Front page	From the Event Guide archive! This article refers to an event which took place on, or until, 14 March 2006 Film Reviews THE PROPOSITION Starring Guy Pierce, Ray Winstone, Emily Watson, Danny Huston, David Wenham and John Hurt. Directed by John Hillcoat. ‘The Proposition’ is an Australian western set in the remote, unforgiving outback of the 1880s. To give you an idea of the remoteness of the film’s location of Winton, Queensland, it’s best to think of its vast, barely populated square footage: this part of Oz, ignored by most Australians to this day, is literally the size of Belgium. As Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) sits in his isolated house with his wife, the wind howls and the native minor birds make their distinctive, ugly squawk. “I will tame this land”, he promises himself. But that’s a slim chance, considering the ruthless convicts he has to catch, his barbaric deputies and the ongoing problems with the natives. Top of the good Captain’s list is the problem with the Burns Gang. These Irish brothers have been more than a handful, especially the eldest, Arthur (Danny Huston), a psychotic who is believed to be the ringleader. Having captured the younger siblings Charlie and Mikey, he makes an offer to the older of the two, Charlie (Guy Pierce). Charlie is charged with the apprehension of Arthur in exchange for a full pardon for Charlie and Mikey. Should Charlie refuse or fail, Mikey will be hanged within ten days, on Christmas Day. So the wheels are set in motion for a guaranteed tragedy. Blood will be spilled. Allegiances (and limbs) will be severed. Revenge will be served. While ‘The Proposition’ uses much of the grammar of your classic western, it is ultimately, and magnificently Australian. Everything in this film (bar the dodgy Irish accents) feels so authentic and…dirty. Australians sneer through dirty teeth, the Irish drink and squabble, the English struggle to maintain order, by fair means and foul, the Aborigines struggle to maintain their place there. You can see the dirt on the nails, and practically smell the piss, blood, booze and sweat in nearly every scene. This is the agonizing birth of a nation, writ beautifully across the screen by director John Hillcoat and cinematographer Benoit Delhomme. The score and vocals, by Warren Ellis and the film’s screenwriter Nick Cave drip, with atmosphere. And on this beautiful canvas, a colourful cast of characters tell an irresistibly tragic, morally complex tale. Charlie is not a good man, but he loves his brothers dearly and he also sees wrong in the actions of Arthur. Arthur, though clearly an amoral psychopath, is also charismatic and capable of deep fraternal love. Their nemesis, Captain Stanley, is the closest thing to a nobleman in this savage land, but his handling of the situation is precarious at best, hampered by the meddling of a snivelling, racist superior, Fletcher (David Wenham). John Hurt also has an entertaining extended cameo as Jellon Lamb, a bounty hunter. ‘The Proposition’, while similar in theme to ‘The Searchers’ and stylistically comparable to ‘Walkabout’, is a unique and complex morality tale. It may be too violent for some, and too morally ambiguous for others. But if you can stomach the squalor and have any interest in this fascinating era of history, I cannot recommend it highly enough. – Joe Griffin   ‘The Proposition’ opens on Friday 10th March, certified 16. THE MATADOR Starring Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Hope Davis and Phillip Baker Hall. Written and directed by Richard Sheppard. Ah, Pierce Brosnan. He always had something. I guess his charisma, looks, intensity and likeability combined could be described as star quality. It was this star quality that made him Sean Connery’s equal (superior?) as James Bond. But it was a limited role, and before that he had even less opportunity to prove himself in his life as a B-list actor. In a long career, only ‘The Tailor of Panama’, ‘The Thomas Crown Affair’ and now ‘The Matador’ have managed to harness and capitalise on his attributes: a nowhere accent, dark good looks and self-deprecating wit. As Julian Noble, a washed-up, sex-obsessed hitman, Brosnan drinks, fornicates and kills his way around the world. This degenerate, while more flawed than any other he has played in the past, is arguably his most loveable character and by far the most interesting. This is a sleazy, shamelessly over-the-top and frequently hilarious performance. