Film Reviews by PV

This 4 part drama dates from 2023 and thank goodness - so there is no attempt to created female characters who never existed or impose colourblind casting fakery on real history, as in the awful recent ITV drama A SPY AMONG FRIENDS - very slow, boring and a northern lass who never existed was created to woke up the story, and of course she has an unlikely Jamaican husband who never existed either. NO NEED for any of it.

It seems that we have to rely on the archive for decent dramas like this which cannot be made anymore without the wokiedokies making them into preachy woke pc finger-wagging lectures. Tickboxery does not make for good drama which just has to tell a good story well, NO lectures or preaching.

This excellent series does just that, a superb cast is utterly convincing as all the main characters, Burgess, Maclean, Philby, Blunt et al. Not sure how accurate the portrayal of the American is - but drama needs the plot points, beats and jeopardy at the end. How true is this true story? No idea.

Watch with the superb story of Guy Burgess in Moscow AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD (1983) and also watch RED MONARCH from the same year I think to see just how deluded these posh boys were in betraying Britain to support the USSR (Stalin referred to them and others in the west supporting Russian communism as 'useful idiots').

Also Julian Mitchell's great 1980s theatre play made into a film ANOTHER COUNTRY with colin Firth and Rupert Everett romanticises the schooldays or Guy Burgess. Wotch a watch. Very much influenced the Style Council's LONG HOT SUMMER video of the time.

Those who want a challenge should watch the original 1979 TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY though it was famous at the time for being rather baffling.

5 star great drama.

I was going to give this 2 stars but it was such a boring waste of time, with cartoon 2D characters, on-the-nose glib crass writing, plodding confused direction - only 1 hour and 40 minutes but feels like 3+ hours. It is that bad.

Having researched the producer of this, it turns out to be a well-off Canadian who set up his own company to make movies. Vanity project stuff, basically.

Avoid

Plodding badly-written poorly-directed extended TV episode from a tickbox TV director. Not good.

Forget this unbelievable cartoon character drivel spin-off, and watch the sometimes-superb TV series instead.

SO forgettable - I watched it 5 days ago and cannot remember the plot. Says it all.

This bloated flabby overlong film =- German but trying SO HARD to be Hollywood - is like many US movies these days, WAY too long, 2 hours 40 minutes! If they cut out the badly sagging middle bits all about relationships and love interest and sex scenes, that's lose half an hour at least. NO standard film needs to be over 2 hours. Epics maybe like Lawrence of Arabia or Ben Hur, NOT most. Films used to be 90 mninutes - see The Omen for a film with NO FLAB onm it; now I think the average is 2 hours 20 minutes. That is not progress.

It is a shame because that makes an interesting story boring. Act 2 sags badly and drags on for SO LONG before it all gets very exciting in the third act. Loved that.

Fascinating story based on truth about the Berlin wall, where so many were killed trying to flee to the west, which I have visited too. I used to work with an East German man in 1990s how as a boy when the wall went up, completely unexpectedly for most, total surprise.

3 or 4 stars but just SO long it spoils the film utterly. So 3 stars. I prefer German films which are German, not fake Hollywood.

And it seems one main character is played by an actor called Mehmet who would be Muslim then, which is obvious in a nude scene but not realistic in Europe of now or then.

So-so thriller, not a patch of Bruce Willis's major blockbusters. Somewhat incredible plot and set-up but suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride.

3 stars

Ok so this is a low-budget Jack the Ripper thriller which feels like a sequel - maybe I missed the first film.

By a director who seems to specialise in low-budget horror.

I guessed the ending early on, to be honest.

The main character, a hard-up copper, does well and is credible.

Aims to be sexy and violent I think.

It passes the time. 3 stars.

How on earth did this tedious, slow, pointless film win any awards at all? BAFTA and Oscar? WHy? Because the direct ticks the female box, in the age of metoo, I presume.

I did not mind The Piano; Bright Star by Jane Campion was a one star film and this almost was.

I fail to see the point of the whole story, though it is based on a novel.

Also blatant sexism here with gratuitous and unnecessary male nudity but no female nudity - no doubt the direct thinks this make her radical.

such a slow boring film which goes nowhere. Looks pretty sure, thanks to the landscape, and nice floaty chilled soundtrack by Johnny Greenwood from Radiohead. But...

But the acting is fine esp from the stick-think actor who plays Peter, the most interesting story thread. A pretentious chapter structure signals this is artiness up itself and then some.

No awards and just 1.5 stars rounds up.

I do not usually like car chase films but this is GREAT. The car chases are fab, great petrol cars, big old American ones, not smug buggy electric cars.

A bit unsure what happened at the end. I may watch that again.

Highly enjoyable high-octane 1970s stuff.

