Dope begins with three dictionary definitions of the title, suiting the purposeful restlessness of a movie that’s neatly trisected into three distinct sections: each one assured, stylish and articulate. The first half is a teen film – all the colourful kineticism of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl except with, y’know, something to say…
I love “hard man” films. Dirty Harry, Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude, Seagal, Jet Li, Statham; the one thing they all possessed was a sense of controlled violence waiting to be unleashed. Unfortunately, Transporter Refueled has all the danger of a kitten playing with a ball of string. Ed Skrein manages the walking tall part adequately, but instead…
On the surface, this gritty boxing drama looks an awards season hopeful. Southpaw features a stellar cast headlined by Jake Gyllenhaal – replete with sweaty washboard abs. Unfortunately the film is a disappointing bore. Gyllenhaal puts in a commendable performance as champion pugilist Billy Hope, but the plot plods along, punch-drunk from decades of flogging…
It’s probably impossible to make a film about Joan of Arc without at least acknowledging the long shadow cast by Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc. Luc Besson’s 1999 interpretation steers into that skid; like Dreyer’s film, significant chunks of Joan of Arc: The Messenger are filmed in close-up, but the lens of choice…
Creep isn’t so much a movie as a goof, an 82 minute micro-budget riff on Mark Duplass’s inflated New Age persona (as in seen in the likes of The Mindy Project). Despite assuming a found-footage horror genre, the film isn’t especially scary or suspenseful; despite the title, Duplass’ character, “Joseph”, isn’t so much pathologically creepy…
The Andes are thick with fog, its white all-encompassing tendrils consuming the conquistadors descending into its depths. Even as it clears, revealing the pale blue sky above a mottled green canopy and rotten brown rivers, the atmosphere of portentous doom remains. Only Aguirre, “the wrath of God” (Klaus Kinski) seems immune to the heavy weight…
David Oelhoffen’s adaptation of The Guest, a short story by Albert Camus, expands the story’s scope beyond Camus’ single schoolroom setting to the desolate wilderness of the Algerian steppes. French film Far From Men fleshes out its source’s narrative by adopting Western tropes like tense standoffs erupting into gunfire while retaining its stark moral conflict.…
French queer drama Eastern Boys is constructed from four vignettes, each revolving around the titular group of illegal immigrants under the thumb of a charismatic leader dubbed “Boss” (Danill Vorobyov, whose performance is the best thing about the film). They spend their days loitering idly in train stations or hotels while dabbling in theft and…
The title of 13 Minutes is a reference to the slim margin of time that could’ve made all the difference in World War II; had musician Georg Elser’s handmade bomb gone off thirteen minutes earlier, and killed Adolf Hitler. Frontloading Elser’s (Christian Friedel’s) failure suits the film’s approach, which examines both the aftermath of his…
There are lots of reasons to like Ant-Man. You’ve got the sparkling comic chemistry of Paul Rudd and Michael Peña (Evangeline Lilly’s there too). There’s a zippy Michael Douglas/John Slattery/Hayley Atwell prologue that makes you long for an MCU film set in the ‘80s. Minus a misjudged training sequence, the film’s bouncy heist framework is…
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