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Alfie


Alfie

Rated:None
Director:Charles Shyer
Cast:Jude Law, Marisa Tomei, Omar Epps, Nia Long, Jane Krakowski, Sienna Miller, Susan Sarandon
Screen Writer:Charles Shyer
Genre:Romantic Comedy

By Ian Grey | Posted 11/10/2004

This highly unnecessary remake is simultaneously too-cool-for-school (star Jude Law addresses the camera; hip ‘60s pop references abound), retro (a horrible Mick Jagger song-track tries to offer running commentary), and as memorable as last week’s brunch mimosa. Law takes Michael Caine’s career-making role as the titular compulsive Lothario, bedding everything that moves until he almost learns What Really Matters. The action [sic] has been moved from Swinging ’60s London to New York. The earlier film’s pivotal abortion subplot has been replaced by an unbelievable Pro-Life routine to assure red-state play dates, while the class resentment Caine embodied has been replaced with Law’s kitteny, unmotivated horniness. Although Alfie’s ultimate emasculation by Susan Sarandon’s nouveau-riche entrepreneur (oh, the irony?) is a pip, director Charles Shyer (Baby Boom) and writer Elaine Pope (Seinfeld) end up with a passive/aggressive semi-critique of sexual consumerism that’s self-neutered by all the requirements of a Hollywood star vehicle.

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