Deep Water

Deep Water is the much feted return of the starry erotic psychological thriller ™ to our screens and from director Adrian Lyne as well, the man who arguably kicked off the genre with 1987's Fatal Attraction. Add in a real life couple playing the couple onscreen and a streaming platform that allows films to be shown without the snips required to ensure a film gets a particular age certificate. This should have been a big ol' slice of filthy fun but the reality is about as horny as guinness fart on a packed bus.

If you're anyway online you'll be intimately acquainted with the numerous Sad Affleck memes floating around these past few years. You know them, Ben on a beach staring pensively into the uisce or having a sneaky smoke, looking like the weight of the world is weighing down on those broad shoulders of his. Deep Water is that meme stretched out to nearly 2 hours and yes, it's about as entertaining as that sounds. Ok, there's fun to be had here but it's the laughing at and not with kind. Ana de Armas does her sultry best as his onscreen wife but oh no, it just ain't happening. When a film's most memorable scene is a reminder that snails have to be starved before they're eaten..... yeah that's not a good sign. And we haven't even mentioned that ending yet. That bizarre, nonsensical final act.

Vic and Melinda Allen are a couple existing in a small Louisiana town. They've long fallen out of love but he allows her to take lovers to ensure that she won't leave him. She flaunts her infidelities in his face and he just watches impassively despite their friends and co-workers knowing exactly what's happening. One night at a party he jokes to her current lover how he took care of a former lover and it sets off a chain of events that well..... you'll have to watch this bland bullshit and find out.

There could have been fun had here. Patricia Highsmith's deliciously dark 1957 novel is the source material and despite being 65 years old it took way more risks with it's story than you'll experience here. If the film had the balls to stay true to the novel you'd have an ending that would make what came before more forgivable but all we get here is a ridiculous bicycle chase following a character appearance that will make you scratch your head intensely trying to figure out the hows and whys of how they ended up where they ended up. It's a laughably bad climactic moment but then soon after the film really strives for a profundity that just isn't earned at all. You'll get it, but you won't like it because the story has chickened out

.The thriller aspect of Deep Water fails miserably so how about the erotic part? Heh. We know the story calls for a distance between Vic and Melinda but there's no bit of spark here at all, no sense of why they'd ever have gotten together. Jesus even Gigli, the notorious Affleck/Jennifer Lopez turkey (gobble gobble!) from 2003 did better on that front, meaning the much feted sex scenes between them just feel limp and kinda pathetic. Surprisingly tame too considering they're directed by the man behind 9 & 1/2 Weeks, Fatal Attraction and Indecent Proposal. They just speak to the fact that modern day film audiences seem to have no appetite for cinematic boom boom. It's a pity and it means that the starry erotic psychological thriller ™ will probably be staying put in the late 80's/ early 90's once again.

Deep Water is streaming online now. You'll be glad you didn't pay to see it in a cinema.

The Batman

The Batman cuts to the chase. There's no need for an origin story here. We all know what happened to Bruce Wayne to turn him into the Caped Crusader, Gotham City's saviour, the World's Greatest Detective. There's no need to see him traumatised once again by the murder of his parents Thomas and Martha after we've already seen them gunned down in four other films by Jack Napier/Joe Chill/randomers. Despite that being skipped over The Batman still manages to be almost 3 hours long. There's no justification for that at all. It's a fine film but that midsection....it robs the film of a lot.

We open on what we think is going to be that origin all over again but it's a trick and soon one of Gotham's political elite is wiped out. The city is in shock and Lieutenant Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) wastes no time in bringing the Batman (Robert Pattinson) into the investigation, a move that alienates the cops of the city who see him as a vigilante freak. Batman dives straight into the city's dark underbelly and comes into contact with The Penguin (Colin Farrell), a scarred killer who controls a mafia owned nightclub frequented by the hypocrites who claim to be on the side of good and Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz), a waitress who knows more than she's letting on. As more and more well known faces die horribly in cruel Saw/Se7en-esque ways Batman finds himself drawn closer and closer to the man committing the atrocities, a masked psychopath called The Riddler (Paul Dano).

It's the first scrap that settles your nerves about this one. A confrontation in a dark subway that's just brutally efficient. Christopher Nolan's confusingly shot action isn't anywhere to be seen here, just bang, biff, whollop and done. Batman takes no shit from anyone and Robert Pattinson looks convincing taking care of business. Out of costume as Bruce Wayne he's a mopey emo kid and a million miles away from the Christian Bale/Ben Affleck sleek macho playboy version but it's a depiction that makes sense. He's traumatised by his past and he's made it his present. There's instant chemistry with Selina Kyle, another damaged soul with a shitty past, they sense it in each other and just click. Then she disappears for a whole chunk of the movie and it suffers as a result, especially in the scenes where Bruce and his butler Alfred (Andy Serkis) delve back into Bruce's past for a while. We all thought we'd get away from Thomas and Martha right? Wrong. A bedside scene (along with other drawn out and unnecessary moments) between the pair threatens to kill the film's momentum dead and it's a nuisance after all the good will built up in that opening hour.

Director Matt Reeve's take on Gotham is an effective one, skewing more towards the skanky, slimy urban landscape of Tim Burton's films and Batman Begins than the shiny metropolis of more recent films. It's a dangerous place populated with filth, wracked by random violence perpetrated by young men with nothing better to do. One of these young men is The Riddler, a psychopath not far removed from the "incel" shooters making America such a scary place to live in the 21st century. Using social media he's created a following of like minded individuals and it's his plan kicking into action that drags the film out of the mid section doldrums and gives us a topical ending to get our teeth into. He ain't the only bad guy roaming the streets though. Nope, this is a Batman film, there's always someone else knocking around and it's here that an unrecognisable Colin Farrell nearly steals the film for himself. His take on Oswald Cobblepot aka The Penguin leans away from the freakshow aspects of the character and more towards his vicious side, a gangland enforcer and unrepentant criminal who'll still make you laugh. He might look like a side of beef someone took a blade to but Farrell's charm and sense of humour can't help but shine through the impressive makeup. It's just a pity he's not in it for longer. More Colin would have made that dull middle hour a lot more bearable.

