Film Reviews by griggs

Somewhere between Say Anything and Pulp Fiction lies Grosse Pointe Blank—a rom-com in a hitman’s suit. John Cusack plays a professional killer heading home for his high school reunion, which turns out to be more about closure than carnage. He’s mopey, sardonic, and of course, he’s brought Joan along for the ride.

Dan Aykroyd turns up to chew scenery and exchange bullets in a couple of shootouts—highly choreographed, oddly daft, and occasionally impressive. But for all the firepower, the film never quite goes off. The stakes remain soft, the thriller elements mostly decorative, and the dialogue often feels improvised. Like many films in Tarantino’s wake, the mood and pace are set not by plot but by soundtrack. Joe Strummer’s score, plus a roster of ’80s and ’90s alternative and ska, sells the nostalgia and smooths over the narrative wobble.

Grosse Pointe Blank is more interested in looking and sounding cool than saying anything. It’s enjoyable enough—just don’t expect it to hit the mark.

Dust clings to every surface, and silence says more than diagloue in Yaaba, a quietly affecting tale from Burkina Faso. A young g boy befriends an elderly outcast known as "the witch", much to the disapproval of his viallage. Their friendship is the heart of the film—understated, unsentimental, and the more powerful for it.

The story move with the rhythm of rural life—unhurried, circular, and marked by small, decisive moments. Squabbles, illness, suspicion, and tenderness unfold in long takes and sparse exchanges. Their's a folkloric quality to it all, but it's grounded in the dust and heat of a world that feels both real and gently mythic.

Not everything lands. Some emotional beats are a little too tidy, and the plot leans more on mood than momentu,. But Ouédraogo's eye is sharp, and his restraint admirable. Yaaba is slight, yes—but also quietly absorbing, offering a rare window into childhood, community, and compassion etched into the landscape itself.

On the surface, it’s all soda fountains and sock hops. But beneath Pleasantville’s glossy black-and-white shell lies something far thornier. The film presents itself as a parable of repression and personal awakening, with colour seeping in as characters discover art, desire, and dissent. It’s clever, up to a point.

As townsfolk begin policing who’s “in colour” and who isn’t—banning books, smashing windows, and enforcing curfews—the parallels to 1950s authoritarianism are clear. But while the film borrows the language and tactics of segregation-era America, it avoids any direct engagement with race. The town is conspicuously white, making its civil rights allegory feel oddly hollow. For a film about expanding perspective, the view stays curiously narrow.

There’s charm in places—Jeff Daniels’ timid artist, Joan Allen’s quiet defiance—but it ends up feeling more like a concept than a conviction. Pleasantville wants to colour outside the lines but never quite picks the right brush.

Tone is the problem. Or rather, tones—plural—vying for dominance like jealous siblings. The Young Poisoner’s Handbook can’t decide whether it wants to be a sardonic true-crime character study or a grotesque farce. The result is a film that feels oddly weightless, despite all the poisoning.

Based on the life of Graham Young, it charts his journey from precocious sociopath to calculating killer, with a heavy dose of ironic detachment. But the irony feels brittle, the humour forced. The performances are fine—Hugh O’Conor does a decent job of making Graham eerie yet oddly flat—but there’s no real insight, only affectation.

The film flirts with satire, especially in the institutional scenes, but never lands a strong point. It’s too glib to be disturbing, too arch to be moving. There’s potential here—a chilling story and a killer concept—but it’s buried under tonal whiplash and a script that keeps smirking at its own cleverness.

 This handbook might be better left unread.

There’s no easing in—just a lurch straight into chaos.Late Shift doesn’t let up, tracking one overstretched nurse through a night that feels like it might never end. It moves at breakneck speed, stacking emergencies, frustrations, and quiet acts of resilience with such urgency it could be mistaken for real time.

The camera sticks close, sometimes uncomfortably so, forcing us to bear witness as pressure mounts. It’s tense—relentlessly so—but threaded with moments of dark humour and absurdity, the kind that comes only from experience. The film knows the rhythms of exhaustion: the awkward jokes, the breath snatched behind a curtain, the numbness that sets in when choices run out.

Then, abruptly, it stops. The final moments are devastating, stripped of words, as Anthony and the Johnson’s Hope There’s Someone crashes in and what’s been buried all night finally spills out. I was in bits by the end. Still am, to be honest. It’s a film that holds you hostage—then leaves you reeling in the quiet.

Elegant suits, late-night snacks, and the slow grind of loyalty—that’s the pace on offer here. Touchez Pas au Grisbi sells itself as a gangster flick, but it’s really a melancholic meditation on ageing out of your profession, with guns holstered and regrets worn like cologne. Jean Gabin plays Max, a weary thief with a pension plan, trying to fade into comfortable obscurity. Trouble is, his best mate Riton can’t keep his mouth shut.

There’s something admirable in how little the film cares about thrills—it’s more supper club than shootout. Gabin smoulders, of course, but he’s a philosopher more than a felon, dispensing wisdom between glasses of wine. The script, however, leaves him underfed; you keep hoping it’ll give him something meatier than resignation and raised eyebrows.

Still, the mood—worn silk and closing-time weariness—has its charm. Not exactly gripping, but quietly assured. If this is the gangster’s farewell, it’s delivered with a shrug and a final bite of foie gras.

Spencer Tracy steps off the train like a dropped match—into a town that’s all tinder, no water. Sturges strikes tension from the first frame. The desert may be vast, but Bad Day at Black Rock feels claustrophobic from the outset: one man asking questions no one wants to answer, in a place that hasn’t seen a train stop in years.

Tracy plays it calm but unflinching, a war veteran with one arm and more backbone than the entire town combined. His presence peels back the town’s shame—rooted in racism and the forgotten lives of Japanese-Americans after internment. There’s more talking than action, but the words hit like blows. When fists do fly, they land harder for the delay.

It’s slow-paced, sure—but tight. Not a minute of its trim 81 is wasted. Even the silences hum with suspicion. Only the ending feels too neat—as if, having stared into moral rot, the film blinked.

Still, for most of its runtime, this is precision cinema with real heat.

The murder and beheading of teenage shepherd Nizar is portrayed with somber restraint, steeped in the grief and numb shock of a small mountain village. “Based on a true story” appears before the first frame, yet parts of Red Path feel so outlandish you forget—until the closing credits remind you it all happened.

The strongest scenes follow the family back up the mountain to retrieve Nizar’s body, whilst his head is stored in the family fridge and reporters crowd their home, It's a quesy balance of macabre and tragic, handled with care. Less convincing are the dreamlike encounters between Achraf—the cousin who survived—and a living Nizar. Framed as catharsis, they register instead as a misjudged fantasy detour.

The film also skirts vital context: the killers' links to Tunisia's IS wing and the national shock that followed. Without that frame, the tragedy seems smaller than it was. What remains is an unsettling portrait of loss, grief, and intrusion—potent in parts, but weakened by choices that pull it away from the reality it seeks to honour.

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.