Film, Issue 696

The Angels' Share

Loach and Laverty's latest suffers from attempts to attract all-comers

Here persists the noble quest of Ken Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty to create accessible, populist films about the lives of the UK’s so-called underclass. Unfortunately, The Angels’ Share is straining so hard to be accessible and populist that it…

The Dictator

Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest has moments of solid satire but still feels stale

From the naked scrotum-in-the-face wrestling of Borat to the manifold outrages of Brüno, Sacha Baron Cohen is not a man overly acquainted with subtlety. His latest, The Dictator, drops the improvisational feel of those earlier films, but doesn’t lower…

A Fantastic Fear of Everything

Crispian Mills' directorial debut starts well but quickly loses pace

A film by the former lead singer of Kula Shaker might not sound an appetising prospect. But before dismissing A Fantastic Fear of Everything, we should remember that Crispian Mills’ film pedigree is pretty spot-on. He is, after all, the son of Hayley…

Casa de mi Padre

Will Ferrell's Spanish-language comedy is at once unfunny and too silly to take seriously

Funnyman Will Ferrell as a tough rancher in a violent Spanish-language Western? It could only be a joke, and that’s exactly what Case de mi Padre is, a ragged, silly spoof in the Airplane/Naked Gun mode. Unfortunately, as jokes go, it’s a not…

The Pact

An unoriginal, low budget thriller that’s light on gore and stronger on tension

The latest US horror/thriller to be granted a UK release has a slightly better pedigree than most: writer/director Nicholas McCarthy’s film was developed from his own short, which was shown last year at Sundance, quickly developed into this feature…

Ill Manors

A jarring, grimy and a searing indictment of Broken Britain, from debut director Ben Drew aka Plan B

To say Ill Manors doesn’t pull punches is like saying Mike Tyson hits quite hard. Raw, uncompromising and brutal, this urban tale of violence, prostitution and drugs smacks you round the face, then kicks you in the groin for good measure. It marks the…

Free Men

A Prophet's Tahar Rahim stars in worthy but flawed WWII espionage drama

Loosely based on real events, this espionage drama set during World War II focuses on the largely overlooked cooperation between Arabic immigrants and the French Resistance. Tahar Rahim (who shot to fame in A Prophet) plays a North African worker named…

The Innkeepers

A genuinely involving and disconcerting chiller that thankfully eschews any trendy post-modernism

Having established his credentials as a serious genre fan with a spot-on homage to 80s horror movies in The House of the Devil, writer-director Ti West reaches even further back into the past with this slow-burning thriller. Like all good haunted house…

A Royal Affair

A skillfully delivered but coldly aloof period drama from the Swedish Dragon Tattoo team

Reuniting the writing team behind the original Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, A Royal Affair is a welcome break from the current plethora of morbid Scandinavian thrillers; instead, Rasmus Heisterberg and Nikolaj Arcel have co-adapted an unfamiliar but…

Red Tails

George Lucas pet WWII project suffers from thin characterization, cliché and crude simplification

Star Wars creator George Lucas used clips from his favourite aviation dramas to stand in for battle scenes in the original rough-cut of Star Wars, so it’s no surprise that several decades later, Lucas has invested some of his personal wealth in an…

Trailer for The Lucifer Effect marries found footage with hyper-viral marketing

Cinema has had its fair share of found footage thrillers recently. While some have had some success on a semi-stale horror circuit (such as the almost genre-defining Blair Witch Project and the Paranormal Activity series), others have failed massively…

Lawrence of Belgravia

Intimate and touching documentary about the eccentric Felt frontman

Lawrence - surnameless former front man of the variably appreciated 80s-90s indie bands Felt and Denim, and current leader of the barely-appreciated-at-all Go Kart Mozart – is a bit like the picture in Jarvis Cocker’s attic, psychologically speaking.