The Batman isn't without it's (big) fault's but it's the best take on the comic book since 2008's The Dark Knight. Despite all it's murkiness it's a fantastic looking movie (that tunnel scrap illuminated by gunfire is a PEACH), R-Pattz looks believable in and out of the costume and the energy between him and Zoë Kravitz will have you looking forward to her inevitable return in the inevitable sequel. Speaking of sequels, what until you see who tu........nah, let's leave that one for you to find out yourself.

The Batman is in cinemas now everywhere.

No Exit

There's a lot of upsides to watching tonnes of movies but one of the unspoken downsides is recognising an actor you know will turn out to be villainous. Sometimes it's fun to be ahead of the curve when watching with others but mostly it just ruins the twists and turns a film like No Exit will throw at you. This is no reflection on No Exit of course, I'm just being a moany bastard. No Exit is pretty good.

Darby Thorne (Havana Rose Liu) is having a rough time. Her umpteenth visit to rehab isn't working out too well and when she finds out her mother is in hospital she wants out but leaving court ordered counselling is easier said than done. She does it anyway with a well handed screwdriver and a stolen car and before long she's driving through snowstorms heading towards Salt Lake City. A blizzard forces her to take shelter in a park visiting center and inside are Ash (Danny Ramirez), Lars (David Rysdahl), and a married couple called Ed (Dennis Haysbert) and Sandi (Dale Dickey), all in the same predicament as her. Just before she settles in for a long cold night she takes one final trip outside to try in vain to make a phonecall and discovers something unsettling inside one of the vans parked nearby.

You can tell straight away No Exit was filmed during the Covid-19 pandemic. A small cast, a simple premise, the vast majority of the story taking place in one location. That doesn't stop it from being an entertaining watch and despite it's tiny cast it will still keep you guessing throughout it's running time (if you haven't watched too many films that this). It's also the kind of movie that requires a large suspension of disbelief and one late plot plot is in awfully bad taste (you'll know it when you see it) but if you enjoy your Hitchcockian chamber pieces with a side order of bloody violence No Exit will more than likely hit the spot for you.

No Exit's got a strong heroine, nasty baddies, some vicious retribution and a gripping story and it's all told in under 95 minutes. What's not to enjoy?

Kimi

Alfred Hitchcock was born in 1899. If he'd been born in 1999 he'd be the target audience for Kimi, the new thriller from Steven Soderbergh that feels like a modern day remake(ish) of Alfie's own Rear Window replete with facemasks, invasive tech and crippling social anxiety. That aul reliable trio of life ingredients in 2022.

Kimi's the new must have gadget. A smart speaker that not only listens to your every word but one that tracks every movement you make in your home. One of the workers asked with making sense of data streams from Kimi devices worldwide is Angela Childs (Zoë Kravitz), a blue haired recluse who's life revolves around her computer screen and her phone. A previous assault combined with a global pandemic has her housebound and her only contacts are her mother and her neighbour Terry (Byron Bowers) who visits her regularly for a bit of how's your uncle. One day a troubling recording catches her eye, one that appears to have captured an attack on a woman in her one home. Her boss doesn't want to know so she goes over his head and soon finds herself in a lot of danger. The type of danger that requires going outside.

Your own gaff. The place you feel most comfortable. Your safe space. It's not something that exists for women in modern day life. Angela knows. She can never relax and her job has turned her into a voyeur, peering into the lives of others, existing vicariously through them. Outdoors is a no-no and her social life is a blend of broken promises and drunken zoom calls. Her discovery of an assault on a woman called Samantha (Erika Christensen) is what kicks her into gear, forcing her out of her comfort zone. It's not hard to spot the real life parallels here. The psychological damage wrought on us all by extended periods of isolation these last few years, the ridiculous access we allow tech companies to have into our lives, the ever increasing violence against women reported daily in news headlines. The fact that Soderbergh and writer David Koepp have managed to turn this raw material into a film that's not absolutely depressing is somewhat of a minor miracle.

Soderbergh's one of the most interesting directors working today. Starting off in arthouse before pivoting into mainstream success and in the last decade becoming a jack of all trades. You never know what you'll get with him, his films dabble in the tropes of genre cinema but feel accessible to everyone, lending his stories an air of palatable unpredictability. Combine this with a breath of fresh air actor like Kravitz and you get a film that sounds stale and unimaginative on paper but one that turns out to be pretty damn pulse pounding in reality. Add in a Home Alone style ending that robs some of it's brutal retribution from Lethal Weapon 2 and you have a crowd pleaser. Speaking of Home Alone, see if you can spot the in-joke. It's rare when a realisation about a stabbed and bleeding character will make you giggle.

Kimi is streaming now on google movies. It's good. Zoë Kravitz has been one to watch for a while now but this and next week's The Batman are about to set her flying.

Death On The Nile

 

It's not very often a moustache gets it's own flashback but that's how Death On The Nile starts. The Western Front, Belgium, 1914. A baby faced Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh who also directs) uses his smarts to save his platoon from certain death during a crossing of No Man's Land and ends up hideously scarred as a result. Hence, the moustache to end all moustaches. No better way to cover up.

23 years later Poirot is on holiday in Egypt and gets invited on a cruise by his friend Bouc (Tom Bateman). A boat trip up the Nile that will celebrate the Honeymoon of Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer) and and heiress Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot). Along for the spin are friends, family, doctors, their favourite musicians and one very unwelcome guest, Jackie de Bellefort (Emma Mackay), Simon's ex-fiance who hasn't taken too kindly to being dumped unceremoniously for Linnet. As the boat chugs slowly through the crocodile filled waters by the temple of Abu Simbel a shot rings out and now the world's greatest detective has a murder to solve and a captive audience of suspects to give his beady eye.

