Film Reviews by GI

Disappointingly this is a routine sequel that has its fun moments but has been forced to rely on loads of gonzo fights for its entertainment value and these become wearisome after awhile. The first film had the central narrative premise that a boring, dishevelled family man was secretly a former top government assassin but that's obviously lost here so this just becomes an episodic further adventures of type story. Hutch (Bob Odenkirk) is still a struggling father and husband but has promised his wife (Connie Nielsen) that he's given up the violence but unfortunately he owes a lot of money and so is forced to carry out dodgy missions. Feeling guilty he takes the family to a sleazy theme park for a holiday and takes his dad (Christopher Lloyd) along too. But on arrival he soon discovers the place is a hive of criminals and corrupt cops who he then has to deal with! Sharon Stone is great as the evil baddie but ultimately this is about long action sequences that have all been done before as you watch Hutch take down just about everybody. It's ok and worth a watch if you enjoyed the first film but this one is forgettable.

A ridiculous and narratively confusing spaghetti western that attempts to emulate the style of Sergio Leone and fails utterly. Even the music score blatantly uses similar melodies from Once Upon A Time In The West (1968) and occasionally it'll suddenly burst into an Elmer Bernstein style. The story makes little sense as it follows a gunfighter who loses his memory after being wounded in the head but who, for some reason, fails to ask who he is when he bumps into people who clearly know him! Richard Crenna plays Noon, a vengeful man skilled in gun and fist, who teams up with Stephen Boyd's outlaw to kill a bunch of bad guys at some point getting his memory back just in time for the final battle. That's about it really. It's poorly structured, badly acted and is little more than a B Movie western made in Europe.

This is the second of three science fiction films that Dutch director Paul Verhoeven made in Hollywood starting with Robocop (1987) and culminating with Starship Troopers (1997). Taken together some style and thematic similarities leap out. The most obvious is their over-the-top violence, almost cartoonish in presentation which adds to the subtle humour that Verhoeven injects into these films. Another is the sheer weirdness of his vision for mankind's future, where some humans have increased psychic abilities and in Total Recall the appearance of extreme mutations. Loosely adapted from a Philip K. Dick novel this is set in the late 21st Century and follows humble construction worker Doug Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who is married to the beautiful Lori (Sharon Stone) but is plagued by repeated dreams involving Mars, now colonised, and a brunette woman. On a whim he decides to buy a memory implant that will recreate an adventure in his mind as if it really happened and he chooses an adventure as a secret agent on Mars. But it all goes wrong when it appears he has a hidden past that the implant reignites in his memory and soon he finds he's being hunted by assassins. This is a full on action film, very bloody shoot outs litter the film and the story has some neat effects (for it's time they were v advanced) and it twists and turns in the plot to keep you guessing. It's been much debated as to what is actually going on as the story is based around memory and dreams but there are plenty of clues for the attentive viewer, not least the visit by Dr Edgemar (Roy Brocksmith) who basically reveals the final third of the film and Quaid's visit to ReKall for the implant has some big reveals too. Although the film is essentially studio bound it's still an enthralling vision of Mars and the future and it has a strong cast that includes Ronny Cox and Michael Ironside. It's certainly weird at times bordering on the perverse but that's what you expect from Verhoeven. It remains hugely entertaining so well worth a revisit and definitely one to see if you've never done so.

A British social drama that exemplifies the misery that family gatherings can induce when old animosities and copious alcohol flows. Writer and director Ben Wheatley, with acknowledged contributions from the excellent ensemble cast, has created a virtually plotless drama that is all about character and relations uniting into a restless storm of disquiet and anger. The often underrated Neil Maskell plays Colin, a middle aged married man, who has rented a big country house for his extended family to celebrate the New year. From the very start tensions begin when his mother (Doon Mackichan) semi deliberately trips over the entrance step and makes a big fuss about it. Colin's completely unsympathetic expression sums up the dynamics at play which is then made worse when his dad (Bill Paterson) takes him aside to ask to borrow more money from him after a previous loan has disappeared on a dodgy business deal. Colin's refusal adds to the unrest that is building. But it all threatens to boil over when Colin's estranged brother David (Sam Riley), secretly invited by his sister (Hayley Squires), turns up with his new girlfriend. It's gradually revealed why David is not welcomed by Colin. This is a well acted, humorous and very British comedy of manners drama. Sometimes it feels that it drifts a little too much but perhaps that's the idea to show that these sort of family interactions are often unresolved and emotional messes that never fully sort themselves out.

