Film Reviews by GI

Partly autobiographical coming of age drama from writer and director James Gray who has fallen into the trap of an overly sentimental story that ends up as heavy laden and too caught up in it's time setting. This is New York in 1980 and follows young Paul (Banks Repeta), the youngest son in a Ukrainian/Jewish family, who dreams of becoming an artist, rebels at school in small, puerile ways but is close to his maternal grandfather (Anthony Hopkins) who tries to instil some moral courage in the boy. There are the usual issues around racism, privilege and stereotyping that are far too often present in overly serious America dramas like this where great dinner table debates take place that are actually quite uninteresting here. Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong play Paul's parents and give the film some sense of the struggles with parenting in this era and the fear instilled by the rhetoric of Ronald Reagan who was banging on about moral armageddon much to the consternation of many. But you do get the Clash song Armagideon Time which is a bonus! A bit of a slog as a film though.

If you are a fan of the MCU world then I suppose this will entertain but this third film featuring the Ant man character is just an unashamedly derivative of Star Wars and the same ol' plot as countless other similar films that, despite whatever super powers are on show, it all ends up in a good old punch up. Ant Man (Paul Rudd), girlfriend The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), his daughter and her parents (Michelle Pfeiffer and Michael Douglas) get sucked into the Quantum world and fight evil....... blah blah blah. It's all over the top CGI with strange creatures, bad guys and good guys and Bill Murray is a cameo. It drags on for too long, lacks any humour that isn't totally forced and resultantly unfunny. I'm sure there are links to other MCU films as there's 'multiverse' references etc etc but this is for kids who love comic book films. I get that the big money is in getting a franchise gig but these actors deserve better

I can see why this became an unlikely hit probably with a certain demographic as its very glossy and the two main protagonists are like an advert for swimwear as they cavort more or less the whole time in nothing but underwear or swim suits. But it's a fairly unfunny, thoroughly clichéd romcom that's all too predictable (aren't they all) and features two very beautiful people pretending to hate each other......and we're not fooled for one moment! Not least the central story, based around Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, that they have to pretend to be in love for reasons I won't go into but where actually just telling the truth would have been easier. The simple enough story has Bea (Sydney Sweeney), a young law student, and Ben (Glen Powell), a handsome finance guy, randomly meet, are attracted to each other and spend the night but through a misunderstanding end up with deep animosity for one another. Months later and surprise surprise they are both at a wedding in Australia where for pointless reasons they need to pretend etc etc but we all know they're in love really! It's a standard romcom set up with little gravitas and a silly script. It's has some entertaining moments but its all a bit stereotypical and empty.

A rather engaging growing up comedy drama set in the early 1970s and adapted from a popular novel. This seems to hit all the right notes in its portrayal of a pre-teen girl who has to navigate the emotional journey of puberty. Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson) is a 12 year old girl who is less than pleased when her parents, Barbara (Rachel McAdams) and Herb (Benny Sadie), move the family from New York City out to the suburbs where Margaret must try to fit in at a new school and with new friends. Just as importantly for her is the separation from her paternal grandmother, the overbearing yet lovable Sylvia (Kathy Bates). With this wrench in her life she then has to cope with the pressures from her peers where boys, the arrival of breasts and periods become a daily issue. There are family issues too which are all too complex for the young Margaret. The film also has an interesting story arc for Barbara and McAdams really nails the nice balance of a mother trying to help her daughter and fit in with her new neighbours at the same time. What is equally refreshing is the film eschews the usual character tropes that are often present in this sort of comedy drama and characters that you think may follow certain traits will surprise you. The obvious ones being Nancy (Elle Graham), the leader of the 'club' that Margaret is invited to join and Nancy's mother (Kate MacCluggage) the head of the local PTA. This is one of the best coming of age comedy dramas that has arrived for awhile. A pleasant and engaging film that has humour and a main character beautifully played by Fortson. A film that all the family can enjoy.

