Film Reviews by GI

A gentle, unassuming and very British comedy, a sweet story about the relationship between a teenage heavy metal fan and his lonely and devoted mum. Basically a coming-of-age film that doesn't concern itself with sexual awakening as is normal in such stories but about that somewhat stressful relationship between parent and child when the latter is endlessly frustrated by life. Monica Dolan plays Sue, a divorced librarian living in suburbia with Daniel (Earl Cave), her moody son. He's crushingly disappointed when a planned summer holiday with his father in Florida is cancelled at the last minute and he realises he has to spend it with his mum at home. He roams the endlessly tidy streets of suburbia, bored and dreaming of being the singer in a metal band, whilst his mum, ever protective and caring, carries on. There's a period where she gets a chance at romance but that doesn't go well. There's the influence here of similar American films but here we get a delightful comedy that doesn't trap itself in romance or sex or friendship clichés but reveals a realistic view of the most enduring of relationships. By the end its obvious its a happy story and has a nice feel good vibe about it and the two leads are exceptional.

A B movie style action thriller set in a dystopian near future where rising crime has resulted in the walling up of the worst districts of Paris. In one a crime lord rules with ruthlessness but a young man, Leïto (David Belle) is trying to protect his apartment block from the criminals. As a result he gets framed, sent to prison and his sister is made the sex slave of the bad guy. When a nuclear bomb is stolen and set to detonate in the district the authorities send in a tough cop, Damien (Cyril Raffaelli) and Leïto to find and defuse it but its all a double cross. You can actually forget the plot because its irrelevant as this is all about gutsy fights and plenty of 'parkour' chase scenes through the derelict buildings. It's an entertaining slice of hokum all done with panache and neatly short enough to enjoy and move on.

Adapted from the novel by Robert Harris this is a routine war drama set at Bletchley Park the now famous centre of British code breaking. Unlike The Imitation Game (2014) this is not a story that attempts to tell a history, the story is a work of fiction with the odd very loose reference to real people. The story here is that the Germans have sneakily changed their codes and Tom (Dougray Scott), a maths genius who broke their codes before, is hastily summonsed back to Bletchley. He isn't well thought of by the top brass as he had an emotional meltdown over his obsessive love for Claire (Saffron Burrows), who has since disappeared. Along with her roommate, Hester (Kate Winslet) he sets out to find her as he believes she may have been spying. This leads to lots of emotional chases and daft plot twists in a mediocre espionage story that fails to really get going. Good support cast that includes Tom Hollander and Jeremy Northam amongst others but they don't make up for an average and silly story.

The surprising international success of Fistful Of Dollars (1964) gave director Sergio Leone the increased budget which here in his second western meant bigger sets, longer running time and a second star. Clint Eastwood returned after seeing how good the first film turned out and Lee Van Cleef was rescued from obscurity to take second billing (his career effectively being reignited). Although often considered a sequel to A Fistful... this is actually an entirely different film and only Eastwood's costume is the same (indeed there was a court case in Italy that stated this was not a sequel). Here he plays Monco, a ruthless bounty hunter who decides to hunt down the most wanted outlaw in the territory, El Indio (Gian Maria Volontè). But he discovers another bounty hunter is also after him. This is Colonel Mortimer (Van Cleef) who has a more moral reason for doing so than just money. They join forces to face down the outlaw and his gang of cutthroats. Leone dabbles here with the established western genre effectively subverting it with a style that incorporates opera, religious iconography, an element of 60s 'cool', and a vision of the west that denigrates it almost to an alien vista of sun drenched, lawless violence where only money is respected. He takes, for example the standard gunfight, the iconic genre duel, and injects it with a poetic symmetry and exploits the viewer's expectations (he went on to perfect this later in his next film). With the addition of Ennio Morricone's superb score with its jangling electric guitars, whips cracking, gunshots and operatic organs and vocals this is a film that cemented the genre onto a new path. Interestingly Eastwood is almost pushed aside here as the narrative centres around Mortimer and El Indio whose history is the focus of the story and Leone pushed boundaries with the inclusion of cannabis and rape. These were not to be found in anything made in the USA at this time and certainly not in the genre they considered was their mythical domain. Flawed as it is this remains a wonderful film today, beautifully shot and taking a tired style and genre into new exciting directions.

