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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 13 March 2005

The world loves sport.  It brings out the competitive urges in us all.  Soccer may be the world-wide game but in America, there’s a brand of football which it can call its own – gridiron.  Their passion and the fanaticism for this game would rival even the craziest English soccer supporters.

Odessa is a small community in western Texas which serves as the background to Friday Night Lights.  In 1988, writer H.G. Bissinger followed the fortunes of the high school football team, the Permian High Panthers, and their pursuit of the State Championship.  I haven’t read Bissinger’s book but I’m told it provides an honest look inside the culture associated with high school football.

The cinematic version of Bissinger’s novel focuses on the coach and a select group of players.  Billy Bob Thornton (Bad Santa) plays Coach Gary Gaines and you’ll see the intense scrutiny from a town in which any loss is deemed unacceptable.  Lucas Black (All The Pretty Horses) plays quarterback Mike Winchell, an intensely-focused player looking to use his sporting talent as a platform to a college scholarship.  Garrett Hedlund (Troy) is runner Don Billingsley, a party-loving teenager struggling to live up to his father’s high expectations.  Derek Luke (Antwone Fisher) is Boobie Miles, the star of the team but battling an injury which threatens his future dreams of playing professionally.

There are more characters than those I’ve listed but you can see from my brief outline that one shouldn’t think this is stereotype free.  We’ve got the over-bearing parents, the dreams of going to college and escaping a dead-end town, and the coach who is always misunderstood.  Everyone of these topics has been covered in other teen football flicks including Varsity Blues and Remember The Titans.

It may not be anything new but Friday Night Lights is helped by the realisation that this is a true story.  I’m sure it’s had a touch with the cosmetic brush but the results of the matches and the ultimate conclusion is as it really happened.  I particularly seeing what became of all the players after high-school (in a short blurb at the very end).

Actor turned director Peter Berg (Welcome To The Jungle) is behind the camera and gives the film a grainy-documentary like style.  With several hand-held cameras and many quick zoom-ins and zoom-outs, you feel closer to the action and you’d think it was shot back in 1988 as it happened (rather than as a re-enactment).  It’s a good look.

Whilst it won’t be as popular in Australia as it has been in the States, Friday Night Lights is a half-decent sporting film.  Perhaps most importantly, I remember feeling a tingle down my spine when watching some of the final matches.  For me, that’s a benchmark for any sporting film.  If I’ve become emotionally connected with the characters, stereotypes aside, it’s done its job.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 27 February 2005

I have respect for Keanu Reeves.  He can’t act but at least he knows it.  Others tell me that he’s been quoted as saying how lucky he is to be given so many great cinematic opportunities.  He knows there are much better actors out there who can’t find work.  Keanu is just making the most of what he’s got.

The truth is, Reeves is very disappointing in the leading role of John Constantine.  He delivers his lines in the same deep and unemotional tones that we’ve come to expect after The Matrix trilogy.  There were some parts where I thought he was reading his lines straight off an autocue.  Nothing seemed spontaneous and the deliberate pauses were continually annoying.

For those interested in the storyline, John Constantine is an important individual.  Not to those on earth but to those who control it.  You see, God and the Devil made a wager and at stake are the souls of every living human being.  God tries to make people good and the Devil tries to make people bad.

Several years ago, John tried to commit suicide.  In fact, he was dead for close to two minutes before regaining consciousness and returning to the real world.  In that two minutes, which he called “a lifetime”, he saw a glimpse of hell which he never again wanted to see.  He knew he must redeem himself to God to ensure that when he died a second time, he wouldn’t be going back.

John’s mission is to help God by removing “half-breeds” – these a associates of the Devil who are part-human and part-immortal.  They use their powers and influence to sway the bet in the Devil’s favour.  Unfortunately for them, John has a few powers and weapons of his own and he continues to defeat those half-breeds who step out of line.