Roger Moore's screen work will probably always be focused around the seven James Bond films he made beginning in 1973. But it's in the films he made outside the Bond franchise that really showcase his abilities and potential as a screen actor. This psychological mystery thriller is arguably his best performance highlighting a dramatic range and the ability to diversify which was perhaps stifled by his James Bond persona. Here he plays Pelham, a gentrified London executive, who one afternoon, on his drive home, is overcome in a strange way and crashes his car. Badly injured he momentarily dies on the operating table and is resuscitated where two heartbeats are briefly evident on a heart monitor. After recovering Pelham becomes more disturbed and paranoid that there is a double who is infiltrating his life. A double who seems more confident, sexually active and ambitious than him. His family, colleagues and friends start to think he's having a nervous breakdown. This is a classic retelling of the famous Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde narrative and, with it's hints of the supernatural, this is a compelling thriller made better by Moore's performance as two sides of the same character. It's a film, recently restored, that is worth seeking out as a clever British film of this period.

A strong film with a purpose. It's touching, thought provoking and at times very moving. This is a drama that focuses on the life of Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author Isabel Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) whose bestselling book Caste:The Origins Of Our Discontents and how she came to write it is the focus of this docudrama. Isobel is shocked over the killing of a young black man who was doing nothing but walking home through a white neighbourhood and when her aging mother offers a view about the murder Isobel begins a journey looking at what drives people to hate and sees that it's more than racism especially after she studies how the Nazis used the segregation laws of the USA to construct their plans for the Holocaust. The film is structured with flashbacks to incidents in history but mostly follows Isobel's visits and interviews around the world, in particular India where she sees the awful caste system of bigotry still alive and thriving. You could argue this would be a more interesting documentary rather than a narrative exploration of the subject but it's still a strong film that should invoke shock and revulsion.

Chris Pratt takes on the nemesis of AI in this action thriller set in the near future with a story that has similar themes to the far superior Minority Report (2002). A crime ridden Los Angeles discovers a solution to its criminal problem by introducing 'mercy' courts, where an AI judge, believed infallible, acts as judge, jury and executioner. Alcoholic cop Raven (Pratt), a devotee of this new system, is soon to learn its flaws when he finds himself on trial for the murder of his wife. With no memory of the past 24 hours he's given 90 minutes to defend himself which essentially means for the run time of the film Pratt sits strapped into a chair while the AI judge (Rebecca Ferguson) taps into any CCTV, mobile phone or computer records needed for the trial and flashes them up on a screen. Raven basically investigates the crime through her. It's a gimmicky film prone to recreating computer game style footage which I find uncinematic. There's a couple of set piece chase scenes and Raven is eventually released to bring down the bad guy. It's cartoonish and totally silly. It's just another film trying to intensify the arguments for AI systems. A film that passes the time but is ultimately forgettable.

At times this is visually spectacular, almost Fordian in its grandeur images of the American landscape but it's also epic yet listless storytelling. The title tells you there's more chapters to come, indeed you get to see what looks like a very action filled Chapter 2 as a coda to this first film. But it feels very disjointed as it tries to weave various storylines together from the start of a new community in Apache country, which of course they are not happy about! To an early murder of a man by her husband, a section that then doesn't pick up again for sometime. This section begins a revenge hunt by some psychopathic brothers culminating in director and star Kevin Costner's appearance as a sort of stoic drifter forced to kill a man. There's also a wagon train section and there's no doubt these strands will tie together at some point but for a film this long it does feel like it's dragging and meandering without any real sense of a strong narrative. Many of the characters feel like standard western tropes including Sam Worthington's handsome Army officer and Sienna Miller's widowed woman gradually falling for him. There are some solid set pieces including an Indian attack on the tented township and some well directed action. But you do have to keep up with this as it jumps between the stories that span over fifteen years. It looks impressive and there is evidence that for Costner this is a passion piece. It is worth checking out and hopefully it will sit well with the next instalment.

