Film Reviews by GI

Some great special effects don't save this silly film. Based on a DC graphic novel by Alan Moore the story has promise but it takes itself far too seriously making it all the dafter. John Constantine (Keanu Reeves) is a man who can see ghosts and demons etc and spends his time exorcising demons that break the rules and try and enter the human realm. When the twin sister of police detective Angela (Rachel Weisz) apparently commits suicide she is down to seek out Constantine to help her find out what happened to her sister. John eventually uncovers a weird conspiracy involving Satan (Peter Stormare) and the Archangel Gabriel (Tilda Swinton). I've no doubt everyone is giving their best but sadly the film fails, and the first hurdle it fails to overcome is Hell, which is visualised as the aftermath of a bomb run with silly cartoonish demons with only half a head. By the time you get to Constantine's golden crucifix gun you'll either be groaning or have switched off.

A powerful suspense thriller with a very touching and tender love story at its heart. Adapted from the novel by John Le Carré this is a really riveting film, beautifully filmed in Kenya and directed and edited in a cleverly structured way that tells the story as a mystery whilst also allowing the audience to see events early on that drive the characters towards the film's climax. Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz are married couple Justin and Tessa. They are an unlikely couple as Justin is a mild mannered, gentle and an unassuming British diplomat who loves gardening and Tessa is an activist and a bit of a firebrand. When Justin is stationed in Kenya Tessa spends her time with the locals in the company of a Belgian doctor (Hubert Koundé) leading to rumours they are having an affair. But when Tessa is murdered Justin begins to suspect the official reports are a cover up and embarks on his own investigation to find out what Tessa was involved in despite threats to stop. In many ways this film is about political corruption and murder which drives Justin onwards in trying to expose his wife's killers but it's also his own discovery of how deep his relationship with his wife actually goes. Much of this he discovers after her death making to story both sad and uplifting and very moving. The plot is really clever and involves espionage and dark dealings with governments and private companies, in this case the pharmaceutical industry. Fiennes and Weisz are both on top form here and assisted by a superb support cast that includes Danny Huston and Bill Nighy amongst others. A first class film and one I highly recommend if you've never seen it.

A great sword and sorcery epic set in a mystical Norse like world and adapted from the very popular series of books by Robert E. Howard. It's also Arnold Schwarzenegger's first narrative film and set him on course for the action star he later became. And he's rather good in this and perfect casting too. When his parents are murdered during a raid on his village the young Conan (Jorge Sanz) is sold as a slave and later trained as a gladiator growing into a formidable warrior. When he is set free the now adult Conan (Schwarzenegger) embarks on a path of vengeance on the leader of the mysterious snake cult that killed his father and mother. If you loved Game Of Thrones then you'll really like this as it's adult, action packed and filled with bloody battles, strange monsters, witches and sorcerers with sex and romance and has a great story with a wonderful recreation of a fantastical land of snowy wastes and deserts. Great fun and the end suggests a series was contemplated and although a poor sequel followed in 1984 and a remake in 2011 the series never arrived. Support cast of James Earl Jones and Max Von Sydow just adds to the mix because this is a a great fantasy film and well worth checking out if you've never seen it.

Pure adrenaline rush action and a film that is so preposterous it's brilliant. The whole thing is such great entertainment and it's the ultimate example of cinema where there's nothing pretentious or meaningful its simply there for you to sit back and have a great time. So if you've never seen this then it's one to check out because its a riot. Nicolas Cage, in arguably his best film, is former ex soldier Cameron Poe, who killed a man defending his wife and ends up in jail for manslaughter. Eight years later he is paroled and is looking forward to reuniting with his wife and daughter, who he has never seen. To get home he joins a prison transport plane on it's way to transfer dangerous prisoners to other parts of the country including some of the most dangerous. But led by Cyrus The Virus (John Malkovich) the prisoners have a clever plan to take over the plane and escape. Poe decides he has to foil their plans. With a great support cast that includes John Cusack, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi and Colm Meaney this film rollicks along at a great pace, has a thoroughly daft macho script ("Put the bunny back in the box"), plenty of humour, explosions, chases, gun battles and ends with a massive set piece chase in Las Vegas. You'll never have as much fun watching a film as this one.

