Oliver Stone directs Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis and Robert Downey Jnr in this tale of psycho lovers on the run and the media circus that feeds of them.

I first watched this amid a storm of tabloid condemnation, the first truest wave of Tarantinomania and reams of critical praise on the 12 inch portable telly of my childhood bedroom via a grainy pirate VHS. For a rabid Quentin fan, this diluted version of his original screenplay, was the first fumble for me – I could tell it was a turgid mess even then. Two decades later and a chance for a more mature me to reappraise it… No, still godawful. The schizophrenic filming style makes sense (the sitcom framing of Mallory’s home life or the random flashbacks to replay almost subliminal images of dying people before they realise their violent fates from mere moments earlier both have some incongruous power) but the frankly bipolar, and off their meds, acting cacophony does not. Downey Jnr does a wavering Mel Gibson impression, Tommy Lee Jones seems to have just carried on playing Two Face from career nadir Batman Forever and only a one note, but at least committed, Tom Sizemore delivers anything that can be called consistent or compelling. I get Stone’s loudspeaker spouted points about the media and violence but it really doesn’t seem as tangible a target as Wall Street or Vietnam nor as challenging for him as Talk Radio or presidencies proved. He even made a better pulpy QT style crime thriller in U-Turn a couple of years later. This remains a headache to plough through.

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David Mackenzie directs Chris Pine, Jeff Bridges and Ben Foster in this modern western where brothers turn bank robbers to save the ranch before the bank forecloses and a Texas Ranger proves his grit before mandatory retirement.

We’ve had entertaining films, interesting films and more than a fair few messy but fascinating films this year but very few new releases that feel immediately great. Well, Hell or High Water is immediately great, it is a sterling example of craftsmanship from all involved. Director David Mackenzie has been doing quality if quirky work for years (The Last Great Wilderness, Hallam Foe, Starred Up) so this feels almost like a delivery on a promise. The genre requirements dial back his more pretentious edges and he luxuriates in the mood and settings and climate. As various talents struggle to revive the Western proper, Mackenzie’s work feels fruitfully on a par with present day (or thereabouts) neo-westerns like No Country For Old Men, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada and A Perfect World. All amazing company to be in. The casting is uniformly excellent right down to one line roles, a good tombola of enthralling locals and well integrated professionals. It makes all the small interactions seem weighted with heavier subtext so that even the most human exchanges, like ordering breakfast, seems like a puzzle guarding the secrets of the universe. Maybe I just like the mythology of Texas and Texans so much I read more into these things than there ever is. This languid, measured pace also mean the violence when it erupts burns bright and hard. If you don’t forsee tragedy from the start then you clearly don’t know your way around these parts. Acting wise, Bridges marinates in the strong writing and familiar surroundings. He’s a chew of tobacco and a whiskey fart away from his Rooster Cogburn. And there’s nothing wrong with that, another Oscar nom beckons. Pine is taciturn and smouldering in the lead, like his turn in the brave failure The Finest Hours, he seems to want to pursue a very different onscreen persona outside of his franchise fare. Once again, at last, a promise delivered on. And the always overlooked Ben Foster is a scream here as the bad boy of the partnership. Aggressive, charming, barely restrained. His is the kind of home run that makes newcomers stars but no doubt despite being player of the year, he’ll go back to being fifth billed in so-so films – a sad lot for such a long serving, always grafting character actor. Not only does he prove a dynamo next Pine’s more tightly coiled performance but he beautifully undersells many of surprisingly humorous script’s best lines. Nick Cave’s score is also the stuff of denim shirt dreams.

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Karyn Kusama directs Logan Marshall-Green, Tammy Blanchard and John Carroll Lynch in this paranoid thriller where one man suspects dangerous ulterior motives at has ex wife’s awkward dinner.

