Film Reviews by GI

A powerful courtroom drama adapted from a John Grisham novel. It's thought provoking, tense and moving and highlights the stark and disturbing racism and flawed justice system of the USA especially in the southern states. When a ten year old girl is brutally raped, tortured and left for dead by two drunken rednecks her father is convinced that because she's black it's unlikely the two will be properly punished. So he murders them and finds himself on trial for the killings and the potential of the death penalty. Samuel L. Jackson plays the father and Matthew McConaughey is the inexperienced but idealistic lawyer that defends him. The film is an unflinching examination of racism that at times is a little simplistic and clumsy in its attempts to push the themes of a society that has deep rooted corruption and racism and it could be argued it's a little overly long but it's a film that keeps you watching. The stellar cast includes Sandra Bullock, Kiefer and Donald Sutherland, Ashley Judd and Patrick McGoohan. But this is McConaughey's film as he has the central role which he carries with confidence.

Adapted from a fiction novel that utilises myths and legends of the troubled life of Marilyn Monroe this film is more a gothic melodrama than a biopic. Indeed it's a mistake to view this as some sort of story of the actor's life as it takes various paths to tell a story that is simply an interpretation rather than a drama-documentary. Ana de Armas is simply extraordinary in the central role portraying Monroe as an exploited victim of the 'male gaze', a tortured soul who found fame but didn't find happiness. The film charts her life from childhood with an alcoholic and abusive mother (Julianne Nicholson) who tries to kill her, to her being forced into an orphanage knowing she actually hasn't been orphaned and her 'discovery' by a film producer who rapes her without warning. The Marilyn here quietly accepts the role she is given by powerful men and rises to become the sex symbol at a time when austere society rejected such icons. The images of leering men dominate the recreated scenes of film premieres and similar public appearances. Beaten by men, sexually assaulted or participating in sexual exploitation dominate the narrative for this character. One scene with President Kennedy is particularly unpleasant. But de Armas gives a warmth and vulnerability to Marilyn while masking the emotional turmoil she faces as she dreams of the father she was always promised by her mother but who never materialises (she calls both her husbands 'Daddy'!). These emotions boil over into anger and rage and eventually substance abuse. The details around supposed pregnancies are fictionalised but play an important part in showing the Marilyn Monroe of this version of her story as a woman who craved the simplicity of hearth, home and motherhood, all of which are denied her. A powerful, slightly overlong film with a a performance by de Armas that surely warranted awards.

A psychological thriller of surprising depth and marked by an excellent cast led by a vulnerable performance from Matt Damon. Adapted from the acclaimed novel this is perhaps slightly overlong and the pacing drifts but ultimately it's a complex study of identity, jealousy, narcissism, obsession and ultimately murder. Tom Ripley is a chancer working in small jobs in New York. But when a wealthy shipping magnate thinks Tom is a friend of his wayward son, Dickie (Jude Law) he asks him to go to Italy, all expenses paid, to persuade Dickie to come home. Tom seizes the chance and soon inveigles his way into Dickie's life with lies and innuendo and thus enjoying the life of a young playboy. But when Dickie tires of him Tom reacts angrily! The cast are so good and all on excellent form including Gwyneth Paltrow as Dickie's fiancée, Cate Blanchett as a socialite who falls for Tom, Philip Seymour Hoffman as Dickie's friend who suspects Tom for what he is. The plot is well thought out as Tom takes on Dickie's identity but has to switch back to his own when he bumps into various characters. It all works very well and is enhanced by the stunning cinematography of Italy. Matt Damon has a defining role here as the gay sociopathic conman who is wrapped up in so many lies it creates a tense plot. A film worth repeated viewings.

This is a superbly written suspense thriller with the action of the film mostly taking place inside a car as two desperate parents rush to aid their distressed daughter. Matthew Rhys plays Frank, a stressed executive type and Rosamund Pike is Maddie, his wife who is a paramedic. They receive a late night call from Alice, their student daughter who has earlier stormed off taking Dad's car after a big family row. Alice tells them she's at an isolated wooded road and has hit a woman who stepped into the road with the car and who is now badly injured. What follows is the tense conversations between the three of them as they try to keep it together, tell her what to do, argue, desperately trying to assist the terrified Alice and deal with their own anguish. As the situation becomes more clear Frank even starts planning how they can cover up whatever has happened to protect Alice who it is clear has been overly protected and indulged by him for years. If there is any major criticism of this film it's that the ending seems a little too baffling to satisfy the expectations set up by the narrative. But that aside this is an enjoyable and interesting film that has the essence of the macabre to it.

