Film Reviews by GI

A big, loud, bloody science fiction film from Russia. There's some excellent special effects on show here in this story set at an unspecified time in the future. A sudden blackout across the world occurs except for an area in eastern Russia and the baltic states. Expeditions into the blackout area finds only corpses and any deep penetration results the team being lost. Eventually a military operation into the 'zone' is attempted after contact is made with a strange alien who may or may not be a friend to the survivors. Plenty of gutsy action and a quite interesting story makes for a rather entertaining film, it's overly long and suffers a bit from a lack of tighter editing but overall it's a film to try. The influences of Aliens (1986 and including the art of H.R. Giger), Edge of Tomorrow (2014) and Stephen King's novel The Stand and the zombie genre in general are very obvious. There's themes here of the origins of humanity and man's predilections towards war and violence which are wrapped up in a clever idea. One to try if you're into action scifi.

A gritty action cop thriller with a clash of cultures theme. Directed by Ridley Scott it has all his usual visual flair and attention to detail and is particularly impressive in the cityscape night scenes with the use of reflecting neon (indeed very reminiscent of Blade Runner). This is not however considered one of Scott's better films which is a bit unfair because, whilst it is more in the style of his brother Tony's films, this is a first rate, highly entertaining film with some fantastic set piece action scenes. Michael Douglas, at the height of his box office fame, is New York detective Nick Conklin. He's an uncompromising cop who is under investigation for corruption. He and his partner Charlie (Andy Garcia) witness a Japanese gang hit and manage to arrest the killer, Sato (Yûsaku Matsuda) and are assigned to take him back to Japan where he is wanted by the police. But on their arrival Sato escapes and Nick is suspected of colluding with him and to prove his innocence sets about finding him. Nick soon finds he's up against the very rigid Japanese police' methods. Plenty of gutsy violence and a great story this keeps you hooked throughout and it's one of Douglas' best action films. It pushes the boundaries of credibility at times but this can be forgiven for the impressive structure and look of the film from a gunfight in a metal refinery to a motorcycle chase through a vineyard. A good solid thriller, well worth seeking out if you've never seen it.

An iconic British film, very risqué for its time, and one that still shines today as a high watermark of risk-taking cinema. It has a rich, striking and vivid colour palette and use of sound to create an aura of wonder mixed with suspense and dread. This is a film with a powerful, inherent style and there's a certain majesty to it. Deborah Kerr plays Catholic nun, Sister Clodagh, who is promoted and assigned to set up a mission on a remote Himalayan mountainside in a former palace once used as a harem. She struggles to hold discipline in the hostile environment which seems to affect all of the nuns especially Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron). The presence of Mr Dean (David Farrar), a cynical English agent for the palace's owner, begins to bring out old passions in Clodagh and Ruth who begins to feel jealousy and rage as a consequence. This is a story about corruption of faith and morality, a film about passion and lust with a hint of thriller about it, a psychological drama that has become very influential. It's a sumptuous masterpiece of cinema and one of the finest British films ever made. It's definitely one of those films everyone should see.

A pointless, tired and unfunny new version of Noel Coward's celebrated play. It's not a patch on David Lean's 1945 film. There is overacting, childish farce and no new perspective offered. It makes you wonder why anyone considered it was time for a remake. If you don't know the story it's set in England in 1937 and celebrated thriller writer Charles (Dan Stevens) has writer's block but the germ of an idea for a story means he needs to observe one of the fraudulent mediums who are popular so invites the eccentric Madame Arcati (Judi Dench) to hold a seance at his house. Against the odds she manages to summon Charles' deceased first wife, Elvira (Leslie Mann) from the grave who fully intends to hang around much to the chagrin of his new wife Ruth (Isla Fisher). As comedy ghost stories go all the ingredients are there for a very funny film but this one just isn't it. There is overacting and silliness that is groan inducing even though Judi Dench tries her best with the material. Lean's earlier film is very funny, this one just is dull and daft.

