Chicago (2002)

"...it's Zeta-Jones who keeps you watching from start to finish.  Manohla Dargis, L.A. Times
"Not since the 1972 Cabaret has there been a movie musical this stirring, intelligent and exciting.  Desson Howe, Washington Post
"More fun than a high kick to the head...  Kim Linekin, EYE Weekly
"The movie is a total blast...  Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

Editor's Note This Hollywood adaptation of the classic Broadway musical sparkles with glamour and reverberates with the energy of good, old-fashioned song and dance. As the film leaps into its first riveting act, Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones), one half of the famous number she performs with her sister, arrives at the night club late, disheveled, and with blood on her hands. Nonetheless, she goes onstage unhindered and wows the crowd with her shimmying rendition of "All That Jazz." Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger) a young blond who dreams of someday being famous like Velma, watches from the audience with eyes full of envy. Later, as the cops pick up Velma for the murder of her sister, sending her fame to all-time heights as she becomes a tabloid sensation, Roxie also commits a crime of passion--shooting a lover who falsely promised to secure her cabaret debut. The girls wind up together in jail, where Mama Morton (Queen Latifah), a compassionate guard, is their only hope of redemption; and Billy Flynn (Richard Gere) is the lawyer who can get them out. There, through wonderfully familiar songs like "Razzle Dazzle," "Cell-Block Tango," and "Cellophane Man" Roxie and Velma tell their story of competing for bad-girl celebrity. Director Rob Marshall presents a loveable CHICAGO that shares all the grit and grime of the Bob Fosse Broadway original with phenomenal performances by this grouping of Hollywood stars. The dizzying camerawork and dazzling sets make an easy transition from stage to film.

	Richard Gere
	Taye Diggs
	Catherine Zeta-Jones
	Colm Feore
	John C. Reilly
	Lucy Liu
	Queen Latifah
	Renée Zellweger
	Renee Zelwegger
	Maurine Dallas Watkins - Based On Play By
	"Chicago" - Based On The Musical Play
	Bob Fosse & Fred Ebb - Book Of The Musical Play By
	Laura Rosenthal & Ali Farrell - Casting By
	Rob Marshall - Choreographed By
	Dion Beebe - Cinematographer
	Don Carmody - Co-Producer
	Coleen Atwood - Costume Designer
	Colleen Atwood - Costume Designer
	Bob Fosse - Directed And Choreographed For The Stage By
	Rob Marshall - Directed By
	Rob Marshall - Director
	Dion Beebe - Director of Photography
	Martin Walsh - Edited By
	Martin Walsh - Editor
	Ric Wake, Randy Spendlove - Executive Music Producers
	Jennifer Berman - Executive Producer
	Harvey Weinstein - Executive Producer
	Bob Weinstein - Executive Producer
	Craig Zadan, Neil Meron - Executive Producers
	Harvey Weinstein, Meryl Poster, Julie Goldstein, Jennifer Berman, Bob Weinstein, Sam Crothers - Executive Producers
	Fred Ebb - Lyrics By
	John Kander - Music By
	Paul Bogaev - Music Supervised And Conducted By
	Maureen Crowe - Music Supervisor
	John Kander - Musical Score
	Danny Elfman - Musical Score
	Danny Elfman - Original Score Music By
	Martin Richards - Produced By
	Martin Richards - Producer
	John Myhre - Production Designer
	Bill Condon - Screenplay By
	Bill Condon - Writer
	Bob Fosse - Writer
	Fred Ebb - Writer

Los Angeles Times
"...It's Zeta-Jones who keeps you watching from start to finish....She refuses to let you go....If musicals are dreams, she is their greatest dreamer..." 12/27/2002 p.C8

New York Times
"...It's the raw expenditure of energy and the canniness of the staging that should pull audiences in and keep them rooted..." 12/27/2002 p.E1

USA Today
"...CHICAGO shows how much the element of surprise is missing from today's movies....It's part of the basic Zeta-Jones bio that she can really sing, and, wow, can she..." 12/27/2002 p.7D

Rolling Stone
"...Zellweger wins our hearts. That's what makes her dangerous. Just like the movie....Dynamite..." 01/23/2003 p.76

Film Comment
"...Zeta-Jones, all legs and growls, has found her calling card..." 01/01/2003 p.73

Box Office
"...Fresh and daring....Queen Latifah and John C. Reilly are the surprise standouts..." 03/01/2003 p.59

Movieline's Hollywood Life
"...[The actors] deliver sizzling performances....This tawdry, hard-as-nails carnival of ghouls generates plenty of fireworks..." 02/01/2003 p.62

Sight and Sound
"...[Jones] makes nightclub singer Velma a droll fishnet virtuoso..." 02/01/2003 p.41-2

Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
This story, lightweight but cheerfully lurid, fueled Bob Fosse, John Kander and Fred Ebb's original stage production of Chicago, which opened in 1975 and has been playing somewhere or other ever after--since 1997 again on Broadway. Fosse, who grew up in Chicago in the 1930s and 1940s, lived in a city where the daily papers roared with the kinds of headlines the movie loves. Killers were romanticized or vilified, cops and lawyers and reporters lived in each other's pockets, and newspapers read like pulp fiction. There's an inspired scene of ventriloquism and puppetry at a press conference, with all of the characters dangling from strings. For Fosse, the Chicago of Roxie Hart supplied the perfect peg to hang his famous hat. - Roger Ebert

Rolling Stone 9 of 10
Who knew the Z in Zellweger and Zeta-Jones stood for zowie? They pour their hearts into the John Kander and Fred Ebb score (the team's best after Cabaret) and dance with flair. Did they have help in the editing? Probably. Who cares? The usually laid-back Gere really turns it on. Wait till you see him tap-dance. Leggy Zeta-Jones is so hot in the "All That Jazz" number, she's flammable. And Zellweger defines delicious. Even when Roxie abuses her doormat husband, Amos (John C. Reilly stops the show with "Mr. Cellophane"), Zellweger wins our hearts. That's what makes her dangerous. Just like the movie. Depraved? I'd call it dynamite. - Peter Travers

James Berardinelli's ReelViews 8 of 10
The movie represents good, solid entertainment. It's not nearly as rousing as the Broadway revival (then again, it's rare that the cinematic version of a musical comes close to the stage incarnation), but, for those unable or unwilling to see a live production, it represents a sparkling replacement. The film strikes a nice balance between the lavishly overproduced likes of Baz Lurhmann's Moulin Rouge and the less openly flamboyant movies from the '50s. The style, by intention, echoes that of the late, great choreographer Fosse. - James Berardinelli