 What critique does the film reviewer give to the actor who plays the rock star protagonist of "Velvet Goldmine"?
Only a strategic marriage to a Spaniard or a Frenchman will mollify all factions, her advisers insist, but the pickings prove dismal. (The director, Shekhar Kapur, made the same point in his grim 1994 Indian epic The Bandit Queen , against a backdrop of scrubby plains along the Ganges.) It's even closer to a Jacobean drama of our own age: The Godfather (1972), which it emulates by cutting back-and-forth between queen and courtiers in prayer and the roundup and slaughter of Catholics on their privies, in bed with their mistresses, and so on. But Blanchett comes in a close second, pulling off the transition from hapless young woman to coolly ruthless monarch with uncommon subtlety.
 His dialogue feels too scripted and unnatural
 He is unconvincing in his role as a sexual messiah  He confuses the audience with abrupt transitions between his self and alter ego  He is upstaged by the best supporting actor  His dialogue feels too scripted and unnatural