2017

SHOT CALLER

Cert 15 121mins Stars 2

This off target crime thriller is a monotonous and relentless blur of tough talk, copious tattoos, muscles and handlebar moustaches.

Underneath this is a self pitying white middle class fantasy of life in the wrong lane where the well bred idiot gets to be the hero.

Game Of Thrones star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau glowers away as Jacob, a stockbroker who’s drink driving causes his life to spin in the wrong direction.

Spending over a decade in a maximum security prison, he reinvents himself as ruthless killer by joining a gang of white supremacists.

Once released he has to protect his family while setting up a major arms deal.

Omari Hardwick plays his sympathetic parole officer who’s offers of compromise are anathema to Jacob’s warrior code.

And poor Lake Bell has the thankless and miserable task of as Jacob’s long suffering ex-wife.

With its plodding pace, dull violence, painful dialogue and melancholy tone, this one is firing blanks.

ROUGH NIGHT

Cert 15 Stars 2

From child actress to BAFTA winning Indie star and ass-kicking Marvel superhero,  Scarlett Johansson’s career has been a heady brew of success.

But this black comedy is very much the hangover.

She’s stars as an uptight aspiring politician joins four best friends for her hen party in Miami. When a stripper is accidentally killed, cocaine and alcohol make for some very poor decision making.

A cast including Zoe Kravitz and Kate McKinnon doe their best with a very weak script and though die hard fans of Johansson may enjoy it, everyone else is in for a rough night.

STRONGER

Cert 15 119mins Stars 3

There’s a muscular performance at the heart of this competent real life drama based on events following 2013’s terrorist bombing of the Boston marathon.

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Jeff Bauman, a bystander who lost his legs above the knee and struggles to adjust to life afterwards. 

But for all his earnest agonies, the LA born privately educated 37 year old actor doesn’t convince as the younger working class Bostonian warehouseman.

Mind you,  in a showy role geared to attract awards attention I’m prepared to believe the famously intense thesp would consider removing his legs if it were to improve his Oscar chances.

Tatiana Maslany matches his workrate as Bauman’s girlfriend Erin, who engages in a tug of war for attention with Miranda Richardson’s showy turn as the paraplegic’s mother.

Straightforward and sincere with grim injury detail, it ends on a note of flag waving defiance and a salute to the US lives altered and lost in the long running war on terror.

 

 

BATTLE OF THE SEXES

Cert 12A 121mins Stars 4

Emma stone comes out swinging in this ace of a tennis drama. Fresh from her best actress Oscar for La La Land, she serves up another great performance as game changing tennis pro, Billie Jean King.

It’s smart blend of biopic, love story, sports movie and gender politics, with the famous 1973 exhibition match King played against Bobby Riggs as the focal point.

An astute businessperson King keenly understands her earning power is dependent on maintaining a saleable image to straight, Christian, white America.

While conducting a high profile public fight for workplace equality, the married King experiences a private sexual awakening. She begins a tender and passionate relationship with her hairdresser, played by Geordie actress Andrea Riseborough,

Steve Carell uses the full scope of his ability to unearth the humanity in the former US and Wimbledon champ, Riggs.

The rabble rouser is selling the match as the ‘male chauvinist pig versus the hairy legged feminist.’

Aged 29 and 55 respectively, Stone and Carell are the correct age or their roles. The tennis is convincing staged and though the speed of the game seems tame by modern standards, but the politics are vicious.

Not only is there a huge prize of $100,000 to win, but King knows her defeat would be as regarded as conclusive evidence of the inferiority of women.

These are the stakes which make this a more gripping film than this year’s other tennis film, the more introspective, Borg v McEnroe.

Entertaining, warm and funny, the script by The Full Monty writer Simon Beaufoy emphasises the importance of a level playing field in society, with winning being dependent on talent, dedication and courage.

Its a celebration of dignity, inclusiveness and a compelling argument for not having to compromise your identity in order to earn a living.

Though it’s game set and match to Emma Stone, the real winners are us all.

GIRLS TRIP

Cert 15 Stars 3

Queen Latifa, Jada Pinkett Smith, Regina Hall and Tiffany Haddish star as four friends in this raucous road trip comedy. Self-styled as the Flossy Posse, they reunite in New Orleans for a festival where they let it all hang out.

This caper took a respectable £105m on a budget of £21m, easily beating the similarly themed Scarlett Johansson girls night out movie which only took £36m on a £15m budget.

Far from feeling guilty over their bad behaviour, the disc version includes over an hour of crude deleted scenes and outtakes.

JUSTICE LEAGUE

Cert 12A 120mins Stars 4

Wonder Woman whips the boys into heroes in this epic and action packed comic book spectacular.

Fresh from her own blockbuster success, the Amazonian Princess joins Ben Affleck’s Batman in recruiting The Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman to save the world.

Despited differing degrees of reluctance, they don’t stand a chance under the onslaught of Gal Gadot’s charm offensive. As  the lasso of truth-wielding Wonder Woman, the actress is the team’s most valuable player with Ezra Miller running her a close second, as The Flash.