One of those absolute little gems that you used to catch channel surfing late night but now have you can only hope Netflix puts up an enticing enough blurb to hook you away from its own brand box sets and rights to stream middling blockbusters. This is the kind of treat that makes that subscription worthwhile. A great little thriller filmed in Fincher’s trademark autumnal browns and yellows – also borrowing his Zodiac, who again turns in an exemplary performance not massively dissimilar in silent threat and menace. To reveal too much about what unfurls will ruin the drama, suffice to say Kusama’s on target direction tosses you about so you are never sure whether something terrible is genuinely about to occur… or you are being manipulated by the protagonist’s fear of interacting with old friends and strange new people into sharing his unwarranted paranoia.  A class act.

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Fede Alvarez directs Jane Levy, Stephen Lang and Dylan Minnette in this tale of kids who burgle a very dangerous blind man’s house.

Proof that genre beats spectacle – two of 2016’s best movies are out on the same weekend. Both put together talented people in front and behind the camera, a pure but efficiently realised concept, and on a budget that wouldn’t pay for Robert Downey Jnr’s Iron Arm and Iron Leg, let alone a whole Marvel Civil Playground Scrap. We have a great modern horror here. Sure, the characters are to the letter unlikeable but you’ll get so caught up in the perfectly oiled and paced spook house ride, once it is set in motion, to care about the ethics of rooting for their survival. Lang (plus a committed pooch) is a formidable, unrelenting force to be reckoned with – his jerky movement and shell shocked face will creep out even the most hardened horror hound as he lunges and passes and lurks at the viewer. It has twists and turns but if you are a fan of the devastating final set piece in The Silence of the Lambs then you’ll be at least girded mentally for a satisfying hour long extension of exactly that. Don’t Breathe is proudly from The Evil Dead remake team and, just as that blast was a pleasantly nasty surprise, this is ever so well crafted that you have to relish the infinitely exciting possibilities of whatever they conjure up next.

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Taylor Hackford directs Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez and Michael Chiklis in this adaptation of a mid series Richard Stark revenge thriller.

We have had loads of great unofficial Parker adaptations and descendants before (Point Blank, The Outfit, Payback, How I Spent My Summer Vacation) but this first author approved yarn gets a lot right. It has the breezy, hard boiled feel of a good throwaway holiday novel. So… the best stuff is very much at the front; a state fair heist, Stath fighting various TV boxset favourites in a moving SUV, his trademark Parker resurrection, that ten gallon hat. Our Jase proves a bloody decent fit for the cult criminal when the focus is on him, so it is disappointing this didn’t go wider with the public as I would personally love second and third servings. Two things might be off putting to some though, the baggy second half where the narrative recalibrates far too much around J-Lo’s mixed up citizen (Out of Sight meets Desperate Housewives is the tone) and the sheer blood soaked nature of some the Stath’s roughest tumble (literally dripping in crimson during two encounters). I found much to treasure in even these diversions. Credits rolls and we’ve gotten Statham’s best for a long time – a shame there won’t be more, this aborted series should have been his retirement fund.

7

 

James Neilson directs James Stewart, Audie Murphy and Brandon deWilde in this western about a former railroad security man who goes up against his little brother’s gang to get his old job back. 

Convulted and daft, even in its simpler moments, though colourful to watch. A big mess of cowboy thriller that includes way, way too much ensemble, a heck of a lot of accordion playing from a subdued Stewart, a security expert hiding the payroll in the youngest gang member’s lunchbox and much diving n’ shooting around an abandoned mine entrance. It’s a lark occasionally, I suppose, if you can stop yourself from repeatedly asking “What the fuck am I watching?”

3

Peter Strickland directs Sidse Babett Knudsen, Chiara D’Anna and Fatma Mohamed in this tale of a lesbian sub-dom couple feeling the strain of living out their fantasies in a lush country villa. 

