Film Reviews by TB

This series arrived with enormous critical buzz, as well as some of my friends (including one who is a Scouser,) raving about it. And whilst there are absolutely some great points about it, overall it is a very mixed bag.

Chris Carson (Freeman) is a policeman based in Liverpool. On the surface, his life is perfect: beautiful wife, lovely daughter, great house. But the reality is anything but. The stresses of the job, alongside significant outside pressures, have left him constantly on the verge of having a breakdown. Then one night, he gets mixed up with Casey, a delinquent & extremely unreliable young woman who lives on the streets. Casey has stolen a huge haul of drugs & is being hunted. Chris takes it upon himself to try to help her, but quickly finding himself massively out of his depth. Alongside this, an old colleague with an axe to grind is also on the warpath...

Front & center of this drama, and the best thing about it, is Martin Freeman's performance. Like James McAvoy's transformation into Bruce Robertson for Filth, Freeman has left behind all of the previous characters he made his name playing & completely transformed himself into a burnt-out inner city policeman. Whether it is the accent (absolutely perfect & not in any way the hideous caricature that the Liverpudlian enunciation has been mangled before,) through to the physical characteristics, Freeman is never less than compelling.

The supporting characters are also great. Building on her incredible résumé, Myanna Buring is excellent as the policeman's wife whose soul has been extinguished due to the massive strain of living with & trying to love a man whose job is slowly destroying him, constantly worried that the next phone call will be the one to say he's never coming home again. Adelayo Adedayo is also great as Chris's new partner on the beat, a rookie who wants to do the right thing but quickly finds out that the job is far more than she bargained for.

Unfortunately, script-wise, there are some serious issues, the main one being that the series of events that are shown simply wouldn't happen in the way that they pan out. I absolutely appreciate that in these types of shows there is a level of dramatic licence that happens, but it just starts to stretch credulity to ridiculous lengths. Whether it is one character who repeatedly manages to get away despite multiple interactions with highly dangerous criminals, through to Chris's own behaviour which to any sane onlooker is extremely dubious, quite simply these sequences of events wouldn't happen.

And that is why this is never more than a 3 star series for me. When you are watching the screen & every 10 minutes or so find yourself thinking "That wouldn't happen, this wouldn't happen, there's no way things would turn out like that," then it becomes a bit annoying after a while, especially when in-between those moments there is a really gripping story being told.

See it for Freeman, but don't be surprised if by the end, you were left wanting more...

Ridley Scott shows no signs of slowing down. Aged 85, he is producing/directing multiple films, sometimes 2 in a year. There is absolutely no question that he is one of our greatest living directors & one of the best filmmakers of all time. His latest offering is one that absolutely has massive scope & ambition, but sadly is not one which I was able to immerse myself in.

The film looks at the life of Napoleon, charting both his rise up to become King of France, as well as his tumultuous & difficult personal life, through the lens of his marriage to Joséphine. Napoleon's victory on the battlefield means that he is celebrated and revered by the people, carefully positioning himself within the plotting elements of the overthrowers of the French parliament. But as the years go by, his grip on power starts to weaken...

In terms of spectacle and showmanship, no-one can hold a candle to Scott's ability of constructing a film. Whether it's an action epic like Gladiator or a more "talky" film like The Counsellor, his direction is both assured and strong. However, one comment about his work that I heard a few years ago & rings most true was "Scott is only as good as the script he is working from." And in the case of Napoleon, this gets to the heart of the problem: when watching this, I never was a part of the story, I always felt like an observer looking in.

When I compare this film to The Counsellor, it is literally night and day in terms of watching experience. With Counsellor, I felt like I was in the room, right in the thick of the conversation & feeling the threats from all around baring down upon me, the tension crackling like electricity. With Napoleon on the other hand, I just felt like I was on the outside looking in, no more than a casual observer, with the occasional moment where the story gripped me.

The performances are also a mixed bag, none more so than Joaquin Phoenix's. In an on the record interview, Scott described Phoenix coming to him 2 weeks before shooting started in a panic, saying "I don't know what to do." And that is so clearly shown in his performance. Phoenix looks lost, overwhelmed & completely out of his depth. Forget Commodus from Gladiator, this is a totally different kettle of fish. However, I also feel that, because of the poor quality of the script, I don't know any actor who could actually have made the film any better.

