West (Westen) ****
An intense watch, perpetuated by the hand-held and urgent camerawork at moments. West relies on its strong characters to build the atmosphere and our imagination to fill in the deliberate gaps in their back stories.
Category: Thriller
Mad Max: Fury Road ****
A complete rush of the senses … Mad Max the character becomes almost a sideshow to the film’s juggernaut momentum. If that’s still acceptable for fans, Fury Road will thrill the living daylights out of you.
Big Game **
Big Game aims big in action and heart-felt fun but is lacking in anything else.
Spooks: The Greater Good ***
Spooks: The Greater Good is the extended TV episode, and though it’s bogged down by clunky scripting and overly forced dialogue, it has it’s delicious little gibes between characters, with Firth coming out the champion of the lot.
Unfriended ***
Unfriended offers some half-decent scares inside a rather claustrophobic environment, with the usual sacrifice of attractive teens. Unsurprisingly, it’s not unique in that sense. What is noteworthy is taking the social media platforms’ functionality and accentuated sounds to trigger its suspense. In this respect, Unfriended grabs and retains our curiosity.
John Wick ****
What do you get when you cross Keanu Reeves and two ex-stuntmen-turned-directors? The answer is one hell of an action movie with a star that may well be 50 years old, but shows absolutely no signs of slowing down. John Wick has rebooted Reeves in action-man mode, and possibly given him another franchise to sink …
Fast & Furious 7 ****
It’s the long-awaited follow-up that unleashes (a p****d) Jason Statham on the franchise, but also, sadly, says goodbye to Paul Walker, an actor who made his name in the series with surprisingly average acting skills but just all-American good looks. Fast & Furious 7 puts horror’s James Wan (Insidious 2 and The Conjuring) in the …
LFF 2014: The Face Of An Angel ***
Those expecting some sort of ‘yet undisclosed’ revelation into the murder of exchange student Meredith Kercher and the guilt of Amanda Knox will be sorely disappointed and may be further perplexed by The Face of an Angel. From director Michael Winterbottom, the film actually uses the case to demonise media behaviour around such murder trials, …
The Gunman ***
Perhaps Sean Penn is hoping that Taken director Pierre Morel will help turn him carve out an ‘aging action hero career’ – like he has Liam Neeson – in The Gunman, based on a novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette? Penn certainly has hit the gym for the part (and a tanning salon), never missing a …