Category: Drama

Super 8 ****

Since the Spielberg heyday of E.T. and The Goonies, we’ve been waiting for a really smart, contemporary kids sci-fi adventure to match. Although Super 8, a project produced by the film-maker and written and directed by another great, J.J. Abrams (Cloverfield), is a damn fine extraterrestrial Noughties version that will totally capture the hearts and …

A Better Life ***

Tackling the all too common situation of illegal US immigration, About A Boy’s Chris Weitz opts for making a film full of good intentions that focuses on the larger issue from a narrower perspective. The result is an effecting, warm and compelling father-son relationship tale about love triumphing over adversity that manages on the whole …

Captain America: The First Avenger ****

Marvel’s The Avengers better be the film to end all comic book adapted films in May 2012, as we’ve been serviced with more than our fair share of the genre of late in the build up. Fanboys and girls will always have their favourite characters – which naturally makes them biased in terms of the …

Horrible Bosses ****

We’ve all had one. They come in all shapes and sizes. Their mission, it seems, is to make our working lives a living nightmare. So it’s understandable that Michael Markowitz’s story, Horrible Bosses, brings a gleeful curiosity as to how other helpless souls deal with their own private workplace horror. Director Seth Gordon’s cast of …

Beginners ****

We’re all searching for our purpose in life, a place where all the pieces of the puzzle fit together, and this is what resonates loudly from Mike Mills’s bittersweet and profoundly sincere dramedy, Beginners, with anyone pondering over their current lot. Starring a wonderful pairing of Christopher Plummer and Ewan McGregoras father and son, Hal …

The Big Picture ****

Rugged French actor Romain Duris came to international attention as charismatic professional relationship hacker Alex Lippi in Heartbreaker, opposite Vanessa Paradis last year. The unconventionally handsome actor has found a cheeky charmer niche it seems as lawyer Paul Exben in Eric Lartigau’s adaptation of Douglas Kennedy’s novel The Big Picture, a drama rather than a …

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 ****

It’s the battle to end all battles, the finale to end all finales after a successful ten-year film run, with a cast who have grown into their roles and made the J.K. Rowling characters their own. A lot of the emotion felt whilst watching Part 2 of the Deathly Hallows stems not only from events …

Cell 211 ****

Prison dramas are abundant, as are TV series depicting life behind bars that continue to fascinate audiences as they depict a pressure-cooker microcosm of life. So making a drama that stands out internationally is a tall order. But something quite unique about writer/director Daniel Monzón’s adaptation of Cell 211 (Celda 211)is the marriage of sheer …

Holy Rollers ***

As plots go, Kevin Asch’s one in Holy Rollers seems far fetched to say the least; an Orthodox Jew becoming an Ecstasy dealer and getting involved with an Israel drug cartel – sounds like the director was on drugs himself. But it also serves as one of the most compelling and unquestionably original ones to …