Crime thriller

WHY DON’T YOU JUST DIE!

Cert 18 Stars 4

Head bashingly brutal and tense from the off and a blood bath of carnage and corruption, this nasty and funny comedy thriller is a vicious commentary on modern Russia and definitely not for the squeamish or easily offended.

After a stand-off in an apartment between a detective cop and a young man who claims to be his daughter’s boyfriend, we flashback to see how the characters arrived there with murder in mind.

It involves shotguns, drills and hammers, and if the kitchen sink isn’t thrown into the mix, it’s only because they’re too busy throwing TV’s at each other.

 

QUEEN & SLIM

Cert 15 Stars 4

Fear and harassment on an online date leads to violence and a desperate bid for freedom in this confident, muscular, accomplished and heartbreaking US crime drama which always feels authentic and never exploitative.

When a white policeman is shot after he’s pulled them over, black citizens Jodie Turner-Smith and Daniel Kaluuya try to escape to communist Cuba, a destination full of implicit criticism of US capitalism and its historical relationship with slave labour.

By turns thrilling, funny and moving, their journey progresses from being a road trip expose of US racial divisions to a lyrical love story, with a script which digs into ideas of social mobility, role models and solidarity.

However TV reports and social media bestows an unwelcome air of celebrity on the outlaw pair, feeding negative stereotypes and helping perpetuate a cycle of oppression.

As a modern day Bonnie and Clyde, Turner-Smith and Kaluuya make a combative and sexy pair, and shockingly overlooked by the major awards the British acting duo could at least have expected some recognition from the BAFTAs.

END OF WATCH

Stars 3

The writer of the Oscar winning smash hit Training Day, returns with another gritty police thriller set in South Central LA, but with a Denzel Washington-shaped hole where the charisma should be.

Writer and director David Ayer, shot entirely on location in fidgety, semi-documentary, police-cam video style, creating a loud and tense gun and drug movie where the highest ambition police officers have is to survive their shift and have their timesheet signed off, End Of Watch.

Jake Gyllenhaal and Mike Zavala Michael Pena are patrol car partners who come across a safe house belonging to a Mexican cartel who immediately put a price on their heads for disrupting their lucrative drugs trade.

The cops aren’t the brightest guns on the street but they are mostly honest and unquestioningly brave. Patrolling is a series of verbal abuse, brutal fist fights and vicious gun battles, and even the music is aggressive.

Off duty, Anna Kendrick and Natalie Martinez provide strong acting support as their wives, with America Ferrera and Frank Grillo as their fellow officers.

Watching this film is like being trapped for two hours in a small steel cage with a pair of uniformed, squabbling, slurping, chattering caffeinated kids, before being released on a regular basis to be shot at by angry Uzi abusing gangsters.

Ayer doesn’t wholly commit to his handheld format which reduces its authenticity, and the last two scenes are unnecessary and lessen the films impact.

Despite this the two officers hold your sympathy and attention because although they’re not as interesting or entertaining as the film believes they are, even the most basic police work involves being screamed and shot at.

Their wives are the only lightness in their lives and in the movie and are a sweet and sassy counterpoint to the constant aggravation the men experience on duty.

This is a portrait of a city in a state of siege, and the only advice the script can offer is to wear comfortable shoes and a bulletproof vest.

LIES WE TELL

Cert 15 110mins Stars 2

Despite some big names in the cast, there’s a lack of flair in all departments of this determinedly downbeat and dull urban drama.

And the novelty of seeing the city of Bradford on the big screen isn’t sufficient to recommend it.

Hollywood superstar Harvey Keitel must have been paid by the word for his brief appearance as Greek family man and billionaire businessman, Demi. 

Meanwhile Gabriel Byrne cuts a baleful figure as his loyal driver, drawn into the violent world of Demi’s beautiful British-Asian mistress, Amber.

She’s played by the hard working Australian actress Sibylla Deen who’s best known for her role in soap opera Home And Away. However along with much of the supporting cast, she typifies the TV production standards on show. Scriptwriter Ewen Glass previously worked on Hollyoaks.

Indian born and British-raised director Mitu Misra mixes arranged marriages, sexual abused and compromising videos into the plot, but never manages to generate any heat from his hot-button issues.

WIND RIVER

Cert 15 Stars 4

Taylor Sheridan is a horribly talented scribe responsible for the brilliant thrillers Sicario and Hello Or High Water, but penned and directed this bitingly chilly and hugely engrossing crime drama.

