Film Reviews by RD

There is a plot, although it's so thin you could read a newspaper through it. Mel Gibson has an unimportant role as the base manager of a rather plump and odd looking misfit who is sent to Panama to oversee a deal involving a Russian helicopter. Mr Gibson acts well in the character but like all the other characters they are struggling with an amateur and humourless script for the whole film, so it stumbles along and it doesn't really warrant the description of "thriller".

It's a shoot 'em up sort of a film without much story content, but with plenty of grungy rock music to try and inject some excitement, and plenty of gratuitous swimsuit shots to appeal to the younger males who seem to be who the film is aimed at. Sudden sex scenes are peppered throughout to appeal to the lads, and are sadly devoid of passion or any meaning apart from the nudity.

There is quite a bit of action as chases, shootings abound, but so badly directed and written it's a relief when the end titles roll up.

The bad part is the overall film, the story is half hearted and looks like it was written on a napkin over lunch, and it is very dull and poor. If you watch it for the story then it's dull.

The good part is the incredibly imaginative cinematography, with a huge range of innovative and brilliant filming tricks. The music is well chosen and adds to each scene beautifully.

There are a lot of odd techniques used, like switching between black and white photography to colour and then back again, and insertion of animated parts, all done quickly and in keeping with each scene. The editing is sharp and keeps each scene going at a superb pace. I tend to think this is the young Mr Tarantino flexing his directing skills.

Quite a mixed up film, and if you love cinema then viewing this is a must if only for the ingenious use of the medium.

You really need to know the story of Nixon's life before coming to this film, as the scenes are many and not easy to follow as the dialogue mentions characters by the dozen that are not quickly recognisable. Hence the meanings and relevance to the life of Nixon are for the main part lost on this viewer. The story quickly loses its aim and any clarity is also lost.

The film then becomes a series of scenes of Nixon's life, hopping backwards and forwards in time, and often with explosive outbursts, giving the viewer an idea of Nixon's demons, but with no real depth of story, especially as the dialogue is often undecipherable. Many of the scenes, especially when he was a young boy are so sentimental and shallow. And so it goes on until the welcome end of the film.

There are also some serious technical problems with this DVD, it dates from 1995 when US widescreen films often appeared in 4:3 format with black bars top and bottom, so that the picture shrinks nowadays to a small widescreen box in the centre of the screen with large black borders on all four edges in order to get the aspect ratio correct and natural. Selecting Zoom, Full, Natural and Auto options in the TV managed to get various pictures to fill the screen but always in a distorted aspect ratio which made viewing tiresome.

The two channel audio track (possibly in Dolby Matrix surround) is a good 10-12dB lower than any other DVD and our home cinema amplifier volume was wound up to unheard of levels just to hear the film comfortably. Both these problems are possibly indicative of early DVD production when mistakes were common, and from a time when widescreen was not yet popular in the USA.

This is a very attractively filmed period drama set around 1924, but spoilt by an overload of flash-backs and flash-forwards that could induce serious temporal whiplash.

This is coupled with a very loose script that left this viewer constantly trying to make up the story from vague hints as the film unfolds.

There are hints of this, hints of that, and scenes that appear important, but not with enough actual content to indicate the story it is supposed to be describing. For instance Mrs Niven (Olivia Coleman) is positively bursting with grief for nearly all the film, but we're only treated to a smidgen of a hint of what may be the cause in what could be a very moving climax scene if we could only be sure if we're guessing the reasons right!

The story ambles along with a series of isolated scenes throughout the film, each one involving the viewer in the same way (i.e. what on earth is happening here?) but the absence of any continuous storyline leaves one just admiring the scenery and fabulous interiors of the houses and hoping that it becomes clearer later on.

It does become clearer towards the end, but only after a lot of time wasted with a feeble and hollow story during most of the film, and at a point where this viewer could no longer care.

Like many conspiracy theories, the more convoluted and wild they become, the more interest they generate. Except this film is on overload from the start.

I must admit to nodding off at intervals during this film, but I'm sure it didn't cause much loss of plot. It all seemed too weird without any saving overview. Everybody was under suspicion, but of what?

I'm still unsure of who was the arch enemy nor what was the ultimate goal. Not too bothered either.

Lame and over acted, avoid.

Quite possibly the worst film I've ever watched, all the way through as well, as it was so bad I had to make sure it didn't suddenly recover.

It starts with the lead character, Das suffering from his nagging wife, and deciding to go on a fishing trip with his two mates. None have ever fished, it's just an opportunity to get away, have some beers and relax.

On their travels they meet some very odd characters, and come across a car full of violent thugs. Another character, with only one eye and a disfigured face brutally kills one of the thugs. The thugs think it was our three fishing mates and pursue them for the rest of the film. The one-eyed killer appears regularly and brutally kills the thugs one at a time.

The dialogue (translated from Kazakh) never reaches the heights of really meaning anything, and often appears and disappears in the subtitles before you can read it.

All acting is dreadfully overdone and full of the characters shouting at each other, whether in fun or terror.

The many gory scenes are short and unpleasant, I reckon they would rate as two on a one to ten scale where Mr Tarantino would rate as ten for cinema realism and validity to the plot.

Plot? Ha! This film needs an x-ray to see if there are any signs of one.

It really is very hammy, empty and over-acted. A waste of viewing time when you could be better employed watching some paint dry.

This could be an episode from any of the rural medical tv shows - Herriot, Dr Finlay etc, except it's really done so well that it puts the others to shame.

Our doctor is a busy rural GP and is diagnosed with an illness which requires some rest, so another practioner comes onto the scene. It's a lady doctor and there is some friction between older experienced doctor and the young, inexperienced female doctor.

Through all sorts of incidents, the two doctors end up working through and reconciling their differences.