THEY CALL ME TRINITY: A hugely popular spoof western comedy that was a massive box office hit especially in Europe and made stars of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer, who were already a successful comedy duo. Styled like the 'Dollars' film of Sergio Leone and full of roustabout violence (the type that John Wayne employed in his westerns of the 60s and 70s) this is a fun and entertaining film. Hill plays Trinity, a drifter who is lightening fast on the draw and equally good in any punch up. he arrives in a dusty town where his horse thief brother (Spencer) has wangled the job of sheriff while he plans to steal horses from the local bigwig played by Farley Granger. The pair end up protecting a group of peace loving mormons from Granger's attempt to steal their land. Really the story is incidental because this is all about the comedy set pieces of physical humour and the comedy from Hill and Spencer as they verbally spar with each other. It's all good, clean fun and it looks like a gritty, spaghetti western should look. It's worth checking out if you've never seen it.

TRINITY IS STILL MY NAME: A weak sequel to They Call Me Trinity (1970). Whereas the original was a comedy spaghetti western complete with Sergio Leone styling and some great western physical comedy this follow up is more made like the American comedy westerns of the 60s and 70s. It has a weak plot, fairly silly slapstick humour especially the overuse of bar brawls and a climax that riffs on an American football match. The poor writing doesn't allow Terence Hill and Bud Spencer to showcase their screen charisma as it rehashes the same stuff we saw in the first film. Including the joke that the pair eat...a lot! The story, for what it is, has the two trying to launch a new outlaw career but ending up helping some immigrants and a monastery of monks from a rich baddie. It boasts harry Carey Jr in a cameo but he's fairly unrecognisable.

A satire set in the plush world of Hollywood that has some very funny and tasty one liners. It's a sort of comedy of errors centred on the troubled marriage of Rose (Elizabeth Reaser) and Sammy (Walton Goggins), she is a famous actor but whose career has waned and he is a successful Agent who's business is on the verge of collapse. The narrative takes place at a house party the couple are hosting. Sammy, in particular, has an agenda to try and save his career that involves his most important client played by Rufus Sewell. As the evening progresses the strains of the marriage become more evident and these are kickstarted by the arrival of Helen (Lois Smith), an old woman with dementia who believes the house is her home, and who Rose helps much to Sammy's consternation. Rose is also distracted by Lucien (Pedro Pascal), a famous film star and Rose's former lover who hopes to rekindle their relationship. These relationship conflicts play out over the evening in a comedy drama that focuses on the privileged and wealth that is laid bare as pointless by the ramblings of the gentle Helen. Lois Smith gives a very moving performance. But it's Reaser who holds the film together in a very detailed and quite lovely performance as Rose.

A fairly routine yet entertaining mystery thriller that utilises a well used narrative device of memory loss to build it's plot and ground by a solid cast. Russell Crowe plays retired detective Roy who has is depressed due to his wife leaving him, he lives in some squalor and has onset dementia for which he's recently undergone radical surgery to alleviate the symptoms. But in short he can't remember anything although snippets pop into his mind occasionally. He is asked to look back into one of his old cases as the man convicted is soon to be executed and claims he's innocent. Roy manages to do a more thorough investigation the second time around into the brutal killing of a psychologist and academic and he uncovers a convoluted set of circumstances and a host of possible suspects. Karen Gillan costars as one of those, a girl who likes transgressive sex and icily tries to twist Roy's memories. Tommy Flanagan is Roy's ex-partner who may have an agenda too and Márton Csókás is the victim revealed in long flashback sequences. The ultimate twist is predictable but that aside this is a thriller that keeps you watching.