A good ol' action adventure survival film that benefits from Robert Aldrich's clever subversive and quirky traits. Considering when this was made and contrary to Hollywood standard there are no women or children here to sentimentalise the narrative (the only woman in the film is a mirage) and the cast are all great character actors who play against type, for example George Kennedy and Dan Duryea, normally screen heavies, are surprisingly lightweight and pleasant. Some are killed off early and main star, James Stewart, plays a deeply flawed character who struggles with his self esteem and displays a psychological instability that was often seen in his 1950s westerns. Here he's the pilot of a small oil company owned cargo plane travelling across the Sahara desert with an assortment of oil workers, a couple of soldiers and others. A sudden sand storm causes them to crash land in the desert with little chance of survival until one of them, Dorfmann (Hardy Kruger), claims he knows how they can make a serviceable aircraft from the wreckage. With a terrific narrative twist towards the end this is a watchable, entertaining and riveting film that focuses as much on the characters as they struggle with dealing with the dire situation (they as much build the ramshackle aeroplane to keep busy than hope it will fly them safety). Whilst it appears to be one of Aldrich's most mainstream of films it's actually a much more neurotic and suspenseful one that warrants a detailed textual analysis. It's certainly a great film and a definite one to seek out if you've never seen it.

Jeez this is hard work. Clunky and unsubtle romcom that needed a script with finesse and charm, more dialogue, more funny intrigue and a director that could have reined in George Clooney who seems to think that gurning is hilarious. Sorry George it isn't. From the opening scenes you'll work out what's going to happen here. Clooney is a businessman and Julia Roberts his ex (she's an art dealer), married young, had a daughter and now hate one another. So we get the bickering couple competing for their daughter Lily's (Kaitlyn Dever) affection. When she heads off to Bali for a holiday and falls for a young local seaweed farmer whom she wants to marry off go the parents to sabotage the whole thing. You can guess the rest. The beautiful island setting is the best thing about the film because the rest is mediocre cliché. For the most part this is painful and all the jokes have been in other films and so little is original. My advice is give this a miss.

Clint Eastwood's majestically directed war drama is a very moving and interesting film, more for it's detailed examination of the effects on three men caught up in political machinations that they cannot control while suffering, in varied degrees, with PTSD following combat. This is the story of the famous and iconic Second World War photograph of six US Marines raising the American flag at the height of the battle for the Japanese island of Iwo Jima. The film is about the circumstances leading to the photograph being taken and the after effects of the six men who were in the photograph and some who were not but believed to be (I understand that even quite recently the identities of those in the picture is disputed). Eastwood directs a visceral combat film set on the sparse, black volcanic island, juxtapositioned with three of the surviving men who were shipped back home to play a somewhat sordid marketing game and hailed as heroes in order to induce the public to buy war bonds. It's a quite emotional journey and the combat scenes are shocking and realistic and the influence of Steven Spielberg's (who is a producer here), Saving Private Ryan (1997) are evident. Both films feature extended scenes of beach landings under heavy fire. The enemy is a faceless one and we hardly see them as this drama is played out mostly in the USA where the three men chosen are forced to re-enact battle, host parties and make speeches. Ryan Phillipe is the naval medic who is damaged by the loss of his friend Iggy (Jamie Bell), for which he blames himself, Jesse Bradford is Rene, a soldier who sees a way out of the war and enjoys the attention he receives back home and hopes to prosper because of it and Adam Beach is Ira, an American Indian, who is routinely called 'Chief' and is daily faced with the subtle racist bigotry from his friends as well as politicians and his seniors. He is the emotional heart of the film, he feels the guilt of leaving his friends back in the fighting and turns to alcohol for a crutch to cope. His plight is the most moving. There are elements of 'flag waving' in the film's presentation (not meant as a pun by the way) but I think that's the very idea in order to highlight propaganda as the political weapon to justify war while young men die, horribly, fighting it. A war film that deserves to be ranked alongside the best of war films and viewed alongside Eastwood's companion piece, Letters From Iwo Jima (2006) it is a remarkable achievement.

Reboot or sequel to the 1992 film about the urban bogeyman who can be summonsed forth by saying his name five times in a mirror and from whence he will dish out some bloody mayhem. I can hardly remember the '92 film so whilst this one has it's moments it failed to bring me anywhere near the edge of my seat. Clive Barker's original creation was set in Liverpool and designed to expose the bitter divide between rich and poor. Here we have a continuation of the theme but set in Chicago in a once run down slum area and now turned into a prestigious and wealthy neighbourhood. The film investigates the symptoms of bad housing and inequality and taps into the Black Lives Matter debates that are raging throughout the USA in particular. The story is of a young, up and coming artist, Anthony (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) who lives in a plush apartment in the very area where years before the Candyman murders occurred. When he hears about the legend it sparks a creative idea and he produces an artwork that challenges people to invoke the Candyman. Of course when they do gore and violence ensue. There's a strong element of satire at play here but somehow the film failed to convince me and as a horror story it felt a bit limp. I did wonder while watching it as to how long a pause you had to leave between saying his name four times before saying it the fifth before the Candyman decided it was a reset to number one!!

