The Greatest Trick

It’s rather odd to have watched two brainwashing films in one week - you might watch two war films, or two comedies, but two movies about brainwashing? That’s weird. Perhaps there’s someone secretly manipulating our Tesco DVD Rental list, with some sinister purpose that we haven’t yet worked out. Perhaps it’s a warning to be on our guard for people saying odd phrases - just in case we start losing bits of our memories…

Anyway, this Woody Allen effort, set in 1940, centres on a pair of insurance investigators, played by Allen himself (as usual - the romantic lead!) and Helen Hunt, who become unwittingly involved with a jewel thief after a visit to a hypnotism show one night. Most of the comedy, which isn’t really all that much to be honest, comes from the interplay between the two leads, who hate each other with a venom they continually express in the most expressive terms, in an attempt to pay homage to classic male-female sparring movies, such as His Girl Friday or Bringing Up Baby (hmm, both with Cary Grant - Allen doesn’t even come close to being close).

The story is watchable enough, but there is no mystery for the audience, and it has a very irritatingly repetitive jazz score - the Allen influence again. Frankly I found Hunt annoying, the eventual romance of the piece unconvincing, and both the leads miscast really. If Allen’s ego allowed him to direct someone else for once, he might start making a few half-decent movies (I’m no expert, but in recent years I don’t recall any of his movies lighting up either box offices or reviews pages). There’s better stuff out there, but at least it wasn’t as repulsive as Allen’s earlier Deconstructing Harry. Avoid that at all costs.

After their bleak and terrifying Oscar winning masterpiece No Country for Old Men, the Coen Brothers are back in comparatively zany territory with Burn After Reading, a strange and ultimately inconsequential story. Yet being inconsequential seems to be the point and suggests they have carried over the existential pessimism of their last film.

The plot? I hope you’re paying attention. Highly strung CIA analyst Osbourne Cox (John Malkovitch) is told he cannot continue in his job on account of his drinking problem, but is offered a demotion at a lower clearance level. Angrily refusing this, he instead resigns, and tells his stuck-up domineering wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) that he plans to write his memoirs. Katie is secretly having an affair with paranoid Treasury Agent Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney) whom she is trying to bully into leaving his children’s book writer wife (who is in turn also having an affair). Harry is also having another affair with Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand), who works in a gym with spectacularly idiotic Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt). Linda is looking for Mr Right, and wants to improve her chances by undergoing several plastic surgery procedures, despite the fact that her boss and unnoticed admirer-from-a-distance Ted (Richard Jenkins), thinks she looks fine the way she is. Anyway, after Osbourne begins to write his memoirs, Katie secretly visits a divorce lawyer who advises her to make a copy of all the documents on their home computer to get a picture of the family finances before beginning divorce proceedings. In doing so, she inadvertently copies Osbourne’s memoirs onto a disk that include classified but not really sensitive information from his CIA days. This disk is then recopied by the divorce lawyer’s secretary who accidentally leaves a copy in the gym where Linda and Chad work. When the two of them find the disk and discover its contents, they call Osbourne to tell him he can collect it, hoping their will be a financial reward (which Linda hopes will be enough to cover the cost of the plastic surgery). However, inept communication leads to a series of misunderstandings over the telephone that ends with Linda blackmailing Osbourne and telling him to pay up if he wants the disk back. When Osbourne refuses to play ball, Linda and Chad inexplicably offer the disk to the Russians at the Russian embassy, apparently under the impression the Cold War is still on. A CIA insider at the Russian embassy reports what is going on to his superior at Langley (a hilarious and underused JK Simmons), who is so utterly baffled that he refuses to intervene. Instead, out of curiosity, he does all he can to cover up what is happening, even when people start getting murdered by mistake.

What makes Burn After Reading funny is the absurd way the plot builds around endless misunderstanding, co-incidence and outright idiocy. The ludicrously overheated plot is deliberately intended to be like an exaggerated version of a Raymond Chandler story, but as with much of the Coen’s output, the best jokes are observational moments on the absurdity of modern life rather than clever genre spoofing. For instance, one particularly delightful moment sees Linda wrestling with those monumentally awful recorded messages that ask the caller to say words aloud to get through to the correct department, making you sound like a complete idiot to anyone in the room who can only hear your side of the conversation.

