Tag: Richard Dreyfuss

The Goodbye Girl (1977)

Some funny lines isn’t quite enough for this romantic comedy to work as well as it should

Director: Herbert Ross

Cast: Richard Dreyfuss (Elliot Garfield), Marsha Mason (Paula McFadden), Quinn Cummings (Lucy McFadden), Paul Benedict (Mark Bodine), Barbara Rhoades (Donna Douglas), Nicol Williamson (Oliver Fry)

Working as a performer sucks. There’s no money and who knows when the next job is round the corner? It’s even tougher when you are forever unlucky in love. That’s the case for semi-retired dancer Paula McFadden (Marsha Mason). She’s been jilted twice by actors who disappear for a big break somewhere else, leaving only a cursory apology behind. It makes being a single mother to precocious-but-vulnerable ten-year-old Lucy (Quinn Cummings) even harder. Harder again is that her recent awful boyfriend, as a parting gift, sublet their apartment without her knowledge to Elliot Garfield (Richard Dreyfuss), an actor as neurotic as Paula, arriving in New York for his big break. Paula refuses to leave her home and the two kick off a territorial feud, which settles into a truce and a flat share. But could it lead to anything else?

It probably won’t be a surprise to say yes it does, in this sharply written film from Neil Simon, crammed with fast-paced, theatrical, gag-filled dialogue which keeps the film’s pace up without really converting it into something real. The main problem with The Goodbye Girl is that it’s hard to believe in, or really care for, either of its two lead character. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say both of them would be incredibly hard work to live with. After all, they can frequently be rather trying just to watch. Simon makes them both brittle, neurotic, high-strung and prone to performative bursts of euphoria and rage. Both can swing on a six-pence between these. It’s probably meant to make them the perfect match, like a feuding Bogart (who Garfield impersonates at one point) and Bacall, but after a while just starts to wear you down. You want to give both of them a bit of a shake and say “pull yourself together!”

The ability to stick with the film revolves around how charming you find both performers. Here, Richard Dreyfuss has the definite advantage. Coming off a hot-streak that had seen almost every film he had made turn into a smash hit, Dreyfuss’ performance made him (at 29) the youngest winner of the Best Actor Oscar. A late replacement for a fired Robert De Niro (can you even begin to imagine De Niro’s deadpan intensity working here?), the part is a perfect match for Dreyfuss’ youthful, madcap energy. He seizes on the rat-a-tat dialogue, embraces Garfield’s zany love for New Agey thinking (yoga, guitar and sleeping “buffo”) and bounces around the film as likely to make monkey noises while euphorically chinning up on a door frame as he is to play sweet imagination games with young Lucy. He brings a lot of charm to a highly strung, difficult man, uncovering a lot of his essential decency and kindness.

He actually settles more into the difficult balance than Marsha Mason, the person (Simon’s wife) who the film was written for. Mason never really manages to find the softness and likability in this role. It’s not entirely her fault: while the point is that Paula is a woman with serious trust issues, the film never gives her a moment of calmness or reflection to open up about this. Instead, it takes a lazier route of having this turn her into an abrasive comic character, the sort of person who responds to a “morning after” with a furious expectation of betrayal. Mason never quite manages to find a softness or likeability under this prickly defensiveness. Interestingly, for all the project was written for her, she has few of the truly funny lines and is effectively the obstacle that must be fixed rather than having the more engaging role of charming disrupter.

To be honest there is not a lot of chemistry between the two. Simon so enjoys the competitive dialogue feuding over territory, bills and who will have what room and when, that he rather forgets to show them actually falling in love. In fact, he ends up relying on the age-old formula of a precocious, New York Times reading child being the bridge to bring them together. Quinn Cummings is rather good as the sort of kid who only exists in the movies, as adept with the witty retort as the adults. But between Elliot and Paula, the romance always feels a bit too inevitable rather than natural, the eventual thawing occurring swiftly rather than feeling it has developed naturally and gently.

It’s part of the slightly formulaic nature of The Goodbye Girl. It’s a highly safe film, with a very conventional romantic storyline, that bubbles along to a happy ending. You can feel the box-ticking from scene-after-scene, just as you can feel the inevitability of its happy ending. It’s also overly theatrical, feels constrained by its location and never quite light enough on its feet. There are a few too many stand-up rows around the apartment block (their poor neighbours) and Herbert Ross’ direction struggles as much as Simon’s script to give us a reason to really root for this couple.

