makes the best of it. I also rather disliked the final scenes. One of the key characters makes a life decision that belies their earlier moral cowardice and self-involvement. Maybe it could've happened that way. Maybe we can redeem ourselves in moments of crisis. But this turnaround rang false.

CHROMOPHOBIA closed Cannes 2005. It was released in Italy, France and Israel in 2006 and in Spain and the UK in 2007. It is available on DVD.

A MIGHTY HEART - good as far as it goes

A MIGHTY HEART is based on Mariane Pearl's memoirs about the kidnapping and murder of her husband, American journalist Daniel Pearl, in Pakistan in 2002. Director Michael Winterbottom and DP Marcel Zyskind perfectly capture the chaos of Karachi on hand-held DV. Winterbottom also gives Jolie a chance to show off her acting skills for the first time since GIRL, INTERRUPTED. However, the director chooses not to examine the causes and motivations of the terrorists and only hints at the complex politics of US-Pakistani relations. What we are left with then, is simply a police procedural, and one is which we already know the tragic outcome at that. Moreover, aside from Jolie and Irrfan Khan in a supporting role, I thought the supporting cast was pretty weak.

A MIGHTY HEART played Cannes 2007 and was released in the USA, Germany, Portugal, Denmark, Spain, Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Slovakia earlier in the year. It opens in the UK today. It opens in Mexico on September 28th, in Singapore, Norway, Australia, Turkey, Brazil, Estonia, Sweden in October. It opens in Italy and Japan in November.

A GOOD YEAR - charming, if utterly predictable, romance

I know, I know. Movies where ruthless capitalist bastards "find themselves" in lushly photographed socialist villages are a tad predictable. A GOOD YEAR is no different, but if you're willing to accept the format, it has a lot of laughs and some good old-fashioned sappy romance. Russell Crowe camps it up in the opening act as Max, a greedy capitalist bond-trading bastard par excellence. He manipulates the market to within an inch of the law, shags around, insults his underlings and generally enjoys his Master of the Universe status. When his uncle (Albert Finney) dies and leaves him a French chateau, Max' first impulse is to sell it for a ton of money via his similarly ethically-challenged best-mate and estate agent (Tom Hollander.) There is little in life funnier that seeing Crowe drive past a bunch of French cyclists, give them the finger and shout out "Lance Amrstrong". There's also little funnier in life than seeing a banker stuck in an empty swimming pool unable to reach his blackberry.

Of course, Max is redeemed. He falls in love with a ballsy local waitress (Cotillard, unrecognisable out of her Piaf make-up.) He remembers his uncle and his own youth (Freddie Highmore). He reconciles with his illegitimate cousin (Abbie Cornish) and even his best mate softens. The highlights are the lush photography and Tom Hollander's scene-stealing role as the oleaginous agent. Of course, it's schmaltz. But superior schmaltz all the same.

A GOOD YEAR was released in autumn 2006 and is available on DVD.