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that Brosnan’s getting the best lines he’s ever had. Noble’s obsession with sex finds its way into virtually every conversation, and he is magnificently tactless. He wouldn’t say that he looks rough, for example, when he can compare his appearance to “a Bangkok hooker on the Sunday morning after the Navy has left town.” Underneath this bravado, however, and despite the drinking and whoring, Noble is tired. And sad. Greg Kinnear, former talk-show host, has had a steady, yet unremarkable big-screen career. His highlight was probably the Oscar-nominated performance as a gay artist in ‘As Good As It Gets’, and he has shown potential in films like ‘Nurse Betty’ and ‘The Gift’. But Hollywood still doesn’t seem to know what to do with this blandly handsome leading man. While ‘The Matador’ is not likely to change that, it’s a good example of what he can do; in a far less interesting role, he holds his own against the comic behemoth of Brosnan’s Noble. Kinnear’s Danny, a struggling American businessman, meets Julian in a Mexican bar. Both men are there on business, and are at a professional and personal crossroads in their lives. They strike up un-unlikely and affectionate friendship. Julian is a blast, and would be even without an insanely interesting job. Danny is a nice guy, whose suburban life Julian secretly envies. But what, ultimately, does a ruthless hitman want with an ordinary guy like Danny? Can their friendship be mutually beneficial? Or have they sealed one-another’s fate? ‘The Matador’ is a comedy/thriller in the same vein as ‘Grosse Point Blank’, another existential assassin story, with Brosnan’s Noble every bit as interesting as John Cusack’s Martin Blank. Richard Shepard’s script is nimble and witty, with a nice touch of pathos under the glossy surface. And it’s an appropriately stylised little film. See it for the chemistry between the two leads; see it for the nifty assassination scenes; see it for the enjoyable (if admittedly slender) story. But most of all, see it for Brosnan’s magnificent anti-Bond performance. ‘The Matador’ is the role of his career, in which he grabs the bull by both its horns. – Joe Griffin   ‘The Matador’ opens nationwide on Friday 10th March, certified 15A. www.miramax.com/thematador   THE CHILD (L’ENFANT) Starring Jeremie Reneir and Deborah Francois. Directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. The forth film from the Dardenne brothers, and their second Cannes Palm D’Or winner, is a riveting exercise in sustained minimalism which compares favourably to the work of Robert Bresson, especially his late masterpiece ‘L’Argent.’ ‘The Child’ is a drama, in the social realist tradition, that observes the reckless behaviour of its characters in such a microscopic fashion that it put most of my major muscle groups in a state of high clenched alert for its duration. Eschewing a musical score, along with most of the trappings of conventional, commercial cinema, such as a protagonist that an audience can identify with, the Dardennes’ direct their dispassionate camera toward a young couple, Bruno (Jeremie Reneir) and Sonia (Deborah Francois), who has recently given birth to a son. Through unforgiving streets the feckless pair wander, Bruno’s idiotic decision to sub-let their apartment having rendered them effectively homeless. Their initial boisterousness soon gives way to sullen bickering as the young parents are forced into the ignominy of pan-handling. With brutal honesty the Dardennes’ monitor Bruno as he realises their situation is untenable, a situation he resolves on a whim by selling, unbeknownst to Sonia, the child for some ready cash, an act undertaken with shocking disregard for its consequences. The ever-watchful camera pursues this sickeningly selfish character as he continues to entangle himself in traps of his own making. A gruelling experience this may well be, but it is also a deeply rewarding one. In fact, ‘The Child’ achieves a level of truth rarely seen in contemporary cinema, and I came away from it shaken, marvelling at its fierce intimacy. The directors’ style hasn’t altered much since ‘Rosetta’ announced them as major talents in 1999, and this is just as it ought to be; their camera is a tool that cuts to the heart of the matter. ‘The Child’ is their best work yet. – David O Mahony ‘The Child’ runs at the Irish Film Institute, on Dublin’s Eustace Street, from Friday 10th to Thursday 23rd March. www.sonyclassics/thechild / www.irishfilm.ie   SYRIANA Starring George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Christopher Plummer, Chris