PRETTY people doing pretty awful things to each other is the principal selling point of this formulaic rom-com, as Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz find themselves forced to give marriage a shot after mistakenly getting hitched in Vegas, then winnin
g $3 million on the slots. Strangers on a bender when they meet, Kutcher and Diaz are sentenced to "six months hard marriage" by a judge who freezes their disputed winnings in an effort to make them take seriously the vows they entered into so drunkenly. Instead, in an effort to force the other to concede defeat and bail on both the marriage and the money, each embarks on a course of devious behaviour involving urinating in sinks, spiking smoothies with pep pills, cosying up to the in-laws and putting temptation into one another's paths.
Rom-com conventions dictate that we shouldn't bet against their contempt giving way to attraction, nor gamble against a happy-ever-after ending. Unfortunately, the film doesn't have the guts to bet on the power of love winning out and so even allows them to keep the money. Some endorsement of modern romance, eh?
WHERE IN THE WORLD IS OSAMA BIN LADEN? (12A) ****
DIRECTED BY: MORGAN SPURLOCKIT WILL come as no surprise to learn that this documentary doesn't provide an answer to the question its title poses. Instead, Super Size Me's Morgan Spurlock fine-tunes his Michael Moore schtick in an effort to earn enough to support his new baby. Spurlock's spurious motivation for embarking on this travelogue is that his girlfriend is knocked-up, so he spends the duration of her pregnancy making the world a safer place by trying to find its most wanted man. Well, that's one way to avoid antenatal classes.
Adopting a position of faux-naïvete, we see Spurlock hit the history books and engage in a crash-course of terrorist survival training before travelling to Egypt, Morocco, Afghanistan, Palestine and Pakistan, where he mixes comic stunts (randomly asking people where Osama is, calling every bin Laden in the phone book, having a shot of a rocket launcher) with sincere attempts to connect with those he meets. Unfortunately, the crass video-game animation used to simplify the issues trivialises his more serious points and too often his genuine cry-from-the-heart is muffled by glib jokes.
HONEYDRIPPER (15) ****
DIRECTED BY: JOHN SAYLES
STARRING: DANNY GLOVER, GARY CLARK JR, CHARLES S DUTTONFOR his 16th film as writer-director, indie pioneer John Sayles turns his attention to the birth of rock'n'roll with a thoughtful, well-crafted story that explores how community issues, race and other forms of music fed into this seismic event. It's set in the small town of Harmony, Alabama, and Danny Glover stars as Tyrone Purvis, proprietor of the nearly defunct Honeydripper Lounge, who attempts to save his ailing business by hiring a young drifter by the name of Sonny (Gary Clark Jr) to impersonate famous bluesman, Guitar Sam. It's a simple enough plan, complicated by economic hardship and family strife. Add to that the fact that Sonny's guitar is not a traditional acoustic, but a roughshod piece of homemade kit that needs plugged in, and the scene is set for a make-or-break show.
Smartly avoiding pinpointing the exact moment rock'n'roll came into existence, Sayles shows instead how the emergence of the electric guitar was a development that nudged intersecting styles in a new direction. He gets the best out of his cast too, and though it's sometimes a little rambling, the final jam session brings it home in style.
CASHBACK (15) ***
DIRECTED BY: SEAN ELLIS
STARRING: SEAN BIGGERSTAFF, EMILIA FOX, EXPANDED from his Oscar-nominated short film of the same name, writer-director Sean Ellis's debut feature makes for a viewing experience split between two distinct levels. On one, it's an artfully eroticised romantic fantasy about Ben (Sean Biggerstaff), an insomniac art student traumatised by a recent break-up. Working night shifts in Sainsbury's to turn his extra waking hours into cash, he develops a strategy to get through the boredom: he imagines he can freeze time, a power he uses to explore the beauty of the female form. That's the film's cue to have Ben drift through the isles disrobing females for still-life studies – a plot development that ups the flesh content, but is less prurient than it sounds, thanks to Biggerstaff's muted, sensitive performance, which taps into Ben's artistic sensibility in a way that feels truthful rather than pretentious, and makes his burgeoning relationship with check-out girl Sharon (Emilia Fox) more affecting.
Sadly, this novel idea is padded out with material that veers into naff, moronic Brit-com territory as Ellis devotes far too much attention to the antics of Ben's idiotic co-workers.
The full article contains 825 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
