Ed Harris Page 2

More like a 91-minute thrill-ride than an astronaut adventure movie, this tour de force throws us out into space without a safety line then thrills us with a series of near misses that take our breath away. Along the way, Sandra Bullock gets to deliver one of her best-ever performances while filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron wows us with his seamless technical wizardry. So even if the plot feels naggingly implausible, we hang on for dear life.

It begins during a Space Shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Telescope with the cheeky team leader Kowalski (Clooney) and nervous rookie Dr Stone (Bullock). Then after the Russians destroy a distant satellite, the field of debris gathers momentum and knocks out communications before sweeping Kowalski and Stone away from the shuttle and the rest of the crew. Tethered together, they decide to make their way to the International Space Station for help. But they only have 90 minutes before they intersect with the debris storm again. And both power and oxygen are running out.

Earth looks so beautiful floating just below them that we are continually taken aback by the fact that this is essentially a horror movie set in the silent weightlessness of space. Every sequence is carefully staged to ratchet up the suspense, which sometimes begins to feel a little overwrought as it continually comes down to another last-gasp moment. But Bullock plays this especially well, letting us identify with her panic and tenacity. By contrast, Clooney is sarcastic and comical, cheering her up with ridiculous anecdotes as he tries to spark her survival instinct.

Continue reading: Gravity Review

Spirited and very funny, this movie should actually be rather disturbing since it's a true story about torture and murder. But director Michael Bay is so slick with the action and comedy elements that he lulls audiences to sleep, entertaining us with events that really should send chills down our spines. So the movie feels rather tasteless when you begin to think about it.

Wahlberg stars as Daniel, an obsessive bodybuilder in 1990s Miami who works as a personal trainer at a local gym. But he's becoming increasingly annoyed by the fact that his clients are much wealthier than he is. So he convinces his steroid-addicted colleague Adrian (Mackie) to help him kidnap a customer (Shalhoub) and steal his fortune. Realising that they need some help, they enlist born-again ex-con Paul (Johnson) in their plan. But none of them is very smart, and the kidnapping goes badly wrong from the start. Still, they manage to steal quite a lot before a tenacious private detective (Harris) notices something isn't right.

For a story that deals with such intensely serious themes, this is an oddly broad comedy. Bay never even tries to find dark irony here; he just focusses on how stupid these criminals are, convinced that they are as cool as the characters from their favourite movies and eerily unbothered by the fact that they are inflicting pain and even death on people for their own greedy ends. The actors inhabit the roles with a disarming naivete, so we can't help but laugh at their idiotic actions. Wahlberg plays Daniel as a muscle-head so focussed on getting what he wants that he doesn't notice the carnage in his wake; Mackie at least gives Adrian a sense of self-doubt, plus some comical romance (with scene-stealer Wilson); and Johnson has a tricky role as a religious guy with a weakness for drugs and women.

Continue reading: Pain & Gain Review

Ex-cop Nick (Worthington) is only a couple of years into an excessively long prison sentence for stealing a giant diamond from a ruthless jewel magnate (Harris). But he manages to escape, positioning himself on a 21st-floor ledge above a busy Manhattan street. As the crowd gathers and cops (Banks and Burns) come to talk him down, Nick's brother Joey (Bell) and his bendy girlfriend Angie (Rodriguez) are breaking into a nearby building. Basically, it's Nick's last-ditch effort to clear his name.

Continue reading: Man On A Ledge Review

Remember that TV show Heroes, where something happens maybe every 15 episodes to advance the storyline? Cleaner is kind of like that but condensed into a movie. The movie beats around the bush for about half an hour before it actually introduces a conflict; the rest of the 90 minutes is filled with Samuel L. Jackson yelling at various people until we finally encounter a twist at the very end. The "surprise" ending is so contrived and underwhelming you'll want to take a nap after sitting through this film to recover your soul from horrendous boredom by dreaming up something more interesting.

Continue reading: Cleaner Review

Since their last adventure, things have changed rather significantly for Team Ben Gates (a null set Nicolas Cage). Our hero is continuing his treasure-hunting ways, but he's broken up with gal pal Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger). Papa Gates (a lost Jon Voight) has been helping sonny boy over his rough relationship patch, while tech wiz sidekick Riley Poole (a far too-wisecracking Justin Bartha) has published a book and is deep in debt to the IRS. When a mysterious figure named Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris) shows up, carrying a page out of John Wilkes Booth's diary implicating Gates' forefather in the assassination of Lincoln, the ancestors vow to clear his name. Turns out the long dead relative could have been trying to hide the location of the lost City of Gold -- Cibola -- from conspiring Confederate rebels. It's up to Gates to find the truth, and the vast wealth at the end of said quest.

Continue reading: National Treasure: Book Of Secrets Review

His best decision comes early. By adapting novelist Dennis Lehane's Boston-based thriller, Affleck commits to material that fits him like a glove. Affleck adores his hometown -- warts and all -- and Gone becomes as much an ode to the city as Lehane intended.

Continue reading: Gone Baby Gone Review

Cuba Gooding Jr. deserves similar congratulations for his courage, not just for "playing retarded" in the titular role in Radio, but for most of what he's done since he won his own Oscar as jawboning jock Rod Tidwell in 1996's Jerry Maguire, a role in which his only devastating handicap was playing for the Arizona Cardinals. If not true fearlessness, it's hard to imagine what else can explain some of Gooding's recent script-picking decisions - Chill Factor, Instinct, Rat Race, Snow Dogs, and the execrable Boat Trip come to mind. Maybe he can't read.

Continue reading: Radio Review

What it does have is some of the best actors working in film today (Nicolas Cage, Sean Connery, and Ed Harris), seasoned producers Jerry Bruckheimer and the late Don Simpson (Top Gun, for starters), Bad Boys director Michael Bay, and some relatively unknown screenwriters (David Weisberg, Douglas S. Cook, and Mark Rosner), who all pull together to tell one hell of a story -- and hands-down the best action flick of the year-to-date.

Continue reading: The Rock Review

A dark comedy on par with Pulp Fiction, Aussie director Gregor Jordan (in his second film) transports us to Germany in 1989, on an American Army base during the waning days of the Cold War. These enlisted troops aren't your Officer and a Gentleman go-getters. They're criminals, offered the option to serve their country in lieu of staying in jail. But since there's no war on, getting in to trouble is the only thing to do. As our protagonist says, "There was nothing to kill but time."

Continue reading: Buffalo Soldiers Review

The result of this combination is an overly ambitious film that's as muddled and cryptic as a mumble-filled Dylan vocal. Dylan stars as the symbolically named Jack Fate, an apparent musical legend, jailed in the midst of a brutally downtrodden America where the government has taken over, war is rampant, and even the counter-revolutionaries have counter-revolutionaries.

Continue reading: Masked & Anonymous Review

Based on Tom Wolfe's novel (though heavily inspired by the truth), The Right Stuff follows the formative years of the space race, from 1947 to 1963, when it was us vs. the Russians. The film begins as we first punch through Mach 1 in experimental aircraft and ends with seventh and final Mercury astronaut blasting off.

Continue reading: The Right Stuff Review

Seldom do movies contain enough power to influence or change our convictions. Through enormously convincing performances, a masterful screenplay, and aggressive direction, this movie takes us on an extraordinary journey into the mind of a fascinating character, providing insight on its unique subject. Move over Good Will Hunting, here comes the ultimate movie about a math wiz!

Continue reading: A Beautiful Mind Review