LAKEVIEW TERRACE - Neil LaBute drops the ball

LAKEVIEW TERRACE speaks more intelligently and honestly about racial tensions in America than that godawful, offensive schmaltz, THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES. Problem is, LAKEVIEW TERRACE still pulls its punches. 

It begins as a brilliantly nuanced, slow-burning thriller. Kerry Washington and Patrick Wilson play a mixed race couple who move into a house next door to Samuel L Jackson's racist cop. He objects to their mixed-race marriage but writer/director Neil LaBute is careful to make it hard for us to judge him. Maybe the cop is simply being admirably honest.  After all, the couple both admit to difficulties with each other's families - the forced declarations of how much his family love her - her father quizzing him on how he'll keep their mixed-race children safe.  Their families are politically correct on the surface but racist underneath. Maybe outright condemnation is the most honest response? And isn't the racist cop right to object to the couple having sex in their pool where his kids can see them? Isn't he right to object to the husband throwing his fag ends into his yard?

The tension builds. The racist cop is clearly going after the couple. The husband responds by being cowardly and childishly aggressive by turns. The wife gets pregnant accidentally on purpose and then gets mad when her husband isn't ecstatic. All is not well. 

The problem is that Neil LaBute takes the easy way out. Just like the wildfires that are encroaching upon their houses, the movie ends in a conflagration. The racist cop is given a convenient prosaic excuse for his racism that has nothing to do with racism at all, really, and the couple get a convenient reconciliation. It's all just too neat and too ad hominem. I wanted LaBute to tell us something about the reality of mixed-race relationships. Instead he exploited a hot-button social issue as an unusual backdrop to a rather mundane thriller with a lollipop ending.

I loved IN THE COMPANY OF MEN. But recently I've found Neil LaBute's work to be rather lazy. In his recent London play FAT PIG and again in LAKEVIEW TERRACE he flirts with big social issues and then collapses into easy solutions. Poor show.

LAKEVIEW TERRACE was released earlier this year in the US, Canada, France, Argentina, Russia, Sweden, Venezuela, the Philippines, Singapore, Italy, Spain, Egypt, Denmark, Mexico, Romania and Greece. It is currently on release in the UK and opens next week in Belgium. It opens on December 18th in Germany and Portugal and opens in Australia on January 29th.

RAB NE BANA DI JODI / A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN - a refreshingly old-fashioned Bollywood romance

A few weeks ago I was praising DOSTANA for tackling contemporary sexual morality and pushing forward the boundaries of Hindi cinema. By contrast, RAB NE BANA DI JODI is a rather old-fashioned Bollywood weepie that espouses the virtues of integrity, loyalty and selflessness over hot dance moves and good looks. Both movies have their strengths and, in some ways, I rather preferred RAB NE BANA DI JODI precisely because it's a throwback to simpler, more straightforward times.

In contemporary Punjab, Surinder Sahni (Shah Rukh Khan) is a geeky, hard-working, quiet man. He attends the wedding of his professor's daughter, Taani (Anushka Sharma) only to fall in love with her at first sight. She's a vivacious, beautiful much younger girl - they seem to be chalk and cheese. When the groom party is killed in an accident, and the professor dies from grief, Surinder does the honourable thing in marrying Taani, giving her a home. He doesn't press his marital rights - rather waiting for love to grow slowly ("Haule Haule"). She promises to be a good wife, but claims she can never love him. In order to cheer her up and spend time with her, Suri decides to enter a dance contest with her, under the guise of a cool, confident guy called Raj. The make-over is so dramatic that Taani doesn't even recognise him. Soon, Taani is having a wonderful time with Raj. So much so that Suri is wondering if he'll lose her to his alter-ego. Or will Taani learn to appreciate Suri's quiet goodness? Well, this is Hindi cinema, so you can guess the ending!

