Film Reviews by PV

I loved this. Unusual drama set in 1402, not long after the vain and brittle Richard II had been deposed by Henry Bolingbroke - Henry IV, the first monarch whose first language was English not French. This is factored in here with a visit from the English court.

Lots of machinations and sly manoeuvring by all interested parties, royal and otherwise. Interesting history, wonderfully filmed in various languages. The foundation of Scandinavia indeed. My advice is CONCENTRATE as the goings-on and shifting loyalties could be confusing if you miss a bit (I rewound to reread subtitles several times).

There are other imposter dramas - and this is largely fiction though based on a real case (which I had never heard of before). Reminds me of Perkin Warbeck who in late 15th C claimed to be the rightful king of England (he wasn't).

The actress playing the devious, self-serving queen is superb and actor playing ERIK is great as well, so I shall try and watch other films Morten Hee Andersen has appeared in.

4 stars.

Not sure how close to the truth this is. But fascinating and timely.

My advice - PAY CLOSE ATTENTION because it is hard to work out which side various soldiers are on at times.

Watch right till the end. NO SPOILERS. Right to the very end and the credits too.

A tad confusing and overlong, but watchable. And the cracker reveal at the end is great (NO SPOILERS) but I am unsure if that is based on truth or is fiction.

Those not familiar with Ukraine history might like to watch MR JONES or THE OCCUPATION to learn more before watching this. Like most mainland European countries, borders and populations have changed over the centuries, the cause of so many wars. We in Britain are luckily an island, and left that tribal stuff behind with Alfred the Great in 900 AD or soon thereafter when England was united.

I was expecting so much more from this film. It is long and feels it, because it is unfocused, flabby and self-indulgent which makes it, in a word, boring.

It's a bit like watching someone else's holiday video of Christmas family video - fascinating for them. Tedious for everyone else and anyone not there. THAT is what it's like watching so many scenes of twenty-somethings partying, arguing, drinking, meeting their families etc,.

And then there is what is a 2-D racist caricature of a WASP lawyer from Toronto. Having lived in Canada I am aware of a giant POMME FRITE on the shoulder of some French Canadians in Quebec, and that no doubt is why this character is introduced at all. ALl completely extraneous to the plot, so no point in this character or, frankly, many others.

Very disappointing. 2 stars, just.

OK so the first thing to say is that the CGI here is superb. Only once did I see the clumsy computer-game-like movement when an ape jumps, Otherwise it is spookily real, esp the human eyes and features on the ape faces.

The plots is textbook, with the usual antagonist, allies and enemies, grand goal, jeopardy. Rather good though with lots of early plants turning up towards the end - and I loved the eagles, symbol of Ancient Rome of course... That matters here (no spoilers).

BUT and here I show my age, I remember watching the original 1968 film, on our late 70s black and white TV at first, colour later. The best PLANET OF THE APES film by far, with a superb soundtrack score too, which is echoed in the music here, those discordant bursts.

All watchable and nothing against it, though I am so weary of every single hero in Hollywood films being a 'strong independent' young woman who here is a cross between Wonderwoman and Lara Croft, so superhero is her brilliance and strength, able to physically defeat any man in a fight and also an IT tech expert (who knew?). It would really make a REAL change to see a white male hero for once in a Hollywood film...

But it's exciting, with brilliant visuals and all hangs together and makes sense, just about, though I cannot remember any of the 3 reboot APES films in detail - they may well be referenced here. And I did like the ending (no spoilers, again).

It does what it says on the tin really. You know what you're getting! So for me, 3 stars

Hmm I think some haters of the USA are triggered a bit by this movie all because it dares to be patriotic or as the Cinema Paradiso review claims, it "walks a fine line with the military drama it wishes to weave. Somewhere between chest-beating machismo and sentimental schmaltz..."

Well yes there is schmaltz BUT way less than in most Hollywood movies, esp some of the more icky animal/pet tales made for kids.

I saw no chest-besting machismo - I saw a character study of a damaged veteran tasked with taking a damaged dog to the funeral of another damaged veteran who ended his life. I find that moving, the physical journey of course and rather obviously being mirrored by the personal journey of man and dog.

I especially liked the scenes in Portland, Oregon, city with rather a reputation for being PEAK WOKE with Antifa marches etc. The satirical scenes in the coffee shops and bars are great fun.

And this film is not uncritical of the military - quite the reverse. The Military Police especially get a real roasting, all the puffed up authority figures and the usual institutional group-think. Made me laugh more than once.

