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.…
Tag: thriller
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.…
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”.…
Two Faces of January is a multi-faceted Highsmith thriller
As film directors go, it’s hard to escape the shadow of Alfred Hitchcock.
The iconically portly Brit directed more than 50 films during his lifetime with an impressive batting average in terms of outright classics: Psycho, Vertigo, North by Northwest.…
Blue Ruin’s cautionary tale is Death Wish meets the Hatfield-McCoys
Real life isn’t like the movies.
True love is not the inevitable outcome of a tempestuous first meeting and cars don’t blow up just because you put a few bullets in them. It’s this reality that is at the heart of Blue Ruin.…
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit fails to fully surface
Has ever a hero been rebooted as repeatedly and with little aplomb as Jack Ryan? From Sean Connery-starrer Hunt for the Red October back in 1990 through to the present day, Tom Clancy’s best-known protagonist has grossed more than half a billion dollars.…
The Counselor is a film in desperate need of help
The Counselor is an unusual beast.
In its opening moments, cheetahs stalk wild hares on the Savannah, not of Africa but Mexico; a flamboyant, eccentrically rich couple picnic nearby in the company of some luxury motors.
Sometime soon Michael Fassbender’s nameless eponym will be buying a diamond from Bruno Ganz’s merchant, who pontificates on the beauty of the stone lying in its flaws.…
Paranoia evokes nothing but boredom
Paranoia is a lavish techno-thriller with no central processor.
Director Robert Luketic, who’s made a career out of forgettable rom-coms, and Barry Levy, the writer behind the Rashomon-derived Vantage Point, cobble together a motion picture out of spare parts.…
The East is a timely thriller well worth heading to the cinema for
Has there ever been a better-timed tagline than the one for The East: “Spy on us, we’ll spy on you.”
With the NSA scandal over warrantless surveillance still playing out in the US, a lot of people are pretty pissed with the government intelligence agency and the corporations that aided them.
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