Film Reviews by RP

A zombie plague sweeps the world. Only Brad Pitt has the skill to find the cure. Err, that's it.

While it has tense moments, there is far too much rather obvious CGI special effect work and the 'zombies' are far too much like the Rage-infected critters from '28 Days Later'. In fact it's just too derivative for its own good.

It's not a bad film, but the only originality it shows is the use of British locations and a world-wide scope, which in an American film is somewhat unusual. Here the action switches from the US to Korea to Israel to Wales.

Don't watch it if you're looking for gore or entrail-ripping - it's far too wimpish for that. In fact I reckon it should be called 'War World W' - W for Wimp, that is...

Pretty average stuff, and although there are some tense bits I can't give it more than 3/5 stars.

It's a crime action thriller, it's in Norwegian with subtitles (though there is a dubbed English soundtrack, but I haven't watched that) - but don't let that put you off: it's excellent!

Roger Brown is a successful businessman (a recruitment consultant, aka a 'headhunter') who has an inferiority complex because he's a lot shorter than his beautiful wife. He compensates for this by stealing artwork on the side to allow him to live in an expensive house and to buy his wife (and his mistress) expensive gifts. But he takes a step too far when he steals a Rubens (?) and the owner tracks him down, turning the film into a chase thriller. Great stuff with some excellent scenes and good acting throughout.

The film was nominated for a 2013 BAFTA for 'Best Non-English Language Film' but lost out to the excellent 'Amour' - but in my view it's certainly a worthy contender.

One of the best thrillers I've seen this year. 5/5 stars - highly recommended.

I've recently seen the super-gory 2013 remake so I thought watching the original was in order.

It's a low budget film (IMDB estimates $375,000) directed by Sam Raimi who went on to greater things with further 'Evil Dead' films and the 'Spider-Man' trilogy as well as scriptwriting and producing.

Five friends go off to a cabin in the woods where they find a mysterious book, an incantation from which causes demonic possession. The friends turn into zombie-like killers and there is assorted violence, mayhem and slaughter. Err, that's it.

Way back in 1981 there was no CGI or digital effects, so the effects in the film are somewhat clumsy by today's standards. But it's a classic of the genre and set the scene for many (all?) of the horror films made over the last 30 years.

Great stuff - and in many ways better than the 2013 remake, so I'll give it one more star just for that. 4/5 stars - but that is over-generous.

Based on a Tom Clancy novel, this is one of series of stories whose central character is Jack Ryan. There have been a dozen or so books and five films have been made. The films are 'The Hunt For Red October' (1990) in which Jack Ryan is played by Alec Baldwin, 'Patriot Games' (1992) and 'Clear And Present Danger' (1994) in which Harrison Ford played the role, 'The Sum Of All Fears' (2002) in which Ben Affleck took over the reins, and there is a reboot in the pipeline with 'Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit' (2013) this time with Chris Pine in the role.

Although it was made in 1994, some 20 years ago, 'Clear And Present Danger' hasn't dated as badly as some of the other films - perhaps that's because the so-call 'war on drugs' is still going on and Colombia is a still a major producer, although inevitably the computer technology has been superseded...

Here, Harrison Ford plays Harrison Ford in his usual role as the humble man - this time as modest Jack Ryan, who is promoted to Deputy Director of the CIA and gets entangled in a covert anti-drug cartel military action in Columbia. Things go wrong and he is then entangled in White House politics, but Honest Jack Ryan overcomes the political back stabbing and (of course) comes out on top.

There are good performances from Donald Moffat as the corrupt President and Willem Dafoe as John Clark, leader of the covert operation.

I enjoyed the film when I saw it in the cinema and I enjoyed it today. It has several excellent action scenes, including an outstanding one where a convoy of SUVs is ambushed - and unlike today's action thrillers there is no constant f-ing and blinding.

Good film - 4/5 stars.

Set in Michigan but filmed in Canada, this is a competent thriller with (mostly) competent acting and a competent storyline. The photography is excellent and the snow and blizzards make an excellent backdrop for the story.

It's about families. Baddy brother and sister (who had abusive father) have just robbed a casino. Goody Olympic silver medallist boxer, just released from prison, estranged from father but has good relationship with mother. Young woman cop, working for over-protective father, the local Sheriff. These family relationships collide as baddies on the run hit a deer, crash, and make a run for it. Sister is picked up by boxer, who takes her home for a Thanksgiving dinner. Woman cop chases baddy brother, who invades the Thanksgiving dinner before final shoot-out.

