Film Reviews by griggs

Welcome to griggs's film reviews page. griggs has written 705 reviews and rated 2019 films.

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The Hireling

A Slow Drive into Heartache

(Edit) 25/07/2025


A postwar chauffeur and an aristocratic widow might not sound like the most combustible pair, but the Hireling quietly thrives on repression, not fireworks. Robert Shaw plays Leadbitter, a former sergeant turned driver-for-hire, who stiff pride slowly unravels as he forms a tentative friendship—perhaps more—with Sarah Miles’ emotionally battered Lady Franklin. It’s a film of quiet corners and unspoken longing, all framed in perfectly muted tones.


Alan Bridges’ direction is purposeful and methodical, almost to a fault, but that deliberate pacing becomes the film’s secret weapon. You don’t realise how much it’s working on you until you’re sunk into it—one small gesture or sigh at a time.


The class dynamics are clear, but never shouted. Instead, there’s a slow, aching recognition of what people mean to each other—and what they don’t. By the final stretch, what began as a story of companionship becomes something altogether more raw and unsparing. Not flashy, but it sticks.


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Southland Tales

Everyone, Everywhere, All at Once—For No Reason

(Edit) 26/07/2025


If ambition were enough, Southland Tales might have been something special. But with so many moving parts—and not enough control—it ends up feeling more like a scrapbook than a story. There are some sharp ideas buried in here: a take on American paranoia, celebrity culture, and the politics of fear. But most of it gets losts in heavy voiceovers, tangled plot lines, and scenes that seem pulled from different films entirely.


The cast is full of well-known faces, many playing odd or unexpected roles. But instead of streamlining, the film seems to try to use everyone, stretching the running time and testing your patience.


As science fiction, it’s too muddled to excite. As satire,  it’s too confused to hit the mark. With more focus—and much less exposition—it might have turned into a dark, strange cult favourite. Instead, Southland Tales tries to do everything, and ends up not doing much at all.


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Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut

The Man of Steel, Recut and Reframed

(Edit) 26/07/2025


It’s been years since I saw the Richard Lester version of Superman II, but this cut feels sharper, cleaner—less stitched together. Donner’s version has a steelier spine: the violence is punchier, the tone slightly darker, and the chemistry between crackles with more innuendo than I remember from watching the Lester version on Saturday afternoon TV.


The narrative flows with a newfound coherence, as if the film finally knows what it wants to be—a proper sequel rather than a patchwork of reshoots and slapstick. It's still a comic book film at heart, but one that treats its characters with a bit more weight. That said, can still spot the joins—screen test footage, tonal shifts, and the occasional rough edge remind you this is a reconstruction, not a finished work.


The ending, too, lands differently. No memory-wiping kiss here. Instead Superman turns back time—again—which might strain the logic but feels oddly right for this mythic world of capes and consequences. DOnner's cut may not be definitive for everyone, but it gives the film the gravity it always hinted at, and gives Reeve's Superman a little more birth beneath the smile.


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The Glass Key

Ladd, Lake and Lines that Cut Deep

(Edit) 26/07/2025


You can hear The Glass Key’s influence before you see it. The dialogue snaps like a mousetrap—short, sharp and always a little too clever for the room. There is a certain pleasure in watching characters talk circles around each other while the plot moves like a chess game played with knuckle dusters.


Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake bring the cool, thought he heat mostly comes from the supporting players and a script that never wastes a line. It’s easy to spot traces of this film in later noirs and political thrillers—the crooked alliances, the weary loyalty, the sense that everyone’s bluffing.


Still, it doesn’t quite have the weight or tension of the genre’s heavy hitters. The mystery resolves a little too neatly, and the pacing occasionally stalls between punches. But it’s a brisk, talky gem that earns its place in the noir toolkit—less a masterpiece, more a blueprint with flair.


