Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 23/6/2011)

Czech émigré Ivan Passer was convinced that UA had tried to assassinate his movie. In retrospect, however, it's clear that in reinventing Moby Dick as a film noir, he had examined notions of freedom, responsibility, alienation and paranoia with such forensic savagery that Cutter's Way now stands as the last great film of the New Hollywood era, which ran between the collapse of the Production Code in 1968 and the grim realisation around a decade later that all the major studios really cared about were record-breaking, effects-laden, kid-friendly blockbusters.

In all honesty, Jeffrey Alan Fiskin's screenplay is occasionally a touch bombastic. But Passer's interpretation of Newton Thornburg's novel Cutter and Bone remains a masterly outsider's view of an America still reeling from the effects of Vietnam and Watergate. Perhaps contemporary critics were too aware of the truth of its stinging indictments to recognise its quality. But now its time has finally arrived.

Twentysomething Jeff Bridges knows he is wasting his talents by dividing his time between working for Arthur Rosenberg's yacht company and servicing bored, rich Santa Barbara matrons like Nina Van Pallandt. But, at least, he is not throwing his life away like embittered buddy John Head. Having lost an eye and a leg in Vietnam, Head spends his days shooting his mouth off and getting so hammered that he has even driven long-suffering wife Lisa Eichhorn to drink.

Neighbours Frank McCarthy and Katherine Pass have also reached their limit. But when they call cop George Planco to report Head for smashing into their car on their own driveway, he manages to turn the tables on them with the spiky charm that prevents either Eichhorn or Bridges from deserting him.

Things change, however, when Bridges stalls his car in a narrow alleyway while heading home late one night and he is nearly run over by a speeding vehicle being driven by a man in sunglasses. Next morning, the cops come to question Bridges because the hideously mutilated body of a raped teenage cheerleader has been found stuffed into a dumpster near where he broke down and he tells them enough to avoid becoming a suspect. However, the following afternoon, while watching the annual fiesta parade with Head, Bridges recognises the shady figure behind the wheel as oil tycoon Stephen Elliott when he grandly rides past on his horse.

Regarding him as the kind of fat cat who sends nobodies like him to do their dirty work in foreign fields and then refuses to help them in extremis, Head becomes determined to nail Elliott for the crime. He deeply resents that the corrupt hierarchy is never held accountable for its actions and tries to coerce Bridges into unearthing the evidence to secure a conviction. Moreover, he insists on informing the victim's older sister, Ann Dusenberry, and involving her in the plan to blackmail Elliott and use his co-operation as proof of his guilt.

Bridges remains unconvinced, but feels indebted to Head when he falls into bed with the desperately unhappy Eichhorn. Consequently, he agrees to pose as Head's chauffeur so he can gatecrash a reception at Elliott's mansion. But Head cuts a highly distinctive figure and Elliott is warned of his presence by wife Patricia Donohue and he is apprehended by henchmen and brought to explain his ongoing vendetta.

Envisioning himself as an avenging angel striking back a blow at the establishment he blames for his woes, John Head gives the finest performance of his career as the raspy voiced maverick fuelled by righteous anger and cheap booze. Plumbing depths of self-loathing and despair, Lisa Eichhorn is equally impressive and it's a scandal that she didn't go on to become a major star. But Jeff Bridges did and this supremely natural display of charming diffidence and treacherous cowardice makes it easy to see why.

Crisply photographed by Jordan Cronenweth to contrast the `have' and `have not' locales and scored by Jack Nitzsche with a moody restlessness that reinforces the sense of a nation ill at ease, this is never quite a political thriller or a social drama. But Passer, who knew all about paranoia from his experiences behind the Iron Curtain, emphasises the tensions between the generations, classes and genders to suggest the divisions in American society that have only grown deeper since.

Wounds are much slower to heal in the Middle East, even in fictional states like the one depicted in Incendies. Clearly inspired by playwright Wajdi Mouawad's home country of Lebanon, Fuad is still coming to terms with the civil war that tore communities and even families apart some three decades previously. However, in delving into the awful truth of one woman's experience, this intense mix of flashback and detection occasionally comes perilously close to mawkish melodrama.

