Film Reviews by TB

For his next directorial effort after the outstanding Tyrannosaur, Paddy Considine turns his attention to the sports drama, in particular the boxing genre. This is an extremely brave & bold thing to do. Not only is this an unbelievably bloated genre with more films set in it trying to tell pretty much the same story than probably any other genre combined, but the numbers of these films which are actually good is relatively tiny. But one of the best things about Journeyman is the fact that the boxing is used as the initial set-up, but then the main section uses only the metaphor of the fight required to recover. 

The set-up is fairly standard, although with one important difference: whereas in many films like this, the fighter needs the fight due to their personal circumstances, in Journeyman this is the final fight to finish a glittering career. Retirement beckons and the life of spending time with family and raising children is close. Matty Burton is Middleweight boxing champion of the world, on his final fight against the up-and-coming cocky young upstart. Despite significant & severe punishment in the bout, Matty wins and keeps his belt, retiring on what appears to be a high. However, he has suffered horrific & traumatic brain injuries and collapses that night, needing emergency brain surgery to save his life. 

When he returns home, he is a very different man, dealing with all the complications of a traumatic brain injury. The film shows this in unflinching detail and it is at times excruciating to watch. You really get a front row seat to this hell, as well as the small triumphs that happen with the work that Matty puts in to his recovery. There are many heartfelt scenes, particularly after it gets all too much for his wife Emma. But the rallying round of his teammates and family is also incredible as well. 

Both Considine & Whittaker are great, sharing an easy and effortless chemistry. The early scenes of them bonding, considering that there is very little time to do this before the story properly starts, are powerful & grounding. I did love spending time with them both , plus really felt their pain as the film progresses. 

This is a very difficult drama to watch, but there is hope if you hang on in there. Another great film from Considine & I look forward to what he does next. 

Jim Davison is marmite. To many people, they cannot forgive him for his material when it was perfectly acceptable to be racist on stage. This review is not trying to change your mind and I totally respect people’s feelings and experiences. For me, as I will consistently say, there are no such things as bad professional stand-up comedians. It is either your humour or not. If it isn’t, don’t watch it. I should point out that in this DVD as much as Davidson makes fun of different cultures, it is not in any way like his previous shows. 

This gig combines some of Davidson’s standard material with some very funny stories of when he went out to different war zones to play to/entertain the troops. I found it very funny and amusing.  There is a very large amount of strong language, but if this doesn’t bother you and you want a really good laugh, this is a great show. 

Immediately after he had finished filming The Mother, Daniel Craig reteamed with Roger Michell to star in his next film. And whilst the subject is in many ways as captivating, it also feels like a missed opportunity, filled with random characters and a meandering plot. However, the biggest positive is that we have some characters who are likeable. And there are some very good moments, particularly the opening scene which is masterfully shot & exquisitely building the tension which is to come.

Craig stars as Joe, a college professor who, in the opening shots, has gone for a romantic picnic with his partner Claire. Their peace is suddenly traumatically interrupted due to a ballooning accident that happens in front of them. In the battle to save the young boy trapped inside, a man is killed after joining in the efforts to help try to bring the balloon down. One of the other men involved, Jed, then becomes absolutely fixated by Joe and begins to stalk him relentlessly, becoming increasingly threatening. Added to this is the fact that no-one believes Joe when he tells them about this, either thinking he is imagining it or is mistaken.

There are, despite the 3 star rating, many positives and good things about this film, mainly the cast. Having Roger Michell, who also made Notting Hill, as the director has attracted an amazing roll call of actors. I felt that, as much as he gave it his best shot, Daniel Craig was actually the weakest of all of them. Although that was mainly due to how his character is written, because Joe as a person is actually quite boring. He is, despite his job as a teacher, unbelievably socially awkward and although you sympathise with him, you never really like him that much. Samantha Morton also tries her best and does play the disconnected artist and unsure lover quite well.

