Film Reviews by Philip in Paradiso

The story takes place in Los Angeles, in the 1930s. It centres on a private detective, J J 'Jake' Gittes (Jack Nicholson) and his 2 associates. A woman comes to see him and says she is Evelyn Mulwray. She wants to hire J Gittes so that he may investigate her husband, Hollis Mulwray. She is convinced he is having an affair. H Mulwray is the chief engineer at the Department of Water and Power of the city of Los Angeles. J Gittes soon takes photos of Hollis Mulwray in the company of a young woman who appears to be his mistress; the pictures end up on the front page of a local newspaper, exposing Hollis Mulwray's alleged affair. The story develops from there.

As J Gittes realizes early on, there is far more to the story than a mere extra-marital affair. The private detective finds himself sucked into a dark conspiracy with political and financial ramifications, involving individuals who are both very powerful and highly dangerous, as well as devoid of any scruples. Faye Dunaway, who plays a key character, gives the story a dramatic and emotional quality that it would otherwise not have. The film is undoubtedly a great classic in the tradition of the American neo-noir mystery movie. It is a very good film. The atmosphere of pre-war California is re-created extremely well. The dialogues are outstandingly good and not devoid of humour, enabling the various characters - more particularly Jack Nicholson in the part of the private detective - to hold our attention from start to finish.

Having said all this - and this is a purely personal and subjective comment - I felt that the film was almost too perfect, too slick and too effective. I felt a certain distance from the main characters. J Nicholson, as usual, is cynical and pulls back from getting involved, somehow, which is also job conditioning, on his part, obviously. F Dunaway is remarkably beautiful but there is something very controlled and a bit cold about her, outwardly at any rate, which is also a function of the character she is playing. Finally, there are 2 main intrigues in the movie - one that has to do with power, real estate and money, and the other that has to do with the private lives of the key characters who are under investigation. I was not sure the 2 strands in the story combined that well with each other, somehow. So, a very good film, but not quite the masterpiece I expected, which would rock the viewer emotionally. Still, a must-see.

The film takes place in modern-day Iran, under the rule of the repressive Islamist regime in power in Tehran since 1979. The story is centred on Iman, a devout Muslim and a lawyer, his wife, and their 2 daughters (one is a teenager, and the other one is in her early twenties). Iman has been appointed as an investigating judge in the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. The position comes with a higher salary and the promise of a larger apartment in due course. The situation in the country is far from peaceful, however, as nationwide political protests are taking place, involving many young people who reject the regime's authoritarian and arbitrary rule. Iman finds that his role may be far more political than he perhaps expected. The story develops from there.

This is a good film, which re-creates the atmosphere within Iran very well. We can see and feel the impact that the regime's total control over society is having on every citizen, whether they support the regime or not. Iman, as a decent, honest man, is faced with a dilemma: think first and foremost of his career, or ask himself uncomfortable ethical questions. The film analyses what it means to be working for a repressive regime, and what such a regime does to its opponents but, also, to those who choose to serve it. The clash of generations in a deeply conservative and patriarchal society - pitting Iman against his daughters, with his wife caught in the middle - is depicted in a nuanced way, giving us a genuine insight into the way that Iranian society works. The interplay between the collective and the individual, between the regime and the population, is presented in an intelligent manner: the regime's paranoia becomes every person's own claustrophobic paranoia, like a disease nobody can escape from, eating away at the very fabric of society, relationships and families.

The main problem with the film is that it is very long (nearly 2 hours 45 minutes) and that it starts slowly, in a deliberative way. Still, a good movie I would recommend.

The film starts with a bank robbery: 4 lifelong friends from Charlestown, an area of Boston said to be notorious for its professional criminal element - mostly Whites of Irish descent in what is a working-class neighbourhood - rob a bank, wearing masks. Among the 4 is Ben Affleck as Douglas 'Doug' MacRay and Jeremy Renner as James 'Jem' Coughlin. In the course of the robbery, Rebecca Hall, as Claire Keesey, who is a manager at the bank, is taken hostage, but she is released unharmed soon after the attack on the bank.

When he discovers that Claire lives near him, Doug starts following her in order to find out what she has told the authorities about the robbery - she could be a key witness. Also, he is somewhat concerned that Jem may want to eliminate her, given what she may know. Doug is tough but against gratuitous violence, whereas Jem clearly has psychopathic tendencies and appears to have no limits. Jon Hamm, as Special Agent Adam Frawley, of the FBI, leads the investigation with a view to finding who the members of the gang are and stopping them once and for all, as they have been behind a string of daring and violent attacks of this kind across the city of Boston. The film develops from here.

