Most of the 1961 family values have been kept surrealistically intact. But in Lavinia Currier's beautifully, almost magically realized film of the Balzac story, Daniels, afoot in the trackless desert, sheds his uniform, daubs himself in paint and learns to share in the life of the leopard who mysteriously befriends him. No, it's not Disney, but something more profound and less explicable. It stars a world-weary Robert DeNiro as a professional killer in search of work. Matt Damon wants to stay buddies for life with gambling partner Edward Norton in Rounders , but something goes terribly wrong.
Rounders is one of the best big-budget Hollywood films of the year.
Jackie Chan is teamed with Chris Tucker's overwrought Eddie Murphy gig. The result is like putting hot chocolate over won ton soup, but Tucker's rapid-fire wisecracks keeps things from congealing. The fight scenes are creatively choreographed duets rather than athletic showpieces, and the plot is coherent. Surprisingly, the audience is won over by the mindless fun, largely devoid of the usual noisy special effects. The first half-hour is among the most gripping cinema combat sequences ever filmed.