Halle Berry's blubbing Oscar win shouldn't obscure the fact that this is a brave, harrowing film, echoing the intimacy of '70s cinema's heyday. Billy Bob Thornton is uncannily intense as a Death Row prison guard who cracks up when his son Heath Ledger can't handle his job. An odd coupling with convict's wife Berry may or may not redeem him. Inspirational.
Rating: 4 / 10
Retail dvd & vhs (entertainment in video, widescreen)
Nick Cave - The Ultimate Music Guide, on sale this week!
Bruce Springsteen: "I get roughed up crowdsurfing… people try to pull chunks out of me"
First Look - David Bowie: Five Years
The Clash announce major new box set
The National: "Trouble Will Find Me is like The Band and Air in the same room"
Watch Laura Marling cover Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing In The Dark"
Bill Wyman on playing with The Rolling Stones: 'Never again'
Queens Of The Stone Age announce '…Like Clockwork' tracklisting and release date
I would have bought the issue of Melody Maker in which I first read about Bruce Springsteen on my way into the art school in Newport, where in March 1973 I was in my last term, only a few months away from moving to London and not long after that fetching up on MM as a junior reporter/feature...
