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NO MAN'S LAND A trenchant look at a peculiar form of trench warfare, No Man's Land is writer-director Danis Tanovic's searing look at the skirmish that has laid waste to his homeland. It almost sounds like the set-up for a bad joke: Did you hear the one about the Bosnian and the Serb? Well, they both get stuck in this trench, see... But for Ciki (Branko Djuric) and Nino (Rene Bitorajac), it's no laughing matter. Ciki the Bosnian and Nino the Serb, who have been trained to hate each other despite their ample common ground, are placed in an explosive situation made even more tense by the fact that one of Ciki's comrades (Filip Sovagovic) is also in the trench with them, resting on top of a mine that will blow them all to smithereens if he even tries to move. A compassionate United Nations peacekeeper (Georges Siatidis) wants to help defuse the situation, but his efforts are hindered by his odious superiors, none of whom want to take responsibility should anything go wrong. A foreign cousin to Robert Altman's anti-war classic M*A*S*H, this one also uses plenty of mordant humor to further heighten the absurdity of it all. 1/2
ROLLERBALL Hollywood has a fondness for remaking classics, but the more logical route might be to remake movies that weren't particularly good the first time around -- that way, there's reams more room for improvement. Alas, one application of that theory gets shot to hell with Rollerball, as the mediocre 1975 original gets accorded a remake that's infinitely worse than the earlier dud. Set in a future in which all violence has been outlawed except when played in the arena of a popular new sport, Norman Jewison's '75 model was stuffy and ponderous, only coming alive during the well-staged game sequences. This stupefying new version is a complete overhaul -- Starship Troopers and Howards End have more in common with each other than this reworking does with the original -- but somehow the changes have only made matters worse. By setting the tale in the present and stripping it of all sociopolitical context, this violent film plays like an incoherent, badly staged taping of one of those inane TV sports events like pro wrestling or the XFL. Loud, garish, and directed within an inch of its life by John McTiernan, this Rollerball Redux is probably preferable to the disco turkey Roller Boogie, though even that's arguable.