Film Reviews by PV

This is yet another superb TV drama from Netflix, which highlights just haw mediocre terrestrial TV drama by the BBC and ITV is, with its endless woke preachiness.

Here we have a superb drama all about Pablo Escobar drug lord of the 1980s cartel which more or less ran Colombia. The actor portraying him nails it utterly as do all others.

The writing is brilliant, the pace, the plot points. I loved the way some was in Spanish - and this drama may even be watched by the sort of person who usually refuses to watch movies with subtitles.

The inclusion of real news footage of the time was a stroke of genius too.

Music is brilliant, esp the theme tune - a Spanish love song lasting 90 seconds only, which I now cannot get out of my head.

I cannot wait for series 2. BRILLIANT. 5 stars. In the same top league as Breaking Bad and The Americans.,

I enjoyed this film. And I adored the absolutely cracking soundtrack - both original score and songs used. That lifts it above most movies for a start.

I am not usually a fan of sci-fi, especially more tricksy, slow post-modern sci-fi movies. I hated MOON - and this film is written and directed by the main actor in that.

However, this film won me over - because it has intelligence and depth. It is not just a CGI-fest though the CGI is impressive, and the landscapes (filmed in Hungary or CGI) are superb and beautiful. The robots give a nod to both METROPOLIS and I though early 1970s film SILENT RUNNING which influenced Pixar's robot sci-fi film WALL-E. The question of what is human and can a robot have feelings predominate.

The unflagged used of flashbacks can confuse a bit though - so you have to pay attention as the timeframe flips back and forth.

Another reviewer says he did not see the plot twist coming - well, I did.. No spoilers but this sort of thing is not new and has been done a lot before in sci-fi films.

The focus is on identity and what it is to be human - an updated version of Frankenstein (the book) maybe? Toby Jones has a bit part but nails it as per usual.

4 stars

This film is not bad, and stars the wonderful Mads Mikkelsen who is one of those actors (like Anthony Hopkins) I can watch in anything, even bad films. A great film like 'The Hunt' shows Mads' substantial acting talent off as does the TV series of Hannibal. Not this.

This is basically a Danish attempt at an action movie, with a thriller in the world of high finance.

I found it a tad confusing at times, so rewind function may be useful. Unrealistic events but that is fine - it is fiction, after all, and aimed at being high-octane action movie.

It sort of all works though but, as I state, it is forgettable. I have almost forgotten in 12 hours after watching it! It's one of those. Meh.

3 stars

I remember watching this as a boy, and so thought I'd rent it out again - and I now realise I probably missed a lot of episodes.

There are 2 series set in 1981 and 1982, in East London and Docklands, just before it was developed (The Long Good Friday also set in the same pre-Canary-Wharf days).

The writing is strong and authentic here; the characters believable. Some may be offended by the racial language - however, it was authentic to the time and the characters and arguably better and refreshing compared to the woke po-faced puritanism and censorship of now.

David Yip stars as John Ho, the first ethnic Chinese character in a TV drama (and not many now either!). I warmed to his character's humour, though was a bit confused at the claim his parents are from mainland China when the language is Cantonese from Hong Kong., Oh well... There are also many episodes which features black characters and Jamaican clubs etc, as well as Britain villains from Liverpool. Scotland etc. I liked that diversity.

As is usual with such series, actors who later became famous show up in these episodes - Anna Wing and Bill Treacher here, and more., I always like that.

Series 1 (first 8 episodes) and 2 (second 8) are different in character - the later episodes have some really cracking script-writing,. Both have really memorable episodes. Others are weaker - but they are in all TV drama series.

You can smell the Chinese food with the cigarette smoke from the estate pubs and the sweet stench of corruption from the police here - and I loved it. Good music too. A shame David Yip has been so absent from the screen since then really.

4.5 stars. So glad I rented it again. Though probably youngsters will not get it or like it as I do, and may well gasp at some of the racial language! They need to calm down, and appreciate the context and authenticity of character here.

I really enjoyed this film. Some great acting by George Mackay and Nicholas Hoult, and a fascinating story.

Yes, it's full of swearing, esp the C words, and I am not sure if the folk songs are new or of the time; however, either way, I think all the swearing makes it authentic.

The only reason this is not 5 stars is some bits which drag, and the 'punk song' element which I think was trying to be Peaky Blinders, using a modern soundtrack for stories set a century or more ago.

4 stars

This is apparently adapted from a graphic novel - I never read these so I have no idea if this was a best seller or not.

Anyway, this is what I call a 'little film' - a little British film. Not very cinematic, more suited to TV maybe, very domestic, gentle, domestic.

I enjoyed it as a quirky funny comedy - not one to guffaw at, but just to smile wryly. Some of the teenage lines are great, as are the mother's reaction. The actor playing the 15 year old, Earl Cave, is 18+ here, and arguably looks it. Ever so slightly stereotyped and the scenario with the kids' band and the teacher played by Rob Bryden do not ring true. More cartoon character drama - well it is from a graphic novel.

But hey, a gentle watch. I enjoyed it for what it was. 3 stars. Just.