However, partly the reason for the lack of impact from the other actors is due to the incredible performance of Rhys Ifans. In the special features, Michell had talked about the fact that many people would have expected Craig to be cast as Jed, but the genius of Ifans is that he plays totally against type. Jed is such a creepy person, and Ifans accentuates every single one of these characteristics. Although at first coming across as a bit of a drippy-hippy type person, Jed has an unbelievable aura to him, as well as a deviousness & danger below the surface. He certainly is not harmless, and you as the audience are made to feel every bit as uncomfortable as Joe is throughout the film. But at the same time you cannot take your eyes off him.

Unfortunately, despite this excellent work, sadly the film itself does have some significant issues. The main one by a country mile is how slow moving at times this movie is. I appreciate that the slowness of pace makes the sudden shocks have more impact, but it is extremely meandering and there are some scenes which should really have been left on the cutting room floor. Also, the soundtrack leaves much to be desired, the potential filled instead with mainly melancholy and boring strings.

But this is still a good film in many ways, and absolutely see it for Ifans.

Having a mother who has Alzheimer's disease certainly adds a much more personal dimension to this viewing experience. This is the film, adapted from the massively successful play, which looks at the everyday life and challenges of Anthony, an extremely gregarious and friendly man who lives alone in a beautiful flat in London. However, Anthony's dementia has started to cause major issues and worries for his immediate family, particularly his daughter Anne. Anthony becomes more and more difficult to support, as in line with many suffers of Alzheimer's, he absolutely refuses help and becomes very angry & frustrated when this is mentioned to him. He also accuses his carer of stealing from him and mistakes various members of his family for complete strangers.

The thing that the film does scarily well is to put you front and centre in Anthony’s life and the hell that comes from that. It is like watching a slow-motion car crash, but with someone who actively is wanting everything to fall down around him due to his obstinacy.

Hopkins’s performance is absolutely extraordinary and his richly deserved his second Oscar win. Olivia Colman is also heart-breaking good as the desperate daughter who cannot, despite her best efforts, succeed in changing her father’s behaviour in the slightest, enabling him to be able to help himself. The whole film is also very well directed by Florian Zeller, who wrote the script too.

The only reason this didn’t get 4 stars was that for me, despite all the fleshing out of the characters and the headspace that Anthony is in, I did at times feel a bit bored and had to come back to the film again after a break, as I found myself losing focus. But this is a small price for drama this good.

In the mid-2010's, Nicolas Cage was chucking out movies faster than probably half of the actors of Hollywood combined. And he also had developed a reputation for basically saying yes to any piece of rubbish imaginable. So whilst we had some incredible films (Bad Lieutenant being a masterpiece, Joe and Mandy not far behind that,) pretty much everything else was toe curlingly terrible, which also caused Cage as an actor a huge amount of damage. It was so easy to scoff at him, but he is, when working at his peak, one of the finest actors we have. His absolute fearlessness and willingness to take on the strangest of stories & turn in phenomenal performances knows no bounds. And whilst with The Frozen Ground (TFG,) he is starring in a fairly (in some respects,) by the numbers cop/police procedure film, he is absolutely brilliant in it, also being surrounded by many other great actors.

TFG looks at the police operation which eventually led to the capture of Robert Hansen, an absolute monster of a man who was eventually convicted of multiple murders. Cage plays Jack Halcombe (who was inspired by Glenn Flothe, the actual detective,) who is looking into the case of a murdered woman and then links the disappearances of other women to one killer. He quickly suspects Hansen, played by John Cusack, and starts to aggressively investigate him.

As mentioned, Cage is absolutely brilliant. He absolutely commands and anchors the film, at all times coming across as absolutely committed and determined to catch the monster murdering women. But the other performances are also exceptional, chief among them Vanessa Hudgens as one of the only women who manages to escape & go to the police, eventually helping them nail Hansen. The role that Hudgens plays is an extremely sexualised one, but this is no cynical part to get headlines: Hudgens is amazing and totally convincing. You really felt her pain and also the horror of the situation that she finds herself in, having to sell her body in order to survive, whilst still being aggressively chased by Hansen after escaping from him.

