Film Reviews by PV

To enjoy a drama one must engage in the "willing suspension of disbelief" as Samuel Taylor Coleridge correctly argued. This film shows how veering away from that truth leads to a story that is utterly unbelievable, with unbelievable characters behaving in unbelievable ways. The end result is not pleasure of fulfilment, but deep annoyance and irritation.

This is basically a vehicle for Helen Mirren who is totally unbelievable in a role as the chief of the army or some such nonsense. Well, if she's senior soldier material I'm an Olympic champion! Too silly for words BUT in these pc days the pressure is on for more female leads so this is the mess we get.

Then there are the soldiers - tough US soldiers with years of training and killing experience - and yet, because of one wickle girl selling bread, they turn into blubbering wrecks crying on the job and unable to do it either! Soldiers kill - they do and will, and will kill civilians too if that means it prevents greater catastrophe and killing, So the whole pretext of the plot if absurd.

No doubt the director though it best just to be on the side of the poor people in Africa so we get our noses rubbed in how awful their lives are.

A truly awful film on every dramatic level.

It has good special effects and watching the drones is fun (though not sure I believe the science). Maybe if I am forced to watch this film in my lifetime, I certainly hope I'll be stone deaf by then so I won't hear any of its nonsense.

What a sad finale to Alan Rickman's career. A clunky subplot about buying his daughter a toy doll scrapes the bottom of the barrel then goes right through the wood, as does all this film.

1.5 stars rounded down.

The first thing to say about this film is 1) it's a state-subsidised British film (BBC/lottery/BFI funding) so I doubt anyone went to see it or that anyone much cares because it got subsidy; 2) it's a simple drama with cartoon 2-dimensional characters so is MUCH better suited to TV than film.

Having said that, I found it enjoyable and it was mercifully short.

The old man played by great actor Phil Davies is a classic character (though in fairness Phil Davies doesn't really look old enough to be so decrepit. And how does he afford a house that must be worth a million on a teacher's salary eh?)

The small boy was great and added humour. Some good gags and dialogue in this.

Less convincing is the kung-fu scouser thug and his sidekick - in real life they'd just stab enemies or beat em up, not be scared off by a girl! And I saw that plot twist coming an hour before it did.

Some lines lifted from Dirty Harry and a plot lifted from Oliver Twist too.

The teenage black gang and the white hooligans acting black is all to true to life - and one reason I no longer live in London, mugging capital of Europe.

So, all in all a fair effort BUT why not make things like this for TV. There is NO NEED for public subsidy to put them on film - they're essentially domestic dramas, and perfect for BBC 2.

3 stars.

But as a character study of an old man, it's great.

This starts well - it's the usual fish out of water storyline wherein the Tom Hanks character - an IT manager - is sent by his employer to give a presentation in Saudi Arabia. Lots of fun ensues, with a great taxi driver character and some sharp dialogue and funny lines. The contradictions of this dictatorships are explored well, without any hectoring or arrogant American approach.

And so it goes on. But it all starts to go wrong when an odd health condition the Hanks character has means he has to go and see a doctor. S female doctor (this would NOT happen in Saudi by the way - they keep the sexes so separate there that the government censors even black out all pictures of women in English text books!)

The final third of the film is so awful it's almost unwatchable - it all becomes a Mills and Boon Arab fantasy in reverse (think Rudolph Valentino's The Sheikh with gender role reversal).

Of course, this may not be the fault of the director or writer because this is based on a novel by Dave Eggers.

Still, a director or film writer should have knows this would never work - if the film has stuck to the 'fish out of water' story, it would and could have been a funny satire on Saudi Arabia.

Sadly, it goes all al-Mills and al-Boon and I lost the will to live by the end.

The 2 stars are for the great first half.

This is a very watchable movie - it has some wonderfully awful characters (and people in TV really ARE as bad as this, I know).

It's not in the same league as a film like MARGIN CALL but it does address the serious issue of the money markets and how that can affect people's lives and lose a lot of people a lot of money.

The film progresses well with lots of tension and a real sense of not knowing what's coming next.

NO SPOILERS here - but the 3rd act really didn't do it for me. I'd rather an alternative ending!

The mix of comedy and tragedy here just doesn't feel right somehow.

The international plot stretches credulity, but that is fine in a satire.

