Film Reviews by RD

This is a bit like watching a third rate stand up comedian die on stage, you feel for the actors and it's all quite embarrassing.

There's lots of laddish cockney swearing and Stalin appears to be based on Ray Winstone's cockney gangsters but this Stalin not as funny or believable.

I'm not sure how anybody could have classified this as a comedy, as there appears only to be a soft attempt at humour. For instance there's a protracted scene early on where two Radio Moscow staff argue over the details of a misheard phone call. It starts off as a good attempt at a funny situation, but quickly fails and then is drawn out for far too long after the thing has died.

There is an odd mixture of the violence of Stalin's torturing and trying to be funny about it. This is difficult at the best of times and whereas Tarantino manages this well, this lot are way below that standard, and the film becomes quite a sad mess. It all comes over as a very amateurish - and not watchable. We gave up at the death of Stalin, we couldn't take any more. One of the worst films I've seen for a long time.

This covers the awkward topics of French and German national identity right after the first world war, along with the trauma of the soldiers and the bereavement problems of the families on both sides. This is a lot to pack into one film, and it is incredibly well written into a moving and well paced story, superbly acted by all, and stunningly filmed with an imaginative choice of black & white merging into colour at the right moments. An excellent and very watchable film.

This has all the makings of a great film, a touching story of letters from an American writer who cannot source English books in New York to a charming old fashioned book shop in London who manage to send her the books. It covers many years after the second world war and food parcels are sent to the shop in thanks for the help.

It's touching, well acted but somehow does not develop or go into any depth of the relationships on show. Just a lot of glee on receiving each parcel, and a small insight into English family life at the time. Nothing really seems to happen that could make it into an absorbing story. Then it ends.

Beautifully filmed, and all actors are fine, but the film never quite gets off the ground owing to the poor screenplay.

Along the lines of Abigail's Party, this brings the theme up to date, and not much time is wasted with niceties as each character lays bare their insults and weaknesses. The characters are extreme, and the dialogue and action is fast paced.

The unusual and wide choice of music that Timothy Spall plays throughout most of the film on his record player is wonderful and adds a lot to the edgy nature of the film. Great acting from all characters make it a film very worthwhile watching.

The extra feature on the disc shows "the making of" and is in colour, showing the set in its full splendour, and I can't help feeling the picture would be even better in colour than black and white.

This appears to be done to the usual successful template of Euro-Scandinavian thrillers but doesn't quite reach the mark.

The plot is a bit thin and feels slow even though things are happening at a reasonable pace, but the characters are suddenly introduced and not portrayed with any depth to become interesting, and we were left with a lack of involvement throughout. Then towards the end of episode 3 it turned towards ethinic superstition and magic, oh dear.

There's a continuous teaser sub-plot of the french detective as a young girl, and a mysterious young lad who arrives at her flat in Paris to her great shock. Unfortunately the reason behind the shock and the sub-plot is not shared with the viewer, so after a bit the "who cares" feeling sets in, and with everything else we just couldn't be bothered to continue to disc 2 and gave up on the series.

Beautifully filmed sequences varying from good to fabulous, with some fantastic dancing that merges so well with the music making an unforgettable experience. There's quite a variety of performances here so something for everyone.

Watch out for the jazz pianist who starts his number by playing the internals of his grand piano with drum sticks.

The sound quality throughout is extremely good as well, and there's some great drum sounds.

The great charm of French films is they often start slowly, building up an intimate and innocent picture of the characters and their daily lives and then the plot emerges organically out of this and everything becomes apparent.

This film nearly does it, but not quite, and dwells on some long tedious scenes that don't seem to have anything to do with the film. There were too many "what's that all about?" comments from us throughout the film.

For instance there's a scene of the Grandfather travelling along a pavement, alone in his powered wheelchair, and filmed from across a busy road with only the sound of the traffic going by. It goes on, and on, and on, before he eventually stops and has a lengthy conversation (which is unheard) with some immigrants. Just one those scenes which appear baffling and unconnected. There's lots like this, and Toby Jones acts his character well, but he hasn't got much to go on as we never really find out who his character is and what his role is.