The other element where this film soars is how it is shot. It looks stunning: gorgeous colours, incredible locations, phenomenal mise-en-scene. The forests go from a gentle place of nature to an intimidating and oppressive prison. The soundtrack is also brilliant, working hand in glove with the horror unfolding on screen.

As the film picks up speed, enhanced by how the events unfold, the film does really effectively go into thriller mode, with you on the edge of your seat. And whilst everything works brilliantly, there then is a slight issue: for about 10 minutes, the film suddenly shows a series of narrative decisions which jarr things. Now whilst I am perfectly happy to hold my hands up and say I was wrong if what the film depicted actually happened, but some of the choices made by the characters just really didn’t click for me. But this is still absolutely a 4 star film and my only frustration is that up until that point, this film had not put a foot out of place.

The ending, followed by the epilogue, is both horrifying and hopeful, showing that despite the evil committed, good can come of the worst things.

This film is wonderful. I loved it and it is up there with the best of Cage’s work.

In the mid 2000's, Matthew McConaughey was the go-to guy for rom-coms, starring in multiple highly successful movies. But then, by his own admission, he deliberately stepped back from Hollywood and that genre of film. It's easy to see why: when he first became an actor, he starred in a massive number of different genres. And then when he found his niche, he settled into it, just churning out the same clichéd romantic sap, which whilst it wasn't critically acclaimed, did pay the bills. So he wanted a clean slate and to get back to his routes. When, to quote him again, the phone started ringing again after a nearly 2 year hiatus, this was one of the first scripts that came his way.

The story of Ron Woodruff is in many ways so outrageous, outlandish & crazy, you are amazed to find out it is largely true and also that it hadn't been made into a film earlier. But it is also a movie with enormous heart, soul & emotion. And the cast absolutely rise to the challenge. The other elephant in the room that I want to deal with is that this film made headlines due to the enormous amounts of weight McConaughey & Leto lost in preparation for their roles. But this is so much more than just another vanity project for actors wanting to jumpstart their careers again (which this film emphatically is not.)

In the mid-80's, Ron Woodruff is a spit-and-sawdust roughneck Texan electrician, who in the opening shots is shown hiding in a bull riding pen banging the brains out of two enthusiastic women. Woodruff is the stereotypical Yank: hard drinking, drug using, hyper-sexed life & soul of the party. He is also deeply homophobic, racist, sexist & xenophobic. Following an industrial accident which puts him in hospital, he wakes up to be told that he is HIV positive & has 30 days to live. Initially rejecting this, eventually as his health rapidly deteriorates, he starts to look at alternative medicine which whilst in use in other countries, are not authorised for sale in the US. However, due to a legal technicality, he is able to start a "Buyers Club" where people pay for membership & the drugs are given "free."

The story then becomes an incredible tale showing the battle Woodruff had not only with the government but also the medical bodies who were determined to thwart him, despite the staggering results & successes he had. For example, the treatments & drugs he provided had one-tenth the death rate of hospital care. Along the way, he also teams up with a transgender woman called Rayon who then becomes his business partner, as well as a friend & practically a wife, in terms of the level of bickering between them.

This film would live or die on its performances, but this are without question the best of both actors careers. McConaughey is stunning, the weight he has lost turning him from a muscle-stacked alpha-male into a scared & cowed man who then comes out fighting. Leto, who is even thinner, plays Rayon pretty much the same, but with the added determination of a person who has already had everything life could throw at her & now gives everything to surviving as long as possible & supporting her friends. Jennifer Garner's composite character fares less well, but she still does amazing work with what she has.

This film is an inspirational joy, made even more remarkable by its tiny, nano-budget, which was so small that the wardrobe budget was only a few hundred dollars. It makes you laugh, cringe, cry; everything a masterpiece can do. And the spirit of the characters shines through. This is incredible work, brilliantly marshalled by Jean-Marc Valleé, resulting in Oscars for McConaughey & Leto. I loved this film and you will too. A magnificent celebration of courage & sheer grit when all the odds are stacked against you.

