Best films on the box: November 10-16

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Film and television critic Philip Wakefield assesses the best movies on offer on the box this week, for Tuesday, November 10 to Monday, November 16.

Tuesday, November 10

Edison
2005, AO, 8.30pm, TV2
Heavyweight leads - Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Dylan McDermott - head an otherwise lightweight, obscure thriller about fearless journalists exposing dirty cops. It went straight to DVD in most countries and doesn’t deserve a prime movie slot such as this.

Wednesday, November 11

Juno
2007, AO, 8.30pm, Sky Movies
Thank You for Smoking’s Jason Reitman adroitly tackles teen pregnancy with this quirky, surprising tale about a spirited 16-year-old who opts to have her baby adopted. Smart, funny, empathetic and just nutty enough to be distinctive without being indulgent, Juno won Diablo Cody an Oscar for best original screenplay and boasts a sublime cast that includes Ellen Page and Michael Cera as the odd-couple adolescents who discover sex before themselves.

Thursday, November 12

Eagle Eye
2008, AO, 8.30pm, Sky Movies
You don’t have to be eagle-eyed to spot the improbabilities of this ludicrous but entertaining hi-tech Hitchcockian thriller about Big Brother gone beserk. After the Rear Window-ish suspense of Disturbia, Shia LaBeouf reunites with director DJ Caruso to go the North by Northwest route as the patsy in an ingeniously engineered surveillance conspiracy that relentlessly stalks him cross-country. To reveal more would spoil a plot that is so well executed its silliness is tolerated for the tension and excitement it generates. Michelle Monaghan and Billy Bob Thornton star.

Friday, November 13

Eastern Promises
2007, AO, 8.30pm, Sky Movies
Russian gangsters take centrestage in the second consecutive collaboration between A History of Violence director David Cronenberg and star Viggo Mortensen. Mortensen was Oscar-nominated for playing the enigmatic henchman of a London restaurateur-cum-Russian mobster (Armin Mueller-Stalh), and his son (Vincent Cassell), whose prostitution racket is jeopardised by a nosy midwife (Namoi Watts) investigating the death of a pregnant teenager. The intricate plot untangles with suspenseful precision and while the violence is typically Cronenbergesque in its ferocity and ghastliness, it’s also mercifully sparing.

Saturday, November 14

Freedomland
2006, AO, 8.30pm, TV One
There are shades of Spike Lee’s Clockers to this racial powderkeg thriller, partly because it’s based on another Richard Ford novel with similar characters and settings. But director Joe Roth (America’s Sweethearts) isn’t another Lee and despite terrific performances from Samuel L Jackson and Julianne Moore, this investigation into a child’s abduction never captivates.

A Guy Thing
2003, AO, 8.30pm, TV2
Jason Lee and Julia Stiles star in a feeble screwball comedy about a groom-to-be who winds up the morning after his stag party alongside his bride-to-be’s cousin. Complications and contrivances thereupon ensue, but not many laughs.  TV vet Chris Koch (My Name is Earl, Scrubs) directs.

Panic Room
2002, AO, 8.30pm, TV3
In this David Fincher thriller, Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart are a divorcee and daughter fleeing from three intruders in their Manhattan mansion. Their refuge is a "panic room," a secret hi-tech sanctuary wired for security and surveillance with just one snag: it’s where several million dollars that belonged to the previous owner is hidden. Consequently, the thieves want in but they don't want out. It’s a vicarious cat-and-mouse contest that made for thrilling, ingeniously mounted, big-screen escapism but lacks the depth of character and plot to satisfy or enthral on the small screen.

Gattaca
1997, AO, 10.40pm, TV2
Wellington-born director Andrew Niccol’s first foray into sci-fi is big on thought-provoking ideas but the dramatic conflict is undermined by claustrophobic production values. The action is restricted to a handful of interiors and speaking parts, over which hangs a pall of drab cinematography and expressionless acting. Still, this genetic-engineering whodunit with a clever cloning premise does make you think about the perils of science and technology far more effectively than most of its ilk. If only the painstaking twist wasn’t more obvious than DNA strands. Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Jude Law star.

NED KELLY
2002, AO, 10.50pm, TV3
Heath Ledger reunited with Two Hands director Gregor Jordan for this handsome but hamfisted dramatisation of the iconic outlaw’s short life and crimes. There’s much to recommend it, from the haunting cinematography to the authenticity of the costumes and production design. But it suffers from a contrived symmetry in its storytelling and a surfeit of overripe romanticism that makes Butch & Sundance look like Bonnie & Clyde.

Sunday, November 15

Eight Crazy Nights
2002, AO, 12.45am, TV2
Animated Adam Sandler musical/comedy that, like his live-action movies, merrily mixes the scatological and the sentimental. Despite being a Christmas-themed ‘toon with tunes, it’s more suited to undemanding adults than discerning youngsters.

In the Cut
2003, AO, 2.15am, TV2
Not even Meg Ryan’s startling turn against type, as a public toilet-peeping tom, can arrest this erotic, neurotic noir’s descent into the absurd: its odd-couple scenario - slang-mad wordsmith falls for brutish cop with tender touch she later suspects of murder - rarely convinces and fatally pivots on transparent plot twists. Jane Campion directs; Mark Ruffalo co-stars.

Man of the House
2005, PGR, 8.30pm, TV2
Tommy Lee Jones plays a Texas Ranger who goes undercover as a cheerleaders’ coach in a comedy that’s even dimmer than it sounds. Cedric the Entertainer co-stars.

THE CAVE
2005, AO, 10.30pm, TV2
This B-grade monster-from-the-deep thriller set in underwater caves in Romania - one wit dubbed it, Alien: Stalagmite Edition - is more fun than frightful (or frightening). The crew of TV faces includes Lena Headley (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), Eddie Cibrian (Invasion) and Cole Hauser (Damages).

Monday, November 16

Jarhead
2005, AO, 8.30pm, TV3
War is boring as hell. That’s the thrust of this true-life dramatisation of a rookie Marine’s first tour of duty, as a sniper in the first Gulf War who returns home without having fired a shot in action. It’s not an exciting, heroic account of courage under fire but a sombre, sobering, often brutal take on the dehumanisation of military life. Over-familiarity dogs Jarhead throughout yet it still affords a unique perspective that’s thought provoking if not profound. Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx star; San Mendes (Revolutionary Road, American Beauty) directs.