Film Reviews by GI

An erotically charged murder mystery with Meg Ryan in a risqué performance that goes against her normal screen persona. She is very good too as the sexually repressed teacher who starts an affair with the detective (Mark Ruffalo) who is investigating the series of murders of young women in the area. As their passionate relationship develops a casual lie soon leads her to suspect her now lover maybe the killer. There's a dark edge to this thriller and the narrative follows a path that one minute you think you know the killer and the next you change your mind. There are clues but really that is a superficial aspect to this underrated film. The really interesting aspect is the emotional journey that Ryan's character has to follow and how repressed memories of her parents, her protectiveness towards her sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and her past relationship with the weird hospital worker (Kevin Bacon) all intertwine with her reasons for the affair she risks with the detective even as she begins to think he maybe the murderer. It's a superb script, brilliantly directed by Jane Campion and a film that deserves rediscovery.

A slick crime thriller with a highly stylised narrative and a sharp condemnation of American corporate politics and business. Brad Pitt is super cool as Jackie, a mob enforcer, sent to find out who robbed a mob controlled card game. Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelsohn on fine form as two of the hapless junkies who think they've got away with it, Ray Liotta as the mob guy who runs the card game, Richard Jenkins and a couple of great cameos from James Gandolfini and Sam Shepard to add icing to the cake. Some may find this a little too slow and talky for their taste but this is a first rate film and when the violence comes it's shocking and realistic. Director Andrew Dominik, who also wrote the screenplay, certainly has a talent for gritty realism and whilst his output, so far, has been sparse he is certainly a director to watch out for. This is a modern crime film that deserves a rest evaluation. Highly recommended.

A topnotch crime thriller with a noirish style to it and a fantastic cast. Based on a play this has moved seamlessly to cinema under the experienced direction of William Friedkin. Matthew McConaughey plays the sinister and smooth Joe, a police detective who moonlights as a contract killer, hired by Texas trailer trash drug dealer Emile Hirsch to murder his mother so he can cash in on her life insurance. Gina Gershon and Thomas Haden Church are the stepmother and father who agree to the plan wanting the cash and the always fantastic Juno Temple is Dottie the sister who Joe takes an obsessive liking to. Everyone has their own agenda and the plot has some great twists. It's not an action film although there are some very brutal moments but the script is faultless and the tension of the narrative is superb. This is highly recommended.

The fifth film in this popular series is one of those that you can sit back in your seat and be entertained by seeing something familiar and yet once you've left the cinema you realise it's all rather forgettable and lightweight. Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is back fighting the Nazis, firstly in a lengthy prologue where Ford is de-aged (rather well I thought) as he attempts to grab the film's 'macguffin', a clockwork thingamajig that was made by the ancient philosopher Archimedes and can predict time portals or something or other! Anyway there's the big baddie played with menace by Mads Mikkelsen who wants it for his own nefarious purposes. After some extended action sequences that go on just a tad too long we jump to 1969 and Jones is now a grumpy 80 year old who is forced by his goddaughter, Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) to go hunting for the other half of this device before the baddie gets it. This cues some globe trotting, fist fights, chases and eventually we get some dark mysterious cave adventures that is true 'Raiders', you know with creepy crawlies and signs made by ancients that only Indy can read etc etc, and what we've all been waiting for but it's too little too late. The ending is way over the top and, if you're like me, you'll will probably mutter OFFS or similar, because it's utter nonsense. Overall, it's a big, fast paced adventure film certainly better than the previous one but nowhere near the first or the third and Ford, who carries the film, does a good job. It was particularly lovely to see Karen Allen make a short comeback too. Not the best Indy film and certainly not the worst but an OK one.

This third film in the Jurassic World series is a big budget CGi spectacular with everything you've come to expect from these films with more dinosaurs, huge stunts and set pieces making it an entertaining family action/adventure. I found the the two previous films added little to the Jurassic franchise after the Jurassic Park films fizzled away. So in some ways mixing the Park with the World was a good idea mainly because it bought together the set of stars from the two series. The return of Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum from the very first Jurassic Park (1993) brings a welcome to a somewhat tired franchise even though the script gives them far too little to do and a somewhat daft love story. Even worse though is the limp performance by Chris Pratt who is sidelined here and struggles to bring any charisma to the screen. There's the usual corrupt organisation they all team up to destroy and some links to the original film that will make fans smile. The action gives big nods to the Mission Impossible and Indiana Jones series with plenty of big, destruction laden chases and whilst it all goes on for too long it results in an entertaining film that hopefully puts it all to bed.