This superior final part to Henry Cavill’s Superman trilogy follows on from last year’s overlong and doom laden Batman Versus Superman, which saw the death of the Man of Steel.

As the world mourns and turns to hopeless violence, a large horned monster descends at the head of an army of flying man-sized insectoid warriors.

Voiced by Ciaran Hinds, Steppenwolf is intent on seizing ancient three cuboid power sources with which he plans to destroy the Earth.

Picking up speed after a clunky opening, there’s a reduction in the series’ grim bombastic mood and overrides it with plenty of optimism and a greater sense of fun. There’s a change on emphasis from tortured martyrdom to a more crowd pleasing and uplifting tone.

Despite production difficulties a consistent vision has been adhered to throughout the three films. Characters have developed and matured, ideas of duty and sacrifice have been explored, and it goes out with a bang.

Always visually spectacular, the dark palette of previous films is punched up with colour, while John Williams’ famous original 1978 Superman score is sampled. It sends tingles down the spine, and signals a new dawn for truth and justice.

In this determinedly inclusive adventure unity is urged at every opportunity, however Wonder Woman is the star of the show and very much remains in a league of her own.

 

ONLY THE BRAVE

Cert 12A 133mins Stars 3

There’s a long slow burn to the action in this real life firefighting drama.

It’s an honourably sincere and respectful tribute to the bravery and sacrifice of the elite firefighters, the Granite Mountain Hotshots. 19 of whom perished saving their town from a ferocious Arizona wildfire in 2013.

However I may burn in hell for sniggering at the first degree levels of unsuppressed testosterone and muscle flexing machismo not seen in cinemas since Tom Cruise took flight in Top Gun.

While waiting for the call to duty, handlebar moustache-sporting beefcakes enjoy manly joshing, sweaty workouts and semi-naked games of pitch and toss. 

Jailbird Miles Teller is the new recruit trying to go straight by joining James Brolin’s team. Jennifer Connelly and Andie MacDowell play the weeping wives comforted by Jeff Bridges’ former firefighter.

The veteran star has reached an age where he now looks exactly like his father Lloyd in 1980 comedy classic, Airplane! I guess he picked the wrong day to quit smoking.

MARJORIE PRIME

Cert 12A 99mins Stars 3

Pay close attention to this ghostly sci-fi drama which will test your memory as well as your patience.

Lois Smith plays an 85 year old widow of failing health who has a computer programme possessed of artificial intelligent to keep her company.

Marjorie has directed it to learn to adopt the personality of her husband as she remembers him.

And having not yet lost her marbles she insists it projects itself in hologram form as the handsome young version of her man, when he looked like Jon Hamm from TV’s Madmen.

With a cast including Geena Davis and Tim Robbins, the performances are as tasteful and highly polished as the decor in Marjorie’s elegant and expensive Los Angeles beach front home.

Moving at a hypnotic pace, the stage bound script toys with time and questions the relationship between thought and identity, often making us feel as if we’re eavesdropping on someones deeply personal and very expensive therapy.

 

 

 

THELMA

Cert 15 116mins Stars 2

Lesbian lust and psychic power are unable to this save this Norwegian horror thriller from it’s self induced torpidity.

Eili Harboe offers a sympathetic fragility as Thelma, a socially anxious first year university student.

She becomes obsessed with the beautiful and popular Anja with whom she begins a tender relationship.

Thelma’s heightened emotional state manifests itself as a supernatural force. This results in her suffering seizures, minor electrical shortages, and the occasional crow colliding with a window.

Snakes make a penetrating appearance in Thelma’s dreams but possess insufficient poison or bite. Weighed down by sincerity and self importance, there’s an absence of camp energy which would make this nonsense fun to swallow.

The virtues of ungodly metropolitan lifestyles are expressed in opposition those of Christian small towns, and pharmaceutical medicine presented as a barrier to female emancipation.

Witchcraft challenges science as reality, flashbacks and fantasy mesh, and as it becomes hard to distinguish one from another, any potential magic is lost.

 

GRACE JONES: BLOODLIGHT AND BAMI

Cert 15 115mins Stars 3

Experience the spotlight life of 1980’s pop cultural icon Grace Jones, in this revealing documentary.

Combining lengthy concert video footage from her recent tour of Ireland with candid  behind the scenes insight, this is an intimate portrait of a fiercely independent artist.

Much to delight of  decades-loyal fan base, the fearless and flamboyant singer, actor and model still appears onstage in little more than hats, heels and corsets. 

This forward looking film has no historical stats of chart success, income earned or film roles. There’s not so much as a birthdate. 

Instead we see her operating today as a business woman who acts as her own agent and manager.

A bilingual grandmother, Jones is knowingly funny, sharply intelligent and unapologetically opinionated. She lives in expensive hotel suites and fuels herself on a singular diet of champagne and oysters.

It’s a lot to take in, but then Jones has always been about excess.