Death On The Nile is slightly better than Murder On The Orient Express but that's damning it with faint praise. Branagh feels more relaxed into the leading role and the central mystery is slightly more plausible than the ridiculous one at the heart of the former film. But what's amazing about this film is the fact that it even made it to the cinema between Covid induced delays and numerous prominent members of the cast being accused of all manner of no-no's like supporting Israel's anti Palestine stance, anti vaxx sentiments (x 2), sexual misconduct and....cannibalism. Yup, remember all that stuff about Armie Hammer last year? There's a reason you didn't see him on the posters or in the trailers for Death On The Nile. His part here was too big to CGI out à la Kevin Spacey in All The Money In The World. So 20th Century Studios just brass necked it out by pretending he didn't exist. His presence does tend to overshadow proceedings at times but when you've a larger than life hero like Poirot onboard he'll take the attention away. 

It's an alright watch, a time passer that you'll have forgotten 24 hours later. It's the very definition of a 2.5 star film. If you enjoyed the ITV version with David Suchet you'll probably like this too. It's stacked cast will amuse you as they pop up one by one (seeing French and Saunders together again as Linnet's godmother and her travelling nurse is fun) but they all get very little too do apart from be either picked apart or decimated by the investigating detective. This is the Hercule Poirot show don't you know. His moustache gets more screen time than Rose Leslie (Linnet's maid) and Russell Brand (Linnet's ex-fiance) together. The standouts are Sophie Okenodo as Salome Otterbourne, a jazz singer who catches Poirot's eye and Emma Mackey as Jackie, the one character who brings a touch of unpredictability to the story. That is if you haven't seen the previous versions. Previous versions that while family friendly, felt gritty and earthy compared to this purely because they weren't riddled with cheap looking CGI that pulls you out of the story constantly. At no point in this will you ever believe anyone in the cast stepped foot in Egypt or even near water. It's all so pristine and fake and ugh. There's an awful lot to be said for location filming and if you are going to pull together a big star studded cast you could at least put them somewhere pretty.

Death On The Nile is out now. It will fill a couple of hours for you but in the end it just feels pointless, adding nothing new to the better, older versions. 

Clean

Marked For Death. Commando. The Exterminator. Loads of other 80's action thrillers. They always had one particular scene in common. The preparation montage where handguns are loaded, shotguns are racked, knives are sharpened, bombs are built and DIY weapons are knocked together from the stuff you find under the sink. It always happens at the point of no return, when the good guy's endgame is about to come into play and you know things are about to get wild. Any 80's throwback thriller worth it's salt should have one and Clean's prep work scene leads to an exceedingly bloody climax but the build up to it might be a bit too much for some. 

Clean is so ponderous and moody that at times it verges on parody but a muscular turn from Adrien Brody saves it from DTV hell. He's never been the most animated of actors so his screen persona suits the role of Clean, a garbage man disgusted by the state of the city around him. He's a quiet fella, living a simple life, doing the jobs no one else wants to. His only human contact is with his sponsor Travis (Mykelti Williamson) and a teenage girl from the neighbourhood called Diandra (Chandler DuPont ) who reminds him of his past. A past that's the reason for his lowkey present. A present lived out in a part of town where criminality is rife and everyone is in thrall to Michael (Glenn Fleshler), a violent crimeboss who loves getting his hands dirty. One evening their paths cross and well.....I'm sure you can guess the rest. As a famous Taxi Driver once said "Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets."

Yes that is The RZA

It's appalling the damage a close range shotgun blast can do to a human head. It's a gory moment that kicks off a vicious finale but after almost 75 minutes of place-setting it's not as satisfying as it should be. A nasty blowing alley encounter aside we get well over an hour of grim narration accompanying drone shots of urban decay before (let's be honest here) the stuff we all came here for splashes across the screen. When it does finally hit it's visceral and made even more crunching by the fact that Clean is a dab hand at what he does. An axe wielding foursome? Pah! A houseful of hardened criminals? LOL. That dark past eh and all the shades of grey that come with it. Unlike the heroes of the three films mentioned earlier Clean isn't a good guy, his criminal past hinted at in blood-soaked flashes to the past. But as the story moves forward and the stakes rise he sees an opportunity to use his skills for something good, there's a glimpse of redemption on the horizon. There's a noticeable Paul Schrader-esque feel in the latter half of the film but there's none of his subtlety.

Brody, who's career seems to have died a death in the last decade for whatever reason, does a fine job here as a convincing killing machine and Glenn Fleshler as his nemesis is a pleasingly menacing foil. At first he looks and sounds like a cut-price version of Marvel's Kingpin but when his family becomes intertwined in the story it adds an unusual edge to the story, one that somehow makes him seem both more evil and more human. And as you know, the more evil a bad guy is the more satisfying his comeuppance is. You could set your watch to that maxim of filmmaking.

Clean isn't a bad film at all but it's pacing leaves a lot to be desired. Had it's carnage been more evenly spaced out you'd have a lot more fun with it. 

Streaming online now.

Nightmare Alley

For his 11th film director Guillermo Del Toro has left the supernatural behind. He's in film noir territory now adapting the novel of the same name from 1946. There's no giant human-like cockroaches here, no vampires who feed on other vampires by way of a sucker found under their tongue and definitely no ghosts who attack humans so violently that brains pour out of their fractured skulls. That said you'll still be shuddering as you leave Nightmare Alley. 

Animal lovers may meltdown but an early scene where Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) watches a geek biting the head off a chicken in a circus freak show is thankfully, but very effectively, faked. He's walked away from his former life and has taken a job as a carny in the very same circus. He's always on the make, always looking out for people who's feelings he can worm his way into and soon enough two women are under his spell, one a young woman called Molly (Rooney Mara) who he has future plans for and another, a so called clairvoyant called Madame Zeena (Toni Collette). After he's learned her "psychic" bag of tricks he leaves the circus to start a new life with Molly and putting Zeena's knowledge to good use he soon becomes famous amongst the New York elite. Then one night he meets Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett) at one of his shows and a new plan starts to form in that head of his.

