Best films on the box: May 19-25

Film and television critic Philip Wakefield assesses the best movies on offer on the box this week, for Tuesday, May 19 to Monday, May 25.

Tuesday, May 19

World Trade Centre
2006, AO, 8.30pm, TV2
Hollywood conspiracy theorist Oliver Stone (JFK, Nixon) plays it surprisingly straight, to sensational effect, in this gripping, moving dramatisation of the miraculous real-life rescue of two New York cops from the wreckage of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Powerful and heartfelt without being overly heroic or sentimental, this is Stone’s most conventional film since his last look at a Big Apple icon, Wall Street, 20 years ago and ranks among his best. Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Maria Bello star.

Wednesday, May 20

Orange County
2002, AO, 8.30pm, C4
Pithy, fruit-of-the-loons comedy about one kid’s bid to beat his weird-mob odds of getting into Stanford University. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story’s Jake Kasdan (son of Lawrence) directs a cast that teams Jack Black with Colin Hanks (son of Tom) and Schuyler Fisk (daughter of Sissy Spacek). John Lithgow, Lily Tomlin and Chevy Chase co-star in a surfer romp that’s ripe with dark promise but winds up syrupy.

Thursday, May 21

Ocean's Thirteen
2007, AO, 8.30pm, Sky Movies
Thirteen’s a luckier number than 12. The third spin of this casino caper franchise isn’t fresh enough to again hit the jackpot but neither is it a bust like Ocean’s Twelve. This time Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his crew reunite to avenge one of their members being ripped off by a ruthless Vegas tycoon (Al Pacino). Signature sleight-of-hand shenanigans ensue in a colour-saturated storyline that’s ridiculously preposterous but is executed with such flair, precision and intrigue that you can’t wait for the next roll of the dice. After all, watching an Ocean con unfold is much like gambling: forget the impossible odds and enjoy the seat-of-the-pants exhilaration.

Friday, May 22

Vacancy
2007, AO, 8.30pm, Sky Movies
A bickering couple on the verge of divorce (Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson) break down in the middle of nowhere and are forced to stay overnight in a creepy motel that even Norman Bates would steer clear of. What ensues is a harrowing thriller that unfolds like a cross between Breakdown and Psycho but with a snuff movie twist. The leads are excellent and director Nimrod Antal builds suspense with unsettling finesse. Vacancy winds up too overwrought to fulfil but will keep you on the edge of your seat far longer than most of its ilk.

Saturday, May 23

Joe Dirt
2001, PGR, 7.30pm, TV2
Bumpy road comedy starring Just Shoot Me’s David Spade as a janitor trying to find the parents who abandoned him when he was a belligerent eight-year-old - with a little help from an alligator trainer and a mobster in a witness protection programme.

Eragon
2006, PGR, 7.30pm, TV3
Visual effects rivals WETA Digital and Industrial Light & Magic joined forces for this juvenile fantasy about a flying dragon tarring Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Edward Speleers and Robert Carlyle. Stefen Fabgmeier, who supervised special effects on Wanted and Lemony’s Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, directs.

Rumour Has It
2005, AO, 8.30pm, TV One
The conceit is terrific – a woman finds out her family was the inspiration for The Graduate – and the talents formidable: stars Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Costner and Shirley MacLaine, writer Ted Griffin (Matchstick Men, Ocean’s Eleven) and director Rob Reiner (The Bucket List, When Harry Met Sally …). But the execution is more sitcom cookie-cutter than cutting-edge, trading intrigue and risk for the sentimental and the banal.

Kill Bill: Volume 1
2003, AO, 9.20pm, TV2
Quentin Taranatino’s chic-trash sensation literally opens with a bang and bounces you from one bizarre twist to another before its blood-drenched scenario becomes half-baked and about an hour too long. Uma Thurman plays a betrayed hit woman who avenges her wedding party’s slaughter by systematically killing former fellow assassins. The fight scenes are breathtakingly choreographed but turn increasingly extreme and ludicrous.

Billy Elliott
2000, AO, 9.40pm, TV3
No one puts a foot wrong in this flawless, exquisitely tender comedy/drama about a Newcastle miner’s son (Jamie Bell) who want to become a ballet dancer. The underdog premise may seem all-too-familiar, and the outcome doesn't surprise, but the execution is divine, a masterful coming-of-age triumph that mines its humanity with exceptional craft and compassion. Stephen Daldry (The Reader) directs.

Perfect Strangers
2003, AO, 10.25pm, TV One
Gaylene Preston wrote and director this loony thriller-cum-love story starring Sam Neill and Rachael Blake as odd-couple castaways. Its strengths are considerable - the performances, the cinematography, the scoring, the sense of unease - but can’t compensate for a wispy plot that’s too vague to satisfy or compel. It opens promisingly, with a drunken one-night-stand turning into an abduction when the woman wakes up on a boat bound for a remote isle. Thereupon subtlety and plausibility are washed overboard as the film takes unexpected turns and teases our understanding of what’s real and what’s not.

Buffalo Soldiers
2001, AO, 11.35pm, TV2
This enterprising M*A*S*H wannabe recruited Anna Paquin to star alongside Joaquin Phoenix, Ed Harris, Scott Glenn and World Trade Center’s Michael Pena in the darkly funny tale of a US soldier-cum-black marketeer stationed in West Germany 20 years ago, on the eve of the Berlin Wall’s collapse.

Sunday, May 24

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
1981, AO, 8.30pm, C4
A post-apocalyptic Mel Gibson hits the road again in the sequel that made him a Hollywood Road Warrior and a lethal weapon at the box office. The original's George Miller directs with breakneck verve - the super-tanker finale is not to be missed - while cinematographer Dean Semler shows why a decade later he would go on to win an Oscar for Dances With Wolves.

Cradle 2 the Grave
2003, AO, 10.30pm, TV2
Andrzej Bartkowiak has a better track record as a cinematographer (Thirteen Days, The Devil’s Advocate, Falling Down) than he does as a director, with this being yet another tiresomely brutal crime thriller akin to his earlier efforts, Romeo Must Die and Exit Wounds. It stars DMX as a jewel thief who teams with a Taiwanese intelligence ace (Jet Li) to rescue his kidnapped daughter who’s being held hostage for a fortune in diamonds.

Brotherhood of the Wolf
2001, AO, 10.25pm, TV3
Atmospheric French frightfest that combines creature-feature thrills with costume-drama splendour and an 18th century political conspiracy. Partly based on fact, it stars Samuel Le Bihan as a Louis XV-dispatched naturalist and Mark Dacascos as his Mohican sidekick on the blood-soaked trail of the mysterious "la bete du Gevaudan". Wolf's cinematography is sensational, and there’s a sumptuous grandeur about Christophe Gans’ direction, but both are undermined by a patchwork screenplay that never fulfils its creepy promise.

Monday, May 25

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
2003, AO, 12.30am, TV2
This remake’s grotesquely over the top - five teenagers stumble upon a remote Texas slaughter-house wherein lurks a chainsaw-wielding nutcase with bad acne - but a strong cast and top production values keep your heart thumping and blood curdling until the unexpected ending. The cast includes Jessica Biel and Eric Balfour.

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