Six Intimate Theaters
The Brave One
Hot on the heels of Panic Room and Flightplan,
Jodie Foster plays yet another dykey straight
woman in distress, this time resorting to laughable
histrionics that merit a Razzie. You’d think that
innovative director Neil Jordan (The Crying Game)
could pick up the slack, but this is his most
muddled effort since In Dreams. The film’s only
redeeming feature is the droll fepartee between
Terrence Howard and Nicky Katt, who play the
cops investigating Foster’s vigilante killing spree. 0
—Stephen Blair
way. (We really do not want to see him reprodyc
ing.) At a softball game, Bradley’s wife, Kathryr
(Selma Blair), meets lean and serene Jenny (
Katie). Afterward at a bar, Kathryn and Jenny art
sitting right next to Bradley. The two women are sc
obviously smitten with one another that Hany
(Morgan Freeman), who is at the same table, dis
cerns the connection while Bradley remains clueless
Harry goes home and tells his wife (Jane Alexander’
but never informs Bradley. After all, telling someone
your wife is fallifig in love with someone else
be a tough subject for one person to bring up tc
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Jodie Foster goes on a vigilante killing spree in The Brave One.
Deep Water
Louise Osmond and Jerry Rothwell directed this
haunting British documentary about a 1968-69
around-the-world boat race. The story centers on
Donald Crowhurst, an ambitious family man who
becomes increasingly dishonest and delusional
when his voyage fails. The filmmakers piece the
tragedy together with interviews, detailed maps and
Crowhurst’s written records and film footage.
Subtlety trumps sensationalism throughout, except
for a jarringly juvenile sequence that uses cheesy
horror movie effects in a failed attempt to shed
light on the sailor’s descent into madness. Opens
Sept. 21 at Cinema 21. A -
—SB
Eastern Promises
Two years after their triumphant collaboration
on A History of Violence, maverick director David
Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen have teamed up
to concoct one of the most accomplished and brutal
mob movies in recent memory. The entire cast is
impeccable, with Naomi Watts as a London midwife
who unwittingly entangles herself in a Russian crime
syndicate. Mortensen hits a career high as the
menacing yet sympathetic Nikolai, showing jaw
dropping dedication to his craft by extinguishing
cigarettes on his tongue and fighting a bloody brawl
in the buff. Steven Knight, an Oscar nominee for
Dirty Pretty Things, wrote the intricate screenplay. A
—SB
Feast of Love
Shot on -location in Portland, director Robert
Benton’s Feast of Love interlocks the lives of various
people with an unfortunate emphasis on the less
interesting ones. Greg Kinnear plays Bradley
Thomas, a mild-mannered romantic mnning one of
the umpteen gourmet coffee places in our fair city.
Bradley sees love as the ideal state he is living in.
Fortunately for us, Bradley’s love is only going one
another, but when you consider the new love inter
est is of the same sex, and nobody involved is out,
that would compound the difficulties.
Before long rhe hot women are carrying on
affair. Plagued by guilt for Bradley and love for
Jenny, Kathryn must decide what to do. (Her
dilemma is not too dissimilar from the protagonist’s
plight in The Gymnast.) Then Kathryn’s birthday
arrives, and somebody’s misjudged, albeit cute,
birthday present forces her to make a choice that
will leave one person very sad for months and
lovers to come. Unfortunately for filmgoers, once
Kathryn'makes her move, the film drops her and
Jenny in order to get on with Bradley’s bourgeois
brouhaha.
Opening Sept. 28, Feast of Love concerns itself
with how people are always forcing themselves to
be in love when it cannot be forced. It might
require work, but you can never cram it into your
lifestyle—even us hip Portlanders. Unfortunately,
the film never lets the characters discover this.
Instead, it superficially allows supernatural hands to
interfere, offering laziness and fantasy as alterna
tives to diligence and reality. D
—John Esther
Mr. Woodcock
This comedy fulfilled my expectations—
because I had none. The story is simple: John Farley
(Seann William Scott) returns to his hometown
only to find his mother (the great Susan Sarandon)
engaged to the title character (Billy Bob
Thornton), a former gym teacher who terrorized
him throughout high school. Mr. Woodcock used
his position to pick on the weak and helpless in his
classes, and Farley was his favorite. As Mr.
Wixxlcock falls back into old habits, Farley is deter
mined to break up this engagement. The film is
predictable and only slightly funny, so 1 recommend
you save your money and catch it on DVD. C
—Yvonne P. Behrens ©
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