Cult classic or style over substance? Oliver Stone's controversial indictment of a world obsessed by media and commercialism remains an interesting if disjointed and uneven film. Basically a modern satire that looks at the ease at which society becomes hooked on a low brow diet of biased news, TV and materialism. But it is a film that certainly is visually demanding with fast edits, colour palette changes, the mixing of clips from other films and TV to create a smorgasbord that assaults the senses like an LSD trip. With colour to represent emotions and black & white to show inner thoughts. The narrative is simple really. A young couple, Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory (Juliette Lewis) are thrust together having the mutual background of family abuse and go on a killing spree across country. On their road trip of murder they are pursued by a sex crazed cop (Tom Sizemore) and a narcissistic TV journalist (Robert Downey Jr). They get caught and are imprisoned where they are controlled by an effete Prison Warden (Tommy Lee Jones) who allows the journalist to interview Mickey. He has other plans of course and begins a violent break out, causing a riot, freeing Mallory and bloodily shooting their way to freedom and onto family bliss! This is not a film that you can really like. It's often gratuitous in its violence for effect long after that effect is no longer needed and whilst it has its entertainment value it's a film that loses any power it may have exerted on first viewing making further viewings rather dull. This leaves the film like a big adult cartoon and whilst Quentin Tarantino, on whose story this is based, is said to have not liked it it certainly has his directorial stylings all over it. A film to say you've seen but ultimately a failed experiment.

Ever since Liam Neeson reinvented himself as a tough guy action man in Taken (2008) he's hardly made a decent film and sometimes his hard man persona has stretched the limits of plausibility. So this latest offering I approached with caution but its turns out to be a more humble and entertaining film. Neeson plays Finbar, a quiet man posing as book dealer in a small village in western Ireland but in reality he's an ex soldier who works as an enforcer for the local criminal boss (Colm Meaney). The year is 1974 and the Troubles are raging over the border in Northern Ireland where an IRA team, after a bomb attack, cross the border to lie low in the very same village. When Finbar is forced to kill one of them he finds their leader, the icy hearted Doireann (Kerry Condon), is out for revenge. The Irish setting and much of the characterisations are a bit stereotyped but the director has had a stab at a local authenticity and the visuals of the rolling Donegal hills combined with the casual ruthlessness of the plot allows for a film that captures the time and the place quite nicely. Neeson plays his role down as the tired war veteran who now wants to retire from his job. Meaney is funny too in his small almost cameo part as his boss along with Jackie Gleason as Finbar's protegé and Ciarán Hinds as the local policeman but it's Condon who shines here as the cold and ruthless IRA terrorist. There's a good shoot out in the films climax and overall this is a solid thriller worth a watch.

This is a great cop thriller, uncompromising, gritty and a real thrill ride. Jason Patric plays Nick Tellis, a traumatised undercover narcotics detective, who has been suspended for 18 months after he accidentally shoots a pregnant woman. He is offered a way back to duty by agreeing to help in the investigation of the murder of another undercover cop. Nick is reluctant but he finds he has to work with a fellow detective, the unpredictable and violent Henry Oak (Ray Liotta) who is out to find and kill the murderers. Tellis has his own demons from his time working as a 'Narc', where he developed a drug dependancy that nearly drove him to madness. There's plenty of plot twists and the story has no spare fodder, everything you see is connected, and director Joe Carnahan films with a washed out look giving the film a bleak and highly realistic feel visualising Detroit as a grim, unwelcome and sorrowful place reflecting the deep chasms of emotion in the characters. This is a remarkable crime story, it's violent and tough but it's presented as a serious drama without recourse to cliché resulting in a riveting film. I highly recommend this so if you've never seen it then seek it out, you'll not be disappointed.

A typically sweet British comedy drama set in a failing Yorkshire geriatric hospital. Adapted from an Alan Bennett play this has the witticisms that you'd expect from a Bennett inspired script and the well known cast are all on top form. The story is that this locally beloved hospital is scheduled for closure by the unfeeling bureaucrats in the Health Ministry because it's losing money. But a local campaign is underway to try and stop this. The staff led by the indomitable matron played by Jennifer Saunders rail against closure and the ignorance of the politicians who can't see beyond their spreadsheets. The patients are a collection of British stalwart actors such as Judy Dench and Derek Jacobi and who are played for laughs mostly by being curmudgeonly. It's Dench character, a retired librarian, who reveals a surprising plot twist that turns the film into a dark corner! But the focus of the film is around David Bradley's ex miner who exaggerates his illness in order to stay in the hospital rather than return to the care home he came from. He's visited by his son, Colin (Russell Tovey) who happens to be a Government mandarin and who is converted to the cause of people over money during the course of the film. Essentially this is an ode to the National Health Service and apart from the quite unpredictable twist the film follows a fairly obvious narrative arc. It's all pleasant and entertaining with several messages intermixed regarding death, the value of people even when old, the political ramifications of privatising the Heath Service etc etc and that's all wrapped up in a neat little film that probably worked better on the stage in some areas.

