Ah Quentin Tarantino – the writer who uses 10 words where one will do, the director who makes a simple scene last 10 minutes longer than necessary, and the actor who – well, who can’t act.

After dazzling the film world with his early work he has recently been outed as a windbag, and this baggy homage to the western has all of the weaknesses – and strengths – than fans already know. It’s unlikely to win him new fans, but is entertaining enough to keep the faithful happy enough. It takes its sweet time to go anywhere though.

And while the film has all sorts of references to other westerns, the one that kept springing to mind wasn’t True Grit, Pale Rider or High Plains Drifter but Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, and that almost certainly wasn’t Tarantino’s intention.

After some superbly designed credits that pay homage to the spaghetti western, the film splits into three roughly equal parts. It tells the story of Django (Foxx), a black slave in the Deep Douth set just before the Civil War started. He is rescued and freed by bounty hunter Dr Schultz (Waltz), and the two strike a deal. Django will lead Schultz to a notorious gang so the Doctor can claim the bounty, Schultz will help Django find his wife, who has been captured and held on a plantation known as ‘Candieland’, run by the dangerous Calvin Candie (DiCaprio).

Here the film turns into as classic western, as the two unlikely men ride into towns, blast the bad guys and charm the townsfolk. Schultz teaches Django how to read and do maths, Django refines his gun and rifle skills. They are an entertaining and charismatic double act, but Tarantino loves a long script, and a lot of the possible tension is lost with too many windbag exchanges between the two of them. If Waltz and Fassbender’s verbal sparring in Inglourious Basterds stretched patience this almost snaps it.

There is a clear True Grit homage when a gang of racists ride out to surprise our heroes, only for them to turn the tables with an explosive trap. This has a perfect example of what splits Tarantino’s audience – fans would say only he can write a scene in which murderous racists argue about the holes in their hoods and make it funny, detractors will question the borders of taste on which the scene is played out.

Helped by Robert Richardson’s stunning Oscar-nominated cinematography it all bounds along in a jolly enough manner, until we get to the second act, the big showdown in ‘Candieland’. It might take an age to get there but finally we get some real drama, and it’s not often that Leo DiCaprio has been so threatening.

He plays – pretty well – the possibly psychotic Calvin Candie, a white plantation owner whose hobbies include pretending to be French, kissing his sister and watching slaves wrestle each other to death. Django and Schultz pose as a couple of wrestling experts who may want to buy Candie’s leading muscleman, but of course they are really there to rescue Django’s wife. Candie’s right-hand man, Stephen, played by an almost unrecognisable Samuel L Jackson, smells a rat, and when he exposes the plot, well, safe to say blood is spilled.

Tarantino fans will know what to expect, and they get all of it here. There are great visual vistas, cool clothes, especially worn by Django, lots of hip use of music, some fine acting from cult names, and an awful, awful lot of script. Tarantino has defended his use of violence in the movie and he’s actually right for once – it’s ridiculous to have a go at a genre western like this. The violence is bloody, stretched out and stylised but it’s completely cartoon-like and at times daft. Django never misses with his rifle even at 500 yards away, and never gets hit even when the bullets are flying everywhere.

There’s also the classic revenge aspect of Tarantino’s film – credit to him for tackling the thorny issue of slavery full on. His bad characters – recognisable from their inability to speak English and to spit in pints – are very bad, his saints ride free, and there’s not much grey area in the middle. It’s entertaining enough but anyone taking it as a serious look at this crucial period in American history is going to be disappointed.

Waltz fully deserves his Oscar nod,and Golden Globe win,for his always witty, always interesting performance, and the film feels a little unbalanced when he is not on screen. Foxx is solid enough, DiCaprio surprising as the film’s bad guy, and there are other tiny cameos that are always well judged.

