Film Reviews by griggs

Starts off like a dusty road movie and ends in a downbeat heist flick, with an unexpected detour through buddy. Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is a tonal cocktail that somehow goes down smoothly—thanks mostly to the effortless charisma of Eastwood and a scene-stealing Jeff Bridges.

There’s a coded intimacy running beneath the wisecracks and car thefts: long gazes, shared motel beds, playful teasing that never quite reads as just banter. Bridges floats through it with a kind of golden retriever energy, all charm and chaos, while Eastwood, plays Eastwood, cool and weary, like a man allergic to fuss. Their chemistry does the heavy lifting, even when the plot stalls or the pacing dips into second-gear.

Michael Cimino’s direction has flair, especially for a debut, though the film’s hear lies in it’s quiet moments—ice cream, wide-open highways, the odd glance that says more than the script. There’s something warmer humming under the bonnet.

Feels less like a documentary and more like a séance. Wisconsin Death Trip drifts through a plague of madness, murder, and melancholia in a small Midwestern town, all narrated in the kind of deadpan that makes it somehow more unsettling. The black-and-white recreations have a strange power—static, eerie, almost dreamlike—and the reputation of death, decay and despair starts to feel perversely hypnotic.

Much of it plays out like a Nick Cave murder ballad: doomed characters, gothic detail, and a certain bruised beauty under all the misery. There’s a dry humour too, if you’re attuned to the absurdity of arsenic-laced pastries and window breaking epidemics. It doesn’t build to anything grand, but that’s sort of the point—just wave after wave of personal apocalypse.

It can feel a little mannered at times, and the modern inserts are more curious than essential, but it casts as spell. Bleak, beautiful, and oddly poetic—a scrapbook of American sorrow set to funereal strings.

Each time I rewatch Blue Velvet, it tightens its grip a little more. What once felt like pulp with a twist now play like a full-blown descent into the American id—surburban, sweaty, and crawling with dread. It’s a noir, a nightmare, and a warped coming-of-age story, all stitched together with dry humour and terrifying sincerity. You’re never quite sure if you’re mean to laugh or recoil. That’s the brilliance of it.

It’s easy to fixate on the extremes—Frank’s howls, Dorothy’s pain—but it’s the quieter moments that haunt: the awkward small talk, the beige curtains, the empty streets. They ground the madness into something horribly familiar.

Each rewatch uncovers a new layer—something in the shadows, or in Dean Stockwell’s lipstick, or in Kyle MacLachlan’s frozen smile—that deepens the experience. I didn’t love it the first time. Now I might be obsessed. It’s not just weird for the sake of it. It knows exactly what it is doing.

It’s one thing to satirise the Cold War, another entirely to dance merrily on the brink of nuclear annihilation. Kubrick manages both, and makes it look easy. Each viewing reveals another sly. Joke or a deadpan gem, all pitched with the precision of Slim Pickens riding that atomic bomb. Peter Sellers is having the time of his life in a triple performance, but George C. Scott’s gurning general almost steals the show, forever torn between outrage and childish glee.

The scary brilliance is that the film feels more relevant with every passing year; its absurdities barely exaggerated next to modern headlines. This is black comedy sharpened to a razor’s edge—no matter how often I watch it, I find myself nervously laughing at how easily humanity can trip over its own stupidity. It’s hilarious, bleak, and frighteningly clever, the sort of comedy that can only be made by someone deadly serious. If the apocalypse does come, at least we’ll have a damn good chuckle first.

The first time I saw it, I was convinced cinema had just been reinvented. Watching it again now, I still think that might be true. It’s all so absurdly confident—dialogue that snaps and swerves, violence that’s both shocking and weirdly funny, and a structure that play with time like it’s a toy. Every scene feels like the one you’ll quote late, every character a cult figure waiting to happen. Travolta dances like he’s got nothing to lose. Jackson turns profanity into poetry, and even the briefest cameos feel iconic.

