Robert Tanitch reviews the latest DVDs
THE STARS LOOK DOWN (Renown) is one of the major British films of the late 1930’s, much admired for its gritty depiction of mine, miners and flooding disaster. It has such working class realism that it feels like the real thing: documentary footage. Carol Reed thought his adaptation of A J Cronin’s novel lacked deep political commitment, but it is always very clear whose side he is on and especially so when the hero lambasts the corruption of owners and union leaders in the roundest terms. Michael Redgrave is cast as the socialist idealist, who, whilst fighting for the safety rights of the striking miners and the nationalisation of the mines, is momentarily distracted by an unhappy marriage to a flighty young woman (Margaret Lockwood). Edward Rigby and Nancy Price are cast as his parents.
MOBY DICK (Kaleidoscope). Captain Ahab’s obsession to kill the whale amounts to blasphemy. It is difficult to do the complexities of Herman Melville’s great American novel, (which was published in 1851) justice; but this mini-series has a stab at it and predictably is at its best in the action scenes with the whales. The dialogue is clunky and the actors are ill at ease. William Hurt is not awesome enough to be the ungodly, godlike, one-legged, bonkers Ahab. There is little Ethan Hawke can do with Starbuck and Charlie Cox’s Ishmael is just a pretty face.
YOUR WITNESS (Network). Robert Montgomery came all the way to England in 1949 to direct and act in this plodding, totally unconvincing detective story. He plays an American lawyer, who does not trust English law to get the right verdict and flies in to save a wartime buddy who is accused of murder and unable to prove he did it in self-defence. The old patronising joke about how the English and the America speak two different languages is so laboured as to be very un-funny. Stanley Baker (then totally unknown) makes a brief and un-credited appearance in court as a policeman.
KITE (Anchor Bay). A teenage assassin is bent on revenging her parents’ murder. It’s an American remake of a controversial Japanese anime film, which was banned in many countries for its eroticism in the late 1990’s. Samuel L Jackson now heads the cast. The dialogue is bad. The acting is poor. It’s basically a smoky action thriller for immature viewers. The best thing about it is the design of a grim, graffiti-ridden urban landscape. However, if you want to see a really good and intelligent thriller, then watch Omar (Soda films) which I reviewed last week.
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