Film Reviews by Steve

Incredibly raw and horrifying scrutiny of the PTSD suffered by a Danish soldier in Afghanistan assumed to be dead but held captive by the Taliban. When he returns to his own family his temporary psychosis brings violent terror to his wife and two young daughters.

Ulrich Thomsen portrays the determined army major made to carry out unspeakable acts while imprisoned, who grows suspicious of the close relationship between his ex-jailbird brother (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and his wife, played by Connie Nielsen, who is exceptional.

Once more Susanne Bier acutely explores the intersection between family, community, country and global politics, assisted by dialogue and a well organised narrative from long term associate Anders Thomas Jensen. In my view, this is the best of their collaborations.

The excess of brutal psychological realism is hard to endure, but if this is what society expects of its armed forces, surely we should be aware of the consequences? The screenplay leaves us with a little hope, but we know this isn't the experience of many veterans.

Slow release moral tale adapted from a short story by US writer Raymond Carver, and then transferred to Jindabyne, a small rural town in New South Wales, Australia. Anyone who has seen Short Cuts (1993) will recognise the same scenario, though that is more concise. At two hours long, this is overextended.

The parochial context goes unexplained, as if the makers had no expectation this would travel abroad, with the local folk ballads, and an esoteric impression of Aboriginal culture within a metaphysical landscape. Though the eerie/isolated atmosphere is the best part, including the magnificent lakeland scenery.

There are a couple of lead actors more familiar to overseas markets. Laura Linney is the standout as a wife/mother who becomes disenchanted by her husband- played by Gabriel Byrne- who carries on with his weekend fishing trip rather than immediately report the murdered body of a young Aboriginal woman.

And this opens up divisions in the community between the generations and the sexes, and with the marginalised indigenous people. The ambience of the haunted, ancient countryside is immersive, but there isn't much of a third act and it meanders to a conclusion. Still, you'll want to go hiking in those mountains...

Nasty/tasty/violent gangster picture set in Melbourne, Australia based on real life events. It's from the point of view of a relatively sheltered teenager (James Frecheville) exposed to his criminally degenerate relatives who are going crazy under police surveillance.

And then it really kicks off on about halfway with a journey into the heart of darkness of the family's astonishingly pragmatic and vicious mother, courtesy of Jacki Weaver's virtuoso, Oscar nominated performance which makes Lady Macbeth look like Mary Poppins.

There's a quality cast with a breakout role for Ben Mendelsohn as the homicidal leader of the outfit, equal parts stupid/psychopath/evil. And debut writer-director David Michôd winds up the tension with some expertise. You really do not want to go near this scum...

Which is sort of refreshing after the nostalgia of New York mafia films which portray killers as knockabout wise-guys. These crooks are uncivilised, and terrifying. It starts out mocking their idiocy, but they are insane. My pick as the best gangster film ever made.

Downbeat character study adapted from a bestseller (by Janet Finch). It's an actors film led by Alison Lohman as a teenager abandoned to the mercy of Californian foster care after her single mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) gets sent down for murder.

The events mostly reflect on the child's attempts to understand and escape from this traumatic maternal relationship. Initial disquiet at the daughter's brattish personality soon falls away under the sincerity and depth of Lohman's portrayal.

Pfeiffer is too impassive as the solipsistic, freethinking mother, but there are fertile support roles as the parental stand-ins. Renée Zellweger is best as a rich, mentally unstable trophy wife about to enter middle age with an errant, unloving husband.

This is voyeuristic exploitation; maybe even misery porn. But there's a nuanced- if sanitised- impression of growing up in care, and a nice feel for sunny, suburban LA... Plus it’s interesting to see the resilient child change within the influence of each family...

It's the one where Béla Tarr unwinds and makes a thriller based on a story by Georges Simenon! Well, it may be as mainstream as the legendary Hungarian auteur ever got, but it's still shot with his own idiosyncratic approach, so it's an exotic experience for novices.

There are the ultra-slow tracking shots, the rattle and clang of industrial noise and the absurd/grotesque characterisations. This is based on a popular novel, and maybe even a tribute to film noir. Yet like all Béla's oeuvre, it is unique, beautiful, and utterly strange

It retains the bare bones of Simenon's plot, but slowed right down. A signalman (Miroslav Krobot) at a dismal French port pulls a suitcase full of money out of the harbour. And then he's investigated by an elegant but elderly English detective of uncertain authority.

And so the director fills out the lengthy running time with artistic, high contrast b&w photography including the ominous/looming blocks of darkness... It probably lacks the complexity and profundity of Tarr's other films but is still a compelling curiosity for the initiated.

Back in 1990 this appeared to be a bittersweet French sex comedy which twisted some tasteful eroticism into the ultimately tragic romance.... Jean Rochefort is a middle aged idler who grows up with a fetishistic desire for the sensual intimacy of a haircut... but only by a voluptuous woman.