A romantic interest enters the picture when police detective Angela Dodson (Weisz) has a sister who dies in a mental institution and she comes to John with questions of the after-life.  John soon releases that there’s more to Angela that he first thought and she is soon the key to winning the battle once and for all…

I couldn’t help but think all the way throughout the film of The Devil’s Advocate – the 1997 film starring Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino in which Reeves works as a lawyer who has the devil as a client.  I know the two films aren’t the same but you can’t help but think there’s a similarity in that they do revolve around Lucifer himself.

In reviewing Constantine, I found myself bored and uninterested.  Lots of special effects, glimpse into the underworld, the exploration of supernatural themes.  It just doesn’t interest me and first-time director Francis Lawrence did little to keep me enthused.  The disappointing start to 2005 continues…

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 05 March 2005

For quiet 16-year-old Eddie O’Hare (Foster), he expects this summer to be the best of his life.  A budding writer, Eddie has been chosen by famous children’s book author Ted Cole (Bridges) to serve as is intern.  Eddie has even drafted a novel of his own and anxiously looks forward to what this great writer will think of his work and what help he can offer.

What transpires is everything but.  From their first encounter, Eddie realises that Ted is not the man he expected him to be.  Eddie has arrived at a time when Ted and his wife Marion (Basinger) have begun a trial separation.  They may be separated but they have developed a strange habit regarding their living arrangements.  So that they can equally spend time with their 4-year-old daughter, Ruth (Fanning), they each spend alternate nights at their sea-view home.  When one of them is at home, the other spends the night in a small city apartment.

Eddie soon finds himself as a confidant to both parties.  With the romance drained from her life, Marion takes pleasure from the innocent school-boy crush that Eddie develops on her.  An affair then ensues.  Ted on the other hand, is looking for a free chauffer.  He lost his drivers licence a few months earlier so he uses Eddie to drive him everywhere.  What he sees and hears from Ted is strange to say the least.

As open as this married couple are, there’s one topic they never speak of.  Their two teenage sons recently passed away and Eddie senses this is the key reason behind their crumbling marriage.  How did they die?  Eddie wants to open this “door in the floor” but it’s a precarious topic to approach…

This film from writer-director Tod Williams is based on the novel A Widow For One Year by John Irving.  I’m no book critic but I like Irving’s style have read The Cider House Rules a few years back.  When you watch The Door In Floor, you’ll feel the richness and complexity within the characters.  They are multi-dimensional and very mysterious.  Like a good novel, not all is revealed in the first chapter.

Three great performances act as the catalyst in bringing Irving’s book to the screen.  For Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski, The Contender), it proves once again that he’s great in any role.  For Kim Basinger, it proves that the talent that won her an Oscar for L.A. Confidential is not going to waste.  For Jon Foster, it proves that there’s one more newcomer with a bright future.

The only limitation I felt with Floor was that it felt a little compact.  So much story and so much character development was being squashed into a miniscule 111 minutes.  As I’ve indicated in the past, the challenge of condensing a beloved novel is the hardest tests for any screenwriter.  There were too many elements to this tale which were not explored to my liking.  Then again, I suppose it’s always better to say too little rather than too much.

In regards to this review, I too should probably say no more.  The rest of the film’s great qualities, I will leave for you to see yourself.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 23 February 2005

If it doesn’t involve us, we have a knack for turning a blind eye.  People are killed every day as a result of conflict, war, terrorism and other basic human rights violations.  The troubles of the Middle East and Africa will often appear as a part of 20 second blurb late in any news telecast or deep on page 32 in any newspaper, if at all.  How fickle the media is and how quickly they tire of any news story.

This isn’t my usual rant on a biased media.  I bring this up to highlight how quickly we forget so many of our recent tragedies.  We all remember the events of September 11, 2001 when 2,752 people lost their lives.  But do you remember what happened in the African country of Rwanda in 1994?  An estimated 937,000 people were killed in just 100 days in a fierce “ethnic cleansing” war between the Tutsis and the Hutus.

I remember very little of the event and I suggest many people won’t recall it at all.  How sad it is that we don’t remember.  Thankfully, the medium of film is one way that the events of the past can be brought back into the spotlight.  Director Terry George has done that with Hotel Rwanda. 

