IT is dangerous and foolhardy, but Kevin Costner just can't help running off with his best friend's wife in Revenge (Pearl, 9.30pm). His best friend is Tiberon (Anthony Quinn), a ruthless and wealthy power broker shacked up at a palatial estate in Mexico. Tiberon means shark in Spanish. Revenge, as you can see, is a film of the blindingly obvious.
It was based on a novella by Jim Harrison, part of the author's Legends Of The Fall collection. But all the book's originality is missing from the film. Director Tony Scott has given it the Hollywood workover. Tiberon is the bad guy, Costner the foolish good guy and Madeleine Stowe the good-looking wife caught in the middle. Her job is to look pretty and to brood. Quinn and Costner get all the good lines, although they are few and far between.
Revenge is brutal at times, but much too predictable to be enjoyable. The title is a heck of a giveaway. Costner is beaten up and left for dead by Tiberon's heavies, but instead of getting the message and going home he decides to set the record straight. He is, after all, a former Navy pilot and Vietnam vet. Costner might not have Rambo's pectorals, but the end result is much the same.
IT has not been a good few months for the advertising industry, a profession whose members seem to spend much of their time with their feet firmly implanted in their own mouths.
Not satisfied with turning Hitler into a salesman, the creatives have now done the same with shark's fin soup. The green lobby is horrified. Sharks, unpleasant as they are, probably deserve better. They can eat us, but we must not eat them.
Inside Story (World, 8.00pm) reporter Mark Niu looks at the furore. The advertisement in question, for American Express, has been withdrawn.
Tempers are less heated in The Asian Wall Street Journal Report (Pearl, 8.30pm), which finds out why Asian art is hot and why American money managers are taking another look at emerging markets.