This semi-autobiographical film from Viggo Mortensen, who writes, directs, produces and stars is a clear and emotional drama that focuses on the effects of dementia. He gives a restrained performance as John, a gay man living with his husband and their young daughter in California. He has to bring his frail father, Willis (Lance Henriksen) to live with them as he seems incapable of looking after himself at his remote farm. Willis is a deeply unpleasant bigot and the early stages of dementia bring out the worst of his racism and homophobia, tolerated by John and his family. The film flashbacks into Willis' past as the condition evokes confused and disjointed memories and Mortensen cleverly shows how Willis' increasingly awful behaviour is tolerated rather than challenged other than by the young family members who are unafraid to react. There's also a generational conflict at play here and whilst Willis is so awful that you almost despair at the tolerance his family show him there are instances of kindness in his past that balance the character. Henriksen is excellent as is Laura Linney as his daughter who is deeply frightened by him but tries to hide it. This is an interesting and quite compelling drama that showcases Mortensen's creative talents. Well worth checking out.

This quite small film was a significant game changer challenging the American western which by the mid 60s had become a somewhat tired genre. Then along came Sergio Leone, a huge fan of westerns, who abandoned the conventions of the genre and made this gritty 'professional' western and set the path for American directors like Sam Peckinpah to rise and take the genre to new heights. Whilst this was by no means the first 'spaghetti' western it was definitely the first to become a cult hit and especially in the USA. With it's uncompromising vision of a sun hardened landscape in which only violence and money are the languages understood this broke all the rules. It's a simple story, in fact based on the Japanese samurai film, Yojimbo (1961), where a bedraggled drifter arrives in a Mexican border town, proves his skill with his gun and sets about playing the town's two rival gangs off against one another. Clint Eastwood's career was kickstarted with this as the stranger, Joe, who doesn't get it all his own way and indeed gets brutally beaten at one stage but wins out at the end against the chief villain played by Gian Maria Volontè. The gunfights are great and the score by Ennio Morricone is iconic and majestic raising the film above and beyond. Leone went on to make two more westerns with Eastwood which have become known as the Dollars Trilogy. Whilst Eastwood appears in similar clothing, especially the famous poncho, in all three he in fact plays a different character in each of the films with different name in each. The American market chose to call him the 'Man with No Name' which led to the idea that he's the same character in all three of the films but my advice is to consider them three quite different films with three quite different main characters. In Fistful...he's clearly referred to as Joe and he leaves at the end the same as he arrives at the beginning, bedraggled, riding a mule and penniless. He does spend the film trying to enrich himself but ultimately he fails even though he kills just about everyone. So this is a film to be viewed without being influenced by either of the two that followed even though there are thematic links but I suggest no narrative ones. Whichever way you want to think of the trilogy this, the first, is a neat gunfighter story that broke with convention and managed to redefine the cinema's vision of the key American myth.

With it's influences firmly rooted in the British comedy greats from the Ealing Comedies to the Carry Ons this remains a joy. It's a pacy, romantic crime caper that rattles along from the start and is superbly scripted by star (and uncredited co-director), John Cleese. Cleese has that unique gift of identifying human absurdity especially in character form and here he uses the extremes of difference between English traits and American traits to create a wonderful and very funny film. There are a couple of missteps not least the small homophobic scenes which even in 1988 jarred a little and the final ending is a little too contrived and borders on silly including the pointless pre credits information on the characters. But reappraising this today it remains a delight and it's arguably Jamie Lee Curtis' best film certainly within comedy and Kevin Kline has never been better (he deserved his Oscar for this). The story wastes no time in getting going and introduces the four main characters. In short this is about a gang who carry out a big London diamond heist. Two of them Wanda (Curtis) and Otto (Kline) intend to double cross their English colleagues but the situation comedy kicks in when the loot is hidden where they can't find it. Wanda decides to seduce the barrister Archie (Cleese) who is likely to know where the diamonds are leading to uncontrolled jealousy by the psychopathic Otto. This causes some wonderful comedy scenes often expressed by highlighting social and cultural differences. The film has real panache and everyone is clearly having a ball. Michael Palin is especially good as the repressed gang member Ken who has a stutter that plays into the plot and I have to mention Maria Aitken as Archie's terrifying wife, she really nails the tired old married woman character brilliantly. A clever, glorious contemporary and quintessentially British comedy that brings in modern themes yet retains the majesty of bygone films and it was the last film directed by veteran Ealing Comedy great, Charles Crichton.

