Wild Bill - DM Review

I felt like I had seen this film before...East End gangster with a heart trying to make good but facing obstacles. So a little formulaic but the performances saved this. A film with heart.


Score: 7/10

The Raven - DM Review

This film had it all...shoddy acting, weak plot and Edgar Allan Poe as a crime fighter.


I'm waiting for CSI Austen.


Score: 2/10

Michael - DM Review

My main problem with this film is that I do not understand why it was made. I do not understand its intent. I can hypothesise...perhaps it is a cold, clinical, non-hysterical look at paedophilia; perhaps a study in the mundaneness and banality of evil; perhaps it is an attempt to show paedophiles have day jobs as office workers, take skiing holidays and go to supermarkets to buy pickles....so what? 

This film taught me nothing. It tried so hard to be objective that all emotional engagement was absent. The only emotions I felt were boredom, anger and frustration at this film.

I didn't want obvious signposting or explicit explanations of the situation but more characterisation  was needed. If the film's intent was to "humanise" sex offenders, then some explanation is needed. You can't just say things happen.

Score: 2/10

Michael - MD Review

A scene midway through Michael ends with Wolfgang - the ten-year-old boy kept prisoner in the cellar of the eponymous balding thirtysomething insurance broker - putting away a jar of pickles following another tense and fearful meal with his captor. Cut to the next scene, as Michael walks through supermarket aisles a worker cleans up a similar jar, broken with the pickles spewed helplessly across the floor. Michael is that sort of film. Contained, considered and absolutely captivating in all senses of the word.

As a peadophile Michael is cunning, conniving and despicable. His trip to the local go-kart track looking for a 'playmate' for Wolfgang is particularly disturbing.  As a person Michael is never empathetic but we are given opportunities to reflect on the why and how of who he is. Most challenging perhaps are the occasions of normative father / son behaviour.

This is an extraordinary film with exquisite acting across the board. More chilling then a dozen women in black; more akin to one woman in a red duffle coat. It is shot with a harshness that doesn’t evoke or signpost a particular response and as such the trepidation in each scene, and within every character interaction, takes us to our own dark places

Such is the ratcheting of tension, I was uncertain that it could be maintained and prepared myself for disappointment in the third act. However the shift in power and denouement are genuinely shocking and ultimately the finale is only the start of another dimension of the story.

So, thus far, my two favourite (or perhaps I should say most rewarding) films of the year are about a sex addict and a paedophile. Thank heavens for The Muppets.

Score: 10/10

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - MD Review

The first ten minutes of this movie contains some of the most unnecessary racist lines I’ve every heard in mainstream cinema. From cockney Maggie Smith in the “oh bless ‘er” confines of her wheelchair, no less. No matter how her character arc developed – and it was obvious that it would – I couldn’t get the racism, or the giggling complicity of the Fulham populous I was unfortunate enough to be watching it with, out of my head.

Equally, the preposterous contrivances that pitched these characters into India and the telegraphed ‘journeys’ they made were grating to the extreme. The more I reflect on this movie the angrier it has made me.

I know it’s only a bunch of middle class actors have a paid holiday…and it doesn’t mean anything.  But they should know better. It was actively racist and passively xenophobic, oh and they killed off the gay. And as I write it’s number one in the box office…grrr

Score 1/10 (takes into account retrospective anger)

This Means War - MD Review

Confession time. I have an unexplainable and un-defendable liking of the first Charlie’s Angels movie; and of Tom Hardy’s lips. So…

Oh dear. It tried but ultimately was just trying. There were one or two laughs and Tom was doing his damnedest. But it ultimately failed because Mc G (short for McGuffin?) took sides with his protagonists; and compounded it with a hideously misogynist coda. Left me feeling sour.

What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.

Score 2/10

Rampart - MD Review

In Rampart we see a forceful performance from Woody Harrelson as the anti-villain archetype - the unorthodox cop with a complicated personal life both revered and despised. The story presents a picture of individual vs. organisational corruption. There's only ever likely to be one winner.

Ultimately the movie, like the protagonist, gets a bit lost towards the end but it takes us on an interesting journey of relational and personal conflict to get there. 

Score: 6/10

Man On A Ledge - MD Review

There is an interesting premise here. Unfortunately the potential simplicity - a grandstanding distraction to cover up something else - was lost in too much superfluous backstory to justify the motivations and ‘twists’ that were signposted in neon.

It was good to see Jamie Bell having fun in the flesh, however Sam Worthington proves once again he has the charisma of a suet pudding and Ed Harris is cheesier than a Brie convention.

I wish he'd have jumped in the first thirty minutes.

Score: 4/10

Woman in Black - MD Review

There’s been lots of comment about Daniel Radcliffe being too young for the role of widowed lawyer – nonsense he’s positively middle aged by Victorian standards. More problematic is his singularly unique acting style whereby he’s great at looking shocked by creaky effects and CGI but not much cop at anything involving human interaction. And with the supporting throng consisting of the usual stereotype locals unwilling to share their communal secret it was hard to feel too much for anyone involved. 

Ultimately the story is by numbers, but it looks authentic, there’s a pulpible underlying menace and the odd genuine scare.

Score: 5/10