The same cannot be said for Vanessa Kirby. She is, by a country mile, the best part of this film. She dominates the screen for every single second she is on it, grabbing our attention & really making us feel her pain. From her opening moments fleeing prison after being released, through to the pain of her inability to conceive a child & heir for her husband, she is magnificent and electric. Her performance is also one which unintentionally draws more attention to how out of his depth Phoenix is in this film.

The supporting characters are also a mixed bag. Ian McNiece makes a humourous impact as Louis XVIII, plus there is a welcome cameo from Miles Jupp as well. But there is also not much in the way of story to really allow anyone else to shine apart from the leads.

But there are some great moments, none more so than the Battle of Austerlitz, a stunningly shot & horribly brutal battle. The battle of Waterloo is also stunningly shot & brilliantly staged.

However, this sadly for me was never more than a 3 star film. Yes it's great to see Phoenix & Scott back working together, plus it is wonderful that Scott was given an enormous budget to work with. But unfortunately this doesn't mean that the end product is great, however much I wanted it to be.

Here's hoping Scott can be given another massive budget soon, alongside a decent script, to show how phenomenal a director he can be.

Saoirse Ronan for me is, without a doubt, one of the best actresses currently working. Whether she is starring in a film which is in all respects excellent, such as Brooklyn, through to more middle of the road fare like Ammonite, she is always the highlight of the story for me. Sadly in this film, which was given huge amounts of critical praise & multiple Oscar nominations, even she cannot rescue it, although this is in no way her fault, but due to the terrible script & characters.

Christine McPherson lives in California & is in her final year of school. She is very much a free spirit, as well as refusing to follow a lot of the expectations of both her parents & the school, such as one day deciding to call herself Lady Bird. Despite good friendships with her peers, she has an extremely fractious relationship with her mother, who is a domineering & extremely difficult woman. The film follows the last year of her time at school as she falls in & out of love, struggles with her mother's abrasiveness and her plans to get into college.

Lady Bird follows the well-trodden path of many coming-of-age films, although this is set much more in the millennial generation/their struggles. The filmmakers have succeeded in realising the time period, whether it is costumes or the sort of things that would have been around at that time eg adverts on TV, different gadgets. There is also a fairly decent soundtrack as well.

However, overall I could not stand this film. Lady Bird herself is far too abrasive a woman, even if this is wrapped up in teenage precociousness. Beanie Feldstien probably comes out the best of everyone, her wide-eyed innocent curiosity genuinely endearing. But all of the good work by everyone else is totally undone by Marion, Lady Bird's mother. Marion is for me a genuinely horrible, belittling, narcissistic & extremely manipulative woman. Constantly comparing her situation, but even worse, her children & their achievements/traits, to everyone around her, she is for me genuinely repugnant. I have in my life encountered individuals (both mothers and fathers, this is in no way simply confined to one sex,) who have behaved as Marion does and the profound damage they have caused, which is often lifelong, is catastrophic. In particular, their narcissism of criticising & denigrating, then the moment they are challenged, flipping it completely around and saying "Why is everyone attacking me?"

But for me, the worst thing this movie does, which also compounds the dislike I and others have for it, is to then try and flip it round at the end and to say effectively "Oh your mother does love you, she just has done all these horrible things for most of your life and, after this moment has passed, she'll go back to being that way again." It was something I totally rejected & feel is in many ways a cop-out, especially when you consider the other family problems which Marion also has a direct impact on as well.

So despite all the praise, this is not a film I can recommend, despite the good work of the actors involved.

A mainstay of British comedy in the 90's, which also was an enormous hit all over the world.

Hyacinth Bucket (which she insists is pronounced "Bouquet") is an extremely eccentric, snobbish & social climbing woman who lives with her long-suffering and hen-pecked husband Richard. Hyacinth is obsessed with social class, or to be more accurate, to be seen to be a higher class than she actually is in real life. Having come from a large Northern family with 3 sisters born into relative poverty, she then effectively becomes middle-class through her marriage & property ownership. However, she aspires to move in more privileged circles & to be seen as enormously influential, wealthy & upper-class.

