Reviews: Inside Man, Manhattan and The Night of the Hunter
Spike Lee’s Inside Man, starring Denzel Washington and Clive Owen, adds intellectual twists to the typical thriller.
An atypical big-budget mainstream thriller for veteran director Spike Lee, Inside Man (Saturday, 11.15pm, Seven; VIC, TAS, 11pm; SA, 10.30pm) is a cracking thriller about a Manhattan bank heist that ticks all the genre cliche boxes but twists them all out of recognition with intellectual mind games. It stars Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe and an as yet little known Chiwetel Ejiofor (who can be seen in director Ridley Scott’s terrific new film The Martian).
One of famed director/choreographer Busby Berkeley’s last films as the latter is the 1951 RKO Technicolor musical Two Tickets to Broadway (Tuesday, 1.55am, ABC). Eddie Bracken, so good in comedies by Preston Sturges and others (and the owner of Walley World in National Lampoon’s Vacation), has a rare part as a bad guy, a two-bit promoter who makes his singing clients’ lives miserable in their race to the big time. A flop on its initial release, the film has it’s let’s-put-on-a-show charms, and is of course a must for Berkeley completists.
A typically winning performance by Hugh Jackman and a distinctly unique narrative based on a story by Richard Matheson (I am Legend, Duel) conspired to make a hit of the 2011 science fiction/sports drama Real Steel (Saturday, 8.40pm, Seven; NSW, QLD, WA only).
Jackman plays a former boxer in a world now dominated by robot competitors in his sport. Director Shaun Levy, he of the Night at the Museum franchise, sets the movie in various Michigan locations that evoke nostalgia and lend the fantastical events of robots fighting a more grounded reality.
Actor Charles Laughton only directed one film in his career, but it’s a keeper. Robert Mitchum plays the sociopathic preacher with “love” and “hate” tattooed on his knuckles in the 1955 gothic horror masterpiece The Night of the Hunter (Monday, 1.02am, ABC). Laughton and cinematographer Stanley Cortez drew heavily on German expressionism for their chiaroscuro lighting scheme, and the strong screenplay by critic and writer James Agee gave Mitchum and co-stars Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish and the two children Mitchum’s character terrorises (Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce) plenty of opportunity to shine.
A huge success in it’s day but a subject of some curiosity now in light of its creator’s personal life is Woody Allen’s widescreen, black-and-white 1979 romantic comedy-drama Manhattan (Sunday, midnight, ABC). Critics of the director point to his lead character’s intimate relationship with the teenager played by Mariel Hemingway in the film, but his supporters choose to focus on the film’s legacy as a valentine to the New York borough from which it derives its title. They’re both right.
Inside Man (AV15+) 4 stars
Saturday, 11.15pm, Seven (VIC, TAS, 11pm; SA, 10.30pm)
Manhattan (M) 4 stars
Sunday, midnight, ABC
Night of the Hunter (M) 4.5 stars
Monday, 1.02am, ABC
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