timelord-3

I loved Director David Gordon Green's debut feature George Washington (which screened at BIFF during 2001) but I couldn't really get into his new film All the Real Girls

On paper it seems like an enchanting and simple story idea, local gigolo falls in love with best mates sister, and this time its for real. Gordon Green doesn't play it for gawkish sentimentality, but instead tries to infuse a very real sense of place and feeling; his continued use of the stark decaying urban landscape is put to good effect as it was in his first feature.

But the dialogue, which was described in the program guide as natural and casual, to me came off as script generated and false. Rarely are the characters saying anything or acting in any way that is typical of teenagers; everything is done for dramatic effect rather than realism.

Gordon Green has always had a great eye for the best way to film a frame visually, but with All the Real Girls its his own script that lets him down. It might not be too kind to say this, but I spent most of the film trying to figure out whether the lead character was playing a guy with a mild retardation, or whether the actor himself was mildly retarded. I don't think any girl would fall for his weird patter and pick up lines. Perhaps they do things differently in the Deep South.

I was entranced by a couple of things:

• Sanders performance. While not being the world beater everyone reckons it is it certainly shows that this guy has more of a range that people take him credit for. Thats not to say there isn't the standard Sandler-stickh there; there sure is, but at least its buried. - Emily Watson - beauty combined with that accent... <sigh>

I was surprised by a few things:

• its short running time (90 minutes!) - its small leading cast (it is essentially a two-hander between Sandler and Watson) - this film is essentially a love story, A very personal love story.

I was annoyed by a few things

• lacklustre script development - the story of the sex line and the thugs behind it is poorly developed; it also does not integrate into the story to the level I thought I would and expected from PTA. The love interest is rushed and falls into some cliched traps - lazy camera work - if there is one thing abouta PTA film is the ways the camera is made to sing - PDL had little to be impressed by

I remain undecided about a few things

• the kooky elements; the piano on the street, the pudding, the crashing car - seemed out of place - the message of the movie - it seemed to me to be a story about the troubles communicating in the modern world - I'm probably wrong but if I am perhaps it needed to be developed a bit more?

Not bad. Not Magnolia bad, not Boogie Nights good - somewhere in between heading towards the up side. 7 out of 10.

Took advantage of tightarse Tuesday and went and saw The Transporter this evening.

Interesting film - reminded me a lot of 'The Big Hit' - stylised action and fight scenes mixed in with a lot of tongue in cheek humour. The Transporter didn't go the extremes that 'The Big Hit' did but it was heading there. It even shared a similar theme of the tough guy falling for the Asian school-age girl.

The audience I saw the film with were sniggering at some of the more implausable things (the leap of the car onto the car trailer for one).

The fight scene in the bus depot with the slippery oil was inventive.

Can't help feeling that Jason Statham was a bit miscast for the role of the super efficient Transporter, the guy you hire when you have to get a package from point a to point b. Writer Luc Besson has a long history of projects concerning loners (La Femme Nikita, Leon, heck, even Joan of Arc) and Statham doesn't fully succeed in pulling off the role. He's great in the action sequences but anything else he seems to fall into familiar territory that his old mate Guy Ritchie trained him in for Lock Stock, and Snatch.

The final chase between the Transporter and container lorries did seem to steal a lot from the Bond flick 'Licence to Kill' (taking over lorries, jumping from planes onto backs of lorries etc), but it did add enough wrinkles to stamp its own signature on the scenes.

Good film though - great action sequences and inventive locations. 8 out of 10.