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Black Caesar

Fast Rise, Rough Ride, Funky Finish

(Edit) 26/07/2025


Rough around the edges but never dull, Black Caesar punches above its weight for much of its runtime. It opens with swagger—setting up a revenge arc laced with righteous fury—and for a while, it marches like a street-level Scarface. But somewhere in the middle, the story hits fast-forward, skipping beats that might’ve given the rise-and-fall arc more weight.


Still, there’s plenty to admire. Fred Williamson carries it with stone-faced charisma, and James Brown’s soundtrack does more than keep pace—it practically drives the action. Some scenes catch you off guard, not just for their sudden violence but for how raw and pointed they feel. One moment in particular is as ugly as it is unforgettable.


It doesn’t all hold together, but there’s real energy here, and a few flashes of something deeper beneath the genre grit. Black Caesar might veer off course, but it circles back with just enough punch to make the journey worthwhile.


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Bring Her Back

Slow Burn, Deep Wounds

(Edit) 27/07/2025


Gory, gruesome, and gripping. Bring Her Back doesn’t just shock—it creeps under the skin and stays there. What begins as a slow burn is anything but dull; the gradual buil gives the characters and themes space to develop, letting grief, guilt, and suppressed madness unfold at the their own unnerving pace. It’s a film that trusts it audience to sit with discomfort—and earns that trust handsomely.


Sally Hawkins is extraordinary—tight-wound, haunted, and utterly convincing—but debutant Sora Wong is the revelation. She brings quiet intensity to the screen, as if holding back a storm, making her every movement feel charged.


Though the setup may sound familiar, the film charts its course with real confidence. It’s sharply written, grimly inventive, and never afraid to go all the way once it hits its stride. Among this year’s releases few have made such a mess—or such a mark. Bring Her Back is hard to forget, and harder still to shake-off.


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The Paperboy

Swamp Soup

(Edit) 27/07/2025


There’s throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks—and then there’s The Paperboy, where the wall seems to have wandered off mid-shoot. It flirts with half a dozen genres, tones, and plotlines, but commits to none. Is it a coming-of-age story? Southern Gothic? A deep-fried crime thriller? An erotic melodrama? A racial commentary? A journalism procedural? Take your pick but don’t expect any of them to work together—or even separately.


Zac Efron looks confused, and frankly, who can blame him? Nicole Kidman knows what kind of film she’s in—something hot, messy, and absurd—and leans in with chaotic gusto. John Cusack is sweaty and deranged, Matthew McConaughey is earnest and miscast, and David Oyelowo seems to be aiming for a different, better movie altogether. Macy Gray, meanwhile, narrates the whole thing with a bemused tone that starts to feel like the film’s only honest voice.


The result isn’t a train wreck—it’s five trains crashing on parallel tracks. It’s not unwatchable, but it’s barely a film. Just a sun-baked mess of sweat, lust, and poor direction.


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The Lady from Shanghai

Chaotic & Brilliant Noir Gem

(Edit) 27/07/2025


The Lady from Shanghai is a noir gem, not because it's flawless but because its flaws are fascinating. The plot? A messy, chaotic tangle that stumbles more than it strides—never entirely taking off.


Despite their off-screen history, Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth share zero on-screen chemistry, perhaps due to the butchering Welles was forced to do in the edit suite to please the producers, making their romance as icy as Hayworth's platinum blonde hair.


But that finale! The hall-of-mirrors sequence is one of noir's coolest, most stylised endings and leaves a lasting impression, a testament to the film's enduring legacy. This dazzling, breath-stealing masterpiece almost redeems the preceding narrative chaos. It's Welles at his most chaotic and brilliant.


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Amadeus

A Symphony of Genius and Jealousy

(Edit) 27/07/2025


Amadeus is one of those rare films that manages to be grand and intimate at the same time. Set against the powdered wigs and ornate splendour of 18th-century Vienna, it tells a deeply human story of envy, genius, and the unbearable silence of being ordinary.