The success of the movie hinges on the performances of the two leads. Shah Rukh Khan is marvelous as Suri/Raj. As Suri he is suitably self-effacing and nervous - and takes immeasurable delight in small triumphs - such as when his new wife prepares his first tiffin! As Raj, Shah Rukh beautifully satirises ridiculous Bollywood Heroes - complete with camp outfits and cheesy one-liners. Model slash actress Anushka Sharma does a good job in the harder role - she has to express the conflict of a well-brought up girl who considers leaving her husband for another man. Still, she doesn't have the screen presence of a Shah Rukh (who does?) or of legendary Bollywood actresses such as Kajol and Madhuri.

Behind the screen, Ravi K Chandran shoots Punjab beautifully and the Merchant brothers have produced a beautiful score. I particularly liked the sweet love song "Haule Haule" - nice to see Sukhwinder Singh singing a slower, softer number. And the lyrics to the song "Tujh Mein Rab Dikhta Hai / I see God in you" are deeply moving. But by far the most entertaining and intellectually interesting number is a song called "Phir Milenge Chalte Chalte". It's a dream sequence in which Shah Rukh Khan sings himself through the history of Hindi film - pastiching the hit numbers of the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s. It's a tremendous set-piece - exuberant, cheeky but fundamentally nostalgic for a shared heritage. And if anyone's still in doubt about who really has the heart of India, wait for the reaction when the first "item girl" appears on the screen!

RAB NE BANA DI JODI is on global release.

TRADE - earnest but still compelling sex trade drama

TRADE is a slightly exploitative, certainly rose-tinted drama about sex slaves smuggled into the US via Mexico and auctioned off on a website. Based on an article published in the New York Times, the movie tracks a 13-year old girl called Adriana who's kidnapped by the Russians and freighted into a suburban house in New Jersey where the exchange will take place. The movie is pretty unflinching in showing how these operations work - from casual rape, to "picking up pocket change" en route. Where the movie gets a little ridiculous is in its neat coincidences. Adriana's loyal brother Jorge manages to stalk her kidnappers all the way to the Mexican border where he conveniently hooks up with the world's kindest cop (Kevin Kline). Together, they follow Adriana's convoy to New Jersey where the cop will actually front the money to buy Adriana back. Surely the grim reality of sex slavery is incompatible with this sort of fairy-tale (or religious redemptive) ending?

I have to admit that these hokey narrative tricks help keep the movie palatable and compelling. The relationship between Ray and Jorge leavens the didactic material. Still, TRADE never really rises above a competently made TV movie and packs none of the punch of Lukas Moodyddon's brutal LILYA 4EVER.

TRADE played Sundance 2007 and Berlin 2008. It was released last year in the US, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. It opened earlier this year in Singapore, Portugal, Israel and Mexico and is currently on release in the UK.

TRANSPORTER 3 - blissfully camp!

TRANSPORTER 3 is sheer genius. It's the B-movie action thriller shorn of anything extraneous - sensible plot, character development - shot like a car commercial on steroids and featuring the campest action hero since CONAN. Jason Statham is becoming as iconic as Michael Caine - another actor who plays the same accent and the same implacable diffidence in every single movie - another actor whose unconventional looks apparently rule him out as a sex symbol. Statham's career is a beacon of hope for all men and all actors!

In TRANSPORTER 3 it's business as usual. "Frank" is our hero - a terse driver who delivers "packages" against all odds. Within the first twenty minutes, a car has been driven into his house containing a (allegedly) hot Ukrainian chick. Frank has to deliver her to Budapest. If he wanders more than 75 metres from his car he blows up. It's a superb conceit because it creates ever more ridiculous chase scenes and fight scenes. See Frank beat up eight men WITH HIS SUIT! See Frank chase down a speeding Audi ON A KID'S BIKE! Pure Action Gold.

TRANSPORTER 3 is on release in France, the USA, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, India and the UK. It opens next week in Belgium and Brazil; on December 19th in Estonia; on December 31st in Egypt; on January 1st in Singapore; on January 8th in Germany and South Korea; on January 16th in Poland; on January 23rd in Romania; on February 5th in Australia and on February 26th in the Czech Republic.