Greta Gerwig's debut as a director in this reportedly part autobiographical coming of age comedy drama is an excellent film, highly amusing and centred around the remarkable performances and on screen chemistry between Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf. Ronan is a high school student named Christine but who insists on being called Lady Bird. She has a creative streak but has reached that point where she finds the life in her home town and the rules of her Catholic High School to be too restrictive. She has a particularly sparky relationship with her mother (Metcalf) and their emotional battles form the centre of the narrative as Lady Bird decides she wants to go to college in New York much to her mother's consternation not least due to the expense. The family dynamics on show here are wonderfully scripted with Tracey Betts as her loving but depressive father and her two relationships with local boys including her deciding to lose her virginity, an act that brings some quick life lessons. The drama follows Lady Bird's emotional strife as she navigates being embarrassed by her family's relative poverty compared to some others and trying to be part of the 'cool' group, which threatens her true friendships. This is a film about family as much as growing up and Lady Bird's final scene as she realises the importance of it to her makes the film very heartfelt and deserving of its accolades.

Adapted from the popular novel this was a pet project for director Jean-Jacques Annaud. Sean Connery, whose career at the time was on the wane, gained a revived appeal (he went onto get an Oscar the following year) and he excels in this mystery thriller set in a remote monastery in the mid Twelfth Century. He plays William, a Franciscan friar, who along with his young novice (a fifteen year old Christian Slater), arrives at the monastery for a religious debate. But the strange deaths of some of the monks stirs William to investigate whereas the monks all think the devil is at work. William soon discovers the killings are somehow connected to the mysterious library. But the arrival of the Inquisition led by a malevolent F. Murray Abraham leads to a hunt for heretics and devil worship. This is a a fantastic whodunnit, in a unique setting and with a great cast of actors chosen for their grotesque appearances. It's essentially a Holmes & Watson type of story but Connery gives it gravitas and the director creates an unsettling vision of a time when religion and fear ruled. This is great film and I guarantee you'll love this if you haven't seen it.

A cross cultural romcom that has some entertaining moments and it's certainly lavish and ambitious, but ends up being predictable and a little clumsily scripted that it lacks the freshness of the best in this genre. Lily James, here with a role that has more for her than some of her previous films, plays Zoe, an award winning documentary film maker with problems forming relationships much to her sparky mother's (Emma Thompson) chagrin. When she bumps into her childhood friend, Kaz (Shazad Latif), a British born Pakistani man, she learns he is about to embark on an arranged marriage. Fascinated Zoe gets him to agree to her documenting the process from finding the potential wife to going to Pakistan for the wedding. On this journey they discuss issues of love and relationships. You can guess where it all ends up and you'd be right, the ending pretty much signposted from the get go. There's some laughs along the way although the comedy is sparse mostly down to the somewhat poor script and the film doesn't quite decide what it wants to say about the issue of arranged marriage in a modern cross cultural society. Perhaps that was the idea and it's more about the cultural anomalies as well as a look at modern relationships. Thompson is obviously having fun and has most of the funny lines and some of the characters are stereotypical but here is an enjoyable film that will bring smile and romcom lovers will not be disappointed.

This is a wacky, almost screwball comedy based on a real event but mostly fictionalised and it's certainly funny yet at times quite heavy laden with the script struggling to make anything light hearted enough for it to be a real blast. Set in the mid 1930s it follows two veterans from the First World War; Burt (Christian Bale), who lost an eye in combat and is now a New York doctor specialising in helping disfigured veterans and his army buddy, Harold (John David Washington), who was also wounded in the war and is now a NY lawyer. They are both active in helping their old comrades and planning a big gala for them. But they become embroiled in a strange plot when the daughter of their former general is murdered and they are accused. Their attempt to clear their name and find out who's behind it brings their old friend Valerie (Margot Robbie) back into their lives. She's a former nurse and they all bonded as friends during the war and after the armistice lived together in a sort of bohemian threesome in Amsterdam, where they all achieved some sort of harmonious existence. The plot concerns an attempt by über wealthy businessmen enthralled by the right wing politics they are seeing in Europe to overthrow the US Government. They want a famous General (Robert De Niro) to help them and the three friends work to convince they General to stay true to the ethos of their comradeship. It's a heavy story and quite serious which causes the comedy to be lost in the complicated script. Bale has a great time playing Burt almost as a sort of bumbling Columbo style character and Robbie is as adept as ever at comedy with Washington underplaying his role nicely to balance their dynamic as the main protagonists. The support cast are great and include Anya Taylor-Joy, Andrea Riseborough, Chris Rock, Matthias Schoenaerts, Zoe Saldana, Mike Myers (who at one point does an Egyptian sand dance for no real reason but it's hilarious), Michael Shannon, Timothy Olyphant and even Taylor Swift who handles it all perfectly. This is a weird and difficult to really nail as a comedy film, there's a heavy touch at times and the central plot is obviously very dark but like director David O. Russell's other films there's something clever and original even though a feeling of being left a little unsatisfied by the end.

