MOVIES REVIEW

 

REVIEWED BY Dr. Richard Swainson
Co-owner Auteur House

 

The Winslow Boy

A decided change of pace from Mamet’s usual stylised variations on film noir and heist movies, ‘The Winslow Boy’ sees him successfully adapt Terrence Rattigan’s ancient play of British manners. His feel for the Edwardian era and very English notions of fair play is surprisingly astute, giving material with seemingly little contemporary relevance emotional and moral weight.
The understated romantic banter between Mamet’s wife Rebecca Pidgeon and the charismatic, smooth talking Jeremy Northam demonstrates a softer side of the director that seldom finds expression in his own writing. His handling of scenes between Nigel Hawthorne’s kindly patriarch and child actor Guy Edwards negotiates a path between familial warmth and sickly sentiment, ensuring that the film steers well clear of schmaltz but is unafraid of dramatising the father/son love that underpins the true story.

 

 

Glengarry Glen Ross

The celebrated American playwright and director David Mamet has had a chequered film career. Often content just to take the easy money writing bland pap like ‘The Edge’, he first achieved cinematic worthiness with an adaptation of his own play about seedy real estate salesmen, ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’.
The cast is arguably the finest ensemble of male American actors since ‘The Godfather, Part II’. Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey and Jonathan Pryce all provide riveting support for a never better Jack Lemmon, enjoying his last great leading role as a veteran con artist desperate to regain his touch.
Mamet rewrites the play’s opening, providing a bristling monologue that serves not only as a capitalistic mantra for the ages - ‘Always Be Closing’ - but also manages the minor miracle of turning a Baldwin brother into a halfway decent thespian. Hitherto known as the second most obese member of a clan defined by excessive weight, squinting and facial tics, Alec Baldwin’s real acting career can be dated back to the time the Mamet genius tossed him a bone.

 

 

Hidden

Mamet’s character study of a jiu-jitsu master whose financial woes and personal loyalties tempt him into commercial competition is less a conventional martial arts movie than an exploration of a masculine code of ethics. Chiwetel Ejiofor brings stillness and subtlety to the part of Mike Terry, a former soldier attempting to eek out an honourable living instructing others in self defence. Terry is most certainly not the type of part played by Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal. There is little bravado about him, his dialogue happily free of any stock, macho one-liners or pseudo-mystical aphorisms, his demeanour calm and credible.
Corruption comes in the form of Hollywood. After Terry assists a movie star in a barroom brawl both he and his wife become seduced by the promise of easy riches. His intellectual property subsequently stolen by the corporate machine, Terry is forced to make a hard choice. If he fights he can sustain his academy but to do so would undermine all that it philosophically stands for.
Unlike some of Mamet’s earlier attempts at playing with male genre cliches ‘Red Belt’ feels more like a real drama than a stylistic exercise. The climactic moments might be as improbably triumphant as you would expect in a mainstream action film yet Mamet’s clear delineation of ideas and sheer narrative efficiency raise it to another level entirely. For once a happy ending is hard won and as much a matter of the head as the heart.