It's not bad, plenty of shooting, not too many thrills. The supporting actors include Sissy Spacek (good), Kris Kristofferson (wooden), Treat Williams (wooden) but the main parts are OK considering that the men are respectively Aussie and Brit. Unfortunately the family relationship thing gets in the way of the story and the script is a bit on the weak side. As a Brit, this thing about Thanksgiving is all a bit alien to me - and given that Thanksgiving is in November, do they really have blizzards that early? Thank goodness for a temperate climate!

A competent thriller, worth a watch. I'll give it 3/5 stars.

When 'The Sopranos' was first shown on TV I only saw a couple of episodes but have caught up and recently watched Season 1 - and liked it so much that I've just watched Season 2.

And to repeat what I thought about Season 1: this is really great, compelling TV - tinged with some sadness by knowing that lead actor James Gandolfini died recently. From the opening sequence of scenes along the New Jersey Turnpike and the soundtrack music of Alabama 3's 'Woke Up This Morning', the somewhat bizarre scenario of an Italian-American mobster (Tony Soprano, played by James Gandolfini) visiting a psychiatrist to resolve his problems, the focus on Tony's friends / associates and his family rather than crimes and criminal investigation, this is a drama that turns the usual cop-focussed TV series on its head. And it works very well.

In fact, Season 2 perhaps works better than Season 1 - the characters seem to have settled and grown into their roles and the story seems to flow better. Although the scenes in the psychiatrist's office continue they don't dominate the episodes and there is even the novel idea of the psychiatrist herself being so disturbed by the sessions with a known mobster that she herself has counselling - and her psychiatrist is played by renowned director Peter Bogdanovich!

The acting is uniformly excellent but the standout roles are those of Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) and his monster of a mother, Livia (Nancy Marchand). The storyline flows well and seems consistent - providing you don't analyse it too deeply - and is so well told that it's like a good book, difficult to put down. Be aware that there is constant f-ing and blinding and much casual violence - as perhaps you should expect in a realistic (?) depiction of the Italian-American gangster fraternity.

The ending wasn't as rushed as Season 1, but did include semi-boyish jokes about the after effects of a bad chicken vindaloo and dream sequences in which I recognised the boardwalk at Asbury Park, Madame Marie's and the grinning figure of Tillie on the Palace Amusements building... There was of course a much more serious side to the finale as 'Big Pussy' Bonpensiero (Vincent Pastore) gets his come-uppance for being an FBI informer.

There are 13 episodes in Season 2, nominally 1 hour each - that's an awful lot of TV, but I watched it in 3 sittings, so compelling is it. Excellent, compelling viewing. 5/5 stars.

Byzantium is the name of the semi-deserted guesthouse apparently in Hastings (of all places) where two vampires Saoirse Ronan (daughter) and Gemma Arterton (mother) take up residence. Daughter is haunted by her past and longs to tell her tale. Err - that's it.

It's a long (just under 2 hours) film, beautifully photographed, atmospheric and well acted. But if you're looking for fangs, gore, garlic, crosses, coffins, superhuman feats or flying bats then give this one a miss - not only is it long, but it's short on thrills. It's a wordy, slow moving drama.

I found it pretty to look at but very average - 3/5 stars.

I like this film very much. Yes, I know it's a drama, yes, I know that history is twisted for dramatic purposes and the characterisation is flawed, but nonetheless I like it. Whether historical or not, from the opening sequences it gives a flavour of the brutality of war.

The title 'Enemy At The Gates' is taken from William Craig's 1973 history 'Enemy At The Gates - The Battle For Stalingrad' and the central character Vasily Zaitsev was a real person - see his entry in Wikipedia. Just a quote from the intro to that article:

"Vasily Grigoryevich Zaytsev (23 March 1915 – 15 December 1991) was a Soviet sniper during World War II, notable particularly for his activities between 10 November and 17 December 1942, during the Battle of Stalingrad; during this five-week period he killed 225 soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht and other Axis armies, including 11 enemy snipers."

The story of Vasily Zaitsev's (Jude Law) exploits at Stalingrad, together with the other characters, appears as a sub-story in William Craig's book. The surrounding story of the film is, of course, dramatic licence, as is the characterisation of Krushchev (Bob Hoskins). the political commissar (Joseph Fiennes) and the love interest Tania Chernova (Rachel Weisz). The German sniper, Major Köning, is well played by the always excellent Ed Harris.

