Reviews in a nutshell
Ol Parker – he of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel notoriety – is fast becoming the director of choice for sanitising death for those who fear its onset most. As with his last film about a bunch of OAPs on a latter-years, lifetime’s trip to India, he takes the subject and makes it not only palatable …
Brad Pitt reunites again with writer-director Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) to adapt George V. Higgins’s novel, Cogan’s Trade for the big screen. It’s another successful outcome, entitled Killing Them Softly – referring to hits by strangers on strangers in the underworld. As Cogan, Pitt embodies his standard …
Producer-Director Oliver Stone, best known for his political thrillers, war films and a recently completed Castro documentary, reverts back to Natural Born Killers/U-Turn type for his latest film, Savages, appealing to a wider commercial market wanting pulpy, consumable, popcorn action thrillers without any political intensity. In a way, Savages is a satisfying all-action trip with …
Fans of the hit 70s TV series have no fear: Director-writer Nick Love has taken the heart and soul of the iconic characters, Regan and Carter, and given them a cosmetic 2012 facelift, thrusting the chauvinistic, hard-nosed coppers into a contemporary, clinical crime-fighting environment, complete with latter-day baddies. In fact, Love is wise not to …
Director Joe Wright’s take on Tolstoy’s tragic love story, Anna Karenina, is bound to divide opinion, particularly after watching the initially distracting theatrical element of a film set within theatre set changes. Those who favour classic Russian epics, like the days of Doctor Zhivago, may well have envisaged this in grander, more realistic settings. Admittedly, …
Man On Wire and Project Nim director James Marsh has aptly brought Tom Bradby’s chilling thriller to the big screen, with the help of the author who turns screenwriter. The combination of a documentary-based filmmaker and an author with the ability to convey the compelling nature of the Troubles in one intimate scenario is the …
Four Weddings and a Funeral has set the precedent for the romantic comedy of wedding bell errors. Unfortunately, all other wedding-themed films are often judged critically by comparison. As much as Made In Dagenham director Nigel Cole’s The Wedding Video is different in its ‘caught on camera’, fly-on-the-wall approach, the end result should be a …
Michelle Williams always brings fresh intrigue and a subsequent realistic and nuanced performance to her roles, blossoming more in indie/art-house films where her character is given the space to explore than any other actress of her generation. Therefore, a film about adultery effects on a marriage starring Williams from actress-turned-writer/director Sarah Polley – who brought …
Brain-at-door. Big-dumb-entertainment-at-the-ready: you just can’t take this sequel seriously. If you do, shame on you as you miss out on one of this year’s silliest, pumped-up homage’s to 80s/90s action-hero flicks going. If we say there is one scene that sees former Terminator Schwarzenegger walking in defiant formation next to Die Hard Willis and Rambo …