This is a very good, tense and suspenseful thriller, very well made, with good and plausible dialogues. What is interesting is also that the film gives us some context, in terms of the criminals' background. Doug, more particularly, is a complex character, who aspires to a different sort of life, but leaving Charlestown is not that easy: the movie shows the pressures of all kinds that gang members are under, directly and indirectly. To an extent, they are prisoners of their criminal lifestyle: opting out is not on the menu. The interaction between Claire and Doug is credible and adds to the storyline. Finally, the tense relationship between Doug and Jem is at the centre of the story - a sort of curse there is no exit out of.

There are similarities between this film and 'Heat', the great classic of the genre. But this movie is very good on its own terms. I would certainly recommend it.

In 1982, a huge extraterrestrial spaceship has arrived over Johannesburg: it hovers above the South African city. Inside, an investigation team sent by the South African government finds more than a million aliens, who appear to be malnourished and look like very large insects. The government decides to concentrate all the aliens in a camp near the centre of the city, District 9.

After 20 years, the aliens' camp has turned into a slum-like city within the city, with millions of aliens living in it. The locals resent their presence. The aliens are referred to as 'Prawns': they are viewed as filthy and threatening. The government decides that it will be best to move the aliens to another camp, outside the city. A team of government officials will enter the camp and serve eviction notices on the aliens; the officials will be accompanied by heavily armed police officers for their protection.

The film develops from that point onwards. Apart from the broader storyline, with a clear parallel between the treatment of the aliens and that of non-Whites in Apartheid-era South Africa, what is interesting is the central character: Wikus van de Merwe. He is a bumbling, shy, well-meaning and slightly naive bureaucrat at the Department of Alien Affairs, part of the MNU organisation. Wikus is the unlikeliest of heroes and, as the story unfolds, he finds himself at the centre of the unfolding drama. Through Wikus, Mr Ordinary, the story becomes and feels very real: if it can happen to him, it could happen to anyone.

The movie is entertaining and full of suspense but it also asks deeper questions relating to the human condition: who is a human being and who is not; are the aliens like us in some ways, despite their off-putting, insectoid appearance; and what of their treatment at the hands of the South African authorities? Are the aliens just monsters from outer space, and can we be confident that we, humans, are civilised and reasonable? Although those questions are implicitly posed, the film never lectures you and is well constructed from start to finish. A must-see for anyone who appreciates science-fiction films.

Michael O'Hara (Colin Morgan) is a gunman who has been part of the IRA since his teens, but he wants to leave the terrorist organisation. The film starts as he witnesses the shooting of his pregnant wife by a British soldier of West Indian origin (Aml Ameen), serving in the Parachute Regiment. O'Hara manages to escape but he has been wounded in the shoot-out with the British troops and is soon presumed dead. More than anything else, O'Hara now wants to take revenge on the soldier who killed his wife. He travels to mainland Britain from Northern Ireland with a view to killing the British soldier, Tempest (we are not given any other name for him). The film develops from that point onwards, taking place in 1970s London.

This is a tense, taut and dark film. The atmosphere in 1970s London, which is run-down and shabby, is expertly re-created. The acting of all the characters is excellent and the realistic dialogues hit home. This is a movie full of violence - the violence of circumstances, the violence of politics, the violence of the State, the violence of terrorism, the violence of men, the violence of ideas and emotions: there is no end to the forms of violence that the film depicts and, from time to time, the violence, which is present and latent all the time, literally explodes into scenes of extreme, graphic violence. But this is far more than an action movie. It is an intelligent film, carefully constructed, with characters who feel intensely human and believable. The story feels very real from start to finish, even if it may be inexorable in more ways than one, like some pre-ordained Greek tragedy. The film is also unsettling, because all the characters, but for a few exceptions, are ambiguous and dangerous: there are no 'good guys' and 'bad actors' - it is a dirty war, fought in a dirty way by both the IRA and the security forces. On the latter's side, Mark Strong (as Holland) is impressive and scary, as usual when he plays such parts.

Overall, it is a truly excellent film. I am surprised it has not been written about and praised more. I believe it will become a classic, and will be talked about as such in 20 or 30 years' time.

Very few films show reality as it is - think of the average war movie that glorifies war and heroism. 'Hamburger Hill' shows the Vietnam War, when the US Army was engaged against North Vietnamese soldiers across Indochina, in a hyper-realistic and very graphic way. Inevitably, the film is raw, brutal, bloody and tragic. It is not a film for everybody, but it could be considered a necessary movie.

