The problem about this movie is that it isn’t just for black people and to cast this movie as the problems of black people is taking the world back 40 years, yet it’s set in today’s age. It may have been relevant when first written back in the early seventies, but this should have been adapted to suit a mixture of skins and society to be pertinent today, but then the title wouldn’t have worked.

So what’s it all about?

For colored girls brings to the screen Ntozake Shange’s Obie Award-winning play, “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf,” a poetic exploration of what is to be of color and a female in this world. It’s stories of love, abandonment, rape, infidelity, and abortion.

The original play is a series of 20 poems, collectively called a “choreopoem.” It is performed by a cast of seven women characters, each of whom is known only by a color: “Lady in Yellow,” “Lady in Purple,” etc. The poems deal with love, abandonment, rape, and abortion, embodied by each woman’s story, e.g. Lady in Blue’s visceral account of a woman who chooses to have an abortion, and Lady in Red’s tale of domestic violence.

The end of the play brings together all of the women for “a laying on of hands,” in which Shange evokes the power of womanhood as the Lady in Red begins the mantra “I found God in myself/and I loved her/I loved her fiercely.”

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf is a 1975 play by Ntozake Shange. Initially staged in California, it has been performed Off-Broadway and on Broadway, and adapted as a book, a television film, and a theatrical film.

Thandie Newton gives an outrageous performance while perhaps enjoying the role a touch too much. She was allowed to be let loose with her character so I wonder how much was adlib and how much was the original screenplay? She struts around the screen with a presence of control in a character clearly out of control. The gym time is obviously working out for her as she still looks at least ten years younger than her real age.

Whoopi Goldberg is Whoopi. She’s always excellent in everything she does; it is never Ms Goldberg who lets down a movie. It’s either the screenplay or the director that lets down this actor. Once again, her performance is straight out of the perfection box. Students should study this.

It’s a dark drama, but then with the subjects it covers it always would be. With so many grand actors in the cast some were always going to be cast aside (Kerry Washington and Janet Jackson come to mind) and that’s where this movie falters; it doesn’t give the chance for everyone to give an academy winning performance.

The poetry from the original play doesn’t fit in. The movie flows as a drama and it should have stayed that way. The poetry, however mind wondering and succinct, took the movie to a different home. It was like stepping outside for a few minutes because we have to insert this piece here. Great poetry, but not suitable in this new style adaptation, so it misses the point of those original twenty poems.

I wonder if they’ll add a ‘u’ for the UK version?

4 stars****

This franchise continues Guy Ritchie’s excellent direction. If this film is successful (figures show it already is) then he’ll follow up with ‘The Real Rocknrolla’ and finally the trilogy closes with ‘Rocknroll Suicide.’ He’s the master of Brit mobster movies, even if he does have the occasional disappointment.

Stepping aside from Guy Ritchie’s directing work; he is a masterful screenplay writer. This is another of those movies where you can pick up a copy of the screenplay and put the movie into your mind as you read it. There’s a fair chance that you’d end up with the same movie these guys came up with.

While the Academy almost certainly won’t put this Guy Ritchie comedy/mobster screenplay on their final list, it does deserve to be at least, close. You can see that he has dissected every word that he crafted to leave just the bare bones, which means that every word counts.

Tom Wilkinson won applause for his ‘Full Monty’ performance and most definitely for the extraordinary ‘In the Bedroom’ with Sissy Spacek. In this movie, he deserves more praise; his portrayal of a mobster boss who doesn’t appear to essentially be involved directly with his squad’s interrogation techniques, is close to perfect. He may give the orders, but he talks to others.

Thandie Newton, one of many stars in both ‘Crash’ and ‘Mission Impossible II,’ demonstrates an outrageous charm as she fiddles the books for whoever will pay her as an up market accountant. She’ll steal from them by employing low level thugs and then go back for more. If she did make it to the end of the movie (and the gloves being worn by one of the Russian thugs suggests she won’t be) her role could become additionally riveting in franchise part 2.

I’m disheartened that I virtually missed new Bond girl Gemma Arterton as ‘June’ as I wondered what her skills were like before I see the new Bond movie next week. I’ll have to wait and see.

We saw the immense Gerard Butler in Nims Island earlier this year. This actor’s role was so far removed from his previous task, so as to prove his acting abilities show no boundaries, while Mark Strong knows that with his second in command performance, he’ll be back in charge in franchise 2 and, if he lives long enough (in the movie no-one is safe), in franchise 3.

The only person missing was footballer Vinnie Jones, although his acting years are becoming close to his football years, so we will at some stage call him actor, Vinnie Jones. Vinnie was a major player in early Guy Ritchie films, especially the film of 1999, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

Two final points of major interest then:

One; no definite violence is in fact, seen. Show and not tell is used to mammoth proportions. You see the golf club going down on the man’s legs. You don’t see it really hit the legs, but you do know his legs will be broken. You may see the blood hit the wall, but you don’t see the bullet going into, through and out the opposite side of the soon to be corpse.

Two; Guy Ritchie, via both films schools of high note (Dov S-S Simens and Elliot Grove’s Raindance) is an excellent screenplay writer. This script is one of the best in years. It’s an excellent example of how to re-write until you assemble all that the experts will charge you to find out. It’ll be used as an illustration of clear writing at future film schools.

I hope his divorce from Madonna doesn’t slow down his output.