Face/Off by John Woo offers what is perhaps the most preposterous plot ever for an action movie, and that is saying something. Most postmodern action thrillers—see, for instance, Speed 2 and Con Air—aspire to nothing higher than nudging you in the ribs from time to time to remind you that you are watching a movie….
Lethal Weapon 4 was, according to the credits, directed by Richard Donner, but it might as well have been directed by a computer. Here is the perfect summer blockbuster movie in which the formulae perfected in the first three installments in the series are employed once again, the explosions and the hair-breadth escapes are even…
Capitaine Conan by Bertrand Tavernier has endured the sort of distribution hell which is the fate of most foreign films, even the best, in this country—which is why I have only just got round to seeing it. But if you are lucky enough to be near where it is playing, do go and see it….
Passion of Mind is the first film in English of Alain Berliner, the director of the charmingly disturbing or, disturbingly charming, Belgian film Ma Vie en Rose. Perhaps it was decided that for his American debut he needed to find his audience with the help of a star of the stature of Demi Moore. Similar…
The Jackal, directed by Michael Caton-Jones, is a formula blockbuster and a complete artistic void. The only interesting thing about it to me was the chance it afforded to spot the trends as to what ingredients go into the formula this year. For example, the macho man who has an on-screen homosexual kiss looks as…
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