Performances are all strong, especially from the imbecilic characters portrayed by Pitt and Clooney (who both have a whale of a time). That said, this spectacularly intricate pitch black comedy/tragedy of errors is a comparatively minor work for the Coen Brothers, but it’s still sufficiently dark and twisted to please those who appreciate their particular brand of offbeat, quirky cinema. As I mentioned earlier, this film shares No Country for Old Men’s despair at the futility of human endeavour – a worldview I believe to be spiritually false, not to mention at odds with their earlier output. Burn After Reading may be thematically similar to – say – Fargo, but it lacks that films warm humanity personified in the central figure of Frances McDormand’s pregnant police officer. Here, there are no characters of any redeeming moral ideology (give or take Ted). That combined with a profanity laden screenplay and occasional brutal violence makes it impossible for me to recommend this film from a Christian perspective, but its still one Coen completists will not want to miss.

Simon Dillon, October 2008.

This summers cinema releases are proving to be full of hidden, underrated gems amid the usual blockbuster fluff. The Escapist is the latest addition to this trend – a stripped down, no-nonsense prison break thriller starring Brian Cox as Frank Perry, a man desperate to make amends with his daughter on the outside before she dies from a drug habit.

The audacious narrative structure cuts back and forth between the escape itself and the planning thereof, cleverly creating two nail-biting plotlines designed for maximum suspense. Not only do viewers want to know if the prisoners will escape, but how Frank overcame seemingly insurmountable obstacles prior to the break out. Most of these obstacles are not caused by the authorities but by top convict Rizza (Damian Lewis), a creepy and spectacularly nasty piece of work.

Cox is excellent in the lead and other cast members – including Joseph Fiennes, Liam Cunningham, Seu Jorge and Dominic Cooper – all provide good, albeit stereotyped, support in their various roles. Speaking of stereotypes, many of the usual prison drama clichés are present and correct, but are put to compelling use by Daniel Hardy and Rupert Wyatt’s strong screenplay.

Wyatt also makes his directional debut, and in this area is completely in control. By deliberately eschewing exterior shots and keeping the action set exclusively inside the prison and underground tunnels, he achieves a tremendous sense of claustrophobia. The prison Frank is escaping from is not a modern one (as a friend of mine who visits prisons once said, they are better than some hotels he’s stayed in), but a properly old-fashioned, grim, nasty place where guards are barely visible and do not interfere in the regime Rizza has set up.

Of course, at its heart this is B-movie nonsense, but it’s very gripping B-movie nonsense, even if it’s essentially a British version of Prison Break boiled down to a tight 102 minutes instead of dragging it out over endless weekly episodes. It also has a strangely existential twist ending which elevates it above and beyond anything Prison Break had to offer. Although it’s not quite in the same league as Midnight Express or The Shawshank Redemption, The Escapist is still a very fine piece of work and well worth a look – if you can stomach the very strong language and occasional nasty burst of bloody violence.

Simon Dillon, June 2008.

I saw In Bruges expecting another violent, self-consciously hip swear-fest along similar lines to the works of Guy Ritchie, whose films I do not care for (even the bafflingly popular Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels). I was therefore pleasantly surprised to find that not only did it go some way to restore respectability to the term “British gangster film”, but it also made me want to visit Bruges. Until now my impression of Belgium was basically a big flat motorway with some service stations located on the way to more interesting countries. However, the use of locations in this film - beautiful medieval buildings, churches and so forth – made me want to pay another visit, especially at Christmas time.

The plot involves Irish gangster odd couple Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson), who are sent by their boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes) to Bruges to hide out following a hit that went pear-shaped. They are supposed to lay low, but their trip is complicated by Ray’s involvement with small time drug dealer Chloe (Clemense Poesy), her amusingly inept boyfriend, and a racist dwarf who is acting in a bad movie inspired by Nic Roegg’s 1973 horror film Don’t Look Now.

Performances are all good, and Ralph Fiennes cockney accent was surprisingly convincing. Although In Bruges isn’t strictly a comedy, writer/director Martin McDonagh’s profane but blackly comical screenplay generates more laughs than most alleged comedies. The jokes are politically incorrect but hilarious. Gallows humour banter between Ray and Ken, endless gags about dwarfs and a stand out scene involving a fight Ray provokes with a Canadian will delight audiences with strong stomachs.

