Film Reviews by Steve

Violent prison drama which begins as a neorealist exposé of the poverty and futility of French penitentiaries, and then evolves into an origins story of an illiterate, malleable 19 year old French-Algerian (Tahar Rahim) who learns to survive in the shadows of this primitive, anarchic institution; and then prosper.

The novice gets an education which transforms him into a hoodlum able to control crime on the outside. And a new gang of Arab convicts coalesce around him to challenge the Corsican drug trade. Director Jacques Audiard adopts a documentary approach, but with some style and many hallucinatory inserts.

While the film comments on the horrific penal environment and the experience of French ethnic minorities, it's Rahim's epic performance that dominates. Niels Arestrup is a convincing heavy as the head of the Corsican mafia on the inside. And in the neorealist tradition, Audiard uses real life convicts in support roles.

Eventually, the young offender emerges as a folkloric figure; both as a criminal leader of his immigrant people and a more mythic visionary; which surely represents the psychopathic potential which was in him from the start... This is one of the best prison films ever made, and a masterpiece of social realism.

Alan Clarke won a reputation as a director of violent, uncompromising television dramas. After his Play for Today original was shelved by the BBC, he and writer Roy Minton created an even more extreme version for cinemas. It is a sensational exposure of the British borstal system. These prisons for boys were actually shut down between the two editions.

A couple of tough offenders fight for the supremacy of their corner of the organisation; to be the 'daddy'. Ray Winstone is formidable as the new kid who takes over the block and there's a strong support cast of UK stalwarts. Mick Ford also makes a deep impression in a difficult role as a more thoughtful iconoclast who articulates most of the editorial content.

The borstal socialises the kids to conform with the prevailing culture; but the values they assimilate, are utterly insane. No one survives. The institution and the sentences are incidental to the true savagery of the experience; the prisoners brutalise each other. The rape and subsequent suicide of one of the more vulnerable boys is incredibly harrowing.

Though the reality was quite probably worse, certainly in regards to sexual abuse. The low budget actually enhances the feel of chilly brutality; all is grim, and hostile, and malign. And yet the episodic story is absolutely spellbinding, even before the shocking climax. This landmark cult classic is the best prison drama ever made in the UK... Maybe any country.

Influential High School comedy which spoofs the dumbed down rich kids of the Los Angeles suburbs. There is some satisfaction to be had from how faithful the narrative stays to Jane Austen's Emma. And there are similar weaknesses, like how far can we go to forgive its entitled, foolish protagonist?

Viewers with a switched on moral radar may find some of this repellant, but it mostly gets by on the charm of Alicia Silverstone's performance as Cher, the beautiful, hubristic airhead who can't help meddling in the affairs of others; until she experiences humility, and other life lessons. She also finds true love...

Though the romantic resolution is unsatisfactory; she's going to date her stepbrother? Yew... as if. And Cher is too manipulative to make her last minute change of heart credible. Among the support cast, Brittany Murphy stands out as the perky slacker the queen bee tries to makeover into a clone of herself.

There are the usual genre signifiers, with the teenage fashions (the elite dress like Sunset hookers on limitless credit), the jukebox soundtrack, the school class system; the delineation of tribal subcultures maps the territory for its many imitators. Much of this is astute, but Cher is too hard to like for a romcom.

The last- and least regarded- of the Day-Hudson comedies is also a change in direction. Pillow Talk (1959 ) and Lover Come Back (1961) are metropolitan romances which end in true love. This is a conservative, suburban sitcom about a happy marriage under the pressure of farcical complications.

Doris Day and Rock Hudson are a middle class, middle aged married couple. He drives a gas-guzzler and commutes to work (with Tony Randall). She runs the home, goes shopping and plays golf. They visit the country club together. What used to swing has settled into midlife contentment; they are squares.

Doris' wardrobe is frumpy. Rock is still buff, but receding. He is a hypochondriac who thinks he has weeks to live while she imagines this is a cover for an affair! Now, it's a time capsule and any enjoyment depends on tolerance of its gender politics: she's the dumb housewife and her husband makes the decisions.

