virchow

No premise is silly enough for Hollywood. How about this one?: God and the devil use disguised angels and demons as pawns in an eternal stalemate on earth, but a handful of people can actually see them. Like our hero, John Constantine (Keanu Reeves). Constantine is some sort of Phil Marlowe of the occult, dressed like a Man in Black (let's face it, demons are probably just another species of aliens).

As so often before, Reeves' acting is as expressive as a concrete wall, but this time he has an excuse: His character is based on a comic book hero. Still, his whole performance screams: "Give me back my coat and shades from The Matrix!" Constantine, a one-time suicide victim, is offered a chance to find redemption as certain sinister powers are trying to upset the "balance" by bringing the Son of Satan into the world. Beelzebub jr. - unsurprisingly - chooses Rachel Weisz to hatch him but his decision is not just based on good taste, there aren't actually many other women on the cast-list of this piece of mind-boggling nonsense. Except, of course, the divine Tilda Swinton, who appears as the archangel Gabriel - why not Gabrielle, one is inclined to ask - just in time for the show-down.

Constantine, Gabriel and Satan (gleefully played by Peter Stormare, Milton already new that the devil is so much more interesting a character than god) fight it out over Rachel Weisz's body in a sequence of actually quite beautiful shots involving a swimming-pool and lots of broken glass.

Still, the only way in which this movie makes you scared of eternal damnation is that hell must be like watching this kind of trash over and over for aeons and aeons.

Ah, the characters: David Niven as a British Officer/Master thief, played with his usual ironic assurance and poise, Eli Wallach as a frantic and choleric mafioso (he is a contender for Louis des Funés as the most explosive screen presence ever) and the delicious duo of Belmondo as an ambitious and inventive but somewhat hapless small time crook with Bourvil as his more cautious straight man and partner in crime.

A movie with great dialogue, fantastic pace, a swinging soundtrack and an incredible mix of physical, situational and verbal comedy - laugh-out-loud funny throughout.

If "The Brain" should really not be available on DVD this would just be further proof of how little brain these entertainment-industry executives have.

For a number of years now they have fed us movies about the adventures of mutant superheroes (o.k., I admit I have seen and enjoyed one or two of them). This was preceded by the surreal Schwarzenegger-Stallone-Van Damme-decade (also called the eighties), with action-flick actors whose muscle mass far exceeded their acting skills. Before that, there was Dirty Harry and a wild selection of anti-heroes of all sizes, shapes and colors. But when, exactly, was it, that real men disappeared from the screen? The event that caused the extinction of such dinosaurs as Lino Ventura, Jean Gabin, Lee Marvin, Humphrey Bogart and the like must have been the counter-culture of the sixties. But what a loss it caused. We had movie-stars who were real, gentlemanly (sometimes), cool, human and funny as well as ugly but sexy and we went and replaced them with a bunch of guys in a mask and cape (and I don't mean Zorro).

Luckily we all have our VCRs and DVD players and blockbuster and amazon and are able to enjoy movies like Les Tontons Flinguers, one of the funniest, coolest and yet silliest movies of all time. Every actor a character, every dialogue a gem, every scene a revelation about how to make it look easy. Go see this film before you even contemplate to watch Spiderman III!