Video Guide
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday March 9, 1998
CONSPIRACY THEORY
Warner, M, 129 minutes, action.
OH hell, it's Mel. Ever since the Lethal Weapon series where he first roadtested his blink, blink, gulp, gulp, starting eyes shtick to augment his lovable but might-be-mad guy persona, Mel Gibson has been getting on the collective tit end.
Richard Donner, Mel's director in Conspiracy Theory is, however, clearly innocent of any such irritation. As maniacal cab driver Jerry Fletcher, who knows something big but is not quite sure what it might be, it's as if he's been instructed to do nothing but swallow and start.
The plot accelerates from the premise of just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Jerry knows they're out to get him, but doesn't know who they are.
Jerry's made a fortress of his flat, to protect himself from the "they" who would destroy him for the conspiracy research he obsessively compiles to publish in a newsletter. This seems a little over anxious when you consider the publication's circulation - five. But then he doesn't stop at publishing. He also brays the same info from the front seat of his taxi, like a mule that's sat on something sharp, to anyone unlucky to risk a ride.
If Mel does know something, neither he nor "they" seem to know exactly what. This makes it fun. The part of "they" is ably played by Patrick Stewart who proves himself convincingly saturnine in the coming-to-get-you department. Julia Roberts plays the part of the audience demanding exposition and trying to fall for Mel. *** M.B.
TO COLLECT
ONCE WERE WARRIORS
Columbia Tristar, MA15+, 100 minutes, drama. For sale from $19.95.
I DIDN'T see Lee Tamahori's brutally brilliant Once were Warriors at the cinema: on the big screen its power - visual, musical and contextual - must be irresistible. As irresistible as the charm of the vicious, but still undeniably attractive Jake the Muss (Temuera Morrison), the insouciant, smiling, hard-drinking head of a Maori family: a family sagging and disintegrating with hopelessness.
Even on the small screen this story has immediate impact. It succeeds in every area: director of photography Stuart Dryburgh uses a richly vibrant palette which, along with Murray McNabb's tortured score, presents a lurid, high-tempered world. The script smacks of veracity and the staging of the bar scenes threaten with the stink of beer, sweat and testosterone. And all the performances convince, with Rena Owen as Beth and Julian Arahanga as Nig standing alongside Morrison.
But the real star of this ferocious film is the violence that finally impels Beth to seek her roots. To see Jake dispense with a boulder of a man at the local tells of his awesome strength: to see him then mete out the same punishment to his wife gives us a sobering context. It tells the story well. Ultimately Beth has to make a choice. Her experience in the middle of the maelstrom brings to mind Yeats's picture of ineluctable fracturing: things fall apart the centre cannot hold. * M.B.
TALK OF THE TOWN
Columbia, G, 112 minutes, comedy/drama. For sale from $19.95.
THIS is a strange combination of screwball and drama, of thriller and comedy of manners, of righteous lecturing and social analysis. And it just about works. Nearly.
It certainly does screwball well when it gets into stride - Cary Grant and Jean Arthur are dab hands at this. And some of its harder-hitting moments bring to mind Frank Capra's Meet John Doe (made a year earlier in 1941) with a similar aim of peeling back the facade of the land of the free.
But it falls short for two reasons: one, because there is uncertainty among all parties as to exactly how to pitch this; and second, it can't help itself when it comes to the American moral play of everything can be made better by individual action.
Grant plays a not altogether likable local agitator who is falsely accused of arson and murder; Arthur is the woman who comes to believe she must help him evade the law to avert a miscarriage of justice. Into their lives one night comes Ronald Coleman as a stuffy law professor about to join the Supreme Court. With Coleman as something of the Margaret Dumont to the others' highly geared farce, there are plenty of zappy moments, though he doesn't quite have the range to handle the serious moments with great depth. However, his presence does allow me to say that when he gives in to his better principles and abandons his high-blown legal ones to help Grant avoid the lynch mob, it is a far far better thing he does than he has ever done before. ** B.Z.
RATINGS
* REWIND So good it's worth watching again
** PLAY Good viewing
*** FAST FORWARD Warning, boring bits
**** EJECT A dog. Don't waste your rental fee.
© 1998 Sydney Morning Herald