Movies

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday March 31, 2008

Doug Anderson

Other People's Money

(1991) Nine, noon

Viewers with a deep aversion to Danny DeVito might care to take a lengthy constitutional at lunchtime today rather than confront the prospect of the two midday movies featuring the abrasive little actor. This one is a Norman Jewison number derived from an off-Broadway play popular at a time when the insane shenanigans of Wall Street were all the rage. Larry The Liquidator (DeVito in a mustard-coated serving of ham acting) targets the New England Wire And Electric Company - a debt-free, family-owned company of the old school - with a view to the usual asset stripping and venality. The proprietorial family (played by Gregory Peck, Piper Laurie and Penelope Ann Miller as the lawyer daughter) fight the good fight, leading to some friction and charged sequences between DeVito and Miller. Peck, though, might as well not be there. The essential bite and spite needed to offset the film's slickness is, alas, insufficient to make it satisfying.

Ruthless People

(1986) Seven, noon

Bette Midler features as the rambunctious, rich bitch Barbara, victim of a pair of stumblebum abductors who manage to overcome their incompetence long enough to kidnap her. She proves such a handful they are almost forced to pay her husband to take her back. The husband, Sam Stone (Danny DeVito), is a full-tilt fink whose plans to bump Barbara off are foiled by the kidnap. When she vanishes, he refuses to pay the ransom demands, hoping her abductors will pull the plug. Not surprisingly, Barbara sides with the kidnappers to contrive his downfall. Mostly fresh, frequently raucous but rather mechanical in places and less than sympathetic to the tone and the spirit of the story by O. Henry, from which it is adapted.

Chinese Odyssey 2002

(2002) SBS, 1pm

Oriental humour often seems crass to Western tastes but we don't seem to have a problem with their violent martial arts films. This action-comedy, set during the Ming dynasty, takes a satirical jab at Eastern epics and biff-me-up movies through the activities of a brother and sister known as Dragon and Phoenix. They run an inn in Meilong but Dragon is a troublemaker whose activities not only dissuade customers from patronising the establishment but impact on his sister's chances of finding a husband among the local community. Things change radically when the young emperor and his sister, Princess Wushuang, bored by the closeted world they are forced to endure by the dowager empress behind the walls of the imperial palace, slip out and mingle with the populace. This often happened apparently - The Prince And The Pauper (1937) springs to mind - and the plotline has often been used before in films set in Europe. As luck would have it, the princess, cross-dressing as a chap, encounters Dragon who finds himself strangely attracted to this somewhat effeminate "bloke". His sister and the young emperor are similarly attracted. You don't need to be a G&S fan to guess the rest.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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