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (2008) - An inconvenient remake

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL was a lean, simple sci-fi movie about an alien in human form who tries to warn humankind against continuing on its destructive path. Released at the start of the Cold War, the movie had a strong agenda - against realist inter-state politics and for liberal internationalism as mediated by the United Nations. The movie also contained a lot of Christian imagery, with Klaatu as the saviour of humankind come down to earth to point out the error of our ways. The message was large and profound but it was made through argument rather than special effects. Klaatu - the alien - ponders the words of The Lincoln Memorial and debates politics with an eminent scientist. It was a remarkably quiet and thoughtful film.

The new remake is a rather different beast. For a start, it's replete with big-budget special effects and it's self-consciously grandiose. The message is also different. Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) isn't here to save us from ourselves but to save the Earth from human-kind. Maybe in a post-modern world full of failing states and discredited supernational institutions, the film-makers thought appealing to liberal internationalism wouldn't fly? But it's a real shame. In the year of the Obama landslide, I could easily imagine a film that earnestly professed belief in the redemptive power of liberal democracy striking a chord.

The one constant is the Christian iconography - Klaatu walks on water, raises a man from the dead, and in a closing scene seems to take the agents of death out of the Bensons and into himself - thus taking away the sin of the world.

I rather like the bleak message and I also liked the special effects. But I didn't buy into the human relationships that power the plot. In the original film Klaatu strikes up a warm relationship between a single mother and her son who happen to live in the same boarding house as him. Through spending time with them he realises that humans have good qualities and deserve the chance to change. In the current movie I was never sold on the relationship between Klaatu, Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) and her stepson Jacob (Jaden Smith). Maybe it's because Helen is cast as a high powered scientist, and the relationship between Helen and her son is now rather complicated. Somehow it detracts from the relationship with Klaatu. At any rate, I didn't buy that in the course of a rather cursory relationship, Klaatu would change his mind about humanity.

So, for my money, stick to the original movie. Not least to avoid any fanboy disappointment at the omission of the most famous line of the original movie.

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL is on release in Belgium, France, Norway, Thailand, Austria, Croatia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, Peru, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, the UK, the USA and Venezuela. It opens in Japan on December 19th; in South Korea on December 24th; in Australia on December 26th; in Egypt on December 31st; in Argentina on January 1st; in Brazil on January 9th; and in Poland on January 16th.

Rather than CHANGELING, why not watch SUMMER and see some authentic emotion and social injustice?

After a long day in the office I wasn't looking forward to what I presumed would be an earnest but dull look at gritty British working class life. I couldn't have been more wrong. SUMMER is a marvellous film - it's certainly a bracing look at wasted lives but the bleak subject matter is offset by a wicked sense of humour founded in the little absurdities of life.

It's the story of three friends who grew up in working class England in the eighties and where life took them. Shaun is a kid with learning disabilities in a school and an era where people just thought you were being arsey when really you were frustrated and angry. His best mate is Daz, another kid consigned to no future by an educational system that streamed kids into those worthy of taking exams and those destined for the dole queue. The two kids hang out with a girl called Katy against the better judgement of her parents. After all, Katy's clever - she has a future. (If you want to see how institutions victimise innocents then this movie is far more subtle and realistic than CHANGELING - even though I know CHANGELING was based on a true story that just happened to be absurd.)

The story of their summer as teenagers is inter-cut with their adult lives. Shaun (Robert Carlyle) is now a disheveled petrol pump attendant who also acts as a carer for Daz (Steve Evets) who's now consigned to a wheelchair and drinking himself to death. Daz' son Daniel (Michael Socha) is following in his footsteps. And then there's Katy - who went on the university and reached dizzying heights as a provincial solicitor.

You'd think all this would add up to a pretty grim movie - and there are scenes that are as anger-inducing as CHANGELING wants to be. The social injustice drips from the screen. And Robert Carlyle's performance is as emotionally affecting and heartbreaking as anything Angelina Jolie conjures up. But the great thing is that despite seemingly shitty circumstances both Shaun and Daz retain their sarcastic sense of humour and can still take pleasure in life. And the same could be said for the movie as a whole. SUMMER doesn't have the manicured production values of a big-budget Oscar contender but it feels more real, more humble and it's all the more engaging for that.

SUMMER played Rome 2008 and is currently on release in the UK.