One footnote worth mentioning – Tarantino’s editor died in 2010 and this is his first film since losing her. Replacement Fred Raskin hasn’t done much better in getting Tarantino to cut the flannel, sadly. Django Unchained resembles three one-hour episodes of a rambling TV drama rather than a cogent film, and that’s a shame, because there is plenty in it to enjoy – and not just for Tarantino fans. Raskin – or someone, anyone – should also have a word with Tarantino about his ‘acting’ – here he plays a slave trader in one of the worst screen performances for many a long year. Why does he bother casting the original Django, Franco Nero, in a witty cameo and spoil it by casting himself in quite a long scene?

Overall verdict: Handsome, entertaining but rambling updating of the Western which has some fine moments and an awful lot of waffle to get through. Genre fans will probably love it, the unconvinced will remain so.

Reviewer: Mike Martin

Los Angeles, 1949. Ruthless, power-mad mob boss, Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn), has the whole of LA at his mercy, reaping the ill-gotten gains from drugs, guns, and prostitutes. With his sights set on overseeing every wire bet placed west of Chicago, Cohen’s monopoly on the whole seedy shebang looks to be a sure thing, until hardboiled honest cop, Sgt. John O’Mara (Josh Brolin), decides to make a stand.

Having been given the unofficial order to take Cohen down, O’Mara gathers a ragtag bunch of crime fighters to hit Cohen where it hurts. With the help of his right hand man, Sgt. Jerry Wooters (Ryan Gosling), O’Mara sets out to tear Cohen’s world apart.

Within the first 10 minutes or so of Gangster Squad, a guy is ripped in half, a hand is amputated by an elevator, three goons are burnt to death and all manner of bones are broken in flinching, visceral fashion. This is the kind of film Gangster Squad is: a no-nonsense, punch first ask questions later tale of good guys versus bad, where the good guys aren’t always so good.

Like a dumbed down take on The Untouchables, Gangster Squad keeps things simple and wastes no time getting to the action as it follows Brolin’s hard ass cop recruiting your customary crew of ambiguous do-gooders (the lady’s man, the sharp shooter, the brains and the token black guy) before wreaking havoc on Penn’s ex-boxer mob boss.

It’s a knucklehead of a movie, placing brawl before brains while sticking to a script that boasts no surprises and dialogue that’s laughable at times, which isn’t helped by a completely ridiculous Penn, who hams it up to snort-inducing effect as Cohen. Gosling (doing his silent smug thing – fast becoming a bore) mumbles his way into the pants of Emma Stone’s likeable femme fatale, and the icing on the cake sees Nick Nolte turning up and doing a peculiar stint as law-abiding head honcho, Chief Parker, who uncomprehendingly rasps his way through dialogue in desperate in need of a Strepsil.

While Fleischer’s movie isn’t as distinctive or as memorable as other latter day forays into gangster noir (lacking the smarts and wit of say, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and the visual pizzazz of Sin City), it is a lot of fun, and if Warner happens to be on the look out for a gruffer, older Bruce Wayne to carry the Dark Knight franchise forward, Gangster Squad surely proves that Brolin’s the man for the job.

Overall Verdict: A brawl-over-brains knucklehead of a gangster movie.

Reviewer: Lee Griffiths

Of the many attempts to update the vampire myth, George A. Romero’s 1973 film Martin was one of the most successful – and the story with which this movie has the most in common.

Jacob is a thin, pale young man forced to work as a night security guard because his skin condition means he cannot be exposed to sunlight. He is a painter of some talent, but appears to have no friends. He has another problem – no matter how many pizzas he eats he never seems satisfied – until he drinks some blood off the bottom of a plastic steak wrapper.

The only good thing that happens to Jacob is when he meets Mary at a bar. She finds his shyness and quirky ways endearing, but when she visits his flat, snorts some coke and gets a nosebleed he has what appears to be a fit.

On mentioning the word ‘vampire’ Jacob rents out some videos, but none of the silly plots devices, such as fangs, crucifixes and negligees seems to fit with his condition.

Jacob’s situation worsens and he tries to steal some blood from a hospital. The porter catches him but takes pity on him, giving him some blood for free. There’s a catch of course – from then on it’s going to cost.

