In the Hand of Dante review – Gerard Butler is jaw-dropping in bizarre Renaissance mafia reverie

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Julian Schnabel’s combustible mix of lowlife cynicism and high art – along with cameos from Martin Scorsese and Al Pacino – powers this outrageous black comedy revolving around Dante’s Divine Comedy The worlds of Renaissance manuscript scholarship and organised crime come together like a mix of Umberto Eco and George V Higgins in this flawed but fascinating reverie from director and co-writer Julian Schnabel. Switching between monochrome and colour, and freely adapted from the Nick Tosches novel of the same name, it is hilarious and shocking, at least at first, with a quite extraordinary tough-guy role for Gerard Butler. It is a mysterious, scabrous and bizarre adventure in violent larceny and spiritual crisis which unfortunately unwinds in the end into sentimental fantasy. In the Hand of Dante amounts to an epic and self-aware jeu d’ésprit with amazing cameos from Martin Scorsese, Al Pacino and Franco Nero, beckoning its audience over to peep into the fathomless abyss of heaven and ...
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A Kid for Two Farthings review – Carol Reed’s East End market-street caper still charms

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An array of stars portray warm-hearted Londoners in comedy pivoting around a young boy who is a sunny ancestor to Kes

Carol Reed’s 1955 film is a rich slice of gentle, sentimental comedy, adapted by Wolf Mankowitz from his own novel. It’s a little bit broad and not in the class of The Third Man or The Fallen Idol, but forthright and heartfelt, and boasting a veritable aristocracy of British character acting talent.

In the bustling world of Petticoat Lane in London’s East End, then the traditional home of the Jewish community, a shy little boy called Joe mopes and daydreams around the place; he’s played by Jonathan Ashmore, with the rather non-East-End stage-school child actor voice that was common in those days. (Ashmore left showbusiness after this one screen appearance and grew up to be a distinguished scientist.) His cheerful but careworn mum Joanna (Celia Johnson) is sadly missing her husband, Joe’s dad: he’s away chasing get-rich-quick schemes in South Africa.

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