Film Reviews by griggs

I missed this one on release—most likely because I was either working, studying, or actually out clubbing. Now back in circulation, it’s a cheerfully chaotic one-night-only caper from 1999, bottled at the tail end of the pre-millennium party era. John Simm leads the charge, with a fresh-faced Danny Dyer showing the swagger he’d later trade on. The plot is a blur of pubs, nightclubs, dodgy encounters, and a rotating cast of eccentrics, stitched together with a kind of affectionate silliness.

What makes it more than just a time capsule is the way it captures the optimism and absurdity of a night out when you’re young enough to think sunrise is a goal. Andrew Lincoln’s turn as a man wistfully recounting his glory days is a quiet highlight—funny, bittersweet, and just the right amount of self-aware. It’s scrappy, a little dated, but good company for anyone who remembers when the biggest problem on a night out was not having enough money left for the nightbus.

A loan shark with a love for old movies comes to Hollywood to collect a debt and ends up trying to produce a film—it’s the sort of premise that promises both satire and swagger. Get Shorty delivers some of that, but mostly coasts on its cast’s charm. John Travolta, fresh from his Pulp Fiction renaissance, plays Chili Palmer as a smooth-talking operator who glides through LA’s criminal and cinematic underworld with the same deadpan confidence.

It’s a fun but insubstantial slice of post-Tarantino pulp—slick, jokey, and self-aware without ever being particularly sharp. Gene Hackman’s turn as a hapless B-movie producer is a highlight, and there’s amusement in the revolving door of hustlers, actors, and gangsters all trying to out-con one another. But it’s a pleasant diversion and nothing more: light on tension, heavier on knowing smirks.

The film ends up like its protagonist—cool, well-dressed, and utterly untroubled. Enjoyable while it lasts, but it drifts away as easily as a pitch meeting gone nowhere.

It’s the performance that keep Cast a Dark Shadow afloat more than the plot itself. Dirk Bogarde make a wonderfully psychotic presence, all charm and menace, as a man who preys on wealthy widows. Margaret Lockwood is equally magnetic—sharp-tongues, no-nonsense, and entirely capable of matching him blow for blow. Kathleen Harrison brings sweetness and simplicity to her role, which only heightens the tension when danger circles close.

The story, however, veers towards the silly, especially in its neatly tied-up ending. Still, it’s easy to imagine post-war audiences taking it more seriously; fears of spivs and fortune hunters targeting war widows would have felt closer to home in the 1950s. The mix of melodrama and murder keeps things, lively, and the interplay between the leads is worth the ticket alone.

Cast a Dark Shadow may not be the most tightly woven thriller, but with this cast, even the frayed edges are entertaining. Sometimes it's not the shadowy plot that matters it, but who's cast it.

Revenge has rarely looked this stylish. Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep Well swaps swords for suits, turning Hamlet into a boardroom coup played out in glass towers and smoke-filled backrooms. The murdered king is now a disgraced executive, the court a nest of calculating bureaucrats, and the avenger a son-in-law with a plane honed to cut without a blade in sight.

Toshiba Mifune is magnetic. Known for his volcanic bursts, here he plays it cool—controlled, calculating, his charisma simmering like a fuse. Each smile is a provocation; each pause a trap.

It’s paced with precision, never wasting a step. Conversations spark and sting, while Kurosawa turns silence into a weapon, letting glances and stillness land like well-aimed blows. Like Shakespeare’s prince, Nishi walks the knife edge between justice and self-destruction—and Mifune makes every moment of that balancing act a thrill to watch.

Time is slippery in Gazer, and not just for its protagonist. Frankie, played with taut, haunted energy by Ariella Mastroianni, suffers from a rare neurological disorder that scrambles her sense of time. She records cassette memos, peers through windows, and drifts into a job that turns dangerous fast. Shot on grainy 16mm in Jersey City, the film borrows freely—Memento’s fractured chronology, The Conversation’s paranoia, and visual nods to Lynch and Cronenberg.

 It’s atmospheric, with streetlights buzzing, shadows breathing, and a soundscape that coils tightly around the action. Mastroianni’s performance is the anchor, shifting between resolve and fragility. But the film’s biggest flaw is its ambition—it sometimes gets so wrapped up in its own loops that it loses focus, and occasionally the viewer too. When it clicks, it’s hypnotic noir; when it doesn’t, it feels like déjà vu without the payoff.

A clever idea doesn’t always make for a compelling film. Shadow of the Vampire spins a juicy premise—what if Max Schreck really was a vampire?—into a self-aware behind-the-scenes riff on Nosferatu. It’s bold, it’s arch… and unfortunately, it runs out of bit long before the lights come up.

