Paul McGuigan directs Paul Bettany, Malcolm McDowell and David Thewlis in this violent flashback of an ageing gangster shocker. 

Told with a cocky, if often superficial, visual panache, a million uses of the word “cunt” and a breakout performance from Bettany – this is a solid example of the genre that ran rampant after Lock Stock’s success. What a pity it disappears up its own arse in the final half hour. When we are in the Sixties, we enjoy a psychopath literally crawling out from under his own skin, riddled with the violent horrors he holds within. There’s a moment of silent primal scream where Bettany’s mouth threatens to devour his own head, it widens so terrifyingly wide. Cthulhu in a mohair suit, he could make a great Joker. But when we fast forward to the modern day for retribution and regrets, it fizzles out to nothing. Dodgy old age make up, McDowell hamming about in a narrative dead end. Shame.

6

Peter Lord directs Hugh Grant, Martin Freeman and Imelda Staunton in this animated comedy about some daft, harmless pirates who discover their beloved “parrot” is actually a rare scientific find that the British Empire definitely wants sovereignty of. 

Better than most kid’s films in that this anarchically embraces its daftness and loves its genre. It is spirited, silly stuff but the gag rate dips as the plot dominates.

6

 

Damiano Damiani directs Jack Magner, Diane Franklin and James Olson in the demonic possession prequel / sequel to the “true story” horror original.

The first one is an absolute duffer but sometimes you are at your parents’ house, you have to compromise, find yourself watching a film already 30 minutes into its runtime as your Dad has the remote control and there are no channels left. He has cycled through all of them, the only other options are madness or Babestation. Babestation would have been the more wholesome option. We join the new family in the midst of abuse and sibling incest. Fun for all the family. It dawdles. The acting is poor. Yet it isn’t the utter write off that it progenitor was. The on location photography is superior and ambitiously framed for a mere cash-in horror sequel. The freak out, pure horror sequences are off key and chilling. The possessed boy stalking his family at night with a shotgun sequence belongs to a five star film. Native American ghosts trundle out of a secret portal. The demon hatches angrily from his host’s screaming head like it was hardboiled flesh egg. The effect work is unconvincing but gloopily vivid. And while acting might not be Diane Franklin’s forte, she prettily convinces as innocence fallen. I kinda wish Dad had settled on it from the very start as I’ll never watch it again of my own volition.

4

Tate Taylor directs Chadwick Boseman, Nelsan Ellis and Dan Aykroyd in this biopic of The Godfather Of Soul / The Hardest Working Man In Show Business / James Brown. 

If Get On Up retained the manic energy of the first 10 minutes then we’d have a platinum plated classic on our hands. We meet James Brown in decline, threatening a group of honkys as one has used his personal office bathroom. He gets distracted by a bit of music in his head. The shotgun he casually waves around goes off. He discovers the culprit and after verbally reprimanding her, reaches a moment of understanding. She was just trying to get what was good for her. He gets it. Then he hears approaching sirens. We shift to 1968. He’s meeting the president… and wanting to bring the FUNK to the troops in ‘Nam. We’re flying into a base under fire. And James Brown is still calling the shots… We reach his impoverished childhood… the nonlinear mosaic of incidents continues but the shock factor levels out. We start to get the standard rags to riches, rise and fall, conflicted tribute of a complex creative. That chaotic energy is dialled right back, mawkishness shares its driver’s seat. But even when this biopic loses its uniqueness, Boseman is superb. He captures Brown perfectly. The cadence, the moves, the confidence, the power. The ageing make-up is uncanny. So it loses steam, so it becomes a back-handed hagiography. There’s enough fun, enough recreation of Brown’s brilliant music and a powerful central turn that keeps this keeping on.

6

 

Coralie Fargeat directs Matilda Lutz, Kevin Janssens, Vincent Colombe in this hyper-stylised rape and revenge thriller. 

The imagery is neon, bleached, burned and blistering. We get close-ups of ants being drowned in globs of blood, candy being grotesquely chomped and embedded glass being removed from vagina-like wounds. We get a heroine who goes from defenceless trophy to hardened predator, men who go from lecherous threat to manic incompetence, and a directorial gaze that gives us as much hard bodied man flesh as it does alluring lady butt shots. You are going to have to like your gore to enjoy this, you are going to have to be a fan of Cinéma Du Look to appreciate it. But it works… hard and nasty, but it works. Pulse racing, smartly experimental reverse-exploitation.

7

Richard Lester directs Richard Harris, Omar Sharif and Shirley Knight in this disaster movie where a cruise liner is held to ransom by a mysterious terrorist who has planted seven complex bombs. 

