Film Reviews by GI

As adaptations of John Le Carré novels go this is slightly disappointing. It's more a character piece that doesn't really get into the characters deep enough to draw you in and then it attempts some thriller style action which is a bit half hearted too. Overall it's an entertaining film that is very watchable and has a decent, if a little preposterous, story. Perry (Ewan McGregor), a university lecturer and Gail (Naomie Harris), a successful barrister, are on holiday in Morocco attempting to save their failing marriage when they're befriended by Dima (Stellan Skarsgård), a big Russian gangster, who slips Perry a computer flash drive urging him to hand it to MI6 on his return home. Dima wants protection in return for information on corrupt British politicians and MI6 man Hector (Damian Lewis) is all ears but faces internal problems getting Dima's demands agreed and adding to the problems Dima will only trust Perry and Gail, who are forced into a very dangerous situation. A basic story of the Mr Normal getting caught up in espionage and political shenanigans. The plot has holes galore and some of it makes little sense but it's a globetrotting tale told with panache and the cast are good.

With the wisdom of hindsight this first 007 outing for Daniel Craig neatly sets up the series that followed. A wise decision to reboot the Bond franchise which had become tired and clichéd and to create an origin story of a sorts. From the black & white filmed prologue the film marks itself as a more serious action film and a turn away from the comic book style that the films had drifted into. Craig is not a naturally handsome man and so the smoothness of the character embodied by Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan for example was abandoned and replaced with a more ruthless version of the character. No longer the playboy but a man from more humble beginnings trained to play a violent part. And quite violent this film is too. To catch up with the action defining Bourne series this Bond is grittier and bloodier. The action if full on from the get-go with the fight scenes realistic and tough and of course there's a controversial torture scene. James Bond is an MI6 agent who is promoted to the 00 section after committing two officially sanctioned kills. The MI6 boss, M (Judi Dench) becomes disillusioned by Bond's gung-ho attitude but is assigned to play in a huge poker game against Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), a banker to the world's terrorists and beat him so he will defect. But there's a traitor involved. The producers here have returned to the source novel, in fact the first Bond book, and the story does, in general, follow the book quite closely. The decision to have Dench return as M is a wise choice linking the film to the franchise and bringing in recognisable 007 tropes such as the Aston Martin DB5 and helps ground the film with the films that went before. The addition of Jeffrey Wright as CIA man Felix Leiter and Eva Green as the love interest make for a great Bond film, arguably Craig's best....maybe.

Buddy movie, road movie and social drama with loads of humour, romance and a heart warming story that avoids being soppy and manages to hit all the right notes. It tells the story of Zak (Zack Gottsagen), a young man with Down's syndrome who is stuck in a care home for the elderly as the State has no other facilities suitable for him. He dreams of being a wrestler and endlessly watches a video of his hero 'Salt Water Redneck'. One night he slips out of the home intent on going to the wrestling school run by his hero. On the road he meets Tyler (Shia LaBeouf), a down-on-his-luck poacher on the run from some nasty rival fishermen. Reluctantly at first Tyler agrees to help Zak and of course they form a bond as Tyler sees in Zak his inner intelligence and desire to enjoy life. This is a really lovely film, a delight from beginning to end, with LaBeouf giving a warm, gentle and vulnerable performance. He's assisted here by the onscreen chemistry with Gottsagen and aided by Dakota Johnson as Zak's carer who goes looking for him. Bruce Dern and Thomas Haden Church have great little cameos too. This is one of those little films that surprises you because it is well written, well directed and performed and has one of those genuinely wonderful stories. Highly recommended.

A ludicrous film but presented with panache and with an exemplary cast. When you add up all the ingredients here you have to wonder at what it's all trying to say. Essentially this is a siege thriller based in a South American country. A rich industrialist holds a party in his mansion essentially to convince visiting Japanese entrepreneur Mr Hosokawa (Ken Watanabe) to build a factory there. The President of the country is invited and international opera singer Roxanne Coss (Julianne Moore) has been booked to perform. In the event the President fails to show and Hosokawa only attends because he is a huge fan of Roxanne. Then the whole party gets taken over by a group of paramilitary terrorists who are mightily disappointed by the President's absence. This all happens in the first twenty mins or so and then the film settles into a long rather boring film where everyone sort of falls for everyone else, friendships are made between terrorists and hostages etc etc until eventually the military storm in and shoot a few people. By the time of the climax you'll have had enough and just to annoy you further there's a ridiculous coda to sit through. A soulless film with the cast attempting to hold it all together. Sebastian Koch is wasted as a UN negotiator, he basically does nothing. And a very strange looking Christopher Lambert is a hostage. A daft idea and a daft film.

