Nicholas Cage is a visionary; he strides boundaries.
Few can claim a filmography as eclectic as his: from Rumble Fish to Vampires Kiss, through Con Air and Face/Off, Adaptation and Lord of War, to Ghost Rider, Kick-Ass, and now Joe.…
’71 is a Greengrassian blast from the past
The sound of boxing over black – the thuds, the grunts, the heavy breathing – sounds very much like war.
When ’71 opens, however, our young squaddie, Gary Hook (Starred Up’s Jack O’Connell) has not been deployed to Northern Ireland, but is participating in an officially mandated bout.…
The Equalizer is a fairly brutal middle-of-the-road actioner
The major issue that almost every attempt to adapt beloved ‘80s TV franchises to the big screen is tone.
Michael Mann’s Miami Vice might have had cigarette boats and more suit jacket-t-shirt combos than you can shake a brick (of coke) at, but, amidst all the neo-noir stylings, it lost it sense of cool.…
The Riot Club is, worryingly, a bit of a blast
An elite club populated by the best and brightest – or at least the richest and most (literally) entitled – of Oxford University; banned from campus and every nearby venue for their wild and destructive behavior; young men groomed for power, who grow up believing that money can buy them anything, including immunity from the law.
…A Walk Among the Tombstones makes for a forgettable ramble
What’s become of Liam Neeson?
The aquiline Northern Irishman, best known for the likes Schindler’s List, Michael Collins, and Kinsey, became an unlikely action hero when, at the age of fifty-six, he starred in the Luc Besson-produced Taken.…
In Order of Disappearance: worth getting lost in the snow for?
Known though they are for their bleak crime dramas, the Nords aren’t particularly renowned for their sense of humor.
It’s only half surprising then that Hans Petter Moland’s In Order of Disappearance is both very, very bleak and very funny.…
The Guest is worth leaving home for
David Collins, Dan Stevens’ character in Adam Wingard’s new thriller, The Guest, would be about as far removed as you can image from Matthew Crawley, the agreeable young gentleman he played in Downton Abbey.
Well, apart from the issues of manners: David is faultlessly polite, overflowing with “Sirs” and “Ma’ams”, even while bringing destruction down upon the heads of the Peterson clan.…
As Above, So Below ends up smack in the middle
The Catacombs of Paris contain the remains of more than six million people.
Consisting of 200 miles of underground tunnel, much of it uncharted, to get lost down there, to lose your flashlight or to run out of water is to die.…
Night Moves is dead in the water
On first glance, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d seen Night Moves before.
A tale of ambitious eco-terrorists directed by a well-respected, if relatively little-known indie director, featuring an emotionally guarded lead, a maturing young actress, and a Scandinavian-sounding “leader”.…
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For shows a franchise that should have stayed buried
Hollywood is usually pretty quick off the bat on commissioning sequels – often a picture’s barely made it into cinemas before a follow-up’s been green-lit – but every now and then they leave us twiddling our thumbs.
It’s been nine years since Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s hyper-visual, hyper-violent Sin City made its way onto our screens, long enough that even the most ardent fan had given up hope of a second installment.…