The only worthwhile scene in the film is the touching conversation between 13 year old Eve and her grandfather in his study, lots emerge here and there is a superb understanding develops between the two.

By the end of the film, a slight understanding of the characters of this dysfunctional family is emerging, but only in small hints, and not enough to fill out a storyline. Then it ends.

If the film could be shortened (there's enough slow stuff that can be jettisoned) then this would make and excellent episode one of a series that could then go on to develop the roles of the characters such as the son with a chip on his shoulder, and then more on young Eve. There is an affair going on between Eve's father and Claire that really didn't get much coverage and could be enlarged upon.

Some advice: Fast Forward through the opening credits as they are interrupted with five long, and I mean long, scenes shot from a mobile phone. A girl in the bathroom brushing her teeth and then brushing her hair, and then gargling. Then a hamster in a cage for a long time (well it felt long), then someone sitting by a computer desk. They are incredibly annoying and don't do anything for the film.

I guess this is not one of Mr Brosnan's best films. He tries a sort of Hollywood-Irish accent throughout that is so odd it's funny. Not a good basis for a tense thriller.

The plot is very simple, and I mean simple, with dialogue and screenplay that don't ever grow up despite the huge amounts of violence. Each scene is so implausible that you really can't get too involved and it never really raises itself above a collection of paper-thin characters making very stupid decisions throughout the whole film.

At least it doesn't go on too long, and there's a car crash and shootings to brighten things up, but very little else. I'd class it as an immature third rate thriller.

I like Nick Cave's music, and thought this might be good.

Oh dear, it all starts very badly with a blank screen and some odd voice over, then opens up to show an odd bearded guy in a taxi who waffles on a lot about nothing at all for a few minutes until they have to stop filming because, as they say, the camera isn't focussing properly. Cue blank screen again. Surely this is stuff for the cutting room floor?

There's a few minutes at the start of every film that grabs the viewers attention by making a statement of what the film is about, and this one says "amateur" and "disaster" and " not sure what they're on about" which is not a good start at all.

The film then continues with Nick in his hotel room walking about talking to the cameraman and changing his shirt, then asking if they want to do it again as something wasn't right, followed by more inconsequential waffling by Nick, this time back in the taxi. The talking is very tedious and doesn't say much at all. It's at this point that we wonder if the film is worth pressing on with. It might improve, so we do.

Next we are shown Nick in a studio, at a piano ready for a vocal overdub, which he starts with the backing of a disappointing rough foldback mix. The next few minutes show the beardy wierdy from the start of the film conducting string players, apparently during the vocal overdub but no, it's two overdub sessions edited together to look like they happen at the same time, hence two Nicks, one at the piano and one in the dark control room. It's not yet got up to the level of interesting but we press on, ever hopeful.

Next we have beardy wierdy starting a violin overdub, long notes over another rough mix. Nick is wandering about talking about stuff that doesn't make sense to ayone but himself, so after 32 minutes we baled out and hit the eject button. What a relief!

This is very amateur film making, with poor shots, daft dialogue and nothing at all to say. It doesn't appear to show the making of an album, just day to day tedium. Not worth pressing onto a valuable DVD, even less worth trying to watch.

Needless to say we didn't delve into the second "extras" DVD as 32 min utes of the main one was quite enough to have to sit through.

So give this a miss and just buy the finished CDs.

The plot is that two young guys from the CIA manage to be posted to NASA in order to find a suspected Russian mole. They manage to do this by pretending to be a documentary film crew. So far so good, the plot has possibilities.

Unfortunately to add realism, the whole film is shot to look like it was done by the lead actors on a 1960s Super 8 movie camera, and just to emphasise this point, the camera is waved around a lot, is out of focus, often pointed at lights and has terrible grain and very washed out colours.

If they had stuck to this for the first five minutes perhaps and then faded to proper cinematography, the film may have survived to be watchable in its entirety, however the excessively jerky scenes caused feelings of nausea in both of us, and we aborted the film after 15-20 minutes in order to recover. We couldn't face going back to it so cannot comment on the remainder of the film.