Jeremy Irons is great as Neville Chamberlain in this historical espionage drama that I otherwise found rather boring and somewhat annoying. Set around the famous Munich treaty between Chamberlain and Hitler (Ulrich Matthes) it's the story of two old Oxford buddies, Hugh (George MacKay), now the Prime Minister's private secretary and Paul (Jannis Niewöhner), a German who is a translator for Hitler and trying to expose the Nazi regime to the British. The plot centres around a secret document that Paul gives to Hugh and that MI6 want. It's all totally illogical as these two amateurs, with no training and no proper instructions faff around looking suspicious beyond belief. Hugh even puts the secret document in his hotel room drawer for goodness sake! MacKay, usually so good, does a lot of nail biting and fretting and of course there's a facially scarred Nazi getting very nosy about them. History is rewritten to suppose that Chamberlain had a cunning plan all along in his appeasement policy towards Hitler and that he knew war was inevitable. Utter nonsense. The women characters are given very little to do and the threat level never rises above a degree or two, you're more likely to groan at the stupidity of the two main protagonists. Oh and Hitler was never that thin! A big disappointment.

The fourth Carry On is marked by the debut of Sid James who went onto become a regular cast member although he wasn't the first choice for this film. It was also the last that featured Leslie Philips who had been in the previous two. The police was the obvious next subject after the scriptwriters had tackled National Service, the NHS and Education. In many ways this is a weaker film than the first three, following the structure of the films to date and the main actors playing very similar roles to what they had already done. But it's still a neat and funny British comedy and manages to show what the police force, with its discipline, beat work and strict etiquette was actually like. A huge flu epidemic has caused a shortage of officers to patrol so three raw recruits (Kenneth Williams - a brainy nerd, Kenneth Connor - a superstitious man and Leslie Philips - a posh one) are drafted in to fill the ranks. They are helped by a Special Constable (Charles Hawtrey) and between them manage to get everything wrong in a series of episodic sketch type scenes. James is the harassed Station Sergeant trying to manage them while dealing with the busybody Inspector (Eric Barker). The usual cast are along for the ride including Joan Sims, Hattie Jacques and Shirley Eaton (with a bit of risqué nudity). Like the early films in the series this is comedy anchored in the real world and has that nostalgia for the times. It's an example of classic British comedy and well worth seeking out.

The advertising poster promises so much, even some colour, and yet this film is a poorly conceived, bleak and bland affair that has missed so many opportunities to be a half decent science fiction film. The background is that far in the future humanity has left a decimated Earth and now lives on a distant world. A mission was sent back to see if things have improved but it was lost. Blake (Nora Arnezeder), whose father was on the earlier mission, is part of a three man crew sent years later on mission number 2. It all goes wrong from the moment they arrive not least their space capsule, which even in the twentieth century were designed to float on water, now apparently sink like stones. They have no communications equipment and in short her mates get killed and she is left on a now very watery planet where the tides are a daily hazard. Then surprise, surprise there's still some humans around, a bit savage and they have children (which the 'other' humans' now can't have of some reason or another). She has to earn their trust and does so when some even more savage people kidnap the slightly less savage children and Blake heads off to help rescue them only to discover survivors from Mission number one who are now bad people with a nasty agenda. It's all predictable, boring and ends up with shooting (yep guns and ammo can still be found aplenty!). Forget this, its a waste of time.

The third Carry On film is as good a comedy treat as the first two films. Here the theme is focused on Britain's education system, run with an emphasis on discipline as much as learning like much of society at the time. Britain is rich with school based comedy in literature, comics, TV and film, much of it farce, with the children played as more deviously clever than the staff. You only have to think about Billy Bunter, Please Sir! and St Trinians for example, indeed Carry On Teacher has opening and closing credits that are very similar to those in the St Trinian films. This film follows the same narrative pattern with the pupils attempting to sabotage a visit by a Ministry Inspector accompanied by a child psychologist using dirty tricks, booby traps and pranks. Ted Ray joined the cast, for his one and only Carry On role, as the Headmaster of an urban Secondary Modern school. He covets the top job at a new school but needs to make a good impression on Miss Wheeler (Rosalind Knight - a great underrated comedy actor) from the Ministry during her inspection. The pupils led by Stevens (Richard O'Sullivan - of Man About The House fame) intend to foil this at all costs. There's plenty of laugh out loud moments, some silliness and bawdy jokes (The emphasis on the word 'cock' created a bit of a furore). Cast members included Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor, Leslie Philips, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims and Hattie Jacques who were now becoming expected members as this film really kicked off the regular Carry On series. A nostalgic treat and a great addition to this series before they went totally over the top.

