Film Reviews by GI

A routine monster horror that steals from just every nasty shark movie and a couple of others too. You can break it down thus: a group of pretty but dopey teenagers go scuba diving in an underwater ancient city, get trapped and are then pursued by some large, blind and very hungry sharks all the time running low on air. The bullied, shy one will inevitably prove the bravest, the brief respite from heroic rescuer will end suddenly when he snuffs it and it's never quite over until it is! It steals shamelessly from Deep Blue Sea (1999), there's the inevitable Jaws homage and the plot is a copy of The Descent (2005) with none of the panache or originality. A comic book throwaway that offers nothing new, it's all been done before and much, much better.

A humourless, rather boring family drama set in the picturesque Portuguese town of Sintra. It has an interesting cast who all seem to be on autopilot with the exception of Marisa Tomei who brings a sense of truth to her role. Isabelle Huppert plays the title role, a rich world renowned actor who has bought her family together for a holiday to impart some news. They are all rather spoilt and have their own relationship problems and so we watch as they all act like their rather weary problems are played out over a day. The film is all a bit cold despite the impressively beautiful setting and with such talent as Brendan Gleeson as Frankie's husband and Greg Kinnear as Frankie's best friend, Ilene's (Tomei) new boyfriend it's a film that had potential but is a damp squib.

Dreamland is a romantic drama with flashes of action and a sort of twist on the Bonnie & Clyde narrative. Set in Texas during the Great depression and disillusioned young man, Eugene (Finn Cole), gets some excitement when he finds wanted fugitive Allison (Margot Robbie) hiding in the family barn. he agrees to help her despite his stepfather being a local deputy sheriff committed to hunting her down. As you'd expect a slightly bizarre relationship begins between them. The film holds the most interest in Robbie's motives, is she lying about her involvement in the killing of child?, Is she does using this naive young man to engineer an escape to Mexico. This is not a bad film, it drags at times and ends as you'd expect. It's worth checking out but not overly memorable.

A subtle, sensitive and interesting directorial debut from Rebecca Hall. It's very stylish, set in Prohibition era New York and shot in a crisp monochrome to finesse the colours as this is a film all about skin colour. It tells the story of two former high school friends, Irene (Tessa Thompson) and Clare (Ruth Negga), both mixed race, who bump into each other one afternoon and re-bond. The main issue is that Clare has opted to 'pass' as white and indeed is married to racist John (Alexander Skarsgård). This shocks Irene but as the film plays out it reveals Irene too, married to a black doctor, is also leading a life that tries to pass as something beyond her. This is tragic tale, wonderfully told and it's a very self assured first film by Hall. The performances all show great sensitivity. It's well worth checking out.

This is the second crime film that director David Cronenberg made with Viggo Mortensen after 2005s A History of Violence. Eastern Promises is basically a gangster film, set in London and narratively focused on Russian organised crime. It's a brutal film with huge dollops of highly realistic violence one of which opens the film. It tends to give up story to try and give a generalised history of the Russian gangland customs which ultimately leaves the film coming up short although it throws in a plot twist which is weakened by a very anticlimactic ending. When a teenage girl dies in childbirth, midwife Anna (Naomi Watts) armed only with the girl's diary attempts to find her family to tell them about the baby. This leads her to a restaurant owned by the helpful Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), who happens to be a ruthless Russian mobster. Anna finds her family are soon threatened but she finds an ally in the mobsters driver Nikolai (Mortensen). Mortensen gives it his all as usual and Mueller-Stahl is excellent. Watts though is sadly underused here and the support of Vincent Cassell doing his usual unhinged psycho is a waste of talent and seems very clichéd. Overall the film has some merit but it's not as interesting as the earlier Cronenberg/Mortensen collaboration.

A passionate and powerful love story that charts sexual awakening, conflicts of desire and the heartbreak of a broken relationship. Whilst there is controversy in this film largely around its intense sex scenes this is also a film that garnered a lot of praise. Filmed in a realist style it follows Adèle (Adèle Exarchopoulos), a high school student who struggles with the peer pressure she receives from her friends to have sex with a guy who fancies her. She feels that something is missing in her life until she meets the confident and artistic Emma (Léa Seydoux) and they begin a passionate relationship. But as their lives become more entwined Adèle still struggles with being a part of Emma's life. Feelings of jealousy, shyness and inadequacy all contribute to a downward spiral. This is a film that really captures the reality of relationship struggles, ultimately it has a deep sadness in the story but also a strong sense of a journey of emotion that can only result in a rewarding life. The two leads are extremely good here and capture the intensity of their love along with the pain when things begin to go wrong. In many ways this is one of the best relationship dramas you'll see.