The series's chart her various exploits in her trying & often spectacularly failing to impress either someone she wishes to emulate or to show people her supposed superiority.

For me, the absolute best thing about this series is the writing, as well as the showing of the different classes & satirising the stereotypes around them. For example, consistently the nicest & most genuine characters in the show are the people who Hyacinth turns her nose up at. The working classes, which she is emphatically a part of in some way through her early life & upbringing, are almost all genuine, decent & solidly dependable people. And the people who are the type Hyacinth will do almost anything to impress are either indifferent/horrified by her or absolutely repugnant individuals who treat her and everyone else with disdain.

Another great & powerful theme which this series shows repeatedly is that money doesn't make you happy/large amounts of wealth doesn't mean you have a great life. The happiest & most content relationship in the series is Daisy & Onslow, who live in a council house & are on the dole. At the other end of the spectrum is Violet and Bruce, who are fabulously wealthy, live in a massive mansion & are constantly at each other's throats.

As Hyacinth, Patricia Routledge is absolutely note-perfect. I also enormously admired her willingness to do almost all of the stunts & physical comedy herself. Her portrayal of snobbery is also massively informed by Routledge's enormous disdain & disgust for people like her character. Although Hyacinth obviously is the central protagonist, the supporting cast/characters are all excellently written. My own favourite is Onslow, played by Geoffrey Hughes, a man who in his own words is "proudly work-shy & bone idle." The comic timing of Hughes is so perfect that just his look of disdain & confusion when he wakes up in the morning & props himself up in bed is hysterical. His wife Rose, played by Judy Cornwell, is a perfect match for the double act between them.

Finally, what I also loved about this whole series & which is clear from the first episode is just how much the cast enjoyed working together. Whether in the actual show itself or the outtakes, the chemistry, bond & fun they all had working together leaps out of the screen. You are happy to spend many hours in their company, as well as cringing at Hyacinth's latest desperate attempt to convince a neighbour or counsellor that she is posh enough to be invited to the Captain's table on the QE2.

The only reason this didn't get 5 stars and also why Patricia Routledge left the show & moved on to other projects was that, especially in the last series, there was a notable decline in the quality of the writing. A lot of the situations that were created did start to feel recycled & samey, which is a huge shame given the excellent episodes before.

But this should absolutely not put you off. This is fantastic, hysterical British comedy with some of our best comedy performances, as well as a brilliant biting satire of the class system.

The first Ace Ventura was a micro-budget comedy film which became a cultural behemoth of its time, catapulting Jim Carrey to worldwide fame, his zany energy & perfect timing jumping out from the screen. Whilst for some people this humour is too over-the-top and try-hard, for me that is what I love so much about it, especially as everyone else around had never seen this level or type of out-there comedy in the mainstream before; (you could make a case for Andy Kaufman's work, but he was predominantly in the US, whereas Ace Ventura was worldwide.)

As this film still has many of the same themes, it is by it's very nature not a new/fresh idea, so there is an element of "We've seen this before." However, the film has made some fantastic decisions which prevent it from just being a rehash of everything that preceded it.

The most genius one in my opinion was bringing in Simon Callow as the main antagonist. Callow is quite simply one of the finest stage actors this country has ever and will ever produce, but he was known both for his extreme English-ness/being an upper class gentleman, as well as starring in Four Weddings and a Funeral. So when you put him, with all his traditional English mannerisms and speaking, opposite a completely unpredictable actor playing one of the most crazy characters ever dreamt up, it is comedic perfection. You feel that as much as Callow of course has the character he is playing, even as an actor he almost can't deal with Carrey. And this just makes it even funnier.

The zenith of this, as well as being one of the funniest things hands down I've ever seen in a film, which even today if I watch or think about it will make me laugh uncontrollably, is the "projector scene." The combination of silly, seriousness & stupidity will never be equalled. There is also a fantastically funny scene involving a dummy rhino which is hysterical.