The film focuses on a squad of 14 US Army soldiers of B Company, 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division during the battle for Hill 937 in the A Shau Valley of Vietnam: the battle lasted 10 days (from 11 to 20 May 1969). The North Vietnamese are dug in at the top of the steep hill; the American troops are ordered to take the fortified hill. Every time the US soldiers attempt to overcome the North Vietnamese resistance, they suffer a lot of casualties. It is said that the battle was called 'Hamburger Hill' because enemy fire was so intense and fierce that assaulting troops were being turned into shredded hamburger meat.

The film does not gloss over tensions among soldiers, also along racial lines. It does refer to the broader political backdrop, also in the USA. This makes it an interesting film, not just an action-packed war movie. There is a tragically human dimension to the fighting. The suffering and humanity of the Vietnamese is also featured in various ways in the film. Overall, this is a unique and unmissable film, in my view. Once you have seen it, you will never forget it, for better or for worse.

The film is about what one could call the formative years of Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan), when he became the man that he is today. In that sense, it is a biographical and semi-fictionalized account of D Trump's life, when he was a young man starting off in real estate. The movie begins in 1973, when the family firm is going through a difficult time: the US federal government is investigating his father, the authoritarian Fred Trump, for alleged discrimination against black tenants, as part of the properties that the Trump family rents out. This has the potential to bankrupt the Trump real-estate business and worries Donald Trump greatly: he is working in his father's business. In a trendy bar, D Trump meets Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong). Cohn is an utterly ruthless but very effective and successful lawyer, who decides to help D Trump and becomes, in a way, his mentor. Cohn is not averse to using underhand tactics and has worked with Mafia gangsters in the past, hence his mixed reputation. The film develops from that point onwards.

What the film does is explore the psychological and professional development of Donald Trump, but it does more than that: to a large extent, at the heart of the movie, actually, is the relationship between D Trump and R Cohn, which is complex and which changes over time. It is that relationship that underpins the film and, up to a point, it is J Strong who steals the show, as R Cohn turns out to be a compelling character whose own fate ends up being as important to the plot as that of D Trump's.

The film seems very realistic and does not pull its punches when describing D Trump, his narcissistic and materialistic arrogance and his lack of scruples. It is no surprise that the real Donald Trump, now president of the USA, found the movie repellent and unfair. However, the way that D Trump is portrayed is also, to a certain extent, sympathetic, if only superficially: he appears vulnerable and merely human in more ways than one. This makes the film more interesting. I would not say it is a masterpiece, on the other hand: it lacks some dramatic tension, perhaps, or it is simply that it is difficult to identify with any of the characters in the movie, as they are, by and large, vain, greedy and unprincipled. Still, a very good film.

A footnote: I found the colour in the film smudgy and sepia-like, presumably a deliberate attempt at situating the film firmly in the 1970s and 1980s; also, the sound is not always that good, making it not so easy to follow parts of the dialogues fully.

Bridget Gregory (Linda Fiorentino) works as a telemarketing manager in a company based in New York City. Clay, her husband, is a dodgy doctor who is in debt to a loan shark. He decides to sell pharmaceutical cocaine to drug dealers, making $700,000 in the process. Once home, Clay hits Bridget in the face after a brief argument, when she insults him. Bridget runs away from their apartment with the money, heading for Chicago. The film develops from that point onwards.

Bridget is an attractive, sexy and bold young woman, who is predatory and cynical. She is the dangerous femme fatale who manipulates gullible, naive, unintelligent and gormless men with ease, using her intelligence and her sex appeal to devastating effect. The story develops in unexpected ways, until its spectacular ending. Overall, it is a good film. However, it is not a masterpiece of the genre, in my view. If you want a masterpiece along such lines, watch "Body Heat" with William Hurt and the sultry, mysterious Kathleen Turner.

There are several problems with "The Last Seduction". First of all, Linda Fiorentino lacks a certain aura or mystery, in my opinion, to be the ultimate femme fatale: it simply isn't her style, at any rate in this movie. She is hard-nosed, cynical and efficient - almost too much. Second, the men in the film are caricatures: they truly are dumb and weak, all of them, to the point where they are not credible. The lead male actors are not that good, in my view: whether it is intentional or not, they are totally dominated by the character played by Linda Fiorentino. The problem is that she finds it too easy to trick them into doing what she wants: it drains the film of tension, in a way. So, a good film but, if you want the real McCoy, watch "Body Heat", which is a masterpiece let down by its dull title.

After the Pope's sudden death of a heart attack, the College of Cardinals, in the Vatican, needs to convene in order to elect a successor to the dead Pope. The dean in charge of organising the conclave, i.e. the process of choosing the new pontiff, is a British prelate, Thomas Lawrence, who wants to do things properly and fairly (Ralph Fiennes). There are several leading contenders for the position of pontiff: some are more liberal, others more conservative. As the film progresses, issues arise with some of the would-be popes, causing crises and ratchetting up the tension and the suspense.