After The Fault in Our Stars and its stratospheric success, it was only a matter of time before another film attempted to jump on that bandwagon. However, this film is a mess and despite the best efforts of the cast, I switched it off after about half an hour. 

Isabella is a patient at a hospital and suffers from cystic fibrosis. She is also every painful cliche that you could hang on her character: needy, controlling, determined, looking for love ect ect. One day, she bumps into a new patient called Will who is everything she isn’t. She starts to fall in love with him and then as night follows day, she will begin to see that maybe she shouldn’t be uptight all the time and start to live, embrace love yadda yadda yadda. 

Nothing about this film really works. It is shot terribly and the script is the sort of thing you would imagine an AI programme coming up with in 10 minutes and sold to the first studio willing to throw a bunch of money at it. Whilst the 2 stars acknowledges the actor’s efforts, this film is the sort of one designed for a very niche audience, although not that niche as it did make close to $100 million off a shoestring budget. Avoid unless you are a teenage girl who wants a soapy film to stick on at a slumber party.

This film made headlines when it was released for a reason which was nothing to do with the quality or script: the fact that it had cast Chris Langham in his first role after his imprisonment for downloading child pornography. There was massive outrage from most parts of the media, but I also remember vividly something else: once the dust of the controversy settled, this film attracted stellar reviews, especially for Langham’s performance. 

It is something that does not surprise me at all. Before his disgrace, which is referenced in the beginning of the film by his character in a satirical way, Langham was at the top of his game. He was fantastic in The Thick of It and had a 20+ year comedy career, alongside being a prolific writer. When looking at him purely for his talent, he is an incredible performer. But as much as this film received huge amounts of praise, it just didn’t work for me at all. 

The cast does their best and the locations are interesting, but it just never really caught fire. I do also have to be honest and say that despite some good performances, Simon Amstell’s performance was absolute nails-down a-chalkboard. So despite a good and interesting premise plus a clearly committed cast, this was a film I started off enjoying, then lost interest and finally turned off after an hour. This was doubly sad for me because it is a micro-budget film which took an enormous effort to get made and I had hoped that this chance would result in something great. 

I wanted to like it more, but sadly just couldn’t get into it.  

I rented this film after seeing many good reviews for it, plus I always like to find something new & interesting to watch. 

This film starts out well and builds tension up nicely. Clare is holidaying in Berlin and meets charismatic Andi whilst out. She goes back to his flat for sex, then wakes up the following morning to discover that he’s left for work and locked her in. The building that she is in is totally secure and there is no way out. The first day this happens, she is slightly perturbed but lets it slide. However, it then becomes apparent that she is in fact a prisoner there and cannot escape. 

When the film first starts picking up pace, I was very interested, plus also the deep unease that it creates really affected me. But then the film just coasts and loses its way. I found myself after about 40-45 minutes just bored and getting fidgety, then switched it off a few minutes later. It was in one way quite an achievement that a film that had started this good then just nosedived. 

I may one day re-rent it and give it another shot, in which case of course I’ll update this review if I change my mind, but I cannot recommend this at the moment sadly, despite its positives. 

Back in the time when Michael Fassbender was producing a pretty much flawless catalogue of films (excluding Haywire, the less said about that, the better,) this was an interesting film. A micro-budget film about a family of gypsies, the older father wanting to control & mold his son into his image; the son looking in horror at the life he currently is living and a refusal to allow his children to go down that same path. Add into the mix an incredible cast and it looked like this was going to be something very special.

However, I just did not like this film at all. It starts off in an interesting way, showing Fassbender's character Chad taking part in a police chase after a robbery. After losing the police, he then drives back to the campsite he lives at and we are introduced to Colby, the patriarch and Chad's father. Colby is ruthless, feared and dangerous. But it is clear that soon he will start to try to exert more control over not only Chad but also his children as well. But none of it was that interesting, which is staggering considering the powerhouse of talent here.

