Hi everyone, I am married with two children and live in Birmingham , England.
I write occassional r...
Hi everyone, I am married with two children and live in Birmingham , England.
I write occassional reviews of films I have been to see and products and services I have used.
Member since:10.10.2000
Reviews:12
Chicago is a film version of the 1920s stage musical that for me doesn't quite deliver. Part of the problem is that two of the main stars, Renee Zellweger as Roxie and Richard Gere as Billy Flyn just aren't up the singing and dancing. They just can't match the jazz. Catherine Zeta Jones, Velma, is a notch above them but gets less of the movie and is very much the third star. Fans of Richard Gere will be dissapointed to see him getting down to his boxer shorts but still wearing a flat cap. The scene made me laugh out loud but I don't think it was meant to. Renee Zellweger, had some dance scenes on her own and despite editing and I guess dozens of retakes still looked clumsy. There's a need for a live audience to build the music and dance scenes and this is often dubbed on or the scene presented as a stage show to compensate. They just can't quite carry it off themselves. The plot revolves around the easy mainipulation of naked ambition. In essence Billy Flyn is less of a lawyer and more of a showbiz agent. His clients are fed to him by a corrupt prison warder played superbly by Queen Latifah. She is much more of natural jazz singer than the rest of the main cast. The style is similar to Cabaret, another Bob Fosse musical, and the story moves on by means of song and dance as much as by spoken dialogue. Roxie and Velma are killers, the fact that they did it is never in doubt. Velma killed her sister for sleeping with her husband and Roxie her lover for leading her on. They also have in common the wish to be stars and Billy Flyn is quick to put them in turn on the front page of every newspaper. Caught up in their fame they show no remorse and compete over column inches. There was for me a resonance with the Pop Idol shows where kids turn up willing to do anything, sign anything, for the chance to be a star. Is killing someone a way becoming a star? How far would they go for fame? Would the Pop Idol hopefuls go that far? No but the movie pushes that extreme. "Billy Flyn's number one client is Billy Flyn" is repeated through the film. Sure enough he ignores both Velma and Roxie when the prospect of a rich socialite, Lucy Liu, comes along as a client. In a years to come an updated version might be called The Story of Hearsay.
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Production Year: 1999 - Music / Performing Arts - Original Language: English - Classification: Exempt - Starring: Donny Osmond, Joan Collins, Richard Attenborough
Adapted from the long-running stage version, this big-screenChicagois a non-stop singing ... more
and dancing extravaganza that may well herald the welcome revival of the film musical. When the part-time lover of wannabe star Roxie (Renee Zellweger) is murdered...
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![Chicago [DVD] [2003]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/79224345.jpg "Chicago [DVD] [2003]")
Jan 22nd, 2003
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