Dark, hip and classy

Three films this week and hopefully something for everyone. Starting with the best, you won't see anything 'cooler' than 'Donnie Darko', which has the movie industry buzzing. As usual this 'buzz' is created by a successful movie that's unlike anything that's been successful recently.

In an industry that starts every new roll of film with a blank canvass, an awful lot of samey moviemaking ends up in our cinemas, and often purposely.

The reason for this is that too many film studio execs see their job as trying to make the figures work in their favour for as long as possible. This means minimising their risks and in turn trying to find as safe a bet as possible.

So the execs give lead roles and directing responsibility to people who just had a hit. They hire writers who have a good track record, when possible, and they make the kind of films that people seem to like at that moment.

Now I don't know where 'Donnie Darko' fits into this, but I'll bet it was an independent movie that would never have been made with studio help, but being as good as it is, you can also bet that they'll be some 'Donnie Darko' wannabe movies out next year.

In the meantime its debut writer/director, Richard Kelly, and it's strange star, Jake Gyllenhaal, are going to be on every studio execs' list of people to 'do lunch with today!'.

Kelly's 'Donnie Darko' is, as the title suggests, a dark little film about an adolescent called Donnie. From a semi-functional upper-middle class family Donnie is morosely skulking through his teens like many a teenager (Themes from 'Catcher In The Rye' aplenty here) But on top of all this Donnie has schizophrenic visions of a six-foot rabbit. (An anti-Harvey for the new millennium).

When the rabbit saves Donnie's life, Donnie carries out the Rabbit's wishes, by flooding the school and burning down a motivational speaker's mansion for example. More disturbing is Frank the Rabbit's (as he likes to be called) warning that the world will end in 28 days six hours 42 minutes 12 seconds. This is a very exact hallucination.

Between them, the rabbit and Donnie create havoc. 'Donnie Darko' isn't the best or the most original film I've ever seen but it just has something classy about it that you daren't take your eyes off. That certainly is down to Richard Kelly's vision and ability to meld his surprisingly hip sounding 1980s soundtracks with gritty but poetic visuals and script, along with some fantastic performances from his cast.

Also released is 'High Crimes' (12), which is about as conventional a movie as 'Donnie Darko' is unconventional. Ashley Judd plays Claire Kubik, a high powered lawyer who finds her world turned upside down when her husband, who she thought was Tom Kubik, is arrested and is revealed to be Ron Chapman accused of murdering Latin American villagers while he was in the Marines. Claire soon learns that to navigate the military justice system, she'll need help from the somewhat unconventional Charlie Grimes (Morgan Freeman). It's all up hill from there seeing as most of the eyewitnesses have rather inconveniently died. 'High Crimes' is nothing to write home about but is more than adequate Friday night thriller fare. It is a shame more really special films don't land on Mr Freeman's doormat.

Finally, there's 'K:19: The Widowmaker', which is not that great by all accounts but I wanted to mention it because it's the first dramatic feature to be made by The National Geographic Society. It stars Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson and tells the true story of the USSR's disastrous first nuclear sub. Haven't seen it but it's pretty ordinary by all accounts. Hopefully, Harrison Ford's career isn't taking a Dive! Dive! Dive!

VAUGHAN SIVELL