150 minutes. A ridiculous running time. It could have been worse though, rumour is GDT's preferred cut ran to 200 minutes. It's odd because some of it runs on for way too long but other parts of the film, primarily the first hour, set in the circus, would benefit from the extra minutes that make the second half of the film feel saggy. The world of the circus is beautifully drawn, full of awe struck wonder built on suffering and sadness, all grand guignol ghoulishness and brought to life by a group of actors (Willem Dafoe, David Straithairn and of course Ron Perlman is there, GDT's longtime muse) who in any other film would fill out a cast wonderfully, but here they sadly vanish halfway through. The relationship between Stan and Lilith becomes the film's primary focus and in places it slows the film to a crawl. The story starts feeling muddled but the as the third act comes into focus the story does gather up a nice head of steam that leads to that ending mentioned earlier and the full realisation (if you haven't seen the 1947 film adaption) that this is a full on morality tale in noir clothing. The story's dark cynicism and horrifying worldview get hammered home in a moment that will make you shudder with all it's hideous implications.

Bradley Cooper sells that final shot and every shot he's in up to that point, his Stan a multilayered creation, he's warm, he's charming, he's a master manipulator, he's vicious when needs be but he's also haunted by it, by his past, especially his very last act before he left home to join the circus. We don't find out why he did it but past brutality is hinted at and revenge is a dish literally best served cold, or freezing in this case. He's easily as good as Tyrone Power was in the original 1947 version, his movie star looks used to full effect to charm and corrupt all around him. Toni Collette and Cate Blanchett stand their ground against him, Collette especially in a part you'd happily watch way more of but Rooney Mara disappears into the scenery beside him, playing a part you'll struggle to remember anything about.

Nightmare Alley is in cinemas now. In usual Del Toro fashion it's dark, it's creepy and it's fantastic looking. It's also far too long and a bit messy but a killer lead turn from Bradley Cooper will keep you watching.

The 355

There's a gadget that can hack into every computer on Earth after being created in the forests of Colombia and bad guys from every strata want it. With it cities can be blacked out in seconds, planes can be crashed remotely and financial institutions can be cleaned out instantly. Whoever gets it can start and win World War III in the blink of an eye so it's no surprise that intelligence agencies from all over the world are sending their best and brightest to retrieve it from the man who's retrieved it, a Colombian National Intelligence Directorate agent called Rojas (Edgar Ramirez). Mace (Jessica Chastain) is a CIA agent on the hunt alongside her fellow agent Fowler (Sebastian Stan) and her techie friend Khadijah (Lupita Nyong'o) from M16 and Germany's BND have the vicious and uncompromising Marie (Diane Kruger) on the case. Their plans clash and soon enough chaos is spilling out onto the streets of Paris and Morocco and a Colombian shrink from the NDI called Graciela (Penelope Cruz) is forced into action too when her compatriot Rojas loses control of what can only be described as a doomsday device. 

To say The 355 hasn't been well received is an understatement but it's a perfectly serviceable bit of undemanding fun and who doesn't need that these days. The cast work well together (It's not much of a spoiler to say all the women all end up on the same side), the action scenes are surprisingly crunchy for a 12 cert film and there's plenty of enjoyment to be had between vicious cat and mouse games in Moroccan bazaars and fish markets, footchases over and under Paris and explosive gunplay in Shanghai highrises.  Everyone here is a spy with the exception of Cruz's psychiatrist and in the grand tradition of cinematic spycraft, it's less about surveilling and tailing and more about globetrotting, headbutting and point blank shooting. When the violence takes a breather we get an entertaining Ocean's 8 style scene at an auction where charm becomes mightier than strength but don't worry, it's not long before bodies are being pummelled again. 

You can smell the desire for a franchise here. They always start the same way. A simple story designed to show off the characters and what they can do, bland villains and mild twists and most importantly a plot that doesn't hurt the main cast, well too much anyway. The cast is what makes this one worthwhile. Chastain is solid as a somewhat anonymous lead who looks convincing beating the tar out of bald, bearded goons. Kruger is absolutely convincing as a pissed off German agent who looks like she could destroy your bodily integrity with a well aimed kick while Cruz does nice work as a fish out of water who eventually finds her place in the world. Lupita Nyong'o feels slightly wasted as the tech nerd of the group but come the fiery climax she proves her worth as much as the others. Late in the day Fan Bingbing pops up as a Chinese agent also on the hunt for the gadget but she fails to make any bit of an impact and the cynical among us might suggest she's only there so the film can tap into that lucrative Chinese market.

Cynics might also take issue with the film's bloodless brutality. Dozens of goons are gunned down and stabbed throughout The 355 but there's nary a splash of blood to be seen. It's John Wick without the splatter, The Expendables without the entrails. Had director Simon Kinberg been given the okay to go all out on the carnage maybe people might have enjoyed this more but these days the wannabe franchises have got to get that oh so important PG-13 (over here 12A) rating. One moment involving family threat does push the boundaries of the family friendly rating but it also gives us a moment we never get to see in films like this. Here we get a glimpse into the outer lives of people involved in the spying life. Bond never did anything like this. Bourne certainly didn't. It's a small touch but it's a welcome one. People might be surprised that a woman led film like this avoids blatant "Girl Power" moments but the humane touches it brings to the table are far more welcome.

The 355 is in cinemas now. If you want a bit of crunchy fun you might enjoy it.

