Dwayne Johnson – also known as The Rock – continues to morph his way from wrestling and hard-nosed action characters, here playing a much more thoughtful lead in a run-of-the-mill crime drama. That’s not to say he’s given up the fight – he just won Nickelodeon’s Favourite Male Buttkicker Award for 2013, and as Snitch gains pace and much needed energy from the half way mark, you can expect Johnson to stop staring pensively into the middle distance and start moving a few of those muscles. [click to continue…]
Reviews
A poignant and gorgeously visual story of the loss of innocence, Broken is the second feature film of theatre director Rufus Norris, and debuted to great acclaim in Critics Week at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. Adapted from a novel that was inspired by Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, it’s a moving and redemptive story of an eleven-year old girl who is increasingly drawn into the complicated and cruel world of the everyday English suburbs. [click to continue…]
It’s won prizes for artistic innovation and has been praised by the more discerning end of the film criticism world. Yet Miguel Gomes’ beguiling and eerie tribute to colonialism, love and Africa is never easy going. A strange black-and-white tale in two parts, traditional notions of plot and character are pushed to the background as a hazy and exotic sensibility of nostalgia and loss float over proceedings. [click to continue…]
An ambitious and epic tale of tragedy and redemption among fathers and sons, director Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine) lets this multi-generational triptych of a film run away from him as it plays into its final third. Yet there’s such a strong sense of the film’s intentions, along with a superb performance from Ryan Gosling, that it remains a watchable – if long – experience. [click to continue…]
There are few films that so exquisitely combine the chilling tension of a thriller and the depth of a character study with cinematic beauty and a penetrating examination of society. Superbly directed by Thomas Vinterberg, The Hunt is his best film in a mixed career (he directed Festen, It’s All About Love and Submarino) and will long be remembered for an extraordinary performance from Mads Mikklelsen – for which he won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival last year. [click to continue…]
Towards the end of The Paperboy, Nicole Kidman – in superb form as Southern white trash – says: “I wanna go live in the swamp.” Hell, yeah! This whole movie is a swamp, a seething, messy murder investigation infused with the sweaty smell of bodies and driven by a casual force that is seductively unstable, darkly funny and strangely exhilarating. [click to continue…]
Perhaps capitalising on the current success of small-screen Downton Abbey, co-writer and director Donald Rice adapts Julia Strachey’s 1932 novella for cinema, a period piece about English restraint and love lost last summer. With the critical narrative information delayed until the film’s final moments, it’s a waiting game for the audience, not unpleasurably spent watching the gorgeous costumes and eccentric behaviour of the family and friends of an anxious bride. [click to continue…]
You may be in the company of an all-star cast (try Robert Redford, Susan Sarandon, Nick Nolte, Julie Christie, Chris Cooper and Richard Jenkins for starters), but not so with the screenplay and direction of this political thriller, which reduce Neil Gordon’s novel of the same name to a run-of-the-mill affair with few surprises. [click to continue…]
There’s no questioning the exquisite nature of Danny Boyle’ filmmaking. After international success with films like Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours, the acclaimed director returns to his Trainspotting roots, applying his arresting style to a London-based heist story that is equal parts elegant, noirish, and manipulative. From a collection of carefully curated locations, Boyle takes visually stunning images, cuts them together for dramatic impact, and adds a hypnotic soundtrack to make the screen shimmer and pulse with cinematic potential. It’s just a shame the plot in this psychological thriller doesn’t match – its convoluted twists seriously compromising character motivation, and ultimately undermining the credibility of the narrative. [click to continue…]
In 2009 French director Jacques Audiard won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival with his stunning film A Prophet which was then nominated for an Academy Award. Rust and Bone is his follow up feature, another gritty, tough film – but this one an extraordinary love story. With outstanding performances from Marion Cotillard and Matthais Schoenaerts, the film also screened in competition at Cannes, where some found the bone-crunching story of unlikely lovers contrived in places, but whether you can identify with the two deeply troubled central characters or not, there is no denying the cinematic power of Audiard’s fearless storytelling. [click to continue…]