A rather silly farce with Adam Sandler as a lovesick cosmetic surgeon who has to persuade his assistant, Katherine (Jennifer Aniston) to pose as his ex wife in order to woo the sexy Palmer (Brooklyn Decker). The reasons are all too silly to explain suffice to say it's because Sandler's Danny is a rather shallow man. Like many films like this somewhere buried in all the total stupidity and lame jokes is the seeds of a neat romcom but it's never allowed to bear fruit because of the drive for puerile set pieces. For example here Danny is forced to have his idiot friend, Eddie (Nick Swardson), along on a trip to Hawaii where Nick pretends to have a cartoon German accent and ends up giving a sheep the Heimlich Manoeuvre! Pointless and unfunny. On the plus side you get Brooklyn Decker and Jennifer Aniston in bikinis, which is a treat. Sorry to be shallow but it is the only highlight in this film which is a dull predictable story and the presence of Nicole Kidman in a cameo fails to lift it.

A tired and cliché ridden B movie with a very limited lead actor and a second billed Mel Gibson who doesn't do very much at all. Kevin Dillon, all scowls and facial emotions, is a former computer hacker now reformed, with a family and a job at a call centre. He has family problems though and heads off to work on his daughter's birthday with divorce hanging over him. This cues lots of scowls!! His day just gets worse though when he finds a mysterious baddie has stuck a bomb under his office chair and forces him to hack into some safe or something or other basically to steal lots of money. the police eventually turn up including a grizzled old bomb disposal guy (Gibson) who is cynically wiser than all his buddies. The film shamelessly steals from just about everywhere and it's a fairly predictable and totally preposterous plot with the odd twist or two. A throw away film that is best watched on a rainy afternoon when there's nothing else to do.

This is an excellent crime thriller structured like a classic Hollywood film noir. Set in the 1950s Casey Affleck is the small town Texas sheriff who hatches a plan to steal cash from a local businessman played by Ned Beatty. There is a dark, brutal plot involving conspiracy, double cross and twist and turns that make this a very compelling story. It's occasionally a very tough watch with Affleck revealed early on as a sociopath who is prepared to commit extreme violence especially on the women in his life. If you've not seen this then be warned some of the violence is very shocking but Affleck portrays the sinister Ford with a real sense of evil. The cast is superb with Jessica Alba as a prostitute who is the key to Ford's plans, Kate Hudson as the local woman he intends to marry, Simon Baker as a detective who begins to suspect Ford and Elias Koteas as a local journalist who also smells a rat. A topnotch film and arguably director Michael Winterbottom's best, and definitely a film to check out if you've not seen it before.

This powerful French drama is an impeccably directed and acted film that, although set in 1963, resonates with the issues of today. It's an abortion drama focused on Anne (Anamaria Vartolomei), a gifted student, who discovers she is pregnant at a time when sex outside of marriage was frowned upon and pregnancy a social stigma. The shock she feels at her situation where her future is suddenly at stake and she has nowhere to turn for help, indeed to ask for an abortion is a serious imprisonable offence even for anyone helping her. The narrative follows Anne's struggle to come to terms with her situation, her desperation to get help for a termination and the obstacles she has to cope with not least from fellow students and friends. At one point she implores a doctor to help her and he prescribes a drug that she is told will induce miscarriage but in fact strengthens the embryo. The film delves deeply into the control that society has over a woman's body to the point of insisting on her submission. Anne is determined to resist this. As an abortion drama this is more stronger by focusing on the affected woman rather than the abortionist as in say Vera Drake (2004) and Vartolomei's performance is so good as she reflects on how the pleasure of sex comes with a high price for women and that it is always a risk. There are two scenes involving her two closest friends revolving around their sexual experiences that form a juxtaposition with Anne's one off sexual experience and its consequences. This is an admirable film that has a strong message and it's well worth a watch.

The rip roaring rampage of revenge continues but this time a little more sedately and in homage to spaghetti westerns with a heavy dose of Ennio Morricone's music and shots reminiscent of Sergio Leone. I actually prefer Vol 2 over Vol 1 mainly because it's a more thoughtful and intelligent film. And of course here we have David Carradine as Bill, Michael Madsen on fine form as his brother Bud and the wonderful Daryl Hannah as the deliciously evil Elle Driver along with a Blade Runner death scene! Uma Thurman continues as the avenging assassin gradually working her way through her list of former colleagues who killed her fiancé and left her for dead. Things don't go all her way but her journey leads inexorably to Bill himself. Brilliantly edited with Tarantino's unique structure and he steals from his favourite directors and film genres without conscience. There's nothing wrong with this because as a whole this is a film that exudes originality. It's a cinematic treat.

