Film Reviews by GI

The original 1979 Caligula gained huge notoriety and controversy for having had pornographic scenes added by the producer and faced many a ban and condemnation. But it should be remembered that its release came near the end of mainstream cinema's dalliance with soft pornography with a few now cult films of that type littering the decade. Years later and new footage not before used in the original film was discovered and the attempt here was to put together a fresh new edit using only this newly discovered material and enhancing it with some visual assistance and CGi, and a new soundtrack. It no doubt made the British actors more pleased than they were back in 1979! when they disowned the first release. It was a huge box office success mind. The result is this film, still a Gran Guignol extravaganza that has spectacular sets, mostly internal, and often presented in a theatrically staged way and still including a lot of cavorting naked people. Malcom McDowell as Caligula plays the role like some grand Shakespearean character only more annoying. Helen Mirren as his wife has very little to work with apart from stripping off regularly. It's only Peter O'Toole that really shines as Tiberius and John Gielgud looks pained in all his scenes as if he knows what a turkey he's actually found himself in! Anyway this is in no way a historically accurate film as it bears little truth to the known life of Caligula despite his recorded excesses and the film pushes myths that never actually happened, such as making his horse a senator. This is more a flamboyant study of absolute power corruption with lots of scenes of debauchery, extravagant deaths and immorality. It's overly long and drags especially in the last hour or so and ultimately it's a novelty of a film and essentially a load of tripe. I can't help thinking that the original version, porn scenes and all, is of more historical interest than this attempt at a new cut.

Similar to Southern Comfort (1981) and Full Metal Jacket (1987) Tigerland is a story about the effects of the dehumanisation of young men in preparation for war. This is a story of a group of American Army conscripts undergoing combat training just before being shipped off to Vietnam where the USA is losing but still engaged in war. The harsh training the young men are subjected to is meant to ready them for the experience but actually has the effect of emotional damage. That is until Private Bozz (Colin Farrell) shows them that they can keep their humanity as he constantly challenges his superiors and makes it plain he will not cooperate. Farrell, in his first US film, is on top form here and is superbly cast as the rebellious Bozz prepared to suffer any punishment the army throws at him. His natural leadership qualities however means he helps his buddies to his own detriment. Thematically the film condemns militarism and in particular conscription as a means to supply soldiers to a country's forces. It's also a tale of friendship and endurance too and a powerful one. Bozz's attitude makes him a hero to his fellow recruits but makes him some serious enemies in the process including the psychopathic fellow recruit Wilson (Shea Wigham). This is a topnotch film, brilliantly edited and directed by veteran Joel Schumacher, with great performance and screenplay. On the surface it's a war film but with a very profound message. A film to definitely check out if you haven't seen it.

An intense and somewhat enigmatic psychological drama set in Macau where a gambling addict, chancer, conman and wanted thief plies his trade running up big debts and finding a weird private investigator on his trail. This character, Riley, is played with equal intensity by Colin Farrell. Riley puts on a faux aristocratic accent and has styled himself as 'Lord Doyle', a high roller, a style that no one else actually buys into. He's borderline suicidal and losing his mental faculties as his past is catching up with him but he's given the chance of redemption by a friendship he finds with one of the money lenders who hang around the casinos (Fala Chen). With her help he gets the opportunity for one last big win. There's some visually impressive scenes of the glitz and glamour of the Macau nightlife and the hazy waterfront. It's a film of grandeur and very emotional performances and only jars with Tilda Swinton's performance as a cartoonish investigator who looks like a skinny old lady from an antique shop. But a film to admire for Farrell's performance.