But despite the laughs, this has the feel of a classic tragedy, almost Shakespearean in construction. Occasionally recalling Carol Reed’s 1947 classic Odd Man Out, particularly in the final scenes, In Bruges falls short of greatness due to its reliance on co-incidence to drive the climax. But the mixture of pitch black comedy and gruesome violence doesn’t feel awkward, as it does in similar contemporary works (the afore-mentioned Guy Ritchie’s back catalogue for instance). In fact, In Bruges even has something to say, if not necessarily anything very profound, about the nature of sin, repentance and the possibility of redemption. Essentially it’s about a man struggling with the guilt of a terrible deed, and wrestling with whether or not he can change.

However, for most Christian audiences, no amount of pseudo-spiritual musings about life, death, heaven and hell will be able to offset the graphic bloody violence and very strong language (f-words and worse throughout more than earn its 18 certificate). Therefore, although I must guiltily confess to thoroughly enjoying the film, I recommend approaching with extreme caution.

Simon Dillon, April 2008.

Denzel Washington is one of those actors I can never decide about. Most of the time I think he is frustratingly worthy, choosing projects that I just don’t want to see. He also comes across as quite smug, and that is very off-putting. And then there’s Training Day and Man on Fire, both of which reveal a far more interesting range of acting requirements, and subsequently more interesting performances. This film, purporting to document the life of Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter, is sadly not one of these.

Carter is a middleweight fighter, presented as a kid from the wrong side of the tracks, unjustly treated by a racist police force and a justice system that was against him from the start. When he is accused of a triple murder in a bar in New Jersey, he goes to prison for the rest of his life, and while inside writes an autobiography. This book is subsequently picked up in the 80s by a young man, Lesra Martin, who identifies with Carter’s struggle and vows, with the help of his Canadian commune-dwelling educators (weird set-up that isn’t really explained at all), to get him out.

The movie is very uneven, at least 40 minutes too long, and really rather worthy. There are serious questions about the truth of what is presented (see the user comments on the IMDb page), though the film does admit on an opening title card that characters are composited and some events used with creative licence. Even so, about half way through I asked myself what the film was actually about. Was it a boxing movie, a prison movie, a movie about the power of the written word, or about racism? We get the majority of Carter’s story via the device of Martin reading his book, with a very irritating narrative voice-over, which just comes off as clunky exposition. When the film finally gets into the search for new evidence to help Carter in his trial, and becomes a courtroom drama, it develops some interest, but it’s far too late to resurrect audience enthusiasm.

Washington’s performance is right up there with the best of his ‘worthy’ ones, and it is clear that historically Carter’s fate was of some interest in a time of extreme social change (Bob Dylan’s song about him features strongly on the soundtrack, which is actually the strongest feature of the movie as a whole). One scene where the pressure of prison causes Carter’s mind to create three distinct personalities is impressive, but the story-telling is messy, and Washington can’t rise above a script which doesn’t actually give him much to do but pontificate for the last half of the film. As far as other performances go, Rod Steiger is the only one of any decent note (and he is fantastic), but John Hannah’s ‘Canadian’ accent is confusing, to say the least.

In terms of objectionable content, there is a fair amount of swearing, and clearly boxing and murders mean there is violence, but all this is contextually justified. The Empire magazine review calls the film ‘decent-minded and brilliantly-executed’; I might agree with the former (though basing the film more or less totally on one man’s autobiography doesn’t seem very balanced), but not the latter.

I am a huge fan of Joel and Ethan Coen. With the unfortunate exception of their misjudged Ladykillers remake, every film they have made to date is a masterpiece. Their latest, No Country for Old Men, is so good that some critics have suggested it might finally win them a Best Picture Oscar, but frankly I have my doubts, given the Academy’s usual prejudice against genre fiction in the top prizes.

Based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy, the plot concerns a hunter Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) who stumbles across the bloody aftermath of a drug deal that went wrong. Deciding to take the money and run, he later has an attack of conscience that causes him to return to the crime scene. This triggers a deadly pursuit between himself and psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh (a truly terrifying Javier Bardem), and eventually escalates into further tragedy that draws in local sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) and Llewelyn’s wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald).

