ABOUT LAST NIGHT

ABOUT LAST NIGHT is a romantic comedy from director Steve Pink (HOT TUB TIME MACHINE) based on the 1980s David Mamet play "Sexual Perversity In Chicago" and remaking the 1980s movie starring Rob Lowe and Demi Moore.  In this iteration we have two contemporary African American couples discussing sex and dating.  Kevin Hart and Regina Hall (THINK LIKE A MAN) play Bernie and Joan who have a one-night stands at the outset of the film and so introduce their friends Danny and Debbie, played by Michael Ealy (BARBERSHOP) and Joy Bryant (Parenthood).   

I started off really hating this movie and maybe that's because it focusses up front on Joan and Bernie, who come off as crass, drunk and trying to be funny. It's the kind of humour that asks you to laugh when a couple try to have sex on a toilet and accidentally hit the flush.  But at least Kevin Hart was sporadically funny whereas the handsomely banal couple Danny and Debbie are just going through the motions of every other relationship drama we've ever seen on screen.  They have an instant chemistry - all is loved up - they move in - he feels cramped - they have a massive argument - they could cheat with ex-es - they don't because they are fundamentally nice people. 

I did eventually mellow forward this film. It's an easy enough watch even though it doesn't surprise AT ALL.  For instance, you just know that when Danny takes Debbie to the old Irish bar he visited as a kid, and sees it fall on hard times, that there's going to be some kind of hipster-ish extreme makeover.  The actors are ok.  Kevin Hart and Regina Hall have their comedic moments. But it's one for DVD night at best.

ABOUT LAST NIGHT has a running time of 100 minutes and is rated R.  The movie is on release in Canada, the USA, Kenya, Nigeria, the UAE, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Syria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Ecuador, Australia, South Africa, Malaysia, Uruguay, the UK and Ireland.  It opens in April in Philippines, Thailand, India, Chile, Indonesia and New Zealand. It opens in May in Denmark and Taiwan, in June in Hong Kong and Germany.

SEVEN POUNDS - enigmatic, emotional drama

It is testament to Will Smith's brand-name that he can bank a movie that is outside his core competence (drama rather than comedy), with a title and marketing campaign so evasive that the audience has little idea what to expect going into the film. I'm not going to spoil the mystery either: it's absolutely integral to the intellectual and emotional pay-off of the movie.

Suffice to say that SEVEN POUNDS is a daring film - crafting an emotionally uplifting drama out of a rather macabre and implausible premise. Director Gabriele Muccino and DP Philippe le Sourd follow a world-weary, driven Ben Thomas (Will Smith) around the California suburbs as he investigates the lives of seemingly random people. As the movie unfolds, we become as intrigued by Ben's motives as one of the targets of his investigation, a charming woman called Emily (Rosario Dawson). The remainder of the film is concerned with the development of their relationship despite the asymmetry of their knowledge about each other.

The camerawork is patient, slow and intimate and such is the native charm of Smith and Dawson that the movie is mysterious and romantic rather than sinister and saccharine. I love the faded, dusty, world-worn feel that the movie has. The acting is perfect throughout: Smith shows his range; Dawson her charm; and in smaller parts Barry Pepper ad Judyann Elder are memorable. Suffice to say that I think this is a worthwhile movie, and, despite my initial hesitation, I spent the final half hour in tears.

SEVEN POUNDS was released in 2008 in the US and Brazil. It is currently on release in Singapore, Australia, Germany, Peru, Portugal, Iceland, Italy, Mexico, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Russia, Estonia, Spain and the UK. It opens on January 28th in January and on February 6th in Israel, South Korea, Finland, Norway and Sweden. It opens on February 12th in Kazakhstan; February 19th in Croatia; February 21st in Japan; February 26th in Argentina and Greece; March 5th in Slovakia; and on March 12th in the Czech Republic and Poland.

London Film Festival Catch-Up - MIRACLE AT ST ANNA

MIRACLE AT ST ANNA is a big, baggy war epic about the African-American experience in World War Two. Writer-director Spike Lee tackles big themes intelligently and just about keeps a hold of all the complex material in the movie.

The key question the movie asks is what stance African-American soldiers should have taken during the war. After all, in the US they were facing extreme racism - as shown in a pivotal scene in the centre of the film in which German POWs are treated better than African-American serving officers. And even when they were fighting, we see white commanding officers treat the African-American troops with disdain - actively putting their lives at risk because they fundamentally don't accord them the same value. So how far should the African-American soldiers identify with and support the war effort? The argument is played out in the conflict between Bishop Cummings (Michael Ealy) and Aubrey Stamps (Derek Luke). Bishop is in the war for what he can get - which is a good time where possible. He isn't going to try to get on with his white senior officers. By contrast, Stamps sees the war as a means to self-advancement. He wants to do well and get ahead, believing that the war will fundamentally change attitudes back home.

A second question the movie deals with is how far we should take direct action for a just cause when innocent people will be hurt by it. The Italian partisans in the movie are fighting against the Germans, but the villages they hide out in are subject to vicious retaliation. The partisan leader, Peppi Grotto (Pierfrancesco Favino) feels immense guilt for having indirectly caused the massacre of innocent villagers.

The third question the film deals with is the question of faith. Throughout the film, one of the most apparently dim-witted of the soliders, Sam Train (Omar Benson Miller) believes that the marble statue that he is carting around is a lucky charm. It's easy to mock train because he's such a dolt, but the statue does serially provide a sort of protection to whoever is holding it. It even allows one of the soldiers to survive the campaign and live to a ripe old age in New York when, in the movie's framing device, he finally takes revenge on the partisan who betrayed them.

The guts of this film are well executed and intelligently told. Spike Lee is at his best when he's confronting the subtle tensions in race politics. But there's too much romantic sentimental jibberish that muddies the movie. Most egregiously, the relationship between Train and a little Italian boy he's taking care of is sweet - and speaks to the mythology of the statue - but is deeply distracting. It's also weird that in a movie of subtle conflicts and flawed characters, Spike Lee has created a mythic simple-minded good guy. Train seems two-dimensional compared to everyone else in the film. The second major flaw is the denoument - which is pure unadulterated schmaltz that seems about as realistic as the final scene in Shawshank (which I think everyone agrees was unnecessary.)

MIRACLE AT ST ANNA played Toronto and London 2008 and was released last month in the US.