Cooper, Mazhar Munir, Amanda Peet, Alexander Siddig, Amr Waked, Kayvan Novak. Directed by Stephen Gaghan. Although never mentioned in the movie, the term ‘Syriana’ is used by a Washington think-tank to describe a hypothetical reshaping of the Middle East, presumably in the utopian ‘remould them in our image’ manner preferred by Neo-Cons and the Project for the New American Century. Asleep already? Well, then ‘Syriana’ the movie will probably not be to your tastes. Writer and newbie director Stephen Gaghan returns to the multiple-plot template that won him an Oscar for ‘Traffic’ to craft a convoluted, geopolitical treatise that crackles with a devastating urgency and topicality. No short review could encompass all the plot details here (not that I could properly explain it anyway!), but there are four main stories that put flesh on the bones of huge international issues of oil control, corruption and terrorism. CIA operative Bob Barnes (a bloated, bearded Clooney) is nearing the end of his usefulness to his employers. A botched assignment in Beirut leads him to suspect that he is being double-crossed by the Agency and so he embarks on a fateful mission to clear his name. Geneva-based energy analyst Bryan Woodman (Damon) is propelled by personal tragedy into supporting a reforming royal leader (Siddig) of an unspecified country in the Persian Gulf. In Washington, lawyer Bennett Holiday (Wright) is appointed to finalise the merger of two oil giants and has his eyes opened to the reality of power-broking business deals in the capital. Meanwhile in Iran, impoverished Wasim (Munir) is enticed into a local madrassa headed by a dangerous cleric who believes that ‘the pain of living in the modern world will never be solved by liberal society’. ‘Syriana’ is undoubtedly full of brains, ideas, theories and accusations. An international cast do exceptional justice to Gaghan’s dense, articulate screenplay, particularly Damon, Munir and the Oscar nominated Clooney, who deserves the award alone for an excruciating torture scene that had hardnosed reviewers like myself squiring in our seats. What ‘Syriana’ does lack is heart. It’s all politics and policy with no empathy for the people whose lives are so deeply affected by these issues, which, to my mind, seems to be the very thing fuelling anti-Western dissent in the Gulf to begin with. Be that as it may, ‘Syriana’ is a powerful, challenging movie that is unsettlingly attuned to our zeitgeist. It has no easy answers: just question after troubling question. - Declan Cashin   ‘Syriana’ opens at selected cinemas on Friday 3rd March, certified 15A. www.syrianamovie.co.uk / www.oilclock.com   MANDERLAY Starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Isaach De Bankole, Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe, Michael Abiteboul and John Hurt. Directed by Lars Von Trier. The second part in Lars Von Trier’s USA Trilogy concerns itself with slavery, and as such is bound to cause controversy. But then again, everything Von Trier says or does seems to incite the hands-wringing brigade to do just that, a reaction that is not without justification; Lars has made quite a few films, some terrible (‘Dancer in the Dark’) and some excellent (‘Breaking The Waves’), but the common denominator is controversy. And don’t you get the impression that he just loves it? That smug, arrogant persona, that constant denial that his work has any meaning speaks of someone who enjoys their notoriety; upsetting the chattering classes is grist to his cynical mill. On balance, I think it’s better that we have Lars than be without him; world cinema would be a duller place for one thing. I am also of the opinion that his current work has a lot of validity; ‘Dogville,’ the first instalment, wasn’t well received, perhaps on the basis that it said things about society (not just American society, mind) that people simply didn’t want to hear. The Brechtian staging devices notwithstanding, this was cinema that cut to the quick. Similarly, ‘Manderlay’ posits the deeply unpopular notions that free people would rather be enslaved, and that America is still not ready for free black people. Set those hands to wring! The story reunites us with the character of Grace (now played by Bryce Dallas Howard) as she flees the township of Dogville with her gangster father (now played by Willem Dafoe). Stopping in Alabama, they happen upon the plantation of Manderlay, a place where blacks still live as slaves, even though it was abolished seventy years earlier. Unable to resist meddling in the affairs of others, Grace, in spite of her father’s protestations, decides to remain here and, in her own words, ‘make it up to them.’ White men created slaves, and it is her duty to ease their transition to freedom. But this being a Lars Von Trier film, her noble pursuits bear bitter fruit. In many ways ‘Manderlay’ is a better film than ‘Dogville’, as it is considerably shorter, the plotting is tighter, and the writing has more confidence. But it is the themes and ideas it puts forward that make it memorable. – David O Mahony   ‘Manderlay’ runs at the Irish Film Institute, on Dublin’s Eustace Street, from Friday 3rd to Thursday 22nd March. www.manderlaythefilm.com / www.irishfilm.ie   THE WORLD'S FASTEST INDIAN Starring Anthony Hopkins, Jessica Cauffiel, Saginaw Grant, Diane Ladd, Christopher Lawford. Directed by Roger Donaldson. It's an oft-acknowledged truth that the best works of art (and unsurprisingly enough, I'm going to be focusing my attention on film) are born from pain, heartache and struggle. Anything worth doing requires bitter rivalries and constant warring between members of cast and crew, not to mention the constant pressure of failure to spurn the heart and soul into creating something truly original. Amongst the press materials for 'The World's Fastest Indian' are a number of quotes attributed to Anthony Hopkins, in which he loudly proclaims the film to be the best thing he's ever done. Or more accurately, the most enjoyable experience on a film shoot that he’s ever had. By all accounts, he and the cast and crew (including Roger Donaldson, who Hopkins last worked with on 'Bounty' with Mel Gibson over twenty years ago) had a blast making 'The World's Fastest Indian’, based on the true story of an average New Zealand man who tried to break the land speed record with a self-modified 1920’s motorcycle. The film traces Burt Munro (Hopkins)'s journey from the small town of Invercargill in New Zealand to the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah, U.S.A. Everything seems to be stacked against Burt; he's too old, too naive and has a ticker that always seems to be one dodgy ventricle away from a heart-attack. Despite all this (and the trailer could just as easily bear the legend: "Set Your Cockles To Warm") Burt's innate charm and uncanny mechanical skills win over the various eccentrics he meets along the way: an L.A. transvestite, a Mexican car salesman, Kiwi bikers, U.S. State-Troopers... It took a while to write a review for this because, for the life of me, I could not remember anything specific about 'The World's Fastest Indian’ once I'd left the cinema. There was Hopkins, of course, whose bluff charisma propels the film creakily on towards the necessarily happy ending. However, I’d appreciate it if anyone from New Zealand could drop me a line as to the validity of Hopkins' accent, which to my – admittedly untrained - ears, seemed to veer wildly from somewhere south of New South Wales to somewhere north of the outer Hebrides. - Jamie Hannigan   'The World's Fastest Indian' is released on Friday 10th March, certified PG. www.worldsfastestindian.com   SHORT ORDER Starring Emma de Caunes, Cosmo Shiva Hagen, Rade Serbedzija, John Hurt, Jack Dee, Vanessa Redgrave, Tatiana Ouliankina. Directed Anthony Byrne. Emma De Caunes (daughter of ‘Eurotrash’ presenter Antoine De Caunes) is the peculiarly-named Fifi Koko, a highly-skilled cook who – for reasons that are never quite explained – works in a grotty short order café called Ishmaels in an unnamed (but vaguely European) city. Various friends and colleagues try to lure her away to more high-class establishments, including Paulo (Rade Shepbedgia) a former world-class chef with a gruesome speciality dish, and restaurant manager Felix (John Hurt, hamming it up with a cigarillo-smoking Maurice Chevallier impression). The film begins with Fifi and a full-blown song and dance number, but the story soon diverges into two other strands, each taking place over the same night. Delivery girl Catherine (Cosmo Shiva Hagen) meets a trio of eccentric strangers on her travels: a pirate TV talk-show host (Paul Kaye), an enigmatic Russian prostitute (Tatianna Ouliankina) and a mysterious storyteller (Vanessa Redgrave). Meanwhile, the aforementioned Paulo and his overzealous sous-chef Pedro (Paschal Friel) become obsessed with the suspicion that their lone customer might be a near-mythical bill-dodger that has never paid for a meal in his life. ‘Short Order’ marks the distinctive debut of young Irish film director Anthony