The performances are uniformly superb. Josh Brolin is excellent as a determined man whose greed gets the better of him. Tommy Lee Jones provides the necessary humanity as he despairs at the apparently motiveless violence around him. Kelly Macdonald yet again proves that she deserves to be a major star (which I have thought ever since her superb debut in Trainspotting), and there are a number of memorable supporting roles and cameos, including one by Woody Harrelson.

But the film really belongs to Javier Bardem whose bone-chilling performance will unquestionably go down as one of cinema’s most memorably frightening killers. Everything from his unnerving presence to the way he never once raises his voice oozes menace, and every word he says puts the audience on the edge of its seat. He seems like a human terminator; above bribery, unable to be reasoned with and completely insane. But he is really more a symbol of the restless and seemingly random evil at loose in the world. This idea that bad events happen purely by chance is underscored by scenes where he tosses a coin and asks his would-be victims to call it, determining whether they live or die.

In No Country for Old Men, the Coen’s get back to basics, recalling their early classic Blood Simple. I’ve not read the book, but the brilliant, spare screenplay should almost certainly win the adaptation Oscar (the Academy are a bit less prejudiced when giving out writing awards). The stark, vivid landscapes are brilliantly photographed by cinematographer Roger Deakins, and Carter Burwell contributes an appropriately subdued music score.

Some of the Coen’s previous pictures (such as The Hudsucker Proxy and O Brother where art thou?) are quasi-Faustian allegories that contain characters symbolizing both God and Satan, and their struggle for the souls of men. However, in No Country for Old Men, they seem to buy into McCarthy’s despair at the apparent random cruelty of life, and his “stop-the-world-I-want-to-get-off” philosophy. The message in this film is that there is no God or justice, only a relentless and apparently motiveless evil taking the world to hell in a hand basket. The unconventionally abrupt ending (which I am informed the film shares with the book), underscores this belief, and is deliberately unsatisfying, which of course is the entire point and therefore dramatically correct. Are the Coens going through a mid-life crisis or have they genuinely lost their belief in human goodness and/or God?

Whatever soul-searching the Coen Brothers may or may not be doing, No Country for Old Men is an unremittingly bleak, nihilistic experience, tempered by a rich vein of dark humour. From a Christian point of view, it may be spiritually false, but it is also undeniably a superbly acted and utterly arresting piece of cinema, inevitably destined for masterpiece status. If you can take the bloody violence and are prepared for a very dark view of human existence, this couldn’t be more highly recommended.

Simon Dillon, January 2008.

Based on real events, Ridley Scott’s latest film details the rise and fall of heroin kingpin Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), who used his connections in the US army to smuggle drugs from the Far East during the Vietnam War. Ludicrously honest cop Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) – who previously found and turned in a million dollars in unmarked bills without taking a penny – vowed to bring Lucas down. However, this was no easy task, given the size of Lucas’ organisation and the corruption he encountered, particularly from other policemen on the take.

Denzel Washington is very good at playing the bad guy, and his performance recalls darker characters he had previously portrayed (in films like Training Day for instance). Russell Crowe is also good, and there are a smattering of memorable turns from the supporting cast – including Cuba Gooding Jr, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Armand Assante, Lymari Nadal, Ruby Dee and Josh Brolin.

Lucas and Roberts are initially seen as contrasting characters. Although Roberts is honest about his work, he is dishonest with his wife and is a serial womaniser. Lucas on the other hand is admirably committed to his family, extended family and friends despite being a ruthless criminal businessman who thinks nothing about shooting a man at point blank range in front of countless witnesses. But as the story progresses, they are seen to have common ground. Roberts is detested and alienated by other police because of his unscrupulous, legalistic ways. Lucas also finds himself alienated because the Italian mobsters whom he undercuts hate the fact that a black man has been more successful. Both are determined men who ultimately display a grudging respect for one another.

However, this is still a strong condemnation of the dark side of the American dream. One particularly effective sequence shows the Lucas family in prayer saying grace for their Thanksgiving meal, which is then interspersed with disturbing images of junkies taking drugs – including a toddler crying next to her unconscious mother in a squalid flat. Roberts’ knew the true cost of Lucas’ empire, and his incorruptibility and refusal to back down are ultimately admirable in an “Elliot Ness” kind of way.

