- American Gangster - Atonement - Eastern Promises - The Great Debaters - Michael Clayton - No Country For Old Man - There Will Be Blood

American Gangster
Directed by Ridkey Scott in his best picture since Gladiator, American Gangster re-unites Oscar winners Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington, for the first time in a decade, on opposie sides of the law.With an estimted $100 million budget it follows the true story of Frank Lucas, a hero of 1970s Harlem, who masterminded a drug enterprise that allowed him to smuggle heroin from South East Asia and Vietnam onto the street of New York.This movie easily slots in next to crime caper classics like Scarface and The french Connection but has only a slim chance at Best Picture glory.Heavily influenced by Michael Mann's Heat Washington and Crowe, like Pacino and De Niro, meet only once in the film.

When these two cinematic heavyweights do eventually come face to face they deliver the most electric scenes in the whole film.

Atonement

Atonment leads the Globe nominations this year but it has also lead the charge for British cinema doing well overseas, in particular America.

Atonement, which is an adaptation of Ian McEwan's best selling novel, is the story of lovers Cecilia and Robbie who are torn apart after Robbie is wrongfully accused of rape.

Gone are the days when British film consisted of two things: Hugh Grant and Richard Curtis. With director Joe Wright, who is Working Title's now golden boy, all that is beginning to change.

This is a classy film, and you don't often hear that said about a British movie, that's a faithful adaptation of the book.

Brit actors Keira Knightley nd James McAvoy deliver terrific performances as the parted lovers and are the best of the rising acting talent in the UK.

The Great Debaters

Denzel Washington, ike so many of today's actors, has stepped behind the camera for the second time in his career to direct The Great Debaters.

But for fans of Washinton do not fear he also stars in the movie about Melvin Tolson.

Tolson is a brilliant but volatile debate team coach who shapes a group of underdog black college students in East Texas into an elite debating team.

The team recieve a groundbreaking invatation to debate Harvard's championship team.

While the script does sound familiar: cast must over come racial and background issues in order to better themselves with the help of a sympathetic teacher.

But this film delves deeper into America's race relations producing a movie that has a seep emotional impact.

Eastern Promises

David Cronenberg's Eastern promises kicked off this autumn/winter's crime fest in theatres.

When a Russian teenager dies in childbirth, nurse Anna (Watts) begins to hunt for the girl's familyto save the baby from foster care.

The girl's diary leads her to 'driver' Nikolai (Mortensen) and the bloody underworld of the Russian Mafia.

Eastern Promises re-unites Cronenberg with his A History of Voilence leading man Viggo Mortensen, the director's previous step into the mainstream.

Cronenberg, who is regularly labelled as the King of Venereal Horror, and has long held the belief that violence should bot be glamourised and here it's convincingly gruesome and messy.

The director seems to revel in the intricacies of gangster life and seems to have stamped his mark on the Russian Mafia genre of the gangster movie.

This is a ruthless crime thriller that won the Audience Prize at this year's Toronto International Film Festival and could be Cronenberg's best picture.

Michael Clayton

Bourne screenwriter Tony Golroy turns director, for the firt time, producing a classy piece of filmmaking of skullduggery and paranoia that makes for a gripping ride.

Clooney plays a burt-out lawyer and professional 'fixer' who gets caught up in events that surrounded a corporate cover up.

Clooney ince again gives a mightily impressive performance as Clayton showing the character's many layers giving him genuine depth as he discovers what kind of person he is.

There rae also some great support performances in particular Tom Wilkinson as Arthur Edens, who suffers a serious meltdown, and Tilda Swinton's murderous company chief counsel.

But one of the films major strong points os it allows us the audience to process the things we know and learn about Michael Clayton without having it spelt out to us.

No Country For Old Men

Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen it's the duo's first film in nearly four yearsand is an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel.

It has always been suggested that good books make really bad films bit the Coen's, not to mention Joe Wright's Atonement and a little trilogy called Lord of the Rings, has proved that this statement is a load of trash.

Llewlyn Moss (Brolin), a down on his luck Vietnam veteran, stumbles across a drug deal that has gone violently wrong.

Discovering a suitcase full of cash Moss flees with the money unaware that merciless killer (Javier Bardem) is already on his trail.

Several steps behind is Sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) who is concerned by the rising number of dead bodies.

No Country For Old Men is a bleak and gritty picture with Bardem delivering an exceptional performance as the most unnerving screen villain of 2007.

Having won Best Picture at the New York Critics Circle, National Board of Review, Washington D.C Area Film Critics Association and Boston Society of Film Critics No Country Fol Old Men is hotly tipped for Oscar success.

There Will Be Blood

Famed for movies such as Magnolia, Boogie Nights and Punch Drunk Love - ensemble pictures that are sweet and witty it comes as a shock, and a bit of a surprise, that Paul Thomas Anderson signed up for the very straight forward period picture There Will Be Blood.

The film follows Daniel Plainview over the course of a twenty nine year period and his journey from a rock scratcher to a ver successful and rich oil baron.

Leading the cast is Daniel Day Lewis, making only his third picture this decade, but he really is a force of nature as a psychopath and capitalist.

Day Lewis is well known for taking his acting roles very seriously and it's great to see this craftsman back on the big screen.

Already being compare to Citizen Kane There Will Be Blood has won the L.A Film Critics Association for Best Picture and may be No Country For Old Men's nearest competition.

Tip to win the award for Motion Picture Drama: No Country For Old Men.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw