Oct/Nov: The Baader Meinhof Complex | Max Payne

With his film "The Baader Meinhof Complex" director Uli Edel wants to show how the RAF really was, warts and all. The journalist Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck) is lured into the terrorist scene by Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu) and very soon becomes a great deal more than just an observer and reporter. Edel dramatises the events accurately and relatively unadorned. The beginning of the film with the riots during the visit of the Shah of Persia and his wife are phenomenally fierce, as is the assassination attempt on Rudi Dutschke. However the dramatic context and subsequent events are told largely from the perspective of the terrorists and in turn, their presence on-screen dominates and gives the piece a slightly devalued balance.

The film is beautifully equipped and shot, with great attention to period feel and detail, and is extremely well photographed. However, the representation of dangerous extremes as martyrs to the cause however valid or misplaced shows a blinkered perception of the realities of the time.

Cast:
Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Beau Bridges, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Chris O'Donnell

Director: John Moore

Running time: 99 mins

Cold-case cop Max Payne (Mark Wahlberg) longs to avenge the murder of his wife and child, for which he is the prime suspect. When he's also suspected of killing a slinky Russian girl (Olga Kurylenko), Max teams up with her sister (Mila Kunis) to find the killer, avoid the police, get the revenge they seek and figure out what the sketch is with the giant winged creatures they see lurking in the shadows. Beau Bridges also stars as Max's dad's former partner, with Chris "Ludacris" Bridges as an internal affairs officer without much to do apart from a misplaced thespian desire to live up to his naff nickname.

Films based on video games rarely achieve anything better than unintentional humour these days. "Max Payne," boasts helmer John Moore ("The Omen" remake) so you'll have a fair idea of the guff that follows. "Max Payne" is silly, harmless and just occasionally it turns moderately creepy when the film turns New York into a perpetually dark, snowy lair of the damned, and it usefully incorporates slow motion into its shoot-em-ups of which there is a substantial amount. The story though seems to be running on backup power, nicking lots of ideas from other films, and Moore's unable to turn chilly menace into tough, action-packed sequences that seem credible. No performance rises to the top, and in all honesty Mark Wahlberg really is hopeless, and it's to my eternal amazement that Scorcese cast him in the peerless The Departed.

Cast: Matthew Goode, Hayley Atwell, Ben Whishaw, Emma Thompson, Sir Michael Gambon
Directed by Julian Jarrold
Based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh
Running time: 135 minutes.

"Brideshead Revisited" is based on the grand and epic novel by Evelyn Waugh, originally published in 1945. The setting is England, in between the two world wars. Charles Ryder, (Matthew Goode) a young man of modest means is off to his first year of university, where many of his fellow students have come here from a place much higher in the pecking order of wealth and breeding. Through a chance encounter he is absorbed into a group of young men who are very well to do and flamboyantly homosexual. Despite not really fitting in on either account he enjoys being with them. The leader of the band is Lord Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw), the son of a very aristocratic family. Sebastian is quite taken with Charles and invites him back to his stately family home, Brideshead.

Amongst Sebastian's favourite things is an unquenchable desire for alcohol. For a short while it appears that Charles may be inclined to happily allow his life to head off in this direction. Enter Sebastian's sister, Julia (Hayley Atwell). Charles prefers Julia to her brother but because of the situation, there is no realistic future here or so it would seem. When we first meet Charles it is during WWII, with the story unfolding mostly in flashback mode. Charles is a budding and sensationally popular artist who has just returned from a two year trip through the jungle and he is now showing the paintings inspired by his excursions. Everything is revealed by Charles as narrator to show how he has arrived at his current lofty position in life.

The first half of "Brideshead Revisited" rolls briskly along with lots of quiet, absurdly funny moments, fuelled primarily by Sebastian. Whishaw is exceptional as the vulnerable, blustery, alcoholic teenager who brilliantly walks a tightrope. One false step in any direction and his character could easily be despised as a self-centred and terminally annoying little spoiled brat, but Whishaw manages to pull off that balancing act so that we while we don't like him, at the same time, we feel for him.

It is only when his mother, Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson) finally arrives at Brideshead that we understand what has created the broken Sebastian. She is a devout Catholic, to a point where it has partially crippled both Sebastian and Julia. Lady Marchmain is not an especially bad person but her character proves that just being good isn't always enough. Her need to follow the straight and narrow suffocates everyone, including herself. Thompson, as usual, is wonderful.

Julian Jarrold's direction is almost faultless, save for a couple of obvious last-minute edits. Otherwise it is pitch perfect, much like everything else about "Brideshead Revisited". The cinematography by Jess Hall is magnificent, with every shot meticulously laid out to a point where it feels like touring a gallery of great art.