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Cradle Will Rock | Year: 1999 Classification: Drama Actors/Actresses: - Hank Azaria - Joan Cusack - John Cusack - Cary Elwes - Paul Giamatti - Tim Robbins - Vanessa Redgrave - Susan Sarandon - Emily Watson Some great scenes, others somewhat heavy-handed Tim Robbins, who directed Cradle Will Rock, is known to most people as an actor and as the husband of Susan Sarandon. He is gifted as a director, but he is not attracted to mainstream subject matter. His most famous work is Dead Man Walking, but even that, with its story about a nun's attempts to counsel a man condemned to death, was not seen that widely. Cradle Will Rock, is his most accessible film to date, still does not deal with topics of interest to the average viewer. However, for those tired of or bored with seeing essential the same stories over and over again, this might prove to be a nice alternative. It's the late 1930s. America is still in the throes of the Great Depression. President Franklin Roosevelt's WPA, which has given work to a number of people through its vast program of public works, has recently started funding the arts. Actors, never steadily employed in the best of times, are lined up in droves at government offices in New York to try to land a part. The legendary Orson Welles [Angus MacFadyen] has obtained a grant to produce a musical called Cradle Will Rock. A lucky few will get jobs with the show. But the production is in chaos. The flamboyant sets don't work right. Welles is fighting constantly with his producing partener John Houseman [Cary Elwes]. Worse yet, outside forces are threatening the Federal program. Actors, along with many in other professions, blame the rich and those in power for causing and then prolonging the Depression. They hold demonstrations because they want to unionize. Many of the powerful people, in turn, blame Communism for causing the workers to demand better hours, wages and lives. Congress, always suspect of anything deemed art, is holding hearings to decide whether or not to continuing funding the program. It is, to say the least, a great big mess. As you can tell, the time Cradle Will Rock is set in gives Robbins many themes to deal with. A few he is a bit heavy-handed with, but most he handles with a deft touch and a wry sense of humor. A complex and wonderful film It looks like a great deal of money was spent making this movie and in a perfect and fair world, it would have wound up, if not a grand commercial success, at least taking home a number of Oscars. But the world doesn't work that way, so most people will have to luck into the experience of Cradle Will Rock, and I hope the reviews on this page will help. The complex plot has already been dealt with by other reviewers here, so I'll just say that, although I am not expert on the movie's subject (though I had read, in an Orson Welles bio, a little bit about the original play), it wasn't too difficult to keep up with the various plot and character strands. A little bit of extra information, perhaps in an opening or closing crawl, would have been nice, but the movie can definitely be enjoyed by intelligent moviegoers without the apparatus of an historical essay. The film is beautifully shot and edited, and the acting is absolutely superb throughout, especially Hank Azaria, Joan Cusack, and Bill Murray. My favorites were Cherry Jones, as a somewhat naive but honest and hard-working arts administrator, and Vanessa Redgrave, as the wife of a steel magnate who gives her sympathy and energy to the theater folk. Her part could easily have been played as just another bored rich person dabbling in politics, but she gives her character such verve and enthusiasm (especially during the climactic performance of the play) that she becomes a fully rounded and engaging character. Robbins stated that he was going for a screwball comedy pacing, despite the serious tone of most of the material, and the pacing works well, keeping the plotlines going with no boredom and a minimum of confusion--although we did have to stop the DVD a couple of times to make sure we were getting all the developments straight. The movie ends on a high note, and the very last, very surprising, shot, puts a perfect cap on this, a wonderful movie indeed. INTERESTING PASTICHE OF CHARACTERS, BUT TRIES TOO HARD Tim Robbins' ambitious attempt to blend the spirit of a screwball comedy with the conscience of a meaningful film with a message. A dazzling ensemble of characters who are seemingly separate from one another but all their loose ends are woven back together at the end, just like in Altman's movies. The subject I'd say is a bit cliche (Business = bad, Unions = good) but under proper direction could have been made interesting. Yet, Robbins chooses to apply such a hamfisted hand that it's difficult to get caught up in the story, despite the blistering pace at which he tells it. Plus, the protagonists seem shallowly defined. Either they're good, salt of the earth sort of people, or they're insecure, lonely and desperate whistle-blowers (like the character played by Bill Murray). At roughly 2.5 hours length, some judicious editing was in order, but despite the epic scale of the production and the calibre of the actors, this film ultimately winds up being little more than a overdrawn diatribe on the state of big businesses in the US. Recommended rental perhaps for some neat camerawork, or perhaps the last 20 minutes that were without a doubt the most clever and entertaining bit of the entire film. Buy Cradle Will Rock at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on Cradle Will Rock Search with the Priority Search Engine on Cradle Will Rock This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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