The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 48

fiREFN I I I GUIDE 24 FEBRUARY 1994 16 Wooing audience with sublime action films 15- I k' '3 li I gossipy, flighty world of women and contemporary gender politics ments. (There is an embarrassing secondary role for a radical intellectual who shuns all "authoritarian, post-Hegelian But it's no wonder the townsfolk gawk, for this Socratic teacher-student relationship carries an unmistakeable tone of disguised homo-eroticism, only reinforced by the film's unsubtle misogyny. In an era of hyper-inflated budgets and ever more amazing technical processes for the production of special effects in cinema, it is important to remember some of the often wonderfully poetic thrills that B-. movies old and new have achieved with only the slenderest of means. The hands of a clock spin frantically and a character Is suddenly radically younger or older; through a doorway, a child sees a normal lounge room fleetingly replaced by another, more sinister chamber.

All this and more appears in Aml-tyvillc 1992: It's About Time (M, RocVale), directed with no small amount of flair by Tony Randel (Heilraleer The plot mixes conventions from movies, both classic and contemporary. An old clock unleashes evil spirits into a new-fangled California home, where interpersonal malaise runs high. While the father (Stephen Macht) rots with a festering wound and slowly turns into a devil, his daughter (Shawn Weatherly) transforms from a shy, bubble-gum chewing teenager into a vicious vamp, prompting this immortal remark from her brother (Damon Martin): "Teen lust, it's really Around this crazy family mill the Glory (Uma Thurman) and Wayne Dobta (Robert de Nlro), a dreaming cop with his in 'Mad Dog and Glory'. TOO, the new boy in Hollywood, has a TV kind of genius." These wise words from "The Age' Arts Editor, Stephanie Bunbury, were coined upon the recent release of Hard Target, the first American film from director John Woo, whose dazzling career in Hong Kong precedes him. Yet recognition has not come quickly to Woo within mainstream Australian culture.

Few local critics even mentioned his previous film Hard Boiled (R, 21st Century), when it surfaced briefly last year, despite the fact it easily rivals masterworks like The Age of Innocence or The Double Life of Veronlque. Hard Boiled is action cinema at its finest and most imaginative. The setting is Hong Kong, 1997, where the social fabric of law and order is unravelling fast. As always in Woo's films (such as The Killer, available on video in an English-dubbed version) the plot centres on men and their peculiarly terse expressions of mutual affection. Tequila, played by the incomparably charismatic 'Chow Yun-Fat, is a rebel cop trying to bust a gang of gun smugglers.

Eventually he finds an undercover ally in Tony (Tony Leung). The scenes of masculine camaraderie and one-upmanship, as well as the touches of comedy and romance, are handled effectively enough. But it is the action that really matters and Woo piles it on, offering stirring set-pieces of murder ana destruction that more and more spectacular. No one else can stage, shoot and edit such scenes with anything like Woo's panache. Hard BoUed ends up in a hospital for an uninterrupted 30 minutes of mayhem a location that allows Woo to mix up life and death, the banal and the apocalyptic, the familiar and the frightening.

The crown- KIW RELEASES ADRIAN MARTIN ing touch of this magisterial sequence a surprise that I won't even attempt to describe is, for me, one of the most sublime moments in the entire history of cinema. If there is any justice in Australian popular culture, video consumers should give Woo the reward he deserves for his special kind of genius. Mad Dog and Glory (M, CIC) is this week's second outstanding film. Director John McNaughton has clearly delivered on the promise shown by Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, but the artistic centre of this project is writer and executive producer Richard Price (Sea of Love). Closely associated in recent years with Martin Scorsese, Price has invented a story that serves as a wise, downbeat commentary on the violent characters and themes of Raging Bull and Goodfellas.

Robert De Niro has rarely shown such judicious acting restraint as he does here, with extremely moving results. He plays Wayne, a timid cop who dreams of being a "mad dog Accidentally crossing paths with and saving the life of suave criminal Frank (Bill Murray, in an equally superb role), Wayne ends up with the gift for a week of Glory (Uma Thurman). But when Wayne falls in love, Frank pulls rank and wants his "property" back. Virtually every aspect of the triangular relationship between Wayne, Frank and Glory is deliciously unspoken and ambiguous, thanks to the art and craft of Price and McNaughton. The film is about people who, in different ways, dream feverishly of who they want to be and, as a result, live uneasily inside the skin of their daily personalities and social roles.

The threads of friendship and love, domination and deceit, become unreadable, even to the characters themselves. Mad Dog and Glory is the kind of movie one sees all too rarely in mainstream American cinema one that is not beholden at every step to the rigid conventions of genre, which follows through on its own odd, suggestive logic. Only at the end when the film-makers seem at a loss as to how to resolve the mystery surrounding Glory's motivations does the escape hatch of movie cliche open for a moment But this is, for the most part, an exceptionally original, touching and captivating film. understood for who they really are, not what they look like but avoids the murkier and more intriguing aspects of the story. Mel Gibson makes his directorial debut with this drama in which he also stars as Justin, a reclusive, disfigured artist who befriends sensitive young Chuck (Nick Stahl) to the horror of the suspicious local community.

Gibson handles ably, if not imaginatively, this cross between a typical episode of The Wonder Years and a hothouse family melodrama in the vein of The Prince of Tides. The former influence shows itself in the autumnal color scheme, the reflective voice-over narration (mercifully infrequent), and the pious lesson about the cultural superiority of Shakespeare over comics. (Mel is obviously anxious to continue his association with the Bard after his role as Zeffire Ill's Hamlet) The melodramatic aspect is far more interesting. The film is essentially a stoic, rationalist defence of sublime "grace" of male friendship in the face of both the brittle, usual suspects: sneering neighbors, clairvoyant aunts, ineffectual cops. A special, new twist is added to the typical Amityville formula: the clock holds not just any old demon, but the eternal spirit of a great historical monster, Gilles de Rate.

An engaging combination of florid, baroque horror and colorful teen comedy, Amityville 1992 is one for "exploitation" cinema connoisseurs. THE unctuous trailer for The Man Without a Face (M, Roadshow) picks out its most obvious and palatable theme that people must be QfejuiX Computor lliro ks: no 32 0 I a Qualstar 9 -Track Tap drire lub-eyltemi for PC, Macintosh or SCSI Workstation. PEEVEE SOFTWHE SOLUTIONS rkMl(M)MtMM rxi(N)tMUOt Dealer aoqoliiM welcome. MadatotV Peripheral! Mater Software I ESE7f 333233!" Conflgvred to your Ree.Mireaieati f) Oejalitv Seond Haae Coaiaafars iWHMlttHMiH.IWHI 1 A00 3000 mUiUatad wlaaa The PCP Grouo SStt?" in ohs i''T lasaai 3880X-40 (UatiaM) t2M 212MBWaat.DiJ. tHO -J VI IZN 246MB Motor MM I The Power System 1 1 The Education System I SS'SS! ASSESS 486SX-33 (Intel CPU) $1170 386DX-40 (AMD CPU) Jm SovlSS 0MBwo PM 486DX-33 (Intel CPU) $2170 486DX-40 (AMD CPU) $1120 Ci (MO 486DX-40 (AMD CPU) $1140 486SX-33 (Intel CPU) $1500 KihLa ua MMeVtaLOg.

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