The concept starts strong but quickly sags. The satire—of moviemaking, obsession, and method acting taken to, bloodthirsty extremes—feels like a one-joke sketch padded out to feature length. Once you’ve clocked the gag, there’s not much left to discover.

That said, Willem Dafoe is the reason to watch. Hidden under layers of prosthetics, he give Schreck a twitchy, reptilian charm—equal parts menace and pathos. He’s funny, creepy, and oddly touching, even as the rest of the film flounders around him.

Atmospheric but slight, Shadow of the Vampire promises a feast and delivers a curio—sharp teeth, but not much meat.

Life hits hard in Kinshasa, but Félicité hits back—at least at first. The film’s opening half if electric: a no-nonsense bar singer pounding the pavement for cash to save her sone, her fury and fear held just beneath the surface. Véro Tshanda Beya is magnetic—tough, watchful, and quietly devastating. Even when saying little, she holds the screen like someone who’s spent years refusing to be ignored.

Once her son returns home and the crisis cools, the film downshifts. It trades urgency for introspection. The pace slows, but the emotional payoff builds. Alain Gomis’ direction is patient, and Céline Bozon’s cinematography finds beauty in both the bustle and stillness—neon lit bars, humming streets, and shafts of morning light slicing through concrete.

Not all of it fits snugly together, but the images linger and the emotion simmers. Sometimes resilience is found not in action, but in refusal to collapse.

Don’t be fooled by the brisk pace or confined setting—Cairo Station is no minor platform drama. It’s a masterstroke of tension and compassion, blending Italian neo-realism with Hitchcokian suspense, all unfolding in the noise and heat of Cairo’s railway hub. Youssef Chahine, in a move both humble and audacious, directs and stars as Kenawi, a physically disabled newspaper vendor whose yearning for love curdles into obsession.

Every frame hums with life. The location shooting and mobile camerawork lend it a raw immediacy—closer to spirit to Bicycle Thieves than any studio-bound melodrama. But it’s Chahine’s psychological acuity that makes this a classic. Kenawi is no villain, nor a hero—he’s a disturbingly human product of isolation, repression, and toxic masculinity. That a film from 1958 can speak so clearly to issues still playing out today is nothing short of remarkable.

Cairo Station doesn’t just hold up—it reaches forward. Daring, empathetic, and ahead of its time, it reminds us what cinema can do when it isn’t afraid to look unflinchingly at the human condition.

Hard to say whether Waking Life is philosophising or just monologuing with a highlighter. Richard Linklater hands the mic to an endless stream of thinkers, stoners, scholars, and cranks—some animated as if mid-seizure thanks to the rotoscoping, which here feels more distracting than deep. One of those voices belongs to Alex Jones, which adds a layer of discomfort I could’ve done without.

The film is a cascade of “conversations” on free will, death, dreams, time, the soul, politics, love, and God—each competing to out-meta the last. It shares DNA with Slacker, but without the wit or rough-edged charm. There’s something admirable about the ambition, but the format turns even the most interesting ideas into academic mush. “The story is singular,” one character claims, right before another ten ramble in to contradict him.

 It’s a film you watch less with your eyes and more with your eyebrows raised. Some moments catch a spark—but too often, it’s like eavesdropping on a university common room where nobody asks questions, only performs answers.

Looking for an escape from suburban malaise, three middle-aged friends embark on a boozy odyssey that’s equal parts liberation and self-destruction. Cassavetes captures something uncomfortably true about male friendship—the way grown men revert to adolescent cruelty when confronted with mortality. Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk, and Cassavetes himself deliver performances that feel less like acting than eavesdropping on actual breakdowns.

The film’s notorious length works both for and against it. Extended scenes of drunken singing and bathroom confessions create genuine intimacy, but also test patience like a house guest who won’t leave. Recently, I’ve heard it said, that Cassavetes is a misogynist. I really don’t believe that to be true. In his character studies, he observes some who are misogynists, and no more than in Husbands. These men aren’t heroes—they’re specimens under his unflinching microscope.

The result is cinema that’s simultaneously magnetic and exhausting, like the friends it depicts. Flawed but fearless filmmaking.

Plenty of noirs go hard-boiled; this one goes scorched. Raw Deal isn’t just a title—it’s a mission statement. Dennis O’Keefe’s jailbreak antihero seethes with menace, flanked by two women who aren’t so much femme fatales as moral foils: one smouldering with regret, the other smirking at the chaos. Claire Trevor narrates with a voice like burnt caramel, while Raymond Burr chews scenery and sets it alight.

