KANSAS CITY

A jazz movie, a political movie and a kidnapping drama, "Kansas City" is all of them, rolled into one and this little known Robert Altman movie is one of his most enjoyable pictures. As in his more ambitious epics "Nashville" and "Short Cuts" he juggles several plot strands perfectly, helped along by another first-rate cast headed by Jennifer Jason Leigh, Miranda Richardson, Michael Murphy and a never better Harry Belafonte, (he won the New York Film Critics' Best Supporting Actor prize for this). It's the kidnapping plot or plots, depending on how you look at it, that dominate as they weave in and out through the other stories, borne along by some truly terrific jazz. You might not describe it as a thriller and, despite being laugh-out-loud funny at times, the comedy is largely satirical as you might expect from Altman but it looks fabulous and it's as sharp as a pin and it remains one of Altman's most underrated films.