Paul Rusesabagina (Cheadle) was a Hutu who managed a posh hotel, the Des Milles Collines, in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali.  The hotel was a popular destination for foreign tourists and Paul took pride in the service provided.  On April 6, 1994, Paul’s life would be changed forever.  The Rwandan president’s plane was shot down and the Hutu’s began a violent war to exterminate all Tutsis from the country.

Paul may have been on the right side but he wanted nothing to do with this insane war.  As the English and other foreigners fled the hotel, Paul let in as many Tutsis as possible to provide refuge and to keep them safe from the advancing Hutus.  A small team of U.N. peacekeepers were sent in to help get the foreign tourists out of the country.  That unfortunately, was it.  No one was coming to assist the Tutsis.  No one around the world gave a damn.

There are always tales of heroism in any war and this is Paul’s tale.  He constantly put his life at risk to protect the many Tutsis staying at the hotel.  It’s inspiring stuff and you can see the film for yourself to discover what becomes of them.  There are moments of reflection and sadness but also moments of uplifting joy.  Everyone who sees Hotel Rwanda will take something away.

The stars of the film are Don Cheadle (as Paul) and Sophie Okonedo (as Paul’s wife, Tatiana).  This may be a small, low-budget drama but it isn’t going unnoticed.  Both Cheadle and Okonedo earned Academy Award nominations and writers Terry George and Keir Pearson received a nomination for their great screenplay.  I’ve always liked Cheadle as an actor and I’m glad he got the part over other more favoured actors (such as Denzel Washington).  He makes the movie.

Engrossing from the opening credits to the final curtain, Hotel Rwanda ranks as one of the finer films of 2005.  If only there were more films like it.

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Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 03 March 2005

Few know who Alex ‘Hitch’ Hitchens (Smith) by name but most know him by reputation – he is the “Date Doctor”.  If you’re a guy looking for help in wooing a girl, Hitch is the man to see.  He helps you through the basic fundamentals and will have you fully prepared for that valuable first impression.

His latest assignment is one of his toughest – an accountant named Albert (James) has fallen head-over-heels for a client at work.  Not just any client though – this is a rich heiress who is continually splashed across trashy newspaper and magazine covers.  Her name is Allegra Cole (Valletta) and after consulting Hitch, Albert is ready to make the first move…

As Albert’s quest commences, so too does an opportunity open up for Hitch.  He’s attracted to an alluring journalist named Sara (Mendez) but he just can’t get it right.  The man who apparently knows all the answers, can’t seem to find them for himself.

What follows is an amusing comedy with a few twists along the way.  I particularly enjoyed the way several of the side-plots were woven into the story (particularly that of a scum-bag which Hitch refuses to take as a client).  Sure it’s obvious but hey, aren’t all romantic comedies?\

I’m not usually a Will Smith fan but he’s funny enough in this role for me to forgive past misgivings.  He’s still his usual self but at least the writing is better.  He works well with co-star Eva Mendez who seems to be the “in thing” in Hollywood.  In the past two years, she’s featured in many major films including Out Of Time, Stuck On You, Once Upon A Time In Mexico, Training Day and 2 Fast 2 Furious.

My major gripe with Hitch was watching the characters change personality too quickly.  Albert is terribly nervous one minute and amazingly confident the next.  I can’t say I really bought it.  The same applied to Hitch – I couldn’t believe that a man who is an expert in the field of dating could make so many mistakes himself.  On top of this, many of the films events feel predetermined and you know exactly what’s going to happen before it does.  I’ll use Albert’s first encounter with Allegra in the boardroom as a perfect example.  Even if you haven’t seen the trailer (which reveals too much of the story) you’ll know.

The box-office success of this film shows that many have suffered in making that first move and can relate to funny situations that Hitch and Albert find themselves in.  That said, I’m not sure if the deep, metaphorical pick-up lines Will Smith uses would hold up here in Australia.  Guys can try them if they like but be prepared to be laughed at.