NOTE:
For those of you who love this musical and want some background on the creative choreography behind it, then please rent the dvd version of "All That Jazz"(1979), a film semi biography of Bob Fosse. He was the driven and very talented choreographer responsible for this and many other great Broadway shows that were later turned into movies.
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MOVIE MINI REVIEW:
"Chicago" is a complete triumph of style over substance, but what a glorious style! Fast moving and glamorous and filled with wonderful music, this movie has just about everything but character development. Filmed with very little dialogue much like an operetta, this film seems to be more like a series of MTV musical vignettes loosely tied together by circumstances based on historical fact.

Furthermore, the distributors seemed to have instructed the exhibiting theaters to crank up the volume as the show that I saw was incredibly LOUD. So the MTV generation wins another one with the noise level approaching that of an airplane taking off. Thankfully, VERY thankfully, the music is so good that this isn't as much of a problem as my brief mention of it would seem to make it.

Catherine Zeta-Jones is just smashing in her song and dance numbers as the other murderess, Velma Kelly. It's a shame that she did this for a living before Hollywood beckoned and we've seen none of it. She seems to have energy to spare for every spin, turn  and tune, and I would love to see her do more of this in a starring role of her own.

Richard Gere is surprisingly good as the soft-shoe, show biz lawyer, Billy Flynn, but he's also done this a long time ago in the play "Grease," as news clips have recently noted.

The wonderful putty faced actor, John C. Reilly, is equally fine as Roxie's adoring but put upon and none too smart husband. Furthermore, he can really do a very nice song and dance number.

Sassy Queen Latifah also livens up the scene with her brassy singing and great acting as the prison warden, Mama Norton. (Hers is a role worthy of a Best Supporting Actress nomination, but she'll never get one due to the fact that the studio is pushing Zeta-Jones for this nomination.)

Finally, Renee Zellweger is very convincing as the poor girl who fantasizes about getting into show business. She's a good actress for this role, but her singing and dancing talent are less than convincing in spite of the movie's short takes and fast clips. But maybe that's the point of the story, which is that Roxie Hart was never good enough to have made it on her own. (I do not, however, think that her performance so worthy as to beat out other more deserving actresses for her last week's win of a Golden Globe.)

At it's heart, "Chicago," is a very cynical take on the marriage of our legal system and show business. The real Roxie Hart had her day in court about 75 years ago, but this movie proves that we as a society haven't changed much since then. Most of our television and practically all of our cable channels are filled with the Roxie Harts of today, all fighting for their 15 minutes of fame. When combined with our judicial system, the results, as we have sadly seen far too often, are lethal to our system of justice.
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FILM CRITIQUE:
The story of Roxie Hart and her trial for murdering her husband is based on historical fact. Her trial took place during the 1920's in Chicago as a brawling city on the make, the city of speakeasies,  jazz clubs, and Al Capone. The yellow journalism press of the day loved these stories for the great news copy that they offered.

"Chicago"(2002) is actually the THIRD movie about the trial of Roxie Hart. Maurine Dallas Watkins (1896-1969) first conceived the idea that this trial would make a great play, which she then co-wrote with Lenore J. Coffee.

Coffee (1896-1984) has an interesting background as she was the granddaughter of U. S. General John Coffee, Chief of Staff to President Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans in 1814. She is famous for her personal quote about the Hollywood studio system, "They pick your brains, break your heart, ruin your digestion -- and what do you get for it? Nothing, but a lousy fortune."

Their play was first made into the movie, "Chicago" in 1927 with Phyllis Haver starring as Roxie Hart. The second incarnation came in 1942 as the movie, "Roxie Hart," starring Ginger Rogers. Adolph Menjou played the role of her lawyer, Billy Flynn, and Spring Byington played the role of Mary Sunshine, the news reporter who is played in this movie by Christine Baranski. (Baranski, co-star of the recent television sitcom, "Cybil" is also a Broadway dancer, a talent which, very unfortunately, is not in evidence in this movie.)

"Chicago" starts off with the signature song and dance number, "All That Jazz," which brings us up to the Sixties and the remarkable combination of the two lyricists, Fred Ebb and John Kander, with Bob Fosse, the incredibly talented choreographer of many Broadway hits  which were later turned into smash movies, including this one.

Once married to Gwen Verdon, the great dancer and star of his "The Damn Yankees"(1958), Fosse moved on to and through two other wives. All of his marriages failed due to his constant philandering, his use of drugs, and his workaholic lifestyle. Other women with whom he had long term affairs include the dancer, Ann Reinking, and the actress, Jessica Lange.

His life is rather realistically portrayed in the brilliant but dark semi autobiographical film, "All That Jazz"(1979), starring Roy Scheider under the Fosse nom de plume, Joe Gideon. His dancing trademarks of a hat and gloves both evolved due to his sensitivity about his own personal appearance. The former because he was prematurely balding and the latter because he disliked the look of his hands.

Other plays and movies that Fosse choreographed include "Pajama Game"(1957), "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying"(1967), "Sweet Charity"(1969), "Cabaret"(1972), "New York, New York"(1977), and "Star 80"(1983). Fosse also directed the movies "Cabaret," "Sweet Charity," and "All That Jazz." His prolific career is notable for the fact that he is the only person to date ever to have won an Oscar for a movie, a Tony for a play, and an Emmy for a television show, all in the same year (1973).