With the ability to watch this afresh having seen the entire 'Dark Knight' trilogy this origin picture of the iconic superhero is actually a clever, intricate action adventure film with some interesting themes behind it. Director Christopher Nolan effectively shifted the superhero genre into a more darker and adult oriented movie experience by returning to the roots of the character as a rage filled avenger whose morality is constantly being questioned. The choice of Christian Bale to play The Batman has been one that has divided audiences but, with the wisdom of hindsight, he does feel exactly right for the role and made the character his own. There is no doubt this first of the trilogy tests younger viewers as Batman doesn't appear until nearly an hour into the film as the story focuses on what drives the young Bruce Wayne to become this character in the first place. It's the murder of his philanthropic billionaire parents that pushes young Bruce, filled with hatred, anger and a desire for vengeance, to leave his luxurious life and disappear. He finds himself taken under the wing of a mentor, the leader of The League of Shadows, an organisation that it claims is there to right wrongs. But disillusioned Bruce eventually leaves the umbrella of the League to create the Batman, designed to instil fear in criminals in his home city of Gotham. But he soon finds that the League have designs of Gotham and the Batman must take them on to prevent the city being destroyed. The action set pieces are fast and creative with the vehicles and gadgets given the veneer of being real so the film feels like it's grounded in the real world rather than being obviously comic book and/or science fiction. The topnotch cast are all on great form and include Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, Katie Holmes, Rutger Hauer, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson and Morgan Freeman. This is essentially the superhero film made for grown ups and it's well worth a revisit if you weren't convinced the first time. It's a very different film for example from the MCU styles films, and of course the trilogy was yet to produce the best of the bunch.

This is part biopic about the famous Victorian palaeontologist Mary Anning and part period drama that adds a fictional romance between Mary and her friend Charlotte. The pairing of Kate Winslet as Mary and Saorise Ronan as Charlotte undeniably makes this a film well worth seeing. They are both superb here and bring a passion to this story written by director Francis Lee, who admits his poetic licence in making these two friends into lovers. Mary Anning is a renowned scientist who discovered many famous fossils but was spurned by the male dominated scientific community from which she was largely excluded. The film begins where Mary, her biggest discoveries behind her, lives with her placid mother (Gemma Jones) and runs a small shop in Lyme Regis selling small fossils and seashells. They live hand to mouth and so are unable to turn down the offer of payment from a fellow scientist to look after his depressed wife Charlotte. Curmudgeonly Mary shows Charlotte her passion in finding fossils on the windswept beach and gradually a passionate love affair blossoms between them. As a story of Victorian sexual attitudes this excels as it does as a love story about two women trapped within male dominated worlds. You could argue that the fossil discoveries depicted represent the finding of their passion as the two women excite over their shared passion of searching the beach and uncovering the past. Fiona Shaw supports here as a former friend/lover of Mary in an especially warm role that contrasts Mary's withdrawn emotions. This is a really delightful story, well told and well performed. Recommended.

The combat film par excellence. Based on real events that took place in Mogadishu in October 1993 when US forces attempted to snatch two lieutenants of a warlord and were nearly overrun by the local militia resulting in the loss of nineteen soldiers, two helicopters and many wounded. They also killed over a 1000 somalis. Director Ridley Scott brings his usual visual detail and fast paced, adrenaline driven editing in what is essentially one long battle narrative. The film captures the confusion of modern combat and at times it's an effort to keep track of who is who as various groups of soldiers are dispersed and move through the city. There's no real character studies here, no romance, no attempt at political ideology or the rights and wrongs of the incident, this is a film that attempts to show the visceral, brutal effects of war and in that it succeeds very well indeed. There is attempts to highlight that many of those taking part are barely adults and it has sadness as friends are lost. It's quite an experience to watch this and a real cinematic achievement, epic in structure and design and wonderfully directed even though at times it's quite gruesome. It has a significant cast that includes Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, Sam Shepard, Ewan Bremner, Jason Isaacs, Orlando Bloom and it's the first film of Tom Hardy. An exhilarating experience to watch and a film to seek out if you've never seen it.