This film starts slowly - but stay with it. Because it slowly grows into an exquisitely corrupt and violent, almost Shakespearean, family vendetta drama set over 5 days in the resort of Ostia near Rome (the old port Ostia Antica is 2 miles inland and can be visited easily - more compact than Pompeii but similar, with snack bar, bath house, brothel etc excavated).

Particularly good and authentic is the gypsy mafia Rome family - UK TV would probably not allow such a depiction of an 'ethnic minority'; however, having sat on a train from the airport to Rome city centre with just such a family, I can say the depiction is spot on! The boss is particularly repulsive and amoral; but not in a pantomime villain way - these are real 3d characters.

As with all in Italy, the rich, powerful Catholic church is involved as are politicians - it';s the way Italy operates. And the EU perhaps.

The music is superb too. There are some loose ends not tied up or clear, and a tad confusing, and the start is rather slow - too much so, hence 4 stars not 5.

I am surprised I liked this so much as the director also did Gomorrah which I did not like much and I hated the TV series and watched just 2 episodes.

But this, I would watch again - it is that good. No spoilers but the third act is worth waiting for.

A new sort of mafia movie - tawdry, corrupt, 21st century. I loved it!

This Danish film was funny in parts - gross-out sometimes, but then look at Hollywood teen movies. This had some really funny bits and is not po-faced like US movies, so I am glad I watched it.

Not sure about the impro style though - common in Denmark. And totally unrealistic and unbelievable.

I enjoyed the jokes which would never get past censors in the UK or US, with the po-faced puritan hysteria of now. Jokes about rape/sexual assault banned now in US/UK.

Still, a Danish oddity. And mercifully short. Cartoon character stuff but fun and funny moments. The satire of privilege people male and female is fun.

The kids is cute - there is a sequel too. I suspect this is from a Danish TV show or a well-known comedian, though new to me.

3 stars.

Written and directed by adopted Aussie leftie Ben Elton, so no surprise top hear his preachy voice in the mouths of some characters - that is the weak point of this occasionally woke leftie lecture on how wondrous all immigrants are and how Australia belongs to Aborigines (who were immigrants there 40,000 years ago of course).

One wonders if people knew about the real history they would honour the elders at the end of the film credits - they killed disabled and mixed race babies, for one thing. Romanticisng pre-colonial cultures is actually as racist as demonising them.

BUT some things here are funny. The film is really a series of sketches stapled together and some are great - I especially l;iked the community radio DJ Queenie (Magda Szubanski who should have had an Oscar nomination imho) and her woke pc extremist feminist campaigner folk singer singing classic Aussie folk songs with new woke pc gender neutral words. GREAT! Ben Elton shows that he in fact thinks woke metoo gender-fluid transmadness femitwerpery is as absurd of most of us do.

Best just enjoy the sketches which can be funny, and Ignore the silly slushy romantic plot - as thin as a Rizla. Though I always enjoy hearing a Theremin!

The clunky subplot of cartoon character 2D bigot Aussie child migrant if compared to a non-white asylum seeker boy in a MASSIVE way OVER AND OVER AGAIN just in case you did not see the link and pro-immigration political point being made. Preachy pc lecture.

A little twee film best watched to enjoy the occasional funny sketches.

2 stars

To be honest, I have never been a huge Star Trek movie fan. The original TV series is great as ever and repeated every weekday 6pm on the Horror Channel I think?

I am not Tarantino fan - I am amazed he (and others like Wes Anderson) even get the funding to make movies, let alone with awards, critical praise, even Oscars. 'Inglorious Basterds' was one of the most dreadful tedious pointless films I have ever endured - though bafflingly those in the Toronto cinema where I saw it were laughing away at it. This is perhaps even worse as it drags on for two and a half hours! It is, in a word, BORING. Tedious and turgid almost beyond belief.

Added to that the sheer bloated, overwritten flabby nature of it all - the plot utterly disjointed and episodic. Lazy flashbacks; scenes which add nothing to the momentum of plot or character development.

This is the sort of film that things it is clever and funny but isn't. Sam Pekinpah violence does not make it right and is not interesting or exciting - just boring.

And as for the rewritten history, as per the absurd 'Inglorious Basterd' - why do people tolerate this nonsense? Take a true story and change the ending. What is clever about that? I mean, WHAT is the point? There is none. That sums up this entire tedious movie from one of the worst film directors/writers ever.

Some hippy commune portrayals are spot on with the hippy hypocrisy and greedy, bullying, selfish nastiness - but you can see that in The Beach, for example. And many better pictures than this rambling visual drivel. As in the wonderful Wolf of Wall Street, Leonardo DC portrays a hardcore alcoholic who seems none the worse for wear for copious consumption of whisky. Seriously? Maybe research some real hardcore alcoholics on a bottle of whisky a day or watch Leaving Las Vegas then wipe the scales from your deluded Hollywood eyes.

How this was even nominated for Oscars I do not know. In fact I do: the entire system is corrupt with campaigns by certain actors bagging them the gongs. Or maybe there is an Italian-American contingent on the voting panel of the Academy who side with the Italian America. That is the way it works now with so many black Oscar winners who do not deserve it. And as for BAFTA. End result? All awards are ignored as we all know they are broken by woke.

