All articles by Andy Bailey
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Reviews
After The Sunset
Dir: Brett Ratner. 2004.US. 93mins.Brett Ratner's capercomedy After The Sunset is a plodding, lifeless affair set on a Bahamasresort island that aspires to the level of To Catch A Thief but barelymusters the cultivated glitz of star Pierce Brosnan's Thomas Crown Affairremake.Instead it serves up anexotic Caribbean locale and two ...
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Reviews
Exorcist: The Beginning
Dir: RennyHarlin. 2004. USA. 114mins.A thunderousassault of visual and aural effects, including digitally rendered hyenas androiling sandstorms straight out of The Mummy, the long-gestating Exorcist:The Beginning is a colossal studio misfire that is less unprecedented forits erratic production history than for its capacity to rival notorious fiasco ExorcistII: The Heretic ...
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Reviews
Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
Dir: Danny Leiner.USA 2004. 87 min.There's something sweet, almost childlike about a filmthat equates freedom and the American dream with a fast-food hamburger. But inthe puerile stoner buddy comedy Harold& Kumar Go To White Castle, a sort of melting-pot After Hours for the multiplex set that will likely divide audiencesin ...
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Reviews
I, Robot
Dir: Alex Proyas.2004. USA.Will Smithreturns to what he does best - kicking ass in summer popcorn movies- in the high-tech thriller I, Robot, a workmanlike sci-fi/action hybrid from dystopiandarling Alex Proyas that fuses the burgeoning artificial intelligence industrywith homeland security concerns, proposing a nightmarish scenario ofenlightened robots running amok through ...
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Reviews
The Clearing
Dir: Pieter Jan Brugge.2004. US. 91mins.Robert Redford returns to the big screenseveral months after his brutal vilification in the pages of Peter Biskind's Down And Dirty Pictures as an enemy ofindependent film - with, of all things, a small, independent-style film forthinking adults, albeit one financed and distributed by the ...
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Reviews
The Stepford Wives
Dir: Frank Oz. US. 2004.93mins.The third filmedadaptation of the Ira Levin thriller about suburban fembots on the rampage in afrosting-coated, master-planned community has been given an extreme makeoverredolent of Death Becomes Her, She-Devil and The Witches OfEastwick, forgettable female-driven star vehicles with limited substanceand depth, too many garish special effects ...
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Reviews
Walking Tall
Dir: Kevin Bray. 2004. US. 86mins.Former wrestler turned action hero The Rock stars in this updated and reconstituted revenge saga based on the true story of Sheriff Buford Pusser, whose vigilante exploits in a small Tennessee town set the stage for the 1970's trilogy of 'hickspolitation' films on which this ...
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Reviews
Secret Window
Dir: David Koepp. US. 2004.Johnny Depp is beloved among moviegoers for his outrageous screen characters whose exaggerated physical attributes have included wigs, facial tics and garish attire. In the tepid psychodrama Secret Window, based on a novella by Stephen King, Depp dons a frayed bath robe, big spectacles and a ...
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Reviews
The Reckoning
Dir: Paul McGuigan. UK. 2001. 110mins.Paul Bettany's penchant for diverse roles spanning the eras continues in the intriguing but lethargic medieval murder mystery The Reckoning, a long finished drama shot in 2001, even before Bettany made his leap into Hollywood with A Beautiful Mind.This time Bettany is a fugitive priest ...
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Reviews
Hidalgo
Dir: Joe Johnston. US. 2003. 135mins.After getting bumped last year from Disney's fall slate, reportedly due to an overabundance of horse movies, the family-targeted action-adventure Western Hidalgo, starring Viggo Mortensen in his first post-Aragorn turn, arrives amid press reports questioning the authenticity of the film's real-life protagonist, one-time cowboy and ...