F. Murray Abraham gives a towering performance as Salieri, a man crushed not by failure but by the knowledge that his mediocrity exists alongside Mozart’s brilliance. Tom Hulce’s Mozart is electric—childish, vulgar, and casually divine at the keyboard. The rivalry that unfolds between them isn’t just personal; it’s metaphysical.


The storytelling is elegant, the script wickedly sharp, and the music—of course—is sublime. But what makes Amadeus so extraordinary is its understanding that greatness isn’t always heroic, and jealousy isn’t always unjustified.


It’s a lavish, haunting, and unexpectedly funny film that dares to ask why talent lands where it does—and what the rest of us are meant to do about it.


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Spellbound

Theremins and Trauma

(Edit) 27/07/2025


Stylish and suspenseful, Spellbound is a melodrama with more going on beneath the surface than many of its 1940s peers. Hitchcock brings a cool precision to what is, at heart, a psychological whodunnit—with added Freud and a dash of Dalí for flair. The story leans heavily on the romance between Ingrid Bergman’s steely psychiatrist and Gregory Peck’s dreamy amnesiac. While the film still grips, the psychology now feels more charmingly outdated than cutting-edge.


It treats psychoanalysis like a narrative scalpel—cutting cleanly through trauma, guilt, and repression to arrive at a single, tidy resolution. Dreams aren’t elusive riddles here; they’re literal puzzles, waiting for someone like Bergman to decode. Peck’s character, meanwhile, suffers from a textbook case of psychogenic amnesia—a plot device masquerading as a diagnosis, cured by a dose of therapy and romantic perseverance. It’s hardly realistic, but keeps the tension taut.


Bergman carries the film with quiet resolve, while Peck teeters between haunted and wooden depending on the moment. The real thrill, though, lies in the design—the eerie dream sequence with Dalí’s surrealist landscapes and giant eyeballs, the razor-edged shadows that echo Hitchcock’s thrillers, and Miklós Rózsa’s theremin-fuelled score, which wails like the inner workings of a nervous breakdown.


The final act ties things up a little too neatly, and the gender dynamics—progressive for the time—still settle into a familiar mould: woman as emotional caregiver, man as fragile genius. Still, there’s a strange comfort in the clarity with which everything resolves, and Hitchcock keeps a steady hand on the tone throughout.


 

Spellbound may not be peak Hitchcock, but it’s a striking blend of noir intrigue, glossy romance, and psychological spectacle—more elegant than it is accurate, and all the more watchable for it.


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Miami Blues

Crime, Sunshine, and a Crooked Grin

(Edit) 27/07/2025


I expected something much darker, but Miami Blues turns out to be more offbeat caper than hard-boiled noir. It’s violent, sure, but there’s a playful shrug to the mayhem—as if the film itself isn’t quite taking any of it seriously. Alex Baldwin struts through the chaos with a crooked grin and the energy of a man who’s never considered a long-term plan.


Fred Ward is the moral compass, albeit a bent one, playing a weary cop whose badge ends up in all the wrong hands. Jennifer Jason Leigh’s naïve optimism adds a strange sweetness to the mess, like someone wandered in from a romcom and decided to stay.


The tone is uneven, but that’s also part of the charm—it refuse to behave the way you expect. Whether it’s a crime film, satire or something in between, Miami Blues doesn’t quite settle. But for all its jagged edges, there’s something oddly enjoyable about watching it stumble around in its own madness.


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La Piscine

Sex, Sunstroke, and Suspicion

(Edit) 28/07/2025


Exuding heat—dry, heavy, and suffocating in more ways than one, La Piscene drifts along as slowly as a summer’s day, and at times it’s just as torturous. The tone is oddly matter of fact, which leaves certain events feeling curiously flat—dramatic events brushed on with a cool detachment. It can be a demanding watch, especially compared to Guadagnino’s remake A Bigger Splash, whose seductive swirl is anchored by Ralph Fiennes’ gloriously unhinged charisma—an ingredient sorely missed here.


