MOVIE: Pavarotti biopic hits right notes

IT takes a big name to tackle a man and a reputation like Luciano Pavarotti. 

The Italian tenor, with the big appetite and the bigger voice, certainly left his mark on the music world and beyond. 

Any cinematic tribute to the man from Modena deserves the attention of a filmmaker with clout, and Ron Howard was first in line to both produce and direct this weighty biopic. 

Howard, of course, is famous for films like ‘A Beautiful Mind’, ‘Frost/Nixon’ and ‘Splash’, and perhaps most relevantly the 2016 Beatles documentary, ‘Eight Days a Week’. 

In ‘Pavarotti’, we see the life of a legend carefully unveiled through the use of interviews with family and friends, old television appearances and newly uncovered backstage footage. 

What we discover is much more than a two dimensional performer and rather a man who lived life to the full, loved and lost then loved some more, had a generous and fun loving spirit, but most of all was obsessed with his charity work. 

The film has some genuinely touching moments that may bring a tear to your eye, other amusing encounters like when the great man convinces Bono to write a song and play his charity concert in Italy. 

But most of all it’s the music and voice that will get your emotions bubbling to a point where you leave the cinema deeply satisfied (the audience at the end of our screening burst into applause). 

For the man, the life, the music, and the film, we award Pavarotti a review score of five perfectly pitched stars.  

If you’re looking for something completely different, and we mean completely, then you may want to check out zombie comedy ‘The Dead Don’t Die’, from a perhaps equally famous but arguably less accomplished director, Jim Jarmusch.  

The cast, which includes Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton and Bill Murray, is an impressive one, and the first half hour before the zombies appear certainly keeps your attention, but things soon run off the rails. 

The jokes aren’t funny enough and the zombies simply aren’t scary in this middle of the road offering that scores an average 2.5 stars.

Paul O’Rourke