Reviews in a nutshell
We’ve seen conflict in Afghanistan played out on the big screen before. What makes Peter Berg’s gripping drama, Lone Survivor, a little different is the uncompromising assault on the senses that begins as soon as the four-man team of US Navy SEALs lands on a mountainside to monitor a Taliban stronghold. This film holds one …
You don’t have to know anything about poet Allen Ginsberg to appreciate the rocky path to notoriety Kill Your Darlings portrays, and this is more ‘murder-he-wrote’ in a crime caper way, with the culprit already known. What is acknowledged is how Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe is forever recreating himself from the child role he will …
Chris Farraday in Contraband is another “made for Mark Wahlberg” part, the kind that allows this Boston-born star the chance to tap into his own tough upbringing experiences of being on the wrong side of the law, while showing a softie side. Although perfectly cast in the likes of Four Brothers, The Departed and The …
It’s been three years since the dynamic working trio of writer-director Oren Moverman, Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster worked together on The Messenger, a powerful and truly thought-provoking drama about the effects of war on those adjusting to civvy street living. Harrelson and Foster’s ‘Angels of Death’ sadly went under the radar at the box …
Without sounding like Trainspotting’s Renton, writer/director Oren Moverman and co-writer Alessandro Camon’s poignant new drama, The Messenger, is about ‘choosing life’. But it’s not enough to simply be alive; you need to have a purpose, too – something anyone can relate to. The unique situation dealt with in the much delayed film – originally completed …
This may well be a remake of the classic 1972 Michael Winner film that had the rather grander US title of ‘Killer of Killers’, and starred mean machine Charles Bronson, but when The Mechanic has Jason Statham in the lead, it’s another Transporter film, whichever way you (cynically) look at it. Good news for Statham …
