2019

15 MINUTES OF WAR

Cert 15 Stars 3

Olga Kurylenko grabs the opportunity to stretch her talents, as a US teacher in this agreeably tense hostage drama inspired by true events of 1976 in East Africa.

And the former Bond girl delivers a more compelling performance than Brit actress Rosamund Pike did in last year’s similarly themed Ugandan kidnap thriller, Entebbe.

Gun wielding terrorists kidnap her young class but their school bus crashes within sight of the Somali and Djibouti border, leading to an armed stand-off.

Strong location work provides a dusty authenticity, and the script is unafraid to draw parallels to contemporary events.

THE ACCOUNTANT OF AUSCHWITZ

Cert 12 Stars 3

Nazi atrocities of the Second World War will never lose their capacity to shock and horrify, and the focus of this brisk and grimly fascinating documentary is the trial of a 93 year old former guard.

Oskar Groning was responsible for collecting cash and personal valuables from prisoners as they arrived at the Auschwitz extermination camp, and in 2015 was charged with complicity in the murder of 300,000 people.

Exploring how subsequent changes in legal thought lead to Groning’s belated arrest, his case is used to reflect on the failures of the 1946 Nuremberg trials in their prosecution of war criminals.

US

Cert 15 116mins Stars 5

Get scared out of your skin by the full-blooded popcorn thrills of this intense home invasion horror which asks cutting questions about identity.

A suburban family holiday near the coastal resort of Santa Cruz, turns into a fight for survival when attacked in their house.

They’re terrorised by a family who are identical to themselves, except for wearing prison fatigues and bearing scissors and a grudge.

Having won an Oscar for harrowing drama, 12 Years A Slave, Lupita Nyong’o is now the woman to beat at next year’s awards ceremony for this demonstration of her remarkable range in a physical demanding role.

She’s an electric wire of anxiety as the fearful mother on a mission to protect her husband and two kids, and her fellow cast members are equally likeable and committed, and not shy of talent.

With telling nods to Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, and Michael Jackson’s Thriller video, this is an ambitious and scalpel-sharp fable which combines deadpan humour, acute social observation and stomach churning violence.

The assured storytelling is in the cruel tradition of folktales in leading us down a very dark path to reveal hard truths about ourselves.

As the story expands with an apocalyptic vibe there’s a welcome element of political paranoia typical of 1950’s sci-fi, which isn’t surprising as the script is influenced by an episode of TV’s The Twilight Zone from the era.

Writer, director and co-producer, Jordan Peele is the multi-talented and busy creative force who was responsible for 2017’s comedy horror smash, Get Out, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. 

And while again exploring racial fault lines in US society Peele also broadens his scope to include class division, but he never sacrifices pace, excitement or knuckle-chewing action..

It’s a privilege to watch as Peele pushes on creatively, and I’ll be shocked if this isn’t scaring up support at next year’s Oscars.

THE EXORCISM OF KAREN WALKER

Cert 15 Stars 1

Family secrets are brought into focus in this lumbering and laboured British supernatural horror which takes his inspiration from the Soviet inventor, Semyon Kirlian, who claimed to be able to photograph a person’s ‘aura’.

Written and directed by Steve Lawson, it sees expecting couple Diane and Mitch Walker move into his late uncle’s spooky country house, where they unwittingly release an ancient evil.

Released as ‘Aura’ in the US where this is unconvincingly set, Spanish actress Denise Moreno plays Karen, and Rula Lenska enjoys herself as a local psychic far more than I did watching this.

TOY STORY 4

Cert U 99mins Stars 5

Woody and Buzz Lightyear make a triumphant and tearful return in this terrifically fun-packed and gorgeously animated sequel which is guaranteed to win the toys a whole new generation of fans.

Tom Hanks and Tim Allen return again to voice our loveable heroes and the new characters are funny and adorable, especially the new baby of the group, Forky. and Keanu Reeves speeds by to deliver a wonderfully comic turn as the Evel Knievel-style stuntman, Duke Caboom.

While on a road trip one of the gang is captured by some very sinister dolls in a creepy old antiques shop and the friends rush the rescue, aided by a revitalised Bo Peep, whose absence from the previous film is fully explained.

Her newly independent spirit is a great example of how these characters have been allowed to grow since first appearing in, gulp, 1995, just as we’ve also grown.

Many of the parents who took their kids to the first film will be grandparents now, and the script is careful to speak to members of every generation, with a powerful emphasis on the importance of loyalty to family and friends.

Plus it works as a standalone adventure so little kids will enjoy it even if they haven’t yet seen the first three films.

The practically perfect previous film so comprehensively passed the bar for a five star film, it left enough leeway for this one to be not quite as incredible but still qualify as superb entertainment in its own right.