Byrne, following on from his highly-successful 2003 short film ‘Meeting Ché Guevara & The Man From Maybury Hill’. Byrne describes ‘Short Order’ as a “Technicolour Bubble-Gum Comic-Book Movie” and, for better or worse, that’s exactly what it is. It’s a peculiar mixture: the visuals are a stunning throwback to the old Hollywood musicals of the forties and fifties, with more than a passing nod to Jacques Demy’s ‘The Umbrellas of Cherbourg’. Such beauty (a trait that can be effortlessly extended to leading ladies De Caunes, Hagen and Ouliankina) maintains an uneasy balance with dialogue that seems almost self-consciously graphic, exemplified in the pseudo-documentary clips that intersperse the film. Each one features a different short order chef from around the world with his own, rather blunt observations on the connection between food and masturbation, cunnilingus and sex in general. Some wry wags dryly observed that James Cameron’s ‘Titanic’ was indeed a love story, but between the director and the boat. Similarly, ‘Short Order’ is an ode – not to food, which may disappoint some – but to characters and locations that only exist on the silver screen, past and present. As such, it will infuriate as many people as it will delight, particularly with its rambling storyline and often self-regarding dialogue. But in keeping with the food metaphors, one might liken ‘Short Order’ to a newly opened tin of Roses – it looks exciting, and there’s just enough of the tasty caramel hazelnuts to offset the odd coffee cream. - Jamie Hannigan   'Short Order' is released on Friday 10th March, certified 16. www.shortorderthemovie.com   THE WEATHER MAN Starring Nicholas Cage, Michael Caine, Hope Davis, Gil Bellows Directed by Gore Verbinski. I remember coming out of Martin Scorcese's 'The Aviator' and getting into a vaguely-heated discussion with a fellow critic, whose biggest problem with it was that it would – nay, it should – have been a better film, if only Scorcese had got around to making it twenty years ago with Robert De Niro as Howard Hughes. Which was, I argued, a ludicrous supposition. We can only review the film we are presented with and not waste time with fanciful suppositions. Yet all through 'The Weather Man', I was struck by the thought that Gore Verbinski's film would have been a good deal more satisfying had he cast someone like Paul Giametti (of 'Sideways' and 'American Splendor' fame) in the title role. It's not that Nicholas Cage is a bad actor (take another look at 'Raising Arizona', 'Wild At Heart' or 'Adaptation' if you're in any doubt) it's just that you wish he was a little bit more discerning in the roles he takes, and maybe a little less reliant on the same bag of nervous tics and monotone delivery. Here he plays Chicago-based weatherman David Spritz with much the same dejected hangdog manner as he did screenwriter Charlie Kauffman in 'Adaptation'. Despite a well-paid job (which involves two hours of real work a day) and the possibility of an even more lucrative slot with the 'Good Morning America' show in New York, Spritz' somnambulistic voice-over leaves us in no doubt that the man considers himself a loser, and it's difficult to disagree. His fractured relationship with his ex-wife (Hope Davis) and children is only exacerbated by the long shadow cast by his father Robert (Michael Caine), a Nobel-prize winning writer who still managed to find the time to be there for his family. When Robert develops lymphoma and is given only months to live, the film moves into the old reliable theme of a middle-aged man trying to re-evaluate his life, which 'The Weather Man' does with varying degrees of success. While it is a more sombre and reflective film than one might expect from the squawking, belly-laugh trailer, it is hobbled by its similarity (and inferiority) to the two films it most emulates, the aforementioned 'Adaptation' and 'American Beauty'. The reason why Paul Giametti came to mind was because of the quiet (and often furious) dignity he brings to even the most repellent of roles. Cage plays Spritz as little more than an absent-minded clown, making it difficult to drum up much sympathy for a man who likens himself (quite accurately, as it happens) to the fast-food that is intermittently thrown at him by jeering passers-by. Not bad, but not brilliant either. - Jamie Hannigan   'The Weather Man' is released on Friday 3rd March, cert 16. www.weathermanmovie.com   MIRRORMASK Starring Stephanie Leonidas, Jason Barry, Gina McKee, Rob Brydon, Dora Bryan. Directed by Dave McKean. Hyped