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The Mercy (Cinema Review)

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Starring: Colin Firth, Rachel Weisz, David Thewlis, Mark Gatiss, Andrew Buchan
Directed By: James Marsh
Running Time: 101 Minutes
UK Release Date: 09 February 2018
BBFC Certificate: 12A

Our Score

Regular readers of my reviews know that from time to time I like to attend screenings for films I know nothing about, free from any hype or expectation. With this mindset I was blown away by a little gem called Hell or High Water in 2016, but I’ve also seen some duds which I won’t mention here.

As such I went into The Mercy with no knowledge of the film beside the two leads, but had an underlying feeling that this may be a film designed to win awards due to its release in February and the fact that director James Marsh’s previous film, The Theory of Everything (2014), was both critically praised and won a lot of gongs. What I got was a perfectly fine and enjoyable film, but in all honesty it felt like a feature length drama made for the small screen, which isn’t really surprising as it’s made by BBC Films. [Read more…]

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Journey’s End (Cinema Review)

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Starring: Sam Claflin, Paul Bettany, Asa Butterfield, Stephen Graham, Toby Jones, Tom Sturridge, Robert Glenister
Director: Saul Dibb
Running time: 107 mins
BBFC Certificate: 12A

Our Score

In 2014 the 100th anniversary of WWI began, and since then we’ve had a plethora of films, documentaries, tributes and dramas about the Great War. Most have been excellent, some middling, but it’s an exhaustive list, and some would say exhausting. However, this version of RC Sherriff’s play deserves to be seen, tired as you may be with war films. It’s released to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the 1918 spring offensive, and is a noble addition to the list of films dealing with the great conflict.

It’s a version of Sherriff’s play that sticks to the script – for the most part. There are some added four-letter words which he never wrote, and which add little to the power of the piece. Meanwhile some lines about cricket, Alice in Wonderland and drinking have been cut. However it conveys, like the play and the fine 1988 TV film, the regimen of the men on the front, the nervousness, the routine, sometimes the boredom, and certainly the sheer terror of being in a trench 60 yards away from the German fortifications – “the width of a rugby field”. [Read more…]

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Last Flag Flying (Cinema Review)

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Starring: Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell, Laurence Fishburne, J. Quinton Johnson, Deanna Reed-Foster
Directed by: Richard Linklater
Running time: 125 mins
BBFC Certificate: 15
UK Release Date: January 26th 2018

Our Score

Several films have taken Hollywood by surprise in recent years by finding an older audience than the male teen dudes the City of Angels believe are the only people who go to the pictures any more. From Wild Hogs to A Late Quartet and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, films with older characters having a crisis have actually found an audience – and a big one. Obviously, the quality is always going to be patchy. Wild Hogs, about three middle-aged men getting back on their Harleys, was juvenile and dull in the extreme, but it did prove not every Hollywood film needs to have nubile bodies in bikinis running around a beach.

Which brings us to Last Flag Flying. Like Wild Hogs it features three men who have seen better days, and features them hitting the road for one last adventure. However, the tone here is far more serious. Steve Carell’s son has been killed in action in the Iraq war in 2003, and, as his wife has died of breast cancer. With no one else to turn to, he looks up his two old buddies, Bryan Cranston and Laurence Fishburne. They are much changed however. Cranston is an alcoholic running a grubby bar, while Fishburne is a preacher. Both are trying to forget their past. The marines want to bury Carell’s son in Arlington cemetery “like a true hero”, but he wants to take him back to New Hampshire and bury him in his graduation gown, not his uniform. So the three of them set off on an unlikely road trip. [Read more…]

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The Commuter (Cinema Review)

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Starring: Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson
Directed By: Jaume Collet-Serra
Running Time: 104 Minutes
UK Release Date: 19 January 2018
BBFC Certificate: 15

Our Score

First of all a spoiler warning to whoever is reading this, as I will divulge some of the plot and scenes of this film. As a self-imposed rule I don’t like to give away any spoilers, but I find it hard to hold back when reviewing a film that I felt wasn’t great, was predictable and generic – despite its interesting premise. You have been warned but if you have seen the spoilerific trailer then nothing in this review will surprise or shock you.

A few years ago after Taken 3 (2014) pretty much bombed at the box office, I read an article in which star Liam Neeson said he would no longer be making action films in which he is the lead, facing off against wave after wave of disposable villains. This was in part due to Neeson’s age and that he felt he was being typecast. [Read more…]

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A Woman’s Life (Cinema Review)

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Starring: Judith Chemla, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Yolande Moreau
Directed by: Stéphane Brizé
BBFC Certificate: 12
Running Time: 120 mins

Four stars

A sort of Tess of the d’Urbervilles in French, this version of Guy de Maupassant’s novel is beautifully structured, exquisite to look at and packs a powerful punch. Some may find it slow or deliberately obtuse at times, with its fractured structure, time leaps and characters who are not immediately introduced, but patience reaps rich rewards. [Read more…]

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The Darkest Hour (Cinema Review)

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Starring: Gary Oldman, Kristen Scott Thomas, Lily James, Ben Mendelsohn
Directed by: Joe Wright
Running time: 125 mins
BBFC Certificate: PG
UK Release Date: January 12th 2018

Our Score

If you need an actor to play Winston Churchill look no further than Harry Potter. The great Gary Oldman is the fifth man to play the wartime PM relatively recently after Timothy Spall, Robert Hardy, Michael Gambon and Brendan Gleeson, and he certainly has the gravitas to carry it off. That’s evidenced by his recent Golden Globe win and BAFTA nomination (the film also scored another eight nominations). Despite that, what he doesn’t have is a script that helps him out much, or a director who brings the story to life. A shame, as it could have been so much more, set during a pivotal month in WWII. [Read more…]

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