There are though some decent digs at the working life in the arts. Paula, trying to get back into the dancing game, is hideously off-the-pace and takes a job as an enthusiastic glamour-girl flogging Japanese cars at trade show. Elliot is forced to fall back a doorman gig at a strip club. It’s a tough old trade, especially as Elliot’s big break in New York falls apart after he is forced by a pretentious, talentless director to perform Richard III as a limp-wristed, 1970s stereotype of a gay man, mincing around and lisping his lines to the ridicule and disgust of audiences and critics. This comic highlight feels a little awkward now (the joke is the stereotyped gay behaviour, rather than the appalling idea, making it’s a little uncomfortable to watch at times, rather as if Elliot was being made to play it in black face).

The Goodbye Girl just isn’t quite charming or likeable enough and its characters are never people we really end up warming to or rooting for. Its sharp dialogue ends up making them feel less like real people and more like theatrical characters, bouncing off each other for effect. Dreyfuss comes off best here, but Ross’ direction is uninspired, its romantic coupling never really convincing and it tends to rather overstay its welcome.

The American President (1995)

The buck stops with Michael Douglas in Aaron Sorkin’s dress rehearsal for TV, The American President

Director: Rob Reiner

Cast: Michael Douglas (President Andrew Shepherd), Annette Bening (Sydney Ellen Wade), Martin Sheen (AJ MacInerney), Michael J Fox (Lewis Rothschild), Richard Dreyfuss (Seantor Bob Rumson), David Paymer (Leon Kodak), Samantha Mathis (Janie Basdin), John Mahoney (Leo Solomon), Anna Deavere Smith (Robin McCall), Nina Siemaszko (Beth Wade), Wendie Malick (Susan Sloan), Shawna Waldron (Lucy Shepherd), Anne Haney (Mrs Chapil)

Taken solely on its own merits, The American President is a charming, witty romantic comedy which makes some shrewd (liberal-tinged) comments about American politics. But no-one is ever going to take The American President on its own merits. Because this Sorkin-scripted bundle of joy is so clearly a dry-run for The West Wing, it’s hard to watch it without spotting the roots of it here: everything from shared characters to scraps of dialogue. Perhaps only M*A*S*H stands with this film as so dwarfed by its spin-off.

President Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas) is a widower, raising his daughter Lucy (Shawna Waldron). Heading into the third year of his first term, he’s got a domestic agenda dominated by his new crime bill (although Shepherd won’t risk increasing gun controls). Charming, articulate and passionate – he’s also lonely. But his life changes when he falls for environmental lobbyist Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening), their courtship seeing them fumble through “boy-meets-girl” when boy just happens to be the most powerful man in the world. Will the President’s popularity survive him dating someone outspoken and passionate? Or will it be a tool for his Republican rival Senator Bob Rumson (Richard Dreyfuss) to hit him on everything from family values to patriotism?

It’s impossible not to enjoy The American President. Sorkin’s playful, articulate and smart dialogue is of course an absolute triumph. The cast are extremely well-chosen. Few actors look as damn Presidential as Michael Douglas, not to mention carrying with them an air of impassioned authority and commanding bonhomie. Annette Bening is spot-on as exactly the sort of feisty and intelligent woman that would attract a liberal minded President, but turn off pundits and regular people. Martin Sheen was obviously so comfortable with Sorkin’s dialogue style that promotion to the President seemed inevitable (seriously it’s very odd watching the film and seeing Sheen not being treated like the President!). Michael J Fox’s entire career was revitalised by Sorkin tapping into the frantic, fast-paced comic energy that is the actor’s forte.

Rob Reiner’s direction is fresh, relaxed and perfectly complements the dialogue. We get a few West Wing style walk-and-talks (does this make Reiner the inventor of it?). The film superbly balances romantic comedy with serious political discussion on military intervention and proportional response (“the least Presidential thing I do”), the environment and gun control. It also gets a neat idea of the shady, and dirty, business of generating votes in the House – and the deals that need to be done to secure legislation. Reiner gets great stuff from the actors (Sorkin didn’t question his casting, since so many of them ended up in The West Wing) and keeps the momentum up beautifully.

