***** outstanding **** very good *** good ** average * poor GET CARTER (18) Director: Mike Hodges Starring: Michael Caine, John Osborne Mike Hodges' 1971 gangster thriller has dated in the most delicious way, turning; a bleary eye on a criminal Newcastle trod through by Michael Caine's angel of vengeance. John Osborne impresses in a legendary cameo as the city's silky-smooth overlord. %A 8 THE MATRIX (15) ..................... Director: Wachowski Brothers Starring: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne If you can accept that Keanu Reeves is the Messiah sent to: save our souls from outerspace robots, then there's much to relish in this virtuoso slice of sci-fi nonsense (below). Forget trying to follow the garbled plot; it's just a peg on which to drape all manner of visuals. The Matrix opens up dark and apocalyptic, then turns comicbook gaudy at the midway mark. Seemingly oblivious to this, Keanu Reeves bobs through both halves with an air of bemusement. Laurence: Fishburne's brooding disciple runs rings around him. 4 AMERICAN PERFEKT Director: Paul Chart Starring: Fairuza Balk, Amanda Plummer Starting out as an addictive cat-and-mouse noir, American Perfekt ends up chasing its tail through ever-decreasing circles. Robert (Jackie Brown) NEW FILMS Forster is the doctor on the road in the American Midwest, falling in with Amanda Plummer's jumpy traveller, then her sassier sibling (Fairuza Balk). Conartists and killers lurk in the wings. But writer-director Paul Chart has trouble steering his plot into harbour, swinging this way and that with an air of desperation. # * * AMONG GIANTS (15) Director: Sam Miller Starring: Rachel Griffiths, Pete Postlethwaite The giants in this coarsegrained human drama are a row of electrical pylons stretching across the Yorkshire moors; towering monoliths that dwarf the gang of workers (headed by Pete Postlethwaite) hired to paint them. Simon (The Full Monty) Beaufoy's script mixes kitchen-sink grit with sentiment; Sam Miller's direction goes big on crane shots. Earthy, likeable stuff. * * * AUGUST 32ND ON EARTH (NC) ..................................... Director: Denis Villeneuve Starring: Pascal Bussières, Alexis Martin Denis Villeneuve's enigmatic odyssey casts two lost souls (Pascal Bussières, Alex Martin) adrift in the flatlands beyond Salt Lake City. Wide open spaces on screen hint at wide open spaces inside without ever quite opening them up for scrutiny. The startling imagery and elegant atmosphere make up for the drama's lack of rigour. * * * * FINDING NORTH (15) Director: Tanya Wexler Starring: Wendy Makkena, John Benjamin Hickey A gay-themed, on-the-road, odd-couple comedy, Finding North winds up less engaging then it sounds. Wendy Makkena's New York bankteller chases John Benjamin Hickey's suicidal beefcake to Texas, setting in motion a carousel of quirky characters, kooky misunderstandings and cute philosophising. * * HEART (18) Director: Jimmy McGovern Starring: Christopher Eccleston, Kate Hardie Coronary case Christopher Eccleston gets himself a new heart. His wife (Kate Hardie) responds by having an affair with a boorish writer (Rhys Ifans); his donor's widowed mum (Saskia Reeves) by embroiling him in an Oedipal affair. Played as absurdist black-comedy, or a Cronenberg-type horror flick, Heart (below) might have worked. Instead Jimmy McGovern turns it into a lumpy melodrama whose screenplay bears all the hallmarks of a botched operation. OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS (12) Director: David Rocksavage Starring: David Speck, Lothaire Bluteau Writer-director David Rocksavage conjures Truman Capote's debut novel into a Deep South Great Expectations, coated in milky cinematography and ambled through by cheery black maids, crumbling belles and dungaree'd chill'un. There's even an old man in the attic to pluck out when events turn sluggish. And they do. + * * Xan Brooks % * (15)