Reviews in a nutshell
Forget the troublesome Pelham of 2009: Action guru Tony Scott and his muse Denzel Washington are firmly on the right tracks with this year’s adrenaline-fuelled thriller, Unstoppable, that really hits the mark, despite triggering an initial groan of yet another potential train-wreck of a movie on the cards. After suppressing giggles from hearing that there’s …
Don’t be fooled by the action sequences they squeeze out of the film for the trailer to try marketing this as an action-based crime thriller: it’s no Bourne. It is a part-foreign-language drama set in foreign lands – making it perfect London Film Festival fodder – that cleverly manages to straddle both art-house and mainstream …
Good guy or bad guy, does it really matter? The real-life person in question needs to have a winning charisma that translates well onto screen, and makes for a powerful story to watch, however long the film lasts. Carlos runs at 334 minutes, but it’s advisable to see it in its full-length glory to get …
There’s been a lot of discussion about Buried, or ‘nit-picking’ to be exact about a whole manner of alleged plot slip-ups. This actually implies that when critics can’t think of anything really wrong with a film, you’re onto a winner. Indeed no-one will dispute that 94-minutes worth of utterly gripping and terrifying drama, all shot …
For a thriller to be effective these days it has to have a situation that we could all potentially find ourselves in. Ok, so not everyone skis, but everyone can imagine being left behind in a public environment that changes mood from active and populated during the day, to terrifyingly desolate when the lights go …
No film is ever ‘perfect’, especially at the time of release, though many a film critic will have their favourites that nearly touch that impossible mark. What these films become are examples of near perfection in their own right, studied and lauded by all. The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan many well have placed his …
