Neil Jordan reported that he never lost more sleep over the making of a film than he did with this one; I can’t think of anything that helped me catch up on my sleep more. An epic about the Irish patriot (Liam Neeson) during the last years of his life (1916-’22), it clearly represents a lot of thought on Jordan’s part, yet it’s dramatic and cinematic sludge. With Julia Roberts, Aidan Quinn, Alan Rickman, and Stephen Rea. It won prizes for best film and best actor (Neeson) at the Venice film festival. (JR) Read more
A surprisingly effective action-adventure (1996) set in east Africa in 1896, about a couple of man-eating lions on a rampage that claimed more than 130 victims. Val Kilmer stars as an engineer and bridge builder who joins forces with a famous big-game hunter (Michael Douglas) to catch and kill the lions, which are preventing the engineer from making his deadline. The script is by William Goldman, the direction by Stephen Hopkins, and the cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond. Part of what makes this work so well is the mythicizing of the lions, rather as the leopard was in Jacques Tourneur’s The Leopard Man. This is generally better in the broad sweep of its storytelling than in the jumble of flash cuts depicting the lion attacks, though the final action sequence makes up for a lot of the earlier clunkiness. With Brian McCardie, John Kani, Tom Wilkinson, and Emily Mortimer. (JR) Read more
