PATTI CAKE$

Cert 15 109mins Stars 4

Everyone make some noise for this invigorating low budget rap drama straight outa New Jersey.

This confident and coarse debut from director Geremy Jasper is a familiar story of an aspiring young singer chasing dreams of superstardom.

However the fresh faces of its mixed race rap group with a plus-sized female lead singer give it an endearing vitality.

For all it’s abundant energy, grim location and abrasive language it’s a sweet natured tale of reconciliation.

Music is used to build bridges between generations of family, narrow the racial divide and cross the chasm spanning dreams and harsh reality.

Though predominantly rap based, in various ways the script invokes the musical history of New Jersey, from Sinatra to Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi.

Aussie actress Danielle Macdonald gives a killer performance as self styled Patti Cake$, who works two jobs to support her all female family.

She’s a long way from pitch perfect, but she and her band are vigorous in using anger as an energy.

 

STRATTON

Cert 15 94mins Stars 1

Unintentionally funny and fist-bitingly terrible throughout, this sub-James Bond action thriller featuring the commando Special Boat Service is a washout. It serves to remind us just how excellent the 007 films are.

Director Simon West arms his cast with a laughably wet script, so it’s little wonder so many performances flounder.

As SBS Sergeant Stratton, the unfortunate Dominic Cooper is chasing a terrorist armed with stolen chemical weapons. The British actor was a replacement for Superman’s Henry Cavill, who sensibly dropped out at the last minute.

Connie Nielsen is a treadmill pounding ‘M’ figure with an alarming accent who is concerned about a leak inside MI6 which is gushing information to the other side.

While Gemma Chan who is very good as a robot in TV’s Humans, gives another robotic performance here as a technical geek.

In one scene a group of Italians ignore the gunfight going on outside to focus on the football. Sensible types, those Italians.

 

 

LOGAN LUCKY

Cert 12A 118mins Stars 3

Having reportedly retired from making feature films in 2012, the director of classic heist movie Ocean’s 11 can’t resist returning for one more criminal caper.

Sadly for Steven Soderbergh as decent as Logan Lucky is, this is in all ways a down market riff on his glossy 2001 George Clooney Las Vegas smash. Though it is far better than the lamentable and self indulgent Ocean sequels.

Channing Tatum and Adam Driver play the good old Logan boys Jimmy and Clyde, whose family it is locally believed are cursed by ill fortune, hence the title.

Jimmy’s ex wife is taking their daughter to another State and he needs money to hire a lawyer to fight for custody. He’s also just unfairly lost his job at the nearby motor racing track, from which he promptly decides to steal a fortune.

He rounds up a crew which includes Daniel Craig. The 007 star is clearly having a blast a tattooed explosive expert.

Riley Keough, Katie Holmes and Katherine Waterston add glamour, romance and some brains.

Written by the fictitious Rebecca Blunt in the quirky comic style of the Coen Brothers, many suspect the writer was really Soderbergh himself, who has previously used the pseudonym Mary Ann Bernard when working as an editor. If it is him then we know who to blame for various script issues.

With the absence of a bad guy and the police generally incompetent, the good guys are more or less pushing at an open door to get the loot. Nor is it always clear if the film is laughing with or at the dim witted desperadoes and townsfolk.

Subplots featuring Seth MacFarlane as a British racing driver and Hilary Swank as a FBI agent should have been cut to give proceedings a much needed sense of urgency. The pace mirrors the drawl of the hillybilly West Virginia characters.

As Logan Lucky failed to make a killing at the US box office, perhaps early retirement wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

AMERICAN MADE

Cert 15 115mins Stars 3

One of the most notorious CIA operations is given some Hollywood gloss in this brisk paced and colourful real life caper.

What eventually blew up as the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s began with a dimwit pilot called Barry Seal, who was employed by the CIA to smuggle guns and cocaine to and from Central and South America.

US Colonel Oliver North, drug baron Pablo Escobar and CIA chief’s son George W Bush are just some of the famous people Barry encounters on his increasingly dangerous escapades.

A satirical script requires Tom Cruise to play dumb, which isn’t easy for the intelligent actor. Plus his clean cut image means Barry is never seen indulging in any of cocaine he transported.

And once again the 55 year old is paired with a romantic interest more than 20 years his junior.

The young Cruise once aspired to win Oscars and still yet might, but he won’t be receiving any nominations for this lightweight if entertaining romp.

THE DARK TOWER

Cert 12A 95mins Stars 1

Horror writer Stephen King has a had a mixed bag with movie adaptions of his work, for every brilliant Shawshank Redemption there’s a Carrie remake.

With an A list cast, a decent budget of nearly £50m and an epic eight series book to work from, this is easily one of the worst.

Bland teenager Jake Chambers discovers he has psychic ability and finds himself transported to another dimension.

Poor young actor Tom Taylor is out of his depth. As 

Jake he’ll attack a high school bully for stealing his artwork, but when confronted with a multidimensional magical reality, his indifference is staggering, all yeah, like whatevs.

There he meets Idris Elba’s gunslinger, a former defender of the Dark Tower who’s vowed revenge on the magical Man In Black for killing his father. The English star tries hard but his talent isn’t given a target and his charisma is mostly holstered.

