Film Reviews by JG

This umpteenth reworking of The Seven Samurai is just plain nasty. If pointless blood-baths it you thing you might enjoy it, we didn’t.

Hoping for much better having recently seen the terrific The Cranes are Flying, made during the same period. This is saccharine commi kitsch, made to please the Party bosses, full of wholesome patriotic young heroes, filmed in what was by then a diluted and cliched Soviet style.

An unexpectedly tough and finely filmed movie. Often looking like a Hopper painting, the same sunlit, empty locations and oblique characters. Tense throughout.

A muddled film. It attempts a grand historical sweep, but founders on unsimpathetic characters and poor scripting. The lead is so self obsessed it’s almost unbearable...

As one might expect of Wajda, this is a very well made film, but it’s politics are troubling. Given the ruling Socialist ideology of the period, the three main characters, all ruthless capitalists, are little more than caricature oppressors of the downtrodden workers. That one is a stereotyped Jew, is very disturbing given the wartime fate of the Polish Jews.

A very fine homage to the great Italian director by the equally talented Ferrara. Wonderful low light camera work and brilliant screen play based on meticulous research.

Avoids all the cliches this subject could have provoked. A poetic tribute.

This is a pretty dumb cop film with every move signposted and lashing of sentimentality. It has been heralded as a French ‘Heat’ which is absurd. For a start the later had an excellent director and script.