Review #1,480: 'Fighting with My Family' (2019)

Wrestling movies don't come along very often, at least not those that take the sport seriously. Perhaps the idea of adults dressing up in ridiculously skimpy costumes and acting out a pre-choreographed fight is theatrical enough already, so a leap to the big screen would be ultimately redundant, or maybe the sport is simply too niche to guarantee a healthy return on a studios investment. But ever since The Wrestler put Mickey Rourke through the ringer, there has been a newfound respect for wrestling and the athletes who push their bodies to the very limit, particularly from those who have never sat down to watch a WWE event in their lives. Fighting with My Family continues this trend, loosely retelling the story of Saraya-Jade Bevis , aka Paige, who emerged from a working-class wrestling family in Norwich, England to become a WWE champion.

The film begins in 2002, with wrestling-mad 10 year-old Zak Knight getting pumped for the start of a WWF pay-per-view event before his younger sister Saraya turns over the channel to watch her favourite show, Charmed. Fast-forward a decade, and the two siblings have embraced their parents' passion for wrestling and have adopted ring names of their own. Zak (Jack Lowden) has become 'Zodiac Zak' and Saraya (Florence Pugh) is now 'Britani Knight', and they perform regularly at their wrestling club. The dream of dad Ricky (Nick Frost) and mum Julia (Lena Headey) is for their kids to make the transition to the big leagues, and tapes are regularly sent off to promoters in the hope of catching their eye. They finally receive a call from WWE trainer Hutch Morgan (Vince Vaughn) and receive an invitation for try-outs, but after a gruelling audition, only Saraya, now using the stage name Paige, is selected.

As Zak is sent into a spiral of anger and depression, Paige struggles to work out who she is in Florida's sun-drenched world of golden-skinned models. Somewhat an outsider even back home (outside of the close-knit wrestling community), she feels isolated, mentally unprepared for the rigorous workout schedules and the standards required for the big-time. Fighting with My Family often flirts with cliche, but this is a sports movie after all. It works by developing characters we can relate to and truly root for, regardless of how ridiculous you may find the whole wrestling craze. This is down to the combined efforts of writer/director Stephen Merchant, who seems like the unlikeliest candidate to helm a wrestling picture, and the cast, who are all entirely believable.

Pugh in particular finds the right balance of inner vulnerability and the outer toughness Hutch no doubt signed her up for, and Merchant helps bring out these traits with the right balance of comedy, drama and sentiment. Frost is also perfectly cast, showing once again that he's a terrific actor in his own right and not just Simon Pegg's sidekick. For wrestling fans, there are plenty of cameos to spot, with Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson showing up for an extended cameo that may feel like a gimmick until you learn of his role in Paige's real-life story. Above all, Fighting with My Family is a heartfelt tale that celebrates embracing the inner weirdo and the sport that welcomes such misfits with open arms - if you're tough enough.


Directed by: Stephen Merchant
Starring: Florence Pugh, Jack Lowden, Lena Headey, Nick Frost, Vince Vaughn, Dwayne Johnson
Country: UK/USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,477: 'Phantom Lady' (1944)

German-born filmmaker Robert Siodmak fleed Adolf Hitler twice throughout his career, journeying to and flourishing in France after Joseph Goebbels called him out in the press, and later in Hollywood as the Nazis spread through Europe. It was in the U.S. that he made the pictures he is now most fondly remembered for: tough, dark and distinctly unpretentious film noirs like The Killers, The Dark Mirror, Cry of the City and Criss Cross, many of which are considered some of the best the genre has to offer. Before he was allowed the chance to place his stamp on his works, Siodmak churned out screwball comedies like Fly-by-Night and even a Universal horror film, Son of Dracula. His first venture into noir came in 1944 with Phantom Lady, a film that leaned more towards Hitchcockian thriller territory than the hard-boiled crime dramas that would come later.

Every great noir needs a chump, and we are introduced to Phantom Lady's unfortunate patsy Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis) as he sits slumped at a bar. He has tickets for a show but his date has stood him up, so he innocently asks the only female in the bar, played by Fay Helm, if she will accompany him. The woman, whose name we don't learn until much later in the film, is clearly emotionally unstable, initially turning down Scott's offer before agreeing under strict terms: they won't reveal their names or discuss anything personal. They go to see the show, where the mystery woman's rather outrageous hat is also being worn by the star on the stage, Estela Monteiro (Aurora Miranda), enraging her and amusing the diminutive band drummer Cliff (Elisha Cook Jr.). The night ends with a hurried goodbye, and Scott returns home to find three policemen waiting for him. As they lead him to the bedroom, his wife lays dead, strangled with one of Scott's own neckties.

Of course, Scott has a perfect alibi, but he never learned her name, and everybody they encountered that night - a bartender, a taxi driver, and even Monteiro - all deny seeing the woman. Facing the death penalty, Scott's only hope to unravel the mystery is his beautiful and loyal secretary Carol (Ella Raines) and sympathetic Police Inspector Burgess (Thomas Gomez). Phantom Lady's biggest failing in trying to replicate the genius of Hitchcock is the near complete absence of suspense. The wrongfully-accused thriller was done far better by the man himself over a decade later with The Wrong Man, and when Scott's old pal Jack Marlow (Franchot Tone) shows up halfway through, all sense of whodunit goes flying out the window. Still, Phantom Lady gets by on sheer class. Siodmak elevates the plot-hole ridden story with his trademark weaving of light and dark, and influences brought over from the days of German Expressionism makes this a more visually stimulating experience. It's also a lot of fun: the outrageous plot shares more in common with an Argento giallo than a Raymond Chandler paperback.