An inexperienced ill-prepared FBI agent and a local hunter team up to investigate the murder of a young woman on an Indian Reservation in frozen Wyoming.

Best known as members of Marvel’s Avengers superhero team, Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen seize the opportunity to stretch themselves with the bleak material and harsh winter conditions.

This is thought-provoking, violent, tense, and expertly builds towards a devastating finale.

 

 

 

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.

AVENGEMENT

Cert 18 Stars 2

Tattooed and muscular action star Scot Adkins, swaggers through this low budget British gangster thriller with two-fisted menace as an escaped convict out for revenge on his criminal former colleagues.

Reunited with writer and director Jesse V. Johnson with whom he made Adkins made the recent martial arts thriller, Triple Threat.

Nasty, violent and foul-mouthed, it‘s a cut above many of its type due to the efforts of cinematographer Jonathan Hall, and helped by a supporting cast which includes the always watchable Nick Moran, Thomas Turgoose and Kierston Wareing.

THE LIMEHOUSE GOLEM

Cert 15 109mins Stars 3

Get lost in the gothic and grisly gloom of this blood curdling murder mystery.

This pea souper of fact and fiction sees real life Victorian characters mixed up in a fictional serial killer in London’s down market Limehouse district.

With more than a dash of Hammer House of Horror blood splashed about, it all resembles the case of Jack the Ripper as if it were being investigated by an ageing Sherlock Holmes.

With his cadaverous face and grave manner, the venerable Bill Nighy is well cast as Inspector John Kildare, in a role originally pencilled in for Alan Rickman before his sad death.

Wild rumours suggest the mythical Golem is responsible. When the ageing detective is sent to investigate, he stumbles across a second murder case which may be connected.

Former singer and dancer Elizabeth, the prime suspect in the poisoning of her playwright husband.

Oldham born actress Emilia Cooke is fabulous in the role and in a flashback to her stage routine, her incandescent vitality and talent outshines the limelights and is the best reason for watching.

Picking his way though a shroud of intrigue, corruption, exploitation, rape and of course, murder, Kildare is led to the music hall where the famous Dan Leno performs.

The real life drag artist, dancer and comic is played with a suitably theatrical flourish by Douglas Booth.

He’s part of a bawdy repertory of performers and trapeze artists who all have their secrets, allowing for a shoal of red herrings to be scattered.

Cursed with a limited budget which doesn’t stretch stretch to grand spectacle, the money has been spent wisely on the period costumes and interior design.

Filmed on location up north, Leeds and Manchester stand in for the capital and show how sinister they can be at night. 

So beware the danger lurking in the shadows when you slip out to see the Limehouse Golem.

 

 

 

 

BABY DRIVER

Cert 15 113mins Stars 4

This exhilarating crime caper is so achingly cool and confident, I should be in it.

Sadly for me Hollywood has yet to knock on my door. So you’ll have to make do with Ansel Elgort as Baby, driver on bank jobs for Kevin Spacey’s sharp suited mob boss.

The young getaway driver looks like a young Han Solo with shades and earphones permanently attached. This allows for a stream of great tunes of every type, including Egyptian reggae.

Baby plans to do one last job before hitting the road with Lily James’s pretty waitress.

The thin tread of the plot is pimped to the max by the trademark zippy editing and knowing humour by Brit director Edgar Wright. He puts a fast spin for the heist movie the way he did with zombies movies in Shaun of the Dead. 

The dialogue pops, tires squeal and bullets fly as this non stop thrill ride delivers your new favourite soundtrack to the summer.

 

 

THE HATTON GARDEN JOB

Cert 15 92mins Stars 1

A gem of a real life story is wasted in this botched attempt at a crime caper.

In 2015, four retired ex-cons exploit the British publics love of a Bank Holiday Monday, to pull of the UK’s biggest ever bank heist.

Using nothing more complicated than their experience, a blow torch and some wheelie bins, they made off with an estimated at £35 million from a bank vault in London’s Hatton Garden diamond district.

Phil Daniels and Larry Lamb lead the pilfering pensioners, but they’re made supporting characters in their own drama.

Instead Matthew Goode’s middle class master criminal is crowbarred into proceedings, and steals all their thunder. And posh thesp, Joely Richardson, is wildly miscast as a Hungarian mobster.

Desperate editing employs freeze frames, fast cuts and random funk tunes to try to hold our attention, but to now avail.

This is a depressing waste of likeable talent, and not worth disturbing your retirement for.