The Commitments is one of those social comedies that always entertains regardless of how many times you've seen it. Hilariously funny and yet it manages to reveal the grime and deprivation of the working class estates of Dublin where wheeler dealer Jimmy Rabbitte (Robert Arkins) puts together a soul band made up of locals who nearly make it big. It's in the scenes of everyday life from the auditions Jimmy holds in his parents house (Colm Meaney as Jimmy's Dad is a riot) to his walking around the city where we get to see life going on (including a boy putting a horse into the lifts in a block of flats) that the little gems of comedy and social drama are seen. But its when the band, who gradually fall out with one another for various reasons, start performing that the film adds it's real magic because they are really good putting on their covers of such classic as Dark End Of The Street and Try A Little Tenderness. Director Alan Parker mostly used unknown actors, many of whom went onto careers in TV and film, which gives the film it's mock documentary style. With it's very colourful language courtesy of a great script by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais ( famous in the UK for TV comedy such as The Likely Lads and Porridge) and Roddy Doyle from whose novel the film is adapted, this is a riot. A wonderful film, it'll have you laughing out loud, singing and dancing. It's a sheer joy.

A very entertaining science fiction film set a few years in the future where the Earth's energy supplies are almost exhausted and international tensions are spiralling towards a major war. A huge orbiting space station, the Cloverfield, has been launched that contains an experimental device that could solve all the world's energy problems. But test firings of the device keep failing. The small scientific crew try to rectify the problems in a race against time and unwittingly cause a rift in the space/time continuum and find themselves trapped in a parallel universe which threatens their own as well as the one they are now in. A clever story that links the other films in the 'Cloverfield' series although you don't have to see any of the other films to really enjoy this as it's a stand alone story. If you enjoy sci-fi of the likes of Event Horizon (1997) and Alien (1979) then you will definitely enjoy this. It's has some great effects and an intricate plot which keeps you thinking throughout especially as it concerns the idea of multiverses similar to each other but with significant differences. There's some shocks along the way and the script adds in some good humour to soften the horrific elements. The great cast of Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Oyelowo, Chris O'Dowd, Daniel Brühl et al makes for a very enjoyable space film.

A somewhat cold drama about obsessive love. Laetitia Dosch plays Hélène, a divorced mother and University lecturer who begins a passionate relationship with a slightly dodgy Russian diplomat, played with cool indifference by former ballet dancer Sergei Pollunin. There's some very crude sex scenes, it's actually all they appear to do together, as Hélène talks of love her lover seems to be just using her. He's married and takes off every so often leaving her in a bit of a state. When he returns to Moscow she falls into a deep depression. The film drifts around with much idle talk in between rough bonking. Overall it's a rather dull film although Dosch manages to capture the hell of loneliness and abandonment very well

A comedy drama that really shows the talents of Aubrey Plaza who is intense and mesmerising here as Allison, a filmmaker who goes to stay with a bickering couple at a lakeside retreat in the hope of some inspiration for her next script. The three part relationship drama builds into something quite intriguing and with suspense as the couple, Gabe and Blair (Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon) are at each others throats and Blair thinks Gabe is flirting with Allison. Indeed things build to a confrontation and possible tragedy but then suddenly the film switches to a completely different storyline. The second act of the film has the same location but now a film is being shot at the house and Gabe is the director with Allison, his wife, as the main star and Blair as a support actor. Gabe and Blair hatch a plan to get Allison jealous to fire up her performance but this backfires in an dramatic way. As a depiction of indie filmmaking and the emotions of so called artists this is also an interesting watch but what I didn't get is the juxtaposition of the two acts. It seems that Act 1 is abandoned just as its reaching its peak and we miss out on a really good suspense drama. Certainly I enjoyed the first half more than the second. Plaza is excellent throughout, her powerful performance is superb. It's the structure of the film I found unfulfilling.