This is one of director Martin Scorsese's minor masterpieces, often forgotten when his films are studied or discussed but an essential one of his New York centrally based narratives. It's quirky little drama with comedy undertones and a great central performance from Griffin Dunne. It may seem a little dated in some ways but it's such an unusual and cleverly scripted film with shades of Alfred Hitchcock in the use of the camera that it's well worth discovering if, like me, it has passed you by. Dunne plays Paul, a bored computer operator in a New York firm. After work one evening he meets Marcie (Rosanna Arquette) and attracted to her he goes to her apartment. This sets him on a night of bizarre and frustrating experiences where coincidence and trouble abound. It's an intriguing and very entertaining film that goes in some very unlikely directions and has a good cast that includes Linda Fiorentino, Teri Garr and John Heard.

A lavish and very entertaining romantic adventure of this oft filmed classic. Here we have Part 1 with the story more or less like the novel and the brilliant and never beaten Richard Lester films of the 1970s. D'Artagnan (François Civil) arrives in 17th century Paris with ambition to become a King's Musketeer. In his bumbling country way he insults three musketeers and ends up with duels scheduled with all three. But when forced to fight the personal guards of the Cardinal Richelieu (Eric Ruf) they all bond and become firm friends getting themselves embroiled in a plot to discredit the Queen (Vicky Krieps). If you've seen other adaptations especially the Lester films then the story will be familiar. There's a certain amount of contemporary ideas thrown in here including some modern sexual politics but the action is entertaining and realistic although there's more shooting than swordplay. Vincent Cassel, Romain Duris and Pio Marmaï play the titular musketeers very well although the characters aren't given much room to develop over the contrived plot laden script. Richelieu, as the chief baddie, isn't quite bad enough but Eva Green as the self serving 'Milady' is beautiful and gives her usually excellent performance and no doubt will have a bigger screen presence in Part 2. This is a roistering swashbuckler with great set pieces and it looks fantastic. Enjoyable.

There's more 'rom' than 'com' in this romcom which is aided by the star power of Anne Hathaway and presented with the slick look and finesse of mainstream Hollywood production even though it's straight to streaming on Amazon. Overall it's an assured and reasonably entertaining film that really pushes the boundaries of credibility and stops short of addressing any of the issues that it raises and in that sense it seems clearly aimed at a certain audience. Hathaway plays Solène, a 40 year old single mum still bruised from the collapse of her marriage to a real dickhead, and manager of a slick art gallery. Accompanying her 16 year old daughter, Izzy (Ella Rubin), to a music festival she has an encounter with the hottest member of a famous boy band, Hayes (Nicholas Galitzine). A relationship gradually begins between them despite Solène's wariness due to their age difference (he's 24). She doesn't seem to consider the media storm that soon engulfs them when their relationship gets revealed. Of course the trajectory is always towards a happy ending but the narrative doesn't deal effectively with why Hayes, a young man who can basically sexually have anyone he wishes, pursues this older woman quite so energetically. Solène's sexual desires are clearly on display here, and you can't ignore that she is actually Anne Hathaway who is a very beautiful woman and has the experience that perhaps Hayes hasn't yet found. The main narrative theme of the age difference seems hardly one of concern here although it crops up throughout especially once Solène begins to be the subject of hate and trolling. The dark role of social media and the paperazzi is obvious here too but not fully explored to a satisfactory level. It's the ultimate arc of the narrative that is predictable and uninspiring that leaves the film short but it's a film that will be popular I've little doubt and a shame that the ending didn't follow the more cynical one of the novel from which the film is adapted.