The amateur film making aspect was reinforced by the very hammy acting of the leads, supposedly to add to the plot but was nothing more than extremely embarassing.

This is a simple story of a mistaken lunchbox and the relationship between the sender and the recipient that develops by the little notes that each puts in the package.

This becomes much more than the simple plot as the relationships between all of the fine actors develop throughout the film. For example, the assistant to Saarjan is at first a really annoying character, but by the end of the film we know him and see his marriage and he becomes a good friend to Saarjan.

The essential part of the film, the notes between Saarjan and Ila, are so well written and unpredictable, they open up the story to show some quite complex inner feelings of the two and by involvement, all the others as well. A superbly written script, a great storyline and perfect acting make this one of the best films I've seen for a long time.

Nearly a decent film, well shot and a decently mixed soundtrack with great explosions and gunshots in the shootouts.

Only they appeared to have had a 14 year old write the script, and his best friend write the screenplay, with the result that the dialogue is embarrassingly "serious" as though a young teenager was trying to guess how grown ups in dangerous situations talk.

The screenplay contained many scenes that didn't seem to fit the story, leaving this viewer wondering if I'd missed something. I don't think I did. The plot was tediously predictable, and there was no humour to lift the dullness of the film.

There were two annoyingly bright stroboscopic scenes, unnecessary and very good for producing epileptic fits in the audience, so watch out for these and be ready to hit the forward button quickly to avoid them.

Muttered and whispered dialogue was occasionally indecipherable, but none of it seemed important so not too much was missed.

The large amount of brains being splattered with associated blood in the gunshot scenes are sadly the modern trademark of a film aimed at young children, with the general rule of "less plot - more blood". This is sadly one of those films.

Directed by, and starring Benn Affleck, this film has all the hallmarks of a well crafted thriller, with an intricate and lengthy plot that is compelling, with believable characters well acted by all concerned.

I think it's the broad span of great characters that makes this film so enjoyable, and the actors are given a good script to work with.

The whole film was gripping from start to finish, and the sound track in Dolby Atmos was quite stunning.

Watch this to see how films should be made!

(We watched Ben Affleck's other 2016 film "The Accountant" the next evening, and discovered that these two films beautifully demonstrate the two extremes of quality in movie- making).

This starts, like many French films, with what appears to be a slow, disjointed plot. It's interesting, but there's not many signposts as to where the film is going until about halfway when the various isolated characters interact, the story opens up and the whole film takes shape. From there until the ending there is a wonderfully comprehensive display of how relationships that shouldn't work actually do, and how those that should work, don't.

All the acting was of a very high standard, and the film was technically well made..

Watch this clever and enjoyable film until the end, it will leave a good impression.

"Great effects do not a good film make" is a good motto for this film.

We're used to the fashionable "muttered" dialogue in some modern films, but this one introduces a new style of whispered and muttered dialogue, meaning that even with the volume turned up much of the lines are delivered as a breathy something-or-other that is instantly lost, and so much of it was undecipherable.

The film plot meanders towards discovering new worlds using the concept of relativity explained in sudden, poorly delivered, shots of dialogue. No explanation is necesssary as the film actually displays relativity quite accurately in the painfully slow emotional scenes. Although many of then lasted only five minutes or so they felt like they lasted for weeks and dragged on for so long along with the whispered nonsensical dialogue.

Even great actors such as Matthew McConnaughy and Matt Damon couldn't rescue the film although their performances were individually good.

On the plus side the effects both visual and audible were extremely good, the sound content from the LFE channel rattled our doors and walls with some vigour. Cinematography and lighting was excellent with some great scenery shots.

Some of the action scenes were good, although with the poor dialogue it meant that nobody here knew quite what was going on.

Oh well, it's films like these that earn huge amounts of money from lots of kids around the world and helps keep the film industry afloat so that more interesting and better made films can be produced. So it's not all bad - unless you're having to watch it.