Film Reviews by TB

After the Oscar-winning & incredible 12 Years A Slave, Steve McQueen then did exactly what you'd expect an artist of his calibre & previous work to do: go in a completely different direction to his last film & make an action/thriller film based on an 80's British TV series, but moving the action to America. Frustratingly though, this produces both inspired & also turgid/rubbish results.

The film opens with a spectacular heist, which very quickly goes very badly wrong. The gang are cornered, then desperately flee in their getaway van to the safe house, some of them sustaining serious injuries. However, they are then exposed and slaughtered in a hail of bullets by the police, leaving their broken widows to grieve them. Then, after being threatened by the man their husband's robbed, forced to become criminals themselves and target the next person on their deceased partner's list to pay back the debt.

These opening scenes are the best in the entire movie & McQueen's ability to be able to marshall this type of action really is impressive. Going from a scene of intimacy between the gang leader & his wife to being thrust straight into the action in the back of the van as the cops chase after the thieves really starts the film in a great way. However, it never again manages to hit those heights. The strangest thing for me about Widows was that when it worked, it was amazing. But so much of this film didn't fit together: characters at times were terribly written & scenes just didn't work. Plus certain actors just completely outshone everyone else because of their gravitas.

For example, the shining star by a country mile was Viola Davis. In every single thing she has been in, she has been amazing & elevated the drama. Whether it's Suicide Squad or Fences, she is perfect. And in this film, she is given a massive & expansive role as the widow of the lead gang member. But she also wipes the floor with many of the other actors/characters. They just can't keep up with her. And it is exactly the same with Daniel Kaluuya. He is introduced in a scene which suddenly descends into shocking & brutal violence, making us extremely uncomfortable with his unpredictability. But then in other scenes he is wasted & his actions just don't work within the film's narrative.

So, despite me wanting to like this film, coming after 12 Years and especially Shame, it is never any more than a 3 star film filled with as many faults as it is flashes of brilliance.

When A Star Is Born was released, it received many 5 star reviews. As someone who has always liked Bradley Cooper, I was interested & encouraged to see this film, especially as this was his directorial debut. And whilst several elements have been updated, such as people using every opportunity to ask for autographs/pull out camera phones & take pictures/invade privacy, the core elements still remain.

But it was not something that I particularly bought into or enjoyed. The music was good & the chemistry between the two of them great, however I stopped watching after an hour simply because, whilst there was nothing much wrong with what was on screen, there wasn't much right either. I could see what was going to happen and the mood I was in at the time was one of boredom & indifference.

I may one day give it another shot, but in all my reviews I am completely honest and this film was not one I was interested in finishing, despite the positives.

This concert is a celebration of the incredible work of Hans Zimmer, who has been working for over 30 years, scoring many of the films which today have become iconic elements of people's lives. For me, The Lion King, Gladiator & The Dark Knight trilogy would not be what they are without Zimmer's music. Here, we are treated to a selection of the most iconic pieces he has written.

The other reason I rented this film was because I actually saw it live when the concert was brought to London. If you are a fan, as I am, there is so much to love, as well as the thoughtful & detailed explanations given by Zimmer about the inspirations behind the various pieces he has created, many coming from places of intense pain & difficulty he has faced in his life.

Whether you are 8 or 80, there is an embarrassment of riches to be experienced. Put this on the biggest TV with the best sound system you can find.

In the bloated & extremely crowded genre of spy/espionage thrillers, Killing Eve was an instant & incredible success, making stars overnight of Sandra Oh & especially Jodie Comer. It just was such a fresh, light but also at times shocking series, following a highly skilled Russian assassin called Villanelle who was not only leathal with her skills but also her ability to blend in as well. And nowhere is this more amazing than with Comer's staggering ability with any accent you can imagine.

Bearing in mind that Comer's mother tongue/accent is an extremely strong Liverpool/Scouse accent, she literally can do any voice imaginable & switch immediately from one accent to another, sometimes in the same sentence. She also absolutely convinces in the physical/action scenes.

Sandra Oh was a bit more of a mixed experience for me. Eve Polastri is a typical desk-bound operative who works for MI-5. She is successful & competent in her job, but dreams of being an agent in the field. She is then drawn into a shocking battle of wills with Villanelle, who takes great delight in avoiding all of the traps that are laid for her, as well as mercilessly slaughtering Eve's operatives & associates.

