Bing-18

A small but charming movie which was largely overlooked at the box office, but which has gained notoriety through pay-per-views and video. This film harks back to a more romantic time of film-making, helped by a wonderful Brat Pack soundtrack.

It's biggest problem is that it appears unsure of what it wishes to be. A good script from Bonnie Hunt and Don Lake, gives us a touching romance between Duchovny's recently widowed architect and the women who received his wife's heart from a transplant, played wonderfully as ever by Minnie Driver. This touching romance in the veign of Bounce, is very true to life despite the situation, but it is almost derailed by the great comic bickering between the other character's. First time director Hunt, gets great performances from veterans Loggia, Jones, O'Connor and Bronder, and from James Belushi as her husband. But the comedy pulls the film more towards being a romantic comedy than the real-life romance that the central relationship wants to be.

The idea of a widow's wife's heart being transplanted to his future love would appear to suite a Rom-Com, but with the other characters getting the best lines, it makes the Rom-Com style ending of separation and reunion sit awkwardly with the characters. It is not helped by Duchovny's performance, appearing ill at ease with comedy when it comes his way.

Having said this though, the romance coming from Hunt and Lake's script will still steal you heart, making this an essential addition to any old-romantic's video collection.

Ten years after the first movie, James Belushi, one of the most gifted, and over looked light comedic actors of the last twenty years, returns as Detective Dooley for this movie.

If you are expecting more of the same from the first movie, you will be disappointed, but this is still a good movie. Realizing that all the Dog vs. Man battle of wills scenarios had probably been used up in the first movie, this one turns slightly more psychological in its approach as it concentrates on a criminal with a fixation with Dooley's recently deceased wife after she rejected his book, and blames Dooley for her death.

The script may not be the best, but the movie allows both Belushi and Christine Tucci to show their good acting ability, while still retaining enough of the light humour of the first movie to make it work, and the chemistry between the two stars is there for all to see.

An easy, light going movie, which, while maybe not worth a purchase unless you are a true fan of either the first movie or Belushi, definately worth a watch when it comes on TV.

The film starts with a very funny and touching love story between Nicoletta Braschi and Roberto Benigni, who plays his role with a passion that humour that Chaplin would have been proud of, and a heart that Chaplin only approached in The Kid (1921).

From here the film moves on to Benigni and his son being put into a concentration camp, and his attempts to hide the truth from his son.

The film deals honestly with the Holocaust, without any graphic detail, an example that many Hollywood movies would do well to follow. However, this is not a film about the Holocaust, it is a film about the human spirit, what it can perpetrate, and the horrors it can endure.

But this film has one quality that lifts it above most Hollywood movies; it is made with one thing that Hollywood rarely uses. It is made with love.