As for demographic, well, I'd say it is not for small kids but any mature ones of 12+ can cope - though I know we live in a New Puritan Age of hysteria where some want to shield eyes of anyone under 18 from real life. I think they'd cope. The sex/drugs/drinking is not explicit, just real life.

I liked it, and I am not a dog person.

A solid 3 stars on the shoulder.

I noticed in the credits this is based on a novel and that does not surprise me. It is perfect novel material - a span of a life over 40 years, meditations on the past, how that relates to the present.

There are lots of issues of male friendship and betrayal - which I love. Sadly these days most US movies are obsessed with female friendships thanks to the MeToo movement. IMHO boyhood male friendships are way more interesting as the whole status issue is so much more vital. Because boys and men HAVE to achieve to get status - if not, they get no respect from men but esp women. That often means money and wealth, career success, and is why boys are motivated to do crime, as here.

Naples is a very poor Italian city and has featured in several films and TV drama series. It offers a necessary correction to the often-romanticised view of Italy, from all the metropolitan elite, the cafe culture and food etc. Yes but there is also the religion, politics, corruption, crime and dire poverty (no benefit culture in Italy; no such thing as housing benefit etc). This is also international with issues of migration from Africa and Islam - the main character has been away 40 years and now lives a good life with a young pretty wife and a seafront apartment in Cairo.

Sure this is slow-moving, but stick with it - I could see the third act events coming (NO SPOILERS) and it was tense waiting for the inevitable.

Ultimate a very moving, even sad, story and film - about how boyhood friendship so often leads to, and is maybe based on, betrayal. It's a thoughtful film which stays long in the memory - for me anyway.

4 stars

The concept of this film may sound unexciting - a train travels across British India rescuing a royal boy. How can that be exciting, you may think? Well, watch this and film out.

It is almost a big British Western, actually, and the British director J. Lee Thompson (a wrongly forgotten director) whose film before this was the classic ICE COLD IN ALEX went to Hollywood after NORTH-WEST FRONTIER to direct so many classic movies. Before he went he directed TIGER BAY. I Hollywood he directed GUNS OF NAVARONE, CAPE FEAR, TARAS BULBA, MACKENNA'S GOLD before, perhaps, declining in 1970s and 80s to direct PLANET OF THE APES/DEATHWISH sequels. Probably the best British action director though.

Filmed in Granada (southern Spain) but looks like the north-west frontier and India to me (more perhaps than Snowdonia in Wales used in CARRY ON UP THE KHYBER) and some beautiful shots. Wonderful acting from a superb cast, all the actors British/American and Indian, and perfect pitch, structure, narrative progression, dramatic tension. In a word: PERFECTION.

I get tired of people giving trigger warnings to such films, as they 'reflect the attitudes of their time' - just because it's set in the British Raj and there is a (rather great and well played) Indian traindriver character (the pofaced woke seem to think anyone of colour playing a comic character which may have some caricature is racist. I S JOHAR was a great Indian actor appearing in so many Hindi films and starred in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA too. He was from what is now Pakistan and witnessed and entire Hindu settlement burnt down by a mob of Muslims in his youth, SO 100% Total authentic casting with bells on then!!!

Odd really, as they never complain at all the massive stereotypes and caricatures of white British people, as here in part, with the pompous British officer at the base). AND this film and MANY more are critical of the empire - Brits are always very self-critical and, as it says here, support the underdog (can you IMAGINE China of now ever even criticising their new unofficial empire on anything - ever?) Anyway, I ignore the ignorance of the perpetually offended.

This is set in the north-west frontier, and features Muslims trying to overthrow a Hindu Maharajarh. Set in 1905. Well this location is now Pakistan and a million died in ethno-faith violence from the same root. So that went well. The British did not do that... One of the first lines in the film is indeed 'ALLAH UH AKBAR' as the Islamist hordes attack the palace and chase the Brits who are helping the royal Hindu prince to flee.

In fact, the British empire was more than anything else an IDEA, and it was and remains the most benevolent empire in history (compare to Arab empires, Asian ones, barbaric Benin empire, Nazis, USSR et al).

Anyway, the cast is sublime with the brilliant Herbert Lom The Ladykillers, - born in Prague who came to escape the Nazis (oh that awful British empire eh?). GREAT actor - I can watch him in anything. He died in 2012 age 95 in London but 10 years earlier gave his final performance in Midsomer Murders! His career had started in 1930s in Czechoslovakia. He often played foreign roles, including being the first actor to play the King of Siam on stage - Yul Brynner took over from him to make the role in The King and I his own.

