The relationship between a 25-year-old Parisian woman (Emmanuelle Beart), recently separated from her husband, and the septuagenarian former judge and businessman (Michel Serrault) she works for as a typist and editor is at the center of this masterful 1995 feature by French writer-director Claude Sautet, but what’s important here is less a matter of literal events than sexual and emotional undercurrents. Sautet (Cesar and Rosalie, Un coeur en hiver) is a septuagenarian himself, but there’s an admirable detachment and sense of balance in the way that he attends and responds to his title characters, not merely defining one through the eyes of the other. The results are seamless and profoundnovelistic in the best sense. With Jean-Hugues Anglade, Claire Nadeau, and Michael Lonsdale. (JR) Read more
Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a federal marshal dedicated to the witness protection programin this case he’s protecting Vanessa Williamsin an enjoyably paranoid kick-ass adventure romp (1996) with some giddily hyperbolic action moments. Charles Russell (The Mask, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors) directs a limited but serviceable script by Tony Puryear and Walon Green and puts costars James Caan, James Coburn, and Robert Pastorelli through predictable paces. Schwarzenegger and Williams are regarded as blocks of decor that occasionally emit dialogue when they’re not diving out of airplanes, fighting off alligators in Central Park, evading fancy weapons and explosions in Washington, D.C., and on the Baltimore docks, and carrying out elaborate impersonations to defeat the treasonous feds on their tail. A few of the set pieces are fussy or overly extended, but the rest is tolerable bone-crunching diversion. (JR) Read more
