Backbeat (1994)
Directed by Iain Softley
Chronicles the early days of The Beatles in Hamburg, Germany. The film focuses primarily on the relationship between Stuart Sutcliffe, John Lennon, and Sutcliffe's girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr.
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What critics compared Backbeat to
There's nothing in "A Knight's Tale" that revs you up the way a rock 'n' roll movie sequence should -- that does the kind of thing that, say, Iain Softley did so wonderfully in "Backbeat," or haphazard genius Baz Luhrman carried off in his messy, mesmerizing "William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet."
And what Iain Softley, who directed the gritty early-Beatles bio "Backbeat" and the excellent, earthy Henry James adaptation "Wings of a Dove" is doing on this paint-by-numbers kit I have no idea.
The helmer of Backbeat, Hackers, and The Wings of the Dove paints Charles Leavitt's overly sentimental study of the human condition (based on a book by Gene Brewer) with broad references to The Fisher King (also borrowing that film's co-star Jeff Bridges), another compassionate, humorous glimpse of the thin line between sanity and insanity.
His debut, the Beatle bio "Backbeat," as well as the more recent "The Wings of the Dove" also showcased the value of keeping potentially overwrought situations in check.
On paper, it must have looked great – a film starring both Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges, two of America’s best actors, working together for the first time and directed by a reliable director in Iain Softley (who made Backbeat and The Wings of a Dove).
It is based on a novel by Gene Brewer and written by Charles Leavitt, and directed without courage or much imagination by Iain Softley ("Backbeat"/"Hackers").
That's more than can be said for the fashionably brooding direction (by Iain Softley, of BackBeat and The Wings of the Dove) and the each-revelation-in-its-place script by Charles Leavitt (by way of Gene Brewer's novel), both working overtime to strike a balance between the fantastic and the realistic.
But the appeal of "The Skeleton Key" lies not in its plot but in its attention to detail, and the way director Iain Softley (still on probation for "K-PAX," but nevertheless the guy who did "Backbeat") luxuriates in the deeply textured sights and sounds of Louisiana.
Directed by British director Iain Softley (“You may remember me from films such as Backbeat and, um, K-Pax”), The Skeleton Key is an effectively creepy, atmospheric thriller that builds towards a killer of a climax.
Director Iain Softley, a classy British filmmaker ("Wings of the Dove," "Backbeat") with no previous experience in the genre, tries hard to avoid the cliches and is clearly aiming more toward a "Rosemary's Baby" than an "Amityville Horror."