In the past, Ridley Scott has been unfairly criticized for being all style and no substance. However, it could be argued that American Gangster is all substance and no style. This is a big, meaty film in terms of plot and characterisation, and Steven Zaillian’s screenplay covers a lot of ground, but it contains little of Scott’s unique visual flair. Instead he borrows the look and feel of great 70s thrillers like Serpico and The French Connection although its main influence is clearly The Godfather. At least two scenes – one where Frank Lucas angrily confronts one of his Italian associates about the attempted murder of him and his wife, and one where several violent deaths are intercut with a church service – are a deliberate attempt to evoke Francis Ford Coppola’s classic films. As such, American Gangster disqualifies itself from entry into the pantheon of great crime pictures.

That said this is a solid, absorbing film, and well worth a look. Obviously it does contain strong bloody violence and bad language throughout, plus some brief sex and nudity (most of which is in sequences with female workers packaging drugs who are made to work naked to ensure they don’t steal). Personally, I didn’t think any of the above was particularly gratuitous given the genre and subject matter, but obviously there are those who will disagree.

Simon Dillon, November 2007.

After the grotesquely self-indulgent Ocean’s Twelve, Ocean’s Thirteen is something of a return to form for director Steven Soderbergh’s caper franchise. Whilst it fails to reach the cool heights scaled by the first film, it is an amusing if familiar and predictable diversion, directed with Soderbergh’s usual flair. It’s certainly a much more entertaining prospect than any of the other “threequels” that have thus far been unleashed this silly season.

The plot concerns odious, egomaniacal casino owner Willy Bank, who double-crosses one of the original eleven, Reuben Tishkoff, leaving him in a coma. Danny Ocean and his usual gang decide a little pay-back is in order, and once again a spectacularly complicated and audacious heist is initiated. However, this time, its not so much about getting rich as righting wrongs whilst taking a truly despicable man down several pegs.

Performances are all good, and each actor in the gang is given his particular moment to shine, as befits a good ensemble cast. All the usual suspects (Matt Damon, Elliot Gould, Don Cheadle et al) are as likeable as ever, and the impossibly cool buddy chemistry between George Clooney and Brad Pitt is particularly well done. Al Pacino is suitably nasty as Willy Bank, and only by dragging in Andy Garcia, the mark from the first film, does Ocean’s Thirteen strike a slightly too improbable note. However, there is a hilarious gag involving Garcia and Oprah Winnfrey that almost justifies his inclusion.

Soderbergh’s version of Oceans Eleven was a rare example of a remake being far superior to the original. Whilst this wasn’t all that remarkable in itself considering the original wasn’t particularly great, repeated viewings have proved it is something of a heist classic, even though it is fluff when compared to Soberbergh’s other output (Traffic, Sex Lies and Videotape, Erin Brockovitch and so forth). Oceans Thirteen is also fluff, but unlike Ocean’s Twelve, at least its entertaining fluff.

Simon Dillon, June 2007.

Zodiac is an intriguingly different entry in the serial killer genre. It is based on a true story about a murderer who called himself Zodiac and taunted San Francisco police and journalists with letters and cryptic messages throughout the 1970s. The film focuses on the impact the investigations had on their families, careers, and how in some cases the drive to catch the killer became an obsession. Ultimately, Zodiac was never definitively identified and became renowned as a kind of US Jack the Ripper.

Based on Robert Graysmith’s book, the film follows cartoonist Graysmith’s interactions with police inspector David Toschi, and journalist Paul Avery as they attempt to unravel the mystery. Early scenes which depict the killings Zodiac actually committed, as opposed to those he merely claimed responsibility for to show off, set an awkwardly disturbing tone, which then gives way to an All the Presidents Men type investigative drama. Director David Fincher provides a fascinating period piece thriller which proves an interesting reminder of how awkward it was for police to co-ordinate their efforts in a pre-mobile phone and email era.

Performances are good on the whole. Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo are both excellent as Graysmith and Toschi respectively (even if Toschi does resemble Columbo). Robert Downey Jr is more or less on autopilot, and even Anthony Edwards (Goose in Top Gun) has a good supporting role.

Unfortunately, the film comes somewhat unstuck with its overlong running time, and as a study of obsession, it doesn’t entirely convince. Instead, it descends into cliché with Graysmith’s obligatory nagging wife (a wasted Chloe Sevigny). Although attempts to generate sympathy for her are understandable, the simple fact remains that the audience want Graysmith to complete his investigations and don’t care how much time he spends with his family. If these elements had been cut, the film could have been a tighter, more focused, fact-based thriller.

