Action thriller

THE BELKO EXPERIMENT

Cert 18 89mins Stars 4

A first day at a new job turns out to be a really bad day at the office in this fierce and funny action thriller.

A blood soaked satire on corporate downsizing full of gleeful gore, it deserves to put to the top of your cinema-going in-tray.

Melonie Diaz stars as Dany Wilkins, a US citizen newly employed by recruitment firm, Belko. They’re based in an isolated office block on the outskirts of Bogota, Colombia.

With no warning, the building is sealed by armed guards and the 80 US staff are told by the tannoy announcer they must kill each other in order to survive.

Shock quickly turns to violence as the rationalisation of the workforce begins.

It’s written by James Gunn, the director of upcoming Marvel’s sci-fi romp, Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2. He sketches the characters with efficiency, and expertly keeps us guessing who will dodge the bullet and who gets the chop.

 

FREE FIRE

Cert 15 91mins Stars 4

Load up and get this blast of a B movie in your movie going sights. Set in 1970’s Boston, US, it’s a funked-up, hard core, post-industrial spaghetti western.

British writer-director Ben Wheatley gives a rapid fire impetus and a wickedly humorous spin on an age old set up.

Masterfully containing the action in a debris littered factory, there’s a briefcase of money, a van load of guns, and too few brains.

Irish republicans spar with a South African arms dealer and the American mob. Nationalist needling escalates quickly, and every bullet hurts in the carnage that follows.

The modest budget seems mostly to have been spent on the brilliant cast, which includes Oscar winner Brie Larson and Peaky Blinders’ Cillian Murphy.

The bleak vision of humanity is underscored by the ironic use of the sweet songs of John Denver. It’s a tense as steel and as hard and dirty as the factory floor. Don’t miss.

 

SEOUL STATION

Cert 15 Stars 4

Fast track yourself to the South Korean capital for this bloodthirsty zombie thriller. It’s an animated spin-off of the ferocious live action and must-be-seen Train To Busan.

As a father searches desperately for his daughter while fellow citizens are devoured by the undead, there’s no shortage of surprises, grit or gore.

Featuring homelessness and prostitution, it’s a far from glowing portrait of modern Korea. However the commitment to scathing and subversive social commentary never side lines the delivery of first class thrills.

With strong language and adult themes, this cartoon is not for the kids.

 

TRAIN TO BUSAN

Cert 15 stars 5

Book yourself a seat on this non-stop first class carriage of carnage. This inventive epic zombie thriller delivers express thrills straight to the jugular.

A businessman and his nine year old daughter are among the mixed bag of grannies, high school sports stars and pregnant women travelling to Busan in South Korea.

The journey turns into the ride from hell when an infected escapee from a failed biotec experiment causes a zombie outbreak.

They’re a ferociously rabid pack of hungry undead, though none too clever.

It’s a rip roaring thrill ride full of heart, muscle and nerve, most of it splattered over the seats.

HEADSHOT

Cert 18 118mins Stars 4

From the bullet ridden jail break to the blood soaked beach finale, this ferocious action thriller is a relentless jackhammer hammer of bone snapping violence.

Having washed up unconscious on the shore, Ishmael wakes up in hospital with scars but no memory.

Actor Iko Uwais is best known as Rama, the iron-fisted hero cop from the equally brutal, The Raid movies. Very soon it’s apparent he hasn’t been cast for his sweet smile or method acting.

Ishmael’s gorgeous doctor is kidnapped. In order to rescue her, he must confront his own secret past, the sinister Mr Lee, and an army of well groomed guards.

Full of rape, torture, child trafficking and execution, this is a mad mash up of monstrous martial art moves, machetes and machine guns.

It’s as punishing to watch as it must have been to perform. Plus it offers equal opportunity mayhem, with the girls being easily as nasty as the boys.

 

 

 

PATRIOTS DAY

Cert 15 130mins Stars 4

Mark Wahlberg teams up with director Peter Berg to deliver a third example of their highly effective brand of real life, patriotic blue-collar heroism.

They’ve fought in Afghanistan in 2013’s Lone Survivor, and survived exploding oil rigs in last year’s Deepwater Horizon. Now the Boston Marathon terror attack of April 15, 2013, acts as the starting pistol for this tense action thriller.

Limbs and lives are shredded in when two homemade bombs are detonated in thirteen  seconds, just yards from the finishing line. It was the worst act of terrorism on US soil since the 911 Twin Tower attack in 2001.

The re-staging of the carnage and chaos is harrowingly effectively and filmed in a documentary style. It’s never sensationalist and leaves us in no doubt as to the scale of the human damage.

