Word: brits
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...heart of the film is a half dozen sequences, most of them on bomb-squad detail, one long, terrific one showing the unit holed up with some Brit mercenaries (led by Ralph Fiennes, the star of Bigelow's 1995 futuristic movie Strange Days) fighting off fire from al-Qaeda-in-Iraq types out in the desert. Boal and Bigelow know that there's enough tension in the act of walking up to a bomb and trying to defuse it; they don't have to amp up the suspense with theatrics...
Based on the 1975 Death Race 2000, which we'll get to later, the new picture was scripted and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, who did the Resident Evil series and a few other artifacts of high-hackdom. (This Anderson, a Brit, is not ever to be confused with the U.S.-bred, high-art fave Paul Thomas Anderson, of There Will Be Blood renown). But the movie is less a one-man show than a highly complex, finely tuned product, manufactured by an army of geek specialists and cyber-grease monkeys. What Death Race loses in soul - which would...
...Coogan's signature character, displayed in a decade's worth of Brit comedy series, is Alan Partridge, an unctuously brutal TV host modeled on David Frost. (Eric Idle did Frost first, and better, back on Monty Python's Flying Circus.) If you've never seen Partridge, you know his type from countless American movies and TV shows: a star with a self-confidence as unbreakable as it is unjustified, and who's impervious to the world's opinion...
...third of the movie, he clings to his wimpiness, threatening to break the All-time Whining record held by the Justin Long character in Live Free and Die Hard. Moviegoers may start to wonder if McAvoy has imported to Wanted the softness of his roles in the more elevated Brit films Atonement, The Last King of Scotland and Becoming Jane. But he eventually gets the hang of movie heroism. Like Tobey Maguire, plucked from indie films to play Spider-Man, McAvoy is the sensitive nerd who, when shirtless, brandishes the bulked-up chest a few months with a stern trainer...
...Best Play Three Brit imports (Rock 'n' Roll, The Seafarer and The 39 Steps) vs. a lone American play, August: Osage County, and for once the homegrown entry is the favorite. And for once I'm backing a winner: Tracy Letts' explosive family drama is the easiest choice of the night...