I have read Antony Beevor's (very readable) 1998 history 'Stalingrad', I am currently reading William Craig's history, I have seen 'Cross Of Iron', I have seen Joseph Vilsmaier's 1993 German film 'Stalingrad', I have seen the episode on 'The World At War' that dealt with the battle of Stalingrad and - and having learned a little of the reality of one of the bloodiest battles in history with up to 2 million deaths, I still like this drama. Yes, everyone speaks British English, yes, it has of course been tarted up to make a (mostly) coherent film script, but it conveys well the atmosphere of a ruined city and the squalor and misery of conflict.

I'll give it 4/5 stars - recommended.

'Death Proof', directed by the renowned Quentin Tarantino, is supposedly a homage to the 'grindhouse' films of the 1970s - 1980s, perhaps what in the UK we might call 'video nasties'. It first appeared as part of the 'Grindhouse' double bill of 'Death Proof' together with Robert Rodriguez' 'Planet Terror'.

The film tells the tale of a serial killer, Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell), who targets groups of young women and kills them with his supposedly 'death proof' car, with stripped out interior, roll bar etc as used in movie stunts. The film is in two halves: in the first, the women are killed; in the second, Mike gets his come-uppance.

While the film may be a homage to the B movie, complete with streaks, bad continuity, abrupt change of shot, transition from colour to black and white and back again, weak story and poor dialogue, regrettably these directorial tricks outweigh whatever point Mr Tarantino may have wanted to make. In particular, the deliberately weak story and poor dialogue make for a very bad film indeed.

The worst aspect is that it is so *boring*. The boring women f-and-blind, talk about boring subjects, and hang out in a bar. The car action with Mike is a very short segment. The second half of the film is similar, with a different group of women who also f-and-blind and talk about boring subjects. While the car action is slightly longer, it's still boring stuff and the addition of the NZ stuntwoman Zoë Bell frankly doesn't add very much.

Nope, didn't like it. See it only if you're a Tarantino completist or you have a burning desire to be bored. 2/5 stars - but only because I have seen even worse.

If you like your horror films to be gory, with buckets of blood and outrageously violent then this is the film for you.

It's a remake of Sam Raimi's 1981 film and is similar in that it tells the tale of a group of five friends in an isolated cabin in the woods with an ancient book, an incantation from which leads to demonic possession.

If you enjoy slaughtering, butchery, cutting off of hands and limbs and general bodily harm with an assortment of weapons including shotgun, knife, syringe, electric carving knife, nail gun, hammer, crowbar, chainsaw, machete, shard of glass, fire, biting, boiling water, suffocation with plastic bag, not to mention a live burial - then this will be right up your street. And there's constant f-ing and blinding as well as sexual innuendo.

This is one of the goriest films I've seen - but it's just too over-the -top and the violence becomes run-of-the-mill and further attempts to shock eventually become boring and predictable. There is definitely no subtlety here!

One for the gore hounds, otherwise very average stuff. 3/5 stars.

Teen-scream cult classic, high school holocaust, mildly satirical horror - however you view this film, it's clear that it has stood the test of time remarkably well. It's coming up to 40 years old, it's still excellent and still rated as 18 material, although it's not very gruesome by today's standards.

Based on Stephen King's first novel, directed by Brian De Palma (who went on to make 'Dressed To Kill', 'Scarface', 'The Untouchables' etc) and starring the beautifully weird looking Sissy Spacek in the title role with Piper Laurie as her fanatically religious mother and with a small part for the young(ish) John Travolta. [Aside: the 'teenagers' do seem to be played by actors in their 20s]

Carrie is shy and awkward, isolated and brow-beaten by her mother, and bullied at school. She is terrified when her first period starts in the school showers after a game of volleyball, and begins to develop telekinetic powers. Her classmates are punished for bullying her, but they plot public humiliation for Carrie at the Prom with (literally) buckets of blood. Carrie's telekinetic powers come to her rescue and are used against the prom crowd, the school and her mother. Suffice to say there are few survivors...

Silly stuff, yes - but it's well scripted and acted, with Sissy Spacek perfect for the role and Piper Laurie giving a superbly over the top performance. Great stuff - if you've not seen it before, watch it. If you have seen it, watch it again. 5/5 stars.

Yet another outing for Robert Downey Jr as brash, fast talking, opinionated genius inventor Tony Stark aka Iron Man. Plenty of crash-bang-wallop, lots of special effects (it really deserves to be seen on a big screen), wise cracking, and really bad baddies. And there is a small role for great actor Ben Kingsley - perhaps he needed the money?