A dark, provocative and yet playful satirical drama that has a rape/revenge narrative on the surface and an emotional crisis theme going much deeper. It follows the life of Cassie (Carey Mulligan), a medical school drop out, clearly highly intelligent and yet now works in a small coffee shop. She's a thirty year old still living with her parents and has a rather cynical view of life in general. At night she dresses up, goes to bars and pretends to be very drunk enticing men to pick her up and attempt to sexual assault her while she's incapacitated. She keeps a detailed record of each time. Her icy and very much sober confrontation of them usually has the desired affect (although a colour code in her records hints that not all of these incidents goes well). Cassie's motives stem from an incident in the past which is revealed when she meets a former college friend Ryan and she carefully plans to confront others who are part the cause of her trauma. Mulligan is exceptional here as an avenger who is unconcerned with any level of fairness, she is out to expose and will go to great lengths to do so and her performance is well crafted as Cassie occasionally loses control of the situation. It's a tour de force piece of film acting. Some of this film will have you on the edge of your seat as it brilliantly never reveals exactly how any of the confrontations will play out. A film that defies expectations and very much one that you should check out.

Here's a full-on gutsy action film that is fun filled, fast paced, brutal and bloody and manages to be firmly tongue-in-cheek. Starring Bob Odenkirk who made his name in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, he's perfect as Hutch, a put upon everyman who lives a mundane, suburban life with his family, although his marriage to Becca (Connie Nielsen) has gone somewhat stale. One night they are broken into by two hapless burglars and Hutch avoids an opportunity to get the drop on them making him a big disappointment to his son. Later when his daughter finds the thieves have taken her 'kitty' bracelet Hutch decides to go and find it. What no-one realises is the events have awoken in Hutch a dark past that will unleash a maelstrom of violence. Thematically and narratively similar to John Wick (2014) - both films share the same screenwriter - this works mainly because Odenkirk really gets across the 'nobody special' persona intregal to the story. He's a totally average sort of guy, both physically and emotionally, so when he reveals his true self it's a real humdinger of a surprise. Most of all this a film that simply entertains throughout, the action scenes are great and the film avoids cliché making it a constant surprise. Just for the sheer fun of it this is a film to sit back and just enjoy.

Martin Scorsese's film about greed, corruption and gambling in Las Vegas is a gangster film and companion piece to Goodfellas (1990). Both films are structured similarly with voiceover narrations and sharply observe the brutal criminal world that controls key aspects of American society. Casino is loosely based on real persons and events and follows the criminal rise and fall of Sam 'Ace' Rothstein (Robert De Niro), a gifted gambler who is employed to run a huge mafia owned casino in Las Vegas. While the money rolls in his bosses are happy. But Sam's old school friend and mobster Nicky (Joe Pesci in another juicy gangster role) comes along to run his own scam and has plans to control all the illegal activity in the city. Everything runs fine for Sam until he meets and marries the unreliable hustler, Ginger (Sharon Stone) and Nicky begins to take things too far giving the FBI an excuse to investigate everyone. Interestingly while the film rattles along at a great pace it doesn't really have a plot as such. It simply follows the lives of the key characters along the road to their own fall and in some cases they end extremely violently. Scorsese doesn't flinch from these aspects and the film has some of the most brutal killings you'll get to see in cinema. But this is a key modern film and although set in the 70s and early 80s it's also a condemnation of contemporary America. All the performances are excellent and Pesci excels as the psychopathic Nicky in a role very similar to the part of Tommy he plays in Goodfellas. This is one of the best films about organised crime in America since The Godfather (1972) and whilst it's shocking and disturbing it's a film that is epic in structure and shows a filmmaker at the top of his game. A must-see film.

This French drama is very impactive, a story of sexual exploitation and grooming in sport, in this case championship skiing. Impeccably acted and beautifully shot the film has the power to act on the viewer by lulling you into believing this is about a young girl with huge potential undergoing her journey to success whereas it's about the casual acts of her coach to abuse her. Lyz (Noée Abita), a 15 year old ski protegé, is a member of the training camp of former ski champion Fred (Jérémie Renier). He sees her potential for the Olympics as a downhill racer and bullies and harangues her to get better and better. His subtle grooming of her exploiting her loneliness (her mother works away leaving her alone much of the time) and abilities culminates in his sexual abuse of her. First time director Charlène Favier cleverly shows how, when the sexual approaches happen, they are awfully inevitable as Fred has carefully spent many months getting Lyz used to his intimate touching which he disguises as coaching. Liz is torn between the emotional fear and angst and wanting to reach her full potential as a champion. This makes this film a powerful story of abuse that makes one wonder how endemic it is in all sports. A film I recommend, horrifying on many levels but passionately portrayed and directed to highlight this behaviour and its consequences.