However, despite my 4 star rating, this series as a whole also has some problems with it, the main one being how many of the situations that are set up simply aren't believable. This is either represented as repeated gross incompetence that would have, once discovered, resulted in probably instant dismissal; or quite simply things which would not happen in the way they are shown/extremely unlikely situations that stretch believability.

But I cannot deny how many times I found myself either laughing, in awe of the acting ability or totally gripped by what was on screen. So despite the flaws, this is a great series. It's just a shame that once we get to series 2 and change the showrunner (Phoebe Waller-Bridge,) a lot of the charm & zany elements are lost.

But Comer is perfection in every way.

In many ways, it's surprising that it took until 2010 for a concept like The Expendables to be realised by Hollywood, given their huge appetite for those types of big budget action fests. The basic premise of the Expendables is, to quote one reviewer, "To point a grenade launcher at the action section of your local Blockbusters;" e.g to get as many action stars from particularly the 80's/90's into one film, give them a thinly plotted mission to rescue or take out a target, as many guns as they can carry then throw it onto the screen. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that concept, indeed when it's done well, you'll struggle to have more fun in a cinema. However, the biggest issue faced with this film is the tone.

The Expendables are an elite mercenary team who specialise in carrying out impossible missions where the risk of death is high and disownment guaranteed: if they get caught, there's no-one coming to rescue them. Led by Barney Ross(Stallone,) they are then hired by a shady individual called Mr Church to topple the Latin American dictator of a country where it is revealed that it is in fact in the control of a corrupt ex-CIA operative (Eric Roberts, the go-to actor for bad guys who fortunately had a gap in his schedule between back-to-back shoots of barrel-scrapingly bad straight-to-DVD trash,) on an island full of military with enough weaponry to send the Statue of Liberty into orbit. Things are further complicated by the fact that the dictator's daughter becomes a love interest of Ross's, as well as conveniently being against everything her father is.

There are many good moments in this film including, welcomingly, the first time that Stallone, Willis and Schwarzenegger are on screen together, although we sadly have to wait until the sequel to actually see them all together in an action scene. As actors, they have known each other for decades, through friendship & rivalries, so the scene of them all together is great fun, with good chemistry. This film is also chock-full of one-liners (including one of my all-time favourites said by Stallone to Stone Cold) & unbelievably cheesy situations, which the film unashamedly hams up and is all the better for it. Add into that some decent action & a sizeable budget and it should be a winner.

However, this film does have what for me is actually quite a significant failure which affects pretty much all of it: it's tone. With action films, especially ones in this genre/style, whilst they can absolutely deal with heavy subjects, they also have to have a lightness of touch/a streak of silliness in them so that it doesn't descend into a weighty, turgid & lumpy mess. And whilst this film is in no way as bad as Night Hunter, it still has missing a huge amount of fun. It is at times unbelievably heavy-going, with lengthy scenes of exposition for pretty much no reason. Stallone, you aren't making Citizen Kane, you are directing a film in which at one point a bad guy gets doused in petrol & set on fire, then somehow manages to KEEP fighting...

However, if you keep your tongue in cheek & sit through the various heavy moments, there is much to like & laugh about. And the sequel is absolutely 1st class, so please don't be put off renting it after watching this.

When the first Expendables came out, it was a real mixed bag. There were plenty of flashes of brilliance, but the heavy & dour tone of the film dragged it down & proved to be a weight around its neck it could never fully escape from. However, with this film, 2 things have changed: as the first movie was extremely successful, there is now more money to play with/more confidence about what they are doing; secondly & most importantly, they have brought in Simon West to direct. West, who among other films, directed the brilliant & classic Con Air, totally gets what this series is about, what it needs to be & what went wrong with the first one. The result is nothing short of brilliant.

In the second film, the team are joined by a new member, Billy the Kid. He is a youthful, good-looking, moral man who became disenfranchised after serving in Afghanistan; horrified at the slaughter all around him, he decides that the only logical response is to join a mercenary organisation where he is paid eye-watering sums of money to slaughter "bad guys." He also intends to leave after his final mission with the Expendables & retire with his beautiful girlfriend. Obviously, as he has all these morals, good looks & plans, he gets slaughtered within the first 20 minutes by Vilain, the big bad of this film. The remaining Expendables then vow to avenge his death, setting off a chain of events that eventually leads to stopping nuclear material being sold to the bad guys.

