RIVALS / LES LIENS DU SANG - entirely predictable French "thriller"

Writer-director Jacques Maillot recreates 1970s France in scrupulous detail in his new thriller LES LIENS DU SANG (mis-leadingly translated for its English release as RIVALS). The costumes, hair-styles, props, cars, cigarettes, music - you simply cannot fault the achievement of the production team. The problem is that while this movie is based on the true story of two brothers - one a cop, one a murderer - it lacks any narrative momentum or emotional engagement. François Cluzet plays Gaby - the errant elder brother to Guillaume Canet's straight-laced younger brother, François. Even though he disapproves of Gaby's lifestyle, François helps him get a job and a place to stay when he's released from prison. At first it seems as though Gaby will turn his life around, but the petty frustrations of life lead him back into high stakes crime. Accordingly, the denouement sees a predictable clash between the cop and the pimp. The key point about this film is that it isn't some big-budget slick police thriller pitting two rivals against each other in the manner of THE DEPARTED. It's small scale in the best sense - focusing on the banal reality of staking out prostitutes in small towns. The problem is that having taken such an approach you have to work even harder to gain and keep the audience's attention, and I just don't think this slow-paced, predictable film ever succeeds. As good as these actors are, the characters are all two-dimensional cliches. As a result, the denouement simply doesn't pack the required emotional punch.

LES LIENS DU SANG was released in Belgium and France in February and is currently on release in the UK as RIVALS.

FOUR CHRISTMASES - er..."mistletoe"?

FOUR CHRISTMASES is a piss-poor generic holiday season comedy starring Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. I normally like Vaughn's motor-mouth humour and Reese Witherspoon was great in LEGALLY BLONDE but they struggle to keep this underwritten movie afloat. The jokes are too thin and too few - the "big message" too preachy and obvious - the whole enterprise such a blatant shake-down it made me ashamed to have colluded with it. The high concept is that Vaughn and Witherspoon think that they are a happy independent couple until they are guilted into visiting each of their parents one Christmas day. Naturally, the movie spends eighty minutes showing how "they fuck you up your mum and dad" before telling us that, actually, we should all be nice to our families, before then telling us, hey, it's okay to exclude them from major life events. Huh?

So this movie is crass and inconsistent. It's also poorly made - just look for those awful continuity errors with Witherspoon's wig. Frankly, the only mildly interesting thing in the whole flick was the Steve Wiebe cameo. Seriously, director Seth Gordon should go back to making docs than hiring himself out.

FOUR CHRISTMASES is on release in the US, UK, Canada, Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, Germany, Portugal, Russia and Iceland. It opens next weekend in the Czech Republic, Greece, Hong Kong and Poland. It opens on December 18th in Argentina, Croatia, Hungary, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Estonia. It opens on Christmas day in Belgium and Brazil and on New Year's Eve in France.

DOSTANA - mainstream Bollywood tackles homophobia

DOSTANA is being touted as a breakthrough Bollywood movie but I think it's absolutely typical in its slippery depiction of modern sexuality. After all, Bollywood cinema delights in showing us waxed and bronzed men and women, scimpily clad, gyrating provocatively. But god forbid you actually show two people kissing!

DOSTANA takes this paradoxical attitude to modern sexuality and applies it to gay relationships. So, on one hand, this is a brave movie. It's telling Indian parents not to be so judgmental that their kids are forced to stay in the closet. Surely, loving parents should want an honest and open relationship with their children? But on the other hand, this is a movie that still wants to make money and can't afford to offend its conservative audience. As a result, the two gay characters are, in fact, only faking it. And faking it in such a crass manner that it makes Robin Williams' performance in BIRDCAGE look restrained. The message seems to be: yes, it's fine to be gay, but just so you know, I'm most definitely NOT GAY! In a Western movie - such as I PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY - I would excoriate the hypocrisy and cowardice of the film-makers. But given that this is Hindi cinema I can only give thanks that we are finally inching toward maturity.

So, back to the nuts and bolts. DOSTANA is a movie about young single Indians living in Miami and enjoying a measure of freedom that they wouldn't enjoy at home. Kunal (John Abraham) and Sameer (Abhishek Bachchan) pretend to be gay so that they can share an apartment with Neha (Priyanka Chopra) whose conservative aunt won't allow co-habitation with straight single men. Problems arise when Sam's mother thinks he really IS gay and both guys realise that they are in love with Neha and try to ruin her incipient romance with her boss Abhi (Bobby Deol). The situations are resolved thanks to lots of typical Bollywood broad humour, farcical mix-ups, glycerine tears and ludicrously opulent romantic gestures.

