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This week's reviews: 'Recruit,' Lil' Romeo, 'Kingpin'
(PEOPLE) -- This week PEOPLE.com looks at the film "The Recruit," Lil' Romeo's new album "Game Time," and "Kingpin" on NBC. Movie review: 'The Recruit'
Kevin Costner became a huge star thanks in part to 1987's "No Way Out," a glossy, sexy thriller set in and around Washington's espionage circles. "Out"'s director, Roger Donaldson, tries to repeat the magic with the heavily hyped Colin Farrell in "The Recruit," an equally glossy, less sexy film with a similar setting and subject matter. It doesn't work, though it's not for lack of trying or celluloid oomph on Farrell's part. "Recruit" simply isn't clever enough; its plot twists can be glimpsed a spy satellite's length away. "Nothing is what it seems," Central Intelligence Agency recruiter Walter Burke (Al Pacino) portentously warns several times, as if goosing the audience into paying attention. It's a lesson our hero, MIT computer whiz James Clayton, is slow to learn. At Burke's urging, Clayton signs up with the CIA and begins its training program. There are spies amid the spies, however, and an imperiled Clayton must figure out whom he can trust before it's too late. Farrell, whose compact good looks and intense, moist-eyed gaze bespeak major movie star charisma, delivers his sturdiest performance since blazing to notice in 2000's "Tigerland." A weary-looking Pacino takes another run at playing a seductive Mephistopheles, recycling his blustery turn from 1997's "The Devil's Advocate." Bottom line: Only a semi-successful recruiting job Music review: 'Game Time'Lil' Romeo (No Limit/Universal) Lil' Romeo wants to be the lil' Michael Jackson of rap. On his 2001 hit "My Baby" he borrowed from the Jackson 5 classic "I Want You Back." Here the pint-size 13-year-old reworks Jackson's 1972 solo single "I Wanna Be Where You Are" on the bouncy "Too Long." Many other tracks on his second CD also use hooks from songs that were released before Romeo's time (by such artists as Luther Vandross, Teena Marie and KC and the Sunshine Band). While his musical sources may be old-school, the rapper's appeal won't pass middle school on fun-but-flyweight party cuts like "Make You Dance," one of 15 tracks cowritten by Romeo and his dad, hip-hop mogul Master P (whose No Limit Records released this disc). Even sixth-graders might find songs such as "Clap Your Hands" -- which restyles the group sing-along "If You're Happy and You Know It" -- a bit juvenile. Bottom line: For lil' hip-hoppers only TV review: 'Kingpin'
NBC (Sundays and Tuesdays through February 18; 10 p.m. ET) Clean-cut, mannerly and educated, Miguel Cadena (Yancey Arias) doesn't seem like the sort of young man who would seek supreme power in the family-owned drug cartel. In fact, Miguel visits a church and makes a generous contribution -- cash, of course -- while his uncle and cousin, blocking his upward movement in the corporación, are liquidated on his orders. Now, then, does this guy remind you of anybody? It wouldn't be far off the mark to describe Miguel Cadena as the Mexican Michael Corleone or to give "Kingpin" the alias "El Godfather." That doesn't mean you should write it off; just don't get the idea that this six-episode series is blazing a trail in the field of crime drama. Like his Corleone counterpart, Miguel has a wife from outside his ethnic group. But Marlene (Sheryl Lee), a blonde American lawyer, is not one to keep a disapproving distance from her husband's dirty business. She's a coke-sniffing Lady Macbeth, constantly prodding the more cautious Miguel to wipe out his rivals. Arias and Lee portray this power couple with sufficient skill and subtlety that you're apt to pardon "Kingpin" when it goes out of its way to shock. For example, does wild would-be boss Ernesto (Jacob Vargas) really need to feed his pet tiger a severed human limb in the February 2 premiere? NBC promises that even more explicit footage trimmed from the broadcast version will see the light when the drama repeats on cable's Bravo in March. I can wait. Bottom line: Potent but not particularly fresh -- Terry Kelleher
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