This local tragedy becomes a national emergency when the two brothers responsible head to New York, to set off more bombs, kidnapping and killing along the way.

With the exception of Mark Wahlberg’s character, all the main players are based on real life individuals. The star plays Tommy Saunders, an amalgam of real police officers involved in the pursuit of the of the terrorists. Though he’s an actor of limited range, Wahlberg once again excels in a role which riffs on his tough yet tender persona.

John Goodman and Kevin Bacon appear as a police chief and a FBI investigator.

Despite the male-heavy narrative, Melissa Benoist and Khandi Alexander are superb in a single scene showdown, where a suspects wife is interrogated by a female FBI agent.

Patriots Day was created with the involvement of those who were injured and so can be enjoyed without a sense of exploitation. Exciting, violent and sensitive to the  many who suffered, it is a rousing hymn to duty, family and the community spirit of the city under seige.

FINAL SCORE

Cert 15 104mins Stars 2

This British action thriller could be renamed Die Hard in a Football Stadium, but it’s second division entertainment.

Dave Bautista plays a former US soldier who arrives in the East End of London to take his surrogate niece to a European football match, only to become embroiled in a terrorist plot. 

The actor is best known as Drax in Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy francise, and he’s recently made headlines for blasting bosses for their sacking of the sci-fi series’ director, James Gunn.

Bog-standard Russian separatists are searching for Pierce Brosnan’s former revolutionary leader, and they’ve rigged the stadium to explode on the final whistle.

All the action such as it is takes place at West Ham United’s beloved former ground, the Boleyn, a venue they left in reality over two years ago.

I’m not sure which bit of plotting is more ridiculous, Batista jumping a motorbike from one grandstand roof to another, or the Hammer’s playing European football.

THE PREDATOR

Cert 15 106mins Stars 2

Misjudged, misfiring and overbearingly macho, this sci-fi action comedy sequel is easily the worst in the four strong franchise.

When a hi-tech alien hunter crash lands on Earth, a US mercenary and a scientist team up with war damaged army veterans to fight it.

The original 1987 classic was an allegory for the Vietnam war and a blockbuster smash. It was directed with brio by John ‘Die Hard’ McTiernan, and fortified by the commanding presence of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

There’s no-one of his statue here, and the last film of new writer and director, Shane Black, The Nice Guys, was a box office bomb.

In his typical self back-slapping style Black mixes blood-splatting violence with boring banter-heavy bromance while casually exploiting Tourette’s Syndrome for cheap laughs.

His workaday storytelling isn’t helped by the studio cutting a scene after Black cast a friend who was a registered sex offender, and failed to inform his bosses, or the unfortunate female lead, Olivia Munn.

 

 

 

MILE 22

Cert 18 94mins Stars 4

Mark Wahlberg is at his single-minded best in this blistering and bone-snapping action thriller.

As a top CIA agent in it’s most secretive branch, his task force must convey an ‘asset’ 22 miles through a hostile city in Southeast Asia to a remote airstrip where a transport plane will hopefully pick them up.

Indonesian stuntman turned actor, Iko Uwais, plays  the ‘asset’, and the straight-forward narrative allows him to deploy the ferocious combat skills demonstrated in 2011’s The Raid, which made him a star.

And with Asia once more a proxy battlefield between the US and Russia, the script plugs straight into historic and contemporary political concerns.

This is the fourth collaboration between Wahlberg and director Peter Berg, and it is every bit as flag-wavingly entertaining as their previous films, such as 2013’s Lone Survivor.

Perfectly tailored to Wahlberg’s spiky tough guy screen persona, it’s as intense as the astonishing exercise regime he recently revealed to the world.

PAPILLON (2018)

Cert 15 130mins Stars 3

Geordie TV star, Charlie Hunnam, takes on one of the iconic roles of Hollywood legend, Steve McQueen in this effective period prison drama remake.

As a prisoner nicknamed Papillon, he sweats through the vicious regime of a remote island prison in French Guiana, before being sent to the notorious Devils’ Island.

He befriends a forger called Dega, and as good as he was as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, Rami Malek is no Dustin Hoffman.

This second adaptation of Henri Charriere’s famous 1969 autobiography is straightforward, sturdy and handsomely designed with impressive location work and always commits to the brutality of the story.

But it cleaves so closely to the earlier film without offering any new perspective on criminal justice, colonisation, racism or any other subject, I wonder why they bothered.

And Hunnam’s a piece of casting on a par with Carl ‘Apollo Creed’ Weathers, stepping into Oscar winner Sidney Poitier’s shoes in the 1986 remake of 1958 chain gang classic, The Defiant Ones.