CINEMA: Fabius Burger
THERE are amazing explosions in Blown Away. It’s just as well, considering the plot is so silly. A mad bomber (Tommy Lee Jones) kills off members of Boston’s bomb disposal unit, trying to wipe out James Dove (Jeff Bridges) — something to do with trouble back in Belfast.
Blown Away is an appropriate title. The movie is in digital sound which makes the gnashing of teeth sound like Niagara Falls. In fact, the film is all extra-loud sound and no content, with the best acting from Jones as the villain.
The film is old-fashioned: Dove has to rescue his wife and her child. These days, it’s de rigueur for the hero to involve his family in the action, as Arnold Schwarzenegger does in True Lies.
In The River Wild, it’s mom (Meryl Streep) who saves her husband and son when they’re hijacked by bank robbers while river-rafting. It’s a version of Deliverance, except it features Streep with muscles instead of macho guys.
It’s sad to see Streep in stuff like this, even though it’s a good, well-made film with unfaked stunts on dangerous rapids. The River Wild even survives Kevin Bacon who, as the main villain, is about as menacing as a bag of rampant stringbeans.
The family in Corrina, Corrina is in no danger, which is a pity as they’re so perfect you’d like them have a really bad day, just to see them swear or something.
Dad (Ray Liotta) loses his wife, and his mourning daughter refuses to talk to any one. He hires a nanny (Whoopi Goldberg) and falls in love with her, even though Goldberg, a great comedienne, is about as sexy and lovable as a beanbag when she plays it romantic. Wrong role.
Still, she and dad do all the right things and act so correctly that they stop being human and turn into behavioural propaganda — it’s all very suffocating.
They could give some lessons in behaviour to the characters in Liepstiek, Diepstick, the sorry tale of Poena (Francois Coertse) and Martie (Liz Meiring). Their intended wedding goes wrong when Poena welds his testicles instead of his car.
Your worst fears are realised: it’s vulgar, impolite, the closest thing to our own Carry On. In a way, director Willie Esterhuizen has loosened the corsets of white Afrikaans with a belch, fart and some very rude gestures.
The censors really deserve this film, since they’re the ones who tightened the corsets in an attempt to keep Afrikaans out of mischief.