| A remake of the 1960's film starring Michael Caine, this version of 'Alfie' follows the womanising exploits of good-looking, Gucci-wearing Brit living in New York called Alfie (Jude Law). When we first meet Alfie, life couldn't be better for him. His job as a limo driver means he is always meeting rich and beautiful women, who he invariably sleeps with and promptly forgets about as he moves on to the next. Throughout the course of the film however, as he hops from bed to bed, Alfie begins to question his playboy lifestyle.
This is a very stylish film. The camera moves and cuts quickly, and Jude Law alternates between speaking to other characters in the film, and directly to the camera (a technique taken straight from the original, but which still feels relatively fresh). Jude Law's performance is easily a match for this style of direction, and he pulls off the roll of cocky, yet charming womaniser convincingly and endearingly. The plot however, is no match for the slick camera work and acting. What there is of it (and that is not very much) plods along far too slowly and I was bored well before the end. Not only that, but for a remake that is obviously trying so hard to be cool and contemporary, despite its polished finish, it feels very dated. The plot has been altered to better fit the glitzy New York setting, with the addition of an inter-racial relationship to try an bring it up to date, yet it completely avoids important current issues such as AIDS. Furthermore, the inevitable soul-searching that Alfie goes through as he realises the consequences of his lifestyle on the people he cares
about is often confused and is rarely sufficiently poignant. There seemed to be endless rueful voice-overs, accompanied by tearful music (which is written by Mick Jagger and is actually rather good I thought), as Alfie laments his mistakes, which each time I took as signalling the end of the film, only to find that there was still a lot more film and a lot more mistakes to come! And this lessened the impact any moral revelation or self-realisation on Alfie's part.
This film was entertaining for the first hour or so, and the sound track helped lift some of the empty soul-searching scenes from mediocrity. However, the film is not nearly as classy as it wants to be.
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