One of the great classical Hollywood romance dramas with Humphrey Bogart the epitome of the American anti-hero here as a cynical bar owner in French Morocco, still under French rule following their European defeat by the Germans in the early years of the Second World War. This is a story ripe with melodrama and intrigue and made Bogart into a megastar. He really is a most unusual star too when you watch him today, not a classically handsome man and prone to having a sneering look which made him quite menacing. As a bad guy he fitted perfectly, as the romantic hero he's a strange choice but he hits every note just right in this wonderful film. He's Rick, an American, who owns the most popular bar in Casablanca. An uneasy truce exists between the French authorities in the form of the police commissioner (Claude Rains) and the Gestapo, who are on the look out for enemies attempting to flee occupied Europe via Casablanca en route to the USA. Corruption is rife and Rick has a hand in most of it. He has come into possession of some blank exit passports that are worth a fortune on the black market. When an anti-nazi fugitive, Laszlo (Paul Henreid) arrives in town hoping for passage to America Rick couldn't care less until he discovers he's accompanied by his wife, Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman). Rick and Ilsa once had an affair in Paris and he's still very much in love with her. He's faced with a choice of helping Laszlo and Ilsa escape or betraying Laszlo to the gestapo so Ilsa and he can be together. Full of very famous film quotable lines (often wrongly I may add, for example "Play It Again, Sam" is never said in the film) and with a superb cast of support actors and the famous song 'As Time Goes By'. This is a film noir full of dark shadows, betrayals, and double cross with a beautiful love story at its heart. A film that is essential for any true film fan, a real classic and one that its worth seeking out if you've never seen it. It is a real classic from the classical period of American cinema.

After the success of Carry On Sergeant (1958) this sequel of sorts was made and proved even more popular (surprisingly in the US too). Both dealt with British institutions the first being National Service and the Army, and this second film the National Health Service. Like all public sector bodies at the time the NHS was run on a basic military style set up with ranks, discipline and an authoritarian structure. Carry On Nurse is, for the most part, a subtle comedy of manners, it does move from satire into farce at one point but mostly this is a film that draws humour from the institution and it's a film that nostalgically shows what going into hospital was like in the 1950s. Set entirely on a male surgical ward the film gives snapshots of British society especially the issues of class and the lives of ordinary folk in the scenes of visiting hours. The various couples each being very sharply drawn characters. The staff are exemplified by the hard pressed nurses (including Joan Sims in her first 'Carry On' - she eventually appeared in more of them than anyone else) and by the fearsome Matron (Hattie Jacques), whose rounds cause utter panic amongst staff and patients alike. Many of the actors from the first film return including Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor, Shirley Eaton and Terence Longdon (an actor often forgotten but one who appeared in many films and TV throughout the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s). This is a great comedy film that deserves a modern audience. From this the series was launched and viewed today it's a joy, with romance, fun and some, for the time, risqué stuff including a scene involving a daffodil!

A film that starts as a 1960s set family drama that accelerates into a hard edged thriller. A story of a tragedy where happily married couple Margaret (Diane Lane) and George (Kevin Costner), a retired lawman, live contentedly on their Montana ranch. Their son, his wife and their baby boy live with them until one day the son dies in a riding accident. After a couple of years their daughter in law, Lorna (Kayli Carter), remarries and her new husband, Donnie (Will Brittain), a morose, ill tempered man, decides to take his new family away. Distraught that she might never see her grandson again Margaret persuades George they should go and find where they are. Eventually they track them down and find they are living with Donnie's mother, Blanche (Lesley Manville) and her other sons. Blanche is the matriarch presiding over a family of very unpleasant men and Margaret quickly realises she needs to get Lorna and the boy away from them but Blanche won't let them go. Lane is the centre of this story, a woman who is stoically determined to get her grandson away from the obvious harm he is suffering under the evil of Blanche and here is the film's great contrast of characters, Manville clearly relishes the role of Blanche and the film wisely keeps her onscreen appearances to a minimum making her all the more an impactive evil character. You know that the confrontation is on the way from the moment these two women meet and when it comes it doesn't disappoint. So there's some good action to be enjoyed in the climax of the story. An entertaining film, the time and setting beautifully portrayed in what is a character driven film, wonderfully performed, and blending family drama with violent retribution. Well worth checking out.