Directed by: Robert Siodmak
Starring: Franchot Tone, Ella Raines, Alan Curtis, Aurora Miranda, Thomas Gomez, Fay Helm, Elisha Cook Jr.
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,474: 'Amour' (2012)

Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke has been provoking - often outright antagonising - his audiences for decades, from the home invasion horror of Funny Games, to the ugly suburban murder of Benny's Video, to the bleak, post-apocalyptic vision of the future from Time of the Wolf. His 2012 effort, Amour, winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, is his most compassionate film to date, although Haneke's compassion still feels like a sledgehammer to the chest and a knife to the heart. The title, which translates as 'love' from French, is about precisely that, but this is not the syrupy, sentimental love we're used to from cinema, but the kind experienced by any couples lucky enough to have enjoyed a long-lasting relationship into old age.

The couple are retired music teachers Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva), who both enjoy a comfortable bourgeois lifestyle in Paris. We are introduced to this grey-haired pair as they attend the concert of Alexandre (Alexandre Tharaud), one of Anne's former star pupils, and their subsequent car journey home. This is the only glimpse we are allowed of their everyday life, as once they arrive home to discover that someone has attempted to break in, we never leave the building again. The next morning, as they sit down to breakfast, Anne becomes unresponsive, gazing blankly into space as Georges tries to snap her out of it. Before the old man can get help, she is back to normal, completely unaware of this momentary void. Anne has suffered a stroke, and after an operation on her blocked carotid artery goes wrong, she is left wheelchair-bound and paralysed down one side.

In anybody else's hands, this could be a story of overcoming hopelessness and helplessness, and of a couple undeterred in the face of looming death. But Haneke isn't interesting in sentiment, and opts instead to observe the loving couple as Anne deteriorates further, pleading for an end to the pain and humiliation after a second stroke, while Georges cares for her as best as he can. Anne makes her husband promise never to take her back to the hospital, so their apartment becomes a tomb where any visitor is an unwelcome intrusion. Their daughter Eva (Isabelle Huppert) makes the occasional visit from London, where she lives with her British husband Geoff (William Shimell), to offer help, but she doesn't understand the emptiness of her offer. She isn't there for the diaper changes, the periods when Anne can do nothing but moan in pain, and Georges' struggle to move her whenever she needs to visit the bathroom.

It's tough, gruelling stuff, but it's heartbreaking in a way that anybody in a loving relationship can relate to. It's something we simultaneously hope to reach and ultimately dread, and there's a real unflinching honesty in the way Georges and Anne react to their new predicament. The idea that old age eventually catches up to everybody is hammered home by the casting of Trintignant and Riva, who have naturally grown into their 80s and are barely recognisable from their glamorous 60's heyday. However, Amour is not an exercise in misery. Haneke handles these characters with incredible delicacy, hinting at an unshakeable bond that, despite a few wobbles down the years, has only strengthened with time and has long since evolved into something greater than the word love can truly express. Amour certainly puts you through the ringer, but you'll likely emerge with a greater appreciation for your loved one.


Directed by: Michael Haneke
Starring: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Emmanuelle Riva, Isabelle Huppert, Alexandre Tharaud, William Shimell
Country: Austria/France/Germany

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,471: 'The Sisters Brothers' (2018)

French filmmaker Jacques Audiard has made a name for himself by focusing on morally-conflicted lead characters surviving any way they can in an environment they have no real control over. Whether it be the brutal prison setting of A Prophet, the street brawls of Rust and Bone, or the Sri Lanka torn apart by civil war in Dheepan, Audiard seems most at home when tossing his lead character in the deep end and observing as the survival instincts inevitably kick in. There is perhaps no greater time and place to explore humanity at its most savage and uncivilised as the Wild West, so Audiard feels right at home among the shootouts, saloon fights and general lawlessness of his latest film, the curiously-titled The Sisters Brothers.

Based on the novel by Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers follows the titular siblings Eli (John C. Reilly) and Charlie (Joaquin Phoenix), two apparent opposites who seem to tolerate each other for their shared bloodline only. While their overall outlook on life couldn't be further apart, one skill the pair undoubtedly share is a knack for killing, and their exploits have granted them an almost mythical status throughout the land. They are hired killers in the employment of a shady businessman known only as the Commodore (Rutger Hauer), and their latest job is to track down and kill chemist Hermann Kermit Warm (Riz Ahmed), who has supposedly stolen from the old man. Their journey takes them from Jacksonville to San Francisco, but the mission is plagued by misfortune. Encountering everything from bear attacks to venomous spiders to rival hired hands, these mishaps allow plenty of time for the brothers to reflect on their life choices and their future, if they are ever to make it out alive.

As the elder of the brothers, Reilly's Eli hopes to eventually settle down and walk away from a life where death seems to await them at every turn. The drunken, unpredictable Charlie believes their lives couldn't get any better, and cannot imagine a world where his brother is not at his side. Little by little their backstories are revealed, and although he shares his younger sibling's flair for murder, it becomes clear that Eli's life would have turned out quite differently if he wasn't forced to pick up the pieces left in the wake of Charlie's destructive nature. The two actors are so good together that the film slows down when the action moves away from them, and more time is spent developing the relationship between Warm and softly-spoken private detective John Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal). Morris is actually working with the Sisters, but has a change of heart when Warm reveals his water-based formula that will potentially turn the tide for gold prospecting.

While these little detours slightly derail the film's pace, they prove intriguing enough in their own right. Despite the brutality of their surroundings and the natural hostility of the unexplored frontier, Warm and Morris are tidier, more articulate, and completely at odds with the survivalist nature of the anti-heroes of the title. They hint at a changing world, and the way the Old West is imagined by cinematographer Benoit Debie - shot in Spain - would be more at home with the auteur-driven revisionist westerns of the 1970s, but not so different to cause traditionalists to scoff. The key ingredients are all there: bursts of violence, whiskey-drenched brothel visits, and a long, perilous journey across country; but there is a sensitive, character-driven drama at its core. It was billed as a comedy of sorts upon its release, and although there are certainly laugh-out-loud moments, they serve only to reinforce the humanity lurking within its murky characters.