The film has a lovely Capra-esque feel to it. Sorkin is even witty enough to lean on this by having Sydney discuss Capra openly with a White House security guard – also a lovely moment to establish Sydney’s genuineness and openness, as compared to the jaded I-don’t-care attitude of her colleague. There is a real feel in it – and of course this optimism carries across to The West Wing – that good people in the right place can change the world. That decency and compassion can trump (so to speak) the cynicism of Washington insiders. (The idea appeals to everyone – what is Donald Trump but a nightmare version of a plain-speaking man in Washington who says what he thinks?).

Balanced with some lovely comedy, it works extremely well. Along with the debate, Sorkin has a great feeling for the absurdity of the Leader of the Free World trying to work out how he can behave like a regular Joe and ask a girl out on a date. Simple ideas, from sending flowers to the etiquette of having someone stay over, are laced with difficulties. The film gets a wonderful sense of how the public eye can unjustly tear people apart – all drummed up by Dreyfuss’ eminently hissable villain.

There is some great chemistry between Douglas and Bening. Douglas is at possibly his most charming and authoritative here, effortlessly selling the lightness but also the powerfully effective speeches Sorkin crafts for him (his final press conference speech that effectively closes the film is a barnstormer). Bening, as well as being perfectly cast, walks a neat line between serious professional and girlish crush, that comes across extremely well.

It’s hard though, for all the film’s romantic charm, not to look at it through the filter of The West Wing. It’s both a first pass, and a historical curiosity. Sorkin recycled many of the ideas touched upon here (most noticeably Sheen’s President would spend an entire episode discussing proportional responses) and also expanded several characters. Douglas’ teacher turned President, widely read and with a liberal outlook, is a clear forerunner of Bartlett. Sheen himself plays a character who is all but Leo. Fox plays a character combining elements of Josh and Toby. Anna Deavere Smith is a CJ without those distinctive touches Allison Janney bought to the role. Names, plot developments, concepts are all recycled. Stylistic flourishes in the writing match.

The American President isn’t as good as The West Wing of course – few things are. But as a boiled down, Hollywood version with a romantic twist, it’s still pretty damn good.

Jaws (1975)

Shaw, Scheider and Dreyfuss take on the shark in Jaws

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Roy Scheider (Martin Brody), Robert Shaw (Quint), Richard Dreyfuss (Martin Hooper), Lorraine Gray (Ellen Brody), Murray Hamilton (Mayor Vaughhn), Carl Gottlieb (Meadows)

Necessity can be the mother of invention. Perhaps no film demonstrates this better than Spielberg’s sensational smash-hit Jaws. If “Bruce” the animatronic shark had not been so unreliable and unconvincing would the film have become such a big hit? If Spielberg had been able to show a convincing shark, would he have dropped the suggestiveness and unseen terror – not to mention the famous creeping dread of John Williams’ score – and gone for more traditional scares? We just don’t know – but he was certainly forced to be as inventive as possible and it worked a treat.

A quiet community on Amity Island suddenly finds itself falling victim to a terrifying series of attacks from a shark. As people panic – and the death toll rises – only local police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) seems to want to close the beaches and declare an emergency (after all we can’t let the simple matter of a few kids ripped to shreds by the finned killer disrupt the holiday season). But when things eventually go too far on the first day of holiday season, Brody finally gets the go ahead to head to sea and take on the shark himself. Only problem is Brody has a fear of water and no idea how to hunt a shark. Just as well he’s teaming up with Marine Biologist Martin Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and grizzled old sea-dog and shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw) for the mission. Though with this size of this sucker, they may need a bigger boat…

Spielberg’s film largely works so damn well because it pushes suggestion over what we actually see. The shark doesn’t appear on screen for well over an hour. Instead, we see only movement of the water, POV shots of the shark and the flailing terror of the victims, dragged hither and yon by the unseen opponent. Spielberg very generously – and perhaps accurately – attributed at least half of the film’s success to John William’s iconic score. The seemingly simple, but devilishly intoxicating music perfectly captures feelings of mounting dread and tension. It’s possibly the most instantly recognisable score in film history, and works an absolute treat to get across the terror.