When Quebecois notary Rémy Girard summons twins Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin and Maxim Gaudette to his office, they presume he is going to read the will of their late mother, Lubna Azabal. However, she has left them two letters to deliver - one to the brother they never knew they had and the other to the father they thought had perished in the Fuad conflict. As Girard has no idea of the whereabouts of either man, Gaudette flatly refuses to embark upon a wild goose chase. However, Désormeaux-Poulin feels duty bound and is more than a little intrigued to learn about the past her mother had refused to discuss.

The action now splits into two time frames, as Désormeaux-Poulin goes in search of her roots and Azabal sets out on a traumatic odyssey of her own. While she was still a teenager, the Christian Azabal became pregnant and brothers Ahmad Massad and Bader Alami gunned down her Muslim lover, Hamed Najem, for shaming their family. Soon after the child was born, grandmother Majida Hussein gave him away, after inscribing a distinctive tattoo on its heel so that Azabal could recognise him if the time came when she could reclaim him. However, the war raged for 15 years and, by 1990, Azabal had married and moved her twins to Montreal.

Désormeaux-Poulin learns the agony that Azabal endured shortly after arriving in Fuad. But she is puzzled by the identity of their father and, the more she investigates, the more impenetrable the mystery becomes. As she travels to a frosty reception in her mother's home village of Der Om, Villeneuve shows Azabal leaving it to find her son and the action continues to criss-cross, as Gaudette finally arrives to help his increasingly confused sister and Azabal offers her services to the Nationalist Muslim militia after she learns that the Kfar Khout orphanage where her baby was taken has been razed to the ground by vengeful Christians.

Drifting to the city of Daresh, Azabal gets a job as a nanny with Christian politician Ali Elayan and accepts a mission to assassinate him from rebel leader Mohamed Majd. She is arrested and guard-turned-janitor Nabil Sawalha tells Désormeaux-Poulin that she was known as `the woman who sings', as she signalled her defiance to those who brutalised her and sought to encourage her fellow prisoners in their resistance. She is also informed by nurse Baya Belal that she was born in Kfar Ryat jail. Ultimately, after visiting the Deressa site of a refugee camp massacre, the twins turn to lawyer Allen Altman for assistance. He arranges a meeting with the reclusive Majd, who tells the incredulous pair the shocking truth about their half-brother, Abdelghafour Elaaziz, a ruthless child sniper who developed a terrible talent for torture.

In opening out Mouawad's play, Villeneuve takes much of the melodramatic curse off a story whose contrivances acquire more sickening power with each new revelation. Yet, as he explores grave themes like the scars of conflict, parental secrets and the cruelty of fate it's not entirely possible to escape the feeling of being instructed and manipulated. The performances are imposing, with Désormeaux-Poulin bringing a dignified humanity to what is essentially a detective role and Azabal conveying the unbearable pain of loss that draws her deeper into the dark heart of a pitiless war. André Turpin's imagery and Monique Dartonne's editing are also impeccable. But the key to the film's credibility is Villeneuve's storytelling skill and his restraint.

Despite the best intentions, British director Justin Chadwick struggles to impose a similar reticence on The First Grader, which recalls the efforts of Kenyan teacher Jane Obinchu to ensure that 84 year-old Kimani N'gan'ga Maruge secured the education to which he felt he was entitled. Based on events that took place at the Kapkenduiywo Primary School in Eldoret in 2003-04, this is an undeniably heart-warming story and one that reinforces themes explored in Jennifer Arnold's recent documentary, A Small Act. But Ann Peacock's screenplay is too conscious of the need to leaven its history lessons with feel-good triumphs over adversity that owe as much to movies like Goodbye, Mr Chips (1939) and Dead Poets Society (1989) as real life.

