by MALCOLM FRASER and MARK SLUTSKY

Infamous

A film that’s unusually difficult to judge on its own merits, Infamous can’t help but be compared to last year’s Capote: not only does it focus on Truman Capote, but it depicts the exact same period of his career, the creation of In Cold Blood.

English actor Toby Jones plays Capote in this one. His lack of celebrity status means there isn’t the same fascination as there was with Philip Seymour Hoffman’s transformation; Jones is just as convincing, but he’s able to disappear more into the role. Sandra Bullock, bless her heart, can’t quite match Catherine Keener as Harper Lee.

Infamous plays for laughs the research trip that Capote and Lee take to the small Kansas town where the murders were committed, and the matter of Capote’s flamboyance contrasting with the town’s uptight Midwestern conformity runs out of humourous steam pretty fast. Where the film gets interesting, and actually goes into more depth than Capote, is in the depiction of Perry Smith, the killer with whom Capote gets uncomfortably close to tease out more details for his book. New Bond dude Daniel Craig is great as Smith, capturing both his menace and his wounded humanity.

All told, Infamous isn’t quite as good a film as Capote; it falls back on Hollywood cliché from time to time, and relies too much on a questionable technique of documentary-style interviews with some of the characters. But the differences in both story and style mean that if you see it out of Capote-phile curiosity alone, you may be pleasantly surprised. (MF)

Catch a Fire

This year’s third injustice-themed, shot-on-location African period piece (after Shooting Dogs and The Last King of Scotland) is in some ways the best. Set in the South Africa of the early ’80s, Catch a Fire is based on the true story of anti-apartheid ANC hero Patrick Chamusso, an apolitical oil refiner worker who became radicalized into a freedom fighter—or, as they call ’em, a terrorist.

Phillip Noyce, no stranger to political thrillers (his resume includes Patriot Games and The Quiet American) directs ably, and he’s found a great Chamusso in American actor Derek Luke (Antwone Fisher), who projects a warm intelligence and is a strong presence all around. He’s also found a great foil for him in villain Tim Robbins, who plays Nic Vos, the Afrikaner head of an anti-terrorist unit. Robbins is always great to watch as a bad guy, and Vos is a plum role: a layered, complex character. He’s a monster, and responsible for many terrible, terrible things, but you get the sense that in another place or time he might have ended up on the right side. While the film makes no apologies for him, Robbins’ portrayal, as well as the fact that we see Vos’s family, add a lot of depth to the film.

It’s hard not to watch Catch a Fire and think of Iraq... or Israel... or anywhere with an active insurgent population, really. A smart, relevant thriller hampered only slightly by anticlimactic plotting. (MS)

House of Sand

An epic that unfolds over 60 years and takes place entirely on a small patch of desert might sound like a dicey proposition for a story, but Brazilian director Andrucha Waddington pulls it off in this intergenerational drama. It starts off in 1910, when crazed pioneer Vasco (Ruy Guerra) leads an expedition into the desert, reluctantly accompanied by his pregnant wife Áurea (Fernanda Torres) and her mother (Fernanda Montenegro). When the expedition party ditches them and Vasco dies shortly thereafter, the two women are left to fend for themselves. With a little help from Massu (Life Aquatic crooner Seu Jorge), a villager from nearby, they set up the titular house and embark on a life of hardcore solitude.

The film periodically jumps a decade or two, and the lead actresses essentially switch roles: Montenegro plays the middle-aged Áurea, and Torres is her daughter Maria, who’s grown up into a young woman willing to generously accommodate the village men’s sexual needs. Throughout the years, Áurea juggles her desire to get back to civilization with her increasingly close relationship with Massu.

The pioneer vibe, and the occasional flourishes of melodrama, sometimes give the film the feel of a Little House in the Desert. But it’s redeemed by the director’s languid style, and the cinematography of the alternately stunning and harsh landscape. The women’s intense and impressive multiple performances (Montenegro even goes for the triple threat, turning up as the adult Maria at the end) elevate it into a subtle and emotionally resonant tale. (MF)

Saw III

The Saw movies may be gratuitously grotesque, preachy and wildly derivative, but the first two were still somehow sort of good. Or at least watchable and fun, rife with twists that aren’t quite as clever as the filmmakers perhaps think they are, but that are enjoyable to play along with anyway.

The premise is always more or less the same: the nefarious serial killer known as Jigsaw (John to his friends) kidnaps people and hooks them up to grisly devices that’ll doom them to a poetically just death if they don’t do something horrible to get out of them. This is all meant to be somehow life-affirming, as Jigga’s dying of brain cancer and can’t stand to see people throwing their opportunities away.

In this third installment, Jigsaw (played again by Tobin Bell) and assistant/life partner Amanda (Shawnee Smith) kidnap a doctor (Bahar Soomekh) and force her to keep the dying killer alive while a dude (Angus MacFayden) makes his way through a gross obstacle course full of moral challenges. If Jigsaw can stay alive until the guy makes it out, both him and the doctor get to walk away. If not, they’ll die horribly apt deaths of some sort.

Saw III is just as icky as its predecessors, and just as much of a clunky morality play, but the well has begun to run a bit dry. Despite inspired touches like a machine designed to drown judges in fresh pig slurry, the franchise is beginning to feel pretty stale, and the twist this time kinda sucks. A video rental at best. (MS)

All films open this Friday, Oct. 27

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