Because that is what the film is all about. There is a reason why the tag line for the first sequel was “Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water”. The film plays on the creeping concern with not knowing what is underneath the still surface of the waters. And the possibility that a monster lurks there ready to destroy us, taps into all those fundamental child-like terrors we have of monsters under the bed. The things we can’t see are terrifying. Spielberg taps into this brilliantly, with the frothing of water or the shark’s movement being substituted by other things – either a part of a pier being dragged in its wake, or the barrels that Quint attaches to it with harpoons to track its movement. A large part of the second half of the film revolves around Quint’s ship being chased by floating barrels – and it works never-the-less.

This sense of terror that the film captures so well – as well as the moments of shock of carefully chosen few beats of gore – is a surprise when you consider that Spielberg today is seen as a more sentimental, family-friendly director. But on this film, he was a young buck still out of the gate – this was only his second theatrical film. Spielberg wasn’t even first choice – although his TV movie Duel, which sees a driver chased by a giant truck, the driver of which remains unseen, was the perfect calling card. When he got on board, he made what he himself describes as a series of rookie mistakes, not least insisting on shooting at sea rather than in a tank or just off the coast. Not to mention the multiple delays from the shark. Despite the film’s nomination for Best Picture (and the millions it earned at the box office), Spielberg was denied an Oscar nod as suspicions abounded that the oft-delayed, over-budget film was “saved” in the editing suite.

While the film is superbly edited – again that creeping power of suggestion and the way the film leaves much to the viewer’s imagination – it’s much easier now to accept Jawswas Spielberg’s first real flexing of his cinematic muscle. The decision to film at sea – while causing no end of problems for the crew – brilliantly allows for wide shot vistas that creates a real sense of isolation for the boat. It constantly looks small, rattled and fragile in a massive environment, making it feel like even more of a mismatch against the size of the shark. Throw in Spielberg’s brilliance at building tension, and you get a film that seizes you by the scruff of the neck and doesn’t let go. He’s a master here and the film has more than enough famous shots – including the famous reverse zoom on Scheider as he realises the shark is in the water – to show he was just warming up.

It also helps that the film front-and-centres character and good writing alongside all the thrills. Part of the benefit of the films continued delays is that the original script was constantly tinkered and improved by Carl Gottleib from Benchley’s original. Others were bought in to work on it – most famously John Milius who took a redraft pass at Quint’s famous Indianapolis speech, which Robert Shaw himself then rewrote. What we end up with is a script with three well-drawn – and distinctively different but complementary – characters and plenty of sharp lines.

The three stars fill these roles with aplomb. Scheider gracefully accepts the quieter role, but carries the film with an unshowy ease as an everyday hero, eventually pushed to his limits. Dreyfuss gets the more plucky, overtly comic role as the expert biologist and plucky young gun, with a sharp wit and a chippy younger man’s perspective. Shaw meanwhile gets some of the films best scenes as a grizzled seadog with no time for the kids and a dangerous obsession for proving he’s right. The three actors play off each other extremely well, despite the troubles on set (which Shaw was usually at the heart of, from his drinking, to his clashes with Dreyfuss, to his constant flying back to Canada at any opportunity for tax reasons).

But these three actors work brilliantly together, and the film’s tense brilliance still makes it a compelling watch today. And yes, Spielberg was right – that Williams score does play a huge part in its success. Try imagining what you are seeing in the film without the score playing over it? Necessity is the mother of invention.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

We Are Not Alone in Spielberg’s optimistic sci-fi classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Richard Dreyfuss (Roy Neary), François Truffaut (Claude Lacombe), Teri Garr (Ronnie Neary), Melinda Dillon (Jillian Guiler), Bob Balaban (David Laughlin), J. Patrick MacNamara (Project Leader), Josef Summer (Larry Butler), Robert Blossom (Farmer), Lance Henriksen (Robert)

If you had any doubt that Spielberg in his prime was a fundamentally optimistic filmmaker, then sit down and check out this warm, extremely personal, tale of mankind encountering aliens. It’s one of the very few films that Spielberg also wrote the script for, and every frame is full of his trademark yearning love of the unknown and the childish sense of adventure in us all. In an era where you couldn’t move for depressingly grey films about the corruption of America, Close Encounters is all about dreams and hope.

