Film Reviews by griggs

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.

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.

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.

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.

Coming off Thunderbolts*, I was genuinely looking forward to The Fantastic Four: First Steps—finally catching up with the MCU just in time for the big summer tentpole release. Unfortunately, if this is the start of the new MCU ten-year plan, I’d be very worried. It doesn’t feel like a bold new beginning; it feels like a franchise coasting on fumes.

The production design is the standout: a crisp blend of Jetsonian retro-futurism, wool-and-poly uniforms, and 1950s space-age optimism. It’s fun to look at, at least.

Pedro Pascal brings weight, and Vanessa Kirby does well even if she’s mostly reduced to a maternal subplot. The rest of the cast feels wasted—Julia Garner, Sarah Niles, and Natasha Lyonne barely get a look-in, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach disappears under a mountain of CGI.

The gender-flipped Silver Surfer is an interesting choice, but the film doesn’t really explore it—it’s just there, like most of the film’s ideas. A few flickers of charm, but overall it feels like the MCU has served its time.

Slicker, sweatier, and somehow sillier than the original, Predator 2 swaps the jungle for a scorched, near-future LA that feels like it is on the verge of spontaneous combustion. The city’s baking under a brutal heatwave and buckling under a turf war between heavily armed gangs and a no-less militarised police. Enter the Predator, still leaping across rooftops like parkour is no big deal, while the human cast—Danny Glover, Gary Busey, María Concita Alonso, Bill Paxton—look perpetually knackered and vaguely confused.

There’s something undeniably fun about the sheer excess. Director Stephen Hopkins isn’t here to match McTiernan’s tight direction—he’s here to let it all sprawl: more guns, more goo, more sweaty paranoia. The film has since earned a bit of a cult following, now seen by some as pulpy, misunderstood genre mayhem. That’s not entirely wrong.

It’s loud, its’s messy, and it’s got its moments—especially in the sound design, which makes every slash and shriek feel almost alarmingly close. But it’s also a bit like being shouted at in a sauna. There’s style, but not quite enough substance to track.

Plenty of ideas on the table—modern dating, identity, the way people talk past each other—but not all of them land. Materialists is heavy on the chat, and not always in a good way. There are laughs, mostly of the sharp and awkward variety, but the rhythm never quite settles. It often feels like a dinner party monologue drifting into TED Talk territory.

The performances are perfectly solid, but the casting feels slightly off. The lines don’t always sit right in the mouths that deliver them—like hearing someone else read your diary aloud. It creates a strange distance, just when the film needs connection.

Where it does hit is its take on emotional shortcuts—the belief that if you say the right thins, earn enough money, and tick enough boxes, love will automatically follow. But too many of these characters seem more invested in being loved than in doing the work of loving someone else—or even themselves. The film understands that performance without presence won't cut it.

There are moments of insight and humour, but it keeps you at arm's length. Clever, watchable, but hard to fully believe in.

Buckaroo Banzai is less a film and more a transmission from another dimension that just happened to land on VHS. It throws everything at the screen—sci-fi, kung fu, Cold War paranoia, comic books, rock bands, aliens, brain surgery—and dares you to keep up. The plot barely qualifies as one, but that’s hard the charm. You’re just supposed to go with the flow and enjoy the weird.

The cast is ridiculous. Peter Weller deadpans through quantum gibberish, Ellen Barkin plays it heartbreakingly straight, and John Lithgow’s Italian accent veers between Soviet madman and Looney Tune depending on the vowel. Christopher Lloyd and Clancy Brown lurk in the background like a weird buddy cop spin-off movie, within the movie. And then there’s Jeff Goldblum, dressed as a cowboy neurosurgeon named New Jersey, casually stealing every scene without seeming to know what film he’s in—or caring.

It’s clearly try to be everything, and while that leads to confusion, it also means you’re never bored. Whether that qualifies as brilliance or chaos is debatable. But if you’ve ever wanted to watch a jet car breach dimensional walls while a rock band saves teh world, Buckaroo Banzai is exactly your flavour of madness.

Everyone in this film is awful—and that’s the point. But they’re not just awful in one note. They are awful in layers: jealous, manipulative, greedy, sometimes weirdly principled. That mix gives Born to Kill its edge early on, especially in moments like the showdown on the beach—tense, sweaty, and twitching with danger. The violence feels genuinely unpredictable, mostly because there's just not enough decency kicking around in these characters to make you wonder if someone might do the right thing, or at least hesitate.

The real heart of it is Marty, whose entire identity is built around Sam. His loyalty isn't just practical—it's painfully romantic, and watching him try to hold the chaos together is far more affecting than anything between Sam and the women. Once Marty (and the gloriously blunt Mrs. Kraft) exit the stage, the film deflates. It becomes just another slog through noir's mean streets, minus the spark that made the earlier scenes hum.

Three strangers drift through the same empty Taipei apartment, barely aware they're sharing it. May Lin, an estate agent, uses the flat between property viewings. Ah-jung, a cocky street vendor, treats it as a temporary escape. And then there’s Hsiao-kang—quieter, more withdrawn, almost ghost-like. Of the three, he’s the most removed, slipping in and out like someone hoping not to be seen.