But beneath the cool, Pulp Fiction is also a film about chaos—how chance, choice, and dumb luck can reshape everything. Somehow, it makes room for grace amid the gore. That gold glow from the briefcase? Might as well be the glow fo the film itself—pure, pulpy magic. Say what you like about it being over-referenced or parodied to death—nothing’s dulled its shine.

It’s hard to think of another film that feels this vast and this intimate at the same time. One minute you’re dwarfed by endless desert, the next you’re watching a man wrestle with ego, identity, and empire. O’Toole doesn’t just play the part—he glows with reckless charisma and boyish enigma, a blond question mark on a camel. Every shot looks like it should be in a museum, yet the story gallops along with real moral weight. War, politics, and performance all blur in the heat.

It’s also a film about myth-making—how legends are built, and how they buckle under scrutiny. That balance of grandeur and doubt is what keeps pulling me back. I don’t watch it for the spectacle (though, yes, that entrance), but for the tension behind the eyes, the sense that greatness might just be another kind of madness. Epic in scale, precise in detail, and utterly timeless. Some films are great. This one feels carved into history.

I been avoiding rewatching 12 Angry Men, thinking, "How much more tension can twelve guys in a room really deliver?"—but a second viewing drew me further in, cranking up the claustrophobia until I felt like I was right there, the unofficial 13th angry, sweaty guy.

It’s rare that a sequel deepens rather than dilutes. This one cuts deeper. It’s not just about crime—it’s about bloodlines, betrayal, and the slow rot of power. Watching young Vito rise while Michael descends is like watching a family album curl at the edges, the colour draining from one generation to the next. De Niro plays Vito with quiet, magnetic resolve, while Pacino gives a masterclass in simmering control—his face stiff with the weight of choices he can’t unmake.

The scale is grand, the settings lavish, but everything feels haunted. The more Michael gains, the less he seems to have. By the end, he’s surrounded by silence, framed like a ghost in his own empire. It’s Shakespearean without showing off, emotional without ever begging for sympathy. Every scene feels essential, every cut sharp. It’s not about whether it’s better than the first—it’s that it dares to cast a longer shadow. Not just a sequel, but a reckoning.

On rewatch, it’s even more suffocating. I remembered the tension, the torpedoes, the rattle of depth charges—but I’d forgotten the stink, the boredom, the hours of sweat-soaked monotony. It’s a war film stripped of heroics, where courage looks more like endurance and fear is just part of the job.

What struck me this time was how lived-in it feels. The crew’s banter, the cramped routines, the way they joke one minute and brace for death the next—it all feels grimly authentic. The claustrophobia is relentless, but so is the humanity. Petersen isn’t out to glorify anything; he just drops you in the tin can and shuts the hatch.

I used to think it was about survival. Now it feels more like a slow, rust-covered descent into absurdity. The sea doesn’t care who’s right. And by the time you surface, if you do, you’re not sure what home even means anymore.

This genuinely rattled me. I’d expected cults and devilish twists—but hadn’t realised just how quietly insidious it all is. It’s not the horror of blood or demons that got to me, but the slow, steady erosion of control. Every smile feels like a trap, every act of kindness like a setup.

What struck me most was how isolated she becomes—not through violence, but through niceness. Mia Farrow is phenomenal, all sharp cheekbones and growing unease. You want to shout at the screen as everyone around her—especially her husband—treats her like a child in her own life.

It’s a horror film, yes, but also a razor-sharp portrait of what it’s like to be disbelieved, dismissed, and domesticated. The fear creeps in like a draught you can’t quite place. By the time it all comes together, I wasn’t shocked—I was furious. And that, I think, is the point.

It’s one of those films that feels like the end of something—the ‘60s., American innocence, the idea that dreams belong in cities. Watching it now, I’m struck by how tender it is, even in its grimiest moments. Hoffman’s Ratso is all bravado and broken teeth, while Voight plays Joe Buck like a man cosplaying his own fantasy. Their friendship is messy, codependent, and utterly moving.