This is a very good film, which manages to make what could have been a dreary process - holding rounds of vote to find a new Pope - exciting and even spectacular. The acting is remarkably good across the board. The movie re-creates the atmosphere in the Vatican very well - or what we may imagine it to be. Soon, the entire plot focuses on power within the Roman Catholic Church: who has it and who hasn't; who knows what; alliances and cliques, and so on.

I have 2 reservations, however. First of all, the list of incidents and crises is, somehow, implausible. Granted, this is what films do: they concentrate in a couple of hours enough melodrama to last a lifetime, so as to make the story exciting. Still, I feel that the plot is somehow over the top and requires a certain suspension of disbelief. Second, the ending is vaguely annoying as it seeks to convey a message to the audience laced with a certain amount of what I can only call political correctness: I cannot say any more so as not to spoil the story for those who have not seen the film yet. 'The Cairo Conspiracy', in a Muslim context (2022), is a masterpiece; 'Conclave' is not. Still, a very good film I enjoyed watching.

The film tells the story of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, usually known as 'Bonnie and Clyde', who became notorious in the early 1930s, in the USA. The movie starts, during the Great Depression, as Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) and Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) meet, when Clyde tries to steal a car that belongs to Bonnie's mother. Bonnie is stuck in a small town in Texas, where she works as a waitress. She is bored with her life and feels she has no future. She is intrigued by Clyde and instantly attracted to him, with his good looks and easy charm. Clyde tells her that he has been to jail, that he is a criminal, and shows her the gun he carries. Bonnie is fascinated with this glimpse into another world. She decides to become his partner in crime. This is the beginning of the story, which chronicles the misdeeds of what becomes the Bonnie and Clyde gang.

The film was criticised, when it came out, for glamorizing violence, which is shown graphically in the movie - something that was new at the time. Also, the storyline strays away from historical accuracy on more than one occasion (see the Wikipedia article on the film, which discusses this in detail). Overall, it is a very good film, which gives us an insight into the motivations of Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker - the latter being a more complex character than the former. Still, the story is more style than substance, with the 2 glamorous actors in the lead focusing much of the attention. But this is, after all, how the Bonnie and Clyde gang has always been portrayed.

The film focuses on the German occupation of Byelorussia during World War II. The German army units featured in the movie are part of the SS and bent on wholesale destruction and slaughter, without bothering to make the difference between Soviet partisans and civilians. The gruesome, horrific and bloody events are seen through the eyes of a local, young teenager named Flyora, who decides to leave his mother and 2 sisters behind and join a partisan unit that has set up camp in a nearby forest. The story develops from that point onwards, showing what happens to Flyora, and how the Nazi atrocities affect the local population.

It is a hard-hitting movie, which shows war in hyper-realistic mode, without concessions. There are some highly graphic scenes: the horror of war and mass slaughter is everywhere, creating a sense of bewilderment, randomness and despair. The expression on the face of the main character - Flyora, the witness to it all - is, at times, unbearably raw: he is so scared and horrified that he could scream, and yet he does not and cannot. If nothing else, it is Flyora's face that you will remember.

The film is patriotic in that Soviet kind of style, but this is not, per se, a patriotic movie: as pointed out by various reviewers, it is an anti-war film, quite unique in the way that it does not glamorize war and violence, telling it like it is, from the point of view of ordinary people. And yet, amidst all the horror, there is resilience, there is life and there is hope. A memorable and necessary film, but not an easy watch.

In 1830, Thomas Munro (Guy Pearce) is a lay minister from Britain who has just arrived in New Zealand. He is to perform missionary work and to live in a British settlement by the coast, called Epworth. But very quickly, Munro finds himself involved in the bloody clashes opposing 2 local Maori tribes: one led by Maianui, and the other by his arch-enemy, Akatarewa. The story develops from there.

The film is very good at re-creating the early days of the British colony in New Zealand. It also gives us an insight into the warrior culture of the Maori tribes that inhabited the country when the European settlers arrived. Finally, the landscapes are sumptuous: there is something striking, awe-inspiring, primeval and powerful about nature and the wilderness, as we see it through Munro's eyes, in the movie.

It is a very good film and the Maori actors have remarkable on-screen presence, more particularly Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne as Rangimai, daughter of Maianui. My only reservation would be that I found the ending of the film, on a certain level, a little bit flat and somehow underwhelming, as the expression goes: I do not want to say any more so as not to spoil the story for viewers. Overall, it is a rare and memorable film, which you are most unlikely to forget.

