Film Reviews by PV

I enjoyed this film - but found the second half a bit 'jumping the shark'.

The first half however is hilarious, as an old man encounters various random happenings which lead him to be pursued by a gang of heavies and the police: in this it's a bit Ealing Comedy really! Some larger than life characters too make this a treat.

The action is intercut with this man's memories of his oddball life. These episodes - though utterly surreal and farfetched - manage to hang together well and there are some laugh out loud moments. Of course, this will bring to mind Forest Gump (which I hated) or Zelig or Orlando, as the man is shown in his youth in the companies of dictators and presidents etc. But it rattles along fine, and I loved all the explosions too!

Until we move into the second half, where twee silliness and absurd coincidences strained my suspension of disbelief in the characters and story. An East End cockney crime lord living in Bali and his end make this one coincidence too far.

Having said that, it's an unusual and different film, though there is rather a glut of novels at the moment of old people going a-wandering (that Harold Fry book and many others). It seems a subgenre all its own now maybe?

Still, I enjoyed watching it and it was better than I expected - so 4 stars just for that first half.

This film is a passable attempt to paint a portrait of drunken doomed Welsh poet Dylan Thomas in his sad final years. It is perhaps a study of alcoholism more than anything else though, as well as the sheer stark pomposity of the academic world when confronted by the creative one,

There was a BBC drama last year (2014 - the centenary of Dylan's birth) that portrayed the poet's final trip to New York (where he died aged 39 in 1953 after drinking too much whisky and then getting injected with painkillers by doctors...) - and to be fair, that was the better drama. 'Dylan in New York'?

This film has more pretensions and aims for the arty audience. It is clearly low-budget, with bars and hotels in Swansea standing in for New York - but attempts to be surrealism and impressionistic at times rather than aiming for documentary realism.

The poetry gets a good airing - and the early work of Thomas always sounds great - but at the end of this perhaps flimsy and undeveloped film, I felt that despite sound great scenes (for example a great ghost story session), it lacked the depth of the BBC 2014 drama.

It may also be called a tad self-indulgent, maybe a result of the state funding for its budget (via Film Wales) or the fact that the actor who plays Thomas and the director also so-wrote the screenplay. I suspect a good editor and an outside voice to suggest screenplay changes would have been a big help.

Anyway, a modest addition to the portrayals of Dylan Thomas, a man whose early life was genius and who's later years a study in the drink taking the man.

Not as good or groundbreaking as it thinks it is.

Just average, and thankfully not too long. 3 stars

This really is an awful film - schmaltzy fantasy slush, aimed at a US female market, I think (and produced by Queen of Schmaltz Oprah Winfrey and also Spielberg).

It is offensive in many ways too. Firstly, it persists with the - frankly - racist myths about bad British food. It is utterly untrue that, as the main character here argues, British vegetables 'have no taste and no soul'. Maybe he should remember that it was actually the British who introduced tea-drinking to India and also, with other Europeans, gave India potatoes, tomatoes, and even chillies (native to south America NOT Asia!). Also, the fact is no Indian restaurant (even one serving British Indian food - which is a British creation) would survive in rural France, where people don't like spicy hot food and are deeply conservative, eating what they know (and where a lot of the French would be deeply racist against any incomer Indians). But never let the facts get in the way of a good racist anti-British rant eh?

Also, the movie promotes the lie that it always rains in England (in fact London gets less annual rainfall than Paris or Rome!) and that the UK is 'cold'. No it isn't! The British climate is maritime and changeable BUT it is never extreme. You want cold - go to new York or Berlin!

The film is written by Stephen Knight - and if this is the same guy who wrote Dirty Pretty Things then he has fallen far indeed. It's a painting by numbers script, with VERY unlikely romantic relationships mirroring others, and utterly unbelievable character arcs meaning goodies become baddies and vice versa, up until a predictable Hollywood huggy third act. I had hoped that the 'baddie' chef may come back to wreak revenge, and pierce the big bubble of balderdash and saccharine fairy tale this film descends into, but no such luck.