Rather than go bigger to try and blow our cinematic socks off, this gorgeously animated adventure goes a little smaller to focus on the characters, but still provides as much giddy excitement, joyous humour and heart-melting charm as you’d expect, and delivers a hugely emotional finale which will have you in tears. You have been warned.

THE PROFESSOR

Cert 15 Stars 2

Johnny Depp stars in this comedy-drama as a married father diagnosed with cancer whose given six months to live, and begins a drink, drug and sex-fuelled campaign against the staid university authorities.

Possibly inspired by the material which allows Depp to dress and behave as a doomed yet righteous and narcissistic romantic 18th century poet, the star seems at least semi-motivated and involved, which is good to see after so the disappointments of his recent output.

Even so this exploration of the hypocrisy of middle-class morality is sadly sluggish, dull and indulgent, and teaches us nothing.

 

DESTINATION WEDDING

Cert 15 Stars 3

Keanu Reeves teams up for the fourth time with fellow 1980’s icon Winona Ryder, in this bracingly cynical and enjoyably acerbic wedding romcom.

They play strangers flying to California to attend the same wedding, and discover they’re united by their hatred of themselves, each other, weddings in general and the happy couple in particular.

It’s a slight and predictable affair but the pair are so well matched in looks and star power, and share such winning chemistry it makes you think they really should be together off screen as well as on it.

SUPPORT THE GIRLS

Cert 15 86mins Stars 3

This bittersweet day-in-the-life-drama is a far more appetising and nourishing experience than the food served in the US ‘breastaurant’ where Regina Hall’s middle-aged manager works.

After her winning performance in 2017’s raucous comedy Girls’ Trip, the actress gives a wonderfully natural turn as the busily maternal Lisa.

While valiantly attempting to uphold standards of service, dress and decorum in her young staff, Lisa finds herself at a crossroads in life among the motorised sprawl of Texas.

Double Whammies is euphemistically called a sports bar, and while the male owner insists it’s a mainstream family environment, he provides a diet of ‘boobs, brews and big screens’ to a mostly male clientele.

Loyally assisting Lisa in negotiating a daily menu of customers, cooks, cops and criminals, are the drily no-nonsense Shayna McHayle, and Haley Lu Richardson’s ray of sunshine.

And the trio provide a welcome scream of defiance in the face of limited life choices and the myth of the American dream.

 

 

THE HOLE IN THE GROUND

Cert 15 Stars 3

Seana Kerslake’s single mother is taken to the precipice of sanity in this brooding and ambitious Irish rural family horror as her young son struggles to adjust to their new tumbledown farmhouse home on the edge of a large forest.

She’s an increasingly desperate and isolated figure as she suffers panic attacks, hallucinations and premonitions.

Strong on mood, focused in its intent and anchored by performances, the sound design assaults the audience with both barrels while the cinematography makes us feel the damp chill of the wood, making for an impressively pungent directorial debut from writer, Lee Cronin.

 

GLASS

Cert 15 Stars 3

Obsession and self-delusion threaten the world in this much anticipated sly superhero sequel from the supernatural horror devotee, M Night Shyamalan.

The writer and director of 1999 smash, The Sixth Sense, brings two of his previous thrillers together, with a trio of star names in a clever but plodding exploration of group psychosis.

2016’s low budget mega hit, Split, saw Scotsman, James McAvoy, as a monstrous predator with a multiple personality disorder, while 2000’s Unbreakable saw Bruce Willis star as a super strong vigilante alongside Samuel L. Jackson, as the criminal mastermind, Mr Glass.

Now the three are incarcerated in a psychiatric institution where the wonderfully watchable Sarah Poulson plays a psychiatrist who specialises in delusions of grandeur.

To underlined the point there’s discussion of magicians and circus acts, and a fairground ride appears in a key scene.

She has only three days to persuade the men they do not have superpowers before they are permanently locked up, but the guys are resistant her treatment and there is a plan to escape.

With an impressive range and physicality, McAvoy is superb as he flips between 19 different characters, and is by turns scary, funny and compelling, and his performance deserves a more entertaining film.

Critiquing society’s obsession with superheroes is a bold and daring exercise in the week the Aquaman movie becomes the latest billion dollar behemoth at the box office, and may possibly turn off casual movie-goers here who feel they were promised a more traditional superhero film, albeit with a twist.

Jackson gives a purposefully twitchy performance, and Willis at least seems more engaged than in any of his recent films.

Shyamalan’s indisputable craftmanship is undermined by his showmanship and alienates his audience by operating on an intellectual level not an emotional one, delivering a movie which is light on action, has major pacing  issues and has a very low quota of scares.