So he's in luck when he meets and quickly marries a curvaceous/sexy/obliging hairdresser, played Anna Galiena. And within the shelter of their salon they find true love and brief happiness, plus a few outré encounters with their eccentric clientele. Who it seems have their own personal quirks.

However, since me-too, this is maligned as the male gaze. And it does feel awkward, even if Mathilde loves Antoine even more obsessively. And there may be doubts whether anyone would ever visit the parlour when the amorous couple are likely to initiate lovemaking during your haircut or shave?

But it would be shame if nothing can be salvaged. The photography of the seaside town in pastel colours is simply gorgeous and there's some kooky humour and sincere performances. It's a brief reflection on the complexity and joy of human desire... which may now be incompatible with sexual politics.

Downbeat comedy of awkwardness from Noah Baumbach which is interesting more than actually hilarious. Its approach is to create an odd couple romance out of prickly, uncharismatic washouts. Ben Stiller plays an aimless carpenter, dog-sitting at his well-off brother's west coast sprawl while reflecting on missed opportunities.

And Greta Gerwig is a younger graduate with low self-esteem whose degree has bought her nothing better than a menial job as the brother's gofer. She's awfully compliant, but relatively normal. Stiller is just out of a mental hospital and has no idea how to engage with others. However, he does like to complain about everything.

And this allows Baumbach to script some observational comedy on familiar themes: Los Angeles v New York; the class/gender divide; having kids and getting older... None of this is especially witty, or even insightful. It's a middle age rites-of-passage about how it feels to hit your 40s without anything except the burden of regret.

The support cast led by Rhys Ifans and Jennifer Jason Leigh can't do much with underwritten roles. Where this scores is its deftness in creating this negativity and such antagonistic characters, without them being intolerable. Which may be an exercise in judgement from the stars who make this pessimism surprising easy to watch.

Weird sci-fi head movie adapted from a Philip K. Dick novel, with the live digital images laboriously rotoscoped to give the appearance of animation. And while it looks far out, this feels just right for a trippy tale of drug paranoia and corporate degeneracy.

It's like Richard Linklater took his usual counterculture slackers and fitted them into a simple conspiracy frame. While this got good reviews, many critics complained it's hard to understand... but actually there isn't much narrative, this is mostly dialogue.

The delusional streams of consciousness are funny and imaginative and alone make this a must-see for fans of psychedelia. Plus the wacky visuals. Keanu Reeves plays an undercover cop inside a computerised second skin which protects his anonymity,

He monitors a cell of stoner freaks- played by Robert Downey Jr, Woody Harrelson, et al- which includes himself! Will he discover the truth before his brain is fried? The spoofy performances are suitably bizarre, and a huge blast. This can also be enjoyed sober.

This scores twice, both as a romance about an unconsummated love affair in Hong Kong in the early '60s, and also as cinematic art. Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung update Brief Encounter (1945) in this heartbreaker about neighbours who find themselves sadly alone when their spouses engage in a clandestine affair.

They never even share a kiss, but in terms of simpatico screen chemistry the stars are the Bogart and Bergman of the new millennium. Plus the stunning costumes, hair, makeup, especially Ms. Cheung's traditional Chinese dresses. The hugely emotional coda is overwhelming, and I'm still choking back a sob right now.

And there are so many other incidental pleasures. Most ostentatiously there's Christopher Doyle's expressionist photography of the lodgings and passageways in their run down guest house, with the minimal depth of field. Plus the palpable textures of the set design, the illuminated cigarette smoke and the faded elegance.

Slowly a sense of memory disturbs the surface until the atmos becomes dreamlike, enhanced by the ambient music, the cocktail samba and the cello waltz... There is some of the glamour of early Hollywood, with an elevated style which reaches back to Joseph von Sternberg. This is Wong Kar-Wai's masterpiece.

A quick glance at the credits promises so much. This is based on the 1901 novel by UK sci-fi pioneer, HG Wells, and scripted by Nigel Kneale, who created Quatermass for the BBC. There's Hollywood money on board, and a cast of popular stars. Plus SFX by stop-motion legend Ray Harryhausen. And it's in Technicolor. The score is by Laurie Johnson who composed the Avengers theme!

But it's a disappointment; while this is competently made, it's a child friendly blockbuster and that audience no longer exists for a film with pre-CGI effects. If this was a sincere adaptation of Wells' space dystopia, then it might still appeal to genre buffs. But sci-fi nerds aren't likely to sit still for Lionel Jeffries doing his comical schtick as the madcap inventor of a Victorian spaceship.

