Film Reviews by Steve

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.

This sequel to Guy Ritchie's action-adventure Sherlock Holmes (2009), is marginally the better of the two. The Holmes-Watson combo has always been a resiliant formula and here they adapt pretty well to the Hollywood blockbuster. There is a lavish production with elaborate period detail and A list stars.

Robert Downey is debonaire and just a little camp as Sherlock Holmes, and Jude Law probably the most competent Dr. Watson ever. Crucially they share an abundance of screen chemistry. The consulting detective isn't exactly made-over into a superhero whose special skill is deduction. Though there's some of that...

But there is more brawling than deduction. This version of Arthur Conan Doyle's immortal duo must spend considerable time in the gym. The plot is uninspired, with little of the outré whimsy of the stories. Though the scriptwriters clearly know their way around the canon and even include some authentic dialogue.

Jared Harris stands out in the support cast as an excellent Professor Moriarty  But- as ever- it's the eternal alliance between the great detective and his ever loyal sidekick which makes this most worth seeing. Whatever situation or period they are coerced into, they endure; the most durable bromance in fiction.

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!

Experimental absurdism from peak-period Werner Herzog. Naturally, this description will turn off many viewers, which is fair enough as this is a slow, psychedelic allegory rather than accessible arthouse. But like all his German films, it is unique, personal and eccentric. So, a must-see for hardcore fans of the director.

At face value this is a hallucinatory fantasy about an 18th century Bavarian village shocked by the sudden death of an artisan who takes the secret of their distinctive local glass to the grave. So how will the left behind survive without the formula? This is the basis for some visionary subtext on the end of society...

Famously, Herzog placed his actors under hypnosis to create an impression of group hysteria. This inevitably makes it feel soporific. But then, it's this which makes it so totally Herzog. The prog-rock soundtrack and far-out digressions of the voiceover also convey a pungent blast of mid-70s/late-hippie ambience...

Which isn't ever cool, but the reflections on a post-industrial apocalypse seem quite relevant now, when some (like anti-vaxxers) are turning away from science, and experts. It's an oddity, and I'm not sure I'd take my date to see Heart of Glass 2, but it's certainly a highlight in the career of a capricious maverick.

Quality tearjerker set in 1950s Dublin about a middle aged spinster (Maggie Smith) who devoted her youth to the care of a curmudgeonly aunt (Wendy Hillier). In middle age she finds herself chronically unloved, which she palliates with whiskey while drifting from one cold, impersonal guest house to another...

Until she loses her faith and identifies the Catholic Church as the main driver in her inconspicuous tragedy. This adaptation of Brian Moore's novel is foremost a medium for Smith's heartbreaking performance as the solitary woman who spent a lifetime putting her faith in god but finds she got so little in return.

Surely Dame Maggie would have been a global star but for the collapse of the UK film industry in her peak years. Bob Hoskins is well cast in support as an Irish American suitor who assumes the solitary introvert has some money set aside that he might exploit... Plus there's some Chopin and a sorrowful string score...

But this isn't heritage cinema; there is a touch of grotesque realism in the candid photography and the wilful cruelty inflicted on the lonely heart. Credit to Jack Clayton who- in the UK at least- only directed classics and channelled so many all time great performances by legendary female actors. 

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.

The oeuvre of writer/director/star Takeshi Kitano is a nervy mix of absurdist humour and neo-noir sadness. It's easy to imagine he was influenced by a great stylist such as Sergio Leone, though he isn't exactly in that class. It's a Yakuza picture which fluctuates between extreme violence and farce.

Kitano plays the regional chief of a ruthlessly pragmatic gang of killers who is sent to the coast by the big boss to sort out a little local difficulty... and are picked off by an assassin. While established on a desolate beach the motley crew of dozy idiots retreat into an extended period of infantile horseplay...

Until they return to the conflict for a bloody climax. A shootout in a lift is a particular standout. Much of the attraction rests on the inexpressive, laconic performances, the long languorous edits and the vacant panoramas in Panavision. All this atmosphere is enhanced by Joe Hisaishi cool, ambient score.

It's possible the comic middle section was improvised to extend the running time to feature length, but Kitano is so impassively charismatic that it hardly matters.  It's a low budget gangster picture which is beginning to show its age, but should satisfy curious genre fans in search of the strange.

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.

Downbeat psychological drama based on a novel by Ruth Rendell in which Claude Chabrol extends his contempt for French bourgeois sanctimony about as far as is possible... A wealthy provincial family hires an introverted, illiterate psychopath (Sandrine Bonnaire) with fake references to help around the house.

In time her role expands until she's their general dogsbody. Then she forms an alliance with another even weirder misfit (Isabelle Huppert) to bring capricious, bloody revenge on the family’s middle class rules and privileges! If only they hadn't expected their flunkey to read those damn shopping lists!

It's very much an actors film, led by Bonnaire and Huppert, who bring chilly austerity to their roles as the uneducated, plebeian executioners, who bond with just a suggestion of sexual attraction. Virginie Ledoyen stands out in the support cast as the student daughter already an expert in class hypocrisy.  

The mood is understated and detached and brittle, yet uncomfortably, relentlessly hypnotic. It's an ambiguous slow burner more than a thriller; though there is a relishable final twist... It's among Chabrol's more commercially successful films from his late period and a critics' favourite. 

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.