Throughout mid-West America in the present day, strange crafts covered in lights are seen in the skies by ordinary people like repairman Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss). The American Government is very aware of the presence of aliens – recently in the Mojave desert, plans and ships missing since the 1940s have recently reappeared in perfect condition. Led by their UFO expert Claude Lacombe (François Truffaut), the government does its best to control access to, and knowledge of, the aliens. However, Roy Neary and hundreds like him are unable to shake obsessive visions of a strange landmark they seem drawn to create in art. While Neary’s wife Ronnie (Teri Garr) is unable to understand his obsessions, Neary finds a kindred spirit in Jillian Guiler (Melinda Dillon), whose young son has been taken by the aliens.

Spielberg has spoken about how, if he could take one image from one of his films to summarise his career, he would choose the one of young Barry Guiler opening the door to reveal an outside flooded with alien light. This also perfectly sums up the movie – a young, optimistic, innocent and instinctive reaction to something unknown but strangely wonderful. If that’s not Spielberg’s reaction – particularly at the start of his career – to the new and unusual I don’t know what is. The shot captures all these feelings, as well as being incredibly arresting and beautiful in itself. It places the viewer at the doorway (if you’ll excuse the pun) of hope and new possibilities in the future.

But then that is the whole film, a gentle exploration of what it might mean to discover we were not alone, especially if our alien visitors were unknowable but essentially benign. Plot-wise, very little happens. The aliens come, we puzzle out their message, the aliens come back. The last 30 minutes of the film are effectively an awe-inspiring light display as the aliens arrive. We learn nothing at all about what they want, what they are doing or what they wish to tell us. Instead it’s left entirely up to our own imaginations, and the magic is in finding our horizons broadened. Like Spielberg, the film is staring up at the sky and dreaming about the future.

And this all works extremely well. The cynicism of the modern age makes you want to knock Close Encounters, more than any other film in Spielberg’s cannon. You want to look at it like a cynical grown-up, to point out its romantic optimism and its gentle humanitarianism. You want to say that it’s unlikely that a government official with such control as Lacombe would be such a warm and wryly amused figure. You want to say that the army would probably be much more defensive in its attitude to the aliens. But the film is so swept up in its joyful discovery that you don’t mind.

Spielberg’s brilliance as a visual stylist here also works massively in the film’s favour. The striking images of the aliens travelling through the countryside or soaring through the skies are mixed with Spielberg’s mastery of the small scale and personal. He’ll compare the simple and homespun with moments of pure wonder and majesty.

He can also brilliantly mix tension, wonder and fear. The scenes with the aliens intruding in the Guiler home, and later trying seemingly every entrance to the house to try and take Barry with them, are only a few degrees away from genuine horror. Watching the awe-inspiring arrival of the aliens, and their light show around a government facility in the wilderness, it’s hard know not to see how close this is in style, filming and design to the horrifying face-melting conclusion of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

All this optimism and yearning finds its expression in Richard Dreyfuss’ lead performance as Roy Neary. A deliberately average working man, with no desire to rock the boat, Neary is clearly a dreamer turned conformer, a man who still has a childish fascination with models, toy trains and Disney films. Perhaps this is why the aliens have a bigger effect on him than anyone else – it’s a chance for him to discover the sense of wonder and adventure you think he has probably left behind in adulthood. Dreyfuss sells playing a character who is essentially obsessive, manically building a model of the alien landing site, which involves trashing his house and scaring away his wife and kids.

Ah yes the wife and kids. If there is a problem with the film (and even Spielberg has acknowledged this) it’s that it’s very much a young man’s film. Neary’s wife and children are an encumbrance. Teri Garr, in a thankless role, is a nagging shrew who wants her husband (reasonably enough) to grow up and focus on supporting his family. His kids lack understanding or interest in their father. When they leave Neary, he seems (to be honest) not really that concerned – and their absence never troubles him again from that point. While I get Spielberg is focusing on the dreamer as a grown man, casting wife and children as problems that need to be overcome rather than people for whom he has considerable responsibility is something it’s harder to forgive the older you get. It’s easy to see Neary as more than a bit selfish.

