guyfs

Now and then a film comes along which is praised to the skies but which, when you see it, is just so dreadful that you wonder whether you are mad and the rest of the world is sane, or vice versa.

This is a "comedy" which did not raise a single laugh in the cinema in which I saw it. The script is pathetic. Jack Nicholson over-acts dramatically as the central character, and my reaction to Helen Hunt was to hope that she spent as little time on screen as possible. In her TV role as an ugly, neurotic, abrasive wife she was superb. Seeing her in this film, you suddenly realise she probably wasn't acting. Remember the days when actresses looked like Sophia Loren, Doris Day, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, etc? And comedies were genuinely funny and acted by the likes of Cary Grant? Whatever has happened to the American movie?

I'd agree with another reviewer on this site that this is a great film, although I would not go so far as to suggest (as he does) that it's the best film ever made. It would definitely be in my top twenty, but maybe not in my top ten. Whichever way you dice it, though, this is a superbly crafted film, well written, well directed and well acted.

Thank heavens that there are people out there like these brothers who are prepared to make intelligent, creative, thought-provoking films as opposed to the formulaic rubbish coming out of the big studios. Apart from this film, I would also commend "Fargo", "Barton Fink" and "The Hudsucker Proxy" (but see the Cary Grant version of "The Front Page" first, or you won't appreciate a great take-off by a great actress).

A personal favourite of mine, but sadly not available on either video or DVD. Two great British actors of the golden age, James Mason (he of the wonderful voice) and John Mills (who virtually won the Second World War single handed) work wonderfully together. Mills is the working boy made good, Mason his former employer's son. Mills finds himself temporarily in command of Mason towards the end of the war and sets in train a course of events which leads to them meeting again after the war in Tahiti. Admire their actors craft, their comic timing, the under-stated nuances of class warfare. A wonderful little gem of a film.