Movie Review:

Chicago

    Roxie shot her lover because he lied to her about club connections she thought would get her on the stage.   Velma shot her husband and her sister when she caught them in flagrante delicto.   Billy is a laywer who will use any and all tactics, particularly sensational ones, to get clients off.  In other words, for those who enjoy movies bereft of likable characters, Chicago is the film of the year.

    Roxie Hart (Renée Zellweger) wants her own stage act.  Badly.  She even daydreams in elaborate musical numbers.  Roxie lacks connections, though - something she's about to find out.  Her boyfriend Fred (Dominic West) gets tired of her and confesses that he only told her he was friends with a club owner so she would sleep with him.  In a blind rage, Roxie grabs a gun and shoots Fred.

    When her husband Amos (John C. Reilly) comes home, Roxie tells him Fred was a burglar and gets him to confess to shooting the man - until Amos finds out it was Fred, at which point he realizes what's been going on and Roxie gets hauled off to jail.

    There, she meets the matron, Mama Morton (Queen Latifah), as well as fellow murderesses like Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a club performer who walked in on her husband and sister and shot them both, though she claims to have blacked out and have no memory of the crime.

    Worried that she is going to hang, Roxie manages to enlist the help of Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), whose job is not so much to act as Roxie's lawyer as her publicist.  As Roxie's star rises in the papers, Velma's falls, a fact that does not go unnoticed with the former starlet.   What Roxie soon finds out, though, is that Chicago can be a fickle town when it comes to publicity, and as soon as the next murderess shows up, Roxie needs new tricks to keep herself in the spotlight.

    Chicago is really the most logical type of musical.  Usually in such movies, and on the stage, people going about their everyday lives suddenly erupt into lavish song and dance numbers, which may look good but tends to look awkward when it's all over.  Consider, say, Singin' in the Rain's titular sequence, in which Gene Kelly just starts dancing around and singing as he's walking home.  Looks good, yes, but doesn't it seem just a bit odd?

    In Chicago, however, all but two of the musical numbers take place in characters' imaginations (most in Roxie's, one in Amos'), and the two that don't are actually part of musical acts in which the characters are performing.  At no point does someone walking down the street suddenly start singing and dancing, only to keep walking after they've finished.   (The stage musical apparently follows those conventions, with the fantasy sequences substituted in the movie.  Whatever the reason, it works.)

    Typical though the plot may be, Chicago's musical numbers are undeniably fun, and spaced so close together that they keep things bouncing along.  Director Rob Marshall and cinematographer Dion Beebe make things look great, particularly during "Roxie," a number involving a lot of mirrors, and Roxie and Velma's end sequence performance of "Nowadays," featuring the two dancing in front of a large panel of light bulbs, which is simply stunning visually.  The songs themselves are also enjoyable, particularly "And All That Jazz" which is almost infuriatingly catchy.

    There are a couple of problems, which lie entirely in characterization.  Velma feels underdeveloped for a supposed main character - given her screen time, Zeta-Jones seems like a better choice for Best Supporting Actress than Best Actress, but she got her Golden Globe nomination in the latter category.  Her character also vaults from the heights of superstar arrogance to the depths of nobody desperation in a very short period of time - it's a bit of a jarring transformation; give Zeta-Jones credit for mostly pulling it off.

    The other main characterization problem is the repugnance of most of the characters.  Roxie attempts to pin Fred's murder on Amos, blames Amos when he lets slip the truth, and ignores him thereafter, even though he is surprisingly loyal to her for someone put in his position.   Billy is surprisingly likable for a 1920s hotshot lawyer, but he still has to resort to some unethical tactics to achieve his goals, and he too is very dismissive of Amos.

    In fact, despite the fairly small role, Amos is by far the most likable character in the film.  Reilly plays him adroitly, with a thick head but a good heart; Amos' various manipulations by Roxie and his solo musical number "Mr. Cellophane" (incidentally, the only musical daydream that doesn't belong to Roxie) are heartbreaking.

    In a movie with less energy, loathsome main characters might be a problem - Chicago, though, is able to get away with it.  Not only is it fun to look at and listen to, but the performers all give fine performances in singing and dancing along with their normal acting duties.   We knew Zeta-Jones could sing - she started her career in musicals on the other side of the pond - but who knew Zellweger and Gere could be this good?  All are in contention for major award recognition, and all deservedly so.

    So, combine great performances of mediocre characters, fun songs, and nice cinematography, and what do you have?  One of the most watchable movies of the year.  Chicago is not a perfect movie, but it is about as good a film version of a musical as one could hope to see.  A

Chicago is a Miramax release.  Rated for sexual content and dialogue, violence and thematic elements.