So consequently he attempts to find her a new husband for after he dies. It's amusing, but not hilarious. The title sequence has Day singing a Bacharach and David beat number over some animation, which is cool. And most of what's worthwhile about this fun but unremarkable farce is the retro-60s vibe.

Offbeat- and extraordinarily compelling- missing child thriller, with a gimmick that really pays off. When a teenage girl suddenly disappears, the father searches for her online through her activity on social media. So it takes place on a cinema screen which represents a computer screen.

And much of the investigation is in audio. John Cho plays a Chinese-American widower who realises his daughter is no longer the sweet musical prodigy of his memory after she stops taking his calls and vanishes. An extremely empathetic and hard working cop (Debra Messing) picks up the case.

And dad starts to unravel. While implausibility is a factor, as a work of suspense this is a triumph. Maybe that's because the news and social media footage is so authentic. The actual plot is just standard for the genre, but the screen activity is really well animated as the 24 hour news cycle takes up the story.

And dad gets a short lesson in what teenagers do online. There is dark satirical humour and an overdose of anxiety. The final twist is a minor disappointment... though anyone interested might rewatch, because there is another- more sensational- media story going on in the margins of the news sites!

This is Michael Haneke's most accessible film because it is the least emotionally austere and intellectually aloof. And also because the thriller format generates suspense... But there's still some of his usual detachment and virtuosity.

It's an arthouse conundrum about a couple of bourgeois, middle aged parents- played by Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche- who lose the insulation of privilege when they receive videotapes which intrude into their personal privacy...

This prompts the husband to reluctantly exhume his own deep, suppressed past, while the director reflects on various issues including class and surveillance. Most significant is the allegorical subtext on the guilty legacy of French imperialism

While it plays out like a multi-layered, violent thriller, this is mostly a cerebral exercise. Some viewers are dismayed by the lack of a resolution- one of a few similarities with Blow-Up (1966)- but there's a clue in the long final shot. See IMDB for details...

*Note- a live animal is killed.

The pitch for this lesser Mann-Stewart western may as well have been, 'let's shoot yet another western, but set it in Alaska'- because it's just made up of standard genre situations, from cattle drive to gold rush. The duo collaborated on something similar- but better- a couple of year earlier with Bend of the River.

As usual with the Anthony Mann westerns, there's a rugged location shoot- though they only got as far north as Canada. James Stewart again plays a cynic with a past and an edge. He's the sort of surly individualist who often inhabits frontier melodrama, but at the darker, more mercenary end of the spectrum.

He's strictly looking after number one... until he isn't and finally accepts his responsibility to the community in time for the shootout. There's a capable cast of genre stalwarts in support, including Walter Brennan. Stewart gets to dally with a two contrasting female leads: Ruth Roman for glamour; Corinne Calvet for comedy.

But, there's not much here for either. The real spark come from the anti-hero's feud with a corrupt frontier politician played with odious false geniality by John McIntire. There's a decent script and it's well directed and if all else fails- though it never gets quite that bad- there's the gorgeous Technicolor photography.

While this is scrupulously faithful to the narrative of of John Steinbeck's classroom classic, its main weakness is to promote tastefulness ahead of the political content. There is far less socialism here than the still definitive 1939 version. But there is gorgeous colour photography shot in beautiful rural locations.

And Mark Isham's musical score takes authentic Americana and grinds it into down into muzak. The golden sunlight is heartbreakingly lovely and the period look is impressive, but you could show this to a roomful of schoolkids and probably have to field few inquiries about the misery of the rural poor in the depression.

Gary Sinise (also director/producer) as George yields the spotlight to John Malkovich's Lenny, the brain damaged giant who loves like a child, without understanding or limits. In their ill-fated nomadic quest for work and dignity, the eternal duo leave a trail of mayhem across the farmland of '30s California.

