Tag Archives: Drama

Black Bag – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Sexy, intriguing, delightful, and also a bit tense. In other words, it is an almost perfect spy film.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

A handgun on a wooden table.

Black Bag Review –

It has been a long time since I have seen a spy film perfectly capture that intrigue, where you, the audience, do not quite know what is going on, yet you are profoundly compelled to find out as the machinations of the story unfolds in front of you. Narratively, that is hard to pull off, especially in the modern era where we have seen most of the story tricks you would use in other films. However, in today’s entry, we find a movie that nails that with class.

So, to set the scene, George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) and Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett) look like your normal highly successful power couple, bar one thing: they both work for one of Great Britain’s security services. Kathryn is a renowned field agent, and George is a security specialist whose polygraphs are legendary. They work well together because they know where all the professional boundaries lie. However, this is thrown asunder when a key analyst, Meacham (Gustaf Skarsgård), discovers there are only five people who could have stolen a highly classified weapons program, and one of them is Kathryn. What is George to do? Well, maybe invite every suspect to his house for dinner.   

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Silent Zone – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A serviceable if somewhat frustrating zombie flick that does at least land the moments that count.  

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was sent a screener of this film.

Bandits surround our heroes.

Silent Zone Review –

Well, the zombie film is back in vogue, and I am always interested to see how these concepts get translated across the world. Today’s film makes the most of its location work to explore a world that has fallen apart and the people trying to survive it.  

So, to set the scene, at the start of a zombie outbreak, Abby had the misfortune of watching her family get killed and try to turn on her. She would have joined the dead if it was not for a police officer, Cassius (Matt Devere), who killed her reanimated family. Ten years later, society has completely collapsed, and few survivors exist to live out a life of shrinking resources and constant threats of ferals. Abigal (Luca Papp) and Cassius live in the woods, two weeks away from an island of security. But when a scout from a herd finds them, they know time is not on their side.

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Inside Man (Gemini Lounge) – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It is an interesting character study, but I struggled to connect with any part of the film.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was sent a screener of this film.

The perp board.

Inside Man Review –

Today, we are looking at a film that is steeped in tradition even before the ‘based on a true story’ moniker pops up on the screen. In the deep of the 1980s, New York who was full of mobsters, murders, and illicit substances. It has been a fodder for many films, including the one we are looking at today.   

So, to set the scene, we are in Brooklyn, New York, back in 1983 when Bobby Belucci (Emile Hirsch) was a cop at the crossroads. After finding another man with his wife and introducing that man to his fists, he was demoted to the backend of the department and stuck behind a desk. But one drunken night, Bobby gets the chance to change his fate when he saves the mobster Chris Rosenberg (Jake Cannavale), one of Roy Demeo’ (Danny Abeckaser) guys, from a stabbing.

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The Last Journey (Den Sista Resan) – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It was a fascinating and emotional film, but I did walk away with a number of questions that did not quite sit right with me.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

An orange car.

The Last Journey Review –

There are some films that you don’t know what you are getting yourself into before you sit down. Today, the fact that this film is called The Last Journey gave me a little guide on where we were going to drive. However, this is one of those films that no matter how prepared you are walking in, you will still be an emotional mess by the end [or in the first five minutes if you are me].

So, to set the scene, back in 2008, Lars Hammar retired from teaching to enter his glorious third age. However, instead of freeing himself to explore the world, Lars has retreated into his lovely armchair from Belgium and seems content to stay there until he passes. Well, his son Filip has decided that it is time to get his father out of whatever funk he has found himself in by taking him on the same journey to the south of France that they used to do every year when they were children. Show him the world from the back of a small orange vintage car and hope that they restart that spark in him. Well, that is the plan. The question is, can they even get out of Sweden?

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Captain America: Brave New World – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It is a perfectly serviceable film saved by a strong rapport between the cast and perfectly fine action sequences, but it was aiming for a level it did not have the strength to reach.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is an end-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Celestial Island.

Captain America: Brave New World Review –

There are some films where you walk in with a healthy amount of trepidation, and for me, this was one of them. The Captain America films were always one of the highlights of the MCU for me, with Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier & Captain America: Civil War all scoring high on my best of MCU lists. I even enjoyed The Falcon and The Winter Soldier series, even if it was a bit uneven. But something about the production just felt off, and the need to drop the Red Hand into every trailer made it feel like they didn’t have much else to go with. Having watched it now, I think this was both a fair and, luckily, unfair suggestion.  

So, to set the scene, it has been several years since Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) took over the mantle of Captain America, and while things have been going well, they are about to be tested with the election of Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford) to United States President. We open in as Cap flies a mission in Mexico, recapturing a container captured by mercenaries led by Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito). The mission was a success, and Sam, Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) and Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) were invited to the White House to see the Celestial Island Treaty be signed. It was a perfect night right up until Isaiah stood up and tried to kill the president. Chaos erupts, and suddenly, the world is on the brink of war.