I suppose if you love musical theatre the adaption of stage musicals to the big screen is a welcome one. I'm never sure the two mediums are natural for adaptation and consequently I'm usually unimpressed. Indeed musicals as a film genre are not high on my list although as a cinephile I check them out. In many ways this one is very similar in style, colour and vibrancy to Steven Spielberg's recent remake of West Side Story (2021). There's plenty of exuberant, youthful dancing in the streets of New York but In The Heights has no conflict at its narrative heart, it's simply about a neighbourhood and minor family squabbles and characters loving each other whilst trying to better themselves by moving out! Ultimately it has a 'no place like home' message and everyone ends up with the right person in the end. It's not my thing but I can see why it was successful on the stage but this isn't going to rank as one of the great film musicals.

This is Quentin Tarantino's extraordinarily entertaining homage to 70s kung fu films, samurai films, Japanese Anime and Hong Kong action cinema all wrapped up in an American 70s style thriller. Repeated viewings reveal more and more large and small film references littered throughout. Considering Tarantino's output to date Kill Bill Vol 1 is arguably his most original film. He brings in just about every cinematic trick he can including the switching to black & white to avoid turning the bloodshed from cartoonish violence to stomach retching gore and the overall sheer fun of the entire film make it a continuing pleasure and despite it's stylisation it never comes across as self-indulgent, even though it so clearly is. Told in a series of 'Chapters' that play around with the timescales of the narrative this is a revenge story. A former member of an elite assassination team, known as The Bride (Uma Thurman), wakes from a four year coma, and goes on the rampage to kill the four former members of her team and her boss, Bill (David Carradine), after they murdered her entire wedding party for reasons yet to be revealed. The decision by Tarantino to separate his story into two films has been oft discussed and it's not because of the trepidation of releasing a long film (Tarantino has proved since he's happy to put out very long films), but it's that he so obviously changes his influences for the sequel making them very different in style. This is a fantastical and bold piece of American film making. And a wonderful soundtrack too. Tarantino hasn't always got it right but here he really does.

A compelling yet strangely uneven and frustrating dark comedy thriller about being humbled within a conflict of culture narrative. Set in Morocco the story centres on alcoholic David (Ralph Fiennes), a boorish racist and his younger and very bored wife, Jo (Jessica Chastain) who are driving to a lavish party being held by an eccentric gay couple (Matt Smith & Caleb Landry Jones) at their huge desert located villa. On the way, David, drunk and arguing with Jo, hits and kills a local boy. The ramifications of this sets off the chain of events as David is semi forced to accompany the boy's father back to his village. In many ways the film is a bit of a hit and miss as it always seems we're denied more detail. The debauchery at the party conflicts with the austere locals as the cultural differences are highlighted almost begging for a climactic explosion. At the same time we follow David's plight as he is humbled before a grieving father and he doesn't know whether violence is coming his way. Fiennes is wonderfully odious as David and Chastain really zings as his wife who, finding herself without her husband decides to enjoy the party!! The film is neatly well balanced between the two centres of the narrative and yet at times it feels a little hurried and unfulfilling and yet, ultimately, it's a film worth checking out.

This is a really warm and intense relationship drama with comic undertones and five first class performances. A story of a family unit that is threatened by the arrival of an "interloper" in the form of Mark Ruffalo's character, Paul. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore are Jules and Nic a loving gay couple who have two children, Joni and Laser (Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson). The family is a happy one until Joni on her eighteenth birthday gets the opportunity to know the identity of the sperm donor who is her and her brother's biological father. Hence the arrival of Paul into their lives. He's a free spirited restaurant owner and he brings a conflicting range of emotions into the family. This is one of the best films I've seen in many a year about the twists and turns of a family and how they cope with change. The two children are coming-of-age and the parents are close to crisis all of which makes the introduction of the outsider all the more powerful and with plenty of emotional drama with sadness, joy and redemption all to the fore. A wonderful film and one I highly recommend.

Everyone has films that they have a soft spot for even though it may not be a film that has much going for it. This is a film I was absolutely riveted by as a young lad and consequently I have a nostalgic fondness for it. And it's not as bad as you'd think. This is a matinée adventure film set in the mid-eighteenth century at the time of the Jacobite rebellion and based on the cracking novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. Young David Balfour (Lawrence Douglas) comes into some property currently occupied by his miserly uncle (Donald Pleasance) who promptly arranges for him to be kidnapped and sold into slavery. But fate is on David's side as he finds help in the guise of notorious Scottish rebel Alan Breck (Michael Caine, with an interesting Scots accent) who is on the run from the vengeful English. Beautifully shot and with a great story there's nothing very clever about how this has been put together; indeed in the hands of a more interesting director it could have been really great, but it's still a great little film and one of those that rarely gets seen these days. And what a great cast including Jack Hawkins, Trevor Howard, Gordon Jackson, Freddie Jones and Jack Watson. As an example of a British historical drama this is worth seeking out.