In 2002, the Kenyan government announced that everyone was entitled to a free public education and the octogenarian Maruge (Oliver Litondo) astonished officials at his local school by showing up to enrol. Realising that he had spotted a loophole in the legislation, principal Obinchu (Naomie Harris) agreed to let him join her class of six year-olds, providing he didn't prove too much of a distraction. However, as Maruge was a Kikuyu who had participated in the Mau Mau Uprising, her enthusiasm isn't shared by her husband Charles (Tony Kgoroge), colleague Alfred (Alfred Munyua) or the education chief (John Sibi-Okumu) and Maruge is forced to travel to Nairobi to fight for his rights.

Interspersed with this crusade are flashbacks to the early 1950s, when the young Maruge (Lwanda Jawar) joined the rebellion against British colonial rule and was separated from his wife (Emily Njoki) and children when he was interned in an inhumane prison camp. But, just to make sure that the sense of injustice continues into the present, Peacock emphasises the fact that Obinchu is transferred to another school 300 miles away for daring to defy her boss, Kipruto (Vusi Kuene).

The sequence in which Obinchu bids farewell to her students is calculatingly lachrymose and this tendency to over-stress key emotional moments does much to dissipate the power of Maruge's story. Moreover, some of the incidents that spark flashbacks seem contrived and Chadwick and Peacock have often difficulty reconciling a brutal struggle for independence with a rather quaint insistence on a right that earned Maruge a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's oldest primary school student.

Litondo and Harris deliver equally commendable performances, even though he is a former TV news anchor and she is one of the stars of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. The local children playing Litondo's classmates are also splendid. But too many of the opponents to his inclusion are stereotypes, while each aspect of Maruge's plight feels over-simplified. Nevertheless, Chadwick and cinematographer Rob Hardy largely avoid idealised travelogue visuals and Alex Heffes's score manages to be authentic and uplifting without being patronising or corny.

Djo Tunda Wa Munga takes audiences into a very different Africa in Viva Riva!, a rousingly slick tale of petrol smuggling that trades on the kind of macho posturing and spectacular pyrotechnics that have long characterised Hollywood actioners. Making exciting use of locations in the Democratic Republic of Congo and played with gusto by an eager cast, this may be genre fodder. But it also has an intelligence to entice arthouse aficionados seeking escapist entertainment with a political subtext.

With fuel shortages crippling Kinshasa, opportunist hustler Patsha Bay Mukana runs a black market operation in his hometown of Mariano. He works for Angolan desperado Hoji Fortuna, but takes inordinate risks in stealing supplies to sell on the side. However, while out parting with buddy Alex Herabo, Mukana becomes enamoured of Manie Malone, the mistress of local crime boss-cum-porn merchant Diplome Amekindra and takes his eyes off the prize, just as Fortuna discovers his scam and comes looking for him with the grudging assistance of commandant Marlene Longage and her lesbian lover, Angelique Mbumb.

Owing debts to Blaxploitation and considerably more polished than the awkwardly enacted and often moralistic thrillers churned out by Nigeria's prolific Nollywood industry, this is muscular, combustible and laced with trenchant insights into organised crime in an already lethally lawless country. Yet, despite lampooning the affectations of the mob bosses, the treachery of their minions, the incompetence of the authorities and the hypocrisy of the clergy, Munga is much more interested in kinetic set-pieces than social critique. Moreover, he also ensures that the photogenic Mukana and Malone create plenty of sparks in their unashamedly sensual scenes together, with the latter redefining the term `femme fatale' in a shimmering dress that changes colour to match her chameleon character.

Makuna makes an endearingly genial anti-hero, who flashes his cash and misjudges friends and foes alike with a naiveté that more traditional action palookas would never dream of displaying. He's well matched by the Bible-spouting, but dandified Amekindra in his white suit and fedora, while Longage and Mbumb impress in roles that could easily have been devalued by chauvinist humour. The odd gag falls flat and Munga tries to pack in a few too many minor characters. But Antoine Roch's contrasting views across the tracks of the Congolese capital are brusque, but never blatant, while Yves Langlois's editing is as sharp as the score by Louis Vyncke, Cyril Atef and Congopunq.