A noir styled suspense thriller that has a rather nifty plot and does keep you hooked. Just as you think it might all be a bit clichéd the film surprises you. The story centres around a large cache of missing drug money coveted by the gangsters who consider it theirs, a beautiful girl and some corrupt cops. One of these Cristi (Vlad Ivanov) works for the gangsters but is suspected by his boss Magda (Rodica Lazar) who has him under surveillance. She also has plans to steal the money for herself but the key to finding it is one of the gang who is in jail. Cristi is recruited by Gilda (Catrinel Marlon) to plan a jailbreak and the gang use a whistling language to communicate and throw off the police. But Gilda has her own plans. It's all a story of corruption, disloyalty, greed and lust. Gilda is not named as such for nothing!! There's some good set pieces and at least one very shocking act of violence. This is actually an entertaining film that keeps you watching so it's well worth checking out.

This bittersweet comedy drama is a rather eye opening film that looks at modern female life in a wry, tender and intelligent way. It follows Bridget (Kelly O'Sullivan - who also wrote the screenplay), a 34 year old single woman who feels she's a bit of a failure. An unwanted pregnancy after a casual fling comes at the same time she finds a new job as nanny to six year old Frances (Ramona Edith Williams), the daughter of gay couple Maya (Charin Alvarez) and Annie (Lily Mojekwu). Bridget has an avowed phobia of children and initially finds the job taxing as she also decides to have an abortion. But Frances begins to have a liberating affect on Bridget and the way she sees life and her future. The film takes the issue of women's rights of control over their own bodies very seriously and the narrative looks at the everyday issues of menstruation, sex, relationship, breast feeding and post natal depression, and these are dealt with in a witty script that is taboo busting and intimate. It shows the absurdities of life for modern women and how navigating societies intolerance can be a tough call. A really quite warm and exhilarating film that manages to bring women's lives to the fore.

The great thing about the James Bond films is that it doesn't matter how far fetched, even absurd, they are it still feels like they're taking place in the real world. This, Daniel Craig's fifth and reportedly last, outing is an action packed, funny, full of complicated plot mechanisms (you need to be well up on the first four films), exciting and confident movie. If you love Bond you'll love this. It's been well worth the wait to be honest because it delivers, with the usual panache, a real barnstormer of an action film. James Bond has left MI6 and, his love life in tatters, has retired. But when a British secret biological weapon is stolen the CIA's Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) seeks out his old friend to help. Reluctantly Bond agrees but has to deal with old enemies, new enemies, some surprising allies and some who bring old emotions back to haunt our hero. There's lots of big 007 tropes not least a creepy baddie and his lair that Bond must penetrate to save the day. Here we see James Bond at his most vulnerable, emotional even, something Craig has inserted into the character (although George Lazenby had set the course back in 1969) and I admired the links to some of the books, in particular You Only Live Twice, which is totally a different story to the film version. (If you know this book it will give you hints as to where the story goes) The film has a fantastic prelude sequence before jumping five years to the main story. The action set pieces are fast and exciting, there's loads of gunplay and some big surprises along the way. Great support cast of Ralph Fiennes as M, Ben Whishaw as Q, Christoph Woltz as Blofeld, Naomie Harris as Moneypenny, Léa Seydoux, Ana de Armas and Rami Malek. It's not the best of Craig's Bond series but it's certainly a big, brash and very worthy addition to the franchise.

A gripping Second World War thriller and one of the best about resistance fighters. Set in Holland as the war is nearing its end it tells the story of Rachel (Carice van Houten) who as a Jew has been in hiding since the German occupation. She is offered a chance, with her family, to escape west towards the advancing allies but they are betrayed. Rachel manages to escape and joins the resistance where she is tasked with getting close to the head of the German Security Police, Müntze (Sebastian Koch) to find out information. But she soon finds that there is double cross, betrayal and not everyone can be trusted. This is a fantastic war film that has espionage, action and twist and turns in the plot so you never know who is on who's side. Like all of director Paul Verhoeven's films it pushes the boundaries at times in particular in it's sex scenes and some of the violence is graphic. But it's a great story, fast paced and a plot that hooks you in. If you like a good war film this is worth your time.