You can see what will happen a mile away and whilst there is nothing wrong with clichés when they're done well, here I just didn't care. I absolutely do not want to and take no pleasure in slating particularly small-budget and first time films, but this could have been so much more.

Back in 2002, most people who knew of Michael Moore had heard of him because of Roger & Me, a tiny documentary which went on to huge success & became a sleeper hit. After a few other documentaries, Moore then turned his satirical eye on one of the biggest hot-button issues in the US: guns. It would in many ways have been impossible for him not to, as a polemicist and someone who always tackled difficult subjects. And whilst it had been 3 years since the Columbine High School massacre, which this film uses as its main subject & returns to at various points, its impact was still being felt whilst nothing was being seriously done to prevent these types of tragedies happening again.

But rather than do a documentary which was deliberately provocative to antagonise people, Moore comes at it from a very different direction: he tries to make it as humorous as he can, within the limits of the subject matter, to try to reach the members of the audience who are usually not receptive to anyone not totally agreeing with their opinion. One of the first things Moore talked about & was at pains to put across was that when he was younger, he liked & also shot guns. He was also a member of the NRA whilst making the film. So, he had a knowledge of that side of the debate, rather than someone who wasn’t American coming in like a bulldozer.

The film looks at various elements of how guns have influenced the US, but also how this was getting so out of control and each year more & more people were being either seriously maimed or killed. Again, I am writing this review in 2023 and as of the 30th June, there have been 340 mass shooting, defined as 4 or more people being killed. That is a jaw-dropping statistic for halfway through the year. But for a massive part of the US, they will not in any way admit that having the volume of guns in America in any way contributes to this.

There are some fantastic interviews, including with Marilyn Manson, who was wrongly blamed for being a primary influence on the shooters & who says more in 2 minutes about the disaffected people in the world today than any politician has said in most of their careers. There is also a brief but good interview with Matt Stone of South Park fame, who grew up in Littleton & went to Columbine High School.

But there are some valid criticisms of how Moore edits & shoots his films which has to be mentioned as well. And nowhere is this more prevalent than his interview with Charlton Heston towards the end, having at various points showed how Heston behaved within his role as a representative of the NRA. Heston was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease & the whole interview was so uncomfortable and, in many ways, exploitative. It was clear the confusion that Heston had & in the end his walking out of the interview actually did more damage to Moore than to him.

But this is powerful and essential filmmaking, which takes a difficult subject & forces us as the audience to confront it. It’s just a shame that all these years later, things are in no way how Moore and many other hoped they would be.

This is a film which I actually hated on a cellular level. It just for me kept diving lower & lower down the toilet of revoltingness, using the horrific context of the many civil wars in Africa to get visceral shock value. It is also a film which seems to want to show the serious side of these conflicts, but then its narration & story just end up using those same horrors for cheap and exploitative shock value.

DiCaprio plays a Rhodesian diamond smuggler called Danny Archer who, after hearing about a fisherman who discovers a massive pink diamond, then links up with the fisherman who he met in prison to try and get to the valuable stone. The fisherman, Soloman Vandy, is desperate to locate his family who have been kidnapped by the warlords.

Within the film are a huge number of highly emotive and distressing scenes, including extreme violence carried out against the population of the country the film is set in. But these scenes are all done in extremely gratuitous ways, in order to both shock and repulse. And front and centre of this are the scenes of the young son of the fisherman being trained as a child soldier. But the film’s treatment of this horrible and distressing situation is to REPEATEDLY cut to children shooting either other children or adults. This shock tactic is really disgusting and uses a horrific time in history as simply a way to invoke shock. There is no narrative purpose behind it.

But the moment for me when this film just went so far over the line that nothing could redeem it was a scene where the fisherman finds his family in a prison camp and can only communicate and hold them through a wire fence. And whilst this scene played out, with the film straining every sinew to scream at you “Look at how much these people are suffering!” the journalist character then pulls out her camera and starts snapping away, which to me translated as complete opportunism to capture horrific trauma and stick it on the front of a magazine/media product. And I just switched this off and felt revolted that I had in any way contributed to the rampant exploitation I had just seen.