How I Spent my Summer Vacation

Tightly directed action-comedy that even ardent Mel Gibson-haters will find difficult to dislike

There are probably quite a few people – not least screenwriter Joe Eszterhaus, judging by his recently published missive – who would probably like to see Mel Gibson languishing in a filthy Mexican jail. But sadly for them, How I Spent My Summer Vacation…

Dark Shadows

A fun, if forgettable vampire movie, starring Johnny Depp, Eva Green and Michelle Pfeiffer

Like a kid who turns up late to a Halloween party, Tim Burton arrives with his latest, vampire movie Dark Shadows. After Twilight, 30 Days of Night and Let The Right One In, not to mention TV’s True Blood…aren’t fangs, dusty coffins and dissolving in…

Beloved

A sprawling, messy epic on unrequited love from French director Christophe Honoré

Christophe Honoré's Love Songs (2007) established a talent for musical melodrama that eschewed all the traditional razzle-dazzle trappings of Hollywood. Characters break into song as they casually stroll down a city street and the often banal…

New trailer for Danish comedy Klown

Filthy, funny antics that diverge from Scandinavia's current reputation for serious TV drama

Every now and then, something comes along that makes you laugh, wince and sneeze coffee through your nostrils, in that order. Today, that experience comes courtesy of the trailer for Danish comedy Klown. The film follows Frank (Frank Hvam) and Casper…

Le Quai des Brumes

Marcel Carné’s 1938 romantic crime drama gets a well deserved restoration

One of the definitive examples of the ‘poetic realism’ style of French cinema of the pre-war and wartime years, Marcel Carné’s 1938 romantic crime drama has been treated to a well-deserved state-of-the-art restoration. Thanks to the digital dust-off…

Juan Of The Dead

Cuban zombie comedy features cheerful mixture of political comment and splatter

Another zombie film. Really? It sounds like the last thing anyone would want to encourage but Juan Of The Dead overcomes any zombie fatigue with a cheerfully anarchic mixture of splatter and political comment. If that just brought the early films of…

American Pie: Reunion

The cast regroup for a fourth time, and still manage to raise some laughs

The cast of American Pie may have matured since we last saw them nine years ago at Jim and Michelle’s wedding but their antics remain juvenile for this latest slice of raunchy comedy - and for the most part that’s a good thing. Written and…

Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai

A quietly dignified film about 17th century honour and vengeance from Japanese director Takashi Miik

The rigorously restrained Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai is prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike’s follow-up to the exhilarating 13 Assassins. A companion piece, rather than a direct descendant, it’s a story of 17th century honour and vengeance which…

Clone

Stilted science fiction psychodrama starring Matt Smith and Eva Green

Originally entitled Womb, 2010 film Clone proves to be a painfully earnest slice of sci-fi psychodrama that attempts to meld burning questions of genetic ethics with the starkness of a Greek tragedy. The clipped, stilted script often appears to have…

Angèle and Tony

Beguiling and slow-moving story charting unlikely romance in remote Normandy fishing village

A beguiling and slow-moving story about an unlikely romance in a remote Normandy fishing village, director Alix Delaporte’s debut feature film certainly doesn’t force its way into audiences’ attentions. But for cinemagoers looking for some considered…

Two Years at Sea

Meditative documentary about recluse Jake Williams, from British artist Ben Rivers

Artist and filmmaker Ben Rivers’ debut feature film, Two Years At Sea is a handsome and meditative documentary about Jake Williams, a man living an isolated existence in northern Scotland. Shot on textured 16mm black and white film, Rivers captures…

Interview: Whit Stillman on Damsels in Distress

One-time darling of 90s indie cinema returns after 13-year hiatus.

American indie filmmaker Whit Stillman was nominated for an Oscar for the script to his first film, 1990’s Metropolitan. He followed that with Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco, which cemented his reputation as an idiosyncratic talent. Then he didn’t…

Avengers Assemble

Joss Whedon’s finely balanced superhero extravaganza is well worth the wait

The main issue facing the making of a superhero ensemble piece is balance: with so many strong personalities on screen, how do you ensure each of them get their due? It’s a problem Joss Whedon has tackled effectively in Avengers Assemble, keeping…