This is a short film but as long as it needs to be. I mostly enjoyed this cynical and dark satire on raw capitalism.

4 stars

I enjoyed watching this Danish movie a lot - for a start, it was an education: I knew NOTHING about the Danish resistance or how all sides in WWII met in neutral Sweden. Secondly, it had some great scenes from fine actors. The shifting sands of war are well portrayed.

Based on a true story - but how much is truth and how much is myth is moot.

My only real criticism is it's just too long - some earlier quieter scenes could, I am sure, have been cut.

AND I wanted to know how all the real life people fared after the war, not just the main 3 or 4 (it tells you this at the end).

4 stars

I think this indie film deserves 4 stars. it's so violent and depressing that I wouldn't really say I enjoyed it, but I appreciated it. It's full of guns, violence, blood and gore and

I thought the actor playing the main character was note-perfect in his portrayal of a traumatised loner haunted by his past.

If you was quick cuts and CGI battles, then you'll have to slow down to watch this movie - but it'll be worth it.

Apparently there's a sequel too - though I don't see how...

4 stars

This film should be better - a great writer (John le Carre) and a superb cast. However, something doesn't quite gel and I never felt really connected to the characters or cared about them. Maybe it's the direction? Not sure.

Anyway, the story strains credibility on several occasions - we're expected to believe that violent Russian gangsters can overnight turn into good caring fluffy bunny types. We're also expected to believe the Ewan McGregor character (a university poetry lecturer) would be married to a high-flying black lawyer. Sorry, but that's so unlikely and to affect my willing suspension of disbelief (essentially when watching any fictitious drama). I am sure John le Carre did not write it like that.

So, all in all, this is an oddly limp affair. My reaction to it is 'meh'.

And the Russian mafia are a lot nastier and less slick than portrayed, though there is much truth in the way they clean money in the City of London.

2 stars.

Gosh this film is dreadful. Now, I am rather fond of black humour and the darker the better. But this just fails on all counts. The plot is risible. The story is dull. The supposed shock value wallows in a puddle of tedium. And basically this is 90 minutes of my life I'm never getting back.

Now, some Scandi movies are great. But this isn't. Avoid.

No stars.

A stellar cast here - but it can't help this being rather plodding and derivative. No doubt the novel it's based on (almost certainly promoted to women of a certain age) is equally plodding and derivative, so maybe that's not the fault of the film.

Vanessa Redgrave loves playing her mad old women, but Olivia Coleman is never very believable for me in her roles, and she isn't here (though I know others adore her).

This is the sort of film the BBC adores - all major characters are female, for a start.

Spooky stereotypes and tropes abound: big house, mystery 'women in white', corner of eye glimpses of possible child, mad aristocratic family, dissolute aristocratic brother, mental aristocratic sister, hints of incest etc. The type of stuff we've seen a thousand times before on TV dramas and in old B-movies.

I saw the twist coming a mile off. This is the sort of thing that works better as a TV drama really so no idea why it was a feature film at all. Made with BBC (i.e. OUR) money. One wonders why.

But all fairly watchable and a way to pass the time. Mercifully short at 90 minutes too.

Almost forgotten it already, however.

2.5 stars rounded up for the pretty scenery efficiently directed (BUT nowhere does it mention where this was filmed! I know I've been there!)

This film is written and directed by Terry Jones who also directed all the Monty Python movies. Other members of the Monty Python team also voice the aliens in this movie. It is therefore probably not surprising some parts feel very 'Monty Python' with some sequences basically copied from Life of Bryan (no spoiler).

It's basically just a version of the old story of a hero being granted wishes by a genie (or aliens here - and life of Bryan even had aliens so obviously that's a Terry Jones' fixation!)

Possibly the best bit of the movie is the dog - which Robin Williams voiced as one of his last roles before his untimely death. The dog is just Grrrrrrreat!

The plot is silly at times, especially re the American military antagonist cartoon character.

However, it all just about hangs together and is sometimes life out loud funny. Mercifully short too - and quickfire, so wherever a gag is so silly or doesn't work that well, it's OK because we're soon on to the next one!

I particularly liked the word play and misunderstandings of the Simon Pegg character's wishes!

