Fresh from the reels

The Quiet American (15)

Running time 101 mins ****

The 1958 Joseph L Mankiewicz film of Graham Greene's prescient novel was elegant and absorbing but hampered by the necessity to cater to America's political self-image. It also, for obvious reasons, could say nothing about the disastrous outcome of American meddling in Vietnam. This film, scripted by Christopher Hampton and Robert Schenkkan and directed by Phillip Noyce, has freedom and hindsight, and wields both to good effect. Michael Caine is Fowler, an ageing British journalist in 1952 Saigon, his professional neutrality a cover for overwhelming cynicism. Brendan Fraser is the rookie American aid worker Pyle, whose stubborn wish to save the Vietnamese people is easily translated into a desire to save beautiful Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen), Fowler's much-loved mistress. Unsurprisingly, Pyle's interference isn't welcome in either arena, and the ear-splitting impact of this quiet American's actions resounds down the years. The film, shot by Chris Doyle, looks wonderful, its central images of carnage made more startling by the lovely visions of expat life that frame them, and Fraser and Caine are well cast. Only the scriptwriters' unwillingness to have them talk politics makes their friendship ring hollow, while Pyle's transition from selfeffacing new kid to masterful meddler is far too abrupt. But, nonetheless, the central tenet - that sentiment and cynicism make a volatile mix, just as likely to harm the onlooker as plastic explosive - is powerfully conveyed.

8 Women (15)

Running time 103 mins. ***

Francois Ozon's Technicolor extravaganza pays homage to the 1950s with a melodramatic excess that extends from the Douglas Sirk references to the dazzling colours, and spills over to the cast list. Though even Sirk never tried to stuff every famous actress of one country into a single film. Suzon (Virginie Ledoyen), the ingenue, returns home for Christmas to find Daddy murdered and skeletons leaping out of cupboards with abandon: from her avaricious grandmother (Danielle Darrieux) to her shrewish aunt (Isabelle Huppert, showing an unexpected gift for comedy as a hellish spinster) and little sister (Ludivine Sagnier) everyone has something to hide. Only the songs offer breathers from the non-stop orgy of revelation, with each of the extraordinary cast - including Catherine Deneuve, Fanny Ardant, Firmine Richard and Emmanuelle Beart - performing a well-known (in France, anyway) chanson. It's all good Agatha Christie fun, but puzzlingly lightweight: the star wattage may make even the 1950s colour scheme look pallid, but it can't set this flimsy story on fire.

L.I.E. (18)

Running time: 97 mins****

L.I.E. is the Long Island Expressway, and in writer-director Michael Cuesta's hands this polluted metaphor becomes far more than the motorway connecting Long Island with the outside world. Howie (Paul Franklin Dano) tells us his mother died on it; now he's living alone with his selfish father, breaking into houses with friends for kicks and getting into trouble at school just as his grieving, frustrated father runs into legal difficulties at work. Howie is a typical adolescent; clever, confused and rebellious with a strong poetic streak, he is at that age where adult sexual interest might or might not still be classed as paedophilia, and this lack of definition is something the film plays with to devastating effect. Howie's close, mildly sexual friendship with Gary (Billy Kay) leads to a more complex acquaintance with Big John (Brian Cox), an ageing mummy's boy who veers between sinister advances and apparent friendship.

If the viewer is bewildered and unsure how to react to Big John, how much more so must Howie be? Especially given his increasing isolation: by the end of the film, so many people have disappeared down the L.I.E. that the road itself comes to seem as much a predator as Big John.

Cuesta portrays a quicksand of moral ambivalence where retribution doesn't always strike the guilty; combined with Cox's and Dano's superb performances, this allows for a sophisticated elaboration of the hardest lesson of all: life's a bitch.

Enough (15)

Running time 115 **

Enough is an intriguing idea executed with laughable clumsiness by British director Michael Apted. Slim (Jennifer Lopez), a waitress, marries her dream man: Mitch (Billy Campbell) is kind, attractive and very rich. A few years on, and less appealing characteristics come to light; soon Slim is on the run from her violent spouse, clutching their increasingly traumatised daughter.

Slim is clever and resourceful when it comes to avoiding Mr Psychopath - so clever, in fact, that her refusal to report him to the police feels totally contrived. And Campbell is cast more as a creature from the black lagoon than as wife-batterer, with his theatrical intimidation tactics and the jack-in-the-box reappearances intended to make the audience jump, not think. Lopez isn't bad, despite always looking a sight too soignee for a mum on the run, and there's definitely space for a 'battered wife fights back' scenario in the film canon, but it needs to be done very differently, with the batterer taken seriously. This is not twisted love: merely cartoon villainy.

The War Bride

Running time 108 *

Similarly, the story of Britain's war brides - girls who jumped into wartime matrimony with the same unthinking gusto with which they'd been plunging into paddling pools only a few years earlier - is worth telling, but The War Bride director Lyndon Chubbuck is not the man to tell it. Lily (Anna Friel), a chirpy London orphan, marries Canadian corporal Charlie (Aden Young) in the wartime whirl before being whisked off to the middle of a Canadian plain to sit it out with her in-laws, mother (Brenda Fricker) and sister (Molly Parker), who have nothing in common with their unwelcome guest save a hope to see Charlie come back alive. This is utterly uninspired film making, from the trite script to the cliched (if unintentionally humorous) portrayal of country folk as mumbling neanderthals; even Friel's determined perkiness falters before its doughy earnestness.

The Santa Clause 2 (U)

Running time 98 mins *

Still, it can't match The Santa Clause 2 for sexism and lumpen stupidity. According to the producers, they waited eight years because they didn't want to make a sequel for the sake of it; the thought of the script ideas thrown out in favour of this one is scary indeed. Santa, aka Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) discovers he must get married to keep his job, but while he's off wooing potential Mrs Clauses and trying half-heartedly to get to the root of his teenage son's rebelliousness, his toy stand-in gets a few ideas of its own. The reindeer are good fun, but otherwise this is uninventive tripe, unsure whether it's aimed at small children or teens and therefore unlikely to win the hearts of either.