Film Reviews by griggs

A man, a coat, a hat, and silence. Le Samouraï doesn’t announce itself—it glides in, smooth as shadow, and holds you in its icy grip. Jean-Pierre Melville’s cool-blooded thriller is all control: minimal dialogue, maximum tension. Every shot is composed like a threat, every movement calibrated to perfection.

Alain Delon is hypnotic as Jef Costello, a hitman so self-contained he barely seems alive. He feeds his caged bird, stares into space, and navigates Paris like a ghost bound by honour. Delon’s face—blank, beautiful, unreadable—is the film’s most powerful special effect.

Yes, it’s noir. Yes, it’s drenched in existential dread. But it’s also myth—Samurai code refracted through a trenchcoat and Metro tunnels. The influence is everywhere: Ghost Dog, Drive, The Killer. But none match the elegance of the original.

This isn’t a film you watch for action. It’s one you absorb. A study in stillness, solitude, and a life stripped down to ritual. Death arrives on time. As always.

Truth gets slippery fast when four people tell the same story—and none of them match. Rashomon isn’t just a film about a crime in the woods; it’s a meditation on perception, ego, and the very shaky idea of objectivity. Kurosawa turns a simple premise—a samurai dies, his wife is assaulted, a bandit is blamed—into a prism, each version of the tale reflecting a different need to save face, or claim virtue.

Toshiro Mifune is pure chaos as the bandit, a performance pitched somewhere between menace and absurdity. Machiko Kyo gives the most haunting account, and Takashi Shimura anchors the whole thing with weary disbelief.

The cinematography is stunning—light cutting through forest leaves like guilt through memory. And Fumio Hayasaka’s score hums with dread and doubt.

What’s genius is how little resolution there is. You don’t leave with clarity; you leave questioning how we ever believe anything at all. Still, as philosophical puzzles go, this one’s beautifully shot, brilliantly acted, and tight as a drum.

Shot while the rubble of war was still underfoot, Rome, Open City doesn’t feel like a film—it feels like a scar being traced in real time. Rossellini's raw, ground-level portrait of resistance under Nazi occupation blends documentary grit with wrenching drama, refusing to offer easy heroes or clean catharsis.

The streets are cracked, the lighting harsh, and the performances—especially from Anna Magnani—cut straight through any notion of wartime glamour. Her character’s final run is one of the most devastating things ever put on screen, precisely because it’s so unadorned.

There’s no high drama here, no orchestral cues to tell you how to feel. Just quiet acts of courage, betrayal, and survival stitched into the fabric of occupied Rome. Rossellini doesn’t editorialise; he observes, often unflinchingly.

It’s messy, compassionate, and charged with the urgency of people telling their story before history could sanitise it. Proof that cinema can do more than reflect reality—it can grab it by the collar and demand we pay attention.

No screaming radiators, no red rooms—just one man, a tractor, and the road. Yet The Straight Story might be the most Lynchian of the lot. The unease here doesn’t come from mystery or menace, but from the ache of time, regret, and the miles that grow between siblings. Richard Farnsworth’s Alvin Straight—played with a grace that borders on the saintly—makes the slowest road trip imaginable feel urgent and quietly profound.

Lynch's precision is everywhere: in the rust on a barn wall, the rustle of cornstalks, the awkward warmth of small-town interactions. Every encounter, no matter how brief, feels like a shared breath. There's wonder here too—in the cinematography, in the stillness, and in the film’s faith in decency. A lesser director might have reached for sentiment; Lynch just listens.

This is the rare kind of film that trusts silence and knows that big emotions often arrive in small vehicles.

There’s something deeply unnerving about a film that turns the audience into accomplice—and Peeping Tom does it with a smirk and a shiver. Michael Powell, exiled from polite cinematic society for daring to gaze too closely, delivers a film so ahead of its time it practically invented its own scandal. Mark Lewis, the sweet-faced killer with a camera, doesn’t leer so much as dissect. His murders are rehearsals, yes—but also performances, built around a lens and a lifetime of watching.

The horror isn’t just in the killings, but in the idea that we might understand him. That we do understand him. Powell’s direction is crisp, uncanny, and slyly self-aware, with Technicolor dread bleeding through every frame. The film’s most shocking revelation? That the monster isn’t some faceless brute—it’s a quiet man with a camera, a childhood scar, and a pathological need to capture fear.

In a world now obsessed with voyeurism, Peeping Tom feels less like a relic and more like prophecy.

