Tammy (15)
Tammy (15)
HH
Dir: Ben Falcone
With: Melissa McCarthy, Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates
Runtime: 97 minutes
ON PAPER this comedy looks a treat. Melissa McCarthy plays the crises-stricken daughter of Allison Janney (West Wing) who sets off with grandma (Susan Sarandon) on a trip to Niagara Falls.
In reality, such is the bagginess of the script, it is an almost mirth-free slog.
McCarthy, as she demonstrated in Bridesmaids and The Heat, is a comedy natural, but she needs to be tightly scripted.
Here, working from her own screenplay (co-written with director and husband Ben Falcone), she is given a licence to ramble, and the riffing is simply not funny enough to carry a movie.
Sarandon, meanwhile, grey hair or no, must be the most unconvincing grandma the movies have ever seen.
Cycling with Moliere (15)
HHH
Dir: Philippe Le Guay
With: Fabrice Luchini, Lambert Wilson
Runtime: 105 minutes
WITH a hit television series behind him, Gauthier (Lambert Wilson), is in love with acting and life, so much so that he asks his curmudgeonly old pal (Fabrice Luchini) to star in a production of The Misanthrope.
As the two bicker over who should have the best part, old tensions and doubts surface. Director Philippe Le Guay displays his usual deft comic touch, though the laughs are more subtle this time, and there are fewer of them, than in his previous hit The Women on the Sixth Floor.
Glasgow Film Theatre and Filmhouse, Edinburgh, July 4-10; DCA, Dundee, July 18-24; Belmont, July 18; Eden Court, Inverness, August 29.
A Hard Day's Night R/I (U)
HHHH
Dir: Richard Lester
With: John, Paul, George and Ringo
Runtime: 89 minutes
THE cast need no surnames because this is a movie starring the most famous band in the world just as their stars began to shoot into the heavens.
It's a vehicle for the boys to be boys, and showcase their music, but the script by Alun Owen, and the natural loveability of the mop topped ones, elevate it to something special in the history of music movies. Irresistible.
Cameo, Edinburgh, July 7; Glasgow Film Theatre, July 12-15; Filmhouse, Edinburgh, July 18-21.
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