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THE ILLUSIONIST Set in Austria, The Illusionist stars Edward Norton as Eisenheim, an enigmatic stage magician so skilled at his profession that the locals suspect he might actually possess otherworldly powers. One of the few skeptics is Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell), a cruel ruler who sets out to prove that Eisenheim is a fake. He enlists the aid of the corrupt Chief Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti), yet matters become more tangled when it's revealed that Leopold's fiancée (Jessica Biel) was once Eisenheim's childhood sweetheart. For a good while, The Illusionist is topflight entertainment, with its lush period setting, its assemblage of captivating magic tricks, and a delightful relationship between Eisenheim and Uhl, two men sharing a wary respect for each other (both Norton and Giamatti are excellent). But then the film makes the fatal mistake of morphing into a mystery, the type that's agonizingly easy to figure out even before its gears can really be placed in motion. **1/2
THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND Based on Giles Foden's novel, this employs a fictional character to take us inside the regime of brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin Dada (Forest Whitaker): Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy), a Scottish doctor who agrees to serve as Amin's personal physician and regrets his decision once Amin's true nature comes to light. The film could conceivably be viewed as yet one more work in which a white man is given center stage in what is primarily a black man's tale, yet a couple of elements set this apart from such pandering works as Cry Freedom and Ghosts of Mississippi. For one, Garrigan (nicely played by McAvoy) isn't the usual bland Caucasian bathed in the light of liberal guilt but a conflicted young man with his own ofttimes prickly personality. And while McAvoy has more screen time, the sheer force of Whitaker's superb performance -- to say nothing of the dynamic character he's playing -- guarantees that he remains the story's central focus even when he's not in front of the camera. Paradoxically, you can't take your eyes off him, even when he's not there. ***
MAN OF THE YEAR It's junk like Man of the Year that makes me remember movie reviewing often isn't just a job; it's an adventure -- and I'm owed some serious combat pay. Robin Williams plays Tom Dobbs, a Jon Stewart-like TV talk show host who, after joking that he should run for U.S. president, finds himself on the ballot and making progress in the polls. It's a decent premise for a piercing satire, but writer-director Barry Levinson's approach is so timid that it makes last spring's soggy American Dreamz look as incendiary as a Michael Moore documentary by comparison. The main problem, of course, is Williams, who isn't playing a fictional character running for president as much as he's playing Robin Williams playing a fictional character running for president. In other words, it's the same lazy performance we almost always get, with the actor groveling for laughs via his patented physical shtick and repertoire of stale jokes that were already passé around the time Roman emperors began chucking Christian standup comics to the lions. Soon, the attempts at humor dry up completely to make room for a dismal thriller plotline involving inaccurate Diebold-style voting machines. *
MARIE ANTOINETTE The season's premiere love-it-or-leave-it title, Marie Antoinette was booed by French scribes at the Cannes Film Festival before being rescued by American critics, the slight majority of whom have graced it with positive reviews. Yet despite its divisive nature, I've managed to come down in the middle: The movie, writer-director Sofia Coppola's first since her magnificent Lost In Translation, is better than I had expected (at least based on the trailer) but not as good as I had hoped. It's recommended, but with reservations. In much the manner of A Knight's Tale, Coppola has added a sprinkling of contemporary trappings to her luxuriant period piece; her intention was to create a teenager for our times, a girl who just wants to have fun even though her position in the French royal court demands so much more. It's an interesting idea that's only partially successful, largely because Coppola doesn't go far enough with her outré approach. Where the movie fares best is in its examination of the royal life as a treadmill of constantly winding boredom; the scenes in which Marie, winningly played by Kirsten Dunst, is forced to obey nonsensical rules and rituals are poignant because they deny a child, that most impulsive of all creatures, the chance to experience life for herself. **1/2