Directed by: Jacques Audiard
Starring: John C. Reilly, Joaquin Phoenix, Jake Gyllenhaal, Riz Ahmed, Rebecca Root, Rutger Hauer
Country: France/Spain/Romania/Belgium/USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,470: 'Glass' (2019)

When M. Night Shyamalan's Split came out three years ago, I doubt anybody was expecting what appeared to be a relatively low-key kidnap thriller to eventually reveal itself as a supervillain origin story of sorts, as well as a sequel to the director's finest film, Unbreakable, released a whopping 16 years previous. Despite its flaws, Split was a success with audiences, and it seemed that Shyamalan's reputation - relegated to near-joke status following a string of utter stinkers like Lady in the Water, The Happening and The Last Airbender - was starting to claw its way back to the dizzy heights of his early career, when he was dubbed the next Steven Spielberg after scaring audiences with The Sixth Sense and, to a lesser degree, Signs. Shyamalan doesn't do middle-of-the-road. He's either at the top of his game or testing our patience, but Glass, the inevitable third instalment of this 19-years-in-the-making trilogy, may be the first time he's dabbled with both extremes.

Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), the abusive victim whose 23 other personalities serve to protect him, is still at large. His activities have led to the press dubbing him 'The Horde', and he is currently holed up with four young cheerleaders, the next potential victims of his cannibalistic hunger and his most feared personality of all, the hulking 'Beast'. Meanwhile, super-strong David Dunn (Bruce Willis) juggles his time between running a security business with his son Joseph (an all-grown-up Spencer Treat Clark), and fighting crime.

On top of being damn near indestructible, David - named 'The Overseer' by fans of his work - can also sniff out crime by mere touch, and a chance encounter with Crumb leads him to an abandoned warehouse, where the girls wait bound and terrified. The two superhumans slug it out, but before one can outmatch the other, they are set on by a SWAT team directed by the unnervingly mild-mannered psychologist Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson). She specialises in cases in which the patient believes they are a comic-book character, and takes David and Kevin to a grungy institution where an old friend awaits them.

The old friend, of course, is Samuel L. Jackon's Elijah Price, aka Mr. Glass, named after the rare brittle-bone disease from which he suffers. Split is still fresh in the memory, but if - like me - you haven't seen Unbreakable since it was released 19 years ago, it may take a while to fill in the blanks, because Shyamalan isn't willing to refresh your memory. Glass was an intriguing (and surprising) foe for David last time around, but would a man who is simply more intelligent than most really be lumped into the same category as a man who can survive a train crash and another who can scale bare walls? Nevertheless, the actors are all on top form, with Willis' gruff, underplayed performance finding a nice balance with McAvoy's manic character-switching, and when he isn't being laboured with exposition, Jackson has fun as the guy who is always one step ahead.

The strength of the performances makes it seem as though all of the movie's budget went into paying the actors to up their game, as it's difficult to judge where else it was spent. The first two-thirds builds an intriguing atmosphere, despite spending too much time pondering the question of what it would be like if superheroes really existed (doesn't every superhero film tackle this in one form or another?). Shyamalan blows it in the last act, delivering an underwhelming showdown that will leave audiences wondering what the hell the writer/director was thinking. It won't have many calling for more from this unexpected cinematic universe, but it's certainly worth a gamble.


Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: James McAvoy, Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Sarah Paulson, Spencer Treat Clark, Charlayne Woodard
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,464: 'Vice' (2018)

After spending most of his career larking around with Will Ferrell in the likes of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Step Brothers and The Other Guys, writer/director Adam McKay took a huge leap towards 'serious' film-making in 2015 when he released The Big Short, a funny, intelligent and unexpectedly engrossing account of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. The Big Short may not sound like much fun on paper, but McKay latched onto this idea, making the tedious subject of subprime loans and triple-A ratings interesting by entwining it with pop culture, employing the likes of Margot Robbie and Selena Gomez to dumb it down for the audience in a manner that was too wickedly clever to ever be patronising. With Academy recognition now under his belt, McKay strides into his next project - a biopic of one of the most fearsome yet enigmatic political figures in U.S. history - with confidence, and dare I say it, a touch of arrogance.

McKay is eager to perform the same trick again with Vice, a sporadically inspired but frustratingly blunt quasi-biography that feels to penetrate the skin of its subject or answer the big question of just what was the driving force behind the man who turned the symbolic position of Vice President into one of great power and influence. Rather than dig deeper, McKay prefers to allow Dick Cheney's actions to speak for themselves, occasionally cutting away to a visual metaphor, such as, in the case of Cheney's key meeting with Sam Rockwell's George W. Bush, a cheetah bringing down its prey. Cheney is a man McKay clearly views as a highly functioning psychopath, tracking his journey from working under Steve Carell's Donald Rumsfeld in the Nixon Administration, to his opportunistic lunge for control in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. He fought to grant more power to a President he easily manipulated, praying on his short attention span and lack of political know-how, and to legalise torture, finding a massive legal loophole in the shape of Guantanamo Bay.

Vice is structured like a classic coming-of-age movie, with its 'hero' rising and falling, before dusting himself off and getting to his feet to rise again. After President Ford (Bill Camp) is voted out of office, seemingly closing all political doors for Cheney, McKay rolls the credits and pans away from the Cheney household, before an abrupt phone call reminds us that this story has barely begun. Like many of the jokes in Vice, the credit-roll-fake-out is funnier in theory than execution, and the film often takes the trickery so far that it threatens to undermine the seriousness of the subject matter. Satire must be funny, but it must also carry an emotional wallop that McKay struggles to find. At the centre of it all is Christian Bale's powerhouse performance, which explores a man whose obsessiveness could be compared to that of the actor's own extreme approach to his craft. Once again Bale takes his own body to the limit, piling on the pounds to resemble a man who suffered multiple heart attacks throughout his life (it becomes a running gag in the film), and adopting a deep growl capable of subtle intimidation. The performances of Bale, Carrel and Rockwell are all worth the entry fee alone, but Vice stutters to engage on a deeper level, failing to explain just how an oil company CEO can seize control of one of the most powerful countries in the world, and execute his plans with such cold indifference.