Ray Walston stands out in the support cast as a disabled odd jobber who feels the ominous encroachment of old age in a time of unregulated capitalism. The themes will always matter but this production seems much more motivated by period authenticity and the opportunity to portray a pair of literary legends.

This late career success for Ken Loach was not due to a change in approach, but because a wider audience was ready to listen. It's the film that speaks most directly to the UK in the dark days between 2010-24... How the way our society is managed appears to be designed to frustrate the needs of its citizens. Until they give up.

So we observe how the byzantine benefits system destroys a good man temporarily in need of financial support... But this also channels a wider discontent. There is the usual oddball Loach cast of amateurs and factotums, led by comedian Dave Johns as an everyman living in Newcastle who is condemned to... sign on.

Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty dig through the layers of despair down to a precarious underclass which depends on food parcels and may live in fear of eviction. Where ordinary people survive through crime and prostitution. And the last chance safety net has been manipulated to persecute the vulnerable.

Loach is one of the most important UK directors: not because he is a supreme talent (like Hitchcock), or has mass appeal (like Chaplin), or intuits something profound about our island heritage (like Michael Powell)... But because he cares about the condition of the nation's soul with unwavering passion. This is his masterpiece.

Cute romantic-comedy which takes its premise from Cyrano de Bergerac, though is naturally diminished by the comparison. This is a comical riff on the dating game with themes that operate on the level of a personality quiz in Cosmo. The soundtrack of inoffensive album tracks might have been compiled for US coffee chains.

What was fashionable in '96 among metropolitan casuals - the clothes, cars and desirable homes, plus the excess of product placement- now gives it period appeal. It's an aspirational lifestyle romcom set among single twenty-somethings in the more picturesque suburbs of Los Angeles. Where everyone learns valuable life lessons.

Janeane Garofalo plays a sassy vet who presents a radio show and wants to date a sexy British photographer (Ben Chaplin). Experience says she isn't beautiful enough, so she vicariously romances him via a nice-but-dim fashion model (Uma Thurman). So... do guys prefer average looking feminists or knockout airheads?

The answer may depend on how you rate the relative looks of the female stars, and how impressed you are by Garofalo's zingers. Chaplin grows wearisome as the dreamy, bashful eye candy, but this is mostly easy to take and there are some adorable dogs and cats. It's inevitably superficial, but still a superior '90s date picture.

Stylish psychological thriller which is a fictional story written into the search for a real life serial killer on the island of Jersey in the 1960s. Jessie Buckley plays an anxious misfit bullied by her awful family... and well, everyone else too! She is liberated by her free-spirited boyfriend (Johnny Flynn). But, is he the maniac?

And is the neurotic victim even crazier? The premise isn't original... but still creates suspense out of the many possible outcomes. Besides, it hardly matters, as this is so well constructed, including the expressive use of light and cool camera setups, the ambiguities of an outstanding script and the ominous feel of the locations.

There is such a formidable sense of place it seems the vulnerable woman is menaced as much by the malign ambience of the island and its inhabitants as her own demons- or the murderer. Flynn is charismatic as a nonconformist crusty; but Geraldine James is more sinister as the insidiously bourgeois and controlling mother.

This is a star role for Buckley who conveys a profound impression of locked up, unreachable anguish. And it's an impressive debut for writer-director Michael Pearce; thanks for not overdoing the music! There's some narrative drag, but that's part of the atmosphere. And there's a trace of folk horror in the mix too, which is fashionable.

This was once controversial for its commentary on the early years of the US war-on-drugs and because of the Turkish government's response to its deviations from the truth. It's adapted from Billy Hayes' bestseller about his escape from a Turkish jail after being sent down for 30 years for trying to smuggle cannabis through Istanbul customs.

Turkish officials tried to get it banned everywhere, which is understandable because it presents their legal system as corrupt and the extreme brutality of the prison made an indelible impression on potential western holidaymakers. Welcome to hell. And Oliver Stone who was most responsible for these distortions won an Oscar for best screenplay.

