THE ORDER - skewered by its central conceit

THE ORDER features Heath Ledger and Mark Addy as two Catholic priests whose order specialises in exorcisms and other demon-related shenanigans. They go to Rome to investigate the suspicious death of the head of their order. Tagging along, is a mentally unstable girl called Mara who, of course, has the hots for the younger of the priests, Alex. The fact that they stumble upon, and the central conceit of the movie, is that sinners have discovered a loop-hole to get into heaven. Instead of repenting, they simply get a Sin Eater to literally ingest all their bad deeds so that they can ascend with a pure soul. Neat! However, the current Sin-Eater (Benno Fuermann) wants Alex (Ledger) to take over, goading him into eating the sin of suicide so that Mara (who by now he is boffing) can go to heaven. It all ends in rather bleak and messy manner.

Insofar as this movie works at all, it works as a thriller as we try and uncover the true allegiance of various shady characters. However, on the whole, it's a dismal failure. I think the problem has to do with the central concept of the Sin Eater. The CGI depiction of the sin-eating is ridiculous and totally undermines any sense of horror or peril. It doesn't help that writer-director Brian Helgeland (of LA CONFIDENTIAL fame) tacks on a completely unsuspenseful love story.

At any rate, the movie plays like a pastiche of THE EXORCIST or THE OMEN and is definitely one to avoid.

THE ORDER aka THE SIN EATER was released in 2003 and is available on DVD and on iTunes.

THE HOLIDAY - much too much, much too long

THE HOLIDAY is billed as a romantic-comedy by the woman who brought us WHAT WOMEN WANT and SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE: Nancy Meyers. I rather liked the former and really enjoyed the latter. Sadly, THE HOLIDAY amps up the formula too far - and believe me, it ain't rocket science they're using. Instead of one star-crossed Hollywood-gorgeous couple, we have two! Ta-da!

Two girls are getting out of rubbish relationships. One is an English chick called Iris (Kate Winslet) and the other is a high-powered LA chick called Amanda (Cameron Diaz). They decide to swap houses for the Christmas vacation and lick their wounds in private. Diaz' character immediately gets her groove on with Iris' brother Graham (Jude Law). They have what they hope is a drunken fling before love and history complicate things. Despite the obligatory super-sweet ending (there ain't no plot to spoil in such a slavishly formulaic movie), Meyers never really resolves this story. She creates an obstacle so insuperable in their career and family commitments that I never really bought it. Meanwhile, in LA, Winslet's character is hanging out with her cool elderly neighbour - a retired famous screen-writer - and slowly falling for Jack Black's movie composer.

The first hour of this two hour movie really drags. It's not bad in itself: there's just too much of it. Too much time is taken in establishing why each girl is miserable and getting them to their respective romantic encounters. This just feels like bad editing, and I wonder if the reluctance to trim it down springs from pressure from the sponsors - a lot of the product placement is in this segment. Despite this weak beginning, the second hour of the movie is an enjoyable if completely unmemorable ride. Cameron Diaz' innate charm and her ability to carry ditzy humour compensates for the fairly lacklustre dialogue. And in the LA segment, it's great to see Jack Black playing a more buttoned down character - it makes you enjoy the occasional slice of craziness all the more. Eli Wallach is also really touching as the veteran screen-writer. However, Poor Jude Law and Kate Winslet are stuck with playing characters that are drawn as too good to be true. They have no dark side - no depth. They're just super-nice people who have been trampled on by life and who deserve a break. That's just not interesting to me.

One final note. I really enjoyed the character of the ageing Hollywood pro but I find it disingenuous to have a film that rages against modern Hollywood's obsession with opening weekends, product placement and special effects, and yet is itself a purveyor of crass commercialism. These guys are begging so badly for a big opening weekend that instead of casting one big-name leading couple, they cast two! You can just see the producers thinking - let's cast Jack Black - that'll open up the target demographic! Furthermore, with its intertwining romances set partly in the sort of England where it snows at Christmas and people say "shag" a lot, this feels like a shameless cash-in on the Richard Curtis oeuvre. Added to this, the product placement is so full-on in the first hour - especially in reference to a particularly nasty British newspaper - that it makes CASINO ROYALE look demure. And finally, before we rail against special effects, let's just take another look at all that CGI snow falling in Surrey!

