Showing posts with label Starring: Vincent Cassel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Starring: Vincent Cassel. Show all posts

Derailed (2005)

Engaging but in places extremely far-fetched thriller.

Clive Owen meets Jennifer Aniston on a train and they begin a passionate fling. In a hotel room, the pair are attacked by Vincent Cassel (who only seems to play baddies), who then blackmails Clive Owen for money in exchange for not telling his wife about the infidelity. So Clive has to spend his life's savings, put aside to care for his sick daughter...  

It’s an enjoyable twist-filled tale, even if it begins to stretch credibility in the final sections. Owen is always charming, and he is excellent with the limited material. Aniston is better than expected – or rather, at least she’s not merely reprising Rachel from Friends. 

On the downside there is a silly character played by rapper RZA, and Clive Owen’s wife played by Melissa George is sketchy and unconvincing.

Black Swan (2010)

Brilliant, engaging drama about a young ballet dancer (Natalie Portman), who gets the lead role in a new production of Swan Lake. Her manipulative and abusive teacher drives her to increasingly extreme actions in the name of training her for the role. She also has a controlling mother to contend with.

Portman is excellent as the ambitious but conflicted dancer who undergoes a remarkable transformation into the swan in the interests of achieving technical perfection. 

Directed by Darren Aronofsky, it’s filmed in a striking way, with tropes from horror films cleverly deployed to add suspense and scary drama.