Years later the production team apologised but were vague about why: on some occasions they meant to say this is about prison reform; on others, that drug smuggling is a mugs game. So it's problematic... Yet stripped of the politics, it remains an immersive men-behind-bars picture with decent performances- led by Brad Davis as Billy Hayes.

There was also an Oscar for Giorgio Moroder's innovative electro-score. And it's well directed for maximum realism by Alan Parker, with the camera wobble and jump cuts. But its main impact is a handful of incredibly raw set pieces that instantly became screen legend. Now it's slightly hokey and mostly forgotten; but still a landmark prison blockbuster.

Another of those elegiac Edwardian dramas about a way of life about to be exposed to the brutality of industrial war; except this is more critical of the aristocracy than most. It's 1913 and the elite are shooting game while long overdue political adjustment pulls gently at the threads of the British class system.

There's an impressive ensemble cast led by James Mason- in his final role- as the patriarch who doubts whether the gentry has any function or moral justification, while still enjoying its many privileges. Most of the characters are positioned around how they feel about multiple different kinds of incoming change.

Rupert Frazer and Judi Bowker play dilettantes curious about socialism and female emancipation, while considering an extra-marital affair. They would make very beautiful illicit lovers but lack political will. More comically, John Guilgud campaigns for the rights of animals, while the toffs empty the sky of wildlife.

The period recreation is exceptional, and Alan Bridges is a master of this milieu. His approach is to present the distractions and dreams and dishonours of a generation, while we observe in the prior knowledge that most of them will soon be lost in the tide of history. This is hardly original, but still a heartbreaker.

Complex arthouse psychodrama from Nicolas Roeg's classic period. So there are his usual preoccupations, including the non-linear narrative. And while this isn't difficult to navigate, some attention is rewarded by the ultra-expressive juxtaposition of images, and the outré thematic connections.

Which may feel like homework... but the pessimistic atmosphere and the delirious conclusion make this linger in the memory. Art Garfunkel plays an American research psychiatrist in Vienna tangled up in a convoluted affair with a promiscuous free-spirit (Theresa Russell). His fixation is more like surveillance than love...

While doctors save her life following an overdose, a saturnine Austrian cop on the nightshift (Harvey Keitel) investigates, which takes us into into the darkness of the academic's obsession*. And contributes some noirish fatalism. This is mostly told from the jilted lover's perspective and he's obviously an unreliable narrator...

The odd rock and pop soundtrack is a minor negative. And Roeg doesn't get nearly as much out of Vienna as he did from Venice in Don't Look Now (1973). Garfunkel and Keitel fail to engage, though Russell is electrifying. Still, for anyone who appreciates the director's unique oeuvre, this is close enough to his peak.

*There is a realistic sexual assault.

Not my personal favourite of the classic melodramas Douglas Sirk directed at Universal studios in the 1950s, but probably the most critically admired. And it's the one which made the heaviest cultural impact. Jane Wyman plays a wealthy widow who falls in love with the young free-spirited hunk (Rock Hudson) who tends to her garden...

Meanwhile her two awful children and the wealthy country club conformists try to wreck their relationship, mainly for reasons of class. It reunites the stars of Sirk's massive 1954 hit, The Magnificent Obsession, and once again struggles to insert a rather superfluous philosophy; this time related to American transcendentalism!

Though Sirk is clearly more interested in the iniquities of US capitalism, and the audience in the glossy romance between the two stars. But there are two main potential drawbacks: it's a wish-fulfilment fantasy about a woman of a certain age who gets another go around with... Rock Hudson. And sure, what that means is now ambiguous...

But not everyone will identify! Secondly, this might climax unforgettably with the haunting reflection of Wyman in a tv screen as she is confronted with the loveless future the small town conservatism demands. But the studio insisted on a Hollywood ending! Still it's a key Sirk melodrama with the usual superior production polish.