Film Reviews by Steve

This gets called the Polish Citizen Kane (1941) because it uses a similar narrative framework of flashbacks. And not because it is a masterpiece of visual style! The lighting is awfully flat and the locations/interiors are depressingly derelict. This is Poland in the economic doldrums, under occupation; Andrzej Wajda's film is a historic document.

The marble statues of the old Communist proletarian heroes are now locked away in the basements of museums. A student film maker (Krystyna Janda) stirs up official resistance when she researches one of the star workers of the 1950s for a tv documentary. Her investigation uncovers some suppressed, awkward national memories...

Besides the Soviets are still in control; Stalin is dead but there is no freedom of expression. Wajda's picture itself was a provocation of state censorship... Jerzy Radziwilowicz stars as the exploitable bricklayer made into a celebrity by the Party propaganda machine but then humiliated when he falls from favour. And then he disappears...

Wajda had a gift for positioning himself in the way of history and the themes of his dissident politics got tangled up in the Polish Solidarity movement over the following decade. The documentary approach is downbeat, which feels authentic and- after a slow first hour- eventually becomes mesmerising. This is a landmark in political cinema. 

Sumptuous indulgence for connoisseurs of studio era gaslight melodrama; this is a luxurious remake of Joseph H. Lewis' low budget woman-in-peril thriller My Name is Julia Ross (1945) updated to the '80s and clearly revised by aficionados. So there are many familiar motifs for genre buffs to pick up on...

Like the glass of milk from Suspicion (1941). And all those mousetraps! Plus the script tightens up the premise quite well. Mary Steenburgen is an out of work actor cast in the real life psychodrama of a mad medic who forces her to stand in for a lookalike dead patient until a blackmail scheme pays off.

The remake- as usual- is much longer, and credibility gets lost in a sequence of climaxes meant to crank up the horror. Steenburgen plays three roles so it's a showreel for her. As the kidnap victim she suffers even better than Nina Foch in the original. Jan Rubes is crazy enough as the evil manipulator.

The original is a cult classic and this made hardly any impact. But it's a quality production with a standout music score. The old dark house lacks noir atmospherics, but the hostile winter weather is an ok substitute. While it's not as good as Lewis' programmer this is a remake which shows it some real love.

Intelligent- but provocative- reflection on the disintegration of a relationship, which is elevated by a pair of award level performances from Daniel Auteuil and Isabelle Huppert. They play a middle aged bourgeois couple, with an 18 month old boy, whose romance is winding down. Then they are torn apart by her affair.

It's an intensely serious drama which looks at the separation from every perspective, including the philosophical... but mainly the psychological. Huppert plays the protagonist whose disenchantment prompts the split, but Auteuil gets more screen time as the left behind. Dan Franck scripts from his own bestseller...

And the audience filters this through their own experiences... Which may be why some feel the woman invents her lover to manipulate her partner! Certainly it's a lucky viewer who doesn't have any memories reawakened. It's shot in a documentary style for maximum realism with subdued interpretations from the stars

It's a pretty raw encounter. There isn't much plot; this is sustained by the actors and our empathy for the pain of their emotional trauma. There is some consideration of how we may change with age, and their generation in particular. It's a classic breakup film which gives us recognition rather than escapism, or hope.

This is the beginning of Takeshi Kitano's weird '90s cult of Japanese gangster-noirs. His debut as writer/director/star is a fusion of extreme brutality and whimsical comedy. When the violent cop (Kitano) is slapping the idiot Yakuza heavies at length, it's more like the Three Stooges than Reservoir Dogs (1992).

This is as derivative as Quentin Tarantino. It borrows most from the high style of Sergio Leone's westerns. Kitano's performance draws on Clint Eastwood's impassive, laconic tough guy persona, but to such an extreme he's barely acting at all. Especially in the long closeups of his lugubrious thousand-yard stare...

There are also echoes of Dirty Harry (1971) as the blunt maverick is impeded by a procedural, liberal boss while he strives to take down a ruthless killer by unorthodox means, and damn the paperwork. Kitano doesn't tell the story with much coherence but the events are held together by his mute charisma.