This is a strange little film, an overly stylised biopic of the British artist Louis Wain (Benedict Cumberbatch), possibly a genius but remembered only for his cartoonish pictures of cats that he did for a London newspaper. There's a lot of Wes Anderson's cinematic visuals here as the director, Will Sharpe, tries to add some surreal and visual representations of Wain's declining mental state. The centre of the narrative is his marriage to Emily (Clair Foy - superb here) who dies of cancer and sends Louis into uncontrollable despair. Other than that the film meanders around a story that means little to the viewer with some very unfulfilling performances; Andrea Riseborough is a one note character as his shrill and unpleasant sister and Phoebe Nicholls as his mother barely says or does anything. There's also some cameos that feel a little too late and pointless including Taika Waititi and Nick Cave as H.G. Wells. Olivia Colman adds a rather droll narration and Toby Jones tries his best in a supporting role. Cumberbatch, who was also executive producer, channels his eccentric character performance much as he has done in other films and TV (Sherlock?) in a story that is really about a depressive artist who draws cats, in that sense the film leaves you feeling a bit empty despite the odd humorous moment.

This is mindless American action cinema at its absolute worst. A ridiculous, silly, thoroughly implausible film that has zero going for it. Director Michael Bay has taken a small Danish film injected it with a heavy dose of cliché and stupidity and churned out this nonsense. A pity that he didn't give the two lead actors, Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, the nod to make it up as they go along because the script here is awful, the action set pieces are flat and unexciting especially the chase sequences where Bay simply plays out an episode of the A-Team with every police car he can find. The preposterous story is basically that former soldier and war hero Will needs money for his wife's surgery so turns to his criminal half brother, Will, an armed bank robber who simply hires him to be on a major heist due to occur in the next few minutes! It all goes wrong, there's a shoot out and the two take an ambulance along with paramedic, Cam (Eliza González) and a seriously wounded cop. This cues an overly long and rather tedious chase through Los Angeles. The attempts at humour fail utterly and by the end you'll care nothing for any of the characters. A shoddy film, not worth your time.

A homage to the grind house horror movies of the 70s and 80s, which playfully references a few famous ones but doesn't add up to much more than a slasher gore film with plenty of nudity. A group of young persons rent a remote cabin on a Texas farm where they start shooting a porn movie. What they haven't banked on is the elderly farmer couple who own it are rather weird and freaky and out for blood. Mia Goth is as usual superb playing two parts here, one of the girls making the porno and the sinister Pearl, who likes to kill people. It's entertaining as far as it goes but it doesn't offer much new to the genre other than a bit of nostalgia.

If it wasn't for the four dire sequels then this may have been remembered for the neat action thriller that it is. A shame then that whilst it deviates in many good ways from the source novel it didn't retain the book's ending where Rambo dies, which would have made this a film that would be considered a solid, stand alone story and arguably one of Sylvester Stallone's best roles. As it is the politicised second sequel and the brainless others have spoilt this film's reputation. First Blood is a really entertaining, thoughtful action film that tries to highlight issues of former soldiers dumped on society who seem not to care for their plight. Here Stallone plays John Rambo, a former special forces soldier who served on numerous insurgency operations in Vietnam, and is now an aimless drifter with PTSD. After discovering his last ex army buddy has died Rambo ambles into a small north USA town and is harassed by the bull headed police chief (Brian Dennehy). The police actions awaken memories of his capture and torture in Vietnam and Rambo's extra special combat skills are turned on them. Fleeing into the nearby wilderness a massive manhunt ensues but the lawmen are unprepared for Rambo's abilities. There's plenty of great set pieces and stunts shot amidst the stunning wintry landscape and although the script is a little clunky at times, including Stallone's somewhat incoherent final speech, it rattles along at a great pace and has a good soundtrack courtesy of Jerry Goldsmith. Veteran western star Richard Crenna supports as Rambo's former commanding officer and you'll see the roots of the western genre utilised throughout. A little gem of a film really and well worth rediscovering but don't be tempted to watch the others.