The Harder They Fall

Wyatt Earp. Seth Bullock. Pat Garrett. Bat Masterson. Judge Roy Bean. The Wild West lawmen we've all heard of and seen onscreen any number of times. What do they all have in common? Have a guess. What about Bass Reeves? Lawman extraordinaire. The man who took down 3,000 dangerous criminals as a U.S. Marshall down Arkansas and Oklahoma way. His name isn't as well known. Why? Because he was Black of course. One of the Western genre's biggest failings was the whitewashing of American history and while things are improving there's a long way to go yet. The Hard They Fall is another stepping stone and Bass Reeves is along for the journey alongside Nat Love, Rufus Buck, Stagecoach Mary and Cherokee Bill, four more real life names that never got the screentime they deserved.

Young Nat Love is having a roast chicken dinner when his world comes crashing down around his ears. Years later he's a grown man (Jonathan Majors), a bandit and a revenge seeker. His gang have just robbed money belonging to a killer and want to rest up for a while and enjoy their spoils. The killer is Rufus Buck (Idris Elba), a bandit with a reputation as wide as a state. He's also the man who ruined Nat Love's life and he's about to do so again when his partners Cherokee Bill (LaKeith Stanfield) and Trudy Smith (Regina King) release him from jail. The Buck gang quickly takes over the town of Redwood and when Nat finds out he's free he starts to itch for some justice. Along with his lady Stagecoach Mary (Zazie Beetz), quickdraw supremo Jim Beckwourth (RJ Cyler) and Bass Reeves (Delroy Lindo), the man who put Buck away, they head off into the sunset for the showdown to end all showdowns.

Aw man this was a blast to watch. You'd be amazed how entertaining a film that starts with a child being scarred by a straight razor can be. After that vicious opening we get to meet everyone, get to see what makes 'em tick, what their skills are, how far they'll go to get what they want. Everyone's having fun, in front of and behind the camera. In the opening moments you might fear we're in for a Tarantino fest but that feeling quickly disperses and the racism and horror his recent westerns were guilty of wallowing in are nowhere to be seen. It was an oppressive time and it's hinted at throughout but the characters never let themselves be held back by it. The films one partial use of a racial epithet is cut short by a bullet to the head and the tension afterwards is quickly and comically cut short by preposterous alternative suggestions from LaKeith Stanfield's ubercool gunslinger. For a film this darn violent the light tone it's handled with by director Jeymes Samuel is quite something.

One of the biggest western cliches is the slow build up to all out war in the final reel and The Harder They Fall takes it's time moving all it's pieces into place and sometimes it's guilty of moving a bit too slowly meaning the middle section of the movie feels kinda sluggish in places. But it's a small nitpick in what is undoubtedly an important watch. Whole swathes of the frontier were opened up in the late 1800's by freed slaves looking for a better life and Hollywood has nearly always ignored them. Films like Posse and TV shows like Hell on Wheels and Godless gave us a glance at how hard life was when you had dark skin in a land ruled by a gun and The Harder They Fall tells those stories while leaning into the romance of the western, the myth making, legendary side of it, it allows itself to have some fun with it all, letting loose with blasts of verve and energy that will leave you giddy.

When everything kicks off in the techicolored (sic) town of Redwood you'll be grinning at all it's knife spinning, dynamite throwing, head exploding madness. Our factual heroes becoming the superheroes of the west, taking down six men with six bullets while diving to avoid the seventh. Bloody chaos overlayed by a Jay-Z curated soundtrack, tunes from Lauren Hill, Seal (brother of director Jeymes Samuel) and Kid Cudi all leading us to the big showdown, when Idris Elba's Rufus, who's rather laidback throughout, gets his time to shine. Jonathan Winter's Nat Love though, he's a western hero you'll definitely want to spend more time with and it might just happen too, you never know. 

The Harder They Fall is streaming now online. It rocks.

Last Night In Soho

There's a quite a bit of filler in Edgar Wright's new psychological horror, especially in it's second half and for a moment you might fear it's going to end in a very unsatisfactory manner but then it clicks, everything becomes clear, previous scenes make sense and you'll remember why you'd enjoyed his earlier films. Forget the bombast and bluster of the godawful Scott Pilgrim Vs The World or the cloying try hardness of The World's End. No, this is the work of someone playing in a sandbox they love. It shows.

Eloise Turner (Thomasin McKenzie) has hit London with a plan. She wants to design clothes and has travelled across England to make a name for herself. London though, it takes it toll , she was warned and it's coming true rapidly. Not fitting in with student life she rents a bedsit in Soho from Mrs Collins (Diana Rigg in her final role) and the room starts getting under her skin when her night time dreams transport her back to the swinging sixties of London. In her dreams her avatar is Sandy (Anya Taylor Joy), a would be singing starlet looking for fame. She takes up with Jack (Matt Smith), a manager who promises her the world but delivers her into the sordid underworld of celebrity instead. Soon Eloise's dreamworld starts to bleed into her reality and it's only a matter of time before it starts getting dangerous.

Yup, that's the stuff. Wright has fully moved away from comedy and here delivers a dark, twisting, surprisingly vicious look at the dark side of stardom, at male violence in it's myriad forms and how both too often intertwine. It's at it's best in it's first half, setting the stage, laying on the alienation (Synnøve Karlsen as Jocasta, her first roommate is a hateful creation), making Eloise the perfect conduit for all ghostly goings on.....or are they ghostly. We know she's troubled, there's mental illness in her past, things are ambiguous, purposefully so, there's shades of Polanski's Repulsion here, tinges of giallo and then full on eurohorror takes centre stage. It starts to get messy, a bit too repetitive and padded as messages get hammered home but as things start to come together near the end you'll be too busy gawping at the gaudily coloured chaos on screen to care.

There's a neon sign outside Eloise's bedroom window and it bathes her room in deep blues and reds throughout the film. It belongs to a French bistro but may as well say DARIO ARGENTO in huge flashing letters. Wright's never been shy with his homages but this one is hilariously on the nose, speaking to a love of the horror genre that gets a real run out as Sandy's 60's life goes from glamorous to horrifying courtesy of a nightmarish escape through the bowels of a venue that feels like the stuff of fever dreams. It's here the first half of the film's glorious evocation of 60's London flips and we see the worms beneath, the truth of the place, not the version that only ever existed on the silver screen. A place where flesh was a commodity, indulged in by sweating, leering creeps. Until one night.......a night that's seared into Eloise's retinas. To see her go from bright eyed and bushy tailed to buoyed by confidence created by dream inspirations to a screaming wreck is tough going but Thomasin McKenzie sells it perfectly.

