The performances here are all solid and the filmmaking is Eastwood at his most assured. The man knows how to make a point without beating it into the ground. He also knows how to take the disturbing and hold it up to the light from every conceivable angle, refusing to let us settle into any easy opinions about it. One of the most important war films ever made, and a great film by any standard.
3. United 93
"We have to do something, they are not going to land this plane."
The same unflinching eye director Paul Greengrass brought to Bloody Sunday lays bare the heroism, confusion, and horror of 9/11. His camera allows no buffer between you and the people experiencing it. And that final shot will stay with you forever.
2. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
"May George Bush drink the blood of every man, woman, and child in Iraq!"
Sacha Baron Cohen exposes our insecurities and prejudices by playing the classic fool. This film has as much in common with Being There as Jackass. It's no wonder Cohen considers Peter Sellers a major influence. As tense as any other film on this list, but in a completely different way. Your only reassurance that our hero won't get killed from scene to scene is the fact that Cohen is around to tell the tale.
Blurring the lines between documentary and narrative fiction (and earning a WGA nod for Best Adapted Screenplay in the process) with direction from Humor of the Uncomfortable maestro Larry Charles, Borat also boasts an incredible performance (perhaps the best of the year) from Cohen who manages to create a surprisingly versatile character and then maintain it in what might be termed "extreme improv" situations.
It's also as scary as any film on this list, with the very real lynch-happy machinations of one man against all gays and the drunken-yet-earnest yearnings of college-educated folk for the return of slavery.
For all the high-minded satire, however, I'd be lying if I said the biggest laughs didn't come during the naked wrestling scene.
"Very odd, what happens in a world without children's voices."
When people talk about "virtuoso filmmaking" they should point to this picture. Alfonso Cuarón sets the bar high in the first thirty minutes with a sequence that announces how ruthless both the plot and the cinematography is going to be. Clive Owen does his best bleak-future-face with a soulful performance that, like the script, never manages to lose its wry sense of humor.
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1 - Lisa McKay
Congratulations! This article has been chosen as a BC Magazine editor's pick this week.