Mary and Jacob become more intimate, but when his eyes change colour during sex she realises there’s a problem. After a woman is murdered near his building he fears he may have done it, but has no memory of it at all.

Clearly we’ve seen plenty of stories like this before, but what sets Midnight Son apart is its tone and mood. Jacob is a sad, desperately lonely young man, permanently lost in a headache-inducing world of strip lights, empty malls and after-hours bars. His fragile relationship with Mary – herself a nervous, feckless woman – is beautifully played and multi-layered. She mistakes his reticence for cool, he is desperate not to ‘infect’ her.

The pair of unknown leads are completely convincing and pull you into the story. The pay-off at the end is not totally convincing, and Jacob’s paintings are actually pretty awful – sure it’s a low-budget movie but surely someone could have knocked up some better pictures.

Those are about the only complaints though in what is a thoroughly successful project. Watch out for more from this young director.

Overall verdict: Worthy updating of the vampire story which looks and sounds great, has convincing performances and a sustained mood.

Reviewer: Mike Martin

In the long list of books considered to be unfilmable this one has been near the top for some time. Now we have the proof.

Salman Rushdie’s long novel is not so much brought to the screen as cut and pasted and read out by a voiceover. Remember rule 1 of film? Show, don’t tell. From the opening scene a rambling voiceover informs the viewer what is going on and pretty much keeps it up for the next two hours. The result is a story that has a lot of interest and in the hands of a better director and writer, could have been magical. Instead we get moments of inspiration in between a history lecture.

Rushdie himself has adapted his own novel – surely a mistake – and seems determined to squeeze in the whole thing. It begins on the stroke of midnight when two babies are born at the exact moment India becomes independent from Britain. The nurse swaps the two babies around, knowing that the one from a rich family will look after the pauper’s child. Saleem Sinai becomes not only a middle-class boy but also seems to have powers, as do all the children born at midnight on that night. His parents have bought a house from the barking mad Charles Dance, and he is happy exploring his imaginary world until faced with real poverty in the form of Wee Willie Winkie, a travelling musician whose son is actually the family’s real son.

Saleem’s story then takes him through political protest, the birth of Pakistan, some magic realism and the war with Bangladesh, but at no point do we really feel any sympathy with the boy. There are many fascinating details here – Indira Gandhi’s brutal slum-clearing and her apparent reliance on star signs to govern India – but nothing ever really sticks. There is a bit of magic realism, a bit of student protest and lots of very fine acting by a great Indian cast, but it never catches fire. Interestingly Gandhi sued Rushdie over a sentence in the book and won her case.

Visually the film is also something of a disappointment – there are no memorable shots, just the usual picture postcards of Agra, the muddles cities and seeping slums. And wheneven the story gets any momentum in comes that irritating voiceover again.

Overall verdict: Disappointingly stilted version of Rushdie’s Booker Prize-winning book which attempts an epic sweep of the birth of the independent India and in the end resembles a long history lesson. Some fine acting isn’t enough to save it.

Reviewer: Mike Martin

Normally when a book is deemed unfilmable, it’s because it’s thought that the plot and the way it’s told would be tough to successfully transfer to the big screen. With Life Of Pi it was more due to business considerations. It’s largely a story about an Indian boy alone at sea with only a tiger for company, so any adaptation of Yann Martel’s Booker Prize winning book was bound to cost a lot to make, not least in special effects. With little room for big stars or traditional action – and just one human character for most of the running time – it was a gamble most believed no studio would take.

Indeed Life Of Pi was stuck in development for years, but when Ang Lee came on-board, Fox Searchlight decided it was a risk worth taking (a decision bolstered by the success of Slumdog Millionaire) and so handed him the $100 million plus he needed to make the movie. The other thing that made them think it might be worth making was the re-emergence of 3D, something Ang Lee has taken to enthusiastically with Life Of Pi.

