We look at this week’s best new cinema releases
MILLION DOLLAR ARM (PG)
If Jerry Maguire and Slumdog Millionaire gave birth to an impossibly cute love child, it would look something like Million Dollar Arm.
Based on an incredible true story, Craig Gillespie’s unapologetically feel-good sports drama follows a down-on-his-luck agent who attempts to introduce baseball to India via an outlandish rags-to-riches competition.
Screenwriter Tom McCarthy fashions an armful of well-worn cliches into an irresistibly sweet and charming tale of triumph against adversity that scores a home run when it matters.
Key to the film’s appeal is handsome leading man Jon Hamm, who swaps the tailored suits of Mad Men for more casual attire as he travels around south Asia, searching for diamonds in the rough to an evocative soundtrack composed by A.R. Rahman.
Hamm lights up the screen and enjoys comic interludes with Alan Arkin playing a grouchy baseball scout, who steps into the stifling heat of foreign climes and growls: “Get me to a hotel and don’t wake me up again until someone’s throwing a baseball.”
Sports agent JB Bernstein (Hamm) and business partner Ash Vasudevan (Aasif Mandvi) are on the brink of financial ruin.
They need to find fresh talent who can, in the words of Cuba Gooding jun in Jerry Maguire, show them the money.
Unfortunately, home-grown sports stars are thin on the ground and overseas audiences are nuts about cricket, a sport which JB abhors: “It’s like an insane asylum opened up and all the inmates were allowed to play a game.”
Late one night, JB has a brainwave: a competition to bring two bowlers from India to America to challenge for a lucrative Major League Baseball contract.
Wealthy businessman Chang (Tzi Ma) finances the scheme, but demands results within 12 months.
Flanked by translator Amit (Pitobash) and scout Ray Poitevint (Arkin), JB travels around India and unearths two raw talents: Dinesh Patel (Madhur Mittal) and Rinku Singh (Suraj Sharma).
They head for JB’s plush apartment in America, where fish-out-of-water Dinesh and Rinku train under pitching coach Tom House (Bill Paxton). JB neglects his charges until Brenda (Lake Bell), the pretty ER nurse who rents his guesthouse, pricks his conscience.
“They need to see you care,” she warns him.
Million Dollar Arm is a polished amalgamation of countless other sports movies that compel us to root for the underdog.
Familiarity breeds delight in Gillespie’s film, relying on a strong ensemble cast to milk laughter and tears when it seems the script will strike out.
Cinematographer Gyula Pados contrasts the rich colours of India with cold, clinical greys of corporate, profit-driven America.
The romantic subplot involving Hamm and Bell follows the same trajectory as the rest of the film, but we’re powerless to resist each predictable beat of the characters’ hearts.
SIN CITY 2: A DAME TO KILL FOR (18)
Crime pays handsomely in this visually arresting sequel to the 2005 neo-noir anthology based on Frank Miller’s comic series.
Blessed with the same black-and-white aesthetic, Sin City 2: A Dame To Kill For is as twisted and depraved as its predecessor, festooning every frame with corrupt cops, gun-toting hoodlums and scantily clad molls.
Lurid splashes of colour, like a murderous vamp’s emerald eyes or a working girl’s tumbling copper curls, temporarily draw the eye away from the misery, degradation and mutilation, including an eyeball being wrenched from its socket.
Directors Robert Rodriguez and Miller linger on the darker side of human nature, relishing the crisp snap of one character’s fingers as they are broken with pliers, or the exaggerated splatter of an arrow scything through a henchman’s noggin.
The film wears its 18 certificate as a badge of honour.
Once again, three stories entwine on the godforsaken streets of Sin City.
The ghost of police detective John Hartigan (Bruce Willis) haunts exotic dancer Nancy Callahan (Jessica Alba).
She descends into booze-fuelled hell, desperate to put a bullet between the eyes of scheming Senator Roark (Powers Boothe).
Nancy manipulates her protector Marv (Mickey Rourke) into taking down the politician and his goons, regardless of the consequences.
Meanwhile, cocksure gambler Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his lucky charm Marcie (Julia Garner) prepare to take on Roark at the poker table. Johnny humiliates his powerful host and suffers horrific consequences.
“I can’t protect you,” the chief of police informs Johnny.
“Then why you a cop?” retorts the gambler.
Nearby, Dwight McCarthy (Josh Brolin) struggles to rein in his violent impulses following an encounter with old flame Ava Lord (Eva Green).
She begs Dwight to help her escape the clutches of her sadistic husband, Damien (Marton Csokas), and his hulking
bodyguard Manute (Dennis Haysbert).
Love really hurts.
The plan goes awry and Dwight turns to old flame Gail (Rosario Dawson) and avenging angel Miho (Jamie Chung) to help him evade the cops (Christopher Meloni, Jeremy Piven).
Arriving almost a decade after the first chapter, Sin City 2: A Dame To Kill For plunges us headfirst into a grimy universe where a bullet to the head settles most arguments.
Style pummels emotion into submission and snappy dialogue from the comics enhances the feeling that characters talk at not to each other.
Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller direct set-pieces including a car chase and sword fight at a breathless lick, melding heavily stylised live action and animation for each orgy of violence.
Green sheds her inhibitions to play an archetypal femme fatale with lip-smacking gusto, enforcing what we knew already from the first film: the female of the species is far deadlier than the male.