Anthony Mann keeps things tight, nasty, and visually punchy—every shadow has a shiv in it. At times, the plot runs on noir autopilot (double-crosses, prison breaks, flaming cocktails…), but it’s the mood that makes it stick. There’s a gnawing fatalism here that hits harder than the fists.

It also dares to let its female characters drive the emotional gear shifts—rare in a genre that usually keeps them decorative or doomed. If the ending feels bleak, it’s because it earns it. No illusions, no redemption. Just grit, smoke, and a raw deal, all round.

When word spread that a film was being made about the glam rock heyday of David Bowie and Marc Bolan—with Michael Stipe producing and a cast full of cool—expectations ran high among my friends. NME fanned the flames for months, long before a single frame was shot. But when it finally landed, the verdict was swift. Croydon, mid-tramworks and unmistakably ‘90s, standing in for 1970s Manhattan? It didn’t quite sell the fantasy.

So I skipped Velvet Goldmine—until now. And yes, that Croydon underpass still sticks out like a sore thumb.

Bowie, Bolan, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop are mashed into fictional avatars, but without Bowie’s music, what’s left sounds more like late-stage Britpop than glam’s golden roar. The Citizen Kane structure is ambitious, but here it meanders, searching for significance and mostly finding sequins. It’s more moodboard than movie—rich in style, thin on substance.

There’s a cult following, sure. But I’d wager few of them ever changed trams at East Croydon.

I’m pleased I saw this in the cinema. The first time I watched it at home, distractions got the better of me, and I chalked it up as a solid 2.5. This time, I was ready: dark room, no phones, no kettle boiling—just me and Kubrick’s take on Thackeray. God, I wish there had been some distractions.

Of course it’s long. But it’s the kind of long that makes you feel time passing. When the intermission slide appeared, I was grateful for a moment to stretch and regroup. Then the film just… kept going. No pause. Just more exquisitely lit drawing rooms and measured narration.

Technically, Barry Lyndon is a marvel. The lighting, the compositions, the sheer control—it’s all extraordinary. Every frame could be hung on a gallery wall. But narratively? It plods. Emotionally? It freezes. It’s a classic, yes—but one for the formalists, the Kubrick devotees, and the historians. For the casual viewer, it’s less a film than a slow, luxurious exhibition of cinematic restraint.

Quiet, meditative, and stripped to its essentials, Taste of Cherry unfolds more as a journey than a traditional story—measured, searching, and quietly profound. A man drives the dusty outskirts of Tehran, asking strangers for a peculiar kind of help. No backstory, no clear reason—Just his quiet persistence, met with response that range from wary to tender.

Kiarostami directs with the patience of a poet. Long takes, uncluttered framing, and a cast of mostly non-professional actors lend the film a realism that borders on documentary. Homayoun Ershadi brings a quiet intensity to the central role—composed, courteous, unreadable. His restraint creates space for the passengers' reflections to carry the emotional weight.

What emerges is less a film about death than one about the meanings people attach to life—through faith, work, family and small, fleeting moments of beauty, The conversation that take place in the car touch on kindness, despair, religion, poverty, and perspective. Kiarostami's minimalism isn't cold or austere—it's generous, leaving space to think, to breathe, and to listen.

Taste of Cherry is a fable as much as a film. It raises questions without offering tidy answers, and its refusal to define or conclude feels like an invitation rather than a dodge. The film doesn't hold your hand—but does leave one outstretched.

Quiet, meditative, and stripped to its essentials, Taste of Cherry unfolds more as a journey than a traditional story—measured, searching, and quietly profound. A man drives the dusty outskirts of Tehran, asking strangers for a peculiar kind of help. No backstory, no clear reason—Just his quiet persistence, met with response that range from wary to tender.

Kiarostami directs with the patience of a poet. Long takes, uncluttered framing, and a cast of mostly non-professional actors lend the film a realism that borders on documentary. Homayoun Ershadi brings a quiet intensity to the central role—composed, courteous, unreadable. His restraint creates space for the passengers' reflections to carry the emotional weight.

What emerges is less a film about death than one about the meanings people attach to life—through faith, work, family and small, fleeting moments of beauty, The conversations that take place in the car touch on kindness, despair, religion, poverty, and perspective. Kiarostami's minimalism isn't cold or austere—it's generous, leaving space to think, to breathe, and to listen.

Taste of Cherry is a fable as much as a film. It raises questions without offering tidy answers, and its refusal to define or conclude feels like an invitation rather than a dodge. The film doesn't hold your hand—but does leave one outstretched.