And though Edward Judd is in many sci-fi classics, this isn't one of them. He plays the business partner who floats to the moon with the Prof while his reproachful fiancée (Martha Hyer) comes along by accident, with her chickens. In the lunar caverns they are taken captive by giant insects, which aren't among Harryhausen's best animations and otherwise are kids in rubber suits.

It was made soon after JFK announced the Apollo project, but it squanders any topicality by being staged in the time period of the novel. Director Nathan Juran was a set designer by trade, and there's some interest in the steampunk spaceship, and lunar backgrounds, which may have influenced artwork for '70s prog rock albums. So perhaps its appeal now is to fans of psychedelia...

Cult sci-fi parable/head movie about a solitary, super-intelligent alien who comes to Earth to find a means of taking water back to his dying planet, but is compromised. Its big idea- from Walter Tevis' novel- is the spaceman gets corrupted by an acquired humanness...

Which now has become a popular science fiction motif. Today there is some obvious topicality; his planet is advanced in electronics, but has turned into a desert due to the heat and aridity. But on release, the main interest was in the stunt casting of David Bowie.

Though a limited actor, he looks astonishing as the wan, skinny extraterrestrial who sets up a corporation to front and finance his real project, but is ultimately subverted by the humanity he learns from television. And then neutralised by earthly capitalists.

It's quite long, with most of the best scenes in the first half, but looks stunning, with the arthouse photography, the futuristic set design and SFX and especially the otherworldly atmosphere of the New Mexico desert. This is Nicolas Roeg still at about his peak.

Spectacular yet detailed and deeply moving version of Thomas Hardy's epic tragedy. When a much loved classic novel is made into a film, sometimes the book of our memory comes into conflict with someone else's imagination. But no complaints; Roman Polanski condenses the narrative without losing its soul.

The Wessex on screen feels right, even if shot in northern France! There is an impression of the deep history which haunts Hardy's landscape. And it's stunning from panorama to close-up; the sunrises and sunsets linger long in the memory. It won well deserved Oscars for cinematography, costumes and art direction.

At 17, Nastassja Kinski was the right age to play Tess and she brings life to this most poignant of heroines. Her beauty gives her natural presence, but this never overwhelms the character's naivety and passive virtue. Peter Firth (Angel) and Leigh Lawson (Alec) are more archetypal, but still effective in support roles.

Reading the novel feels like falling in love with the character. It's a heartbreaker of immense literary power. And Polanski transfers this magic onto the screen. The scenes are adapted with sympathy- the climax at Stonehenge is a particularly evocative. It's difficult to imagine how this could ever be improved.

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 relentlessly violent; maybe we need a crime expert to explain whether this reflects real life... The mean streets of Los Angeles have never been so horrifying.

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 drug gangs who are divided by race, with Mexican cartels the latest wave...

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 arguably 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.

Heartfelt Irish musical set in Dublin about the will they/won't they relationship between an Irish busker and a Czech immigrant both going through the fallout after longterm relationships. It's a romance, but they are in love with other people in other countries. The film reflects sensitively on their loneliness, and the solace they find in their brief encounter.

The masterstroke is the casting of two songwriters- Glen Hansard/Marketa Irglova- who feel absolutely authentic. The film evokes the special bond that exists between musicians, and the different language they share. And it allows us to eavesdrop on the magic that sometimes comes together in the studio. Plus they share a unique screen chemistry....

And if there's any one factor that makes this film so loved, there it is; their simpatico conviviality. Obviously it helps to like the songs. If so, the long tracking shot when Marketa walks home from the shops while singing If You Want Me to the memory of her absent husband, is an absolute heartbreaker. Also, Falling Slowly won the Oscar for Best Song.

There is a delightful simplicity to the narrative, which pays off because the director has a fine eye for detail and creates warmth and intimacy with his handheld digital camera; it's shot documentary style in what looks like natural lighting. Once couples the enchantment we may look for in musicals, with an empathy for the realistic sorrows of everyday life.

This low budget horror was once controversial for the ultra-gore which led to a VHS ban during the '80s video-nasty panic. Five mature looking college kids crash a remote cabin to party, but the woods are possessed. Soon four of them are ghouls who want Bruce Campbell to join them.

The old school ploys have lasted best, like the use of darkness to stimulate the terrors of the imagination, so much scarier than can be shown on screen. Plus the arcane Lovecraftian paraphernalia about the book of the dead opening up into a portal of demons, which is genuinely spooky...

Though not really groundbreaking. This made an impact because of the extreme grotesquery, which has dated badly. OK it's home made splatter horror, so what can you expect? But the makeup, models and stop-motion effects are dreadful. Even if some of the camera tricks are innovative.

Sam Raimi's debut feature may actually have undermined the moral crusade against gross-out horror, because it was admired by respectable critics, and the violence has a slapstick vibe- inspired by The Three Stooges! There's a big cult out there, though the uninitiated may be disappointed.