Ultimately, this does not scale the heights of Fincher’s best work. Se7en and Fight Club remain his masterpieces, but Zodiac is certainly better than Panic Room (his most commercial and least interesting picture to date). It will become an interesting cinematic footnote, if purely for its breaking of cinematic convention in serial killer films by not revealing the killer. Yet even this is not entirely without precedent. Fact based Reversal of Fortune and fictional The Pledge both pulled similar tricks, and for my money, both films are better.

Simon Dillon, May 2007.

John Carpenter was approaching greatness when he made this solid B-movie in 1976; having just delivered an impressive piece of sci-fi comedy with Dark Star, and with the masterfully directed horror hat-trick of Halloween, The Fog and The Thing to come, he was about to really hit his stride. This isn’t quite Carpenter at his best, but it gives a good foretaste of what was to come.

A police lieutenant is given a dead-end job for the night - looking after a station (in a part of town renowned for its gang violence) that’s closing down for good the following day - when a terrified, speechless man runs in seeking shelter. Minutes later, all hell breaks loose as the well-armed gang on the man’s tail arrives at the police station intent on seeking revenge for the murder he has just committed (I won’t spoil one of the movie’s most shocking moments by saying why he kills a gang member). The skeleton staff of the abandoned precinct must defend themselves at all costs, while at the same time dealing with a group of criminals being transported from prison to death row who have been forced to make an emergency stop at the station…

Nearly 30 years later, re-directed by Jean-François Richet, the story has been given a minor overhaul and updated with various elements designed to make it work better for today’s cinemagoer. The assault, for example, is the work of a corrupt cop rather than a local gang, the plot takes one or two more twists and turns before working itself out, and the characters are given extra ‘depth’. I have to say I don’t think these changes make a vast improvement, and the things that let the original film down are either still there or have been replaced by other disappointing elements. Like Ethan Hawke.

What I really loved about the original version was the relentless and faceless nature of the enemy. The only gang members you see are featured right at the start of the film, and while it is safe to assume that these are the ones orchestrating the attack on the police station, you never see them. In fact, you don’t really see any of the attackers’ faces, which helps to bring a sense of terror to the proceedings. Of course, it also means that when they are killed you don’t care about it at all, which always sits uneasily with me; in fact, it makes it feel very much like a zombie movie, just with the monsters moving that bit more quickly, and the 2005 version doesn’t have this feel about it at all. I also liked the way that those being attacked really had no clue as to why, except that they were in a violent part of town. Only the audience knows about the killings at the start which kick the whole thing off, and this provides a sense of helplessness which the characters must also be feeling.

The look and sound of the 1976 movie have been sensibly updated in the 2005 version, if only by virtue of using new film stock and not lighting everything as dingily as Carpenter likes to do. It’s been a while since I watched the three films I mentioned at the start of the review, but I seem to remember them being very dark and muted in terms of the colour palette, and this is the same. I’m sure this wouldn’t be such a problem in the cinema, but at home it makes it harder to watch (especially as I get more and more prone to falling asleep whenever I sit on the sofa for more than 5 minutes). John Carpenter also composed the music for the film, and I don’t think this is one of his best, to be honest, and at some points distracts from the events on screen.

While the 2005 version of the story looks and sounds up-to-date (as it should!), the fact that the writers and film-makers feel the need for it to conform to current filmic tastes and Hollywood conventions lessen its impact for me. Like I said, the characters and plot of the first film have precious little exposition or scenes establishing their motivations, while here we get a whole prologue explaining why Ethan Hawke’s character is so troubled, for example. Hawke (and, to a lesser extent, Laurence Fishburne, who plays the mafia boss being transported past the station when a blizzard forces them to stop) has never been an actor I have particularly rated, as to me he looks like he might just burst into tears at the slightest provocation. Fishburne is just quite hammy in most things I’ve seen of his (although he couldn’t ruin The Matrix), and his performance here hasn’t changed my opinion. Both films are clearly violent, and the first one is probably less restrained with this; having said that, the remake contains a lot more swearing.

So neither film is perfect, but both are worth watching. Whether a remake was necessary is a different question, but at least this time the remake is not merely a shoddy reflection of a brilliant piece of work, as they often are (see Les Diaboliques & Diabolique for a perfect example of this).