Everything about this film is so stupidly funny & silly, it is brilliant. Yes, there are some heavy moments, but these are perfectly offset & complimented by the rest of the film. The stunts have been taken up a notch & it must again be praised how much of them are largely real/not CGI and many are done by the actual cast themselves, including by Stallone who has his neck broken in the first film...

But most importantly, it is so much fun to sit & watch all these old actions stars ham it up and have a ball on screen. We finally, after many many years, get Stallone, Willis and Schwarzenegger on screen in an action scene fighting alongside each other. There are also welcome additions, such as Chuck Norris, who actually quotes a Chuck Norris fact as dialogue. Van Damme is also perfectly cast, fully learning into the silliness of Vilain.

Yes, this film won't be for everyone, although I feel that as it wears it's themes & intentions so proudly/as a badge of honour, if you rent this, you should know what you're getting yourself into. Sadly, things go downhill again with the 3rd film, but this one is an absolute riot and fully uses it's premise to great effect.

Back in 2010, Sly & his producing partners came up with the Expendables series: a homage/throwback to the action films of the 80's & 90's, full of outrageous stunts, clichés & one liners, all done totally tongue-in-cheek. The first film was good in terms of laying the groundwork, although it also had a very heavy & cumbersome tone, sorely missing a lightness of touch. Then number 2 came along, took everything that the first film had created, added some new things and was one of the best/most enjoyable nights at the cinema I've ever had. So, after the greatness of that film, expectations were sky-high.

But then something happened, which totally changed the whole dynamic & I feel in many ways set the movie up to fail: it was announced with great fanfare & enthusiasm that the film was to be made to be a PG-13 rating (12A in the UK,) in effect hamstringing & completely toning down/reducing the violence in the film to become effectively a kid's movie. Basically, and this has been admitted quite frankly later on by Stallone, this decision was completely commercially driven in order to make the film be able to be seen by as many people as possible to make as much money as possible. And it wasn't only me thinking this: there was a significant backlash from fans, which was responded to by Stallone, assuring them that it wouldn't affect the movie. But, after watching this debacle, I knew that the film was not only being set up to fail, but that it would also simply not work. You cannot have a film like the Expendables, make the first two proper action films with violence (although it has to be said not gratuitously violent,) then release one which has literally had the soul ripped out of it.

So now the firefights & hand-to-hand combat have no edge to them, no real sense of suspense or danger. Almost every moment where, in a normal action film, you'd see a bullet hit someone/the effects of the violence, this has now been cut/the editing cuts away to another angle. But what makes it even more frustrating is that, again in a step up from number 2, there is more money to play with; bigger, bolder stunts; great locations ect ect. But with the limits of the rating, all this effort is mainly for nothing. So in effect, it's like watching teletubbies bouncing around in a padded room.

There are also some very annoying story changes. The theme of age is repeatedly brought up, in respect to getting in newer younger blood (although this didn't work particularly well in film 2...) so some new cast members have joined. None of them are particularly good or interesting, they are mainly just annoying. Even Antonio Banderas can't salvage this, despite his best efforts.

However, this film has an absolute ace up its sleeve in the form of Mel Gibson. In many ways this film, along with Hacksaw Ridge, was Gibson coming back into the public eye after his personal disgraces. And whatever you may think of that behaviour, this film would have totally failed without him. Summoning the gravitas & presence which made him a star, here he chews up the scenery for all it's worth, creating a megalomaniac who dominates the screen whenever he is on it.

But despite the efforts of all the cast & crew, this film's problems are just too great. And whilst the Blu-ray does add in some cut footage which bumps the rating up to a 15, it is a token gesture & does nothing to affect the story/solve the numerous issues with the structure.

The irony is that there is to be a 4th & final film and the main selling point which is repeatedly referenced in the trailer is that it has an R rating. Unfortunately, I think it's a case of too little too late. The damage has already been done.

After the misfire of his previous DVD/stand-up, which I saw live and was so bad, his support act was funnier than he was, Kevin Bridges is back with a new show.