Directed by: Adam McKay
Starring: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Alison Pill, Eddie Marsan, Justin Kirk, Jesse Plemons, Bill Camp, Tyler Perry
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,463: 'Roma' (2018)

You wouldn't know it, but director Alfonso Cuaron has being paying homage to one of the women that helped raise him as a child throughout his career. This woman, Liboria Rodriguez, is clearly close to the filmmaker's heart, and he cast her in cameos in a few of his films, including 2001's Y Tu Mama Tambien. Now, Rodriguez is the topic of her very own film, Roma, Cuaron's ode to the network of women that were key to his upbringing in 1970s Mexico. Of late, Cuaron has mainly focused on big-budget movies for Hollywood, such as last year's Gravity, the riveting thriller Children of Men, and the best Harry Potter film of the series, The Prisoner of Azkaban, but he has dialled things way down for his latest. Roma is about as small-scale as you can get, focusing on a humble maid working for a middle-class family in Mexico City, but complete with the director's trademark dizzying camerawork and gorgeous cinematography.

In a debut appearance, Yalitza Aparicio plays Cleo, a maid working in an affluent household in the Colonia Roma neighbourhood in Mexico City. The four children are incredibly affectionate towards her, scrambling for a cuddle when they sit down to watch television, and parents Sofia (Marina de Tavira) and Antonio (Fernando Grediaga) clearly rely on her as they get on with their busy lifestyles. But there are cracks starting to appear in the marriage. Antonio squeezes his bulky, show-off car into the narrow garage every night, hinting at the father's growing dismay with his surroundings, and he quickly grows frustrated when Cleo fails to clean up the dog shit littering the patio. However, as happy and content as she may appear on the surface, Cleo has to deal with her own problems when she falls pregnant to a martial-arts obsessed military type who is nowhere to be found. With her employers' marriage falling apart and a baby on the way, Cleo struggles to juggle attempting to hold the family together for the sake of the children, and the idea of starting life as a single mother.

Trying to summarise the plot of Roma is no easy task. This is a slice of life plucked from Cuaron's own memories, shot in luscious black-and-white that almost feels like remembering the past through an old photograph. Roma is about class, politics and poverty, but mainly it wishes to tell a story of an unseen hero whose stories are rarely told. It's a film of moments that leave a mark despite how inconsequential they appear, very similar to the neo-Realist films of Satyajit Ray and Robert Rossellini, somehow telling a story that feels vast and epic in scale while keeping the focus on an incredibly personal level. Cuaron is a true craftsman, and, with regular collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki unavailable, actually steps up to the role of cinematographer. This compromise actually worked out in the film's favour, as you couldn't imagine anyone else recreating a time and place from one's childhood with such detail and intimacy. Liboria Rodriguez is clearly a huge inspiration in Cuaron's life, and here the director steps aside to shine the spotlight on her and many other that disappear into the crowd. It was a surprise to learn that Roma would be distributed through Netflix, but after seeing the film, it's hard to believe that any studios would take a gamble on what is essentially a collection of memories played out on screen. But what beautiful memories they are.


Directed by: Alfonso Cuarón
Starring: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Diego Cortina Autrey, Carlos Peralta, Marco Graf, Daniela Demesa, Nancy García García
Country: Mexico/USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,459: 'The Reckoning' (1970)

Indicator are a small British blu-ray label who seem to have made it their ultimate goal to unearth some of the best and weirdest forgotten gems from Britain's cinematic past, routinely releasing titles I've never even heard of that turn out to be well worthy of a remaster and rediscovery. One such title is Jack Gold's The Reckoning, a tough, lean thriller about a no-nonsense businessman who travels up North seeking vengeance. Sound familiar? The Reckoning has been compared to Get Carter, which was released the following year, and the two films certainly share some similarities. Yet tonally and thematically the two are worlds apart, with Gold's film more eager to explore class divide and national identity than Carter's more straightforward revenge fantasy. The Reckoning may also be the better film: a punishing experience full of off-putting characters that leaves more of a lasting impression than what many consider to be Michael Caine's finest hour.

It tells the story of Mick Marler (Nicol Williamson), a corporate ball-buster who has worked his way up the ladder over the years with a combination of ruthless business savvy and sheer intimidation. He seems satisfied with his high income and strong social standing, but also has a button-pushing, gold-digging wife (Ann Bell) to contend with. After putting the pieces in place for a business manoeuvre that will favour both himself and his boss (as well as doing away with his biggest rival), Mick heads up north to Liverpool to visit his working-class Irish family. Immediately upon arrival, he discovers his father has died from a heart attack, but is disturbed when he discovers bruising on his father's body. After doing some digging, Mick learns that his father got into a fight with some English 'teddy boys', suffering the fatal heart attack after being punched and kicked to the ground by one of the gang. With his Irish blood boiling inside of him, Mick decides that he must avenge his father, but he also has responsibilities back home.

Torn between his two worlds, Mick goes on a journey of self-discovery that ultimately makes him even more loathsome. When he is in the South, he laughs at the idea of being bound by blood and tradition to avenge his father, but when he is back North, a beast is awoken inside him, and he is irresistibly drawn to embracing his primitive instincts. It's a tough, ugly film that asks you to stick with this part-thug, part-corporate psychopath for just shy of two hours, but John McGrath's screenplay - based on the novel by Patrick Hall - trusts the audience to at least try to understand the man who breezes between two equally brutal, yet entirely different, worlds. This isn't action-packed or even violent as you would expect from a man-on-a-revenge-mission movie, but takes its time to develop this hateful yet fascinating character who used his working-class upbringing to batter his way into the world of lavish dinner parties and fast cars, and was both intrigued and repulsed by what he found. Williamson is excellent, managing to emote both outer ferocity and inner turmoil at the same time, and it's a puzzle why the actor didn't go on to land bigger roles. While it's chaotic at times, The Reckoning is a true forgotten gem that highlights how important the work carried out by Indicator really is.