This drama has Matt Damon playing against type as a father trying to reconnect with his daughter whilst trying to help her prove her innocent of murder. There is a vigilante..ish story here but don't expect Damon to Jason Bourne his way through this story. He plays Bill, an American blue collar worker with past demons, who's daughter Allison (Abigail Breslin) is serving a prison sentence in Marseilles for killing her lover. He visits her whenever he can afford to and on his latest trip she wants her lawyer to get her case reopened on a snippet of information about a boy who she claims is really the guilty one. But much to Bill's frustration the lawyer and authorities do not consider there are sufficient grounds so Bill embarks on trying to find the individual himself. Not speaking French he's helped by a local woman, Virginie (Camille Cottin) and he soon bonds with her young daughter. Bill is a gentle man trying to amend for his earlier failures as a father and so is somewhat blind to whether Allison may actually be guilty of not. There are obvious parallels to the Amanda Knox case and the story is clearly influenced by it and, for the most part, the film has some good plot twists but does tip occasionally into some odd storylines. But overall it's an entertaining drama that keeps you watching but don't expect a gritty action film because this is not that it's a story of relationships caught in extraordinary circumstances.

Director Michael Mann has a unique style, instantly recognisable and much envied and copied by others. His genius is his depiction of cityscapes especially at night combining sharp angled close ups with wide shots of the city. In this case it's Los Angeles where he creates a story of two men, on opposite sides of a moral divide, a theme Mann has often been attracted to in his other films. The story is set over one busy night in LA where Max (Jamie Foxx), a night shift taxi driver with ambitious dreams, drops off City prosecutor Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith) at her office where she's preparing a big case and picks up Vincent (Tom Cruise) who has five locations he needs to visit in one night and offers Max a big tip if he ferries him around. Max reluctantly agrees but soon regrets his decision because Vincent is a highly professional contract killer with five 'hits' to carry out and Max realises he's not going to survive the night. But circumstances forces Vincent to have to use Max and the two begin to develop a strange rapport. Cruise is excellent here and proves he's an actor far better than often thought and I certainly wish he'd make more films like this rather than big, brash action films. Coldly professional but hinting at an emotional past that sees him make decisions around Max that are ultimately to his detriment. The action is fast, realistic and gritty with a superb complimentary soundtrack throughout the film. The support cast includes Mark Ruffalo as a detective on the trail and Javier Bardem has a great cameo. You will not find a modern crime thriller as brilliant as this. It's sharp, original and directed with a style that utilises digital techniques that enhance the story and the setting. It's really a mini masterpiece.

Very loosely based on real events this is a wartime tale of derring-do as plucky British officers attempt to escape from the infamous German POW camp of Colditz Castle. Starring the great John Mills this is an entertaining story of how his character, Captain Pat Reid (the film is also loosely on an adaptation of Reid's memoirs as a POW) arrives at Colditz which was a prison where the Germans sent all officers who had tried to escape from other POW camps, his time as 'Escape Officer' and his eventual daring getaway. The film is a series of episodes depicting various escapes, the Germans are depicted as expected (sly, cunning, ruthless etc etc) and the British as a slightly snobby, class focused, group of public schoolboy types who treat escaping as a jolly jape. Interestingly there is the odd moment of scripted xenophobia as the Brits find their fellow allied prisoners, French, Dutch and Polish, as a damn nuisance until they agree to work together. Overall this is humorous and highly entertaining and is an example of the very well made war films that the 1950s British film industry excelled in. Film fans will notice Ian Carmichael, Lionel Jeffries, Richard Wattis, Bryan Forbes and Eric Portman as the British Senior Officer. This is a classic British film, enjoyable and interesting and well worth your time if you've never seen it.

