EVERYBODY’S FINE (12A)

A reminder of just how good De Niro can be

One of the most disappointing aspects of the last decade or more of cinema has been the decline of the career of Robert De Niro. Through a combination of bad choices and woefully hammy turns, the greatest actor of his generation has become a shadow of his former self.

But now, well into his sixties, he’s found in Everybody’s Fine a role that’s not only his best in many, many years but, just like Jack Nicholson with About Schmidt, one that allows him to play his age with grace and dignity and create a believable and memorable character in the process.

In what is actually a remake of a little-seen Italian film by the director of Cinema Paradiso, De Niro plays Frank, a retired widower who is neglected by his grown children who are spread throughout the States, and who are always able to come up with good excuses not to visit him.

Daughter Amy (Kate Beckinsale) is a wealthy advertiser, son Robert (Sam Rockwell) a musician and daughter Rosie (Drew Barrymore) has found success in Las Vegas, while his youngest son David is in a Mexican prison cell, something the others do their best to keep from Frank.

After one too many family get-togethers is cancelled, and with not much else to do, Frank decides he’ll go to them, and takes off on a cross country road trip to visit each of them.

For De Niro, Frank is certainly the sweetest character he’s ever played. All he wants is the knowledge that his children are happy and his scenes with each of them are wonderful, from the chilliness of Amy to the poignancy of David’s ultimate fate.

It’s a warm but meandering film, but one with a bracing undercurrent of loneliness and melancholy. Director Kirk Jones has stated that people are forever telling him that Frank is just like their own father, and it’s possible that your tolerance for some of the film’s more sentimental passages will have a lot to do with how you respond to the character.

It can be especially mushy in the way that Frank imagines his children as young kids, but even this pays off well on the way to a perfect ending and a reminder that De Niro can still be capable of great work.

Director: Kirk Jones

Running time: 99 mins

THE CRAZIES (15)

Accomplished horror for grown-ups

George Romero’s not especially well remembered 1973 horror The Crazies is the latest to hit the remake treadmill, proving once again that it you have to revisit a movie, it’s a good idea not to do one of the classics.

In a small and peaceful Midwest town, Timothy Olyphant’s sheriff and his doctor wife (Radha Mitchell) find themselves at the centre of events when the locals start exhibiting psychotic tendencies.

Soon the entire town is fighting for survival, but be it a virus, government conspiracy or good old-fashioned zombification, it’s not necessarily the crazies that should be feared the most.

Though maybe guilty of setting up the same stalk and hide situation a couple too many times, The Crazies is tense and well paced and it helps immensely that our guide on the journey is the outstanding Olyphant.

With no daft teens, no frantic editing, and a minimum of people doing very stupid things just to get us where the plot demands, this is slick, accomplished horror for grown-ups.

Director: Breck Eisner

Running time: 101 mins

MICMACS (12A)

Hugely inventive French comedy adventure

The director of Amelie, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, serves up a typically madcap trifle with this hugely inventive comedy adventure.

French comedian Dany Boon stars as a video store clerk who is accidentally shot, and with the help of a ragtag group of scavengers, vows to take down the rival arms manufacturers who made the bullet still lodged in his head and the landmine that killed his father 30 years earlier.

Micmacs is typical Jeunet, a director who, like Terry Gilliam, offers a glorious visual style without necessarily having a strong or engaging story to back it up. This is certainly better than Gilliam’s recent work, a real crowd pleaser that’s charming, breezy and fun, with the energy of a Looney Tunes cartoon and the plot of Mission: Impossible.

Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Running time: 104 mins

LEAP YEAR (PG)

Embarrassing for all concerned

The usually reliable Amy Adams stars in this dismal romantic comedy as a young woman put out that her boyfriend still won’t propose to her.

On being told of a tradition that encourages women to propose on the 29th of February, she decides she’ll follow him to a conference in Ireland to propose to him.

When the plane is diverted to Wales she takes a boat to Dublin but, for reasons known only to American writers who’ve never looked at a map, ends up on the west coast of Ireland.

There she meets Matthew Goode’s barman who agrees to take her to Dublin but, since this is a film conceived by American writers who have never been to Europe, this involves a days-long odyssey across a country seemingly without a functioning transport system.

What follows is all manner of idiotic physical comedy and diddle-de-dee mishaps centred on two characters who give us no reason in the world to make us believe they belong together and the result is embarrassing for all concerned.

Director: Anand Tucker

Running time: 100 mins