No doubt many middle aged sentimentalist women will love this film, and identify with Helen Mirren.

Me, I feel I wasted 2 hours of my life watching an overlong, lazy, schmaltz-fest which, incredibly, ends up being racist and offensive. Want a food movie? Watch Babette's feast or Eat Man Drink Woman - not this trash.

I don't usually like Mike Leigh films - that preachy, 1970s-style-improvised shtick makes me want to turn off - as does his usual condemnation of any working class character who wants to aspire to better (and this despite Leigh himself being the rich very middle class son of a doctor).

However, I have always loved Turner and it's great to see a film about him (though shocking it was largely funded by French companies, it seems!)

The plot is wafer thin, yet there are 2 limp plot points; but really, this is episodic in structure, and perhaps all the better for it, as it allows the award-winning cinematographer to create shots that mirror Turner's paintings.

I also loved hearing real Kentish dialect from Margate; these days, everything's been swallowed by Estuary English and London-speak, but there was always a distinct Kentish dialect, for those who know.

And one thing is also love about this film is it shows how someone in England from a poor background could rise to the top (and in his day Turner was really VERY rich - something this socialist director deliberately hides from view, I think). Just like Nelson, or the poet John Clare, he rose from a basic education to the forefront of his field (something leftie nationalist academics who claim that only happened in Scotland will have to acknowledge - the English have as many salt of the earth success stories as Scotland; in fact, way more).

Because it lacks the preaching and polemic, maybe this is Mike Leigh's best film (certainly since the early-mid 70s). It's a bit over-long and occasionally confusing (a who's who game is fun!). Plus, a slighter stronger plot frame to hang the painterly episodes on would have been a plus.

But lovely to see Margate and Kent in a movie!

Watch and wallow in the genius of Turner. 4 stars.

This sequel is well worth a watch, though not as good as the first Inbetweeners movie (which made anyone involved in it rich through having 'points').

Slickly written, with plenty of pace and some accurately portrayed irritating gap year characters (esp Ben the SO true to life white-dreadlocked public school tool - I have known many like him!), this is at times very funny indeed.

Yes, it's crude, lewd, laddish, adolescent and often childish - BUT that is FUNNY and I do so which the po-faced twerps who run TV and diversity-worshipping petals at the BBC especially would get off their sanctimonious high horses and realise that (instead of commissioning endless shows by unfunny and 'politically correct' female comedians).

Will is a true hero for the modern moronic age - a throwback to a more rational, intelligent world, who thus stands out like a non-texting thumb amongst a crowd of digital dunces.

Having praised this, now some criticism - there are some gaping plot holes (characters and plot lines, eg the streaking one, just vanish for no reason).

But the characters are strong and well-drawn, and the 4 Inbetweeners (the mother, father, child and wildcard - screenwriters will know what I mean) ping well off each other.

Sure, it could all have been on TV, made as a series of 4 or 6. But these actors are now rich and want to do other things, so fair enough.

This film is more enjoyable that, for example, the tedious Grand Budapest Hotel which was so awful I switched off half way through, and far better than most BBC drama, which plumbs new depths of groaning tedium with every diversity-trained step it takes.

I was going to give this 3, but now I think it should be 3.5+ - so 4 stars.

Watch, laugh and cringe!

I really enjoyed this film. Sure, it's full of pseudo-philosophical Frenchie twaddle (you really can tell this film is part-French just from that!); sure, it's heavily influenced by The Matrix and other Hollywood nonsense; and sure, it's full of set-piece chases and martial arts and car chase stuff, to appeal to the Chinese market (that is what has ruined the James Bond movies, which used to be fun and funny).

But I enjoyed this way more than the last James Bond film.

The special effects are wonderful. The film is trim and efficient, coming it at less than 90 minutes, and moves along at a cracking right-rollicking rate.

The acting is great, esp Scarlet J, who played another sci-fi role in 'Under the Skin'. Her character arc here is so utterly massive, but you believe the transformation, due to the magic of sci-fi and a Bond-like drug-dealer plot line.

