Film Reviews by griggs

Vertigo isn’t just about fear of heights—it’s about the sheer drop of desire, identity, and delusion. Hitchcock’s slow-burn spiral left me rattled in all the right ways. Stewart plays haunted like no one else, and Novak walks the line between dream and deception so delicately it hurts. It’s as much a ghost story as a love story—if love can survive being reshaped by male fantasy. The pacing’s glacial at times, but the payoff is hypnotic. That final shot? It didn’t just stay with me—it circled in my mind for days. Still not sure I have landed.

Yes, it’s got the baggage of being “the greatest film ever made,” but Citizen Kane still holds up astonishingly well. Welles practically reinvented the cinematic playbook before he was old enough to rent a car, let alone wreck one. The fractured structure, deep focus, and shadowy bravado feel as fresh as ever—like film noir’s brainy older cousin. It’s a riddle wrapped in a newsreel, but the emotional sting of that final shot lands every time. If it’s a tale of power and loss, it’s also a warning: don’t spend your life collecting things when you should’ve been making memories.

Seeing Stop Making Sense on the big screen was like being baptised in funk. A24’s rerelease doesn’t just restore the image—it resurrects the energy. Byrne enters solo with his boombox, and by the end, it’s a full-blown evangelical service in oversized suiting. The camerawork is unusually fluid for a concert film—more like choreography than coverage—and the sound mix is crisp enough to feel the sweat. It’s pure joy, artfully staged but never self-conscious. I grinned like a maniac for 88 minutes and left the cinema feeling oddly hopeful. Not many films make your legs twitch and your heart swell.

There’s not a frame in The Battle of Algiers that doesn’t feel urgent. Shot like a newsreel but paced like a thriller, it drops you in the crossfire and dares you to take sides. The moral lines blur, then vanish. Pontecorvo’s direction is razor-sharp—clinical, but never cold—and Morricone’s score ratchets up the tension until it’s almost unbearable. It’s rare for a film to feel this politically alive, even rarer for it to hold up a mirror without flinching. By the end, you’re shaken, stirred, and uncomfortably implicated. It may be a history lesson, but it punches like prophecy.

This one really got under my skin, Garfield plays a decent man pulled into dodgy waters—literally and morally. Running a charter boat doesn’t pay the bills, so when people-smuggling comes knocking, temptation’s hard to resist. Add a femme female and the tension begins to simmer. You feel the weight of every bad decision. There’s a constant sense that tragedy’s just round the corner. Garfield nails the role—tough, soulful, and full of doubt. Who does moral grey areas like him now? A gritty, underrated gem from Michael Curtis, who also gave us Casablanca. This one cuts deeper.

Drunken Angel is postwar noir with a fever—sweaty, swampy, and slowly rotting from the inside. Takashi Shimura plays the world-weary doctor, treating both a festering city and a gangster on the brink. Enter Toshiro Mifune, a live wire wrapped in a white suit, coughing up blood and defiance. Their push-pull dynamic crackles. Kurosawa keeps it tight and twitchy, with sewers, swamps, and swing clubs oozing menace. It’s a portrait of physical and moral decay—tuberculosis as metaphor, violence as inevitability. Watching these two men clash, bond, and unravel is gripping. Everyone’s drowning in something, and not just the booze.

In 1978, this was slammed as “the worst film ever made by a director of genius” and included in The Fifty Worst Films of All Time. Forty-seven years later, I gave it a go—and to my surprise, it’s nowhere near that bad.

The story is loose and dreamy, but it has a rhythm that gradually pulls you in, and there are moments where it becomes fairly compelling. Visually, it’s stunning—full of sun-bleached landscapes and surreal flourishes that give it a strange, hypnotic charm.

The biggest issue is the two leads. It’s not their lack of acting experience that’s the problem—it’s their energy. They feel oddly distant, even unlikeable, which makes it hard to care about them or engage with the politics the film gestures toward.

The dialogue doesn't help either. It often sounds like what an out-of-touch adult imagines young people say, which is a shame, as Sam Shepard had initially been involved in the writing process. His departure left the dialogue in the hands of much older writers, which might explain why it often sounds like a caricature of youth rebellion rather than the real thing.

It’s easy to see why it failed, but also why it’s worth revisiting. 

