Chicago is the best

The era of great Hollywood musicals came back to town last night with Chicago. Fifty years ago, in its heyday at MGM, it might have been done as well, though not with the full morality-busting amplification of this film. But for half that time, screen musicals have hardly been done at all save for the serendipitous Moulin Rouge. Chicago sets that right. It's a custom-tailored, all-of-a-piece, great bit of entertainment. It's rowdy, sassy, brash, brassy and raunchy, a burlesque of Twenties America that stars three performers who'd never be my first choice for all-singin', all-dancin' roles.

But a miracle's happened. Here's Catherine Zeta-Jones dancing with all the slinkiness of Cyd Charisse as flapper girl Velma Kelly, who's just seen off her ratfink husband and barely has time to wash his blood off the butt of her pistol before she's on the nightclub stage.

Here's Renee Zellweger hitting the top notes of heartache and betrayal like Judy Garland, as Roxie Hart, another lady done wrong by her man and gunning him down in the middle of his "Wham, bam, no thank-you, ma'am" leer.

And here's 53-year-old Richard Gere hoofing it and tap dancing with Gene Kelly's insouciance as Billy Flynn, a Chicago lawyer whose flinty heart only sparks at the mention of money. What's happened? How come such stars who usually play comedy or drama can suddenly do musical numbers like the great old-timers? The answer in part is, like heart pacemakers and artificial hips, the technology has caught up with their straight acts and helps them carry a musical with overpowering confidence and effect.

Yes, they work themselves flat out, but they surely get a tweak from computer-generated imagery, or an eyedeceiving body double, or a sly grafted-on top note; and, above all, from an Oscar-worthy display of film editing that can jigsaw together a musical number out of every angle shot and leave nothing on the cutting room floor except sweat. Director Rob Marshall has picked the right show for this virtuoso display of smoke and mirrors.

Chicago is a non-stop creation, hard-edged and high-glossed, without a single runny patch of sentiment. It satirises celebrity, burlesques justice and sends up civic morality in almost every one of its 112 minutes.

Murderesses Velma and Roxie are flung into cells on Death Row where Queen Latifah's Mama Morton, a wardress of mammoth girth and bottomless bribery, puts them in touch with Billy Flynn, a hot-shot attorney who makes it a point of profit never to defend the innocent - the guilty get more coverage.

While Velma smoulders like a femme fatale, the ingenious floozie Roxie hires him. He'll help her beat the murder rap by turning her into a celebrity. She'll walk out of court not just a free woman - but a famous one. The film's style reflects the subversive sentiment that everything today is showbiz. No sooner does reality intrude than it's immediately re-interpreted in song-and-dance fantasy. Thus Gere in a shimmering sequined suit addresses the court with a mesmerising "Give 'em the old razzle-dazzle" number.

Hitting a sticky bit of prosecution evidence, he literally tap-dances his way free of it. In a stand-out number, he sets up a press conference with reporters panting for hot news, never the truth, and literally pulls the strings of a puppet press while Roxie sits on his lap like a ventriloquist's doll and he "works" her lips and occasionally lets her limbs collapse as if she were filled with sawdust.

The whole town catches Roxie fever. Her act only stalls when Flynn's professional avarice is diverted to an heiress (better money) who's shot dead her husband and two girls in bed (bigger publicity). But Roxie knows a trick to top that: she declares she's pregnant, and Flynn comes running back (more human interest).