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Top Movies Eight Below Date Movie The Pink Panther Curious George Final Destination 3 Firewall Freedomland When a Stranger Calls Big Momma's House 2 Nanny McPhee New Releases Curious George Final Destination 3 Firewall The Pink Panther Date Movie Eight Below Freedomland Something New Failure to Launch When a Stranger Calls Top Celebs Reese Witherspoon Brad Pitt Paris Hilton Mariah Carey Lindsay Lohan Scarlett Johansson Phil Collins Britney Spears Angelina Jolie Jodie Marsh	Chicago  Release Date - December 27th, 2002  Distributor - Miramax Films  Duration - 1 hr. 40 min.  Type - Not Rated.  Writer : Bill Condon  Producer : Martin Richards  Director : Rob Marshall  Starring : Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, Christine Baranski, Taye Diggs  Synopsis It's the long-awaited film version of the Broadway hit. Set in the roaring 20's, this is the story of Chicago chorus girl Roxie Hart (Zellweger), who shoots her unfaithful lover (West). Landing in jail, she meets Velma Kelly (Zeta-Jones), another chorus girl and murderess, currently enjoying media attention and legal manipulation, care of her attorney, Billy Flynn (Gere), king of the old "Razzle Dazzle." Soon enough, however, Flynn takes Roxie's case as well, and Velma finds herself old news as Roxie is now the most famous murderess in town, on her way to getting out of jail and becoming a star. The two go through a series of attempts at getting what they both want (often conflicting): freedom and fame.  Critic Reviews "Chicago" first sizzled onstage in 1975, when Bob Fosse decided to take the sardonic razzmatazz of his Oscar-winning "Cabaret" and wrap it around a tale of a pair of killer dames in Chicago during the Roaring Twenties, when the only thing worse than murder was not getting your name on the front page. Successfully revived in 1996, the musical still proved to be movie-resistant. Fosse thought about it and passed; he made "All That Jazz" instead. JLo, Madonna and Goldie Hawn have all been attached to the project at one time or another. But now "Chicago" is here, and as they say on Broadway, it's a helluva show. Director Rob Marshall, a choreographer ("Damn Yankees") who directed the TV version of "Annie," has figured out how to make the musical sing and dance onscreen. He's staged the picture as if most of the musical numbers are taking place in the imagination of his hard-luck killer, Roxie Hart (Renée Zellweger). The plot is as garishly simple as a tabloid tease. Roxie, who dreams of being a vaudeville star, plugs her furniture-salesman lover when she learns his supposed showbiz connections are connected only to his libido. She lands in prison, where she meets her idol, Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones), an uber-diva headliner now making headlines for pumping lead into her husband and her sister when she found them getting cozy. The pair become rivals, competing for the attention of the clamoring, soulless press and the attention of their mutual lawyer, a flamboyant slickster named Billy Flynn (Richard Gere). Yes, you read those names correctly. Typically associated with nonmusical movies, these three stars have turned themselves into all-singing, all-dancing troupers. Zeta-Jones belts out her numbers like a Broadway veteran (and looks good doing it). Zellweger sells her songs with her kewpie-doll looks and her Betty Boop voice. Gere tap-dances! Queen Latifah plays a manipulative prison matron who shakes her stuff in the jazzy "When You're Good to Mama." The ubiquitous and always welcome John C. Reilly (he's also in "The Hours" and "Gangs of New York") is Roxie's poor schlep of a husband. Turns out, he's a singer-dancer, too. Donning Pagliacci whiteface, he effectively soft-shoes through "Mr. Cellophane," a little ditty about what a nothing he is. The picture stumbles at first. Though Zeta-Jones does a slam-bang job with the famous opening number, "All That Jazz," Marshall seems infected with a bad case of of Fosse-wannabe-ism. The distorted reflections, the decadent audience, the glitter-and-be-gay cynicism, the whiz-around camera -- does he think "Cabaret" was this little movie no one saw? But soon he settles down (by the way, that's his choreography, not Fosse's) and "Chicago" gets jazzed on its own juiciness. There's one show-stopper after another. "The Cell Block Tango," in which Roxie and Velma's Murderers Row colleagues tell their version of how they landed in jail. (Hilariously, they all claim to be innocent; one lyric goes, "So I gave him two warning shots . . . in the head.") Zellweger plays dummy to Gere's ventriloquist in "We Both Reached for the Gun." The courtroom at Roxie's trial turns into a three-ring circus, with chorus girls lasciviously draped over the judge and jury. Comparisons with last year's "Moulin Rouge" are inevitable but misplaced. Baz Luhrmann's movie was in the tradition of mass musicals like "Les Miserables," and his imaginative set design was the star. "Chicago" reaches back to the earlier, more conventional book musicals, like, well, "Cabaret," and the show itself is the star. There's a professionalism here that's more common in the theater than in movies. Not a nudge or a wink or a curl of cigarette smoke is out of place. "Chicago" struts and slithers with the bawdy confidence of a Florenz Ziegfeld mistress who's got the lead in one of the impresario's Broadway "Follies." And rightly so. Its celebrity-conscious cynicism is more timely than ever in the wake of O.J., Winona and Court TV. The stars are sensational (Gere hasn't been this raffishly charming in years), and the costumes and sets shimmer and glow. It's the kind of showbiz poison valentine that dazzles us with sequins showering down on our heads, then throws a few of them right in our eyes. When you leave the theater, you're all jazzed up and ready to go back for another dose of razzle-dazzle.   For rating reasons : filmrating.com, mpaa.com                                    For Parents : Parentalguide.com
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