It's her film but it's Anya Taylor-Joy's Sandy that has the biggest impact. She's brilliant. The embodiment of old school glamour kicked off with a wicked dancefloor routine in a smoky club that just oozes dangerous cool. Like Eloise, Wright's love for the time period is apparent and to really lay it on thick screen icons of the time like Terence Stamp, Rita Tushingham and Diana Rigg all play a big part in proceedings. Rigg especially, in her final screen appearance really plays a memorable part in it all. The lady had presence. She'll be missed but goddamn what a way to go.

Last Night In Soho is out now. It's too long, it's messy and it repeats itself but if you let it this surreal and beautiful looking hybrid of psychological horror and shrieking melodrama will grip you tight. 

Oh and the soundtrack is just *chef's kiss*

Rise Of The Footsoldier : Origins

Fuck.

Cunt.

Fucking cunt.

Dodgy haircuts.

You slaaaag.

You bawstahd.

You fucking baaawwwstaaahd.

Cocaine.

Brasses.

Beatings.

A pathetic attempt to make scumbags sympathetic.

Cunt.

More dodgy haircuts. 

Fucking cunt.

Another attempt at poignancy involving a man who's just beaten a skull in with a pool ball.

Bawstahd. 

Cocaine, weed and now heroin. Good jaysus.

Oh wait, a claw hammer in the gob.

The end.

The 4th sequel/prequel to a film made with the sole purpose of creating an alibi for men accused of the 1995 Rettendon murders in Essex really wasn't needed but the spectacle of the same actors playing the same parts while they are 15 years older in a story set 30 years ago just has to be seen to be believed. This time around it's Tony Tucker getting an origin story. What started in the Falklands ended with a shotgun blast to the head down a country lane and after watching this shite you'll realise it was well deserved. Terry Stone is so bad in the lead role you'll wish it was you the gun was pointed at.

The wigs. Oh god the wigs.

The acting. Oh dear lord the acting. Vinnie Jones and Craig Fairbrass would never be accused of fine thesping but here they've given up totally.

The English underground hardman genre has reached it's nadir here. I hope.

To quote the kids of today, I can't even.

This profane muck is out to stream now on google movies. Watch it if you feel like punishing yourself.

No Time To Die

"Don't fuck with the formula." A quote often attributed to The Beach Boys lyricist Mike Love. If it ain't broken don't fix it. If it's working well just leave it alone. Yadda yadda yadda. When the credits roll at the end of No Time To Die you'll be happy director Cary Joji Fukunaga and his writers didn't listen to that trite nonsense. Your arse might be numb from sitting too long but you'll be glad with what you've watched.

59 years. 25 films. 4 M's. 79 Bond women. 6 actors playing the part if you don't count David Niven and we won't. 1000's of bullets. 163 minutes of No Time To Die. Yup, 163 minutes. A ridiculous running time. We don't even get to Billie Eilish's drudge of a song for about 30 of them. Then a saggy midsection rocks up and you could easily lose 15-20 minutes of exposition that would have never existed in earlier Bond films. But despite all of that, when No Time To Die hits it hits hard and long time Bond fans will, like a badly made Vesper cocktail, be both shaken and stirred, because this one adds something to the mix that's been missing for a long long time, genuine emotion. Certain corners of the internet scoffed when Phoebe Waller-Bridge was announced as a screenwriter but the Fleabag genius has certainly brought something new to the table.

Bond (Daniel Craig, never better in the role) is a happy clam. He's retired from M16. Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) is by his side and the demons of his past seem to have been laid to rest. Well he thought so anyway. Back in London a heist at a chemical weapons lab sets things tingling and 007 is up for her next assignment. Yup. Her next assignment. The newest 00 agent is Nomi (Lashana Lynch) and she's every bit as lethal as her predecessor and soon she finds herself clashing with Bond as both try to track down Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek), the evil mastermind behind the crime, a man with a link to those Bond holds dearest.

This one was worth the wait. That opening flashback, car chases that will have you gripping your chair, a brutal and vicious bodycount that stretches the limits of the 12 certificate to breaking, a blend of grit and silliness that succeeds where Spectre failed miserably, a Cuban gunfight that shows us the future of the franchise might just be in the hands of the women of the world of espionage, a post mortem one liner that Sean Connery would have been proud of, getting to see Bond using his licence to kill justifiably and without mercy, the return of a real bad guy lair ™. It's numerous new spins will bring in new Bond fans but long term fans will have a ball here too and despite it being the 25th film the need to shower us with nods to the past is kept lowkey enough that one powerful use of a much loved piece of music may threaten to bring a tear to your eye.

Speaking of eyes, a Safin henchman has a bionic one that leads to a brilliant crowd pleasing moment late in the story and it's one of many wonderfully silly plot points throughout. Craig's time as Bond has often being accused of being too serious but here it's nice to see absurdity being embraced once again. Craig himself finally looks and feels truly comfortable in the lead role and the franchise is going to miss that sardonic, brutish edge he brought to the part but if this film's supporting cast carry on into the next films you get the feeling we'd be in safe enough hands. Lashana Lynch's new spin on 007 brings with it crunching physicality and knowing wit while Ana de Armas's CIA agent Paloma delivers the fun. Her small part definitely feels like a placeholder for future films and you can't see anyone complaining about her potential return. Rami Malek as Safin though. He doesn't make much of an impact to be honest, his scheme is nefarious enough but he's no physical match for Bond and the old trope of disfigurement = villainy was played out decades ago so it's lucky the film has hefty parts for Ralph Fiennes (M) and Léa Seydoux to make up for his wimpy presence. Her role as Madeleine marks the first time a relationship has continued into another film and hers with James is what gives the film a real frisson of danger. Bond has loved and lost twice before and surely it can't happen again....