I sort of expected this to be from a class Victorian/Edwardian novel, esp as it is set in 1905. But no, original screenplay. SO well-written, great lines, tension itching with the heat throughout. I last watched this film on TV many years ago. I am SO glad I watched it again. Shows how awful so many modern movies are, to be honest.

One of the best films ever made. 5 stars with steam train whistles too!

I loved this. Great locations; wonderful characters; superb twisty script; great cast; brilliant direction and sets - especially a wonderful manhouse scene at an amusement park.

I do not usually like 'noir', but this is way more than the usual sort of film.

OK so I see the writer/director Andrew Legge made a film in 2013 about a 'mechanical maiden' - a machine invented by a widowed husband to help care for his baby daughter. That Sci-fi interest in mad inventors continues here, but with 2 female faces.

The use of old film footage here is really brilliant and so well done. It was so impressive and fascinating to watch. I am not usually a big scifi fan, but this goes beyond that.

If only the producers (and the film is part-funded by Arts Council Wales/FilmCymruWales) had cared as much about the English language!

This is set in 1938 in Britain, and the early 40s. And yet, the language used - even by British army officers - is pure American. For example, Brits say PARDON? not EXCUSE ME? or did back then (some BritKids now seem to speak Americanese). No-one back then said BRING IT ON. And Brits then and now do NOT say "Ayyy-dolf" Hitler. Brits say "Addd-olf". Sloppy and careless lack of attention to detail in the script. That really niggles. Maybe the writer/director can hire a literate script consultant next time?

Tbh the two female characters are so overblown I struggled to believe they were women from 1938. More like Girlpower ladettes straight out of 1997 London.

Anyway, I love Timeslip dramas and this follows the template of most which is that changing events in time can have disastrous consequences - always fun to watch! THE TIME MACHINE (best version of 1960) or LOOPER or even BACK TO THE FUTURE and most timeslip dramas tread the same path. As to speculative fiction with Nazis, well, where to start: FATHERLAND (1994), SS-GB TV drama, so many more.

Neil Hannon from The Divine Comedy does the new songs here, and he is always class. Well done to the film-makers for getting so many music clearances too, esp Bowie, The Kinks (and I bet the Beatles and Stones rights were way too expensive!)

I could sort-of predict a lot - but then, I have watched and read an awful lot of timeslip films and speculative fiction featuring Nazis! So most probably would not.

I won't be too harsh. This is a decent film, esp for a time-slip fan like me. 4 stars

I loved this. Of course, with its so-called national stereotypes it would never be made now BUT the white British army officers and working class businessman are NO less stereotyped than any Chinese characters.

Lots of fun stuff about precognition/premonition and superstition, beliefs, cultures etc. and the difference between the West and East. Really great to see Hong Kong again, before the Chinese 'invasion' after 1999. Sad to see it happen.

The scenes on the aeroplane, whether the dream at the start or the real events later (which I could sort of predict) are genuinely nail-bitingly tense. Compare to the airline section of 1980s movie THE TWILIGHT ZONE.

Made me giggle when the hungover passengers were trying to get a hit of oxygen to ease their headaches and pain! Probably illegal now. Anyway, the lack of oxygen on the plane is because there is no need for it for an aircraft that does not go over 10,000 feet - a crucial part of the plot later (NO SPOILERS)

A superb cast including a very young and plummy Denholm Elliot (watch him over 30 years later in ROOM WITH A VIEW)

4 stars, almost 5. A great solid old-fashioned British film that some will hate and sneer down at - but I loved it! A hidden gem.

The credits say written and directed by Carol Morley BUT it is Martin Amis who should take the credit mostly as this is based on one of his lesser-known novels Night Train (1997) which is a comedic parody of American detective novels. Not many viewers will know that; many will not know who Martin Amis is...

Unlike SO many films and dramas these days which parachute female characters into the plot then shoehorn them into the main roles (sorry for the mixed metaphor) the female detective here seems believable. The reference to drink works too - Martin Amis was the son of notorious drinker novelist of Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis who even wrote a book called ON DRINK. I though the alcoholism aspect here was done well.

I can see why many find the ending unsatisfying (NO SPOILERS) and I was initially too, but then was not because we all know the plot trajectory and arrest a-coming.

I did grow tired of all the quantum physics and astronomy stuff, to be honest, though the space-y end credits are really so original - they're great!

Some great music incl the final track by THE CHURCH and also the Brenda Lee version of 1938 song I'LL BE SEEING YOU - it reminded me how Liberace's version of that song plays over the last scene of the Stephen King novel stalker 1990 film MISERY which ALSO features actor James Caan - 28 years later he plays a main character here. Now there's a future quiz question!