The other good thing about this film is that, as it was the sequel to a massively successful movie, there is a very large budget which is generously used. The sets & locations are great and overall the film is brilliantly made, even more impressive when you consider that this was Steve Oedekirk's first film.

But, as with the first film, the level of enjoyment you will get from it depends entirely on if you find Carrey's brand of humour funny. If zany, outrageous and slapstick comedy really isn't your thing, then this will be a long 90 minutes for you. However if you loved the first film, then this is another, not quite as good, but still hugely funny romp.

In my mind, in many ways Sam Mendes can do almost no wrong. After giving us American Beauty, Road to Perdition & Skyfall alongside his other works, the man has a free pass for life. But his background was started in theatre & for his first screenplay (written entirely by himself,) those themes of the stage/plays are clearly defined parameters running through it. You could quite easily imagine this as a play, with its relatively few locations & extremely intimate feel. However, despite all the big ideas & noble intentions, sadly this film misses as much as it hits for me.

Hilary is deputy manager at the Empire Cinema, a quaint movie theatre in a seaside town. She is a loyal staff member, but also clearly has difficulty associating with others/being in a crowd. It is slowly revealed that Hilary has complex mental health problems & was hospitalised the previous year. Her vulnerabilities are exploited by the cinema boss Donald, who coerces & forces her into sexual situations. She is bereft & spends vast amounts of time on her own. Then a new staff member, Stephen, a young & enthusiastic black man, starts working at the cinema & a close bond develops between them. However, there is also the rising threat of racism/The National Front as well as the instability of Hilary's mental health.

I have to say clearly & unambiguously that I absolutely give this film huge respect for trying to paint a broad canvas with many different issues which are put front & center of the narrative. But, despite that respect, I also must be honest & say that the fact that so many different issues & difficulties are put into the script is the film's fundamental problem. In a strange way, I found myself thinking a lot of Brassed Off, a film which similarly tried to squash in too many things & got a bit lost, although that film is far superior to this one.

As the film starts, it very beautifully builds on the difficulties experienced by Hilary & really gives a strong & uncomfortable look at the exploitation she is victim to. In particular, the multiple scenes of Donald demanding that she sexually satisfy him are absolutely repellent & rightfully so. But then when the added theme of the race riots & the growing issue of racism rearing it's disgusting head are also injected into the narrative, the film for me just didn't work.

And what compounded this all was the tone of the film: it was perfectly happy to potter along as a gentle & almost twee drama, which would then be interspersed with a shocking interlude, before going back to that almost-syrupy tone, which just didn't work. So in one scene, we witness a horrific act of brutal racist violence, then in the next, two characters sitting on the steps in the sunshine with one character saying how sad he was that he had walked out on his family for an unexplained reason. And those feelings he had were something which seemed to only moderately bother him.

However, intermixed with this there are some wonderful elements. Roger Deakins, returning as DP, has shot another staggeringly beautiful film. The actors, particularly Colman & Ward, have great chemistry together. And the soundtrack is also great. But overall for me, this film sadly tries to do too many things & ends up not successfully achieving any of the no doubt noble heights it has set itself.

This film is incredible. It shows 3 of our greatest actors, giving some of the most moving & emotional performances I've ever seen. I still say that to this day, it is Nolan's best film, head & shoulders above The Dark Knight. It is a journey into the complete destruction of a cop & his desperate battle for redemption, whilst his world & sanity collapse around him.

Will Dormer is a celebrated & revered LA detective, who has been sent to the isolated & sleepy Alaskan town of Nightmute. Whilst the pretense of this is to assist the local police in helping to solve the brutal murder of a young woman, the real reason is due to an incendiary Internal Affairs investigation against Dormer & his colleagues which is threatening to overturn his entire career/convictions; his partner also informs him that he going to cut a deal to testify against him. Whilst pursuing a suspect in the fog, Dormer's partner is killed & the suspect in the young girl's murder begins to relentlessly psychologically manipulate the mentally shattered detective. Added into this, the insomnia due to the 24 hour sunshine starts to destroy the remaining sanity he had.

