Much has been written about Daniel Craig’s swansong as 007, most of it positive. This review won’t even attempt to outline the plot because, dear reader, it is so complicated and has so many fails, that I couldn’t even begin to explain what the film is about apart from the normal stuff. James Bond […]

In 1979 Tim Jenkin, Stephen Lee and Alex Moumbaris escaped from Pretoria gaol, the ‘white man’s Robben Island’ having been found guilty of acts of terrorism in apartheid South Africa. This film is based on Tim Jenkin’s memoir of this event and, indeed, is so accurate that he was an extra, playing the part of […]

This is Rosamund Pike as you’ve never seen her before. In I care a lot she plays an amoral glamorous business woman who specialises in slapping care orders on elderly and confused people thus gaining control of the their lives, and more importantly, their wealth. Once you’ve got past the distasteful premise (true by the way […]

I am a great fan of Julia Garner who plays Ruth in the mesmerising Ozark (still haven’t quite managed to finish series 3 – there’s too much to do in lockdown!). So I am intrigued to see her starring in a new film, billed as a ‘thriller/drama’ launched this week on Curzon Home Cinema.

Jane is the eponymous […]

This widely acclaimed follow-up to Get Out didn’t do it for me. Or for my companion, the Thriller Writer who knows a thing or two about the  horror genre. Prepped for allegory, satire and clever-clogs stuff, I have to admit by being completely underwhelmed by Us.

Jordan Peele sets his stall out with the portentous opening title sequence, […]

It’s impossible to be anything than utterly mesmerised by this ghoulish satire of modern times.  Lou Bloom is a petty criminal, driven to the limits of entrepreneurship to cobble together a living from scrap metal. One night, on his nocturnal rounds, he comes across a car smash and the ambulance-chasing crime ‘reporters’ filming the bloodied corpses […]

Gone Girllives up to the hype. The column miles trumpeting its arrival – the debate surrounding its purported misogyny and claims to be a portrait of modern marriage – have all been hashed and re-hashed ad infinitum. The bottom line is that it is a film noir that self-consciously echoes the very best of the […]

Adapted from John Le Carré’s book of the same name, A Most wanted Manis a slow-paced spy thriller, which takes as its central themes the West’s anxiety over Islamic fundamentalists and America’s policy of extraordinary rendition in the wake of 9/11. It is set in Hamburg where, in fact, Mohammed Atta lived and plotted, undetected by […]

If Ayoade’s debut film Submarineplayed mind games with its psychedelic, black humour, then The Double hurtles the brain into a vortex of paranoia.

Based on a Dostoyevsky short story (which I admit to not having read), Ayoade creates a dystopian nightmare where Simon James, a nerdy computer programmer, finds his life is taken over by his doppelgänger, James Simon […]

I am no lover of sci fi but due to the buzz about Gravitydecided to try my luck. Also Cuarón is both a versatile and first rate director and producer of many films, including Y Tu Mamá También, Rudo y Cursi,  The Children of Men, Pan’s Labyrinth(a bit dodgy for me) and, of course, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

The good […]