What is disappointing about this film is that in remaking the ground breaking BBC series of the 1980s director Martin Campbell lost all the essence, weight, ingenuity, subtlety and complexity of that's series to produce an average cop thriller that makes little sense.....and he directed both! The story here is very simple and ultimately clichéd as a revenge narrative where Boston detective Tom Craven hunts down the mysterious killers of his beloved daughter who was trying to uncover corruption at a nuclear storage facility. Throw is more bloodshed, take out the superb characterisations from Troy Kennedy Martin's original story and this is what you have left. Mel Gibson as Craven does his usual quivering in anger and tearful righteousness, Ray Winstone is underused and basically wasted, his role as a covert agent is eroded to almost nothing making his actions mostly pointless to the story. Campbell dips into some of the key narrative devices used to such great effect in the series and effectively renders them silly here. This is a poor film from a director who has done far better not only with the Edge Of Darkness series but of course his work in the James Bond series reboots. This is a big disappointment and one to avoid. Watch the series instead it's fantastic.

Tom Hardy gives one of his grandiose performances as Al Capone in this story of the last year of his life. Released after ten years in prison, suffering from syphillis caused dementia, he is cared for by his loving wife and surrounded by family and suspicious Feds on a Florida estate. The main plot of the film is that everyone believes Capone has stashed a large amount of cash somewhere and everyone wants to get it. It's unclear whether this is intended as a genuine biopic or a study of dementia, either way it's a bit of an empty film. Capone is plagued by hallucinations of his violent past, all of which are highly exaggerated, and wanders around his estate in adult nappies. Hardy's performance is quite unsubtle and at times I thought he was drifting into his Reggie Kray or Charles Bronson personas. The trouble is Capone as a self caused dementia victim is still a nasty individual with nothing redeeming, in fact the film sort of makes you feel he deserves his fate. Kyle MacLachlan has a role as a Doctor in the employ of the FBI, Matt Dillon pops up as Capone's old mentor in several hallucinations. There's some gratuitous violence, thankfully limited to a couple of scenes, and by the end it's a film that will make you shrug and think 'So what'.

A gonzo revenge western that is heavily influenced by Tarantino with added dashes of Leone and John Sturges, blood spattering galore resulting in this being more cartoon than genre. It has its moments but overall adds nothing that you haven't seen before and in fact lacks a witty enough script to balance out all the gore. Interestingly the characters are all based on real people who lived in the old west but the events of the film are entirely fictitious. Essentially it's two gangs of gunfighters who are out to kill each other. Jonathan Majors plays Nat Love who leads one gang and are sort of the good guys. He's out for revenge for the murder of his parents by Rufus Buck (Idris Elba). Buck's gang are much more ruthless and includes a cold blooded Regina King. The story does some crazy things and there's heaps of nasty violence and the odd laugh (one of the gangs robs a 'white' town which is literally all white). The film has energy and a garish look but it's too long and the final bloody climax is a bit underwhelming.

This is one of the key films of the 1980s. A very dark mystery thriller from director David Lynch and if you're unfamiliar with Lynch's films this is a good one as an introduction to them and you can see the roots of Lynch's later Twin Peaks series here. Here Lynch uncovers the dark underbelly of small-town America with his opening images of a picture postcard world that is corrupted by the strange and evil that lies out of sight. Blue Velvet is a film that once seen is not forgotten, it's essentially a mystery that unravels gradually but it's infused with a grotesque characters, sexual violence and a pervading sense of unease. Set in the 1980s it has a 1950s classic film noir vibe but it goes in some very dark and shocking directions. Kyle MacLachlan plays college student Jeffrey, who returns to his hometown after his father has a seizure to help at the family's hardware store. One afternoon he happens to find a severed human ear and takes it to a police detective who lives nearby. Intrigued by his find Jeffrey begins his own investigation, aided by Sandy (Laura Dean), which leads him to a nightclub singer, Dorothy (Isabella Rossellini), and to the psychopathic Frank, a real monster of a villain, played with gusto by Dennis Hopper. The film has a nightmarish visual style and manages to be a mainstream film with avant-garde and arthouse influences. There's themes here of loss of innocence that are key to Lynch's preoccupation with the darkness that pervades American suburbia. This is a modern masterpiece and one that shows how Hollywood occasionally takes risks.