A kind of flip side to the wonderful Secretary – there a pair of misfits found connection and tenderness through kink, here the demands of one partner’s precise sexual needs create tension and mistrust in their idyllic set-up. Everything about this film is sensual and sublime; the ethereal soundtrack, autumnal location, beautiful outerwear, tastefully discreet lingerie, Roeg inspired edits and the two exquisite leads. Having said that, like Strickland’s previous Berberian Sound Studio it is an exercise in a whole lot of gorgeous nothing and your patience will be tested if you don’t invest in the couples subtle shifts in sanity, power and happiness. Here I did  (more so than with Toby Jones’ “chiff chaff” obsessed sound effects guru) and it proves about as good as a film where one lead classily pisses into the other’s mouth can be.

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Peter Yates directs Ken Marshall, Lysette Anthony and Freddie Jones in this full on fantasy that wants to be a cheap Star Wars cash-in but plays as if HR Giger designed Lord of the Rings.

Krull is not a good film, it certainly does not entertain. I remember being thoroughly bored by it as a kid, apart from a set piece or two mainly involving a five blade frisbee type gidget (this universe’s lightsaber). And this revisit as an adult I found myself easily distracted again too, it was hard not to spend the entire running time checking emails on my phone. There were action beats which happened so fast (possibly due to budget or shoddy effects that would not withstand more than a milliseconds scrutiny) that even on a rewind I struggled to understand what the threat was and where it had come from. This aside there are campy pleasures too; Marshall is the spit of a young Chris Pratt and has maybe a fifth of his charisma, the cast list cherry picks from RADA to Carry On, and the FX are optimistically ambitious given their limitations. Also the moments when a breathy young Lysette Anthony runs around an alien prison palace seemingly made up of dedicated internal organs, populated by a beast seen only in jarring Lovecraftian reflections, have a haunting quality. As also does some plot wrinkles involving blank eyed doubles replacing key characters. Not very watchable aside from these stark images unless fantasy is your manna.

5

The Hughes Brothers direct Johnny Depp, Heather Graham and Ian Holm in this gothic take on Alan Moore’s comic book adaption of the Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution theory.

A thoroughly disjointed film hampered most of all by a transparent lead performance by Depp (he clearly doesn’t want to be there). Heather Graham tries her hardest as the tart with a heart, and uniquely half a brain. I can’t help but wonder if this take on the much filmed mystery might have benefited from her as the sole lead; her Mary trying to protect her fellow working girls would anchor the narrative to everything else the script and its source grabs at greedily (Masonic conspiracies! Anti Semitic tensions! The rise of the Tabloid! The Elephant Man! Drugged up tripping detectives!) and also present a slightly more palatable, modern difference to the traditional whodunnit entertainment spun again and again from a fascinating but grim real life social tragedy. As a casual Ripperologist myself, it is a bit galling this will be seen as the definitive take from Hollywood on the source, theory and agreed events. There’s just no thrill nor verisimilitude to it and while some moments are visually inventive, others have all the craft of a particularly saucy episode of Crossroads. Worth picking through despite its indegistible chunks though.

6

Woody Allen directs Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart and Corey Stoll in this 1930s West Coast / East Coast romance.

Woody Allen’s most visually sumptuous (not two words you associate with the wordy master) movie since Manhattan. This is filled with great visual moments from back room dive jazz bars, New Year Eve parties in old school night clubs, golden age Hollywood mansions and none more so than the pictured frame where two friends become intimate silhouettes in Klimt-esque candlelight. As the bodies closen and darken we get maybe the most tender and charming cinematic shot filmed this year. You receive everything you expect from Woody – Jewish families with existential subplots, erudite humour and Eisenberg making a fine young stand-in as the nebbish ladies man lead. But two performances sing loudest. Stoll, as the gangster older brother, just pops in all his scenes with a loveable danger, and Stewart who here manages to marry her unmistakable movie star beauty and awkward style into something genuinely likeable rather than just wanly sexy. It is, all in all, a deftly fun, surprisingly and unpredictably involving film… but fans of shit 80s cinema might notice the plot is a near direct lift of Michael J Fox’s near forgotten yuppie comedy The Secret of My Success. Just as the previously strong Irrational Man was Allen’s take on Dostoevsky, it good to see the geriatric auteur now feels ready to put his unique spin on Marty McFly’s back catalogue too.

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