As his arch enemy Matthew McConaughey is a swaggering snake of a sorcerer, but he lacks any venom. He wants to use Jake’s psychic ability to destroy the Dark Tower, which protects the universe from outside attack.

Mashing up fantasy, science fiction, horror, and Westerns, there’s loads of good ideas thrown about such as dimension doorways, an army of human-sized rat-men, and bullets made from the sword of King Arthur.

So it’s scandalous this is so dull and devoid of mystery, wonder, thrills or fun. Plus it’s over stuffed and under powered, feeling long even with its brief running time.

With flat dialogue, dull action and unimpressive CGI, it manages to maintain a languid pace and tepid tone as it lurches along from silly to stupid.

Fans of the books will be furious and everyone else will be discouraged from reading them. And there’s no power in or outside the universe which could make me darken the tower’s door again.

EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING

Cert 12A 96mins Stars 3

This disease-of-the-week coming of age mixed race romance is an exercise in tasteful restraint.

Glossy, charming, sweet and unthreatening, Amandla Stenberg and Nick Robinson are the fresh faced clean cut 18 year olds. 

Maddy suffers from an auto immune deficiency and lives a life of luxurious captivity with no practical knowledge of life or love until Olly the hot young hunk moves in next door.

She dreams of plunging into the ocean with wild passionate abandon, almost as if it’s a metaphor for sex or something.

Of course they can’t touch never mind kiss, so they have an online flirtation while being presumably the only non–sexting adult teens in the US.

Additional  impediments to true love are her seriously over-protective mother and his abusive father.

Despite taking massive gamble with our tolerance for plot twists, this wish fulfilment fantasy will allow a self indulgent wallow for young teenage girls suffering summer holiday lovesick  blues.

 

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH 2: THE TRUTH TO POWER

Cert PG 97mins Stars 4

There’s no shelter from the weather bomb of climate change evidence in this persuasive documentary as it’s makes an impassioned plea for a switch to renewable energy.

The thunder of science and the deluge of frightening footage make for a terrifying watch.

With Greenland now alarmingly green not icy white, God fearing former US Vice President Al Gore is evangelical in his mission to cut carbon emissions in order to reduce climate change and save the planet.

His Oscar winning documentary a decade ago resulted in a noble prize and now Gore is back to remind us there’s still lots of work to be done.

On his globetrotting lecture tour to mobilise a grassroots movement against the fossil energy industry, he likens his crusade to that of the suffragettes and the 1960’s civil rights movement of Martin Luther King.

If Donald Trump’s nuclear threats don’t destroy us all, his decision to renege on 2016’s Paris Agreement probably will.

 

THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD

Cert 15 118mins Stars 4

This buddy action comedy is loud, fast, funny and the whole nine yards of knockout fun.

Ryan Reynolds is an executive bodyguard strong armed to protect Samuel L. Jackson’s hitman.

Pursued by an army of heavily armed gunmen, the smooth triple A rated protection agent has only 27 hours to transport the killer from Manchester to The Hague to give evidence in a trial.

The film trades heavily on the combustible competitive charisma of a formidable foursome of stars.

Elodie Yung and Salma Hayek play the men’s significant others, with the latter magnificent in her fiery foul mouthed fury.

There’s a vague 1970s vibe and the inclusion of Belarusian war crimes and terrorist strikes give real world weight to the James Bond inspired action.

This includes a shoot out in Coventry – which is not something you see everyday in a Hollywood movie – plus there’s a ferocious motorbike and speedboat chase in Amsterdam. Van der Valk was never this much of a blast.

ANNABELLE: CREATION

Cert 15 108mins Stars 3

There’s no escape from the blood dripping, knuckle crunching terror in the most scary of the fourth film in the Annabelle franchise.

A prequel to 2014’s Annabelle and the two related Conjuring films, Creation tells the origin of the demonic dead eyed doll, Annabelle.

Half a dozen orphan girls are bussed to a new farmhouse home, it’s owned by the craftsman who handcrafted Annabelle for his now deceased daughter.

The house has a deep well, a creaking dumb waiter, and a mask wearing mad woman locked in her room.

Prior to this episode the formula has led to the series making £680m from a combined budget of £51m.

And the producers stick rigidly to their successful financial formula by keeping the action to a single location, casting largely unknowns and using old school physical effects to keep the costs low.

But there’s no skimping on the horror and the shocks are as well crafted as the wooden girl herself.

A GHOST STORY

Cert 12A 92mins Stars 3

This supernatural melodrama sees best actor Oscar winner Casey Affleck hiding the light of his talent not under a bushel, but under a bed sheet.

Affleck is at his most furrowed and mumbling even before his character suffers an early death. The actor spends most of the movie hidden in the classic kids costume of a bed sheet with two holes cut out and not saying a word. 

Occasional moments of black humour break out as Affleck communicates with the ghost next door. 

Tastefully somber, this mournful meditation on the meaning of life is almost provocative in its refusal to engage in anything as crowd pleasing as drama.

But as Affleck spends an eon mourning for his lost love played by Rooney Mara, I began longing for the grubby pleasures of Demi Moore and her potters wheel from 1990’s weepie, Ghost.

For all the grand cosmic sweep and the literary influences, like it’s main character there’s not much going on underneath.