Vive L'Amour is less about what happens and more about what doesn't. Dialogue is minimal, connection is rarer still, and the film settles into a kind of emotional stasis that's both awkward and strangely absorbing. It's all about alienation, urban disconnection, and the strange ways we try—and fail—to reach one another.

Tsai Ming Iiang doesn't tell you what to feel; he just gives you the silence and asks you to sit with it. Hsaio-kang's voyeurism isn't predatory—it's about wanting to exists. When he eats a peach left behind by someone else, it feels like borrowed intimacy. A trace of someone else's warmth.

There's no tidy resolution. No grand carthasis. Just a quiet accumulation of loneliness. Vive L'Amour doesn't shout—it barely whispers. But if you've ever felt invisible in your own life, this one know exactly how that feels.

Mickey Rourke smoulders, Eric Roberts yells, and somehow it all just about works. The Pope of Greenwich Village is one of those scrappy little crime films that feels like it’s making things up as it goes—but in a good way. Two cousins try to hustle their way into a better life, mess with the wrong people, and get in way over their heads. There’s a dead body, a bag of cash, and a mobster who’s not shy about ordering thumbs removed. You get the vibe.

Rourke plays in cool—slick hair, half-smile, quiet rage—while Robert’s is pure chaos in a pastel suit. He’s either giving the performance of his life or testing the limits of volume. Either way, he’s never boring. The whole thing has that sweaty, desperate energy of people who think they’re in The Godfather but are really just trying to pay pay rent.

It’s rough around the edges and occasionally loses the plot, but it’s got heart, style, and a killer New York vibe. Flawed, but kind of fantastic.

Steam rises off the surfaces, the pool glistens, and everything looks delicious—until it doesn’t. A Bigger Splash is a loose remake of Jacques Deray’s La Piscine, and it borrows his lush, languid pacing to tell the story of four attractive people tangled in heat, memory, and desire at a remote island villa. It’s all sex, silence, and suggestion—until someone ruins the vibe completely.

Guadagnino, as ever, is the master of sweat. From Call Me by Your Name to Bones and All, Challengers, and Queer, his cinema pulses with physicality, emotional friction, and desire that rarely travels in a straight line. A Bigger Spash fits right into that canon: deeply sensual, emotionally volatile, and charged with queer undercurrents that ripple just beneath the surface.

Swinton’s floats, Schoenaerts simmers, Johnson toys, and Fiennes is chaotic, sunburnt, unstoppable—dancing like your dad possessed by Bacchus, all limbs and libido, wreaking havoc with grin. Every movement a mix of menace and manic charm, throwing the film off balance in just the right way.

It’s messy, stylish, and soaked in the kind of emotional sweat Guadagnino bottles so well. Too intoxicating to resist.

Having recently sat through a different effort by one of the heavyweights of 20th-century screenwriting, I was hesitant to dive into The In-Laws. The era, the setup—middle-aged dads pulled into spy games—it all felt like it might go stale fast. But within minutes, it had me. Why hadn’t I heard of this film sooner?

Peter Falk is either CIA or completely off his rocker, and the film is better for leaving it gloriously ambiguous. Alan Arkin, dragged along like the world’s most anxious labrador, is in his element—sweating, blinking, trying not to die in a vaguely defined Central American republic. The comedy hits that rare sweet spot: dry, daft, and escalating like a wedding toast gone rogue.

There’s a shootout, a car chase, a scene involving hand gestures and a firing squad that had me rewinding just to laugh again. And somehow, it all still has heart. Falk and Arkin are comedy yin and yang—chaos and control in matching pastel shirts.

A Cold War farce with actual warmth. Instant cult classic.

Tokyo is boiling, tempers are short, and a young policeman’s lost gun is cutting a violent path through a city already on edge. Stray Dog gripped me from the first bead of sweat. I’d expected a classic Japanese tale reimagined for the 1940s—some kind of samurai code in a trench coat. What I got was something far more immediate: a noir-inflected, contemporary crime thriller rooted in the social fractures of postwar Japan.

Kurosawa builds tension with a procedural’s patience and a poet’s precision, capturing a nation in flux and a man quietly coming apart. Mifune, all coiled guilt and raw intensity, is magnetic as the rookie detective undone by shame. Shimura’s older partner is all steady charm and quiet wisdom, and their odd-couple dynamic raised more than a few laughs, even as the tone darkened.

The noir elements—moral ambiguity, anxious pacing, a city fraying at the edges—recall the streetwise realism of early Jules Dassin, though Kurosawa’s vision is entirely his own. The themes sting. The ending still lands. Pulp, prestige—he nails both.

Beautifully crafted and politically charged, Savages certainly has ambition. Set in the rainforest, it follows two eco-activists who, along with a rescued baby orangutan, join forces with an Indigenous tribe to resist a brutal corporate land grab. The stop-motion animation is detailed and immersive—mud-slicked, mossy, and rich with atmosphere.

But for all its visual strength and good intentions, the story feels a bit too didactic. Characters often come across as mouthpieces, and the plot unfolds in a rather straight line, with little room for emotional complexity or surprise. Its message is vital, yes, but delivered with a heavy hand.

There are moments of charm and even some unexpected laughs, and Barras’s distinctive visual style remains compelling. Still, compared to his earlier My Life as a Courgette—a film that balanced depth and delicacy—this feels more like a well-meaning statement than a fully realised story. Worth seeing, but not quite stirring.