Who knew repressed nuns and Himalayan wind could make such an intoxicating cocktail? Black Narcissus takes Powell and Pressburger’s Technicolor wizardry and channels it into something feverish and dangerously beautiful. What begins as a tale of missionary purpose slowly unravels into a psychosexual drama, with the cliffside convent more haunted by desire than by spirits.

Deborah Kerr gives a quietly formidable performance as Sister Clodagh, trying to hold it together while everything—geography, memory, temptation—conspires to undo her. But it's Kathleen Byron as Sister Ruth who walks off with the film: wild-eyed, sweaty, and deranged in red lipstick.

The matte paintings may be dated, but the atmosphere is timeless. The sound of bells cutting through the mountain air, the oppressive stillness of the convent, and the madness that seeps through the cracks—it all builds to a final sequence that’s more Hitchcock than holy.

It’s not subtle, but that’s the point. This is spiritual crisis dialled up to technicolour eleven.

Most films grow on you with each rewatch. This one starts to feel like homework. The French Dispatch is precision-engineered whimsy—visually stunning, meticulously crafted, and emotionally inert. It’s Wes Anderson’s cinematic sketchbook: full of clever ideas, but scattered, and oddly impersonal for something that trades in nostalgia.

Presented as the final issue of a literary magazine, it’s an anthology in three-and-a-bit parts. Each story has its charms—Benicio Del Toro’s tortured artist is a standout—but the format keeps resetting any momentum just as it builds. The pace is brisk, the narration relentless, and the visual detail overwhelming. It’s like a beautifully designed coffee-table book, designed to be seen, not read.

There’s no shortage of wit or talent, but something vital gets lost in the stylisation. For all its love of writing, it forgets to breathe. You’re left admiring the architecture rather than living in the house. Not dull, not bad—just oddly indifferent.

Some heist films dazzle; Logan Lucky ambles along amiably, like a getaway car stuck behind a tractor on a country lane. Steven Soderbergh swaps Vegas glamour for a NASCAR backdrop, aiming for charm rather than thrills, but the laid-back vibe soon feels more lethargic than leisurely.

Daniel Craig does offer a few chuckles as a bleach-blond, boiled-egg munching safecracker, though Channing Tatum and Adam Driver’s sibling crooks seem oddly subdued, as if they’re not quite convinced by the caper themselves.

The film’s leisurely Southern drawl drifts pleasantly enough, yet the actual heist feels less like a high-speed chase and more like a Sunday afternoon drive. The gentle humour mostly hits, but when the jokes stall, you’re left waiting for the plot to shift gears.

It’s not a disaster, just curiously forgettable—like a decent pint served slightly flat. By the time it’s over, you’re mildly amused but secretly wishing you’d opted for something with more fizz.

Bought this blind in the Barnes and Noble Criterion sale, half price but still a waste. It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is less screwball than screw-it. An endless parade of shouting, pratfalls, and mugging, stretched across a bloated runtime that feels like a dare. It wants to be the comedy to end all comedies, but mostly ends patience.

There’s a dizzying number of stars—Spencer Tracy, Sid Caesar, Ethel Merman, even the Three Stooges show up—but the film mistakes quantity for quality. The chaos is relentless but strangely joyless, like watching a conga line stumble into traffic. At times it feels like a sketch revue without punchlines, a cinematic bunfight where no one wins.

Some scenes are technically impressive, sure, but spectacle means little when you’re not laughing. The only thing mad here is the decision to restore this in 4K. Criterion, gave it the royal treatment—but it’s still a two-and-a-half hour headache in a shiny slipcase.

Not the sleazy romp you’d expect from a film with Roger Corman’s name attached—this is softer, sadder, and far more human. Ben Gazzara’s Jack Flowers is a small-time wheeler-dealer in 1970s Singapore, running a brothel with the weary charm of a man who’s seen too much and expects little more. He’s open to everyone, at home anywhere, but somehow unknowable—there’s a big hurt buried deep, and he keeps it hidden like a photo in his wallet.

The film’s heart isn’t in the trade, but in Jack’s unexpectedly moving friendship with Denholm Elliott’s uptight British auditor. Two lonely men, wary at first, surprised by how much they see in each other. Their shared scenes are tender and understated, full of sidelong glances and emotional restraint.

It meanders, yes—but there’s richness in the haze: CIA shadows, colonial rot, sweating walls, and a city on the cusp of sanitisation. A humid character study with just enough bite to cut through the malaise.