If Munga brings something devastatingly new to African cinema, Craig Vivieros sticks to tried and trusted tropes in Ghosted. Closer in tone and quality to Darren Blackstone and Christian Martin's Release (2010) than Jacques Audiard's A Prophet (2009), this is a standard issue prison drama with more clichés present and correct than moments of inspiration. Nevertheless, it is played with admirable earnestness by a solid cast that often generates a more tangible sense of embattled community than exists in Vivieros's script.

Ulsterman John Lynch is nearing the end of a lengthy stay in Falkhall Prison for killing an intruder in his mother's home. Still mourning the toddler son who perished in a fire, he shares his cell with philosophical Muslim Art Malik and knocks around with genial bruisers Andy Linden and Neil Maskell, who view the cocky antics of wing hard case Craig Parkinson with a mix of amusement and contempt. However, Lynch takes a protective interest in Scottish arsonist Martin Compston when Parkinson attempts to recruit him to his crew, although it takes an assault in the exercise yard and a vengeful rape in the showers before Lynch can convince corrupt screw David Schofield to transfer Compston into his care.

Encouraging the newcomer to develop his gift for drawing, Lynch succeeds in keeping him away from Parkinson and out of trouble with Hugh Quarshie's black cabal. But one of the latter recognises Compston from another nick and Parkinson can't wait for Lynch to come out of sickbay (where he was being treated for a Parkinson-inflicted knife wound) to tell him the shocking truth about his protégé.

The inevitability of the climactic revelation typifies the formulaic nature of this lacklustre picture. Lynch works hard to convey the conflicts raging within a decent man being punished for allowing his emotions to get the better of him. But Compston and Parkinson essay stereotypes that are as bereft of novelty as Christopher Hatherall and Peter Barrett's snarling lags and Amanda Abbington's female warder and Peter Wight's welfare officer, who are prevented from intervening by the constraints of a twisted system and Schofield's misanthropy.

Viveiros adopts a muscular approach to issues like guilt, grief, trust, lust, rehabilitation and revenge. But in failing to find fresh perspectives on the prison scenario, he joins a long line of film-makers who have been trapped by conventions that were established in the days of James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart and have only rarely since been escaped by such exceptional talents as Robert Bresson.

James Hacking similarly struggles to find a new angle on the romcom in Love's Kitchen. But don't be put off by what you might have read elsewhere, for while Gordon Ramsay's cameo is every bit as dismal as has been reported, this is an amiable throwback to the Ealing era that survives the odd discordant line and lapse in pacing and tone to provide some whimsically old-fashioned and undemanding entertainment.

Three years after his wife was killed in a car crash while returning from the country pub they were planning to buy, chef Dougray Scott is so stung by a bad online review that he decides to quit London and start afresh in leafy Hertfordshire. In addition to tweenage daughter Holly Gibbs, he also takes along loyal lieutenant Lee Boardman, Aussie chef Matthew Clancy and waitress Michelle Ryan and transforms a cosy hostelry into a chic gastro-pub.

Regulars Philip Dunbar and David Whitworth are initially resistant to change. But one taste of Scott's signature trifle wins them over and it has an equally striking effect on Claire Forlani, the American-raised daughter of onetime pop star Peter Bowles, who had penned the stinging notice that had so enraged Scott. Naturally, he doesn't discover this fact until he has fallen head over heels with her and she has joined his campaign to prevent her father and caddish toff Simon Hepworth from trying to close The Boot because its success is bringing too many visitors to their sleepy village.

With Caroline Langrishe and Cherie Lunghi respectively trying to talk sense into Bowles as his second wife and cougar neighbour, the farce quickly becomes predictable. Hacking rather pointlessly pauses to matchmake Boardman and Ryan and makes heavy weather of Hepworth's nocturnal bid to unleash vermin on the premises and an interminable council meeting called to decide their fate. But he allows Simon Callow to camp it up deliciously as a bibulous TV food critic, who is due to review Scott's new enterprise on the very day it's due to be closed down. Moreover, he doesn't force the quirky chemistry between off-screen marrieds Scott and Forlani. So, while this is never anything more than a time-passer, it's certainly not the disaster that some smug reviews have suggested.