as ‘Labyrinth’ meets ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and made with the assistance of Jim Henson’s company, ‘MirrorMask’ arrives with a good deal of expectation on its low-budget shoulders. The end product is undoubtedly visually resplendent but is, at its heart, fundamentally charmless and empty. Artistic teenager Helena Campbell (Leonidas) has begun to rebel against her exasperated circus performer parents (McKee and Brydon). Following a particularly heated argument, Helena’s mother falls ill. Helena is wracked with guilt and on the night before her mother undergoes a life-saving operation, Helena falls into what she presumes is a bizarre dream-world comprised almost entirely of her urban sketches and drawings. Along with an Irish juggling companion Valentine (Barry), Helena is drawn into a quest to recover a charm to awaken the White Queen and save this alternate world from the reign of the Dark Queen (both played by the triple-jobbing McKee), a struggle that eventually reveals the precise nature of Helena’s place in this world. ‘MirrorMask’ does have his strengths, namely the stunning visuals and a talented lead actress in Leonidas. However, all of the finest fantastical effects in the world can’t compensate for a weak plot that fails to engage the audience in any real way. The writer and director seem to know full-well what story they wanted to tell, but failed to craft a coherent and lively narrative with which to convey this to the audience. I’m sure that there is a clever fable in there somewhere about how your adorable child seems to suddenly transform into a pubescent terror, but it is buried deeply within the movie’s muddled storytelling. You might want to check out ‘MirrorMask’, however, to witness the creepiest rendition of The Carpenters’ ‘Close to You’ that you’re ever likely to hear. Unlike the rest of the movie, that stayed with me for days after. - Declan Cashin   ‘MirrorMask’ is released nationwide on Friday 3rd March, certificate 12A. www.sonypictures.com/movies/mirrormask   THE BOYS (& GIRL) FROM COUNTY CLARE Starring Colm Meaney, Bernard Hill, Andrea Corr, Shaun Watson and Charlotte Bradley. Directed by John Irwin. There's a wonderful Woody Allen film called 'Sweet & Lowdown', which concerns the story of a talented musician (Sean Penn) whose life is blighted by the fact that he's a socially-maladjusted misfit. It's a warm, funny sad and little film that has been oddly overlooked by fans bemoaning the varying quality of that director’s more recent movies. I was discussing it with a friend of mine (who was also a talented guitarist) a few months after its release and was surprised by his biggest gripe: that it was too obvious that Sean Penn wasn't really playing the guitar in many of the close-ups. Now, I might notice it if I saw the film again, but I don't really know much about jazz guitar, other than that I enjoy listening to it. I can't play it and I certainly wouldn't be able to notice if someone on-screen was playing one chord when the sound coming out was from another. I also don't know a great deal about ceili music either, although – and apologies to die-hard fans of traditional Irish music – this is more of a matter of choice. It isn't that I don't enjoy it, it's more that the vast majority of ceili that I come across (through TV, radio, walking down Grafton St...) seems to be the sort of bland crap that nefarious tradesman sell to ill-informed tourists. Which neatly brings me to 'The Boys (& Girl) From County Clare', a film that seemed to get a release in the rest of the world several years ago but has only reached the home soil now. Originally titled 'The Great Ceili War', the story concerns two feuding brothers competing against each other in an All-Ireland Ceili competition in the sixties. Colm Meaney and Bernard Hill play the brothers, with Andrea Corr and Shaun Watson as the star-crossed ceili lovers. As I said, I don’t know a great deal about ceili music, but I know enough to know when people are playing the instruments or not. And far more importantly, I know that if the whole film is centred around a ceili competition, it might have been wise to show some – any – kind of differentiation between the best ceili bands and the worst. But no. It’s like watching some kind of intricate board game where you suspect that the rules – if there are any – are being made up as the players go on. Still, there is some nudity (not Ms. Corr, I should point out) and quite a bit of swearing. And I rather like Colm Meaney’s exasperated line “There’s no fucking jazz in ceili!” - Jamie Hannigan   'The Boys (& Girl) From County Clare' is released on Friday 10th March, certified 15A. www.boysandgirlfromcountyclare.com   TWO FOR THE MONEY Starring Al Pacino, Matthew McConaughey, Rene Russo, Armand Assante, Jeremy Piven, Carly Pope, Jaime King. Directed by D.J Caruso. Be honest with us now, Al Pacino: you’ve made more than just two movies for the money recently, haven’t you? How else can we explain the acting legend’s disturbingly frequent appearances in over-blown dreck like this? There is some pleasure to be had in watching the man phone in his recent customized brand of acting, where he delivers dialogue in that detached, sing-song manner before ending every sentence by shouting the last WORD! I like to call this the ‘Hoo Ha, Charlie’ method that ultimately just makes you sad for this actor, whose talent is often too great for mere cinema to accommodate. ‘Two for the Money’ starts off on a note of nauseating American corn – a boy playing catch with his abandonment-bound father – and it doesn’t pick up from there. An exhausted paternal-substitute theme animates the relationship between hillbilly football tout Brandon Lang (McConaughey) and his ailing, gambling mogul boss Walter Abrams (Pacino). Abrams envisions building an empire around Lang, whom he rebrands as a ruthless phone and TV tipster named ‘John Anthony’. Brandon is soon making huge money predicting the outcomes for American football games but, alas, this is the pride before the fall, provoking the question ‘what price success’, yadda yadda yadda. Movies concerned with American football rarely translate well outside of the US, and when one is as poorly executed as this, it doesn’t stand any chance. B-list TV director Caruso avoids any originality here: it’s all recycled pop-psychology, clumsy Oedipal drama (involving Russo as Walter’s sultry wife) and ham-fisted attempts to warn about the evils of gambling. ‘Two for the Money’ is just a loud, hyperbolic movie where the hopeless McConaughey can only keep pace by trying to out-overact an overacting Pacino. That does not make for pleasant viewing, believe me, although the regular scenes of alpha male McConaughey working-out sure do. That aside, the odds on ‘Two for the Money’ being a hit are not good. - Declan Cashin   ‘Two for the Money’ is released nationwide on Friday 10th March, certificate 15A. www.twoforthemoney.net   DATE MOVIE Starring Alyson Hannigan, Adam Campbell, Jennifer Coolidge, Eddie Griffin, Fred Willard, Michelle Misty Lang. Directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Rarely do you find a movie so heinously bad enough as to plunge you into an existential crisis, forcing you to question why exactly you entered journalism and why you enjoy the cinematic art form. ‘Date Movie’, which mystifyingly required two directors, achieves that dubious honour. The single comfort to be gleaned from the experience of watching this rancid offal is that I know now that, even at this early stage, I have encountered the worst movie of the year, perhaps even of my life. I refuse to refer to what happens in ‘Date Movie’ as ‘plot’ as that would sully the meaning of the word. It’s basically a ‘Scary Movie’-esque spoof of every film that penetrated popular culture over the last five years, mainly romantic comedies. Overall, I counted skits of twenty movies ranging from ‘Bridget Jones’ to ‘Meet the Parents’ to ‘Lord of the Rings’, each one more painfully unfunny than the last. Hannigan plays Julia Jones, an obese waitress from a multi-racial, multi-ethnic family who falls for a doctor named Grant Fockyerdoder (geddit? Fock your daughter? Oh my sides). I really can’t go on; suffice to say that the remainder of the movie is comprised of the most puerile gags that not even hormonally charged, insecure teenage boys could possibly find amusing. But hey, what do I know? If scenes of a fat-suit bedecked Hannigan dancing suggestively to Kelis’ Milkshake song, a cat defecating noisily for a minute and a half before humping a decomposing corpse, the same cat seducing a horny old woman, Michael Jackson trying to lure children with a teddy bear, a Gandalf/penis/my precious gag, a baby saying ‘bee-atch’ or a semi-naked model slathering herself in hamburgers are your thing, by all means, check it out. I found it punishing to watch and I genuinely did not laugh once at this almost metaphysically bad movie. - Declan Cashin   ‘Date Movie’ was released nationwide on Friday 24th February, certified 12A. www.datemoviethemovie.com