A dull and bloodless airport novel adaptation. None of the characters are given any room to breathe. Lester’s direction is restless – building little tension and completely fumbling the parlour game of guessing who the “Juggernaut” is. There’s a decent stunt sequence at the midway point but in general this is stodgy and lifeless.

2

My Top Ten Disaster Movies

1. Die Hard (1988)
2. Speed (1994)
3. The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974)
4. Captain Philips (2013)
5. The Martian (2015)
6. Con Air (1997)

7. The Posiedon Adventure (1972)
8. Jurassic Park (1993)
9. Deepwater Horizon (2016)
10. Lifeboat (1944)

Jay Baruchel directs Seann William Scott, Liev Schreiber and Alison Pill in this sequel to the ice hockey comedy. 

Uh-oh! All the way through this I thought I was watching the first one. I had no idea I was watching the sequel until I went online to read the trivia after and realised I hadn’t seen Eugene Levy in it once. So now I don’t know if a lot of the deadpan, random humour I quite enjoyed are actually just callbacks to jokes and characters set-up in the first film. If not then, this very, very, very violent sports comedy is an off-the-wall amusement that benefits from a likeable cast.

5

 

Neil LaBute directs Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington in this belated yuppies in peril thriller about a mixed race couple who move in next door to a bullying cop who objects to their very existence.

For the first 90 minutes this proves a gripping enough if unoriginal potboiler. Powered by a decent villian turn from Samuel L Jackson (the role suits him rather than stretches him) and a dark satirical take, it threatens to transcend its debt to 1992’s Unlawful Entry. Then in the last 20 minutes things unravel to the dampest ending imaginable. Hollywood fantasy yet awkwardly cliched. Shame, as there is a point where it looks like Jackson’s manipulative tyrant might actually get away with his abuse of the neighbours…  and they may end up misguidedly appreciating him. Surely, that would have proved a far more disturbing conclusion? We’ll never know. Beyond all the forced threat and unbelievable resolution, one does have to wonder how in need we were of a racist black man in authority antagonist to be the centrepiece of a mainstream studio release. We haven’t had nearly enough prejudiced white patrol cops lacerated and demonised in the same way yet.

5

Daniel Lindsay and T. J. Martin direct Rodney King, Daryl Gates and Stacey Koon in this collage documentary of news footage and home video depicting the causes and incidents of the LA riots. 

A very powerful motion scrapbook, creating a damning mosaic of what exactly happened in Los Angeles after the beating of Rodney King, the murder of Latasha Harlins and the provocative court decisions that followed these crimes in quick succession. In all honesty, the expansive O.J.: Made in America mini-series explores Police Chief Daryl Gates’ fascistic running of the LAPD and his controversial, black community persecuting CRASH policy with more depth and room. Undoubtedly these were the fuels that burned LA and the controversial verdicts of two high profile court cases in quick succession were the ignition. But the savagery depicted in the riots is genuinely unnerving even 25 years later. Crips and Bloods joining forces, years of gang brutality being mobilised against non-black citizens and businesses. The chaos on the corner of Florence and Normandie, where mobs of youths inflicted recreations of what happened to Rodney King on passing white motorists. The haunting image of truck driver, Reginald Denny, stripped and spray painted black, left for dead after a vicious mass stomping. A disturbed man casually walking the streets, setting light to every tree he passes, no one stopping him. The anguish of small business owners left to defend or pick through the rubble of their American dreams. The sight of the LAPD and the National Guard standing back for days, letting the poor areas eat themselves up before moving in – Incompetency? Or a statement? The documentary never comments through narration or talking heads or title cards, though obviously chooses what footage to include and what to juxtapose it with. It makes for a traumatising history. One that puts films like Falling Down, Trespass and even Do The Right Thing in a prophetic context. One that visually informs The Purge films with their increasingly ‘woke’ power.

8

King Hu directs Cheng Pei-pei, Yueh Hua and Chan Hung-lit in the Kung-Fu epic about a female enforcer called Golden Swallow who has to rescue a general’s son from a bandit gang. 

Typical Shaw Brothers product. The fights are more graceful (Cheng Pei-pei’s background was in ballet) than violent, the framing of the impressive location work goes for a romantic beauty rather than a mere playground for stunts. Both aims are admirable but after a while I found myself drifting away from the story scenes… was this aimlessness my fault or the movie’s? Then the final 10 minutes focuses on the boys fighting even though there is no reason in the plot for Golden Swallow to be sidelined. There’s nothing particularly wrong with Come Drink With Me but I struggled to engage with it. Considering its high reputation within the genre that feels like a failure to me.

5