The charismatic ensemble cast and the film making sure it keeps to the same beats ensures this a worthy sequel twenty years after the original. It's also a suitable time to have elapsed so that whilst the narrative follows the same paths as the first there is an evolution in the characters subtle enough to make this recognisable yet different. The first film was a joy and whilst this one suffers from the knowledge that you what you're going to get more of the same it's still fun to see the characters again. Anne Hathaway as Andy is now an award winning journalist who gets offered the job of features editor at Runway, a role she cannot resist as she will reunite with the fearsome Miranda (Meryl Streep), who says she doesn't remember her....or does she? It's an early example that the Miranda we love is still alive and kicking. In short Miranda is struggling with the modern world's attitudes and the new young CEO introduces drastic cuts to her budget. Emily Blunt has great lines as the former put upon assistant Emily who is now top dog at Dior. The comedy is subtle and rewarding as the characters weave around each other with Stanley Tucci as the melancholy yet stalwart Nigel, Miranda's faithful No. 2 keeping everyone sweet. Indeed the plot to keep Miranda as she is leads to some tender moments that give the film a feel good vibe. It's an enjoyable sequel with a few cameos including Lady Gaga, Kenneth Branagh in a small role and a few others. There's plenty of throwbacks to the original film for dedicated fans and the only somewhat frustrated part is the lame and underwritten romance Andy begins with a property developer played by Patrick Brammel from TVs Colin From Accounts. Otherwise very watchable.

This is a typical Nick Love directed film, one that suffers from a need to go over the top and results in a film that only people who behave and have the limited intelligence of the characters in the film will enjoy. The sort of people who will believe the main character, Jack, is some sort of hero. Danny Dyer plays Jack, a middle aged, unemployed thug addicted to cocaine, a poor father and husband and reliant on his somewhat nasty father in law (Geoff Bell) for his house and income. His only redeeming feature is that his wife (Stephanie Leonidas) unbelievingly still loves him, although her patience is running thin. Jack hangs out with a load of beer swilling, drug addicted likeminded thugs whose only passion is attacking rival football thugs. After being arrested Jack is given a chance to sort himself out or go to jail but he struggles to let go of the life he has chosen. If this is meant to be a social commentary narrative then it fails completely. Drug use here is seen as a wonderful thing and so too is children's access to hard core porn which Jack freely allows his young son to watch. The comedy here is limited, the odd laugh mostly as Jack breaks the fourth wall, but this is a ridiculous film about ridiculous people. Outrageous this is clearly meant to be but I fear the result will be the opposite of what is intended.

A good old fashioned swashbuckling adventure with plenty of stunts, sword fights and chases combined with a sexy romance and a solid tale of heroism and vengeance. It holds up very well when watched today. Anthony Hopkins proves his action chops as the original Zorro, hero to the repressed people of California in the 1820s, ruled over by a despotic Spanish Governor. Captured and imprisoned he vows vengeance for the murder of his wife and the abduction of his baby daughter. Twenty years later he escapes and trains a young thief (Antonio Banderas) as the new Zorro to help him get justice. Catherine Zeta Jones plays the beautiful romantic interest and holds her own in the fighting set pieces including a hilarious sword fight with Zorro who uses his sword to undress her! A family adventure film that is worth seeking out if you've never seen it and a rewatch if it's been awhile as it's recently restored onto 4K UHD.

The sequel to The Three Musketeers released a year later. Indeed the two films were made to be one film and the splitting into two resulted in the actors suing the producers for more money. That aside this is as much fun as the first film and it rattles along as a fun filled roustabout swashbuckler with some beautiful cinematography and more ambitious scenes including the siege of La Rochelle. D'Artagnan (Michael York), now a fully fledged musketeer, attempts to foil the plot of the evil Cardinal Richelieu (Charlton Heston) to murder the Prime Minister of England (Simon Ward). His fellow musketeers are all along to help (Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay & Richard Chamberlain) and there's great action sword fights, battle scenes and that fantastic visualisation of the 17th Century that director Richard Lester created in the earlier film. Faye Dunaway has a bigger role here as the temptress 'Milady' and her and Reed's Athos are given a back story told in flashback. A thoroughly enjoyable, fun filled slice of family entertainment that never ages and one of those sequels that is as good as the original and it's worth watching both films back to back as the segue perfectly.