A dark supernatural thriller with a murder mystery plot as the central core of the narrative. A strong cast for the time including Richard Burton who had just made a comeback to the big screen. He plays Morlar, a writer, who is attacked and beaten into a coma by an unknown assailant. The investigation is led by a French detective, Brunel (Lino Ventura) on secondment to the Metropolitan Police. Morlar continues to show amazing brain activity whilst in the coma much to the surprise of the doctors. Brunel traces Morlar's therapist (Lee Remick) who seems to hold the key to the case and reveals that Morlar believed he was able to make catastrophes happen by telekinesis. There's various flashbacks to reveal Morlar's story and two big set piece disasters including a plane crash which seem a little dated today but were considered gripping back in the late 70s. This film came a couple of years after telekinesis formed the central plot of Brian De Palma's far better horror film Carrie (1976). There's a complex theme around the spending of millions on arms and military to the detriment of looking after society making this a film to watch carefully. The Medusa Touch boasts a strong British support cast and has a darkness and tension that makes it watchable and intriguing today so it's worth checking out.

An absorbing relationship drama that cleverly avoids dipping into thriller territory making it a very interesting film about two damaged people finding one another. The intensity of the film is in its ability to reflect the messiness of real life and whilst the ending may leave some people frustrated it is the right one for this story. Jessica Chastain plays Sylvia, a care worker and recovering alcoholic who has a smart 13 year old daughter. She's a single mum and has a tough self reliance but always seems to be slightly on edge. At a High School reunion she is disturbed when Saul (Peter Sarsgaard) approaches her and follows her home. This bizarre act begins a train of events with both of them after Sylvia discovers that Saul has early onset dementia. She volunteers to help him. Their connection is what begins the release of past traumas and events with the eventual romance feeling unexpected yet inevitable. This is a delicate and mature drama with two excellent central performances and is worth checking out.

With a best selling soundtrack album alongside its blockbuster box office Top Gun remains a favourite for many people. It's certainly a key film of the 80s and cemented Tom Cruise's trajectory as a major star for years to follow. It is a highly entertaining piece of pop art really with macho posturing and a really overt gay subtext, which I can't help think was director Tony Scott's sly dig at the flag waving conservative politics of the narrative. Cruise plays Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell, a talented US Navy fighter pilot who has a penchance for rule breaking. He and his partner 'Goose' (Anthony Edwards) earn themselves a place at the navy's elite fighter training school known as Top Gun, but a tragic accident during the course forces Maverick to reconsider his future. There's a cheesy romance thrown into the mix for good measure and the flying scenes are spectacular even more so if seen on a big cinema screen. The bookending combat scenes are exciting and the added comedy makes the film highly quotable. However it's a film of its time but the cast is really good with Val Kilmer as Cruise' rival, Tom Skerritt, Michael Ironside, Kelly McGillis and an early role for Meg Ryan and Tim Robbins. It remains a neat piece of Hollywood hokum and benefits from seeing on a big cinema screen to allow all it's glory to really shine.

A thriller that's trying to say something about the cult of celebrity but eventually falling back on fairly routine horror film territory. Think of The Menu (2022) and Midsommar (2019) and you'll have sort of an idea where this film is pitching itself. A small and select group of music journalists and TV hosts are invited to the remote desert hideaway of Moretti (John Malkovich), a hugely popular singer from the 90s who has been a recluse for many decades and recently announced a new album. One of the guests, junior magazine writer Ariel (Ayo Edebiri), is surprised to have been one of the invitees and doesn't quite hold the awe for Moretti that the others have. She is at first surprised and eventually more suspicious of his motives when she discovers Moretti lives as a sort of cult leader with a host of sycophants around him. Of course Moretti has a devious and nasty plan for the guests that gradually unfolds. There some gory deaths and Malkovich revels in the transition from smiling host to maniacal cult leader. The music, from Nile Rodgers, is good although I smiled in all the wrong places especially with Malkovich performing some of the songs which held the characters in rapture but I thought was mediocre. As the horror thriller this is watchable and it has a clever ending so it's worth checking out.