Which leads to a climactic showdown as the cop goes vigilante in a shootout with Shirô Sano, who is effectively repellant as a sociopathic hitman. Kitano's eccentric approach appeals to both the arthouse and the multiplex. Despite its many influences, this is a truly unorthodox action picture.

*includes an extended sexual assault.

The police procedural became popular in cinemas after WWII before mostly getting scheduled on television. The reason this is back on the big screen is because it is so relentlessly violent; maybe we need a crime expert to explain whether this reflects real life... The mean streets of Los Angeles have never been this horrific before.

Writer-director David Ayer has made similar films many times, but never so well. Or as extreme. It's shot documentary style with Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña as a couple of best buddy cops who patrol the ghetto, which is under the tyranny of guns and drugs. The gangs are divided by race with Mexican cartels moving in... 

Squalor, poverty, inequality and lack of education are not on the agenda; this isn't sociological or political. It may seem recent immigrants are being demonised, but at least this is offset by the Mexicans on the LAPD. It's mostly about the chemistry between the two patrol officers which is comical and suspenseful and then tragic.

The vision of this urban hell  is terrifying, but not exactly realistic; everything a couple of street cops might possibly experience in a lifetime, happens in a few months. Their car passes through an accelerated crime scene of misery and death... lubricated by zero consideration of gun control! And US politicians claim the UK is bad...

*there is constant extreme swearing.

The big screen adaptation of US Marine Anthony Swofford's controversial Gulf War memoir includes story elements commonplace in combat films, but it's more of a complex study of military psychology written as a grim black comedy. Consequently there is little plot but long paragraphs of narration taken from the book. 

This is mostly about the preparation for battle, from basic training to the warzone; and what the Marines do while they wait. And how destructive this is. It's the classic platoon story seen entirely from the point of view of the foot soldier. There is no impression of the big picture, just the loneliness, the bullying, the filth and the fear.  

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as the sort of educated grunt who begins (irony alert) reading L'Étranger by Albert Camus on the latrine but soon gets absorbed into the ambient futility and misery, like camouflage. There's a fine ensemble support cast with Peter Sarsgaard a standout as the only Marine who retains much humanity.

What this does most impressively is explain why mental health issues are so widespread among veterans; it feels like their ordeal might have been intended to make them crazy... Ultimately, Swofforth doesn't even fire his rifle and combat passes him by. Yes he survives, but he is unforgettably marked by the experience. 

Quintessential post-Watergate conspiracy thriller with that 70s mood of paranoia, which still holds up. It suffers for a few clumsy plot twists which may be due to liberties taken with James Grady's bestseller Six Days of the Condor! The main problem is the improbable romance between Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway.

There's a classic Hitchcock-style scenario: a backroom drudge at the CIA is forced into the wrong man role when everyone connected to him is killed; so he hides out with a blonde photographer who assumes the dupe is a mass murderer while he tries to stay alive long enough to uncover the truth. The bondage is pure Hitch...

The conspiracy is hardly a stretch; that government offices intended to protect the public are actually answerable only to themselves, and destroy those who threaten its impunity. Redford and director Sydney Pollack are Hollywood liberals but they don't editorialise, at least until the last scene, which is the best part of the film...

A shady CIA fixer (Cliff Robertson) describes a country where the media is compromised by political authority and the voters unable to see beyond idiotic short term solutions. When Redford asks if the US plans to invade the Middle East for oil and his boss replies 'are you crazy?', it's tempting to shout bingo! at the screen! 

This is the masterpiece which poses the enigma of why Steven Spielberg never made other films on a similar level. It's an almost flawless account of the evolution of Nazi capitalist Oskar Schindler into a humanitarian who kept Jews out of the gas chambers of Auschwitz. This is emotive but there is little of the director's usual sentimentality.

Only in the misjudged coda does he lose control of the emotional throttle... There are a few welcome artistic flourishes, including the girl in the red dress, and the stunning b&w photography, but until nearly the very end this is also scrupulously austere, including the set design, and the script which mostly keeps the drama on mute.