Pacino has made a career out of playing cops, with mainly incredible success, such as Vincent Hanna in Heat. However, what Dormer has which for me is much more profoundly moving is that whilst both characters have a very strong moral core, Dormer's is literally destroying him. The trauma of what he has seen & experienced has turned him into a hollow shell. Also, crucially Dormer doesn't have any type of marriage or support that is referenced, irrelevant of whether that relationship is falling apart (like in Heat.)

I also loved the fact that as much as Ellie was the excitable young cop keen to work with her hero (much like the actress in real life,) I also could see her turning into a Dormer herself, as the brutality of the work started to destroy her. The final act of care that is given to her by Dormer is made all the more profound to me because of this.

And completing this triumvirate is Robin Williams as Walter Finch, who for me was the best of all of them. I simply could not take my eyes off him, plus the formation of & acting of his character was perfection. Rather than a stereotypical bad guy, he is instead the complete reality of what in 99% of cases you would find someone who has committed that crime would be: a totally calm & in control person, but alongside that a deeply sad & lonely loser. His manipulation of Dormer is a masterclass of confession, twisting of reality & control.

The final thing I want to say, which almost never gets recognised enough, is the incredible soundtrack. David Julyan has crafted one of the most creepy, wonderful & brilliantly morose pieces of work, which if the film didn't have, would have significantly less impact than it did. It is still a soundtrack I listen to regularly, with it's masterpiece being "Let Me Sleep."

Everything in this movie is perfect, wonderful, flawless brilliance. It still stands to this day as the absolute pinnacle of Nolan's ability to craft incredible & gut-wrenchingly devastating emotional work.

An out-and-out masterpiece

I like films that push boundaries, irrelevant of the content. It doesn't matter if it's about drugs, violence, sex or any other difficult element of existence; a piece of work that confronts this unapologetically & honestly can be the most powerful thing you can watch, to really move & impact you. And sex/relationships on screen is one that for me holds in many ways the most powerful impact, for the simple reason that we live in such an overtly/oversexed world, but also one where there is precious little honesty about how intimacy really is & how it affects people. Then added to that is the absolute hysterical reactions of certain parts of this same media who condemn these films as immoral or pornography

At their best, films like Young Adam and Intimacy are absolutely devastating in their portrayal of sex & relationships on both the main character & the people around them. Young Adam shows a totally immoral & soulless man who literally sleeps with multiple women, irrelevant of the impact on anyone else, to simply try & feel something. Intimacy shows a recently divorced man who has regular sex with a mysterious woman, realising just how empty, squalid & pathetic his own life is.

At their worst, you get films like 9 Songs...

Effectively, the film charts a relationship from the first meet-up at a music gig between Matt & Lisa, from the perspective of Matt looking back on his time with her in the UK, whilst in the Antarctic in his job as a climatologist. We see their relationship go from one of passion & intensity to the standard monotony of being together then the inevitable break-up when Lisa returns to her home in the USA. In between seeing them together, we also see the titular 9 songs performed live by a variety of musicians.

Sadly, despite the efforts & bravery of the 2 actors, this is not a good film. Mentioning the actors, unfortunately neither of them are very good, of course appreciating that with a film which absolutely unapologetically has been made to show pretty much every sexual act performed for real, meant that you were never going to get well-known or incredible actors for the parts. O'Brien in particular has probably been cast partly because he agreed to the demands of the film & mainly because he has an enormous member. And whilst Stilley, from the interviews she gave, took part in the film for noble reasons, she just is in the scenes, either saying her lines unconvincingly or being rogered convincingly. But there is little to no chemistry between the pair of them.

The other big point for me was how this film was made. Shooting it in DV might in some scenes give it an intimacy & closeness, but most of the time, it just looked bloody terrible. In particular, the colour scheme was at points so garish, it was horrible to look at. The various scenes that were set up were relatively contrived & apart from the sex, there wasn't really any other things of note in terms of how the relationship progressed. Even the sex itself is not well-shot (ironically...) When it does finally end, I just felt nonchalant.

I do absolutely give respect to everyone involved, but what they have created does one thing & one thing only: show real sex on screen/push that particular boundary. And without a decent story to hold it together, all it ever was for me was a series of vignettes which happened to show 2 average looking people going at it. And as the aforementioned films at the start of this review prove, there is such potential & power to be had from these types of stories.