A writer (Rafe Spall) goes to visit a man called Pi (Irffan Khan), who he’s been told has an incredible story that will ‘make him believe in God’. Pi recounts to him his early life in India, from how he was named after a swimming pool to his home in a zoo. When he is a teenager (played by Suraj Sharma), Pi’s father decides they must emigrate to Canada and that if they take the animals with them, they can sell them for good money when they arrive. Soon the family and critters are on-board a cargo ship, taking them away from everything they’ve ever known.

A huge storm blows up and the ship begins to sink. Pi makes it to a lifeboat and is soon adrift with only a zebra, orang-utan and a hyena for company. Well, that’s all he thinks there is, but under the tarpaulin lurks a tiger called Richard Parker. Soon it’s only Pi and the big cat left, drifting across the ocean with no idea when, or if, they might be rescued.

Although a movie that’s largely about a boy in a boat with a tiger might not sound that interesting, Life Of Pi never stops being absorbing. For a start Suraj Sharma is an amazing discovery as the teenage Pi. The Indian actor apparently only tried out for the part after he went along to the auditions with a friend, but he’s magnetic in the central role, showing astonishing skill and emotion in a part where a huge amount is asked of him. He deserves an Oscar nomination, but we’ll have to wait and see if he gets one.

Much of the film is about how Pi manages to survive in a very cramped space with an (incredibly convincing, largely CGI) tiger. Although you might expect this to be a semi-tame animal that soon learns to co-exist with its human companion, part of the point of the film is that this is not the case. Richard Parker is wild and untameable, unable to see that its innate instincts are as dangerous for it as they are for Pi, considering the position they’re both in. It takes ingenuity for Pi to survive, but with only the tiger for company he cannot help but form a bond with it – one he can’t tell if the animal shares.

While that’s the central spine of the plot, there’s a whole other side to Life Of Pi which is far more spiritual and concerned with the core of humanity. That’s not to says it’s preachy, as it isn’t, but early on we discover that Pi is a Hindu, Christian and Muslim, and his journey across the sea causes him to question God as well as just about everything about himself. Again that might sound dull, but it’s so seamlessly woven into the plot that it never feels intrusive or over-bearing.

Even if you want to ignore all that, there’s a lot on offer from the imagery. With a most movies it doesn’t really make much difference if you watch them in 3D or not, but this is one I’d advise you to seek out with the added dimension. Great care has been taken to produce some beautiful and immersive 3D images, from an ‘attack’ by flying fish and a whale emerging from the deep to the storm that sinks the ship and an island covered in meerkats.

And yes, that final image is as surreal as it sounds, but it’s certainly beautiful. Life Of Pi is extremely artfully put together to take full advantage of the 3D. It’s showy when it need to be with quite a few ‘wow’ moments, but never to the point of throwing you out of the story – indeed it’s one of the few cases where 3D is actively used to pull you further into the wonder and terror that the central character experiences.

On the downside, I can imagine some literal-minded viewers feeling a little cheated by the ending, although others will absolute adore the way it causes you to reconsider everything you’ve seen. All the way through it skirts on the edge of believability, rarely tipping over the edge and only then going to a point where it seems Pi is going a bit nuts being stuck out at sea for weeks on end. I won’t say any more, but it concludes with an interesting take on the nature of reality and a meditation on the ideas behind magic realism. But more than that, it’s a beautiful film that keeps you far more entertained than you might expect.

Overall Verdict: As involving as it is meditative and as beautiful as it is thought provoking, Life Of Pi is an impressive achievement. Those who like their entertainment literal and with a simple attitude to believability might want to leave this alone, but for everyone else this is a film that will leave you entertained and with things to think about. Plus it’s got a tiger in it, which is always cool.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

Following up some of the same themes as his earlier film, Jewboy, director Tony Krawitz this time brings Christos Tsiolkas’ novel to the screen. Ewen Leslie puts in an understated performance as the Australian Isaac, who against the wishes of his family takes his father’s ashes to Greece to scatter them in his dad’s homeland.

