‘Chicago’ a smashing look at society’s attraction to fame

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In theaters

CHICAGO, directed and choreographed by Rob Marshall, written by Bill Condon, based on the musical play by Fred Ebb, John Kander and Bob Fosse, 108 minutes, rated PG-13. Special sneak preview 4:30 p.m. Saturday and 7:10 p.m. Sunday, Hoyts Cinema, Bangor.

Rob Marshall’s “Chicago,” a big winner at last weekend’s Golden Globes and Broadcast Film Critics’ Critics Choice Awards, deserves all the praise it’s currently enjoying. It’s a showstopping smash, one of the best films to hit theaters in months.

Choreographed by Broadway veteran Marshall, who triumphs in what’s unbelievably his first time as a feature film director, the movie initially feels as weightless as one of its dancer’s feathered boas.

But don’t be fooled – the film is deceptive. By the time it ends in a rush of sequins, flashbulbs, blaring brass and back-stabbing babes, it has said plenty about how show business has infiltrated every corner of society – from the way we behave in our bedrooms to our courtrooms to our everyday lives – and not always for the better.

Set in Prohibition-era Chicago, the film stars Renee Zellweger as Roxie Hart, a frustrated chorus-girl wannabe who murders her lover, Fred (Dominic West), when he fails to come through with a promised audition and who then uses the media – not to mention her bumbling husband, Amos (John C. Reilly), and a handful of others – to achieve the superstardom she craves.

Already cooling her cans in the big house is Catherine Zeta-Jones’ Velma Kelly, a popular vaudeville performer who, as the movie opens, has just murdered her own sister and husband after catching them performing a sizzling duet of their own in Velma’s changing room.

Now, with both Velma and Roxie stewing in the same jail, it’s up to Richard Gere’s flamboyant attorney, Billy Flynn, to spring them free while keeping them where they long to be – smack in the middle of the public eye.

Based on Bob Fosse’s 1975 musical “Chicago,” itself inspired by Maurine Dallas Watkins’ 1926 play and William A. Wellman’s 1942 film, “Roxie Hart,” Marshall’s version joins them in being as big and as bawdy as one of Liz Taylor’s baubles.

It’s a bitchy, cynical crapshoot updated for the masses, with screenwriter Bill Condon’s timely observations on our culture’s fascination with celebrity and instant fame. Indeed, the movie may take place in the 1920s, but its connection to the present – filled with visions of Winona Ryder, Anna Nicole Smith and at times even O.J. – is undeniable.

The film exists on two levels, shifting between Roxie’s ripe imagination, in which most of the dazzling song-and-dance numbers ensue, and the grimness of real-life Chicago, where Roxie and Velma are sweating it out in jail and fighting for their lives in court.

What gives the film added sizzle is its element of surprise, the best of which comes from the selection of its cast – who, let’s face it, initially seemed so horribly miscast.

Who could have believed that Zellweger had it in her to become that pouty-lipped pixie Roxie Hart, a gun-wielding, tap-dancing, murdering diva with a rotten soul and a voice of gold? Or that Catherine Zeta-Jones had such a strong, soaring singing voice, one that somehow reaches higher than her legs and plunges deeper than her neckline? Or that Gere – so rigid and so serious for so long – would finally loosen up, stripping down to his boxer shorts and belting out Kander and Ebb’s famous show tunes as if he were born to do it?

There is nothing in any of their film careers (not even Gere’s turn in “The Cotton Club”) that hints at what they put on screen here, which makes “Chicago” one of those rare films whose casting is a slick sleight-of-hand and pure inspiration.

With Queen Latifah in a wicked supporting performance as “the keeper of the keys, the countess of the clink, the mistress of murderers’ row, Matron Mama Morton,” Christine Baranski as reporter Mary Sunshine, and a soundtrack that offers rousing renditions of “All That Jazz,” “The Cell Block Tango” and Latifah’s commanding “When You’re Good To Mama,” “Chicago” is exciting and electrifying, raising the bar already lifted by last year’s “Moulin Rouge” – and leaping over it to shoot to the moon.