Spielberg’s more conservative view of women and especially mother’s comes out in Jillian Guiler’s fierce maternal love for her child – needless to say she’s not fussed about the aliens, only in finding Barry. The kidnapping of Barry – harmless as it might be – is a sort of child-loss horror that feels even more unsettling today with our fears of what might happen to our children. But Dillon gives a good performance as the film’s mother figure, and does at least have the most emotionally true plotline, even if the film doesn’t want to touch the dark implications of her son’s kidnapping.

But this is a film about hope and dreaming, and when it focuses on that it does extraordinarily well. It’s a marvellous and visionary film, full of arresting and beautiful images. Truffaut, very good as the French UFO expert, I’m sure would have loved the film’s magical, old-school, hopeful Hollywood style. Spielberg is a clever and skilled director, with plenty of heart – even if he still at this point didn’t perhaps understand parenthood (something he himself has acknowledged) – and he crafted in Close Encounters a very personal film of an adult who still clings to childhood, who wants to look up at the skies and dream.

Poseidon (2006)

Our characters (such as they are) struggle from cliche to cliche in Poseidon

Director: Wolfgang Peterson

Cast: Josh Lucas (Dylan Johns), Kurt Russell (Robert Ramsey), Jacinda Barrett (Maggie James), Richard Dreyfuss (Richard Nelson), Emmy Rossum (Jennifer Ramsey), Mike Vogel (Chris Saunders), Mia Maestro (Elena Morales), Kevin Dillon (Lucky Larry), Freddy Rodriguez (Marco Valentin), Andre Braugher (Captain Michael Bradford)

In the 1970s the big tent-pole movies were all disaster films. They were the superhero films of their day. They also followed a very clear formula: big stars, big man-made structures, big crashing natural forces sweeping away man’s pride. Lots of death and tear jerking, with sub-plots for each character that could have been pulled out of an episode of EastEnders.

Poseidon is a remake of sorts of The Poseidon Adventure – but with plot and characters changed (not for the better). There is a ship called the Poseidon. It’s hit by a tsunami. It gets overturned, trapping the survivors at the top (now the bottom) of the ship. While most wait to be rescued, our heroes decide to climb down (now up) the ship to the hull to escape. Of course, not all of them will make it!

You notice I didn’t mention any characters there. That’s because what this film laughably calls its characters are so crudely drawn, they barely qualify as human beings, let alone characters. They exist purely to get into trouble. We spend only the most rudimentary time getting to know them before they (and their loosely defined characteristics) start dropping like flies. This is an anti-actor film – literally anyone off the street could play these parts, so disinterested is the film in them.

So we’ve got Kurt Russell as an over-protective father and Emmy Rossum as his semi-rebellious daughter. Will they grow closer together over the film? You betcha. Will Russell learn to accept the place his daughter’s boyfriend has in her life? Of course. Will “I work better alone” professional gambler Josh Lucas learn that he needs other people? Nope. Just kidding of course he does. Will suicidal architect Richard Dreyfuss discover a new love of life? See where I’m going?

In fact it’s so completely predictable you can take a pretty good guess who will make it and who won’t based solely on the opening few minutes. Some of its decisions lack any form of sensitivity. Any character from a remotely racial minority? Let’s just say that their chances are not good (Dreyfuss needs to actually kick Rodriguez’s waiter down a shaft so he doesn’t drag the others down – I thought at first “there’ll be consequences to that” – but nope it’s never mentioned again). Anyway, all the surviving characters are loaded white guys. One of them does need to make “the ultimate sacrifice” to save the others but, again, their identity can be pretty much worked out in the opening minutes. The most unpleasant character in the film? Yup he dies.

In fact you watch the film and feel sorry for the actors. Not only are the characters wafer-thin, but they spend so much time silently underwater or getting soaked, they look like they are suffering a lot for nothing. The focus is entirely on the mechanical progression from set-piece to set-piece, all of which stink of familiarity. So we get the long swim under water (of course someone gets trapped!), the impassable ravine that needs crossing (of course someone is stuck on the other side), the claustrophobic tunnel (of course one of the characters has claustrophobia). There is even a bit where the terminally stupid fucking kid wanders off and needs to be rescued. Is there anything new in this? It’s a re-tread of every disaster film ever.