A rip roaring western that is effectively pure cinema in that there is no attempt to make any sort of revisionist interpretation of the actual events here but simply portray a western like the classic films of old and simply retain myth over fact. In that sense it works brilliantly, is great fun with loads of bloody shoot outs, horseback chases and camera shots and angles homaging many other films. If you were in any doubt the film opens with a shot from the cinematically famous 1903 film, The Great Train Robbery. The principle influence is that of Sergio Leone, which if you're familiar with his westerns are similarly cinematic rather than historically influenced. Whilst Tombstone is based around real characters and events it makes no effort nor claim to be anything other than fiction. The famous Gunfight At The OK Corral has been the subject of numerous films and the events leading up to it, the actual gunfight and thereafter have been portrayed in a variety of ways. Here the first half of the film is about town/frontier taming, a regular subject of westerns, then the iconic gunfight centralises the film and afterwards it's one long, exciting revenge tale. Kurt Russell is former lawman Wyatt Earp who arrives, with his brothers, in the mining town of Tombstone. He shuns requests to put on a badge but eventually is forced back to being Marshall when threatened by a violent gang led by Curly Bill (Powers Boothe) and Johnny Ringo (Michael Biehn). Aided by Doc Holliday (a sensational Val Kilmer) they have to bring law & order to the west mainly by killing a lot of people. The cast are exceptional including Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton and Charlton Heston has a cameo with Robert Mitchum providing a short narration. Even if you don't like westerns this is a contemporary example of action cinema that is great from start to finish so it's definitely worth your time if you haven't seen it.

An occasionally bewildering tragicomedy that never quite gels and has a sentimentality the narrative demands but feels misplaced within the main subject matter, the Holocaust. This is a road trip film where a neurotic New York journalist, Ruth (Lena Denham) has travelled to Poland (it's 1991 just at the end of the Cold War) in order to discover some of her jewish family heritage. She is accompanied by her well-intentioned but awkward Dad, Edek (Stephen Fry), who survived the Nazi death camps where the rest of his family died. Ruth can't understand why her father seems intent on sabotaging some of her plans for the trip, for example she fails to grasp why he won't travel on the trains instead preferring to pay for a taxi for the entire journey. Obviously it's during this journey that Ruth and Edek bond over issues that have remained unsolved in their normal lives. The film is a strange confection though with issues left unresolved. For example Ruth indulges in some self harm appearing to periodically tattoo herself with Nazi camp numbers. There is a major scenario where they find the family's original home now occupied by another family who appear to have some of Edek's parents belongings. The culpability of these people in the plight of the jews deported is never realised even though they appear guilty of something! The scenes set in Auschwitz are moving though but overall the film feels unfulfilled. Something feels missing here as if the edit has been a little too ruthless. A shame as there was a film that had promise here.

Made on the back of the success of The Dirty Dozen (1967) director Robert Aldrich toned down his darker edges for this really good yet underrated war film. Set in the Pacific in 1942 and US Navy Lieutenant Sam Lawson (Cliff Robertson) is seconded to a British unit because his ability to speak Japanese is needed for a special mission. He's a reluctant participant in what is a patrol through the jungle to a Japanese radio station. The patrol is led by incompetent Captain Hornsby (Denholm Elliott) and includes a motley bunch of soldiers including Tosh (Michael Caine). The mission goes awry and the patrol is pursued back to their base by the enemy who must kill or capture them to stop the location of their new airbase being revealed. There's a clash of cultures theme here, mainly between the British and the Americans and the film looks into the issues of loyalty and futility of war. It's a gritty story with plenty of action but ultimately it's a well written and performed character piece. The actors are mostly British stalwarts including Ian Bannen, Ronald Fraser and Harry Andrews and in addition Henry Fonda has a cameo. What is especially interesting here is the subversion of stereotypes as each of the characters is tested through their exposure to combat. The jungle scenes are particularly realistic and exciting so this is definitely a Second World War film that deserves to be rediscovered. I highly recommend it.