Some films you watch are bad. They have all the right ingredients, but they totally fail in every way. And when they also have a cast that should guarantee an amazing movie, it makes it all the more puzzling. But then there are films like Killing Them Softly, which are not only bad, but also aggressively nasty alongside that.

Brad Pitt stars as Jackie Coogan, a mob enforcer who is brought in to investigate a mafia card game that was robbed. Suspicion has fallen onto Markie Trattman, the organiser of the game, who previously set up a robbery of one of his games & confessed to it, somehow earning a pass from the very people who he robbed. Coogan immediately sees that this robbery was committed due to the suspicion that would fall onto Trattman again, so he sets out to take down the actual perpetrators, enlisting the help of Mickey Fallon, a once-legendary but now alcoholic & on-parole hitman.

From the opening moments, this film grates. It is clearly setting itself up as a comment on/critique of the state of the USA/World economy, but the way it does this is literally by repeatedly hitting you over the head with its messages. It also features some of the most badly written & unpleasant characters imaginable, but ones who are literally in no way relatable or believable.

Take Markie Trattman for example: the film invites us to buy into the fact that he is buried in deep within the mob, running highly sensitive card games where hundreds of thousands of dollars are involved/exchanged. We are then shown him staging a robbery, pocketing the money, getting drunk & casually telling these gangsters that he did them over, laughing in their faces. And instead of being put against a wall & shot, they give him a free pass & allow him to keep running the games... This literally would not happen, in any way, in any universe.

But nothing comes as close to sheer stupidity as Mickey Fallon. Once a legendary, celebrated hitman, he is now nothing more than a ridiculous caricature: pathetic, addicted to drugs and alcohol & useless. He has been arrested & bailed, but Coogan is absolutely adamant that, despite the baggage & warnings from others not to go near him, that Fallon is the only one to do the mob hits. Fallon then blows off the job, checks into a hotel room, orders prostitutes & drugs, drawing as much attention to himself as is physically possible, despite the fact he's meant to be a world-class hitman, as well as violating his parole. And the film wants us to accept at face value that anyone from the mafia would have anything to do with or be within 100 miles of someone who is this much of a liability...

The other thing this film has which is not only unpleasant, but also totally out of place, is several scenes of unbelievably graphic & nasty violence. None of it fits within the story and seems to have been put in simply to shock & get a visceral reaction from the audience. For me, it actually was just horrible & fairly repellent, like the rest of the film.

Nothing works, is believable or watchable. It is a movie filled with horrible horrible people doing horrible horrible things to each other, without any reason to exist or deserve your attention.

Avoid.

After the nano-budget & shot-on-the-fly film Tangerine, which debuted to critical acclaim & extremely good box office, Sean Baker was able to have much more creative freedom & ambition for his next work. Whilst I haven't seen Tangerine, I was interested after the critical acclaim for The Florida Project, as well as watching anything Willem Dafoe is in. The results are mixed, but still a good watch.

Moonee is a head-strong & determined 6 year old girl who lives with her unemployed mother in a housing complex just outside Disney World. She spends her days hanging out with her friends & getting up to no-good, blissfully unaware of the huge financial & mental difficulties her mother/the other adults are in. The film follows the children & the changing circumstances they face.

What I really loved about this film was quite simply its overall lightness of touch, despite the heavy & sometimes upsetting themes. In particular, the children's interactions with Bobby, the manager of the complex who is in many ways the closest thing they have to a father figure, are the beating heart of the film. You can tell that these kids are the closest & most important thing in Bobby's life and he is fiercely protective of them, such as when he catches what is almost certainly a paedophile trying to interact with them and absolutely ripping him to shreds.

The colour scheme & general fly-on-the-wall shooting style is also excellent, really making the film stand out & grab your attention. The soundtrack is full of popping music, perfectly set to the action on screen.