Wolfgang Peterson directs all this with a professional detachment and disinterest that makes you want to cry that he once made Das Boot. If there is one thing he knows, it’s shooting confined spaces (see not only Das Boot but also Air Force One) and he makes the onslaught of water look pretty good. But this is such a piece of hack work, you despair that he clearly needed the money. The special effects are pretty good I guess (although the CGI ship looks totally dated), but it’s a staid, dead, predictable film.

It only really works in an “it passed the time watching it in two chunks over a couple of breakfasts” way. Because there is literally nothing new, interesting, unique, intelligent, imaginative, dynamic or individual about it, it passes in front of your eyes like a bland wall-paper. Compared to the classic disaster films of the 1970s it’s not fit to lace their explosions. Totally empty, unchallenging rubbish.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1990)

Tim Roth and Gary Oldman are our bewildered heroes in Stoppard’s classic play

Director: Tom Stoppard

Cast: Tim Roth (Guildenstern), Gary Oldman (Rosencrantz), Richard Dreyfuss (Player King), Iain Glen (Hamlet), Ian Richardson (Polonius), Joanna Miles (Gertrude), Donald Sumpter (Claudius)

The original production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead made Tom Stoppard a sensation overnight. It’s a dazzling high-wire act of theatrical and artistic invention that deconstructs both Hamletand the nature of theatre itself.

The events of Hamlet are re-told from the mis-understood perceptions of Rosencrantz (Gary Oldman) and Guildenstern (Tim Roth). Their time is spent in discussions about life and struggling to understand their role in both. Throughout, they are prodded towards understanding they are just plot devices by the Player King (Richard Dreyfuss). This film essentially replicates large chunks of the play, with a few humorous editions and revisions and drops it from its theatrical home onto the big screen.

The acting from Roth and Oldman is terrific. The friendship between the actors really comes across in their chemistry with each other, and both are clearly relishing the script. The characters are a brilliant contrast: Roth’s Guildenstern is the bossy, confident driving force who is not as intelligent or incisive as he thinks he is; Oldman’s Rosencrantz is a sweet, passive savant-like follower with flashes of insight he isn’t quite capable of understanding. Both have excellent comic timing, Oldman in particular making his character completely endearing. They also have an affinity with the language that makes the more reflective passages highly engaging. Even if the film isn’t perfect, you should watch it for these two performances – cast against type (neither of them is thought of as a comic actor, or associated with either Shakespeare or scripts like this) both actors are sensational, surely one of the best pairings for any production.

The rest of the cast is also strong. Richard Dreyfuss (a late addition) is witty, larger than life and also subtly sinister as the Player King. Some of the “clips” of Hamlet we see could have made an excellent production, with Glen, Richardson, Sumpter and Miles all giving very strong performances.

Tom Stoppard directed the film at least partly because he felt if he didn’t no-one would. Clearly his experience with actors throughout a lifetime has really paid off, as judging from the excellent performances. What he doesn’t quite have is either a true sense of filmic pace or a real ease with using the camera. Scenes work individually, but the play feels like a series of sketches. So the scenes with the coin tossing, or the questions game (a link below), or the sequences where the players recreate the plot of Hamlet work very well. But the actual plot (such as it is) of the play doesn’t always quite hold the attention – it’s slow paced and the overall impact never equals the sum of those parts.

The attempts to open the play out also don’t really work. The actors move from location to location in Prague castle and some scenes are shot outside, but it feels like just moving stuff from inside a theatre to outside. Other than that it’s basically a staging of the play exact – without really changing or replacing the meta-theatrical devices of the play with filmic contrasts, it feels much more like the filming of a stage production. Saying that, the changes Stoppard made to the script got a mixed reception, but many of them work quite well: in particular a running joke of Rosencrantz accidentally discovering or inventing concepts as wide ranging as the hamburger and Newtonian physics (only to have these discoveries dismissed or ignored by the impatient Guildenstern) frequently raise a smile.

So it’s a stagy and slightly slow piece with some wonderful scenes but overall can outstay its welcome. It’s very clever of course, but that cleverness is so tightly linked to the nature of theatre that its impact can never be the same in another medium. But it has some wonderful scenes and two brilliant performances in the title roles. If you have any interest in theatre or Shakespeare, or admire either of the two leads, watch it. But maybe take an interval.