Still there is much to admire. Set on the sun-drenched French RIviera, it charts a holiday where jealousy, desire and long dormant resentment simmer quietly. Romy Schneider and Alain Delon are magnetic, and Jane Birkin’s wide-eyed presence adds a touch of eerie innocence. The central act—a moment of quiet horror—is a genuine jolt. It’s just a pity the post-climax stretch drags on, like an afternoon that refuses to cool down.


What ultimately rescues the film is its atmosphere. Those shimmering Mediterranean colours, the endless hum of cicadas, the bleached stillness of it all—captures heat not just as weather, but as mood. If A Bigger Splash was named after David Hockey’s painting, this is the sunstroke that inspired it.


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Friendship

Clingy, Cringey, and Kind of Brilliant

(Edit) 24/07/2025


There aren’t many films that make me laugh out loud in a cinema—Friendship did. Loudly. It’s a goofy, surreal spin on the terror of adult socialising, seen through the eyes of a needy, borderline-psychopathic energy vampire desperately trying to wedge himself into another man’s friend group. Tim Robinson plays the kind of character that might split the room—somewhere between Larry David in Curb and Steve Carell in The Office—but with a difference: he’s not smug, just catastrophically earnest. He doesn’t want to be right, he just wants to belong… even if it means steamrolling every boundary in sight.


His long-suffering wife deserves hazard pay, trapped in a marriage with a man who treats social interaction like a hostage negotiation. The humour leans uncomfortably close to tragedy, but always pulls back just before it hits despair. There’s something admirably loose about the whole thing—not everything sticks, but that feels part of the charm.


It’s deranged, strangely sweet, and very funny. Not quite glued down, but it doesn’t need to be.


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The Chase

Brando Smoulders while the Town’s on Fire

(Edit) 25/07/2025


A year before Arthur Penn kicked Hollywood’s teeth in with Bonnie & Clyde, he served up the The Chase—all tension, sweat, and Southern sleaze, but not quite the revolution.


On paper, it’s dynamite: Brando as the weary sheriff trying to hold the town together with a stare and a sigh: Redford, all bruised charisma, as the escaped convict everyone turns into a symbol; Fonda, strung tight between regret and desire. And that’s before you even get to the supporting cast—Fox, Dickinson, Duvall, Rule—each adding fuel to the fire that’s always just about to ignite.


The plot is simple: a jailbreak and the social meltdown it triggers in a small Texas town. But the atmosphere is the draw—greed, gossip, booze, and bigotry ooze out of every frame. By the time it erupts into a junkyard hellscape, it’s less about justice adn more about collapse.


It doesn’t always stick the landing, but the chaos feels earned. Brando doesn’t perform as much as smoulders—like he’s waiting for the credits to put him out. Messy, yes. But never dull.


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In the Cut

It’s Not Love. It’s Trauma With Benefits.

(Edit) 25/07/2025


In the Cut isn’t that film that ruined Meg Ryan’s career—it’s the one that proved she had range the romcoms never let her show. As Frankie, an emotionally armoured English teacher, she falls into a raw, obsessive affair with a crass, possibly murderous cop (a sweaty, swaggering Ruffalo). It’s not erotic escapism—it’s the kind of sec that make your flight-or-fight instinct twitch.


Back when Ryan appeared on Parkinson to promote it, she got the cold shoulder. The film was mocked, misunderstood, and mis-shelved. But two decades on, it’s been reappraised as a feminist masterpiece. Which considering it’s Campion should surprise no one.


Set during a sweltering NYC summer, the heat isn’t just physical—it’s psychological. Desire and danger become indistinguishable. You’re drawn to the thing most likely to kill you. Campion threads that kink through every frame, making pleasure feel like a threat.


Uncomfortable? Absolutely. But it’s honest, unsettling, and far more daring that the prestige dramas still playing it safe.


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