Novelist Maurice Bendrix (Ralph Fiennes) narrates the film, which is about the affair he has had with a beautiful woman, Sarah Miles (Julianne Moore), who is married to a senior civil servant, Henry Miles (Stephen Rea). Sarah has never been particularly happy with Henry, who is intelligent but dull, and tends to focus exclusively on his work for the government.

The movie is very well crafted, re-creating the sepia and foggy atmosphere of London in the 1930s and 1940s very well, including the war years, with the toll that the Blitz takes on the city and its inhabitants. In this respect, it is very much a period film. Essentially, this is a sentimental drama focused on Maurice and Sarah, who engage in a passionate affair as they fall madly in love. But the conventional triangle - lover, mistress and husband - is not all there is to the story: the 4th party to the story is God, as Sarah's Catholic faith very much is part of the equation. Representing God, so to speak, is a Catholic priest, Father Richard Smythe (Jason Isaacs).

One recognises themes that recur in the novels of Graham Greene (the film is based on the novel of the same title), for whom faith and Catholicism were central concerns: coming to terms with one's sins (if one is prepared to recognise them as such), seeking redemption for them (or not), and so on. In the last analysis, the even deeper question is asked: does any of that matter if God does not exist, and how do we know that He does exist, and that He cares?

So, what could have been a mere sentimental drama set in the past becomes, in the process, something more complex and more profound - an unusual storyline in some respects, with a dark, metaphysical side. The film is intelligent, captivating and interesting in many respects, but it is also rather gloomy, in a way that you cannot shake off, as if it stuck to the skin.

The film takes place in Japan during the Edo period (1603-1868). Tattooing - an ancient practice known as 'irezumi' in Japanese, hence the title of the film - is central to the story. Otsuya (Ayako Wakao) is the beautiful and seductive daughter of a wealthy merchant. She falls in love with Shinsuke (Akio Hasegawa), her father’s apprentice, who is of a much lower social status. The couple decide to elope in order to escape the anger of Otsuya's father. The two lovers, however, are in a vulnerable position and various individuals try to take advantage of them - more particularly of the beautiful Otsuya.

The merchant's daughter finds herself destined to become a geisha - presented as a form of prostitution in the movie - and her body is violated when the image of a bloodthirsty spider is tattooed on her back without her consent. That spider, known as 'jorogumo', is a supernatural entity in the Japanese tradition, which can shape-shift between the form of a golden orb-weaver spider and a beautiful woman. Somehow, in the film, the spider and Otsuya become one, and the spider is a curse on all those involved. Otsuya is strong-willed and bold, and she decides she will take revenge on all those who have tormented her, more particularly the men who have taken advantage of her.

The film develops from that point onwards into a dark and gory tale of lust, love, blood, violence and murder. The movie is fascinating in a morbid kind of way, as the curse of the spider tattoo comes to dominate the entire narrative. It is an interesting and captivating film, which also represents a reflection on various broad themes, such as the nature of love and power. It is very good at showing the amount of power that lust and beauty can give to a seemingly helpless woman like Otsuya, at the expense of the men who would do anything to possess her.

Set in the distant future, the story takes place in a remote location, in the middle of the mountains, in Japan, where George Almore (Theo James) is working on his own in a secretive R&D centre for his company. George is on his own inside the spacecraft-like building, in the company of 2 robots he has developed without telling his employer: J1, which is quite simple, and J2, which is already more advanced.

George is now working on J3, a very advanced humanoid robot in the shape of a woman who looks uncannily like Jules, i.e. George's late wife (Stacy Martin). George wants to download all of Jules' consciousness, and all the data relating to her, onto J3, to somehow create a robotic copy of his deceased partner. George has little time left because a company called Archive is holding all of Jules's data on their systems, and the storage contract, which allows George to interact with – a virtual – Jules for a total of 200 hours, will soon come to an end. The story develops from here.

This is a peculiar film that will charm you, unsettle you, intrigue you, and make you think - some kind of philosophical tale as to what it means to be alive (and to be dead), and what it means to be a human being (as opposed to a machine). The movie works very well on many levels. Although there are no spectacular fireworks – it certainly isn't an action movie – the plot holds the viewer's attention and there is a huge amount of tension at times as the story unfolds. The film is slick and feels oddly plausible. It was shot mainly in Hungary and in Norway (the waterfall featured in the film is called Månafossen). I have not managed to establish where the research centre (where George lives and works) is located, on the assumption that it is a real location: it looks absolutely amazing.

Overall, it is a very good film, and the ending is unexpected. I do not want to say any more so as not to spoil anything.