Friday, November 7 - Movies
The Age
Thursday November 6, 2008
Chicago (2002)
Channel Seven, noonCabaret star Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is one half of a great sister act, except she has just killed her sister and isn't looking for a new partner. Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger) is two-timing her dopey husband (John C. Reilly), hoping her dud boyfriend will make her a star. Certainly neither girl has any idea about men, which doesn't matter much as they are now in a women's penitentiary ruled over by the scary Matron Mama Morton (Queen Latifah). A good corrupt lawyer is what they need; enter Billy Flynn (Richard Gere). The film plays a daring double game of cutting between the "real-life" drama, all told in comic-book style, and on-stage musical routines involving the principal characters. Thus, Matron's introducing herself to a group of inmates is intercut with her singing and dancing, and giving obesity a good name. The problem, of course, with Hollywood adaptations of stage shows (and Chicago first made it to Broadway in 1975 under writer-choreographer-director Bob Fosse) is that film stars are never as good as the original stage stars. Zeta-Jones and Zellweger sing well enough to get by, but their dancing is lacking. Director Rob Marshall does his best to hide the facts, frenziedly chopping up shots as if making beef tartare. Not that anyone cared at the time, declaring all the leads fabulous. But compare Marshall's take on And All That Jazz with Bob Fosse's All That Jazz and you'll get the point. Still, for a first film, Chicago is astonishingly assured. -- SCOTT MURRAY
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