Directed by: Jack Gold
Starring: Nicol Williamson, Ann Bell, Rachel Roberts, Zena Walker, Paul Rogers, Tom Kempinski
Country: UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,457: 'Creed II' (2018)

One of the many surprise pleasures of Ryan Coogler's Creed was not only its ability to find much life in what was a tired, decades-sprawling franchise, but the way it managed to add emotional weight to the events of Rocky IV, a crowd-pleasing fan-favourite that remains the cheesiest and most ridiculous entry into the series to date. While the death of Carl Weathers' Apollo Creed was shocking and unexpected, it was followed by an air-punching victory for the Italian Stallion underdog during which he also won the Cold War for the U.S., all backed to the most 80s of soundtracks. By following the early career of one of Apollo's bastard children Adonis (Michael B. Jordan), Creed added an unexpected gravity to the consequences of the former's reckless lifestyle, mixing family tragedy into what was otherwise a traditional sports movie.

With Adonis now having dealt with his personal demons over his father's neglect and untimely death, Steven Caple Jr.'s follow-up Creed II faces its own battle in keeping the young fighter's story interesting, as well as delivering an exciting boxing movie without bowing down to cliches. Having lost the fight but won the night at the climax of the previous film, Adonis has gone on to win the Heavyweight Championship and achieve global stardom with trusted old dog Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) at his side. He proposes to his girlfriend Bianca (Tessa Thompson), who is concerned that her own hearing loss may be passed down to their unborn child, and with few fighters talented enough to pose Adonis a real threat, he agonises over building a legacy worthy of his father and trainer. Ripples start to appear in his close relationships and personal drive, which only work against him when a figure from Rocky's past re-emerges with a challenge that could not only lose Creed the title, but end his career entirely.

That man is Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren), who over the years has worked tirelessly to mould his son Viktor (Florian Munteanu) into one of the most most formidable bruisers on the planet. The film begins with them exiled in Ukraine after the embarrassment of Ivan's defeat in Rocky IV, and their relationship is actually the film's most interesting aspect. Ivan hopes that by making his son the world champion his country will welcome him back, but their bond is fractured and strained as a result. It's a thread that should have been explored in more depth, since it's infinitely more interesting than Adonis awkwardly practising his proposal speech. But the melodrama is backed up with a lot of heart, and Stallone's Balboa is again the thread that ties it all together. Dealing with his own family issues on top of dreading the thought of watching another Creed die in his prime at the hands of a Drago, Stallone is magnificent, capable of delivering chills as his voice is heard for the first time off-camera. It's a step down from the electricity of Creed, but it was always going to be. For what is essentially a remake of Rocky IV, the fact that Creed II manages to be emotional, exciting and joyous despite embracing genre cliches is a monumental achievement in itself.


Directed by: Steven Caple Jr.
Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, Dolph Lundgren, Florian Munteanu, Russell Hornsby, Wood Harris
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,451: 'Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance' (2002)

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance kicks off Korean director Chan-wook Park's unofficial 'Vengeance' trilogy, which continues with standout Oldboy, before concluding with the stylish Lady Vengeance. While the violence may seem like it's taken straight out of a movie by Quentin Tarantino or Eli Roth, Sympathy doesn't over-simplify this complex tale of revenge like, say, Kill Bill does, nor does it seem out of place as the intricate narrative spins further out of control and its characters resort to increasingly desperate measures. Park opted for a pulpier approach with the jaw-dropping Oldboy and a more lyrical, hyper-stylised aesthetic with Lady Vengeance, and while this may be down to dropping cinematographer Byeong-il Kim, the quiet realist bent of this trilogy-opener makes it the most accessible, and by far the most thought-provoking entry.

Deaf-mute factory worker Ryu (Ha-kyun Shin) has just been fired from his job. With his sister (Ji-Eun Lim) in desperate need of a kidney transplant and willing donors in short supply, Ryu takes all of his savings to a black market organ dealer gang who not only fail to deliver, but steal one of Ryu's kidneys too. With a donor now found by the hospital but no money to pay for it, Ryu and his radical anarchist girlfriend Yeong-mi (Doona Bae) concoct a plan to kidnap the daughter of rich company president Dong-Jin Park (Kang-ho Song). All seems to be going according to plan until Ryu's sister catches wind of the plot and kills herself, and things unravel quickly from there. Events lead Park to take matters into his own hands, stopping at nothing until he gets his hands on the couple brazen enough to take his daughter. But Ryu, who is down a sister and a kidney, is also on his own revenge mission to find and kill those responsible for setting him off on such a bloody and irredeemable path.

While most revenge thrillers attempt to hold a mirror to its hero and the carnage in their wake, the line between good and bad is drawn pretty clearly. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance attempts to muddy these lines as much as possible, to the point where any of the characters here could easily be fill the bad guy role in other movies. Ryu and Park are both fundamentally 'good', but are driven to gruesome extremes by emotions too complex to fit neatly into one category or the other. The violence here is shocking. Mostly its warranted, but sometimes the film veers into exploitative territory. An extended torture scene is cruel, and a moment depicting a group of masturbating teens is simply off-putting, although I feel it is meant to be comedic. But the extreme Asian films of the early 2000s were always trying to out-do whatever came before, and Park never allows the violence to become a gimmick or overshadow the themes at play. In the end, you'll be empathising with everybody while questioning their actions, and while it may not reach the dizzying, electrifying heights of Oldboy, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance makes for an engaging and fresh take on the ugly, cyclical nature of revenge.


