Best films on the box: June 16-22

Film and television critic Philip Wakefield assesses the best movies on offer on the box this week, for Tuesday, June 16 to Monday, June 22.

Tuesday, June 16

16 Blocks
2006, AO, 8.30pm, TV2
Two of Hollywood’s best action practitioners, star Bruce Willis and director Richard Donner (Lethal Weapon), belatedly teamed for this solid shoot-‘em-up that unfolds mostly in real time. Willis plays a bent, burnt-out cop who mounts one last stand in defence of his honour to save the life of a witness his crooked cronies want to kill. No matter how many times you’ve been around this block, Donner’s dynamite direction still makes it an exciting, suspenseful and surprisingly poignant trip.

Wednesday, June 17

Reality Bites
1994, AO, 8.30pm, C4
Winona Ryder stars in this Generation X romantic-comedy that purports to thumbs its nose at the Establishment while embracing the same conventions and stereotypes. About four college pals who find friendships are as fragile as ideals when they graduate into the real world of unemployment and relationship riddles, it has lashings of style and hip posturing but any potential bite is swallowed by pat resolutions and superficial characterisations. Ben Stiller, Ethan Hawke and Janeane Garofalo co-star.

Thursday, June 18

Rocky Balboa
2006, AO, 8.30pm, Prime
Sylvester Stallone goes one more round as the beaten-up boxer and, amazingly, it’s the best Rocky movie since the first, 20 years earlier. Not since then has the human dimension of Stallone’s Oscar-winning creation been so richly realised and while its against-all-odds scenario is no less familiar, the mix of melancholy, humility and reflection, topped off with a rousing third act, makes for a terrific comeback by its writer-director-star.

Friday, June 19

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets
2007, PGR, 8.30pm, Sky Movies
This corny, funny, over-the-top sequel has treasure hunter Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) unearthing the fabled City of Gold while trying to clear his ancestor’s name from the plot to kill Abraham Lincoln. Helen Mirren enlivens the extravagant mix as his spunky mother, Ed Harris makes a great dastardly rival and the spectacular climax more than keeps up with Indiana Jones’. Justin Bartha, Diane Kruger, Jon Voight and Harvey Keitel co-star.

Saturday, June 20

Shall We Dance
2004, AO, 8.30pm, TV One
Dancing with the stars comedy/drama about a workaholic lawyer whose life and marriage take an unexpected twirl when he follows a beautiful woman to a Chicago dance studio and becomes a clandestine ballroom dance competitor. Peter Chelsom (Serendipity, Hannah Montana: The Movie) directs Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez and Susan Sarandon.

Batman Begins
2005, PGR, 8.30pm, TV2
The new-millennium Dark Knight makeover was kept so quiet that it was developed under a false name – The Imitation Game – and pumped up a puny Machinist (Christian Bale) into the fiercest winged freak terroriser yet. Director/co-writer Christopher Nolan’s bid to reinvigorate the franchise with realism is empowered by a heavyweight cast that includes Tom Wilkinson and Morgan Freeman, and a Gotham City that was designed to resemble “New York on steroids.”

A Good Year
2006, AO, 8.30pm, TV3
You’ll look sideways at the next Ridley Scott-Russell Crowe collaboration after enduring what feels like a year in Provence with this trite, clumsy comedy about an Englishman abroad - a loathsome workaholic who has an epiphany about what matters in life after he inherits a vineyard in the south of France. More surprising than the scenario is the botch Scott makes of this Peter Mayle adaptation, turning what should have been a lighthearted pleasure into a heavyhanded chore that won’t improve with age. Albert Finney, Rafe Spall and Freddie Highmore (The Spiderwick Chronicles) co-star.

V For Vendetta
2005, AO, 11.25pm, TV2
The futuristic graphic novel that was spawned by ‘80s Thatcherism has been updated to a post-9/11 rumination on how government by the people can be manipulated into government of the people. Brimming with ideas and literary allusions, it stars Hugo Weaving as an improbable superhero who’s an avenging terrorist with a just cause: vanquishing the tyranny of Fascism. Co-star John Hurt dubbed it a cross between two of his movies: "1984 meets Alien".

Laughter on the 23rd Floor
2001, AO, 10.30pm, TV3
Ex-Sid Caesar gag writer Neil Simon fleshed out his 1993 play of the same name for this TV-movie that Variety said "retains the original’s affection for the rowdy heyday of live TV". Nathan Lane, Milk’s Victor Garber and Frasier’s Peri Gilpin star.

Sunday, June 21

Platoon
2006, AO, 8.30pm, C4
Oliver Stone’s flawed, often horrific but always compelling Oscar-winner shows a grunt’s-eye view of the war in Vietnam. Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger star. Watch for Forest Whitaker, John C McGinley and Johnny Depp in small roles. Stone toyed with casting Depp as the lead, instead of Sheen, but thought Depp was too much of an unknown (his big break in TV’s 21 Jump Street was still a year away).

Stephen King's Desperation
2006, AO, 10.25pm, TV2
Mediocre made-for-TV adaptation of the novel about a crooked small-town sheriff who’s possessed by a demon. Tom Skerritt, Steven Weber, Brotherhood’s Annabeth Gish and Hellboy’s Ron Perlman star. Stephen King vet Mick Garris (The Stand, TV’s The Shining, Sleepwalkers) directs.

My Summer of Love
2004, AO, 10.30pm, TV3
Nathalie Press (Bleak House) and Emily Blunt play West Yorkshire adolescents – one rich, the other working-class - whose fledgling friendship turns sexual then tragic in this quintessentially English, largely improvised drama from Polish director Pawel Pawlikowksi. It’s a haunting, erotic tale of abandonment, obsession and betrayal that’s exquisitely filmed and finely acted yet never quite fulfils.

Monday, June 22

Hitman
2007, AO, 8.30pm, Sky Movies
If you thought Deadwood star Timothy Olyphant dumbed down his career to be the villain in Die Hard 4.0, wait until you see him play a shaven-headed hitman with a bar code on the back of his skull in this gruesome, ludicrous video-game dramatisation. His mysterious assassin works for an equally murky agency that assigns him to kill Russia’s president – the not-so-surprising twist is he turns out to be the patsy in someone else’s sights.

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