The reason that I have emphasized Bob Fosse's career to that of the lyricists, Fred Ebb and John Kandar, is that not only did Fosse help re-write the story, but also that he held the rights to turn "Chicago" into a movie. His plans at the time were to star Madonna as Roxie Hart. However, he passed away from a heart attack in 1987 before he was able to accomplish this.

At its heart "Chicago," as I have mentioned before, is a very cynical story about the legal system being an adjunct to show business with lawyers serving only as intermediaries between the two. Everyone and everything can be bought and sold in this version of Chicago, the "City on the Make" during the Roaring Twenties. Truth and justice are only relative and something to be prostituted along with everything else by greedy newspapers only interested in another good story. That there is a temporal relevance to this 75 year old legal tale is a very shameful defect in our society.

For my part, I am old enough to remember with great love many past great musicals, most of them made by the fabled MGM Studios. Movies like "Singing in the Rain"(1952), "Kiss Me, Kate"(1953), "The Desert Song"(1953), "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers"(1954),  "Kismet"(1955), "The King and I"(1956), "The Music Man"(1962), "My Fair Lady"(1964), "The Sound of Music"(1965), "Camelot"(1967), and others have defined for me what a musical is and what I believe a musical ought to be.

In all of the above musicals there is a story and characters who evolve through personal challenges to achieve their goals. The music and the dancing are there and they are beautiful, but they are not the whole story or even the majority of the story. The music serves to emphasize the story, not to replace the story.

"Chicago"(2002) has taken the musical art form and subordinated everything else to its many songs and the dance sequences. This works, as it does in this movie, only if the songs and the dancing are truly memorable. However, I wouldn't hold out hope that every future musical will be as lucky as this one in this department.

It should be noted that my preference would be, as it is in all other movies, to have the story driving all the other action in the film. "Chicago" is a wonderful musical, but it suffers as a movie because of the one dimensional, cartoonish nature of all of its characters.

FILM SYNOPSIS:
Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger) is looking on with great admiration and  even greater envy as the star, Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones), sings and dances her way through her signature piece, "All That Jazz." She imagines herself up there on the stage belting out that same song in the same show stopper style as Velma. Little does Roxie know that Velma came to the club with a gun and bloodied gloves and even as she dances the police are closing in to arrest her for murder.

Roxie spies Fred Casely (Dominic West) near her in the audience and she rushes over to him. She and her husband, Amos Hart (John C. Reilly), had earlier met Casely when he sold them the furniture for their sparse apartment. Other than his day job, however, Casely is a hanger on who has promised Roxie that he has the connections to get her into show business as a singer and a dancer. He has used this promise to cuckold Amos by bedding his wife on numerous occasions since their furniture purchase.

Now Casely has grown tired of Roxie and her incessant whining for the promised show business intro and he levels with her after one final quickie tryst. Infuriated that she has been duped, Roxie pulls a gun out of a drawer and shoots Casely in her apartment doorway just as he tries to escape her wrath. Amos returns home to complete bedlam as the police and the reporters verbally joust with his wife while the now dead and blood-soaked body of Casely lies covered by a sheet in the hall.

Roxie is carted off to the Cook County prison in a paddy wagon and the enormity of her actions slowly begins to sink in. Quite naturally, she doesn't want to hang for what she did. At the prison the warden and complete boss of her domain, Mama Morton (Queen Latifah) brings her to her cell as the other inmates belt out another song and dance number.

Roxie is shocked and gushes like a fan when she sees her idol, Velma, among the inmates. Velma is riding high in spite of her precarious situation as the murder has been great for her career. She also has hired the famed defense lawyer, Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), who has never lost a murder rap for any of his clients.

For the appropriate fee Mama later introduces Roxie to Billy Flynn, who promises to defend her for the then princely sum of $5,000. Roxie and Amos can only scrape together two or three thousand dollars and Flynn threatens to dump her until Amos hits upon the idea of selling Roxie's personal effects as famed murderess memorabilia.

Now Flynn merchandizes Roxie as the celebrity murder case du jour, with the result that Roxie's star rises while Velma's falls in equal measure. Roxie now becomes as snotty to Velma as Velma had been to her earlier when she was on top.

Roxie's trial is packed to the rafters and famed reporter, Mary Sunshine (Christine Baranski), broadcasts each legal maneuver in a play by play manner similar to what the sports announcers do today. In fact, this movie also has a play by play announcer in the form of the bandleader (Taye Diggs), who breathlessly announces each new "play."

Everything is going great for Roxie and she is riding high until a wealthy Hawaiian pineapple heiress, Kitty Baxter (Lucy Liu), plugs her husband while in bed with two other women. Naturally, the first thing she does is hire Billy Flynn to defend her with the Chicago press quickly going gaga over the story of this wealthy babe who caught her husband in a ménage a trois. Roxie now knows what it is like to have risen so fast only to have fallen faster. The radio and newspaper reporters now have a new quarry to chase and both Roxie and Velma are as old as, well, yesterday's news.

Crestfallen, Roxie wracks her brain for something to get her back into the limelight once again. While testifying on the stand shortly thereafter, she announces to a stunned courtroom that she is pregnant. Once again, Roxie has the world in the palm of her hand.

A serendipitous side benefit of this testimony is the fact that even if found guilty, Roxie would never be hung while carrying a child. Even Amos, poor loyal sweet dumb sap that he is, buys the news that he is about to become a father even though they haven't had marital relations for some four months...