Film Reviews

Silver City

• Rating:
• Director: John Sayles
• Starring: Danny Huston
• Details: US / 128 mins (15A).

When the discovery of a corpse threatens the political aspirations of Dicky Pilager (Cooper), his campaign manager, Chuck Raven (Dreyfuss) hires former journalist turned private eye Danny O'Brien (Huston) to investigate the possibility that the corpse is linked to the Pilager's family enemies. A laconic quip or two later, Danny is armpit-deep in a complex conspiracy involving media conglomerates, migrant workers, political lobbyists and environmental polluters. It doesn't take a huge leap of the imagination to draw a comparison between the grammatically-challenged Pilager and George Bush Jnr, particularly when his pappy, Jud, is a venerable senator; writer/director John Sayles (Lone Star, Sunshine State) has made his most nakedly political film to date, and it's not a particularly pretty or impressive sight. Unfortunately, while the double-dealing shenanigans are undoubtedly representative of what actually occurs during the horse-trading that passes for democratic politics on the margins of Washington DC (and most other capital cities you might care to mention), this story is unnecessarily tangled, and a fine supporting cast - Tim Roth, Kris Kristofferson, Thora Birch - gets lost in the undergrowth. Sayles may have been aiming to make another Chinatown, but he ended up with another Two Jakes.

Review by Declan Burke