No Time To Die is out everywhere from today. The baddie is a disappointment and the running time requires a very comfortable chair but you're guaranteed to leave the cinema on an all time high. 

The Gateway

 

"I got some acid, I got crystal, dynamite green, some brown and china."

"Blow."

"I know you don't like them mushrooms."

"Blow."

"Really?"

"Mmm hmm"

"Ok. That's cooked with tabs of acid, you're gonna like that."

When the social worker entrusted to caring for your kids is playing chess for drugs in his local dive bar you might want to keep an eye on him. Because you never know, he might just be the one to save the day.

Parker Jode (Shea Whigham) spends half his day checking up on at risk children and the other half in a cloud of smoke, whiskey and powder. Life hasn't been kind to him but he's a good enough man still to make sure the kids in his care are looked after properly. Ashley Montrose (Taegan Burns) is one he checks on regularly and he's worried because her mother Dahlia (Olivia Munn) is coming apart at the seams and when her jailbird father Mike (Zach Avery) comes home things have the potential to go south fast. Mike promises he's on the straight and narrow but falls instantly into a life of crime with his old boss Duke Harmady (Frank Grillo) and within days of coming home robs a shipment of heroin from a gang involved with a Mexican cartel. All parties are on a collision course but can Parker keep Ashley out of danger?

It's Shea Whigham. He'll try his level best anyway. Whigham is one of those actors who can add a world weary veneer to any character he plays and it's his performance as Parker that turns a story we've seen a thousand times before into something quite watchable. He's broken by his past, by a veteran father, who to misquote the great John Prine had a hole in his arm where all his money went. He knows what the US foster system can do to children and it's his perogative to keep kids and parents together until it isn't feasible anymore. His few successes and many failures are beaten into his appearance and his demons are tamped down with things that are killing him. So when he sees a chance at redemption, a chance to really make a difference he goes at it with both hands and Whigham sells the part right down the line.

The rest of the story isn't quite so successful. Frank Grillo, in a smaller role than usual, looks like he's stepped in off the set of the 60's Batman, feeling less like a person and more like a plot point to keep the story moving while Olivia Munn is absolutely wasted in a role that's little more than a damsel in distress. Familiar faces like Bruce Dern, Keith David and Mark Boone Jr (still rocking that Sons Of Anarchy look btw, keep the faith Bobby) fill out the rest of the cast but don't get much to do aside from a rant from Dern, playing Parker's father, that just feels too awkwardly placed, too blunt and all encompassing, feeling like a scattergun aimed at all of society's ills. You'll get director Michele Civetta's intentions, that America's problems with substance abuse has it's roots in past sins but here it's a badly timed diatribe sticking out of the film like a sore thumb.

When a lead performance is this believable it's a nuisance when all else doesn't match it. The heist that kicks everything into motion will grab your attention though. A limb severing, bullet spraying brute force moment all done in one take (ok, there's two cuts but they are well hidden) that marks director Civetta as a name to take note of when it comes to directing action. Maybe this film will be his Gateway to the big time. 

Sorry.

The Gateway is streaming on Google Movies now.

My Son

Christian Carion's remake of his own 2017 film Mon Garçon is an interesting but failed experiment. Like Guillaume Canet in the original film lead actor James McAvoy plays his part without knowing the script or having any lines to learn. Working off a basic story outline his job is to react and improvise dialogue with the other actors onscreen who do have a script. The result is ..... well I'd like to say unique but the original film already stole that thunder.

Boring. There's the word we were looking for. Boring.

Edmond Murray (James McAvoy) has returned home to the Scottish Highlands from the Middle East to find his son Ethan who's gone missing while on a camping trip. There's no sign of foul play and there's nobody suspicious knocking around. No-one the police suspects anyway. Edmond's estranged wife Joan (Claire Foy, absolutely wasted) is now married to Frank (Tom Cullen) who Edmond has been instantly wary of but in the authorities eyes Frank is completely innocent. An altercation between the two leads to Edmond's arrest but a police mix up leaves him with a way to start his own investigation. 

It's a strange realisation when you're watching a film that's so dull it makes Taken look like a cinematic classic. Both films share a linked DNA but that's it. Because of McAvoy's improvisational part in the movie story has to be kept to a minimum and so we suffer through a plot as threadbare as a pair of socks you've held onto since the 90's because they were a present from someone you once loved. For whole swathes of the film Edmond doesn't even talk simplifying things even further and in one loooooong scene conceived with scant regard for viewer patience we watch him scrolling through phone videos of his son looking for clues. Deep dives into smart phones is investigative procedure 101 of course in this technological age but it certainly doesn't make for gripping viewing.

Then with clues found we enter a final act where everything should come together with some form of satisfaction but all we seem to get is rain and shadow, with a side order of damp and gloom with earlier red herrings coming to nought and a hint at something conspiratorial getting a one sentence conclusion. It's 95 minutes of your life you'll want back and at this stage of reading this you might be wondering why on earth anyone would stick with this film and there's one answer to that and it's James McAvoy. He's a great actor and it's a distinctive experience seeing the cogs turning in his head as he decides what to do and say next. It's not a particularly memorable performance but it's an interesting insight in the acting process and one we're unlikely to see again anytime soon, especially seeing as this film has been dumped off onto a streaming service (Peacock) that's way down the popularity pecking order. It's not a big stretch to think the money men behind this wanted it off their hands sharpish.

My Son is streaming online now. As experimental film making goes it had potential but the reality is disappointing. Still though, there's some lovely Scottish scenery I suppose.

Copshop

"How did you do that?" "Let's put a pin in that for a minute shall we?"

"Was she with you?" "Does it really matter?"

