2002 / 113 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

“Chicago” is a dazzling spectacle of song, dance and murder that one cannot help but surrender to. I’ve never seen a musical like it before, and I love making statements like that.

“Chicago” is set in the 1920’s, when murder was an everyday occurrence in Chicago. It was, as Richard Gere’s Billy Flynn so eloquently puts it, “a form of entertainment”. The tale begins with Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta Jones) rinsing her husband and sister’s blood from her hands and then taking the stage to perform “All That Jazz”. Before the end of this performance, a group of police officers have shown up to take her into custody. Then we meet Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger). Roxie is an aspiring singer stuck in a dead-end marriage to a drab auto mechanic (John C. Reilly) and fooling around with a furniture salesman who claims he has show biz connections. When it turns out he doesn’t, well, what can a woman do but plug the bastard.

“Chicago” then becomes a musical about the “razzle dazzle” of the American justice system and the media’s role in it. It’s about the manipulation of the press, the tap dance that a lawyer can do to distract and dazzle a jury, it’s about impressions and bending the truth until it nearly breaks. It’s about moxie and the longing for stardom and how murder can actually be a woman’s big break. It’s set in the Twenties, but such a story has never been so timely. One is reminded of the O.J. Simpson trial and other such high profile trials that qualified almost more as entertainment than as a form of justice. It’s a clever film, filled with nice touches. It’s also a glorious celebration of homicide. Take, for instance, the show-stopping number “Cell Block Tango”, in which a group of murderesses sing with impressive fury about how their husbands/victims only got what they so richly deserved. One of them snapped his gum all the time. One of them was married to someone else. One of them had the gall to accuse her of “screwing the milkman” and then “he ran into my knife…. ten times”. This is gloriously entertaining and tremendously witty stuff, and not the average basis for a Hollywood musical. It’s dark and dazzling and often brilliant.

And the actors do a great job as well. I usually despise Richard Gere. I’m not sure why, but the guy just rubs me the wrong way with his smug way and his beady, little, hamster eyes. But he works brilliantly in the role of shyster lawyer Billy Flynn who doesn’t know every trick in the book so much as he seems to have written the book. He’s a great singer (responsible for my favorite number in the show: “They Both Reached For the Gun”) and a hell of a dancer and he has enough charisma to make this role explode.

Catherine Zeta Jones and Renee Zellweger are also perfectly cast. Catherine doesn’t seem quite as adept at the dancing as Renee, but they still do great jobs. Catherine captures the bitter, bitchy Velma in all the right strokes. Renee’s baby face and slight form work to her magnificent advantage in suggesting a woman who could get away with murder simply because she looked so innocent. She also captures the woman’s scheming brain and slightly dim wits (which make for a deadly combination) and her “anything-to-get-famous” gusto. One of these days, the Academy has to give her a Best Actress award. She deserved one for “Jerry Maguire”, she deserved one for “Nurse Betty”, she got one for “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and she deserves another for her fantastic work here. She’s a hell of a singer, a marvelous dancer, and she’s got a hell of a role to play and she just nails it. Queen Latifah and John C. Reilly are also excellent as a prison matron and a man so forgettable that he dubs himself “Mr. Cellophane”.

It’s not quite as dizzyingly wonderful as last year’s “Moulin Rouge”, which was a reckless celebration of love and a tragic meditation on its consequences. But “Chicago” is a totally different sort of film. It’s a far more cynical and bitter pill to swallow. But the glorious music (the film is almost wall to wall with musical numbers, and all of them are sensational), the fancy footwork, and the utterly original plot make for a great film. I can’t really think of a way to improve this film. The performances are great, the production design is dazzling, the pacing is perfect, the direction is even handed and everything just clicks. You might have your doubts (I know I did) but I ended up seeing it twice the same night, despite the presence of Richard Gere. So trust me here, it’s worth your time. And it’s also worth a few nominations. Do yourself a favor; take a trip to “Chicago”.

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