Thematically similar to The Substance (2024) in it's study of a woman feeling rejected and worthless due to age and becoming desperate to find direction in her life. Pamela Anderson gives a committed performance in a strong comeback role as Shelly, a 57 year old burlesque dancer in a cheesy burlesque show in Las Vegas which has been running for years and years to ever dwindling audiences who crave more sexualised entertainment. When the announcement that the show is to be cancelled Shelly struggles to know what she will do. The film focuses on her reflections and desires in her various pseudo family structures with the younger girls in the show, her semi-estranged daughter who resents being second place to 'the show' and her relationships with the shy Eddie (Dave Bautista), the show's floor manager, and Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis), a former dancer now reduced to cocktail waitressing and with a gambling addiction (Arguably Curtis gets the best scene in the film when she spontaneously dances at her work). This is a narrative about midlife crisis and whilst there are some scenes that seem a little contrived (the dinner with Eddie for example) I did admire the contemplative scenes of Shelly alone and unadorned in the Las Vegas bright sunshine as she contemplates her life. An interesting film, sad and yet a little wearisome.

In many ways this is a typical late 50s western and a John Sturges film. It boasts the look, characters, structure and even soundtrack of most westerns of this period with two stars in Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn. It does include some tension and indeed risqué scenes involving rape, at least for this period, but ultimately it offers little to the genre. In some ways it utilises narrative structures from other westerns in particular 3.10 From Yuma (1957) in the waiting for the train plot and Rio Bravo (1959) with its siege element. Interestingly the plot's structure is very similar to the later Lawman (1971), with the idea of a lone lawman arriving to take in the offspring of the local and powerful cattle baron. Here Douglas is the lawman whose Indian wife is raped and murdered by the son of Quinn's cattle baron. The son (Earl Holliman) is the clichéd cowardly and weak offspring that nonetheless is protected by his father. This is a reasonably well constructed western but does feel and look very similar to so many other films of this time that it doesn't stand out amongst the best of the time.

A sequel to Greenland (2020), a decent apocalypse survival film about a comet striking the Earth that focused on a family trying to get to safety rather than a narrative about trying to prevent the comet hitting. Here we have a belated sequel that is certainly visually impressive with some great images of a destroyed and changed planet plagued by massive storms, earthquakes and continued strikes from the fragments of the comet that now circle the planet. But the story seems a little rushed as the family are forced to leave the safety of the military shelter in Greenland and make their way to Europe and reach a crater that is believed to be a shelter and a sort of paradise! The journey is a dangerous one and this is the bulk of the story where rival factions and starving people kill without hesitation. The intrepid family group, with an ever decreasing number of companions, manage to travel to France via various means. There's some solid set pieces but the film feels very contrived and there's a quasi religious ending which makes little sense overall. It's an entertaining film for the most part and Gerard Butler as the father has a more subdued role here than his normal action ones. Morena Baccarin as his wife is solid but has little to do really. Still it's well done for the most part.

There's been many adaptations of Alexandre Dumas' famous novel but this has to be the most original, fun and stylish. Director Richard Lester infused the story with farce, almost pythonesque in order to create a humorous swashbuckling adventure film that will have you laughing as much as any good comedy but all the while caught up in the sheer excitement of the story. The cast are mightily impressive from established film stars like Oliver Reed, Charlton Heston, Frank Finlay, Richard Chamberlain, Faye Dunaway, Michael York, Christopher Lee and Raquel Welch to support actors like Simon Ward, Roy Kinnear Geraldine Chaplin and Spike Milligan. Creating a superb vision of 17th Century France with it's dirty streets, beggars, taverns and with duels, sword fights grittily enacted this is so much fun that it is arguably one of the best films based on this novel. The story remains familiar in that young country boy D'Artagnan (York) heads off to Paris to join the King's musketeers and realises to qualify he must fight duels as often as possible. He is befriended by three established musketeers who are rebellious and find fun in fighting the soldiers of the nasty Cardinal Richelieu (Heston). When D'Artagnan becomes embroiled in a plot to humiliate the Queen he calls on his friends to help. In essence this is a historical caper movie, full of intrigue and romance too. A great film which along with it's sequel is fantastic fun and definitely a must see film if you've never seen it.

