Film Reviews by GI

A strange title for this very cold, dark (literally) and quite bleak thriller, I counted quite a few shots so I'm not sure what the meaning is meant to be. Sam Rockwell is a backwoodsman/poacher, down on his luck and pining for his wife (Kelly Reilly - sadly v underused here) and child who've left him. One morning while out poaching for deer he accidentally shoots a young woman and finding her campsite he discovers a horde of cash and greed overtakes guilt. You can guess what happens, and you'd be right. The bad guy is played by Jason Isaacs (again underused) and there's some equally good support from Jeffrey Wright and William H. Macy. But the film drags and goes round and round not keeping the narrative tight and interesting and the climax, when it comes, is a damp squib. Considering the talent this is a disappointing film, it looks drab and it feels it too.

A bittersweet drama that tells the true story of Laurel & Hardy's last performances together in a tour of the UK in 1953. It's beautifully played with flawless performances from Steve Coogan as Stan Laurel and John C. Reilly as Oliver Hardy. The film starts when they are at the height of their fame in the 1930s but in dispute with movie producer Hal Roach (Danny Huston) over money. Stan leaves for another studio expecting Ollie to follow. Then sixteen years later, now showing their age, with loss of popularity and Hardy in poor health they stage a comeback tour in Great Britain. It goes poorly at first but soon their old spark returns and the theatres fill up. Stan is trying to get a new film deal going which is proving difficult. Ultimately this is a story of friendship and the bond between two men who have old wounds never healed between them and these come to the fore as the tour takes its toll. The film manages to convey the tensions and deep affection the men have for one another even whilst their respective wives (played with aplomb by Shirley Henderson and Nina Arianda) have a brittle relationship with each other. There's humour in the clever reconstruction of the duo's famous sketches which Coogan and Reilly carry off to perfection. There's an inherent sadness throughout this story and it is a moving film that is a joy throughout so I highly recommend it.

This is a fantastic adventure war film, a story of derring do with the tension and atmosphere that submarine films have to have and it culminates in a neat land based battle. John Mills plays the commander of a British submarine sent out on a mission to hunt a German battleship. They eventually become the hunted as German destroyers try and sink them and by the time we get to that there's been the introduction to the lives, loves and friendships of the crew members so that the audience is caught up in their desperate attempt at escape and survival. They have to come up with a daring plan to get home leading to a clever final section of the film that's as good as any war film of any age. What is especially entertaining about this film is it seems to be less about flag waving and more focused on being a good war story and like all these films made during and immediately after the war there's the marvellous nostalgic images of England in the 40s. This is an exciting and superb war film, one of the great submarine combat films and well worth seeking out.

A routine whodunnit procedural, a British film, bizarrely set in Pennsylvania, and with plot implausibilities that will make your jaw drop. Excellent Irish actor Andrew Scott is garbage man, Donnie, who exhibits some form of autism, in a small US town when a young boy is found drowned. When the boy's mother tells Donnie that the death wasn't an accident he embarks on an obsessive investigation despite threats from the local police chief to desist. The entire plot is fairly straightforward and offers no real surprises except in some of the sudden things that Donnie does as part of his investigation and they are as surprising and extreme as you can imagine. But for the film they just mark it as rather preposterous, only Scott's dedicated performance makes the film watchable.

This spin-off film based on the Saturday Night Live characters created by Mike Myers remains superbly funny even if you realise it's very silly and occasionally a little childish. The TV format of small 10 to 15 minute sketches worked brilliantly, stretching into a full length feature has resulted in moments of uproariously funny comedy in between sections that can be a bit tedious and especially Myers performance as Wayne. But as a showcase for Myers brand of comedy this is a film that will have you laughing out loud. Wayne and his best friend Garth (a superb comedy creation from Dana Carvey), are rock music fans who run their own public broadcast TV show from the basement of Wayne's parents house. Its popularity leads to a seedy TV producer (Rob Lowe) to con them out of the rights to the show and exploit them and steal Wayne's new girlfriend. It's all anarchic, daft and didn't quite live up to the hype but still worth a trip down memory lane if you remember it fondly.

This is an offbeat semi-comedy social drama set in a roadside restaurant that offers scantily clad girls as waitresses serving the slightly dodgy male clientele but trying to maintain a naughty but safe vibe. The manager is Lisa (Regina Hall) who sees the girls as her pseudo-family whom she fiercely protects even though the owner causes her many problems. The drama of the film follows events there over one day and whilst the performances, especially Hall, are all sound this is a somewhat bland film that failed to raise much enthusiasm. There's a drift into some personal problems that Lisa has but I was left unsure of what the film is trying to reveal.