When he arrives in Europe there are ominous warnings about curses on his father and leaving the past in his past. Things take a strange turn when he comes across a teenage boy called Josef (Kodi Smit-McPhee) who’s just been robbed. After agreeing to take the boy home, the youngster suggests the woman in the flat they go to is not his mother, and he needs help. However when Isaac returns later that evening, there’s nobody there and the residents tell him the flat has been empty for months.

Isaac’s European odyssey continues from Greece to Paris and onto Budapest, where he learns more about his family’s past and the truth of a story about his dad having helped save a Jew during the Second World War. And wherever he goes, he’s haunted by visions of Josef.

This is not a film that paints Europe in a very flattering light. Visually it doesn’t matter where in the continent Isaac is, it’s dark, seedy, depressed and grimy. Even the Greek countryside is a backwards land of old women dabbling in the supernatural and men whose wardrobe hasn’t changed in 100 years. But then it’s rather like the plot, a place that’s halfway between the real and the metaphorical.

It’s all very dark and brooding, with Isaac a lost soul whose journey uncovers a Europe that’s trapped in a cycle of depression, exploitation and lies. As a gay Australian of Greek descent, he seems to be searching for roots and something he can anchor himself into. What he finds is confusion, secrets and an increasing sense of displacement from himself. He discovers a continent where history is constantly repeating itself, fed by a diet of people obfuscating the past, ignoring the present and feeding off prejudice.

The film is filled with a lot of interesting ideas, but it’s often difficult to engage with. Dead Europe seems to be trying to show Isaac’s journey as one of dislocation, but the result is often that the film as a whole feels dislocated. Ideas come and go, themes erupt and then disappear, only for echoes of them to re-emerge. This could all be very intriguing and give your brain a good workout, but too often it tips into pretention that feels more like it’s about creating the semblance of meaning than any actual meaning itself.

If everything had come together at the end, that would have been fine, but it builds to a climax that seems pretty pleased with itself but is actually rather underwhelming. The problem is mainly to do with the script and the fact that while Isaac is a fairly quiet character all the way through, there are way too many obvious questions he doesn’t ask towards the end, especially when a character emerges to bring about the denouement. There is some thematic sense to it, but it stretches things to the point where it stops feeling like it’s about real people and real ideas.

It’s a shame as there are all sorts of good things about Dead Europe, from the initial building of Isaac’s character to the sense of this taking place partway between life and death – Europe is almost purgatory for Isaac. However it never fully resolves into anything, leaving so much up in the air – what’s real, what an illusion, what’s true, what isn’t, what’s unresolvable and what’s a way out – that’s it’s difficult to really take an awful lot away from the movie, barring a dark sense of regret about the things you know you should have done but didn’t, and that no matter how deep you bury something, it’s never going to fully go away.

You’re left with a film that feels like the anguished cry of people transplanted from their ancestral homelands, venting their anger and cultural fury at a place from their familial past that’s taken on mythic proportions. It’s a place that feels like the birthplace of all that is wrong, but which they can’t escape.

There’s a lot that’s been put into this film and it’s close to being excellent – creating a complex melting pot of culture, place, sexuality and history as one man searches for a sense of identity. However without an ending to match what the film has built – as well as the fact so many themes are brought up and then ditched – it can’t help but fail to live up to all it could have been. For example, early on there are interesting thematic ideas about Isaac’s sexuality challenging the ancestral culture he’s come from, but after an interesting dinner conversation, a random hook-up in a park and a drug-fuelled three-way with his female cousin and another man, this whole aspect is dropped.

There’s a sense that Dead Europe is little too pleased with itself and as a result ends up not fully being anything. You can still get quite a lot from the movie, but it’s more from its suggestions and hints than from anything fully developed.

Overall Verdict: An intriguing look into identity, history, familial suffering and confusion, but while it builds nicely it never brings cohesion to its numerous thematic threads. It’s an interesting film, but not a fully successful one.

Reviewer: Tim Isaac