FILM / Critical Round-Up

A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT

'Apart from being superbly shot and consummately well-acted, this film seeks a glimmer of that most elusive thing - grace.' Hugo Davenport, Daily Telegraph

'It does get stronger as the reels mount . . . But if you are not a fly- fishing connoisseur like J R Hartley of the Yellow Pages ads, there is still precious little to jolt this film from its clean, cosy rut.' Geoff Brown, Times

BAD LIEUTENANT

'The sex scenes are filmed with the exploitative relish of soft-core pornography while the Lieutenant's 'religious' visions have the lurid tackiness of a 3-D postcard of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. If Ferrara is sincere about his supposed message of redemption, he is certainly contributing to his share of sinful kicks on the way.' Hugo Davenport, Telegraph

'If you imagine Mickey Spillane adapting Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory for Michael Winner, you might have an idea of the battle raging here between holiness and hokum. All the stops are pulled out visually and viscerally. But one finally concludes that the reason Ferrara rubs our noses in depravity . . . is that if he allowed us to stand back and see the panoramic for the particular we might rumble the movie's idiotic self-importance.' Nigel Andrews, Financial Times

'Ferrara is not Scorsese yet.' Derek Malcolm, Guardian

MEAN STREETS

'Vivid, visionary, sardonic: everything that Bad Lieutenant tries to be but fails.' Nigel Andrews, Financial Times

HELLRAISER III

'Sado-masochism served with a side-order of blasphemy.' Hugo Davenport, Daily Telegraph