What has all the initial trademarks of clichéd thriller actually turns out to be more entertaining and interesting. The set up is on the face of it very familiar, young couple go to a remote weekend retreat where they inadvertently become the target for some nasty bad guys and have to defend themselves against the odds. But as this film moves neatly and steadily forwards it takes an interesting direction or two making for a far better film than at first thought. Paula Patton is journalist Brea who is taken to a mountain retreat by her boyfriend, John (Omar Epps) for a romantic weekend where he intends to propose. But a chance encounter with a disturbed woman in a service station restroom leads to a confrontation with a ruthless sex trafficking gang led by Luke Goss. Soon the couple are fighting for their lives. It's in the twists of the plot and the attempt to highlight the scandal of sex trafficking that the film works remarkably well. It's never overly pretentious and the story keeps you entertained throughout. Well worth checking out.

This lurid melodrama from David Lynch is a mixture of nightmarish road movie, romance and thriller with his trademark analysis of America that is both surreal, repulsive and in its details very realistic. Obsessed with the world of the nightmare Lynch even uses the iconography of The Wizard of Oz (1939), arguably the most famous narrative built on a dream, to showcase his array of grotesque characters. Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern play Sailor and Lula, young lovers obsessed with each other. Sailor has a criminal past and Lula, raped as a child, is under the obsessive and psychotic protection of her mother, Marietta (Diane Ladd - Dern's actual mother). When they run off together Marietta hires a private investigator to track them down but impatient for results she also brings in a gangster, who is in love with her, to find them and kill Sailor. The warped love story here is littered with shocking violence, graphic sex and bizarre side episodes that may be baffling if you're not experienced with Lynch films. All the characters have an almost unreal theatricality to them that highlights America as a circus of freaks from Willem Dafoe's quite scary and repulsive Bobby Peru to Isabella Rossellini's Perdita with her very weird eyebrows! A film that will stay in the memory I guarantee and it marks Lynch as a filmmaker to be ranked highly, he's original and unique so his films are always worth checking out. Here too you get Cage before he'd decided to make endless throw aways and Dern's performance will shock especially if you're only familiar with her from the likes of Jurassic Park (1993).

A mostly feel good French comedy about a gay water polo team. The story follows dedicated swimmer and Olympic hopeful Matthias (Nicolas Gob) who unwisely makes a homophobic comment whilst being interviewed on TV and under threat of being dropped from the national swimming team agrees to coach the Shiny Shrimps, a gay water polo team heading to Croatia for the Gay Games. It's full of clichéd jokes although many are very funny with the obvious clash between the heterosexual Matthias and the mostly overly gay team, most of who act completely infantile the whole time. A well meaning film that is a little too stereotypical and with a fairly predictable story arc but entertaining enough.

Director Ken Loach's follow up and companion piece to I, Daniel Blake (2016) is a bleak and moving story. A social drama about a Newcastle family of couple Ricky (Kris Hitchen) and Abbie (Debbie Honeywood) and their two children. Having had their dreams of owning their own house dashed in the 2008 financial crash he's struggled to find regular work and Abbie works for a care agency travelling around the city (at her own expense) to help ageing and disabled people get dressed and preparing their meals. Ricky sees an opportunity as a delivery driver but he has to buy his own van and the company doesn't employ him but gives him 'work opportunities' with fines for failing to meet deadlines. The company effectively avoids having to comply with workers basic rights and Ricky soon sees he's been sold a lie and debts mount as there are no allowances for time off. The film looks long and hard at the gig-economy culture that traps people in a spiral of debt and pressure to earn little. Like Loach's work in general this is powerful stuff and even if you don't agree with his political views there's no escaping his exposure of systems like this that are constructed to exploit people for profit. The use of unknown and non-professional actors enhances the documentary feel and whilst the narrative slips into melodrama this is used to show how the pressures begin to destroy the family unit. A sad film, and a sad indictment of a system that allows this sort of enterprise to flourish, that is well worth watching.

When the SAS were shown on prime time TV storming the London Iranian Embassy in 1980 after it had been taken over by terrorists there was a wave of euphoria in the British media and amongst the public over the exploits of this famous special forces regiment. It was inevitable that a film would soon follow and producer Euan Lloyd saw the potential for a box office hit. Utilising the popularity of TV action hero Lewis Collins, who was himself a part time soldier and who was being touted as a possible future James Bond, a surefire hit was inevitable. Sadly it failed to give him the mainstream film career he coveted. Viewed today this is an action thriller with a preposterous plot that you can drive a bus through but it's great entertainment. The style is clearly influenced by the gritty TV series' that were abundant on British TV at the time including The Sweeney, Target and The Professionals, in which Collins played Bodie, an agent in a special government department. Here Collins is mostly a more suave Bodie, with an attempt to make him a bit 007ish, in a story that doesn't attempt to retell the Iranian Embassy siege but has a climax obviously based on it. Collins is SAS Captain Skellern who is sent undercover to infiltrate a terrorist group masquerading as an anti-nuclear peace movement. The baddies are led by Judy Davis, ruthless but willing to fall for the hero's charms, and the film is a thriller narrative until the end with a climactic set piece storming of, in this case, the American Ambassador's residence. Plenty of gunplay and tough violence, the best scene being the rescue of Skellern's wife and child by the SAS from the evil clutches of Ingrid Pitt. The film was high profile enough to attract some Hollywood royalty namely Richard Widmark and Robert Webber, also Edward Woodward, Patrick Allen have support roles. There's some memorable lines throughout the film and the best ones go to Tony Doyle as the SAS Colonel ("Live bastards......Dead soldiers"). Politically the film is very conservative and caused some consternation particularly amongst genuine peace groups but overall this is a slice of hokum, not to be taken seriously, but great fun.