A paraplegic man and a telepathic helper monkey locked in a psychological power struggle might sound like schlock. Still, George A. Romero plays it straight—and that’s half the fun. Monkey Shines isn’t a great film, but it’s a surprisingly earnest one, wrapped in ’80s B-movie packaging with flashes of something darker underneath.

The early sections, focused on loss and adaptation, are genuinely moving. Jason Beghe does solid work as the lead, and the film’s central relationship—between man and monkey—is equal parts touching and unnerving. Once the horror kicks in, it’s part creature feature, part Freudian freak-out, with Romero mining suspense from surgical scalpels and simian stares.

Tonally, it’s all over the place: heartfelt one minute, utterly daft the next. But something is appealing in its awkward sincerity. You can sense Romero trying to elevate the pulp, even if it never quite comes together. Messy, odd, and occasionally gripping—just don’t expect Dawn of the Dead.

A scruffy outsider walks into a room full of puffed-up idiots and mutters “idiots”—that’s the basic rhythm of Sanjuro, and it never stops being funny. Mifune doesn’t just play the role; he prowls through it like a man deeply fed up with being a Samurai, but also, surrounded by, yes, idiots. He scratches, scowls and sighs his way across a plot full of honourable speeches and incompetent plans, being left to save the day.

This ronin, doesn’t just break the rules—he acts like he’s already played the game before. It’s practically meta: he moves through Kurosawa’s samurai verse like a player who’s read the manual, spotting twists and traps long before the young, sword-waving idiots do.

The story’s fine—schemes, standoffs, betrayal—but the pleasure’s in the dynamic. Every time the idealists puff up with righteousness, Sanjuro deflates them with a shrug and a muttered insult. It’s tight, stylish, and slyly hilarious. A film where the hero fights for the cause… while clearly thinking the cause is full of idiots.

As far back as I can remember, I’ve always loved this movie. Not liked—loved. Watching it again, it still hits like a gunshot in a quiet room. The music, the rhythm, the voice in your ear telling you how it really worked—that was the magic. The long walk through the Copacabana’s kitchen? That wasn’t just showing off. That was status. That was power. That was everything.

Scorsese doesn’t film scenes—he moves through them, like he’s got a guy waiting outside. Every shot has heat, swagger, a little paranoia baked in. You feel you’re in on it, right up until the moment you’re not.

Ray Liotta’s performance is full of that wide-eyed ruse. The coke years still sweat off the screen. Pesci? A pitbull with a grudge. De Niro? Ice cold.

You know the story ends badly. You know the house of cards fail. But it never stops being seductive. That’s what makes it dangerous. And unforgettable.

I was pleasantly surprised by Superman. My only real reference point is the 1978 film, so the whole “Justice Gang” and multiple metahumans caught me off guard. The film assumes lots of prior knowledge, which felt a bit much.

That said, Rachel Brosnahan does a cracking job channeling Margot Kidder—she is Lois Lane. Corenswet isn’t Christopher Reeves (who is?), but he more than holds his own.

Nicholas Hoult is solid as Lex Luthor, but not nearly dastardly enough for my tasst—just another slick comic-book baddie. The flying dog baffled me, and Lois already knowing Clark’s identity took some of the fun out of it for me.

The flying scenes genuinely soar, but much of the rest feels slapped together. The CGI is patchy—impressive when Superman flies, ropey when he’s not. The editing is awkward on, with scenes cutting off mid-flow, especially during fight sequences, as if someone panicked about the run time.

There’s a better film trying to get out. It never quite takes off-but it’s still fun, messy and very daft.

The Last Movie is a wild one—proper mad. Hopper takes this great idea about a film crew shooting a Western in Peru, then ditches the plot halfway and dives headfirst into chaos. It’s like watching the making of Apocalypse Now before Apocalypse Now was made, only scrappier and even more stoned out of its mind.

The whole “locals start making their own version of the film” bit is genius, but it leans hard into that cringey first-world gaze—like, look at these ‘primitive’ people play-acting. It’s patronising, even if they seem to be having way more fun than the Americans melting down around them. Hopper’s direction is all over the place, but kind of hypnotic. The cast drifts in and out—but the real star is the editing: jumpy, messy, but weirdly perfect. It’d make a cracking double-bill with Alex Cox’s Walker. Not flawless, but fascinating, especially if you like your films a bit feral.