Part comedy caper and part serious action thriller film that has a sharp script and manages to condemn America's involvement in the Middle East and the campaign to liberate Kuwait from the Iraqi invaders as an ill thought out and disastrous policy. Set in 1991 at the end of Operation Desert Storm and the liberation of Kuwait. Army Sergeant Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg) and two of his mates find a map that identifies a hidden Iraqi bunker where stolen Kuwaiti gold bullion is hidden. When Major Archie Gates (George Clooney) hears about the map he takes them on a mission to steal the gold for themselves but their plans go awry when they become embroiled in Saddam's suppression of dissident civilians. Not only is this really entertaining, full of action, and littered with some really unique approaches to violence but it's also very funny and highlights the utter ridiculousness of the situation created by the Americans. It deals with the abandonment of the Iraqi people who were encouraged to rise up against Saddam Hussain but then unsupported by the allied forces and shows how the whole conflict is just a media war. So interwoven in this film is a human drama story that is quite moving and occasionally shocking. However the film is clever, engrossing and very, very good so if you've never seen this then it's a must see film.

This animated story is a rather joyless and plodding film that has been created by plundering a small piece from Tolkien's epic tales of Middle-earth and seems for no other reason than to continue the LOTR into a franchise. What a mistake that's likely to be if this film is evidence of what's to come. As much as there are admirers of this Japanese animation style it renders the LOTR world into a children's film without anything that a live feature would have done. It's a flat, sometimes boring film that at times sounds like an episode of Game Of Thrones with all the 'northern' accented English voices. In fact I felt short changed that it's an animation at all when these stories, if they are to be made into cinematic film, need to have that epic, fantastical and wondrous feel that came with the original trilogy. Besides, this story of a civil war involving rival factions of the Horse Lords of Rohan is a minor, insignificant one and the film relies on snippets and scenes recreating from the original trilogy just to ground it in the LOTR world at all. A disappointment.

A 'found footage' type horror film with demonic possession as the sub genre on show here. Set in the 1970s where a failing late night chat show hosted by Jack (David Dastmalchian) has one last go at boosting its ratings and staying on air by having a Halloween special where an allegedly devil possessed young girl is interviewed and has the demon inside her called forth. The resulting tape of the show having been later discovered and shown here. There's an element of satire in this narrative that has some expected gory moments and ghostly snapshots that you have to be watching closely to catch. It's all wrapped up by a plot that involves Jack having made some pact with Satan and this final show revealing the price he is having to pay. It's a neat recreation of the 70s style of show that it showcases but it's a fairly routine horror film that fans of the genre will no doubt love. For the rest of us its fairly forgettable.

This is one of the best of a cycle of conspiracy thrillers that came out in the 1970s. A tense and exciting espionage story set in New York where humble academic Joe (Robert Redford) analyses novels from around the world for the CIA. He works with a small team from a small building posing as a literary society. One day while Joe pops out for lunch his fellow researchers are all murdered and he finds himself first on the run but then forced to find who is behind the killings before he too becomes a victim. Everyone seems to have an agenda and he finds he can trust no-one other than a woman (Faye Dunaway) he is forced to kidnap in order to hide out. A twist and turn plot, sprinkled with sharp action and a story that never goes where you expect. It has a superb support cast with Max Von Sydow as a sinister hitman, Cliff Robertson and John Houseman, as CIA bosses. With America reeling from social unrest and eventually the Watergate scandal these conspiracy thrillers looked with an accusing eye at what lurks beneath the surface of the so called democracy and freedom of the country and here is a brilliant example of the sort of excellent cinema that Hollywood produces. Highly recommended if you've never seen this.