Grade: A

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, Tuesdays and Thursdays on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6, and are archived on RottenTomatoes.com. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores, starting alphabetically with the most current releases.

The Bourne Identity ? B+

Simone ? B

Tadpole ? B

About a Boy ? A-

All About Eve (remastered version) ? A+

Blue Crush ? B+

Feardotcom ? F.Bomb

Undercover Brother ? B

The Good Girl ? A-

Signs ? B-

Barbershop ? B+

Lovely and Amazing ? A

XXX ? B

The Adventures of Pluto Nash ? F

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever ? F

Blood Work ? B-

Trapped ? C-

Baran ? A-

Minority Report ? A-

Unfaithful ? B-

Halloween: Resurrection ? F

K-19: The Widowmaker ? C+

Stuart Little 2 ? A-

Austin Powers in Goldmember ? B-

Lilo & Stitch ? B+

Ice Age ? B

Men in Black II ? C-

Sunset Boulevard (DVD) ? A+

Reign of Fire ? C+

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron ? B+

Thirteen Conversations About One Thing ? A

Bad Company ? D

The Importance of Being Earnest ? B-

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones ? C+

The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys ? B-

The Powerpuff Girls Movie ? B

Pumpkin ? C+

The Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood ? B+

Eight Legged Freaks ? B

Spider-Man ? A-

Sum of All Fears ? D

E.T.: 20th Anniversary Edition ? A

Mr. Deeds ? D

Insomnia ? A

Life or Something Like It ? B-

Scooby-Doo ? C-

Windtalkers ? C-

Big Trouble ? D

Enough ? C-

Jason X ? Bomb

Brotherhood of the Wolf ? B

The Scorpion King ? B

Enigma ? C

Monsoon Wedding ? A-

Murder by Numbers ? C

Death to Smoochy ? B+

40 Days and 40 Nights ? C-

Monsters, Inc. ? A-

Panic Room ? B

Changing Lanes ? B

Count of Monte Cristo ? B+

Frailty ? C-

Blade II: B+

High Crimes ? C

Queen of the Damned ? C-

Iris ? B

Joe Somebody ? D

The Rookie ? A-

The Sweetest Thing ? D+

We Were Soldiers ? B+

Birthday Girl ? B

The Business of Strangers ? B

Clockstoppers ? C

In the Bedroom ? A

The New Guy ? D

Showtime ? C+

Deuces Wild ? D-

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring ? B+

Collateral Damage ? D

Dragonfly ? D

Resident Evil ? C-

Crossroads ? C-

Kung Pow: Enter the Fist: B-

The Time Machine ? D-

Amelie ? A

John Q. ? C-

Pinero ? B

Charlotte Gray ? B+

Hart’s War ? B

The Royal Tenenbaums ? B+

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius ? B+

Shallow Hal ? C

A Beautiful Mind ? B

Gosford Park ? B+

I Am Sam ? C

The Majestic ? D-

Max Keeble’s Big Move ? B

Orange County ? C-

The Shipping News ? C

Rollerball ? F

Black Hawk Down ? B

Kate & Leopold ? C+

Monster’s Ball ? A

The Mothman Prophecies ? C

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone ? B 3/4

Sidewalks of New York ? B-

Lantana ? A

Vanilla Sky ? B+

Corky Romano ? D-

From Hell ? C

The Others ? B+

Snow Dogs ? B-

Ocean’s Eleven ? B

Waking Life ? A

Ali ? B+

Not Another Teen Movie ? C-

Behind Enemy Lines ? C-

No Man’s Land ? A

Black Knight ? F

The Deep End ? A

Domestic Disturbance ? C

The Man Who Wasn’t There ? B+

Mulholland Drive ? A