Two and half hours of my life I am not getting back. You could halve that to make a less mediocre movie. Or, better still, not make it at all.

The costumes of the time (1969) and the music are both interesting and fun - but one could say the same for Butlins.

Dreadful rubbish.

I am not sure what to make of this British film about a school trip. It's like a big cartoon strip, very lewd and crude in places, aimed squarely at a teen audience who giggle at such things - and would play perfectly in a packed noisy cinema on a Friday evening.

For me at home, it was thankfully short (though sometimes felt longer...) and the absurdity and lewdness of it all was redeemed by some funny lines and scenes, esp visual gags, which almost date from the silent movies! I loved the German party of kid gag, and some scenes in the pub.

The Cornish nationalist stuff was funny and could apply equally to Welsh nationalists - and the castle featured is in Wales not Cornwall - Pembroke castle.

A bit like The Inbetweeners but less sophisticated. Silly that the teacher is called Alfie as no-one that age has that name - teens, yes. I did not like the usual 'fat kid eats pies all the time' gags - not wanting to be pc but it seems being offensive and insulting like that is OK, though inaccurate: fat kids do not eat more than anyone else. Not once fat!

Anyway, all a bit silly but if you're in the mood, it is watchable - just pretend it's a cartoon. I have not watched the Tv series which spawned it so had not idea what to expect. I did laugh at some gags - visual ones especially, and the non-pc ones - they were refreshing! The Amsterdam flashback scenes...

Of course, needless to say, any teacher doing a fraction of the stuff Aflie does would not only be suspended and banned from teaching for life but would probably be in prison.

I remember watching this series as a child, I think on Sunday evenings - it is that sort of gentle detective drama (like Hamish Macbeth or Heartbeat or Wild at Heart) where nothing really BAD happens - no serial killers or victims on the slab. Just mild investigations via the nifty though perhaps rather unbelievable conceit of a radio station 'private ear'.

Some scenes are hilariously dated - anything with computers for a start. Technology always ages a film or TV drama. Some great non-pc lines which I won't repeat here but which would never gest past the censor these days - which makes Shoestring all the more watchable. It is 40 years old., but refreshingly honest drama - which says a lot for the state of UK TV drama today really. There is no pc preachiness here or issues being forced down viewers' throats and the drama is all the better for it.

Only 2 series of Shoestring which is a shame. Great to see lots of actors who later turn up in Eastenders or The Bill in here. Celia Imrie is in it, and Pam St Clement (Pat from Eastenders) features in the same episode as a very young Daniel Day-Lewis. And more...

Eddie Shoetstring gets away with so much in this - which would never happen in real life as he seems to breaks the law as standard. Gets beaten up in almost every episode too it seems, yet survives.

They don;'t make em like this any more. I enjoyed both series of Shoestring, despite the creaks. It's made me want to rediscover other TV drama from the 80s and 70s actually.

Odd though as this is set and made in 1980 and they are all wearing flares!

Fun to hear some pop music of the day on the Radio West hitlist too!

This is a dreadful British alleged comedy horror. A silly pc box-ticker of a film. And deeply old-fashioned. It seems to run out of steam too, hence the tacked on ending (no spoilers). It thinks it is clever and fun. It isn't. It is painful.

The script is like a bad first draft by a disaffected sixth-former complete with preachy rants about Thatcher and how migrants and mass immigrations is simply marvellous for Britain. Often it is nonsensical and the jokes are not funny - they have have seemed so down the pub. It is that sort of film - the story you make up with mates when drunk down the pub. It should have stayed there.

Not funny, not scary, not anything - just a vanity project directed by a posh privileged ex-public schoolboy with excellent connections from his acting film career - why he persuaded so many British character actors who should know better to partake. He even got his mate Jamie Oliver to do the catering. Bless.

Welsh actresses Ruth Jones and Eva Myles are in it, looking very similar so like BEFORE and AFTER photos for some dieting club advert.

Dexter Fletcher also pops up - around the same time he took over directing Bohemian Rhapsody/. Well I suppose one good decision of two is OK.

Mackenzie Crook phones it in, barely bothering to act at all. And Anne Crosbie from One Foot in the Grave appears, plus some BAME actor box-tickers.

The director has a good contact book - far better than the truly dreadful derivative annoying boring nonsensical film he made then.

Watch only if you like turkey.

I have watched the first movie on DVD but have very little memory of it - how movies work these days, like the awful Marvel superhero sludge. All about data and stimulating the attention-deficient young audience, like modern EDM pop music.

Anyway, this was all fast-paced and had enough 'magic' in it to satisfy. Decent special effects. And acting incl old masters Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine who gets to keep the house he buys with the massive cheque again as he did for Jaws 2.

Loved the locations too - much of this was shot in Greenwich, the colonnade at the old royal naval college used in so many movies - from the Music Lovers early 70s to the King's Speech, to Master and Commander and literally hundreds more.

Clearly aimed at the Chinese market with big set pieces and in that just like modern Bond movies which are just Bourne templates really.

Likes the music too so 2.5 stars rounded up.