A hell of a town
Film adaptation of musical just Fosse enough

CHICAGO
Directed by Rob Marshall
Starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renee Zellweger, Richard Gere
Opens Thursday, Dec. 26
**** (out of five)

"C’mon babe why don’t we paint the town? And all that jazz·"

Cue legs flashing and semi-dirty lyrics acted out in coy pantomime: right from the get-go, Broadway vet Rob Marshall channels the long-dead ghost of Bob Fosse in his 2002 film adaptation of Fosse’s 1975 Broadway musical, Chicago.

In an age when the musical genre seeks reinvention, Chicago evokes those late ’60s and ’70 s musicals of Fosse’s before his – let’s face it– timely death in 1987 from overwork, smoking, alcoholism, women, and lots and lots of Dexedrine. Sweet Charity, Cabaret, and the autobiographical All That Jazz weren’t necessarily high-intellect postmodern treatises on cultural theory, but at least they had THOSE songs, eyeball-bouncing choreography and plenty of flesh. Marshall has studied closely, keeping things stagey and simple: it’s Jailhouse Rock in fishnets.

Catherine Zeta-Jones, the face of Elizabeth Arden cosmetics, plays Velma Kelly, a cabaret singer in 1920’s Chicago. She’s a Louise Brooks vamp in contrast to coquettish Roxie (Renee Zellweger), an aspiring chorus-girl cutie. You’d expect an All About Eve rivalry, and you won’t be disappointed – but the arena isn’t the stage: it’s in the unlikely venue of the Illinois state court of law and the dubious glitter of crime reportage. They’re both murderesses awaiting trial. Well, fame is fame, ain’t it?

You take what you can get. Particularly when the hottest, most intriguing one wins the services of playboy lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), who naturally never loses a case. Roxie learns quickly that men, audiences and juries need the same thing from her: a seduction, winning them over with her pretty face, a sense of drama, and – maybe – a promise of something more.

The musical numbers are up to typical Fosse standards – witness a tiny speck of Roxie strutting down from the top right corner until she fills the entire screen, reclining on a riot of incandescent bulbs spelling out her name. But it’s all fantasy. The women’s lives are actually very dreary; I mean they ARE on death row, living in a prison. Song bursts into reality, in a reversal that makes the transitions seamless.

Zeta-Jones and Zellweger both are knockouts, smouldering through their numbers, though the former is the better dancer. Gere surprises with his tap dancing, but after all, he was in The Cotton Club. The rest of the supporting cast is excellent – including John C. Reilly as Amos Hart (Roxie’s husband) and Taye Diggs as the band leader – and you can even see Colm Feore, TV’s Trudeau, as the D.A. Look for Chita Rivera, who was in the original Broadway version, as the judge. But it’s Queen Latifah as prison guard Mama Morton, ("You put in for Mama, she’ll put out for you") who’s often the scene stealer.

However sensational the potboiler plot may be, the pretended depth is an obvious argument about how the media is always looking for a story and a meditation on the perils of fame. Best to disregard.

It’s no Cabaret, though superficially that is the film it most resembles, with the show-stopping choreography and clubland intrigue. There’s just not enough content. Besides this is all everything we’ve seen before. But you may as well rouge your knees, ’cause you never know if you’ll ever see another night like this.