Shameless.

THE HOLIDAY opens in Spain, Denmark, Iceland, the UK and the US this Friday. It opens in Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore, Estonia, Norway and Sweden on December 15th. It opens in Belgium, Brazil, Finland and Mexico on the 22nd and in Australia, France and Turkey between Christmas and New Year. It opens in Argentina on January 11th, Bulgaria on January 19th, Italy on February 9th and Japan on March 10th.

WRISTCUTTERS - Slight but enjoyable slip of an indie movie

In some ways, WRISTCUTTERS is everything its name promises. It's a quirky and not very serious take on a very serious topic. Yet the movie does manage to challenge some of your expectations. For example, it isn't just about wristcutters. It's also about self electrocuting musicians, depressed kids with a fondness for rope and a whole range of other characters not so enamored of this little world of ours. As punishment, they all end up in a place that might be purgatory or something a lot like it. It's a depressed world where no one can smile and everything is even more miserable than the real world and it's populated entirely with people who have committed suicide. Imagine trying to fall in love in that screwed up world.

Our characters, quirky and endearing indie movie types, manage it pretty well. Our protagonists, Patrick Fugit (playing the befuddled introvert these movies insist on) and the very pretty Shannyn Sossamon play their parts well. There are more charming and memorable characters though, including the Russian with the admirably bleak worldview, a throat singing Eskimo girl and a mysterious chap that Tom Waits shows up to play. Yet the best part of Wristcutters is its hokey but fun initial premise. The world in which the movie is set is appropriately bizzare and taking in its contours and meeting its characters and anticipating the curves it throws out is the best part of the movie. The movie is mostly convincing in its initial conceit and there is a great deal of absurd humor to keep you engaged. Overall, WRISTCUTTERS is a slight but enjoyable little movie that says absolutely nothing about suicide even as it mines it for uncomfortable but real laughs.

WRISTCUTTERS played Sundance and many other festivals. It goes on limited release in the US in August 2007.

KISS KISS BANG BANG - Val Kilmer is GOOD!

Quick review: Perfect disposable Friday night movie - fast cars, small guns, hot chicks, some of which are dead, but at least one is wearing a Santa outfit. Go see it! 

Longer review: Robert Downey Junior plays a thief who runs into a Hollywood audition to escape the cops, and is whisked off to cool LA parties. The producer of the movie is never actually going to hire him, but is trying to scare Colin Farrell, the first choice for the role, into dropping his price tag by a couple of mil. Of course, Robert Downey Junior thinks he genuinely has a shot at the role, and has to shadow a real life Private Detective, "Gay Perry" (yes, Roman, he is, in fact, gay) to prepare for his movie role. Gay Perry is played by Val Kilmer, in his best performance since playing Jim Morrison in The Doors - admittedly not a high benchmark. The trio of protagonists is completed by Robert Downey Junior's old flame from school who just happens to be an out-of-work actress addicted to detective fiction. Cue lots of fast cars, small guns hidden in amusing places, hot chicks, some of whom are dead and have horrible hair-dos. There is also a little bit of (comedy) electrocution. 

The movie was written and directed by the guy (Shane Black) who wrote the Lethal Weapon movies, and that pisspoor Arnie movie, The Last Action Hero. Here he delivers a slick, laugh-out-loud-funny movie that satirises a whole bunch of Hollywood genres at once: film noir, the buddy cop movie, James Bond movies, good old-fashioned farce and all those oh-so-clever post-modern Sundance movies where the protagonist starts talking to you and doing weird shit with the narrative structure. ("Adaptation", anyone?) 

Clearly you're not gonna remember it the day after you see it, but it will make you laugh. And anyone who saw the Crime against Comedy that was The Wedding Crashers will be grateful for any studio movie that can still raise a chuckle on a Friday night. Is this as funny as Doogie Howser MD? Heck, no. Are you gonna get a bigger laugh in pre-Oscar season? Unlikely. It's a toss up between this and Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Either way, the dog gets it. 

Nationwide release in the UK and US on the 11th November 2005; apparently it is already out in Germany, which I find kind of hard to believe, insofar as if there is a centre to this universe it is undoubtedly in Zone One, but what do I know....