A rather quirky film in Alfred Hitchcock's canon but probably one of his most famous. It has all his usual build up of tension and dread although it does veer into romantic melodrama for much of the first third of the film. However once it gears up into the main story it is impactive, exciting and at times quite scary. Former model Tippi Hedren, one of Hitchcock's famous blonde 'discoveries', plays rich San Francisco socialite Melanie who, on a whim, heads out to the remote seaside town of Bodega Bay searching for Mitch (Rod Taylor), a man she fancies and hopes to seduce. As they begin a romance of sorts, the town is struck by strange, at first isolated, attacks by birds. These grow in intensity forcing Mitch, Melanie, his mother (Jessica Tandy) and young sister (Veronica Cartwright) to retreat to their house where they face an onslaught from the murderous birds. There's some shocking scenes but the film excels in its ability to create a contrast of calm with a sense of dread throughout, aided by there being no musical score. Hitchcock's well known hatred for location shooting means that the edits to studio shots occasionally are a little too obvious and there's too much use of back projection but that said there's equally some highly memorable stuff on display here, an overhead shot of the town from the viewpoint of the circling seagulls for example. The story offers little, if any, explanation for the sudden bird attacks unless you choose to interpret the film's constant reminder that humans keep caged birds as a possible cause of the birds behaviour, or put simply are the birds taking revenge on humans? It's open to debate in any case. This an iconic horror film and one every film fan should make sure they see, it's a film that stays in the memory for sure.

A rich, beguiling and quite fascinating fantasy film set in the Dark Ages and the mythical time of King Arthur. Based on an ancient poem this is story of false courage, nature and life as a young cousin of the King, Gawain (Dev Patel) grabs an opportunity to impress the court by accepting to play in a 'Christmas game' with the strange Green Knight (Ralph Ineson). But there are conditions to the game and Gawain is forced, a year later, to travel to a distant forest to seek out the Green Knight and allow him to inflict the same wounds on Gawain that he caused dealt to the Knight. Gawain is reluctant as this would involve his death but the King forces him on the quest to find the Knight and fulfil his promise. The journey is perilous, across a bleak and unforgiving landscape where he encounters dangers and magic. This is an enthralling, enigmatic film with the same, if condensed, imagery and feel that Peter Jackson brought to his Lord Of The Rings trilogy. It's a seriously told fantasy film that looks at the absurdity of masculine honour and the support cast of Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton makes for an interesting experience. Sean Harris and Kate Dickie as a moody, almost cadaverous King Arthur and Queen Guinevere in a dark, brooding castle are an interesting vision of the legend. This is a quite mesmerising film with a stand out performance from Patel, who captures a combination of bravado, fear and cowardice in the 'hero' figure. This is worth checking out even if it might seem a little baffling to begin with.

Because of the subsequent stage musical and it's huge popularity its often easy to forget this original film is much more than a story about a working class boy becoming a ballet dancer against the odds. Billy Elliot is really a serious social drama and one of the few films that really gets to grips with the social upheaval of the Miner's Strike which thrust apart communities, families and created huge political divides throughout the UK and which still resonate to this day. There are no outside scenes in this film where the police are not in evidence like an occupying army although the film carefully manages to avoid making any gestures about the rights and wrongs of the strike or the law enforcement actions. It does look very closely at the impact on the small Elliot family where widowed father Jackie (Gary Lewis) and older son Tony (Jamie Draven) are striking miners, struggling to make ends meet but determined to see the strike through even risking conflict with former friends who have been forced back to work by hardship. We see much of this through the child's viewpoint of Jackie's younger son Billy. Without his mother and with only a grandmother with dementia as a female role model he looks destined to have a life with little hope. Until that is he meets Mrs Wilkinson (Julie Walters) and secretly joins her ballet class. From this simple story you get a really heart warming story of growing up, of parental and familial love, of friendship and of success through defying the odds. Occasionally Billy is painted as a little too rough and ready to create a contrast with the world he wants to join and the final coda of the film never lets us into how he has overcome this. But this remains a great British film about a troubled time and it deserves continued recognition.

A rather disappointing documentary about this iconic actress. It sort of skimps over her impressive film work, missing out completely some of her films and becomes a sort of magazine style work that emphasises her quasi royal type persona. Impressive as Hepburn's Unicef work was it is however the least interesting part of her life and this film doesn't focus enough on her complex background, marriages and relationships. For example it is well documented that Alfred Hitchcock despised her but this is not mentioned at all. There is interest here but it's a superficial telling of Hepburn's life.