Clearly having worked hard on his writing & act, this is full of the classic and hysterically funny observations which made Bridges an essential comedian to watch when he first exploded onto the comedy scene many years ago.

A great laugh and highly recommend.

This is an unapologetically stupid film, marketed in many ways as "Jason Statham punches a shark." And whilst it does try to go in different directions/do something new, this is only moderately successful.

The basic story (very basic...) concerns a diver called Jonas Taylor, who on a rescue mission comes face to face with an enormous unidentified creature whilst on a diving mission to rescue colleagues trapped in a submersible. Taylor has to abort the mission & becomes haunted by his failure. Many years later, another submarine also gets into difficulty & in a twist of fate and bad luck, Taylor's ex wife is trapped on board. It then becomes a race against time to rescue them, whilst also battling this behemoth of the deep.

Like with the Expendables films, how much you are prepared to suspend disbelief & allow the film massive dramatic licence equates to how much you'll get out of/enjoy it, plus also what mood you're in when you watch it. I saw this with a couple of friends at the cinema on a Friday night, with all of us knowing exactly what sort of film it was going to be & broadly enjoying it.

At times it was a bit too silly, plus it also spends slightly too much time fleshing out characters who the film tries to make you care about but who, quite frankly, you don't... Strangely though, this film does have one random issue with it: despite the fairly massive budget, the CGI is a real mixed bag. There are some scenes where it is so ropey, you feel that the filmmakers should have asked for a refund, yet at other times it is flawless.

As with many of the films I have watched/reviewed on Cinema Paradiso, this is perfect Friday night entertainment for when you want an easy watch with some stupid humour, good stunts and yes, seeing Jason Statham punch a shark...

This film is an absolute delight. It is clear very early on that this is a passion project for Kenneth Branagh, who is represented on screen by the character Buddy. For me, the best thing about it in many ways is how emphatically non-political it is. Absolutely it shows the tensions overall between Catholics and Protestants, none more so than in the opening minutes & in extremely shocking ways. But very quickly it becomes about the horror of the conflict overall & the impact on Buddy and his family's life living in Belfast.

We see Buddy bearing witness to his street and community changing before his very eyes, from happy & laughing to locked down & fearful. There are also individual & personal threats towards his family, particularly his hardworking father who, due to extreme unemployment levels, has to catch a ferry to the mainland & can only return certain weekends.

But amongst all of the horror & difficulty, there is also much brightness & humour. We see Buddy fall in love, succeed at school & get involved with a gang/commit relatively innocent but petty theft from the local sweetshop. There is also wonderful warmth & wisdom from his grandparents, who treasure their grandchildren but also know in their heart of hearts that where they are living is no place to raise children & provide everything they need.

I do genuinely love this film for all the reasons above. It is wonderfully acted, with both brilliant child actors as well as the seasoned professionals. For me, the stand-out performance was without question Caitríona Balfe as Buddy's mother. She has the almost insurmountable challenge of raising her children in the middle of a warzone which literally has meant their street is blocked off; trying to hold together her marriage despite her husband being away & bills piling up and worrying about everything else that a mother has to juggle, which would be massive without the aforementioned problems. Jamie Dornan & Ciarán Hinds are also great and of course Judi Dench is perfect as she always is.

This is a very inspiring & heartwarming film, full of laughs as well as shocks. It is also profoundly moving & I am so grateful that Branagh shared this with us all.

When it comes to tension, there are many different types of films you could go for. The standard clichéd answer is horror, with a great scary movie keeping you on the edge of your seat. Or you could go for a Paul Greengrass-type film, such as United 93 or Captain Phillips. But there has, more recently, been a breakout of the small-scale stories which are not big budget but, in certain cases, succeed better than anything with a massive amount of money to play with in making you internally scream and climb the walls with cringe-worthiness. One which I haven't yet seen but heard nothing but praise about is Uncut Gems, being among other things 2 hours of just total & complete awkwardness & tension. Shiva Baby has been in many ways compared to Uncut Gems, with good reviews, hence why I rented it.