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Conclave – Movie Review

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TL;DR – An exquisitely acted and produced film that takes you into a world rarely seen with the weight of a drama but with all the fascination of a political intrigue.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

Red Cardinals against white marble columns.

Conclave Review –

It is tough to see honest explorations of faith and religion in modern cinema. When films exploring faith come out of Hollywood, they usually feel like hollow vessels divorced from reality. But then you watch movies that come out of the faith-based industry, and more often than not, you are watching trumped-up emotional blackmail hiding under the frame of faith. So, call me surprised when I sat down to watch Conclave and discovered something different.   

So, to set the scene, the Pope is dead, long live the Pope. If there is ever an organisation that has embraced the pomp and circumstance, it is the Catholic Church, and this happens in death just as much or even more than life. Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), who is Dean of the College of Cardinals, has to convene a conclave to pick the next Pope even though he feels unworthy of the task. However, as cardinals fly in from across the globe, it is clear that there is tension regarding how the Church will move forward. Will it embrace tradition or modernity? Or maybe somewhere in between.

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Companion – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Companion is a film full of juxtapositions, hilarious and incredibly violent, fascinating yet also profoundly exploitative, and a fascinating romp even when it is trying to plum the depths of human depravity.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Warning – This film contains scenes that may cause distress.

Iris shopping.

Companion Review –

Today, we look at a film that is fundamentally ambitious with the themes and tone that it wants to set. A Dark Comedy that is also exploring the world of manipulation, power, control, and personhood. All significant themes in their own right, and the question then becomes: can you do them all justice in 90-minute runtime and a shoestring budget?  

So, to set the scene, Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and Josh (Jack Quaid) have the perfect meet/cute story: they randomly bumped into each other in a grocery store, and Josh was so awkward that he accidentally knocked over a whole table full of oranges. It could have been a moment of disaster, but they found love in that odd place. It was such a decisive moment that Iris listed it as the only time that she moved out of her benign world and into something more profound. Oh, well and that one other time, the day she killed Josh.  

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A Complete Unknown – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A wild exploration of one of the most prominent musical writers of an age or two, but also of a time and movement in American music that I don’t think we’ll see again.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a screening of this film.

Bob arrives in New York.

A Complete Unknown Review –

There are a lot of musical biopics out there in the world, some more earned than others. But there is an understandable power behind them, given music’s ability to move your soul. But when you think back to which songwriters have had the most impact on music in the modern era, few names are in the same ballpark as Bob Dylan, and it makes sense to explore his life and the effect it did have and well is still having to this day.   

So, to set the scene, one cold New York night, a young Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) arrives at the hospital bed of his idol Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy) after hearing he was unwell. Bob is an expert in Folk Music, having picked up sounds from across America. Luckily for Bob, who was also visiting Woody at that time, was famed folk musician Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), who brought the young man under his wings. Soon, Bob will be captivating the New York Folk Music scene, but being a singular talent comes with as many downsides as successes.  

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The Brutalist – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Elegant, stunning, and powerful, it is a film that will stay with me for a long time even though I don’t think I will ever watch it again.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

An upside-down Statue of Liberty.
An upside-down Statue of Liberty.

The Brutalist Review –

Today, we look at a film that absolutely captivated me from start to finish, and given that it is three and a half hours long, that is a lot of runtime to have to keep you engaged. However, I think you might see how each and every step captivates, even when the film can be deeply uncomfortable.  

So, to set the scene, László Tóth (Adrien Brody) is a Hungarian Jew who was separated from everyone he loves during World War Two. Escaping Europe by himself, he manages to make it to America and go live with and work for his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola) in Philadelphia. Things are tense in the closed environment. However, a chance encounter with Harry Lee Van Buren (Joe Alwyn) puts him into the orbit of the powerful, industrious Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), someone who might just let László create his brutalist masterpiece.

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Thelma – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It is an absolute blast that also hits you so hard in the feels that you can’t help but surf a wave of emotions.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

Thelma Review –

Well, what a surprise this film was. When you hear that there is a revenge film out there, but the hook is that the lead actors are in their 90s, well, that is something that you need to check out. If they had just kept the film at that, it would have been fine. But no, they don’t stop there, and the film is so much better for it.

So, to set the scene, Thelma (June Squibb) is living her life in a world that is very different than the one she grew up in, but she does not mind because she has her knitting, her routine, and a grandson Daniel (Fred Hechinger) who she loves. Daniel has been teaching Thelma how to use her computer so she can connect more with her family. But Thelma becomes a victim of the “Hi Mum” scam and loses $10,000 in cash. When she finds out she has been scammed, there is only one thing to do, which is Tom Cruise it! Hunt down those who scammed her and make them pay.

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