Great cast incl Brit Toby Jones playing a barely believable character, but...it is a fictional film so...

Be warned, those who expect fast-paced action crime thrillers will hate this. DIE HARD it ain't. But I enjoyed this slow-burner mostly.

4 stars.

Excellent South Park. The Passion of the Jew is VERY timely now, 20 years later. Short, at around 30 minutes. No idea how they get away with some satire, esp against named actors like Mel Gibson. Not sure they would these days, not in the UK anyway which now faces serious threats to freedom of speech and expression

2 other films here, one which targets the Catholic church and the scandal priests interferring with boys - truly scabrous satire. Very offensive to some - I LOVED it.. The one satirising the music business.

5 stars

I usually really hate very sentimental family films - and this trowels on the schmaltz, for sure. But this, I liked, with reservations. Sometimes I felt my teeth rotting with the sweetness of it all - but hey, most Hollywood films ladle on the schmaltz and maybe always have.

Yes, it is overlong - maybe because John Krasinski is the writer, director, co-producer and even plays the dad character. So it does need cutting.

BUT this is the perfect Christmas family film really.

Kids will love the CGI creatures - as in the Toy Story films or Monsters inc. Adults will appreciate the magic of it, the sweetness and a decent plot and acting.

3.5 stars rounded up.

Well, set in a boarding school it may be, but Harry Potter it ain't. In this original, wordless (and no subtitles), nihilistic Ukrainian film, feral deaf kids go on a rampage and run amok in what is a special school but more like a prison.

I admire independent films, they take so much effort to get made over years. And this is a well-made film, a truly unique experience, wordless, no subtitles, all set in a special school for the deaf (which resembles a prison more). I did think I would not follow the story, but I did, partly as the director spells it out, many long scenes with a static camera, like Chaplin films or that contemporary French director whose name I forget.

This is a miserabilist, depressing, nihilistic movie, where all characters are amoral or immoral. The criminality, violence and sexual exploitation runs rampant, and the main character wants to belong to 'the tribe' so gets sucked in. The actors are great, all amateurs, but really superb.

But really, at its core, the plot of this film is all about JEALOUSY and the poisonous toxic effect it has on this one young man - who is an outsider, like Othello (a play from an old story about JEALOUSLY not race - that is our age's projection. Othello is a Muslim convert to Christianity to belong, but never trusted because of that, which feeds the seed of jealously planted in his brain by a malicious enemy Iago).

Anyway, it is a film to admire rather than like, with a director and actors who have never made anything else. This won many awards and is a unique cinematic experience but not pleasant, and is deeply depressing ultimately with shocking violence. Amorality infects everything here. SO be prepared.

reminds me a bit of the great 1979 UK film SCUM or prison dramas about abuse really, or maybe DIRTY PRETTY THINGS.

3.5 stars rounded up.

I mostly enjoyed this film, with reservations. It is better than most BFI/lottery-funded films BUT not on the level of truly great road trip movies like WITHNAIL AND I or THELMA AND LOUISE. Very 2nd division. There have been loads of films recently about people going off on long walks, the mediocre schmaltzy UNLIKELY PILMGRAMAGE OF HAROLD FRY and the D-Day films two of them, one with Michael Caine.The best of all is FIRST AND LAST (1987) with Joss Ackland.

In particular, some male characters the two women meet on their roadtrip are cartoon character baddies - just absurdly so. Real misandry really, from a female writer/director there, I felt. Not necessary. To try and balance that obviously, there is a kind male policeman (ironic, as the real Audrey Amiss was often arrested for civil disturbance by police and locked up in mental hospitals; she even got deported from China for that when on many travels with her mother). Other very unrealistic and posed meetings with various groups - I doubt any of this really happened but Audrey Amiss did exist and was severely mentally ill.

Her archive is in the Wellcome collection - not as art, and scrapbooks of chocolate bar wrappers is what I did as a very small kid, so not art. But that collection has artefacts which link art, life, mental illness, so...

No idea how true to life this is. Audrey Amiss born 1933 died 2013, started scrapbooks late 70s - lived in Clapham near/with her mother, so not short of money really - they travelled the world together, exotic trips.

The performance of Monica Dolan was superb - and that carries this whole film really. I found her companion and former nurse annoying. I thought the mental illness and delusion was handled well. Always tricky to do, that.

So good in parts, annoying at times, great acting in main role, 3 stars. Almost 4. Great music too, oldies and newer songs too, one from Boy George plays over the credits (watch the end to see real art by Audrey and her photo).