Chicago

By EWAN McDONALD

(Herald rating: * * * * *)

Six Oscars, including Best Picture? That's something to make a song and dance about. And if you somehow missed the most talked-about movie of the year when it packed out the cinemas, it arrives in your local DVD and video store this week.

Strangely, for a film with that much hoopla, the DVD doesn't offer much more than the 89-minute movie and a couple of extras. What's the bet that there's a two-disc special edition coming up just in time for Christmas?

As well as a commentary by director Rob Marshall and scriptwriter Bill Condon, there's Class, a deleted musical number by Catherine Zeta-Jones and Queen Latifah that probably didn't fit the pace of the film.

The Behind the Scenes special shows the film-making process, including Zeta-Jones' and Renee Zellweger's dance rehearsals and Richard Gere at a tapdancing lesson, as well as discussions of technical aspects such as lighting and casting.

Which brings us back to the movie itself. As we all know, the big Hollywood musical had been a lost art-form until Baz Luhrmann sprang his fantastic Moulin Rouge on cinema audiences a year or so back.

That was a wild invention of sets, costumes and characters with old pop songs tacked on at (usually) appropriate moments. Chicago is an exuberant adaptation of a Broadway musical by Bob Fosse, and its roots show in Marshall's direction and choreography.

The story, such as it is, comes from the Roaring 20s when gangsters were glamorous folk-heroes. Velma (Zeta-Jones) is a dancer at the Onyx club; Roxie Hart (Zellweger) dreams of leaving her husband (John C. Reilly) and performing on stage there one day but it's not to be.

Velma shoots her cheatin' man, Roxie shoots her boy-friend, and both girls are on Death Row, in the tender care of Mama, the warder (Queen Latifah). There's only one way out for both: the slimy, sleazy, headline-hunting, money-grubbing, sharp-suited lawyer, Billy Flynn (Gere).

As that DVD feature explains, the real stars of Chicago are the songs (All That Jazz, Razzle-Dazzle, Mr Cellophane) and the dances. The tricky bit was finding box-office performers who could carry them off.

Zeta-Jones came from a theatrical background and generally gets by, but Zellweger needs a lot of help from her grin and the editors. Gere doesn't even bother to try to cover his singing inadequacy.

He gives it all he's got, which ain't much, but there's no denying that he and Queen Latifah steal the show, particularly in a gorgeous scene in which he tap dances his way out of a tight spot in court and wins the jury over.

Great fun. Like the song says, "Give them an act with lots of flash in it/And the reaction will be passionate."