4 stars

I enjoyed this cheap horror which I never even knew existed.

Having used ragworm as bait when I went fishing off the beach as a boy, I appreciate these worms with their black fangs/pincers - look so scary and always cut them off. Not strong enough to pierce the skin in real life.

OK so very silly and not sure the story entirely makes sense esp the end (no spoilers) BUT as a fun popcorn horror it does the job. Many horror films follow the exact same format, whether the monster is dinosaurs, rats, Tremor big worms, sharks or anything else. I recommend recent film THE BAY.

2.5 stars rounded up.

The director and co-writer Tze Chun is an Asian-American comic book publisher and it shows.

This is also clearly influenced by far eastern drama, Hong Kong and China, set pieces and lots of overacting, blood, guts and gore. not my thing.

Bryan Cranston is always great and he gets away with a Russian accent here. But he's a shadow of Walter White.

The quality of writing and directing here is not in the same league as Breaking Bad.

Disappointing really. Story not believable. It is a COMIC BOOK CAPER heavily influenced by Chinese cinema and the usual violent set pieces.

2 stars

I loved this film, from 1950 and all the better for it. Genuinely tense and exciting and VERY clever - it depicts a murder from various points of view which are shown to be different and is really therefore a study in witness bias. NEVER believe anyone!

The cast is classy. Dirk Bogarde in I think his first ever role doing a dodgy American accent (but that is fine - no spoilers but it fits the plot and backstory of his character). Classy female actors play the sisters and I loved the way they alternated according to which witness point of view was being explored.

Told largely in flashback to various witness accounts - very clever indeed and so well-written and acted.

The boy Alfie was great - not credited here. Played by Bobbie Scroggins (great name!) whose last film appearance as as a page boy in the first Titanic film, a Night to Remember in 1958. I hope his life went well for him. Just see what happens to some child actors/stars like Bobby Driscoll, dead of drugs at 31 (last role was the voice of Disney Peter Pan 1952).

A superb old film back before everything had to be a woke preachy lecture.

4 stars.

This is a great film which somehow passed under my radar until now.

Fascinating to learn about the resistance against the Nazis by many in Norway, though many collaborated like Quisling, their Nazi puppet leader - and of course so-called neutral Sweden who let 2 million Nazis march through its land to invade and oppress Norway, all while getting rich by supplying Germany with iron ore. Any reparations paid there, Greta?

Anyhoo, the end shows what happens to the real-life people. A tense drama, slightly too long and bloated hence 4 stars not 5. Some odd subtitles (Skottland?)

Watch with THE KING'S CHOICE 2016, and also 1942 Edge of Darkness and 1943 Commandos Strike at Dawn. The Battle for Norway of April 1940 is largely forgotten BUT the Brits and Norwegians and French united to fight for Norway and retook Narvick from the Nazis though then had to leave. It was the first place recaptured from the Nazis in WWII. The Christmas tree is Trafalgar Square London every year is from Norway as thanks for our help in the war - the Norwegian govt and Kind was in Britain, London and training camp in Scotland.

4 stars - a solid historically interesting film

OK so this movie is evidence that 'lived experience' does not necessarily mean anything, The unknown director who also wrote this mess of a film is former intelligence officer Joseph Sorrentino - who then had enough cash to do to USC film school and got to write/direct this.

It is a confused mess of a movie, salacious and frankly not believable, Yes, the US experimented on prisoners and black people too with diseases like anthrax. And no doubt LSD too, But I do not believe the OTT depictions here.

Forgettable film, not much of a story, all cartoon characters.

Watch THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS or THE AMERICANS US TYV drama series instead.

2 stars

NO SPOILERS but what happens in this film happens a lot - police had a campaign here about it last year, posters up.

Anyway, a slight simple short film, naturalistically played by young actors though the main ones look older than 17/18 of last year A levels. I liked the young card trick guy.

OK so maybe stretched out with flab and padding a bit - it could be a 1 hour Tv show or shorter even. Based on a novel BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK. More like based on a novella or short story as not that much here.

Lars Mikkelsen in this, playing a Scandinavian dad in Eire which is not explained nore the source of their wealth (I wanted to know!) He plays the Russian leader in House of Cars (US Spacey version) and is brother to the great Mads.

4 stars

I actually thought this was a biopic series about Alfred Nobel when I rented it. But no matter - I try and want everything with the excellent Anders Danielsen Lie.

Sometimes a tad soapy for my tastes, with families and kids and affaird and backstories etc, and sometimes a bit wordy, this is nonetheless excellent drama.

Gritty and earthy, not glossy as Hollywood would make.

The way it merges war, oil, politics etc is clever and well done, without being showy.

4 stars.