China Moon (1994)

The only thing missing from this unchallenging 93-minute neo-noir escapism about a cop (Ed Harris) who falls for a dame with a cheating husband and a gun (Madeleine Stowe) is the steam - cicadas chirp, fans whirr, and icecubes clink in homemade lemonade, but there isn't a sweaty underarm or beaded brow to be seen, making this more The Big Air-conditioned Studio Cool than The Big Heat.

★★★☆☆

Twelve Monkeys (1995)

The joy of Terry Gillam's Twelve Monkeys, a thrilling drama that works with the Slaughterhouse Five themes of time, memory, and questions of what is real and what isn't, is watching the madness ebb and flow and transplant itself back and forth between the leads, so that first it is Willis, then Stowe, then Willis again, whose reality - with the help of unbalanced camera angles - teeters on collapse.

★★★★★

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