I am not a fan of musicals, but I was all in on this one. This was funny, creative, and different. My image of musicals is a person spontaneously breaking out into song and just simply standing there singing with the spotlight on him/her. "Chicago" was not that. There would be no standing still and no illogically breaking out into song.
A woman named Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger) wanted to get into the entertainment industry so bad she slept with her furniture salesman, Fred Casely (Dominic West), because he said he could introduce her to someone at the club. When he burst her bubble and told her the truth---he was only saying what he needed to say to get into her pants---she shot him dead. It was a glorious moment of "You're not getting away with this!" (even though she was cheating on her husband). Her aloof, oblivious, sucker of a husband, Amos (John C. Riley) was going to take the wrap for killing Fred when he didn't know that the dead man under the sheet was Fred, their furniture salesman. Once Amos put two and two together, or more accurately, once he was spoon fed the facts, he let Roxie go down for her crime.
Turns out that wasn't a bad move by Amos because women's prison in Chicago ain't so bad. Roxie only became the headliner she wanted to be anyway with the help of the matron, Mama Morton (Queen Latifah), and a savvy lawyer named Billy Flynn (Richard Gere).
I'm surprised that Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Richard Gere made me laugh. I've never laughed at one of them before (not when I was supposed to anyway), but this movie was so well done it had me totally tuned in and guffawing all the way.
A woman named Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger) wanted to get into the entertainment industry so bad she slept with her furniture salesman, Fred Casely (Dominic West), because he said he could introduce her to someone at the club. When he burst her bubble and told her the truth---he was only saying what he needed to say to get into her pants---she shot him dead. It was a glorious moment of "You're not getting away with this!" (even though she was cheating on her husband). Her aloof, oblivious, sucker of a husband, Amos (John C. Riley) was going to take the wrap for killing Fred when he didn't know that the dead man under the sheet was Fred, their furniture salesman. Once Amos put two and two together, or more accurately, once he was spoon fed the facts, he let Roxie go down for her crime.
Turns out that wasn't a bad move by Amos because women's prison in Chicago ain't so bad. Roxie only became the headliner she wanted to be anyway with the help of the matron, Mama Morton (Queen Latifah), and a savvy lawyer named Billy Flynn (Richard Gere).
I'm surprised that Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Richard Gere made me laugh. I've never laughed at one of them before (not when I was supposed to anyway), but this movie was so well done it had me totally tuned in and guffawing all the way.