On the surface this is a classic domestic thriller but it has a surreal, picture postcard vibe and is, sadly, a disappointing film, messily structured and utilises its talented cast rather poorly. For no reason that can be fathomed it's set in the small Michigan town of Holland, giving plenty of opportunity for scenes of windmills and people walking about in Dutch national dress and clogs (which are used in a handy way later in the film). It's also strangely set in 2000 and I can only suppose so in order to restrain the use of modern technology to keep the plot vague. Nicole Kidman plays Nancy, a suburban wife and mother and teacher in the local school, she is very 'Stepford Wives' in appearance and manner but underneath she has the paranoia and unsaid nervousness of a woman unfulfilled even though she is doted on by her smarmy and handsome husband, Fred (Matthew MacFadyen). He's the local optometrist in the town. Nancy is suspicious of Fred's many trips away from home and suspects he's having an affair. She recruits fellow teacher, Dave (Gael García Bernal), who fancies her, to help catch Fred out. They go to extraordinary lengths to try and do so eventually discovering something much darker. This all takes far too long and leads to a climax that becomes obvious too quickly. Dave, as a Mexican immigrant, faces some racism when the plot demands it and pointlessly so. I can't help think this probably looked a better project on paper than it does on the screen although it's another example of Kidman's support for female directors which I applaud. sadly, though this is a forgettable film.

A rather annoying biopic of the enigmatic and visionary electrical inventor and pioneer Nikola Tesla (Ethan Hawke). It's annoying because the attention to period detail is overshadowed and at cross purposes with the arthouse use of painted backgrounds and anachronistic items such as iPhones that creep in to try and suggest Tesla's influence on the modern world. The structure and script of the film is tedious and the overuse of moody lighting combined with Hawke's melancholy portrayal makes for a messy and difficult film to enjoy. Eve Hewson shines out as Anne Morgan, the daughter of financier J.P. Morgan and a potential love interest for Tesla. Sadly he shows no interest in such mundane things as sexual attraction or love. A film I struggled with. It may be a brave attempt at a different sort of presentation but it didn't work for me.

A formulaic slasher movie that offers nothing new other than coming up with a raft of imaginative deaths some of which are just comic, all are very gory. So if that's your thing then it's served up here in bucketfuls. But really this is the same formula of all such films since Halloween (1978) and continued on over the years in particular in the Scream series. Here a Black Friday riot at a big department store results in some deaths as local people go crazy to grab a bargain. A year later some of those deemed to be the cause start getting murdered by a masked killer dressed as a pilgrim. The main victims are the usual bunch of teenagers, the only thing missing is the traditional sex scene when someone gets killed in the throes of orgasm!! And the narrative has the tired old plot of trying to guess who is the killer with a few red herrings thrown in for good measure. In fact the red herrings are a little too obvious here. A routine horror, instantly forgettable.

Tron feels a bit dated when viewed today although it was arguably ahead of its time in special effects back in 1982, where it spawned a very popular video game. However the contemporary links to the development of AI make it a film worth a rediscovery as the narrative is based on a powerful computer program that has become self aware and become more clever than its creator and now with a malevolent agenda. At one point this program, Master Control Program or MCP, announces to its nasty corporate creator, Dillinger (David Warner) that it's tired of corporations and intends to direct its attention to the Pentagon and the Kremlin. A potential plot direction that is not explored further in the film but is an important indicator of the film's predictions about AI. Jeff Bridges is the main star here playing Flynn, a former employee of Dillinger, who is now a hacker and intent on getting control of the MCP. But it has other ideas and somehow zaps him into the digital world where he has to compete in a sort of gladiatorial set of games. The film sets up the idea that programs are really sentient beings that have links to a human user (in some ways this is idea is later used in The Matrix). The film lacks a strong plot aiming to wow its family audience with the special effects instead and that makes the film a little unimpressive today considering the advancement in this field. Still a film worth checking out especially since there's a couple of sequels too.