"What's got you so curious?" "Curiosity"

Copshop is built around a deed we never find out about and questions that are never properly answered. It's driving force is a macguffin, something that sets events in motion but is unimportant in of itself. Like the suitcase in Pulp Fiction or the Rabbit's Foot in Mission Impossible III or the plots of so many Hitchcock films, it's a stance that might leave some viewers unsatisfied but when it's this much fun who really cares.

The cops of a small (by American standards) station deep in the Nevada badlands are having a quiet one. Bossman Mitchell (Chad L. Coleman) is all about his burgers and rookie cop Valerie Young (Alexis Louder) is craving action and when she gets sucker punched by Teddy Muretto (Frank Grillo, dripping with sleazy energy in his second Joe Carnahan film this year, the other being Boss Level) she's about to get more than she can handle. Conman Teddy's on the run from some bad men and his best chance of survival is being locked up behind bars. Unfortunately, Bob Viddick (Gerard Butler in full on lunatic mode), the man chasing him has the same idea and soon both men are state property, in a building packed full of firearms.

Joe Carnahan's latest film is an enjoyable one. A low budget action flick that doesn't take itself seriously at all and one that's confident enough to take it's time to let us get to know it's cast before ripping them all to shreds. Styled and soundtracked (that Magnum Force music will make you grin) like something that slithered out of the 70's, built around a premise that would have felt right at home in the late 90's when every crime thriller felt in thrall to Tarantino but without the need to pack itself full of knowing nods and cutesy pop culture chat. At once it feels very familiar while being it's own beast too. Like Carnahan's 2006 slice of madness Smokin' Aces it lets it's tension build before allowing all hell break loose but unlike Smokin' Aces you'll actually want to see people survive this bloodbath.

Primarily Valerie, the film's moral centre. She's green as they come but as cool as a cucumber under pressure whether it's performing an emergency trachaeotomy or changing a door security code as bullets and glass fly by her. It's a star making turn from Louder and between this and TV's Watchmen just watch her rise high. Grillo's Murretto's a real piece of shit and even though the film gives us little about him the menace and ick still pours off his manbun topped visage. In full on menace mode is Butler, playing a man who once chopped off a victim's leg and beat him to death with it. Even standing still in a cell he feels dangerous and his run in with a drunken frat boy will, depending on your disposition, either make you squirm or burst out laughing. Butler's the big marquee name but playing a supporting role here which is good because a little Viddick goes a long way, especially when the bullets start flying.

And that they do, revolvers, semi automatics, full on machine guns, all introduced early in amusing riff's on the Chekov's gun principle. Part of the joy of this is wondering how and when they'll be seen again and when they are Carnahan finds all manner of ways to keep the action interesting. Also keeping things on their toes when they threaten to slow down midway through is Toby Huss's psychopathic Tony Lamb who's first introduced carrying a bunch of kid's balloons before blowing someone's brains out. While channeling Curtis Mayfield or adoring his own gooey handy work he adds an interesting spark to proceedings and another layer of unpredictability to the film. Because that's what familiar feeling films like this need, uncertainty, a bit of murkiness, something to keep you guessing.

Copshop is out in cinemas now. It's good fun, it will make you laugh and it doesn't outstay it's welcome.

The Toll

Revolvers are cocked. Shotguns are racked and Winchester rifles are primed. Eyes squint and scan. The night sky is lit up by gunfire. Blood splatters. A machete spins across the sky and impales itself in someone's mouth. The wild west is a bloody, venal, seedy place where no one is safe. No one. The wild west of Wales that is.

The English come to die in Pembrokeshire. The graffiti says so. One such Englishman passing through Wales on his way to a ferry to Ireland does anyway. Soon after he recognises Toll Booth (Michael Smiley), so called because it's been his job for the past 29 years. It's quiet work, no one bothers you, you can look the other way and Toll does so often and because of him crime is thriving in the small village nearby. Catrin's (Annes Elwy) the only cop in town who cares about what's happening in the locale. It's a year after her father's death and she's channeled her grief into her work. Now strange things are happening and she needs to figure out why. And it all starts with the robbery of Toll Booth's watch, £1.20 and a ham sandwich. Why £1.20 you ask? The toll is 40p and that's a whole day's takings. STAKES ARE HIGH.

Yep, it's a quirky one. Can you tell? But it's not self consciously so. Every wacky plotline benefits the story. Every odd new character adds to the stew. The Asian/American Elvis impersonator and her vocally impaired girlfriend, the murderous triplets who vote on every crime, the ambulance medic to whom the Hippocratic oath is non existent or the blind Shawshank Redemption fan who knows everything happening in town. None are set dressing, all interact believably with each other and each one plays a part and you'll feel the grin crawl across your face as you realise how. Even the fractured narrative, a plot device done to death at this stage is fun, leaving you guessing and second guessing just what it exactly going on here.

It packs a lot in in it's 82 minutes. Maybe too much. One much feared character gets short shrift when he finally arrives but the brevity of his appearance will make you giggle too. It's just another unpredictable turn The Toll takes. Casting Michael Smiley in the lead is a fine move. That hangdog, dead behind the eyes look as Toll, used so well by Ben Wheatley and Edgar Wright, you never know what's he's thinking, what he'll do next. A horrific past is hinted at but never made clear, he's a walking talking macguffin of a man. Catrin's his exact opposite. Open, inquisitive, making time for everyone, respected by the villagers but not above a joke either when questions in a packed pub turns into a film themed pisstake of epic proportions. It's her story you'll cling to and where you'll get an ending that ties everything together in a satisfying fashion.

"What's that book you're reading.........oh I've read that. Nothing happens.... it's brilliant." The final line of the film is a big ol' wink at the camera but the nothing happens part couldn't be less accurate. What starts as gloomy British drama ends up in the Wild West helped along by belly laughs and brutality and a couple of digs at the English, who are, would you believe it, never not at it.

The Toll is out now to watch on Google Movies and it's well worth your couple of quid.