Despite the fact that this movie is written and directed by Tarun Manusukhani, the movie has the look, feel and self-referential narcissism of your typical Karan Johar film. It's all lush location shots, designer clothes, over-styled actors and ludicrous over-acting. Having said that, in embracing his camp sensibility, Johar has finally found a narrative that suits his style and the result is highly entertaining. Let's face it, Priyanka is just a clothes-horse, and John Abraham is just there to flash his well-oiled pecs, but Abhishek Bachchan turns out to be very gifted at physical comedy, carrying the movie until the mid-way mark when Kiron Kher and Boman Irani show up. Irani is a scene stealer as flamboyantly gay magazine editor M - like a Hindi Mugatu for all you ZOOLANDER fans! - and Kiron Kher, as Sameer's devestated mother, has by far the best musical number in the movie, beautifully spoofing her performance in DEVDAS. Admittely, the movie starts to flag when we get into a tortously drawn out denouement, but at least it ends on a high with the dance number "Desi girl" and the first mainstream Bollywood gay (or at least man-on-man) kiss.

DOSTANA went on global release on November 14th.

YUVRAAJ - piss-poor Bollywood melodrama slash RAINMAN rip-off

YUVRAAJ is an unwatchable movie from Subash Ghai - one of Hindi cinema's most unreliable directors. He's made iconic movies like TAAL and even the recent, earnest political drama BLACK AND WHITE but he's also made some complete stinkers.

YUVRAAJ (Hindi: "prince") is about a cock-sure arsehole (Salman Khan) who wants to marry a rich cellist (Katrina Kaif). Her father forbids the match until this waste of space makes some money. So our "hero" decides to team up with his playboy younger brother (Zayed Khan) and exploit their third brother (Anil Kapoor) - an autistic, musical genius who just happens to have inherited their father's fortune.

The movie is superficial and glitzy and at times seems like little more than an advert for Austrian tourism. Katrina Kaif, Salman Khan and Zayed Khan are poor actors, the script is cumbersome and ridiculous, and poor Anil Kapoor is stuck in a role that is absurd. He's the only reason to see the movie, and believe me he's not reason enough. As for A.R.Rahman's score - it's a real embarassment. Apart from the songs "Tu meri dost hain" and "Mastam mastam", the numbers are over-worked, bombastic and truly poor quality.

Movies like DOSTANA - for all their compromises - are moving Bollywood forward. Movies like YUVRAAJ set it back by around a decade. Avoid at all costs or waste two and half hours pondering the strange life of Salman Khan's hair-line and Anil Kapoor's collection of haute couture lapel pins.

YUVRAAJ went on global release on November 21st.

Random DVD round-up 7 - AZUR AND ASMAR - THE PRINCE'S QUEST

The story begins in medieval Northern Europe. Azur is a baby with piercing blue eyes and the son of a European noble. He is being nursed by his muslim maid Jenane, who is also nursing her son Asmar. They grow up together as rumbunctious qausi-brothers but Asmar resents Azur's claims on his mother's time. Soon Azur's father grows tired of the fighting and sends Azur to a tutor in another town. Asmar and his mother are thrown onto the streets. Years later, Azur still holds onto childhood tales of fairy princesses and he journeys to Andalusia and Marrakech to meet Jenane - now a wealthy lady. While the superstitious locals are fearful of Azur's eyes - fearing him to be the devil - Jenane takes him in and undertakes to fund his quest, just as she has funded Asmar's. With the help of a precocious princess Chamsous Sabah, a wise Jewish sage, and a choleric foreign guide, Azur searches for the djinn fairy, hot on the trail of his one-time brother....

AZUR AND ASMAR - THE PRINCE'S QUEST is a beautifully drawn, audaciously political children's animated movie. Set in the middle ages it deals with sharply relevant modern issues concerning respect for other's cultures. A characteristically neat touch sees writer-director Michel Ocelot choose not to subtitle lines spoken in a foreign language. He wants us to experience the reality of life in a foreign land - when we have to struggle to make out what is being communicated. Moreover, it shows modern viewers used to images of Islamist terrorists how the Andalusian muslims were pioneers of science, philosophy and multicultural cities. All this pre-amble might suggest that AZUR AND ASMAR is a movie weighed down by its pedagogical concerns but I'm pleased to report that for all its political correctness, the movie remains an enchanting tale of quests, dragons, beautiful fairies and true love! And all dressed up in some of the most vivid colours, wonderful music and rich textures seen in animated cinema.

AZUR ET ASMAR played Cannes 2006 and was released that year in France, Italy and Brazil. It was released in 2007 in Greece, Japan, Singapore and the Netherlands. It was released earlier this year in the UK, South Korea and the USA and is also on release on DVD.

Random DVD Round-Up 6 - KEEPING UP WITH THE STEINS

KEEPING UP WITH THE STEINS is an earnest but dull attempt at a family comedy around a young kid's Bar Mitzvah. Unfortunately for him, his dad (Jeremy Piven) is a top LA talent agent and is set on spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a swanky party to make up for the low-rent party he had as a kid. All those resentments are brought to the surface when the kid invites his grandfather (Garry Marshall) to the ceremony, prompting family upsets and a syrupy reconciliation. It's an entirely soupy and superficial enterprise and never explores the grim reality of "keeping up" with the neighbours as in the tragicomic brilliance of SIXTY SIX.

KEEPING UP WITH THE STEINS was released in 2006 and is available on DVD.