There's no doubt that fans of the MCU will absolutely love this and to be sure the character of Black Widow is one that had the potential for a fulfilling spin-off/stand alone film. This is certainly action packed, spectacular, exciting and great fun although if the Avengers series is not your thing then it'll have some confusing moments in trying to understand what is always going on and where it fits in the Avengers film chronology. In short Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow is forced to join up with her dangerous assassin sister, Yelena (Florence Pugh) to foil the ubër baddie Dreykov (Ray Winstone) who has created an army of brain washed female super soldiers. This forces both to confront their past as the 'daughters' of two Russian spies who posed as their parents in the US where the girls grew up. David Harbour and Rachel Weisz have great fun as those parents and both get stuck into the great fight scenes and huge action set pieces. The influences of the Mission Impossible series and hints of the Terminator films are obvious and William Hurt and Olga Kurylenko have cameos. It's good fun all round and there's the usual end credits sequence so don't switch off too soon.

You could say this is a soppy ol' Disney family adventure that will make you go 'Aww...' at various intervals and you'd be right but it's a good solid, old fashioned dog story that has a good heart much like it's main character. Adapted from the celebrated novel by Jack London (previously adapted in 1923, 1937, 1972 and 1997) this one opts for full on CGI for it's canine characters and this was a good choice giving the animals a wide emotional range that gives the film a lovely, cuddly feel. This is the story of Buck, a St Bernard/Collie cross breed, who is stolen from his luxury home in California, where he lives a mischievous life but is well adored, and sold to be part of a sled team working in the harsh Yukon during the infamous Gold Rush. Here he has to battle the winter conditions, a nasty lead dog named Spitz, and a baddie in the form of Dan Stevens. But he finds love and friendship with grizzled old John (Harrison Ford), who befriends the dog. But the remote forests starts to affect Buck as he feels the call of the wild summoning back to nature. It's all bit corny but there's a warmth to the film and kids of all ages will love this. This is a film that you can all snuggle together on the sofa and enjoy. It's actually a bit of a treat.

A gory horror 'home invasion' thriller set in your typical backwoods cabin. The difference is that the heroine is a thirteen year old girl, the titular Becky (Lulu Wilson). Becky is grieving and angry at the premature death of her mother from cancer and her relationship with her dad is a bit frosty. It gets frostier when he takes her to the family cabin for a weekend and surprises her by also bringing along his new fiancée. Storming off in a huff proves a good idea as four escaped criminals turn up searching for a mysterious key. That storyline goes nowhere and the film veers into a revenge narrative as Becky, instead of running away in fear, sharpens up some weapons (a ruler and pencils!) and starts the violence against the bad guys who are led by Kevin James in a departure from the lovable family guy type roles he usually plays. There's some torture, some cringeworthy violence and not much else really. It's all been done before. The baddies aren't quite bad enough, they're certainly a bit incompetent and Becky comes across as a sort of teenage girl version of Nicolas Cage. It's average stuff, a throwaway that has its moments but they're few.

One of the great contemporary American noir thrillers. A tale of jealousy, greed and murder with a wonderfully scripted and clever plot. It's the debut feature of the Coen Brothers and a very assured film it is too. Set in modern day Texas and nasty bar owner Marty (Dan Hedaya) suspects his barman, Ray (John Getz) is having an affair with his pretty wife Abby (Frances McDormand). He hires a seedy private investigator (M. Emmet Walsh) to get proof. But overcome with a jealous rage he later hires the investigator to murder Abby and Ray. But greed, misunderstandings and mistrust combine to make all their plans go awry. This is a superbly dark tale with plot twists that keep you constantly on your toes. Celebrated character actor Walsh especially is superb here in a memorable performance as the overweight, menacing PI who has his own agenda. This is constructed like the classic Hollywood Film Noirs and plays with the conventions of the genre, toying the audience with a femme fatale in McDormand's character but then making you question her motives. The detective here is no hero either and the 'hero' turns out to be more ready to do dastardly acts than you'd expect. Equally the characters themselves are never sure who is on who's side. It's a great story and well told. If you like a good mystery thriller then look no further, this is a cracking film and one to make sure you see.

A sobering and intelligent drama centred on a woman with anorexia. Sian Brooke plays Stephanie, a woman struggling with drugs, depression and an eating disorder. She returns to her family after seven months in rehab' and tries to reconnect with her troubled teenage daughter who has been living with Stephanie's frosty mother (Amanda Burton). She is planning her wedding to her new partner and insists that Stephanie and her daughter are bridesmaids. There's an excruciating scene of trying on the awful dresses made worse by Stephanie's emaciated state. This film addresses a subject often overlooked and it does so with great honesty and although it's a melancholy film it does pack an emotional punch. It shows the combination of issues that give rise to physical illness like anorexia and how the intolerance and ignorance of loved ones can make matters so much worse. An interesting social drama with a strong central performance and well worth checking out.