That final bus ride still gets me: no grand speeches, just two men facing the quiet collapse of everything they hoped for. It’s daring in its depiction of poverty, sex, and failure, but what’s most readical is its empathy.

Honestly, knowing what I know now about Jon Voight’s politics and recent behaviour makes the thought of rewatching this, or any of his films a bit knotty. But he is brilliant here—earnest, fragile, and deeply human. One of those cases where the art survives the artist, even if it now feels like watching through a filter.

I went in expecting a crime drama and got a pressure cooker. It simmers not just with racial tension but with heat, sweat, and Southern discomfort. Every glance carries weight, every silence hums with hostility. But what elevates it is the balance—rage and restraint, justice and prejudice, all jostling for space in the same frame.

Sidney Poitier is electric. Calm, poised, and impossibly dignified, he doesn’t just hold the screen—he redefines it. His chemistry with Rod Steiger is the film’s secret weapon: two men forced to share air, grudgingly building something like respect amid suspicion and fear.

It’s tight, tense, and morally complex without ever being preachy. The slap—that moment—still hits like a thunderclap. And it’s shot with such a sharp eye for mood that even the quietest scenes feel charged. It’s not just about who killed whom. It’s about who gets to belong, who gets believed, and who’s allowed to stay cool under pressure.

It’s not the kind of paranoia that shouts—it hums. Quietly, insistently. Watching it feels like eavesdropping on a man unravelling, one muffled recording at a time. Gene Hackman is extraordinary: all awkward mannerisms and quiet dread, a surveillance expert terrified of being seen. He’s a man who trusts no one, not even himself—and for good reason.

What makes it so unsettling isn’t the plot (though that’s tight), but the atmosphere. The silences, the static, the way every sound feels suspect. Coppola directs with restraint, letting tension build in awkward pauses and empty rooms. It’s a film about listening, but also about mishearing—about how easily meaning slips away when filtered through fear.

It’s also weirdly moving. The loneliness of Hackman’s character cuts through the tech and the tension. For a story built around detachment, it hits close. Precision-built and perfectly paced, it’s a study in control—what we record, what we remember, and what we’d rather not know.

I always forget how sweaty, shouty, this is—and then I watch it again and remember it’s basically the gold standard for blowing stuff up with feeling. One building, one vest, one very bad night. Bruce isn’t saving the world, just trying to fix his marriage and not bleed out before sunrise. We’ve all been there.

He’s grumpy, barefoot, and increasingly covered in glass—but never smug. The one-liners land because he’s hanging on by a thread, not winking at the camera. Meanwhile, Alan Rickman gives us the kind of villain who probably reads The Economist for fun and would shoot you over a bad suit. Everything clicks: the pacing, the explosions, the walkie-talkie sass. Even the supporting characters—shout out to Argyle in the limo—feel like they wandered in from a better sitcom.

 It’s not just the best “guy versus terrorists in an office block” film. It’s the reason that subgenre exists. Accept no knock-offs. Yippee-ki-yay and all that.

The Long Good Friday kicks off like a gangland knees-up and gradually descends into pure panic. What starts as a swaggering tale of London’s top geezer modernising his empire turns into a masterclass in losing your grip—on power, respect, and basic bloody control. Hoskins is electric: all puffed-up bravado and twitchy desperation, a man used to making threats, not receiving them.

What’s brilliant is how small things feel at first—an explosion here, a missed meeting there. Then the noose tightens, and suddenly every pint, punter, and politician looks suspect. It’s the Thatcher era creeping in: deals over dinner, land grabs, and bombing in car parks. Helen Mirren is incredible as the calm in his storm, quietly managing the fallout with poise and more brains than most of the blokes.

And that final scene—just his face, stuck between fury and fear—is one of the greatest endings. Crime may pay, but not in perpetuity. Especially not on a Friday.