This really is a cracking thriller, spoilt by some silly wildlife shots at the start and by over-intellectualising Frenchie philosophical waffle at the end.

I suspected it might connect with Lucy, the skeleton of the oldest human found in Africa, and it does, esp in a weird, perhaps unintentionally comic, time travel sequence.

But otherwise, just great Frenchie fun! 4 stars.

This film hooks you in the first few seconds and doesn't let go. I sat transfixed watching it (and used subtitles to better understand all the dialogue). It's from a John le Carre novel, so except lots of twists and turns.

Philip Seymour Hofman in what I think is his last role gives a superbly understated performance.

The labyrinthine layers of the secret service - or rather, secret services - and their skulduggery, competition, betrayals etc are dissected as the plot moves forward and the characters develop.

A really superb thriller, which I could watch more than once. This is in a whole different league to the usual Hollywood shoot-em-up movies about the same subject.

A very timely film too. I watch this the day before Jihadi John was named, and have just been looking at some so-called 'charities' for Palestinians and Syrian relief which syphon off a proportion of funds to send to Islamofascist terrorists. This film does not exaggerate a thing - this stuff is happening right now.

A brilliant film. 5 stars

This movie, like the first 300 (which is set at the same time in Thermapolae) is utter tosh - with some unintentionally funny hammed up lines in it too, so enjoy it as comedy if nothing else. However, it is entertaining though half-computer game as it's all done on green screen.

Interestingly but absurdly, the producers decided they needed female characters so rewrite history to create superwoman characters to battle the Greeks and then the Queen of the Spartans to side with them.

It is all utter twaddle but efficient at 90 minutes, and really quite enjoyable to watch for a bit of trash movie escapism. What I like is that the film doesn't pretend to be what it's not - it knows it's OTT tosh and doesn't pretend to be anything else. And it's rather well written in places too, in an overblown way.

So I enjoyed it. 3 stars.

This movie is selling itself on a gimmick - the fact it was filmed over 12 years with the same cast - which, if nothing else, is a logistical nightmare! It should definitely win an Oscar for best gimmick of the year - but no other one.

The film itself is OK, but nothing more. It could have been made with different actors playing the child and adult character, of course. It would not have received so much attention then, however.

The first hour is great - when the boy is 8 years old and more.

When adolescence hits the whole thing goes downhill, betting bogged down in typical American psychobabble and waffling about feelings. Moreover, I did not believe for a minute the journey of some of the characters - esp the mum who goes from uneducated dimwit to professor genius in 5 years; and I really don't believe in what happens to her university professor teacher, a silverback smoothie. The plot points are calculated to elicit sympathy for the mother and boy and his sister. But instead of that, they had me groaning - plus they actually made the movie a bit misandrist.

Enjoy the first hour. But don't expect too much from the rest.

Great music though - so well done to whoever sorted the soundtrack.

3 stars for an average movie.

On one level, this movie about vain, spoilt, self-obsessed, pill-popping, pretentious Hollywood celebrities reminds me of Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine - especially in the character of Havana, the has-been flaky film star.

Benji is the star, however, as he finds himself a star aged 9 and washed up aged 13 - and his utterly nutty dysfunctional family provided the plot details - which are, it is true, unbelievable, but which does actually work because LA is so nutty that anything is possible.

I dislike films which show 'ghosts' in that tricksy Hollywood movie way, but it just about works here in showing the utterly unhinged loopy-loo family with dad John Cusack and his mad wife, daughter and obviously deeply disturbed and unhappy son.

The sheer cruelty of ambition is laid bare, with Havana skipping around when a part becomes available to her because of a child's death. It is just totally appalling and cringe-making but - and this is the clincher - one can believe it happening. Hollywood ambition really is that brutal; these people really are that blinded by fame and the illusion of stardom that humanity come a very distant second.

I don't usually like David Cronenburg but I did like this - it's my favourite film by him, I think.