Il Sorpasso starts like a breezy summer lark—one man borrows a phone, the other gets talked into a drive—and before you know it, it’s a road trip through sun-drenched Italy, class divides, and existential dread. Gassman is magnetic as the brash Bruno, dragging Trintignant’s cautious student out of his shell and into his chaos. It’s funny, stylish and deceptively light, until the tone shifts and you realise this ride was never meant to last. What feels like a carefree adventure slowly reveals itself to be something sadder, sharper, and far more profound. A scorcher in every sense.

We’ve all been to gatherings we’d rather have skipped—but few end like this. The Invitation begins as an awkward reunion between exes, laced with grief, weird cultish vibes, and too much wine. The tension bubbles nicely, though the first two acts feel like things we’ve seen before: polite discomfort, cryptic guests, one character clocking that something’s off. But it’s the final stretch that sets it apart—not original exactly, but unsettling in its execution. The performances are solid, and the slow-burn paranoia works well enough. Just don’t expect a revelation—more a well-plated slice of genre déjà vu.

The Hill is absolutely classic Lumet—just not in New York. This time we’re stuck in a sweltering British military prison in North Africa during WWII, where sweat and tension ooze from every frame, calling to mind the claustrophobia of 12 Angry Men. The first half lingers a bit too long on the sweaty macho misery, but once the story kicks into gear, it’s full throttle to the end. Sean Connery is impressively restrained, simmering beneath the surface, but it’s Ossie Davis who steals the show. You could easily believe Da Mayor from Do the Right Thing is the same man—just older, and still refusing to bow.

Classe Tous Risqué is a standout of French crime cinema that wears its noir influences with quiet confidence.  It’s not about flashy shootouts or slick antiheroes—it’s about men cornered by time, loyalty and bad decisions. Lino Ventura is superb as Abel Davos, a gangster past his prime, trying to get his family to safety as the criminal world closes in. The film blends the procedural grit of a policier with the fatalism of a classic noir—moral compromise, and the creeping sense that no one gets out clean. Jean-Paul Belmondo, unusually restrained, brings a modern edge that hints at the New Wave just over the horizon. Tense but never rushed, emotionally resonant without tipping into melodrama, this is understated, stylish, and steeped in doom. A quiet classic—and one that deserves far more attention.

The Long, Hot Summer is a steamy Southern potboiler that can't settle on tone—part romance, part family feud, part swaggering star vehicle.

It marked Martin Ritt's return after blacklisting, and you sense him juggling studio gloss with bolder instincts. Sometimes it clicks. Paul Newman strides through the film with effortless charm and a shirt barley clinging to his chest. Joanne Woodward brings fire and wit, while Orson Welles—well, he goes full tilt in a performance that teeters between theatrical and absurd.

The plot meanders, and the tone sways like a porch swing in a heatwave. But it's not without it pleasures: tart dialogue, sultry glances, and a thick Mississippi atmosphere. Flawed but fascinating, it's a film caught between eras—old Hollywood sheen rubbing up against something looser, sweatier and more modern.

A heartfelt documentary that weaves together Reeve’s personal life, iconic Superman role, and the life-changing accident that followed. The format works well—moving between his early career, family life, rehab journey, and tireless campaigning. Uplifting without being cloying, its a reminder of the real strength behind the cape.

A psychedelic slog that squanders two magnificent leads. The Girl on a Motorcycle drifts aimlessly through dated erotica and rambling voiceovers, offering little beyond leather-clad navel-gazing. Alain Delon and Marianne Faithfull deserve so much better. Looks cool, but is all throttle, no direction

If Rohmer’s films are all about the long game, Claire’s Knee might be his slipperiest serve. On the surface it’s just a languid Alpine holiday: sun-bleached days, boats bobbing on Lac d’Annecy, elegant chatter over too-warm wine. But at its centre sits Jérôme, a thirty-something diplomat who spends the summer explaining—almost as if to camera—why the curve of a teenager’s knee has him in such a spin. It’s deeply uncomfortable, and Rohmer knows it. The film doesn’t excuse his fixation; it quietly dares us to sit with it.

What follows is a masterclass in psychological fencing. Rohmer’s talky script strips away melodrama and leaves only self-justifications, shifting boundaries, and the creeping question of whether Jérôme will cross the line. Every idle ramble lands like a feint in a chess match. The finale, when it comes, is pure Rohmer: no fireworks, just the quiet sting of implication.

Yes, it’s thorny. And yes, you’re meant to feel the discomfort. But beneath the sun-dappled charm lies a razor-sharp study of ego, control, and the lies we tell ourselves when the stakes are low—but the consequences are not.