The storyline is too silly to summarise here, but suffice to say that it all seems reasonable for a blockbuster comic-character movie :)

Just allow yourself to be swept along with the action and you may find that you quite enjoy it - it's a gloriously silly over-the-top comic-book romp for boys. 4/5 stars.

Why hadn't I heard about this zombie flick before? It's probably not the first zombie film you might think of (that's if you've heard of it at all) but it is a rather good example of its genre, slow and atmospheric, reasonably well scripted, and a few classic shambling, entrail eating zombies. And although there's not much gore, what there is nicely gruesome :)

Made in 1974 - so its about 40 years old. The sequences under the opening titles show shots of 1970s Manchester and assorted residents in clothes of the day, but other than the lead character's over-long hair and 1970s dress sense and a few cars of the period it doesn't seem outdated. That's because, despite the title, there isn't much of Manchester in it - it's set in fictional Southgate, supposedly a village in the Lake District.

This is a Spanish-Italian production so the fact that it's set in England is a bit unusual. I assume the non-English actors' lines were dubbed in post production...

The story goes like this: George is on his way to Windermere on his Norton (without a helmet) when Edna in her mini damages his bike. They team up and head for her destination of Southgate, where it turns out that an experimental agricultural insect-killing machine using 'ultra sonic radiation' is waking the dead. There are assorted encounters with zombies, no-one believes them (of course), they are suspected by a cop with a bad US-Irish accent of being drug crazed murdering hippies, and there is a final zombie sequence in a hospital with a final (fairly obvious) twist at the end.

For me, the most fascinating thing is the filming locations - it was mostly shot in and around Castleton in the Peak District with a bit of Dovedale thrown in, all places that I know well and recognise. For more info on this look here:

It seems it's a cult classic and I can see why - well worth a watch. 4/5 stars.

I've recently seen the 2002 remake with Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank and sought out the original 1997 Norwegian version. And I liked perhaps a little more.

The storyline is very similar and goes something like this: Swedish cop + partner arrives in a northern Norwegian town to investigate the killing of a teenage girl. In the fog and suffering from sleep deprivation he accidentally shoots his partner - but then makes the serious mistake of trying to cover it up. His lies catch up with him as he attempts to frame the girl's boyfriend, there is a final struggle in the killer's hideout, after which the killer drowns.

The Hollywood version has attempted to spice things up a little with a backstory about the lead detective being investigated by Internal Affairs and by having a final shootout. Here, the action and the actors are much more restrained and the film moves more slowly. The acting is excellent throughout. In my view the director attempts much more successfully to show the effects of the 24 hour daylight as the lead character suffers increasingly from lack of sleep.

If you fancy watching a Norwegian language film with subtitles, give this one a go. I liked it very much - in fact I liked both versions. Highly recommended - 4/5 stars - the same as the remake - but I think this original version is the better film.

I was looking for films directed by Christopher Nolan ('Memento', 'The Prestige', 'Inception', the 'Dark Knight' Batman trilogy, 'Man of Steel' etc) when I found this excellent 2002 film. It's a remake of a 1997 Norwegian film of the same name and transplants the action to summertime Alaska, where it's daylight for 24 hours and the lead character gets no sleep for several days - hence the title.

Al Pacino and Robin Williams usually play loud, fast talking characters - but here they are much more restrained, and all the better for it. Hilary Swank has a role as a keen rookie cop (but is somewhat weak) and there's also a small part for Katherine Isabelle (she of 'Ginger Snaps' and the more recent 'American Mary' fame).

The story goes something like this: LA detective (Pacino) + partner arrive in small Alaskan town to investigate the killing of a teenage girl, while back in LA he's being investigated by Internal Affairs. In the fog and suffering from sleep deprivation he accidentally shoots his partner - but then makes the serious mistake of trying to cover it up. His lies catch up with him as it turns out the baddy (Williams, cast against type) has seen the shooting, blackmails him, and frames the boyfriend of the dead girl. However, rookie cop (Swank) figures things out and confronts baddy, leading to a final slightly disappointing Hollywood style shoot-out.

The acting is uniformly excellent, the script is good, the locations (I think it was filmed in Canada) and the photography are great, and Pacino is well cast as his craggy face and baggy eyes (sorry Al!) do indeed give the impression of severe loss of sleep. And Christopher Nolan directs with the skill we have come to expect.

I thoroughly enjoyed this claustrophobic drama - 4/5 stars. Now to watch the original Norwegian version...