4 stars or maybe even more. I wouldn't mind watching it again.

As soon as this film finished I wanted to watch it all again - and I thought about it for the rest of the day, and the next day... This may be because the plot is a tad confusing - but then, so was that in The Usual Suspects... But really, I'd like to get to grips with the plot from early on this time.

If you have ever thought of taking cocaine, watch this movie and see how it gets out of Colombia to reach the US and Europe.

This is a well-written, well-acted, well-made thriller - very slick and ultra violent in a grand guignol way. I knew when certain gruesome things were mentioned in 'plants' early in the film we'd see them later on, and sure enough, we did!

Not the best thriller ever - but very watchable. As I said, I'd like to watch it all again now.

4 stars.

This 1969 film has a star cast - with a young Anthony Hopkins being historionic and moral in the face of callous spy-handler Ralph Richardson and his upper crust M16 bods.

It starts in Finland, then moves to the UK and finally East Germany (with some unusual scenery of the place).

It's all a bit like a B-move Day of the Jackal - and based on a John Le Carre novel too. But it's still a good. effective thriller.

The handsome star - Christopher Jones - is excellent, but seems to have disappeared without trace soon after this movie (apparently he was drugged against his knowledge whilst in Ryan's Daughter in 1970, and left acting to be an artist after that).

This movie is a bit preachy at times, in line with the late 60s anti-war 'love n peace' shtick - however, it's still a good watch and unlike modern movies does not have a booming soundtrack. Also, the actors - all British - get their foreign accents pretty spot-on (take note lazy BBC drama producers!).

4 stars.

This is an enjoyable film for music fans - esp those of Hendrix - and all the more impressive as the film makers were not allowed to use any of Jimi's songs (hence the use of standards, Beatles songs, the Troggs' Wild Thing etc).

The period is evoked well and on a budget - and some interesting issues are raised.

But somehow I just do not believe that Jimi Hendrix was in effect created by his then girlfriend (Hendrix always played like Hendrix) and growing his hair was the fashion of the age - not his posh totty g/f's idea.

Also, not sure I believe in the cartoon policeman of the day stopping people and confiscating their clothes.

I wonder how much else is made up therefore.

But anyway, a good cast, great central performance, and thankfully not the usually glossy Hollywood biopic.

Sadly no subtitles; but anyway, cue up the Hendrix CD to play after this film finishes because it does miss the music (thanks to Hendrix's family's refusal of a request for the music to be used, apparently).

4 stars.

This film reminded me of the cheapo airport thrillers and especially the sort of thing that was popular in the 50s and 60s - and the credits at the end reveal it's based on a novel by a pretty much unknown writer. I suspect they got the big acting talent on board by having Ridley Scott as Exec Producer - but really, this is a B movie pretending to be a top feature, It's not. it's a B movie.

Very silly really, and this film also manages to be utterly irritating and annoying at several points. The main character is a pain.

I found a lot of it pretty predictable. Those who enjoy a good love story/sob story will like it, no doubt. Me, I was glad when it finished - and despite the fact it's only 88 minutes, it felt MUCH longer.

There are 2 really bad things about this film: a terrible soundtrack of the sort of music one may see on some 4th rate corporate training video, and secondly, the fact there are no subtitles on the DVD!

Otherwise, I loved this film. Great acting from great actors (Michael Caine, Tom Courtenay, the late David Hemmings and the late Bob Hoskins plus Helen Mirren) illuminates a slice of social history as we see how people's lives were affected by events and attitudes of the 20th century.

What's more, it is just about the only film I know to feature Margate, Chatham and Rochester.

This is a film to wallow in and contemplate; if you want fast paced plotting, this is not for you.

But I loved it. Such a shame the music is so rubbish. So glad this film avoided what would happen these days, especially at the hands of the pc BBC (unnecessary female characters and storylines tagged on; loads of token black and Asian characters to up to diversity quotient).

Good old-fashioned film-making and none the worse for that - and it's from a best-selling award-winning novel.

4.5 stars rounded up