In films such as The Graduate, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Carnal Knowledge, Nichols showed he could get to the core of relationships, but these were made over three decades ago, and he hasn’t been the same director since.

Closer (15, seen at Dundee Odeon), featuring Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen, is a serious return to form for the director.

Dan (Law) comes to the rescue of former-stripper Alice (Portman) when she is hit by a car and they become lovers. But that doesn’t stop Dan declaring his love for photographer Anna (Roberts), based on her beauty and the fact “she doesn’t need him.”

Anna refuses his advances and to extract revenge Dan sets her up on a date through an internet sex site, introducing the fourth member of the quartet, Larry (Owen).

We chronicle the relationships between Dan and Alice and Larry and Anna as love at first sight, becomes love and then fades and each seek comfort in one another.

Nichols dealt with a small cast and a similar subject matter in his first film Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Similarly in Closer the intelligent couples talk incredibly frankly to each other, seemingly ignorant of how their actions could hurt others.

Whereas Woolf takes place over the course of one frantic night, Closer encompasses four years.

Based on a play by the film’s screenwriter, Patrick Marber, this is a real actor’s film and each is note-perfect.

Clive Owen, by far the nastiest and most manipulative character in the film, delivers his lines with gusto. Portman, whom I’ve found adorable in her previous films, shows a much harder edge in what is being billed as her first adult role, as she turns from a vulnerable waif to ice queen seductress.

Roberts, firmly in ‘actress’ mode, rather than ‘movie star’ mode, is excellent in her understated performance, which is more likely to be ignored in amongst the more flashy roles but acts as the film’s centre.

And Law, far from playing the loveable rogue he has down to a tee, plays against type with his cold character, who seems to have no heart.

There is little real plot to the film, other than the interactions between the four leads, giving the film an arty, European feel.

Unlike some play adaptations, which are overly talky, Nichols gives the film scope with a variety of grand locations and interesting backgrounds.

But he doesn’t fill the film with over- complicated camera shots, mostly he lets the actors’ performances speak for themselves.

And it’s worth noting that the last time Nichols directed just four actors in Woolf, all four were Oscar nominated. It’s likely to happen again.

VERDICT: An edgy and rewarding film with many career-best performances.

Four Stars

The year is 823AD, or perhaps 824AD, and China’s Tang Dynasty is in decline. In the provinces, insurrection is brewing around a secret faction, the House of Flying Daggers. The group’s leader has been assassinated by the Emperor’s Guard, but a mysterious new leader has replaced him.

Two wily officers, Jin and Leo (Takeshi Kaneshiro and Andy Lau) are ordered to pinpoint this new opponent and liquidate him or her. They identify Mei (Ziyi Zhang), a blind, beautiful dancer at a local pagoda of ill-repute, as a member of the resistance and dupe her into helping them infiltrate the remote HQ. But is Mei all that she seems? And are Jin and Leo all that they seem?

Unfortunately, compared to Crouching Tiger, director Ang Lee’s masterpiece, Daggers is cobblers, notable only for its balletic punch-ups, fought out in a variety of cornfield/ bamboo glade locations. Take these infrequent fencing, floating, flying, kicking contests out of the equation, and you’re left with a slight plot and the sort of dire dialogue that should guarantee a Picture House Of Snoozing Viewers.

Put together by the team who brought us the similarly vacuous Hero, earlier this year (director Zhang Yimou and the same brace of screen-writers), Daggers boils down to a lacklustre cross-country trek, punctuated by beautifully constructed skirmishes, set within the framework of a love triangle.

If I ran a House of Flying Mail Deliveries, I’d be happy to despatch all prints of this movie to another type of triangle — the Bermuda Triangle.

VERDICT: Bamboo, boo, and thrice boo.

Two stars

Of course, this being a supernatural tale, all the snowy, distorted TV pictures and hissing, crackling sound are here to support the plot’s main plank. We’re talking Electronic Voice Phenomenon, an X-Files-type concept which suggests the dead can communicate with the living by means of electronic audio and video devices. Basically, if you listen hard enough to any electronic audio soup, you can hear the dearly departed whispering and mumbling away.

In this ‘case study’, architect Jonathan Rivers (Michael Keaton) loses his wife Anna in a drowning incident. Then grieving Jonathan is contacted by

the apparently barmy Raymond Price (Ian McNeice), who claims Anna has spoken to him via his banks of TVs, radios and other top-of-the-range electronic gadgetry.

Jonathan is sceptical, but Price has enough data to convince him that Anna is indeed trying to get in touch, and not just to tell her widowed husband to water the plants and do a bit of Hoovering.

She and fellow dead folk have knowledge of future events — including murders. Jonathan decides to act, so, armed with the sketchy details that the hard-to-decipher interface transmits, he sets out to prevent the worst from happening.

White Noise strikes out on a number of counts — not only is all the electronic interference insufferable to listen to and watch, the messages being conveyed are so garbled that one is often at a loss as to what the Dickens is going on.

Plus, it’s hard to see Michael Keaton, who used to be Hollywood big bananas, continue to wallow in B-movies. With his CV, it’s sacrilege to make him sit still in front of a TV or radio for the best part of 100 minutes with his eyebrows knitted. He used to be Batman. He used to be Beetlejuice. He doesn’t look right if he’s not bouncing about the scenery like a balloon with the gas escaping.

VERDICT: I, the living, have a message to communicate to you, also the living, by means of the printed word — this film is, to the eyes and ears, what a dentist’s drill is to the teeth.

Two stars

(12, Tartan Video)

WATCHING a man eat himself sick isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but for those who can stomach it, a tremendously entertaining documentary. Morgan Spurlock’s bid to show that fast food is bad for you sees him eat three meals a day at McDonald’s for 30 days.

The film is low budget and features plenty of talking heads about why this food is so bad for you. But the film also has a lot of humour as Morgan Spurlock travels around McDonald’s in different States as well as the more serious aspect of his previously healthy body turning into mush.

It’s also something of a tragedy because Spurlock seems like a really good guy and you don’t want to watch him do this to himself — but you can’t turn away. It’s just a pity he never gets to talk to the big guns at McDonald’s, which was really needed to give the film balance.

EXTRAS: Good DVD with a commentary, interviews and deleted scenes.

VERDICT: Not one to watch after having a Big Mac, but this festival hit is one of the most fun films released last year.

Four stars

(18, Fox Home Entertainment)

A GANGSTER film boasting the C-list names of David Arquette and rapper DMX doesn’t exactly inspire a lot of confidence — but this is a gritty and sharp modern film noir that deserves attention.

DMX is King David, a drug dealer coming back to his home town to right some wrongs after 10 years away. But upon his return he is shot and is taken to hospital by Paul (Arquette). He dies, but not before giving Paul his car which contains tapes telling his story and $250,000.

The film smartly works between flashbacks telling the King’s life as the tapes are played and also the present, where Paul tries to escape the hoods that don’t want King’s story heard. The film is crisply shot and, at just 80 minutes, there is no flab on the bones.

It’s no surprise that the director Ernest Dickerson received his film schooling shooting Spike Lee films like Do The Right Thing and Malcolm X, this is a film that puts the ‘good’ back in the hood.

EXTRAS: Commentary and making-of.

VERDICT: A down and dirty morality tale that packs a punch.

Three stars