Do not watch this film.

After his small but stunning performance in The Imitation Game as the young Alan Turing, I had seen this as one of the new Cinema Paradise releases with him starring in it, so thought I'd give it a whirl.

It is certainly a very different and idiosyncratic film, with Lawther as a bitchy spoilt narcissist called Billy who is also extremely effeminate and the target of bullies, who then inspire him to try to become the homecoming queen.

But it didn't really work. Billy as a character was just too grating & difficult to like or root for, irrelevant of the abuse that was directed at him. The story itself also has too many ridiculous scenarios, such as a random guy who doesn't in any way fancy Billy but is happy to be ordered around and almost used like a personal slave. There are some small funny moments and a couple of good jokes, hence the 2 star rating.

But as much as Lawther is a talented actor, this was a rubbish script and overall not worthy of the talents who it stars

After a long hiatus, Mad Max is back, with Max recast as Tom Hardy. But this film is easily the best of the series, plus is absolutely incredible in terms of its scope and ambition. Written off by many due to its unbelievable behind the scenes problems (cancelled shooting, location changes and also considerable issues between Hardy and Theron,) this film grabs you from the off and all you can do is cling on & enjoy the ride.

Whilst there are many things that I could mention, the main one for me apart from how it looked (absolutely incredible, particularly the night-time shots,) was the fact that every stunt you see and every crash was really done. The level of action direction & stunt work is flawless.

This is an incredible masterpiece and why movies were created. My only regret was that I never got to see it in the cinema or in IMAX, which would have been the icing on the cake. Hopefully it will get re-released at some stage so I can experience this.

This series is incredible. It is a monumental achievement, filled with atmosphere, dread, shocking images and unforgettable moments. Its performances are also amazing, particularly Harris, Watson, and my favourite, Skarsgård. But what this series is to me more than anything, as hinted at by the title, is what happens when everybody lies, repeatedly, to everyone else. This is the damage and fallout that occurs, where millions are displaced and many other killed or maimed.

Jared Harris stars as Valery Legasov, a jaded & clever chemist, who is conscripted into helping with the cleanup operation after the Chernobyl nuclear plant explodes. He is introduced to Skarsgård’s Boris Shcherbina, the Soviet face of the clean-up, who whilst at first suspects him, then forms a strong and close bond as he realises what he has got himself into. Completing this line up is Emily Watson as Ulana Khomyuk, a composite character based on the many scientists who were involved. As they battle to control and contain the horror that they find, they also see how the events happened to get them to this point.

This series is so brilliantly done, mainly because it doesn’t in any way patronise the viewer. We are treated as being able to, with clear explanations, understand what we see on the screen, as well as sharing in the horror of the characters. As Legasov, Harries is excellent, portraying a man who has up to then completely sold himself out and parroted whatever line the Soviets wanted him to say, giving the Communists the air of respectability, where often the total opposite was true. Watson similarly is excellent, with her courage fighting against not only the extreme scepticism of the ruling party but also the sexism.

But head and shoulders above all of them is the magnificent Skarsgård. Boris Shcherbina is the living embodiment of loyalty and Government representation. There is no doubt that he has not only never gone in any way against the regime, but also has been a willing part of enforcing it, doubtless sending many dissenters either to their deaths or to the labour camps, never to be seen again. And yet when the truth and horror finally breaks through, you watch someone just totally break as he sees what he has been sent into, which is effectively a death sentence.

Everything else is wonderful, from the locations and cinematography through to the music. And the direction from Johan Renck is masterful. This series looks so good and feels so authentic that in many ways you could put it on in front of someone who didn’t know it was a TV show and they’d be convinced it was shot in the 80’s.

Finally, and most presciently, I am writing this one year after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. It is staggering to see the parallels between then and now, mainly with many thousands of innocent people paying with their lives. Still, even with all the events throughout history, we as a human race have still barely learned anything...