While the detail of the economic and logistical administration of slave labour and mass murder is terrifying, the understated performances render these extreme situations plausible. Liam Neeson plays Schindler as an ambiguous, wily operator, who is hardly a hero at all until the third hour. The support cast is excellent down to the smallest role.

Given all the onscreen text, Spielberg surely intended this as an education, as well as a memorial. Of course, it's hard to watch, and not only because of the horror; sitting at home observing actors present as the skeletal victims of death camps diminishes the gravitas. But when holocaust films are made, they should at least be as great as this one.

This is the debut as writer-director of Shane Black who previously scripted the 1980s Lethal Weapons trilogy. He clearly has a formula, though personally I prefer this as a subject for comedy because it sends up hardboiled crime fiction rather than the action thriller. And I lean towards the '70s neo-noir style this imitates.

Otherwise the crosstalk and cartoonish action inserts are similar, except this is better written with some decent wisecracks and a sardonic voiceover. A bonus for genre fans is this ostentatiously alludes to Raymond Chandler, and not just resolving knotty plot convolutions by making a heavy enter the scene with a gun... 

Even the chapter headings are borrowed from Chandler. Otherwise, much of the attraction is the buddy double act between Robert Downey Jr. as a New York shoplifter who goes to Hollywood to research an acting role... and Val Kilmer as a private detective who gives him a tour around West Coast crime and corruption.

And there are satirical sneers aimed at Hollywood. It's got that oversaturated colour of '70s noir and there are references to those films, and pulp fiction. Much of the response will depend on tolerance of the irony overload (and swearing). But this is a must for noir buffs, and eventually picked up a cult following on tv.

This is a milestone in Clint Eastwood's emerging stardom as he takes a break from his Italian/US westerns and refines the blueprint for the post-noir crime film. The premise is quite apt- he plays a Deputy from Arizona who turns up as a fish-out-of-water in New York City, which is a freak-zone of liberal permissiveness.

The kids are turning on and dropping out while the insubordinate, alpha-male lawman gets it on with a couple of free-loving metropolitan chicks and chases down an outlaw junkie. You can't miss Coogan as he's tall, carries a gun and wears a cowboy hat. This is a hippie era period piece and now seems comically dated.

But it's still entertaining and besides, it was always a spoof. And it's interesting to see how much will be channelled into Dirty Harry (1971): it's the first collaboration between Eastwood and director Don Siegel and there's a score by Lalo Schifrin; the visual style is similar and there is the same dystopia of urban and moral decay.

Plus the detective gets his man despite the interference of the liberal establishment... so the politics is already established. The attitudes are lost in time, including Eastwood's star persona and particularly the ultra-compliant females, but it's still possible to detect that this is a sendup, even if fans of the star wanted to believe!

Maybe it's absurd to reflect on the cinéma du look in terms of its masterpiece; but this is at least quintessential. Many films conceived as an exercise in style now look/sound dated, especially those released in the 1980s. Yet this avoids that fate; its combination of modern, classical and distressed-industrial is fabulous.

And the aural mix of opera, rock atmosphere and ersatz Erik Satie is still chic. In his feature debut, Jean-Jacques Beineix isn't reluctant to show us around the set design, which makes the thriller plot (adapted from a novel) overextended. But the narrative isn't the main reason to watch, and the suspense just about holds.

The McGuffin is the mixup of two audio cassettes in the possession of a cool/cute postal worker (Frédéric Andréi) who zips around Paris on his moped- including in the Metro- while he's pursued by the mob and a pair of music moguls who want to release his hi-tec bootleg recording of a black-American opera singer...

The cast is chosen on appearances and no one gives much of a performance; Wilhelmenia Fernandez as the diva makes the film possible, but isn't an actor. Though Dominique Pinon grew a career from his role as an impassive psycho-baddie. This is arthouse-Hitchcock wrapped in the dream of a loft living lifestyle.

More grim social realism from Ken Loach which is a rare case of him making serious crime the heart of his dissection of working class life; in this case the normalisation of drug use and the absence of law on a council estate in a town close to Glasgow. And be prepared... most viewers who are not from Scotland will need subtitles.

