Jesse Malin
THE BORDERLINE, LONDON
TUESDAY JANUARY 21 2003
"Just wait til see you me with my fuckin' band, man," Jesse Malin had said backstage at the Royal Festival Hall, after opening solo and acoustic for Ryan Adams last November. And he wasn't kidding.
He's flanked by two razor-sharp dudes who look like they walked out of a remake of West Side Story, but turn out to be bassist Johnny Pisano and guitarist Johnny Rocket. It may just be a trick of the light, but keyboardist Joe McGinty is sporting what looks suspiciously like a black eye.
Steve Martin is dentist Robert Sangster trapped in a too safe relationship with his hygienist (Laura Dern). When he takes a walk on the wild side with drug-dealing patient Susan Ivey (Helena Bonham Carter), Sangster's pharmaceutical supplies are pilfered and Ivey's psychopathic brother and the police send his life into tailspin. A laboured attempt to reinvigorate an increasingly tired-looking Martin.
In 2054 murder is obsolete thanks to Precrime, whose precognitive psychics enable police to arrest killers before they can kill. Then Precrime detective John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is himself accused of planning a murder, and only the psychic Agatha (Samantha Morton) can clear him. Spielberg's masterful sci-fi suspense turns Philip K Dick's short story into something Hitchcockian and technologically dazzling.
