‘Dirty Pretty Things’ is a smart, edgy thriller

In theaters

DIRTY PRETTY THINGS, Directed by Stephen Frears, written by Steve Knight, 107 minutes, rated R.

The new Stephen Frears movie, “Dirty Pretty Things,” creates its own brand of heat, none of which seems canned or scripted, which is key to the film’s success.

It’s smart and it’s raw and it’s an edgy, urban thriller that exposes London’s ugly corners in ways that the city might sooner want you to forget.

At a recent screening, you could sense the buzz of anticipation its title had generated. There was the question of how the director of “Dangerous Liaisons,” “High Fidelity,” “The Grifters” and “My Beautiful Launderette” would follow through, and whether he would be able to pull off a movie that was as compelling and as twisted as this one sounded.

He has – and then some.

At the Baltic, a once upscale, now seedy hotel, the night clerk, Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor), is tipped by a popular prostitute, Sophie Okonedo, in a great, mincing performance – that there might be trouble in one of the guest rooms she just left.

Upon examination, Okwe, a Nigerian exile and former doctor rumored to have killed his wife, finds an overflowing toilet where there is a human heart blocking the plumbing.

The hotel manager and Okwe’s boss, Sneaky (Sergi Lopez), shrugs off the finding with a casual offer of cash – which the morally steadfast Okwe refuses to accept – and then a cool suggestion that Okwe forget what he saw. “Strangers come to hotels to do dirty things,” Sneaky says. “In the morning, it’s our job to make things pretty again.”

But to what end?

Okwe, who works days driving a cab, suffers from an acute bout of insomnia and finds his life further complicated by Senay (Audrey Tautou of “Amelie”), the beautiful, illegal Turkish woman who reluctantly rents her couch to Okwe, and eventually gives him her own heart.

From this, several surprises bloom – some major, most gruesome. Without giving too much away, they involve certain bloody extracurricular activities that take place at the Baltic under Sneaky’s watch.

Not everything that unfolds is fully explained, but when is everything in life fully explained? Here, you’re meant to be with Frears in the moment, trusting him to make sense of the dark underworld he explores.

His movie lags a bit in the middle, but the ending is a lark, and the performances and cinematography are strong. Frears’ examination of immigrant life – the class of people that want to fade from sight for self-preservation yet who help to keep cities like London going – is at once unsettling, moving and complex.

Grade:A-

On video and DVD

HULK, Directed by Ang Lee; written by John Turman, Michael France and James Schamus, 137 minutes, rated PG-13.

If ever there was a movie that needed a strong finish, it’s Ang Lee’s “Hulk,” a film whose interminable first hour is such an uneventful bore, audiences might need their own nanomeds gamma-rayed – that’s even possible – in order to get through it.

Based on Stan Lee’s long-running 1962 Marvel comic book series and, in turn, the 1978-82 television show with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, the film is a long-winded disappointment that only finds its footing at the end. But by that time, it might as well be wearing clogs.

It’s a movie whose few gripping moments and technically superb set pieces are quashed by a wealth of bad choices, not the least of which is that Lee and company don’t give us a character we ever really come to know.

Australian actor Eric Bana is Bruce Banner, the emotionally detached research geneticist who, as a child, was his father’s (Nick Nolte) favorite lab rat. Now, as an adult, Bruce’s blood reacts disastrously when he’s accidentally zapped with a lethal dose of gamma radiation. He’s a ticking time bomb who erupts into the Hulk. Jennifer Connelly is soft and weepy as his former girlfriend, Betty Ross; Josh Lucas and Sam Elliott add bluster to the men working to undermine Bruce.

With much of the film framed to look like the pages of a comic book, “Hulk” isn’t lacking style. Lee has the sense to keep the action interesting, at least when there is action, and he has the sensibility to make his slightly cartoonish-looking Hulk appear graceful, particularly when he leaps across vast terrain and becomes airborn.

But, until the energetic final 30 minutes, the film is too restrained for its own good. The movie runs counter to its intent, and there’s rarely a sense of joy, despite Bruce’s admission that he rather likes morphing into the Hulk and going on rampages. Instead of exploring that potentially interesting and telling side of Bruce’s psyche, Lee glosses over it, thus leaving audiences with a Hulk who may appear sturdy on the surface, but who is never as complex as the computer code that generated him.

Grade: C-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, Thursdays at 5:30 p.m. on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6, and are archived on RottenTomatoes.com. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.