The film follows a day in the life of Danielle, a bisexual, directionless young Jewish woman. She also has a side hustle, offering her services to sugar daddies, which is a way to earn easy money & which she is fairly ambivalent about. The film opens with her having sex with her sugar daddy Max in his apartment, before hurriedly leaving to go to a shiva (a Jewish gathering after the passing/burial of a loved one,) which she has been strong-armed into attending by her extremely controlling & overzealous parents. Once she arrives, she also find her ex-girlfriend in attendance, then to her horror Max, his wife and their newborn baby make an appearance. Alongside all of this, she is surrounded by extremely judgemental & rude family/family friends, who delight in making her feel as uncomfortable as possible.

The whole film is very well-shot, as well as satirising the vast number of stereotypes that you would find at a gathering like this. Alongside that, the Yiddish humour is excellently portrayed, particularly the Jewish mother which before I'd mainly seen either in South Park or Goodfellas. It is also unbelievably awkward, with several scenes where I felt my nails digging into my palms. Rachel Sennott makes an excellent protagonist, perfectly conveying the world-weary only child who feels she has no control over her life & who has it seems suffered an eternity of judgement/expectations being piled on top of her.

The other massively positive thing about this film is it's length: this is a very short film, mercifully not in any way trying to stretch out it's premise & ideas. It is tightly edited, with a screeching score to add to the horror on screen. When it finishes, you do let out a sigh of relief that it's over, but in a good way.

Really engrossing & well-made. Doesn't make me want to go to a shiva though...

In many ways, I cannot work out how to talk about this film. It is completely off the wall, batsh*t crazy & unbelievably sexually transgressive. But as much as I've given it 4 stars, that is mainly for its boldness, originality & sheer provocativeness. The film itself is actually quite unlikeable & I certainly didn't ever "enjoy" it in the sense of the warm feeling you get when watching a film you really connect with. It is full of cold, unrelatable characters who are completely disconnected from both the real world & you as the viewer. However, I also couldn't take my eyes off it.

The film follows, in the loosest sense of the word, a man called James & his partner Catherine. From the opening shots, both of them are shown to be extremely sexually deviant & transgressive, having sex both with each other & other people, in places where they could be walked in on/disturbed. However, they are both relatively unsatisfied with their lives. One night, James has a head-on crash with another car, seriously injuring himself & the female passenger in the other car, and killing the driver. The two then meet in the hospital, then are approached by an enigmatic man called Vaughan & realise that all of them become aroused when involved in/witnessing car crashes.

From there, the film takes a deep dive into an unbelievably strange, weird & idiosyncratic world. Car crashes are staged & caused deliberately, followed by frantic & graphic sex. And all whilst this is happening, the group of them, including a stuntman and 2 other women, keep pushing the envelope further, trying to outdo the horrific accidents they find themselves in.

Huge praise must go to the actors in this film. Bearing in mind it was released in 1996, when controversy was not as celebrated as it is now (if a film today is provocative & causes offence, it tends to propel it to great success & box office receipts,) this would have been seen by many as career suicide, especially for the explicit nudity & sex scenes. Every single one of them commits fully & completely to their roles. For me, the most "interesting" (said in quotes because none of them are really likeable,) and certainly the most courageous is Deborah Kara Unger as Catherine. She is, certainly to me, much more the protagonist than James is, simply because you watch with total fascination how she evolves over the course of the film. James Spader is also good, as is Holly Hunter.

The level of enjoyment you will get out of this film will depend completely on how much you want to buy into this world that Cronenberg creates, as well as how far you enjoy/are interested in extreme provocativeness. I like films that push boundaries, simply because in today's film/media, we are mainly given the same old turgid movies with slightly varied storylines. This film is totally unashamed in it's revelling of showing unacceptable acts, whilst at the same time being completely unrelatable & cold.

I didn't enjoy watching it, but my god did it leave an indelible impression on me and I'll never, ever forget it.

I remember when this film was released in 2014, there was a massive amount of critical praise, as well as the debate of the questions/future that this movie posed. As someone who isn't that into Sci-Fi, it wasn't a film I was clamouring to see & the only reason I rented it, apart from remembering the critical praise, was seeing that the 4K remaster had just been released.

But as much as I wanted to like it, for me it just didn't work that well. For a start, I could see within 20 minutes what was going to happen. The "twists" were so clearly & blatantly set up, the film thinking it was playing all these cunning sleight of hands, but it was obvious where things were going.