Following the critical and popular success of The Odyssey (2026) I recommend a revisit to this film in its longer Director's Cut version. This reinserts about thirty minutes making it a longer, bloodier and far more involved and complete film. Troy is an epic, spectacular historical epic, the sort of big budget film that Ridley Scott specialises in and does so well. Here director Wolfgang Petersen has made a really entertaining, battle filled film that gets better on repeated viewings. It boasts a star studded cast including Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, Peter O'Toole, Brendan Gleeson, Diane Kruger, Brian Cox, Sean Bean and Rose Byrne amongst others. Loosely based on Homer's Iliad, this tells the story of the Trojan War where the fragile peace between the Greeks and the Trojans is broken when the Trojan prince Paris falls for Helen, the wife of the King of Sparta and steals her away. This gives the power hungry Greek King Agamemnon an excuse to besiege the city of Troy which he has long coveted. He relies on his top warrior Achilles to help him even though they despise one another. Purists of the Homer story can pick holes galore in this but this is a cinematic adaptation and like all such adaptations it isn't meant to be an accurate recreation of the original story. So get over it and just enjoy the sheer magnificence of this film with the violence and nudity and some subplots that were erased from the theatrical cut now restored to make for a big, bold, visually stunning film.

This dark comedy/satire has its ups and downs and is marred by some poor pacing and a script that seems at the time to be ignorant of where it's going eventually almost falling into slapstick. But it does have a very sinister look at the role über billionaires play in the world and in that's sense it has a worrying undercurrent. Four such crypto/tech/social media giants, who are equally friends as rivals, get together at the mountain retreat of one of them, Hugo (Jason Schwartzman) to discuss their future plans. The other three refer to Hugo as 'soup kitchen' because he's the only one not to have reached billionaire status yet. The others, Randall (Steve Carell), Venis (Cory Michael-Smith) and Jeff (Ramy Youssef) are multi-billionaires. The world economies are on the verge of collapsing and the four discuss how they will profit from events but when three of them discover Jeff, the more liberal and sensitive of them, plans to go his own way they decide to kill him. There efforts in this regards reveal their complete dysfunctionality. There are some very funny lines and moments but they are a little too far apart with the four characters not written in enough depth to grab your attention. It is however a film that takes a satirical look at the age of the self made billionaire and the influence they wield.

A sports biopic about MMA fighter Mark Kerr, relatively unknown in the UK (or is that just me??) and covering the early days of the sport between 1997 and 2000 where it appears it was most popular in Japan and known as Pride! Dwayne Johnson, under heavy prosthetics plays Kerr and manages to give a very convincing performance showing Kerr's emotional side and his conflict with opioids and fractious relationship with his girlfriend, Dawn (Emily Blunt). The film delves into various issues amongst which are Kerr's unpreparedness for actually losing a bout, so when he does he falls into a spiral of existential despair increasing his addictions to cope. But after successfully undergoing rehab the gentle Kerr becomes the angry Kerr much to Dawn's fear and consternation. The central part of the film is their relationship and Blunt is the best thing in the film with a very nuanced and convincing performance but she is sidelined far too much as the fighting takes preference and in particular Kerr's relationship with his friend, co-fighter and potential opponent Mark Coleman (Ryan Bader) is given more prominence, in my view, to the film's detriment. This is a film about a brutal sport, indeed an unpleasant one and whilst Mark Kerr may have some following and fame in the USA the story seems rather hollow to an outsider. It has committed performances and Johnson arguable gives a career best here but it's a somewhat limited film.

A weird science fiction horror from writer & director David Cronenberg that continues his fetish for body horror all wrapped up in a confusing and slow film about grief and loss. Vincent Cassel stars as wealthy entrepreneur Karsh, who following his wife's prolonged illness and death from cancer built a cemetery, with posh restaurant attached, where the bodies of loved ones are wrapped in Chinese designed shrouds that allow relatives to morbidly watch their dear departed loved ones slowly decay. This is somehow meant to be a release from pain or more likely a way to prolong it. Either way Karsh has successfully extended this idea to cemeteries around the world. But when the one where his wife is interred is vandalised he suspects various culprits from Russians to Chinese to his nerdy ex brother in-law Maury (Guy Pearce), who is annoyed that Karsh is bonking his ex-wife who is the twin of Karsh's wife. It's all slightly confusing and slow and ultimately it's an exasperating film that seems to go nowhere possibly suggesting that grief is never ending. It's a tiresome film that is visually interesting, has a creepy and deep score by Howard Shore, and disturbing visions of decaying corpses and the wife (Diane Kruger who also plays the twin sister) in various states of her illness as she loses body parts to surgery. In many ways it's an unpleasant film rather than cleverly creepy or disturbing and sadly it's a little boring.