Mercifully free from saccharine Shawshank/Green Mile prison movie proselytising, Steve Buscemi's stark follow-up to the amiable Trees Lounge instead simply tosses luckless dope-dealing suburbanite Edward Furlong in among a brood of psychopathic sexual predators, including Willem Dafoe and Mickey Rourke, and then watches him squirm. Bleak stuff, with a final, disposable redemption.
For all his bravado, Vincent Gallo's reputation as a lunatic genius rests chiefly on this (not always intentionally) hilarious/absurd 1998 psalm of self-pity. The writer/director stars as a just-freed convict who forces Christina Ricci's dancer to pretend to be his wife to impress his folks. It's beautifully shot, and support from Mickey Rourke and other cult figures is staunch.
Early Peter Greenaway movie ('85), from when his undeniable visual genius wasn't yet smothered by pretentiousness. Zoologist twin widowers (!) mourn their wives but begin an affair with a survivor of the crash which killed them, whose leg's been amputated. And set the animals free from the zoo. Homages to Vermeer, a Michael Nyman score, and relentless perversity with a point. Exhilarating!
This not-as-crap-as-you'd-fear rehash of the much-loved '60s caper, with director F Gary Gray ensuring it isn't all just gung-ho car-chase action, throwing in stylish backdrops and a good joke or two for good measure. A shame, then, that the charisma-free Mark Wahlberg leads, and perhaps they should've opted for a fresh title, but a stellar cast including Ed Norton, Charlize Theron and Donald Sutherland can't be all bad. Lively enough.