Sadly, this film does have some quite significant issues, mainly how some of the characters are written. Moonee's mother Halley is extremely obnoxious & repeatedly makes a litany of poor decisions, then when the chickens come home to roost, either reacts violently or forces everyone else, including her 6 year old daughter, to either take the flack or pick up the pieces. She also at one stage violently attacks a mother in front of her child, and yet the film bends over backwards to try & make excuses for her/somewhat justify her behaviour. It does leave an extremely bitter taste and de-rails the film to a certain extent.

As much as this film does have its issues, the child actors are absolutely outstanding. All of them really have been directed exceptionally well & are unbelievably talented. Willem Dafoe is however the shining star & was rightfully nominated for an Oscar for his work.

Overall, a good watch, but definitely not worth the critical adoration given to it.

The debut of the filmmaker Rapman, this film was born out of his massively successful YouTube videos, which then gave him the money to turn this into a feature film. The story follows two best friends who live in neighbouring parts of London, who slowly get immersed in the warring gangs and eventually become enemies through their association with these gangs. The whole film is told through the medium of rap, which does give a different & unique element to this movie.

The lurid headlines I referenced, which totally overshadowed the film & it's release, concerned an initial attack on the police with machetes in Birmingham, but then multiple other incidents were reported at showings around the country, leading big cinema chains to pull the film. The fallout from this, as well as questions of racism being brought up, to me have no impact on how I saw the film or viewed it. I watched it purely on its merits.

It does start well, plus the music score is very good. Certainly the rap element worked well in establishing character & motivations, as well as the camaraderie between the different characters on screen. However, it then just started to become boring & I was less and less engaged. After about an hour I switched it off, having given it a really good shot, but finding myself disengaged.

A good attempt to depict street life, but one which didn't do much for me.

I rented this as it was a small budget little film which had got some great reviews & awards. It also had potentially extremely powerful subject matter (openly gay black man who is homeless & rejected by his mother joining the Marines to try & get his life back on track,) as well as a comment on how the military is now compared to when the writer/director enlisted. By this I mean the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy which was then repealed & soldiers could be open with their sexuality.

But, as is the case with a lot of these types of films, it mainly misfires; trying to cover too many bases & points, but not succeeding with any of them. More than anything, it comes across as almost a tick box exercise. Every single one of the hot button issues prevalent at the moment is addressed, whether it is homophobia, racism, patriotism ect. But none of them are covered well.

The other big issue with this film is that it is terribly edited & scripted. We jump forward in time with no proper build-up to this/indication that it has happened, only realising it when we see that the recruits are at the next stage of their training. One instance of this is particularly poorly done & makes no sense, after the sabotage of one of the tests.

With regards to the actors, as much as Jeremy Pope gives a committed performance, alongside the other cast members, they are all let down by the terrible direction & structure of the movie. It also wastes the talent of Gabrielle Union, who is in this movie for less than 10 minutes & is almost a glorified cameo, but totally wasted.

Somewhere in this mess there is a powerful story & tale of redemption. But despite the writer/director also being who this all happened to, it is mainly a let-down & a wasted opportunity.

I first knew about the John Cooper cases (or the Bullseye killer as some sections of the media crassly called him, after he was convicted partly due to his appearance on the aforementioned TV gameshow,) watching a television documentary. The events, despite being absolutely horrific in terms of their brutality, also stuck with me for the sheer number of them in the period of time committed (multiple murders alongside over 30 burglaries & violent sexual assaults.) This television series looks at the reopened investigation led by Steve Wilkins, who was determined to track down the demonic & dispicible individual who had carried out this rampage.

The series is absolutely outstanding for many reasons, but mainly because it emphatically puts the victims of Cooper's front & center of the programme, whether it is the casualties of his criminal acts, through to his own family members. It was revealed that Cooper's estranged son was spoken to at length by the writer/director/producing team, especially as his evidence was crucial in convicting his father of the multiple crimes. His life, including horrific assaults & abuse as a boy, was pure hell and added to that was the fact that Cooper repeatedly attempted to blame/point the finger at his son as the perpetrator of his crimes. The abuse & mental torture inflicted on his mother/Cooper's wife is also repeatedly shown in horrific detail.