Directed by: Chan-wook Park
Starring: Kang-ho Song, Ha-kyun Shin, Doona Bae, Ji-Eun Lim, Bo-bae Han
Country: South Korea

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,450: 'Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle' (2018)

Whenever a director needs to lend a computer-generated character a much-needed dramatic weight and dimension, Andy Serkis is all but guaranteed to be at the top of anybody's list. The actor took the breath away as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings and again as the magnetic Caesar in the rebooted Planet of the Apes trilogy. So it makes perfect sense that his directorial debut would be motion-capture heavy, with the master himself playing one of the CGI characters. Adapting Rudyard Kipling's novel The Jungle Book has long been a passion project for Serkis, and the film, which was originally entitled Jungle Book: Origins, was scheduled for a 2016 release and set to compete against Disney's own remake of their 1967 classic. To allow more time to work on the special effects, the release date was pushed back to 2017, and then to 2018. As Warner Bros. seemingly became concerned at the idea of a potential box-office bomb, the distribution rights were eventually sold to Netflix. 

This transition to the small screen works both for and against Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle. Although he has voiced his delight at Netflix acquiring his film, it's difficult to believe that Serkis wasn't disappointed that such a personal project wouldn't be seen on the big screen. On the other hand, this has allowed for a much darker tone, and thus bringing it closer to Kipling's original text, without any concern for classification. It's a 12A on Netflix, but I feel the censors may have requested some cuts for a cinema release, and probably rightfully so. This doesn't feature any song-and-dance numbers or King Louie, and the once-cuddly Baloo the sloth bear is now a scarred brute with a Cockney accent. The story is familiar enough, with an orphan boy being left to die in the jungle before being carried to safety by the wise black panther Bageera (voiced by Christian Bale). A wolf pack takes him in, and the boy grows up to be Mowgli (Rohan Chand), only the wolves are never quite convinced of his importance and the man-cub struggles to find his place. 

All is relatively happy until the fearsome, man-killing Bengal tiger Shere Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch) arrives to kill Mowgli, who he feels threatens the very jungle itself. Cumberbatch is far more terrifying than Idris Elba's incarnation, and the effects work is rather astonishing. This level of quality is not maintained however, as for every jaw-dropping close-up of Bageera's face, there is a wolf that looks bizarrely unfinished. And this unevenness runs throughout the film, not only with the special effects, but also with the tone. Serkis' attempt to deliver a different take on the story is admirable and warranted, but the darkness occasionally veers into outright horror. The climax of the film is shockingly brutal when compared to the lighter moments before, and the fate of one of Mowgli's close friends is one of the most disturbing things I've seen for a very a long time. It's undeniably jarring, and will likely scar any unsuspecting children watching for life. While Serkis may struggle to find the perfect balance, it's a bold piece of work by a thoroughly underappreciated actor that at least strives to grasp the deeper themes within the story.


Directed by: Andy Serkis
Starring: Rohan Chand, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Benedict Cumberbatch, Naomie Harris, Andy Serkis, Peter Mullan, Matthew Rhys, Freida Pinto
Country: UK/USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,449: 'Bird Box' (2018)

Perhaps it's because the dystopian survival horror has been done to death of late, or maybe it's because John Krasinski's vastly superior and similarly themed A Quiet Place is still fresh in the mind, but there's something strangely hollow about Netflix's latest smash-hit and water-cooler conversation starter. Bird Box became the inspiration for a series of dangerous YouTube stunts that resulted in the social media platform issuing a warning to anyone thinking about taking part in the 'Bird Box Challenge', but sadly, given the film's potential, this is perhaps all it will be remembered for in the years to come. All the pieces are in place for a tense 90 minutes, but Oscar-winning director Susanne Bier's film plays out over a mostly dull 2-and-a-bit hours, with little more than two memorable set-pieces and a strong central performance from Sandra Bullock to hold it all together.

Like an uneasy blend A Quiet Place and The Happening, the planet has been overrun by a mysterious force that causes people to go insane and commit suicide. While the family of Krasinski's memorable horror were forbidden to make any sounds, the players in Bird Box aren't permitted to see. Just one glance at the unknown creatures stalking the streets will cause their eyes to turn a murky purple and instantly seek a way of ending their own life, and when we first meet Malorie (Bullock), she is about to embark on a dangerous journey down river with two children in the hope of locating a sanctuary they heard about over a walkie-talkie. Flash back five years, and the pregnant Malorie witnesses the collapse of society first-hand, as a routine car ride back from the hospital turns into a mindless bloodbath. She escapes into the home of shouty misanthrope Douglas (John Malkovich), and is forced to hole up with a bunch of genre archetypes (played by Trevante Rhodes, Jacki Weaver, Rosa Salazar, BD Wong and Lil Rel Howery, amongst others).

With the doors locked and the windows covered up, it seems like Malorie and her new friends have it made. But for reasons never entirely explained, the creatures don't drive everybody to suicide. If you're crazy, you are instead driven to expose those lucky enough to be hiding out to the mysterious force. It might be an attempt to keep things cryptic, or it may be sheer laziness, but the rules of the game remain frustratingly unexplained. These creatures - who we never see - sometimes announce their presence with a gust of wind, and sometimes not. One person infected will immediately jump out of a window, but another will take minutes to turn, allowing them time to say something meaningful before they croak. The monsters clearly possess the power to move objects, so why don't they at least try to enter homes? We are left to fit the pieces together ourselves, but very little adds up. The likes of Night of the Living Dead and Assault on Precinct 13 sustained a bristly atmosphere by making us care about the characters, but reliable actors like Rhodes and Malkovich are never allowed to be anything more than 'love interest' or 'annoying right-wing nut'. It isn't all bad - one set-piece involving a short car ride to get supplies with only a SatNav computer screen to guide them is wrought with tension - but in the wake of A Quiet Place, which understood the mechanics behind what makes an effective survival horror, Bird Box feels like a missed opportunity.


