Film reviews: The Proposal | Bruno Snipped | Antichrist | The Blues Brothers

Published on Friday 24 July 2009 13:38

(12A) ***

Sandra Bullock returns to sparkling form in Anne Fletcher's screwball romantic comedy, which proves that the path to true love can sometimes begin with some good old-fashioned blackmail.

With the triple whammy of Speed, While You Were Sleeping and A Time To Kill in the mid-1990s, Bullock was once the lady-in-waiting to Meg Ryan's crown as America's favourite girl next door.

However, a string of lacklustre releases in every conceivable genre - including a fluffy romantic comedy with Hugh Grant, supernatural shenanigans across space and time with Keanu Reeves and an abortive sequel to the hysterical Miss Congeniality - brought her back down to Earth with a bump.

Solid supporting roles in Paul Haggis's Oscar-winning Crash and the Truman Capote biopic Infamous offered rare glimmers of a resurgence, which is fully realised in The Proposal.

Essaying the boss from hell, Bullock plies her innate charm and impeccable comic timing to endear her character to us, even when she is engaged in shocking behaviour such as baiting a bird of prey with a helpless family pet.

On-screen chemistry with impossibly buff leading man Ryan Reynolds sizzles and threatens to melt the snowy Alaskan locales, including a hilarious centrepiece sequence of gratuitous nudity which sees the two stars fall on top of one another in their birthday suits.

In the hallowed corridors of Ruick & Hunt Publishing, New York book editor Margaret Tate (Bullock) is feared by one and all including her long-suffering assistant Andrew (Reynolds), who knows he will be the first person to feel her wrath if coffee isn't on her desk when she arrives.

The staff hate her, as does Andrew, but he suffers her mental abuse hoping that one day she might publish his debut novel and he can pursue his dream of becoming a world-famous writer.

In a shocking turn of events, Margaret is threatened with deportation to Canada when her visa expires.

In order to stay in the country, she forces Andrew to pose as her fiance and walk her down the aisle, with the understanding that they can get divorced a few months later when she has her citizenship, presuming they can fool the wily immigration officer (Denis O'Hare) assigned to their case.

As part of the ruse, she accompanies him home to Sitka, Alaska, for a family get-together with his parents (Mary Steenburgen and Craig T Nelson), grandmother (Betty White) and and old flame (Malin Akerman).

During the flight, Margaret grills her assistant on her personal details.

"What am I allergic to?" she snaps. "Pine-nuts and the full spectrum of human emotions," he replies tersely.

Seeing Andrew in his home surroundings, ice queen Margaret begins to thaw and the faux-mance kindles genuine attraction.

The Proposal is a scatological treat that hits more than it misses, despite some unnecessary comic interludes with Andrew's dotty grandma and unexotic dancer Ramone (Oscar Nunez).

Bullock takes Peter Chiarelli's screenplay by the scruff and wrings every giggle out of it with her pratfalls, then finds some tears too at the crucial moment.

Reynolds matches her every goof of the way, showing his sensitive side with an unconventional final declar-ation that plucks the heart-strings beautifully: "Three days ago, I loathed you. I used to dream about you getting hit by a cab . . ." It must be love.

DAMON SMITH

ALSO SHOWING

Bruno Snipped (15)

Sacha Baron Cohen dresses to impress and distress as his ultra-gay and flamboyant fashionista from Klagenfurt in Austria.

With cameras present to capture every strangled vowel, Bruno wreaks havoc in a series of carefully orchestrated situations, including appearing on a real-life talk show to discuss becoming the father of his first black baby and running amok on the catwalks of Milan. A re-edited version of the film, suitable for a 15 certificate, is released this week to draw in a younger teenage crowd. To achieve the new rating, a number of scenes have been excised entirely or trimmed. The rest of Larry Charles' film remains as hit and miss as the lewder and cruder 18 certificate version.

Antichrist (18)

With its explicit scenes of sexual intercourse and graphic depiction of genital mutilation, the new film from award-winning Danish director Lars von Trier is not for the squeamish or faint of heart.

A husband (Willem Dafoe) and his younger wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) are engaged in lovemaking, oblivious to the actions of their baby son, who is supposedly sleeping.

In a tour-de-force prologue shot in slow motion, the infant climbs out of his cot to the strains of an aria from Handel's first opera Rinaldo, opens the child safety gate and climbs up onto a table, eventually falling out of an open window to his death.

The devastated couple seek refuge in a remote woodland cabin where the spirits of the forest have a strange effect on the wife. As tensions between the couple escalate, the grief-stricken mother unleashes her fury upon her spouse.

The beauty of the opening sequence contrasts sharply with the events of the four chapters and epilogue, which may unsettle some audiences.

However, Antichrist is certainly not among the most shocking films of modern cinema nor is it one of von Trier's finest efforts. Antichrist is simply too ponderous to really make a serious impact, though it will undoubtedly linger in the memory.

The Blues Brothers (15)

Everybody needs somebody in John Landis' classic 1980 action comedy, based on characters created by actors John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd on the television series Saturday Night Live.

When Jake Blues (Belushi) is released from prison, he and brother Elwood (Aykroyd) visit the orphanage where they grew up and learn the building is under threat of closure due to non-payment of taxes. So they concoct a hare-brained scheme to raise the money by reuniting their old band and staging a concert. En route, they cross paths with a deranged bandleader (Charles Napier) and the cops, and a host of famous faces in cameo roles including James Brown, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin.

The plot unfolds at breakneck speed, reaching a crescendo with one of cinema's greatest car chases. The Blues Brothers is released in digital cinemas for a limited time.

COMING NEXT WEEK

Specially trained, genetically-modified guinea pigs save man-kind from extinction in the 3D action romp G-FORCE.

A criminal mastermind (John Travolta) holds a New York subway train hostage in the remake of THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123.

Will Ferrell takes on the might of Tyrannosaurus Rex in the family comedy LAND OF THE LOST.

And Audrey Tautou portrays the celebrated French fashion designer in the impeccably tailored biopic COCO BEFORE CHANEL.

UK FILM TOP-10

1 (-) Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince

2 (1) Bruno

3 (2) Ice Age 3: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs 3D

4 (3) Ice Age 3: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs 2D

5 (5) The Hangover

6 (4) Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen

7 (6) Public Enemies

8 (7) My Sister's Keeper

9 (-) Moon

10 (8) Year One