This does sound like any of a thousand ordinary plots that have gone before, but this film handles everything so well, with great sadness and loving good humour, in a storyline that never flags.

The acting is delightful and understated, the characters are well formed and the pace of the film is constant.

It is very watchable, very charming and a great feel-good film.

This is a historical drama covering the years after the French revolution from 1789 to 1792, at least for the part of the film we actually watched. It starts slowly with the recognisable storming of the Bastille, but then the plot degenerates into meetings, clashes between factions and some goings on with the King.

Although I did the French Revolution for O level many years ago, badly I'm afraid, this film should be prefaced with a study into the progress and features of the years covered. I found it impossible to follow the storyline as there were so many scenes that I couldn't have known about who or where the characters involved were. It was even difficult to see what revolutionary side most of the characters were on.

As an example we are shown a scene where it looks like the King manages to escape, but then he is shown in a following scene behind bars in what looks like maybe a courtroom or parliament, as it's unclear where the scene is set. This is where an in-depth study of the history books may help interpret the film.

It's well filmed but so difficult to follow we ditched it at about the halfway mark, puzzled and exhausted from trying to decipher the plot.

It feels like this docudrama could have been made to fill 45 minutes and been quite watchable, however it's strung out and padded to feature length which really loses impetus right from the start.

We see Cheney as a drunk student dropping out of college, then becoming an intern in a government building (White House or perhaps The Capitol?). Then he meanders through a political career, with nothing much to see, and then retires.

Then we come to the more interesting part where he returns to become George W's vice president, with a view to taking over the presidency behind the scenes, and showing his dodgy dealings around the Iraq war.

The film shows too much repetitive trivia, and the editing turns the film into the equivalent of a tossed salad as it cuts unrelated scenes together in quick succession.

It's a very poor attempt at a docudrama, but the main character becomes interesting towards the end.

A decent enough plot has been spoiled by a very poor script with dull dialogue and no character involvement. This makes it a very trivial and disappointing film as it skips from scene to scene avoiding any depth.

It's also completely humourless, and gives a great sense of relief when the end credits arrive.

It's quite an achievement to make a film which has good cinematography, music and plot, into becoming a dull formulaic slog from start to finish.

It starts fine and slow, with good acting, but the storyline never gets out of first gear, and scenes come and go with an easy familiarity, without any humour until the ending.

It's not a bad film by any means, but it could do with some jump leads applied every now and then.

Listen out for some interesting distortion from the trumpet in the music that plays over the end credits.

Setting the greed, ambition and depravity of a wealthy steel making family against the backdrop of 1933 Germany with Hitler's Brown Shirts on the rise, this is a detailed and intelligent film. The cinematography is excellent with superb lighting and good acting from all, and the renovation of the film yields colours and sharpness that make the film look a lot younger than 1968/9.

There are some flaws however, some strange edits clip the end of speech, and the plot becomes very elusive and secret at times leading to viewer confusion. This is often due to some low level indistinct dialogue which leaves the viewer wondering what just happened.

Some scenes become clearer later on in the film when you can then work out what happened earlier, so my advice is to either read a detailed synopsis before viewing the film, or watch the film twice when the second viewing may bring some clarity to the plot.

Overall a clever and worthwhile film.

Complete with exotic locations, exciting chase sequences, great shoot outs, and clever gadgets, this fits the bill for a Bond movie.

The Dolby Atmos soundtrack and music is excellent.

There are however some important bits which are sub standard such as a feeble plot, a weak storyline and duff script that reduces Ralph Fiennes to a very wooden version of M.

The female 007 has difficulty acting and fits in well with the general clumsiness of the film.

It relies on a technique often used by weak films, in that scenes are presented without enough information for the viewer to understand, giving a false complexity to the plot in the hope it will impress the hard of thinking. For instance, Bond meets a girl in a black evening dress and they go into a nightclub, some people die then there's a shootout and they escape. What they are there for, what's going on and who's shooting at who is not at all clear.

It's a film of set pieces that are must haves for a Bond movie but unfortunately with very little storyline to engage with. Ian Fleming must be spinning in his grave.

Please please, no more Bond movies! They've run their course and have become a cliché.

Helen Stone flies to Rome with her husband. He gets ill on the plane. No details of outcome of illness until we see Helen tipping the ashes out in the Coliseum. She has several gigolos provided by a scheming Contessa and appears to suspect she is being taken for her money but shows very little. One particular gigolo appears to be in love with her, although this is all very ambiguous. Both appear to be going along with the situation.

Helen is followed occasionally by a young tramp.

Lots of arguments between the main characters fill the dialogue throughout the film, however they were mainly empty shouting arguments, with nothing of any substance or advancement to them.

I haven't read any of Tennessee Williams books, but they must have a lot more substance in them to warrant his reputation as a writer.

This film is empty, without any active thread to the storyline and quite stale throughout. The acting appears very wooden and stilted, even from the great Ms Mirren, due possibly to the overpowering dullness of the script.

Richard Burton arrives at the island on which Elizabeth Taylor lives in a secluded luxury villa. Great scenery which looks good, but from here it all grinds to a halt.

He then spends the film arguing with a tempestuous spoilt brat played by Ms Taylor. Her character is a thinly drawn, prima donna unlikable sort so the depths of her character don't get the opportunity to emerge. Richard Burton plays the teaser and socially invasive male that gets her easily riled. They argue, a lot. Things get thrown and break, a lot. The essential part of the film is the dialogue and story by Tennessee Williams, which may be good in the book but drags on and on in the film with very little to offer in the way of apparent story or wit. An appearance by Noel Coward promises much but delivers very little to the film.

Technically it's very blurred and the sound quality is very poor. Looks like they got an old print to digitise for the DVD.

Not a film to enjoy.