Details
Movie Description
This Hollywood adaptation of the classic Broadway musical sparkles with glamour and reverberates with the energy of good, old-fashioned song and dance. As the film leaps into its first riveting act, Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones), one half of the famous number she performs with her sister, arrives at the night club late, disheveled, and with blood on her hands. Nonetheless, she goes onstage unhindered and wows the crowd with her shimmying rendition of "All That Jazz." Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger) a young blond who dreams of someday being famous like Velma, watches from the audience with eyes full of envy. Later, as the cops pick up Velma for the murder of her sister, sending her fame to all-time heights as she becomes a tabloid sensation, Roxie also commits a crime of passion--shooting a lover who falsely promised to secure her cabaret debut. The girls wind up together in jail, where Mama Morton (Queen Latifah), a compassionate guard, is their only hope of redemption; and Billy Flynn (Richard Gere) is the lawyer who can get them out. There, through wonderfully familiar songs like "Razzle Dazzle," "Cell-Block Tango," and "Cellophane Man" Roxie and Velma tell their story of competing for bad-girl celebrity.
Director Rob Marshall presents a loveable CHICAGO that shares all the grit and grime of the Bob Fosse Broadway original with phenomenal performances by this grouping of Hollywood stars. The dizzying camerawork and dazzling sets make an easy transition from stage to film.
Film Notes
Theatrical release: December 27, 2002
Industry Reviews
"...It's Zeta-Jones who keeps you watching from start to finish....She refuses to let you go....If musicals are dreams, she is their greatest dreamer..."
Los Angeles Times - p.C8 - Manohla Dargis (12/27/2002)
"...It's the raw expenditure of energy and the canniness of the staging that should pull audiences in and keep them rooted..."
New York Times - p.E1 - Elvis Mitchell (12/27/2002)
"...CHICAGO shows how much the element of surprise is missing from today's movies....It's part of the basic Zeta-Jones bio that she can really sing, and, wow, can she..."
USA Today - p.7D - Mike Clark (12/27/2002)
"...Zellweger wins our hearts. That's what makes her dangerous. Just like the movie....Dynamite..."
Rolling Stone - p.76 - Peter Travers (01/23/2003)
"...Zeta-Jones, all legs and growls, has found her calling card..."
Film Comment - p.73 - Michael Koresky (01/01/2003)
"...Fresh and daring....Queen Latifah and John C. Reilly are the surprise standouts..."
Box Office - p.59 - Ray Greene (03/01/2003)
"...[The actors] deliver sizzling performances....This tawdry, hard-as-nails carnival of ghouls generates plenty of fireworks..."
Movieline - p.62 - Stephen Farber (02/01/2003)
"...[Jones] makes nightclub singer Velma a droll fishnet virtuoso..."
Sight and Sound - p.41-2 - David Jays (02/01/2003)
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