One of Steven Spielberg's best films and a science fiction epic that posits that visiting extraterrestrial life would be friendly rather than have nasty designs on the Earth. Spielberg, who also wrote the screenplay, avoids his over sentimentality that he often dripped into his films and tells a remarkable two pronged story which run in parallel and eventually converge. The main one is that of Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss), an electrical engineer, who is called out one night after a series of strange power cuts. Whilst out in the road he has a strange experience with what he believes to be a UFO and whilst his chaotic family don't believe him they become angry and fearful when he begins to obsess over a strange shape he sees in his mind. Alongside this the film intersperses a scientific investigation led by Lacombe (François Truffaut) into the appearance of strange lights seen in the sky and the discovery of formerly missing aircraft found in bizarre locations. Eventually the characters converge on a remote American location at a landmark mountain site the shape of which mirrors Neary's visions. There they experience the arrival of visiting aliens. A remarkable film brilliantly directed and edited to bring the two story lines together, the special effects are excellent for the time and this is a film that deserves recognition as one of the best science fiction films. It's a lovely story too, a family film that is has mystery, excitement and a feel good ending. It's one to sit down with your children and enjoy today. Interestingly there are three versions available, the original theatrical, a 'Special Edition' and the Director's Cut. I recommend the last one which allowed Spielberg to refine some scenes he was unhappy with in the original release and to remove a new ending that appeared in the Special Edition, an ending that was a step too far and was unnecessary.

A preposterous and daft Second World War spy story that has a hopelessly miscast Eddie Izzard as a British agent who infiltrates an Anglo/German school for young ladies located on the English south coast. Why he needs to do this is anyone's guess but in any event he impersonates a teacher, witnesses the nazi ideology being taught to the girls (who are all related to prominent nazis apparently). He's not sure about the headteacher (Judi Dench, who is wasted in the role) who he catches doing a nazi salute. Set in August 1939 and with tensions between the two countries the British want to keep these girls in England. Why is also anyone's guess, I presumed as hostages but it's not very clear because Izzard spends most of the film running across beaches and moors in Richard Hannay style trying to escape from either the police or nazi agents. The whole thing is thoroughly silly and everyone does stupid things which will make you groan out loud. Even Jim Broadbent supports as a bus driver!!

A black situation comedy where embarrassment and lies are excruciatingly revealed. It follows young Danielle (Rachel Sennott), who having just had sex with an older man, Max (Danny Deferrari) who pays her because she tells him she needs money for her school fees, goes to a shiva ( a sort of jewish wake), with her parents. She knows she'll have to go through the torment of elderly relatives telling her she needs to eat more, get a boyfriend etc etc, but she is mortified when Max also turns up, along with his wife and child. Max is equally wary especially as he learns Danielle is from a wealthy family and doesn't need any money. Danielle's day gets worse when her former lover, Maya (Molly Gordon) is there too and begins to suspect that Danielle and Max have some secrets. Apart from the opening scene the film is set in an overcrowded house where the characters have to navigate to avoid each other. It results in a sharp comedy of manners that is occasionally a little callow and intense. It's a confident debut from director Emma Seligman and the screenplay, also written by her, is based on real experience. Funny and a bit cringy at times but well worth checking out.

A surprisingly absorbing documentary that tells the story of the strange experiment that took place in the Arizona desert in the early 1990s when eight volunteers were sealed inside an enormous dome, the Biosphere 2 (Biosphere 1 being the Earth), as a study of how humans, plants and animals might survive in future planetary exploration. The whole thing originated out of the 60s hippy counter culture under the vision of John Allen, a bizarre guru type character, which helped the later accusations that the entire experiment was the work of a cult. Of course the experiment largely failed due to simple things like the oxygen running low and accusations that the organisers cheated and of course tempers inside the dome soon deteriorated. The billionaire who provided the money eventually kicked the hippies out and bought in bankers. The overall interesting aspects are that the experiment tapped into the more serious issue of climate change and survival plans for humanity and the problem of profit over science. Interesting and well told story.