The Independent from London, Greater London, England • 32

8 film THE INDEPENDENT SECTION TWO THURSDAY 11 JANUARY 1996 "Sassy, sexy Franklin's long-awaited follow-up to 'One False Move' doesn't disappoint." Tom Charity, TIME OUT Jazzy and elegantly assured detective drama." Angie Errigo, PREMIERE DENZEL WASHINGTONI Private detecholas. Resumes hes been taught on the a stony side of the most dangerous we DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS 15 STARTS CURZON WEST END TOMORROW SHAFTESBURY (0171) 369 1722 W1 RTZY PREMIER PECKHAM LEE BOOk VALLEY NOW CINEMA BRIXTON 0171 732 1010 0990 88 89 90 0171 737 2121 BIRMINGHAM MGM BRADFORD Pictureville CARDIFF Chapter EDINBURGH Filmhouse NEWCASTLE Tyneside NOTTINGHAM Broadway SHEFFIELD Showroom STARTS JANUARY 19 MANCHESTER Cornerhouse STARTS JANUARY 26 BRISTOL Watershed COVENTRY Warwick Arts SOUTHAMPTON Harbour Lights CALL A 0800 600 PAGES 900 FOR DETAILS TALKING Lee Strasberg's postStanislavskian Method was designed not so much to enhance actors' technique as to put them in touch with their own emotions, as a means to express the innermost feelings of their characters. Here, then, is your at-a-glance guide to the big Hollywood tics and what they Continued from page 7 With age De Niro is 51, Pacino 55 both actors are going easier on themselves. De Niro is making more films to subsidise his Tribeca film centre so has little time for deep research. Pacino has learned to "turn it on and "When you've been doing things for a long time it gets easier," he says.

"You just walk into the character and when the shot is over you step out of it." Sometimes this means that the two actors give performances or parts of performances the audience has seen before. It's hard to say whether this is because we are familiar with all their moves or because they are lazily falling back on stock mannerisms. But when Pacino in Heat suddenly shouts MARLON BRANDO The Godfather of Method, fetishised fidgeting and odd 'business'. Rummaged for earwax during the love scene in One Eyed Jacks. of looking into himself.

Doing this allows the audience to read into his blankness whatever emotion we think he's feeling. A cynic might say we do the work, his acting gets the credit. He has expressive eyes. "You got cop's eyes," someone says to him in Sea of Love and certain phrases very loudly totally at random to show how quirky his character is, you recall him doing it in Scent of a Woman and the way that might have developed from Michael De Niro's most obvious inarticulacy. 'A grunt paragraph of he Corleone's sudden outbursts in the Godfather trilogy.

Pacino also favours the common Method technique of gazing blankly off screen as a way JACK NICHOLSON Manic leerer. Eases neck in collar to act embarrassment or impatience; does 'slack-mouthed imbecile' to register surprise. when in doubt he's not above just turning on his unblinking stare. He also drops fluidly into live-wire mode a popeyed, fast talking, lip-smacking, high -strutting cocky charmannerism is his can do more than a is quoted as saying acter, equal parts Scarface and the short-order chef in Frankie and Johnny. Although he seems to do an unusual amount of running in his movies fast too, his short legs pumping, elbows well tucked he's not a physical actor in the way De Niro is.

Although bandy-legged, De Niro has used a variety of walks to express character. (In Heat he's lithe and brisk.) He adopts different postures on release Black, white and blue all over Carl Franklin new is a generation rarity among of African-American directors: his films don't broadcast themselves loudly as tackling racial issues, but the black eye behind the camera gives them a subtly different and interesting spin. The hero of Devil in a Blue Dress, based on the novel by Walter Mosley, is a GI returning from the Second World War (Denzel Washington) and determined to grab himself a slice of the action in a culture where everything seems momentarily up for grabs. He buys a house only negro" in his LA neighbourhood to do so). When he loses his job, he has to turn amateur detective to keep up the payments.

His social aspirations, his belief that he can share in the white American dream, have a price. His seedy assignment involves tracing a woman who has been romantically involved with a mayoral candidate but who has now gone missing. She is known to like "dark meat" and hang out on the black side of town; it's Washington's skin colour which gets him the commission. But his search is stalked by a constant danger, as he also ventures gingerly into white-only territory and finds the traditional GENE HACKMAN Another collar-clearer, which he amplifies with tilted head and jutting chin when miffed. Nervous, throaty snicker quintessential.

for different characters but he also has a range of gestures for all purposes. Shrugs, hands held palm outwards and a stabbing finger that wouldn't look out of place in a silent film, usually accompanying the announcement, "I want him dead!" De Niro, when not reined in, has several mannerisms. He has a standard hearty but dead laugh which he uses for dysfunctional characters in Cape Fear, King of Comedy and GoodFellas. The coarse grimace he first used while mugging desperately in We're No Angels the one where he frowns and seems to be smelling something bad crops up again and again in recent films to express distaste or anger. His most obvious mannerism is his inarticulacy.

In the SODS DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS Carl Franklin (15) THE RUN OF THE COUNTRY Peter Yates (15) THE WAR Jon Avnet (12) LOVE AFFAIR Glenn Gordon Caron (PG) imbroglio of murder, blackmail and political corruption. Meanwhile the race barrier. operates as strongly in the other direction one early scene shows a white customer being refused admission to a black jazz club, a motif which will be reprised later in a major key and form the film's main enigma. The voyage into forbidden territory is a core theme of the post-war private eye thriller, but Devil in a Blue Dress gives it a sharp new twist. It puts the noir back into film noir.

The period setting black LA in the late Forties is fascinating and Franklin directs confidently and with a good deal of humour; the supporting cast, down to the smallest bit parts, is colourful and strong. Not so, however, the film's central relationship, which ought to crystallise its themes of taboo and transgression that between Washington and the white femme fatale, played by Jennifer Beals. Alas, it's a real let-down: there's no sense of danger to Beals's character (who sports a wardrobe of hideous blue frocks) and zero sexual chemistry between them. The final optimistic note feels shallow it cops out on the cynicism we Think 'All About Eve' remade by Paul Raymond Adam Mars-Jones on Paul Verhoeven's 'silly' sexploitation film. Page 10 expect from the genre (although it is hinted that the man whom Washington puts back in the mayoral election will push for racist legislation while the sleazy candidate was also, ironically, the one with more liberal views).

But these weaknesses do not prevent this from being a classy, thoughtful and intelligent film. Set just south of the Irish border, The Run of the Country is, as it were, a bog-standard rite-ofpassage film: a young man contends with his overbearing widowed father and a budding romance with a Northern Irish girl. Its pedigree is solid the director Peter Yates and the writer Shane Connaughton, whose previous screenplays include My Left Foot and The Playboys. But it never quite catches fire, largely due to Matt Keeslar, a clean-cut American actor trying to pass for Irish. Victoria Smurfit brings a little spice to his sparky lover and Albert Finney storms around effectively as a sexually repressed type (again).

Anthony Brophy is the film's liveliest character, a ne'erdo-well who, according to Connaughton, is supposed to embody Ireland herself: "outrageous, cunning, daring and loyal" but isn't like the film itself.