The main story focuses on Caleb, a programmer at an enormous internet search company, who wins a competition to spend the week with the multi-billionaire CEO at his luxury estate in the middle of nowhere. Once he arrives, he is then told that the real reason he is there is because the CEO, Nathan, has created a groundbreaking & completely revolutionary new android robot called Ava which he wants Caleb to "test." These tests, based around the Turing test, basically is to see if Caleb ever feels like he isn't talking to a machine with all its limits, but a real sentient being.

As the story progresses, you see Caleb start to slowly become fascinated and infatuated by Ava, as well as Nathan slowly start to play the kind of mind games which are the last bastion of someone who has more money than God & nothing else that gives his life meaning. But even though Alicia Vikander is excellent in her role, plus the set design & graphics/CGI cutting edge for when the film was made, the rest of it basically left me cold. The sort of existential big questions the film posed were powerful, but the way it was put onto the screen did not resonate for me.

For many people, this film is amazing, plus I do respect it's ambitious scope, especially for a first time director. But it wasn't something that worked overall for me.

In Bruges was one of my favourite films of the 2000's, coming completely out of nowhere and enthralling me & many others with it's jet black humour, as well as it's musings on life & death. It also, of course, featured the prominent paring of Colin Farrell & Brendan Gleeson, actors who perfectly complimented each other & whose chemistry was flawless. Over the years, there were many times that Martin McDonagh was asked by people to work with both of them again, and partly as a result of that, we now have The Banshees of Inisherin.

Set on the aforementioned titular island during the Irish Civil war, the premise itself is extremely simple: Pádraic Súilleabháin & Colm Doherty live close to each other in the close-knit community of Inisherin, spending their time chatting, usually at the local pub whilst drinking. One day (immediately as the film starts,) Colm simply stops talking to Pádraic & never wants anything to do with him again or be his friend. Pádraic cannot deal with this & is determined to keep talking to & be around Colm. When Colm is not left alone despite repeatedly asking to be, he then threatens to cut off his own fingers.

The scene & atmosphere is set very well & there are the usual McDonagh traits within the story: extremely eccentric & larger than life characters, an at times horrible/callous behaviour shown towards each other and finally the lingering threat of violence. The cinematography is beautiful & really shows how incredible Ireland is as a country, coupled with some great performances.

However, as a story & a film, I could only ever be partially engaged with it. The script is full of the excellent acidic prose that McDonagh is known for, but the actual narrative is actually quite boring at times. Nothing much really happens & at times also really stretches credulity. For example, despite the larger than life theme & overall ridiculousness, not liking someone then hideously maiming yourself to prove a point just didn't work for me. And whilst there were some quite poignant & deep musings on life at times, again it just didn't really fit the film for me. Then we come to the ending, which is a bit of a damp squib. The film just, sort of, finishes & I was left wondering "OK... Was that it?"

Having said that, I did enjoy parts of it & for some people, the gentle pace and jet black humour will be exactly what they enjoy. But it can't hold a candle to In Bruges...

In a very random way, the main thing I thought about as this film staggered & slowly inched it's way forward through its running time was Everything Everywhere All At Once. Because that, like this, had pretty much every critic falling over themselves to outdo each other in the praise they heaped on it. The only reason I rented it was because of this universal & adoring praise, from reviewers such as Empire magazine, plus the Oscar nomination for Paul Mescal.

This film effectively is just watching a series of snapshots from a holiday, inter-spliced with random clips of the main character in a nightclub dancing in strobe lights. We see Calum, who is taking his daughter Sophie on holiday to Turkey. There are hints that all is not well with Calum mentally, despite his best efforts to both hide this from everyone and also read self-help books/practice Tai-Chi. Sophie is an extremely confident & driven girl, also discovering a lot about herself as a maturing young woman.

But this film is dire. It is clear that what it is attempting to do is cultivate a gentle atmosphere where we observe in a very naturalistic way characters evolving. But these films also have a habit of slipping into boring naval gazing, as well as being unbelievably pretentious. And the only real word/emotion I can say about this film is boring. Despite several moments which had the potential to be something more, this film is just a dead loss.

Like many of the other reviews here, just don't waste your time. Unless your idea of a riveting an hour & 40 minutes is watching a father & daughter saying stilted dialogue to each other & trying to mine profoundness from nothingness.