Directed by: Susanne Bier
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Trevante Rhodes, John Malkovich, Sarah Paulson, Jacki Weaver, Rosa Salazar, BD Wong, Tom Hollander
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,448: 'Crimes and Misdemeanors' (1989)

Say what you will about the rapidly decreasing quality of Woody Allen's work of late, or about the writer/director/actor's character in the wake of the recent horrific allegations made against him, but look back at his filmography and there's a wealth of brilliance to be found. As he became a household name thanks to some of the most hilarious comedies of the 1970s, Allen moved away from playing the clown and into more serious territory. The comedy was still there, but as a fan of Ingmar Bergman and Marcel Ophuls, he was always eager to explore the darkness rooted in our souls. One of his most sobering works is also one of his best. Released in 1989, Crimes and Misdemeanors asked the question posed by many a philosopher: Can you live with yourself after committing a murder or will the shame gradually eat away your soul?

The man at the centre of the story, Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau), seems to have it all. He's a respected doctor with a loving family and a group of adoring friends, and the film opens with a lavish dinner held in his honour. On the surface, Judah is a happily married man, but he holds a dark secret. Over the past few months, he has indulged in an affair with flight attendant Dolores Paley (Anjelica Huston), enjoying short breaks away and taking long walks on the beach. Only now Dolores is threatening to reveal his secret, sending a letter to Judah's wife which he manages to intercept at the last minute, and calling from the gas station down the road with ideas of turning up at the family's door. When she refuses to listen to Judah's pleas, the doctor turns to his brother Jack (Jerry Orbach), who has connections to the mob, for help. Jack has a simple answer: He will hire someone to murder Dolores and Judah won't have to lift a finger.

While all of this is going on, struggling documentary filmmaker Cliff Stern (Allen) is thrown a gig by his brother-in-law - the obnoxious, self-obsessed sitcom writer Lester (Alan Alda) - and meets cute associate producer Halley Reed (Mia Farrow) on the job. Unhappy in his own marriage, Cliff can't help but fall in love, but Lester has her in his sights also. It took me a while to figure out why these two seemingly unconnected stories were unravelling side-by-side, but it soon becomes clear that this is a film about the absurdity of guilt. Judah and Jack had it drilled into them from a young age by their rabbi father, but now they appear to be literally getting away with murder. Cliff may want to cheat on his berating wife, but he is ultimately a 'good' guy, yet life doesn't seem to want to throw him any luck. There's also a key character in Ben (Sam Waterston), a rabbi who still maintains a lust for life despite his deteriorating eyesight. It plays like a thriller, but it's also very funny. There's a depressing theme constantly at play, but Allen ensures that the story remains insightful, engrossing and occasionally heartbreaking. One of Allen's shrewdest and most humanistic pictures to date, assisted by a flawless ensemble.


Directed by: Woody Allen
Starring: Martin Landau, Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Alan Alda, Anjelica Huston, Sam Waterston, Joanna Gleason, Claire Bloom, Jerry Orbach
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,446: 'Widows' (2018)

When 12 Years a Slave took home the Best Picture Academy Award back in 2013, many of us expected director Steve McQueen to go even bigger and more ambitious with his next project. After all, his previous films Hunger and Shame were hardly lacking in scope and weight. It's taken five years to finally arrive, but McQueen's new film Widows, adapted from the 1983 ITV drama series of the same name, takes his work into a whole new territory: the genre movie. Yes, Widows seemingly follows the traditions of the great heist movies of old, with Michael Mann's Thief and Heat coming immediately to mind, taking a crack team and handing them a near-impossible task which they must plan with expert precision if they ever hope to pull it off. It would seem that, on paper at least, McQueen has taken it down a notch, but by taking on such a familiar story, the writer/director has given himself an even greater task.

Widows opens with the immediate aftermath of a heist gone awry. We watch from inside a speeding van as the wounded gang make their getaway, with their gun-toting victims and the police giving chase. The twist is that they all perish in a warehouse explosion, with the stolen $2 million going up in flames with them. The gang's widows are the ones left feeling the aftershocks: not only are they left grieving for their husbands, but the guy they stole from - alderman campaigner and community leader Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry) - wants his money back. Veronica (Viola Davis) takes the reigns when she finds her husband's notebook, which contains a detailed plan for a heist worth $5 million. Two of the other widows - Alice (Elizabeth Debicki) and Linda (Michelle Rodrgiguez) - have their own financial problems, so they agree to take on the job when Veronica comes a-knocking. They really have no choice. It's either find the money, or Jamal's psychopathic brother Jatemme (a frightening Daniel Kaluuya) will kill them and take everything they own anyway.

McQueen's task here is to deconstruct a slice of popcorn cinema and add the kind of punch and social commentary that made his previous work so great. He does so effortlessly, carefully developing each of the leads and making their story believable, later drafting in a fourth member in the form of Belle (Cynthia Erivo), a single mother working multiple jobs to pay the rent. McQueen and co-writer Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl) keep the action fast-paced and brutal, so the 130-minute running time breezes by. If there's a complaint to be had, it's that the film is too short and often feels crammed with too many characters and side-stories. Thrown into the mix is Jamal's campaign opposition Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell), who has had past dealings with Veronica's husband Harry (Liam Neeson) but has come to the realisation that the political manoeuvring of his elderly father (Robert Duvall) is no longer feasible. Like the series it was based on, Widows may have worked better unravelling over the course of a few episodes. But this may have prevented McQueen from reminding us why he is one of the most important directors working today, as he takes the time to deliver a jaw-dropping shot from the side of a car that shows how quickly a city landscape can shift from dire poverty to luxurious wealth, and a run-in with some trigger-happy police that will remain with you long after the credits have rolled.


Directed by: Steve McQueen
Starring: Viola Davis, Elizabeth Debicki, Michelle Rodriguez, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Liam Neeson, Carrie Coon
Country: UK/USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,445: 'Bohemian Rhapsody' (2018)

Bohemian Rhapsody started out life way back in 2010, with Sacha Baron Cohen set to star as Queen's hypnotic frontman Freddie Mercury. With band members Brian May and Roger Taylor heavily involved in the development, Baron Cohen eventually left, citing creative differences with the way they wished to approach the story as the main reason for his departure. The years went by, and in 2017, the wheels were well and truly in motion with Bryan Singer in the director's chair and Rami Malek in the lead role. The production was famously dogged with problems, and when Singer was eventually fired for unprofessional behaviour (reports say he was frequently disruptive on set, even failing to turn up for three days straight), it felt like the film would never see the light of day. But Dexter Fletcher filled the vacant director's chair and Bohemian Rhapsody was released to huge box-office numbers, and recently received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Actor, amongst others.