The script is perfect, the performances great (especially Evans & Allen,) and the whole series gripping. Even though I remembered many of the details of the case, there were still some surprises along the way. It is also a perfect length, each of the episodes exactly right in terms of content & pacing. I marathoned all 3 and the nearly 2 & a half hours flew by.

A wonderful & powerfully made TV series.

When I think of this film, I keep being drawn back to Sexy Beast, mainly due to how they are as films/their refusal to be pigeonholed as one particular genre. With Sexy Beast, it's a gangster film but it's not a gangster film; it's a love story but it's not a love story; it's a heist film but it's not a heist film ect ect. And You Were Never Really Here is exactly the same in many ways. This is a film about a contract killer, but whereas people would immediately think of John Wick or Tom Cruise in Collateral, to simply say this/try to describe it as that type of film is to criminally undersell it. This film is so much more than that.

Phoenix stars as Joe, who is a deeply traumatised & profoundly disturbed ex-soldier & FBI agent. His specialty is rescuing trafficked girls & using extreme violence against the perpetrators. He is hired by a US senator whose daughter has been kidnapped & sold into the sex industry. However, the rescue is anything but simple & Joe soon finds himself in a much more dangerous & complex situation.

From that description, most people who are even semi-regular film watchers would immediately have in their minds an idea of what this movie is about/how events will go down. And that is part of its genius. The funniest thing about this film is the fact that it is almost totally disinterested about the contract killer element, using it almost as a set-up. The movie is much more interested in what happens before & after the killing/action. The only scene where there is any real action shown is viewed through CCTV cameras which are out of focus & show only the vaguest elements of the confrontation.

Joe himself, who is on screen for almost the entire runtime, is a fascinating individual. The film shows him as someone who almost has to have the life he has, because there simply would be no other place in society for him. He is one of what Matthew McConaughey in True Detective called "A needed bad-man. We keep the other bad men from the door." Outside of his hits, Joe is also a man who is almost crumbling, such as his internal meltdown at a subway station, where you literally see his brain & mind collapsing.

Phoenix is incredible, particularly for his transformation into this role. Gone is the wiry, lean & almost emaciated/alcoholic naval veteran from The Master; instead we have what many people would imagine Joe to look like: a hulking & muscle-bound lump of pure danger & power. Sporting massive arms & shoulders, Joe is a leathal & silent ball of rage & PTSD, a man whose silence is more scary than his almost childlike & innocent voice.

I am not going to say any more about the story, because the less you know about this film, the more you get out of it. Suffice to say, this film goes in completely strange & brilliant directions.

Finally, full kudos must go to Lynne Ramsay for writing & directing this masterpiece. After We Need To Talk About Kevin, she has shown herself to be a filmmaker of staggering talent, as well as someone who is able to get career-best performances from her actors. A incredible & searing filmm

I am not a comic book film fan. As I have mentioned before in my other reviews, the main reason I watched & loved the Dark Knight trilogy was because they were directed by Christopher Nolan/were Nolan films, which interested me far more than the fact they were Batman stories. After watching Batman V Superman Dawn of Justice (not liking the theatrical version but really enjoying the Ultimate Cut,) I had no real interest in seeing Justice League, especially after reading the excoriating reviews.

It is important to mention that one of the reasons for the serious issues with the film was due to change of director mid-way through the shoot due to the personal tragedy affecting Zack & Deborah Snyder, who left the movie & which was then completed by Joss Whedon. However, it seems from everything that was said about this film's production, including significant reshoots due to atrocious test screenings, that the Synder's departures have made little difference to how the end film turned out.

This film is a total mess in every way you can think of: script, shooting, editing, pace; I mean literally everything. The only slight shining spark is Barry Allen/The Flash, but that was only in the 40 or so minutes I tolerated watching it. This film's story is literally Ben Affleck's Bruce Wayne travelling around the world to chat with superheroes to team up to defeat a generic big bad who wants do Yadda Yadda Yadda; I couldn't care less what happens.

This is a big, loud, stupid, bloated mess, which cost an absolute fortune, bombed at the box office and whose budget should have been split 100 different ways to fund small-scale films which would have probably had much more impact & been of a much higher quality.