This is one of the classic Ealing Studio comedies and the first to be a hit in the USA. Based on a true story and adapted from a novel it's a story steeped in the quaintness of Britain and its people. Set on a Hebridean island during the Second World War where due to shortages all the whisky runs out and the menfolk become despondent. Then one foggy night, as luck would have it, a cargo ship founders and is abandoned by the crew. Its cargo of whisky is soon 'saved' by the islanders but they have to reckon with the Home Guard commander who is all for law and order and is determined to find it. But the islanders prove to be adept at keeping it concealed! This is the sort of film that John Ford would be at home making, as it is it's mildly amusing when watched today and has an interesting theme about the small man taking on the establishment, in this case the shadowy customs men brought in the find the whisky. Worth seeing today with plenty of character actors including James Robertson Justice in a small role as the island doctor and Gordon Jackson in an early role. It is renowned as part of Ealing's canon so is a film the movie fans should ensure they see at least once.

A grandiose remake of Dario Argento's 70s horror ( and infamous video nasty) and a film that is clearly very impressed with itself. In its washed out, bleak, wintry look and overly long running time this is a pretentious film. Somewhere in here its a great film trying to get out, unfortunately it fails and it ends up just being trying. However there are snatches of enthralling film mixed in, its just that they don't make for a coherent narrative and thrilling experience. Dakota Johnson, who is mesmerising here, is a shy, young dancer, Susie, who joins a prestigious dancing school in West Berlin in the late 70s. She soon attracts the attention of the haunting head teacher Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton) and rises to become the top dancer but there are sinister goings on with strange dreams affecting the dancers, and some turn up dead. An ageing psychiatrist (also played by Swinton but billed as Lutz Ebersdorf for pointless reasons) begins to look closely at the goings on at the school. There's some gore and horror thrown in here with Swinton having a ball playing three roles including the aforesaid psychiatrist where she channels a pseudo Father Merrin type character. It has a Lynchian approach to horror but without the originality. As Argento said himself, if its the same as the original its just a copy, if it's not the same then why not make it entirely original. In this case he's right because this is a little boring.

"Broadsword calling Danny Boy, Broadsword calling Danny Boy". This line will immediately come to mind when you think about this wonderful action adventure film. A Boys Own story that doesn't need historical accuracy to be one of the greatest war films. It's Bondian in style and has a fantastic plot that twists and turns making for a mystery as well as an espionage and conspiracy story all combined. Richard Burton, in a rare action role, is the wry and cynical Major Smith, a wartime MI6 agent heading a crack team of intelligence officers sent on a covert mission to rescue an important American General held by the Nazis in a Bavarian castle. Clint Eastwood, with his rising star status, is the token American on the team (he basically handles all the shooting killing more people in this film than in any other) but there for a good reason because the basic rescue mission hides a story of double cross, traitors and trying work out who is on whose side. Written by Alistair MacLean specifically as a film script (he later turned it into a subtly different novel) this is simply great fun from start to finish and it's one of those films you watch and remember why you love cinema so much. Wonderful support cast including Mary Ure, Ingrid Pitt, Derren Nesbitt (wonderfully slimy and devious as a Gestapo officer), Donald Houston, Michael Hordern and Patrick Wymark. A thrilling film and even though you can drive holes through the plot it doesn't matter because it works on every level.

A mild interesting horror compendium with some neat monsters but ultimately all a bit tame and somewhat clichéd. Based on a series of books this is a story about a group of youngsters who hide in the local haunted house while being chased by the school bullies. Inside they find an old book of ghost stories which one of them takes home. Soon the book begins writing new stories all by itself and each story has one of the group at its centre. Macabre and spooky events then happen to them one at a time. Despite the involvement of Guillermo del Toro who produces here this offers nothing much new in the genre, we have the standard haunted mansion with a dodgy history, there's a controlling ghost, an asylum, and some dark shadows. For some reason its set in 1968 with continued references to the approaching election of Richard Nixon but I struggle to fathom the relevance. The film has been produced with high quality but its a film for teenagers on a dark night after a few beers.