This is about 'chavs' who steal cars for fun and trade smack as the only possible way out of poverty. The title couldn't be more ironic. But of course the director and screenwriter Paul Laverty look beyond the stereotypes. Loach was already a pensioner but despite some occasionally clunky dialogue this feels very switched on.

As usual they extract a story from the experiences of those living in the community, and use local non-professional actors. Martin Compston (then 17) plays a 15 year old kid with a father rarely mentioned and mother in prison, who gets inexorably drawn into criminality. His 4-real performance is the emotional core of the picture.

Loach creates a detailed, nuanced impression of the cost of growing up without support, where the men are mostly absent, if you're lucky. Where drug addiction has augmented alcoholism as a means of carrying on. Any irritation this initially provokes eventually gives way to profound horror, which leaves us with little hope.

*the extreme swearing is constant.

High concept arthouse thriller, where the concept is Anne Parillaud in a Little Black Dress holding a huge automatic pistol. Which- of course- she immediately puts in her mouth... It begins as a Pygmalion story with the junkie cop killer made-over into a sexy gamine assassin... who falls in love with her instructor (Tchéky Karyo).

She makes a normal home life with a cute shop assistant (Jean-Hugues Anglade) while carrying out hits for the deep state. The initial premise is infallible and led to many remakes and spinoffs. It has also been unofficially ripped off, not least by writer-director Luc Besson who made a career from this setup. This is the superior version.

Still, it loses its way in the second act. The spy games are pure McGuffin and eventually the story arc reroutes into black comedy when Jean Reno appears in a cameo as a government 'cleaner' who tidies away the mess left behind by the spooks. There's an odd score which rotates supper club muzak, Mozart and industrial techno!

Parillaud and Besson generate some neo-noir sadness to obscure the issue of Nikita having shot a gendarme in the head... The visuals are cool and whenever the plot falters, it's rescued by the star's photogenic charisma. Okay, she's a babe with a gun but Parillaud gives a performance; and she's still the best killer-femme out there.

Uneven Gen. X melodrama which still strikes a few deeper notes. In the present era of social media, and since the Columbine Massacre, this seems unexpectedly prophetic. A teenage pirate radio shock-jock operating from his bedroom in suburban Arizona changes the climate at his ultra-Conservative High School.

This is surprisingly sincere and while the disillusioned kid’s diatribes are often artless, then that's part of his vulnerability and some of the more profound material goes straight to the heart. Maybe looking like Christian Slater (or his eventual companion, Samantha Mathis!) would alleviate many teenage problems.

But Slater plays up his social anxiety which is unusual for the period. He can't communicate, except via his broadcast, when he talks for everyone and offers an outlet for misfits who suffer alone. Obviously there's a soundtrack of punk and hiphop classics. Boomers get Leonard Cohen singing Everybody Knows.

It loses focus in the later scenes, and the reaction from the fascist headteacher is idiotic. Plus it borrows the climax from Smokey and the Bandit! Yet this stands apart from other 80s/90s High School pictures and makes salient observations on how some colleges finagle good grades; which is sadly now relevant to the UK. 

This is the last of four collaborations between director Susanne Bier and screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen in the decade after the millennium. This may be the least of these, though the standard is high and this won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. They all trace a connection between the personal and global politics.

This one features a pair of decent child performances with Markus Rygaard and William Jøhnk Nielsen as middle class 12 year olds who escalate some bullying into an act of domestic terrorism, while one of their fathers (Mikael Persbrandt) is absent working as a doctor in a field hospital within a war-zone somewhere in Africa.

The link between the resentful kids in Denmark and tribal hostility is tenuous, but both scenarios are interesting. Persbrandt is a charismatic lead as the medic divided between two worlds; this is what a real flawed superhero looks like! There are ethical dilemmas drawn from conflict within group dynamics and the abuse of power.

The extreme situations are explored with sensitivity, wisdom and realism. Sometimes it's hard to watch the helplessness of the victims; there may be tears.  Bier performs a small miracle in making this all seem plausible over a lengthy running time. It's a shame her later Hollywood career has been relatively disappointing.