SILENT RUNNING
Wartime drama tells how mime artist Marcel Marceau helped Jewish orphans flee across the Alps to evade Nazis
RESISTANCE (15)
★★★ ☆☆
ACTIONS speak louder than words in writerdirector Jonathan Jakubowicz’s wartime drama, based on the early years of mime artist Marcel Marceau, who was instrumental in rescuing hundreds of Jewish orphans during the Holocaust.
In 1945 Nuremberg,
General George S Patton
(Ed Harris) addresses hundreds of American troops with a stirring speech about the unstinting courage of untrained civilians during the war.
“I have just heard an incredible story. I’d like to share it with you...” he growls.
We rewind to 1938 Strasbourg where Jewish butcher’s son Marcel Mangel (Jesse Eisenberg) sneaks out at night to entertain patrons of a seedy bar with his silent pantomime routines.
Marcel’s proud father, Charles (Karl Markovics), witnesses the spectacle and rebukes his son for clowning around dressed like the Fuhrer.
“It’s not Hitler, it’s Chaplin,” asserts Marcel.
Soon after, Marcel begrudgingly joins his brother Alain (Felix Moati), neighbour Emma (Clemence Poesy) and her sister Mila (Vica Kerekes) at the German border to take delivery of 123 Jewish orphans under the aegis of the Save The Children Foundation.
Among the terrified throng is Elsbeth (Bella Ramsey) from Munich, who witnessed her parents (Edgar Ramirez, Klara Issova) being killed by Nazi officers outside the family home.
At first, Marcel is too self-obsessed to connect with the children’s desperate plight.
“I have an alive Jewish father. That hasn’t made my life any easier,” he snipes.
Marcel uses his comedic performance skills to coax x the children out of their suffocating g grief and teach them how to hide in n trees “like a squirrel” to evade capture.
Transformed by his experience, Marcel changes the surname in his passport to
Marceau and joins the French Resistance alongside Alain, Emma and Mila. They transfer to Lyon, headquarters of Obersturmfuhrer of the SS, Klaus Barbie (Matthias Schweighofer).
Resistance is galvanised by nail-biting encounters between Barbie and members of Marcel’s cell that send chills down the spine. Eisenberg delivers a heartfelt t lead performance as the clown, who cries genuine tears as he witnesses Nazi hatred of his people.
He kindles a smouldering on-screen romance with Poesy, whose role is underwritten.
Sentimentality seeps into frame to offset acts of sickening screen violence, culminating in the first crossing of perilous Alpine terrain with German soldiers in pursuit.
Available to download/stream from June 19
TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG (18)
★★★ ☆☆
YOUNG Ned Kelly is doted upon by his manipulative and resourceful mother, Ellen (Essie Davis), who loses her weak-willed husband at the hands of scheming lawman Sergeant O’Neil (Charlie Hunnam).
The boy is forced to grow up before his time as man of the house and Ned learns to fend for himself with tutelage from gun-toting, gnarly bush ranger Harry Power (Russell Crowe).
As Ned comes of age (now played by George MacKay), he declares war on Constable Fitzpatrick (Nicholas Hoult) by forming a gang with his younger brother Dan (Earl Cave) and a couple of friends. Battle lines are drawn between the outlaws and Fitzpatrick’s heavily armed officers, culminating in a terrifying night-time shoot-out.
True History Of The Kelly Gang is an unremittingly grim and muscular interpretation of Peter Carey’s Booker
DARK WATER (12)
★★★ ☆☆
MILD-MANNERED defence lawyer Robert Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) works at Taft Stettinius & Hollister, which represents some of America’s most powerful chemicals companies.
He receives a visit from farmer Wilbur Tennant (Bill Camp), who lives in Parkersburg, West Virginia. He is a neighbour of Rob’s grandmother and has been persuaded to deliver a cardboard box of videotapes to the Taft office, detailing the decimation of his cow herd on land adjoining a DuPont chemical plant.
Despite his heavy workload, Rob drives to Parkersburg to visit Wilbur and is horrified to learn the family has lost almost 200 animals.
With the blessing of his boss (Tim Robbins), Rob unearths evidence that the man-made PFOA chemical used in the production of Teflon might have leaked into Parkersburg’s water supply.
Prize-winning novel based loosely on the exploits of outlaw Ned Kelly and his gang in the late 19th century.
Australian director Justin Kurzel pulls no punches with explosions of graphic violence.
He also generates a heady homoerotic charge between a sinewy MacKay and brooding Hoult in the film’s most extraordinary sequence. The middle act sags but regains its footing with a visually arresting last stand.
Available to download/ stream from June 22 and on DVD from July 6
Dark Waters is a slowburning thriller about a real-life fight for justice lasting more than 20 years.
Ruffalo transforms from muscular Avengers superhero to a hunched, harangued, jowly workaholic, while Oscar winner Anne Hathaway is poorly served in comparison as his on-screen spouse, who witnesses the heavy emotional burden borne by her husband.
Available to download/ stream from June 22 and on DVD from July 6