What is not funny or good at all is the music - a track at the beginning (apparently by Roger Taylor from Queen) is dreadful; and ending track by Kylie Minogue is equally awful. SUCH a shame Eric Idle couldn't have written one of his funny songs for this film. Either that, or just have silence or a DECENT song or piece of music from the archive.

So 4 stars. We enjoyed it and laughed. Job done!

As others have stated, this is a very boring and amateurish movie - so amazed it's been so highly praised and nominated for awards (I suspect this is because of its portrayal of Africa).

The first lesson of writing fiction and screenplays is SHOW, DON'T TELL. Well, whatever over-rated art-house Portuguese pixie made this mess of a movie obviously hasn't got a very good grasp of that truism, because this film TELLS you again and again.

Most of it is narration with actors acting out scenes like puppets. In drama, the characters are the ones who are supposed to express views and tell the story through their deeds. That is what grips an audience. I cannot see how anyone can be gripped by this dire film.

A crocodile appears throughout BUT this is never explained. Probably a symbol of something - maybe the CRUSHING bore that this film is? If I had to watch this on a loop I, too, would throw myself to the crocodiles!

How to describe it? Mediocre + feeble. Dull + pointless. It obviously thinks it's clever and intellectual. It's not. It's just monotonous and meaningless.

It's basically just a love triangle set in Portugal and Africa, with some confusing flashbacks (esp at the start).

I tried hard to give this 2 stars for something - but just couldn't face it. 1 star.

This film is so-so, obviously a vehicle for US TV star Kelsey Grammer to do his bumbling Englishman act.

I note there is 'additional writing' credited, and that the producer is also the writer. The number of old jokes and lifted lines I heard was too many to count in the end - I suspect the writers used a book of quotes when cobbling this one together!

It's all a fantasy, utterly unrealistic, a wish fulfilment film really, as fantastical as Jurassic Park or Big.

And it has such stereotypes of English upper class people they could even be called racist. But then this movie was made for a US and international audience, NOT a British one, and foreign audiences love to think all Brits live in mansions and know the Queen!

The French director may also like to know that in Britain we have no 'Main Street' - as have the high street!

This movie is the definition of 'meh'. Not awful. Not dreadful. Just....well...MEH!

Wanna watch a great movie on the financial crisis? That's 'Margin Call'. Not this.

3 stars. JUST. It was going to be 2 but I liked the dog and the tramp, and also spotting places I know in London. There's also a joke about Nelson Mandela that made me laugh out loud!

Well, if this is a 'comedy', I'm a Greenland shark! Not one laugh from this little film about 2 squabbling brothers.

It's basically all set in irredeemably bleak Iceland (this is the 2nd Icelandic film I have seen - the first, 'Of Horses and Men' was equally dour and bleak, but better overall).

And it's all about sheep and scrapie, with flocks being destroyed etc.

I like little independent films and would like to give it more, but even at its short length, I was clock-watching after the half-way point. So 2 stars.

I was looking forward to this movie, but was so bored throughout as the whole thing was predictable and derivative of many other films and stories (The Village by M Night Shaylaman being one, and he nicks his stories from past books and films too).

No spoilers here. Just to say the CGI effects will impress young teens. Also, I believe the teen boy actor here is a favourite of teen girls, which is no doubt why the movie was made and that actor got the gig.

Probably best to avoid unless you're a teenage girl or a tweenager with a crush.

1 star.

The first thing for me to say is that this sort of freeform jazz is not my favourite sort of music. In fact, I tend to call it 'fire in a pet shop' music. I prefer a pleasant melody!

The second this is that this is a fascinating movie about Miles' retirement 1975-9 when he was high on cocaine and sex addiction (indeed after his death in 1991 it was revealed he was taking a drug used by HIV infected patients).

The ending is confusing - bearing in mind Miles Davis died on 28 September 1991. I knew little about Miles Davis except Some Kind of Blue from the late 50s, and the later jazz funk isn't really my thing.

But the film jobs along nicely enough, though I'd be surprised if this true story were not massively embellished.

I think Ewan McGregor is miscast though. I wonder if the Rolling Stone journalist was really Scottish at all!

Interesting too that Miles Davis came from a very prosperous and ranch-owning family, so not the oppressed African-American who made it at all! His dad was a rich dentist!

But still 3.5 stars rounded up.