Remarkably, despite the film's difficult production, there's no sign of patchwork or a clash of directorial styles. Bohemian Rhapsody actually has much greater problems, and while anybody looking for an easily-digestible Queen sing-a-long with find much to love here, anybody hoping for a deeper re-telling of one of the music's most enigmatic figures with likely be baffled at the film's eagerness to share the credit and Wikipedia-entry approach to story-telling. We briefly get to see Mercury before he took to the stage, working as a baggage-handler at Heathrow while his parents worry about his lack of academic ambition. His experience as a young immigrant is summarised by a single racial slur, and the film isn't too concerned with exploring this any further. Perhaps screenwriter Anthony McCarten (who wrote last year's similarly formulaic Oscar-baiter Darkest Hour) felt like this would be too much of a drag for the audience, so he quickly moves to Mercury introducing himself to Smile guitarist Brian May (Gwilym Lee) and drummer Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy), coincidentally mere seconds after the band loses its lead singer.

A few montages later and the band now known as Queen (bassist John Deacon (Joseph Mazzello) completes the group) are signed up by manager John Reid (Aidan Gillen) and land a contract with EMI Records. The characters act and talk like they already know how the story turns out, and the film only manages to scratch beneath the surface when dealing with Mercury's relationship with love-of-his-life Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton) and her gradual realisation of his sexuality. The rest consists of band squabbles that always seem to conclude with the writing of a hit song, rock movie cliches like the alcohol-fuelled parties and accelerating ego, and cartoon supporting characters (Mike Myers' meta appearance as EMI executive Ray Foster spectacularly misses the mark). By aiming for 12A/PG-13 certificate, Mercury's story is oddly sexless. For a man that radiated sex and sexiness with every air-punch and pout, the lack of raunchiness adds an unwelcome TV-movie quality. It only really comes alive when Malik is allowed to do his thing on stage, climaxing with an extended Live Aid performance that will have you singing along and waving your arms. It's a great impression by Malik, if hardly a great performance, and it helps reminds us of how great Queen really were and how timeless their sound is. Bohemian Rhapsody has certainly made me a bigger Queen fan, but this isn't the biopic the band deserve. That being said, I haven't come across a single person that agrees with me, so what do I know?


Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joseph Mazzello, Aidan Gillen, Allen Leech, Tom Hollander, Mike Myers
Country: UK/USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,444: 'A Cruel Romance' (1984)

Eldar Ryazanov's A Cruel Romance is a true gem of Soviet cinema; an under-seen period piece set in 1877 that is lavish, funny and devastating in equal measures. The bulk of the action is set in the fictional town of Bryakhimov on the bank of the Volga River, where many merchant men have made their fortune and now seek a wife. The Ogudalovas were once the richest family in the area, but now matriarch Kharita (Alisa Freyndlikh) struggles to pay her mortgage after the death of her husband, but still mingles with society's higher-ups in the hope of finding a husband for her three daughters. Two of them are now married, with the wedding of second daughter Olga (Olga Krasikova) to an overbearingly jealous prince from Tiflis opening the film. This is all witnessed by Larisa (Larisa Guzeeva), the most beautiful and desirable of the Ogudalova sisters, who is happy to see her sibling sail off to a new life, but feels shame at the thought of being sold off like property.

Larisa is the last remaining singleton, and there's no shortage of suitors, despite the fact that she will come without a dowry. The richest merchant in town, Mokiy Parmenovich Knurov (Aleksey Petrenko), harbours strong feelings towards Larisa, but he is married and too old. Perhaps better suited is Larisa's childhood friend Vasiliy Danilovich Vozhevatov (Viktor Proskurin), but he is not quite rich enough to take a bride without a dowry. Yuliy Kapitonovich Karandyshev (Andrey Myagkov), a postman of low social status, is madly in love with Larisa, or perhaps with how such a beautiful woman will feed his ego. Yuliy frequents the parties thrown by Kharita in the hope of convincing her, but is usually left embarrassed or overshadowed by the more charismatic men at the events. Yet Larisa only has eyes for one man, the rich, handsome and exciting Sergei Sergeyvich Paratov (Nikita Mikhalkov), a travelling merchant who surrounds himself with music-playing gypsies who utterly adore him. After spending a wonderful evening together, Paratov suddenly sets sail without saying goodbye, leaving Larisa at the mercy of the increasingly obsessive Yuliy.

Told in two parts, the first segment roughly covers the span of a year, while the second is merely a day and night. Larisa's sweeping romance with the reckless Sergei and his subsequent disappearance is a more personal story of a poor woman's seemingly hopeless search for love, while part two, which sees Sergei return and plot his seduction, makes larger statements about Russian society as a whole and the type of men that rot it to the core. As the merchants get together at a dinner party hosted by Vasily, these powerful, intelligent men toy with the drunk postman like an ant under a magnifying glass. It's often incredibly funny but uncomfortable to watch, and these brilliantly-acted scenes help build a sense of impending doom, particularly with the way Knurov watches over the Ogudalova family fortune like a vulture and plots Larisa's future like an all-knowing puppet-master. While it creeps slightly into melodramatic territory near the end, A Cruel Romance is a gorgeous costume drama with a ravishing score and haunting cinematography, capable of both sweeping you up into its arms and delivering a few cruel blows along the way.


Directed by: Eldar Ryazanov
Starring: Larisa Guzeeva, Alisa Freyndlikh, Nikita Mikhalkov, Andrey Myagkov, Aleksey Petrenko, Viktor Proskurin
Country: Soviet Union

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie