Review: Headhunters*****
Norwegian actor Aksel Hennie is the ultimate, contemporary cinematic scoundrel in director Morten Tyldum’s electric crime thriller Headhunters as Roger, the country’s most accomplished corporate headhunter. Like a young Christopher Walken in looks, temperament and acting prowess, Hennie is a truly exciting revelation to discover and took 2011’s London Film Festival by storm. Roger has it all: luxurious lifestyle, stunning and smart wife Diana (Synnøve Macody Lund) and a high-flying career. But it’s not enough, and he conceals a dark alter ego. When his art dealer wife introduces him to handsome businessman Clas Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) – a former deadly…
Review: Mirror Mirror**
The crux of the Snow White story is oddly missing in Tarsem Singh’s adaptation of the classic fairy-tale – namely the dominant power of the mirror that controls the destiny of all who stares into it. This cocky, camp modernization attempts a blend modern-day austerity/irony with family-friendly humour that doesn’t quite mesh. Its lead star Julia Roberts as the wicked stepmother is neither convincingly evil nor devishly funny, and spends the majority of the time merely looking smug at all her screen time – Singh has certainly got his A-list exposure for his money. The story is a very 21st Century…
Review: Tiny Furniture****
Fresh emerging talent Lena Dunham is cinema’s female answer to Jesse Eisenberg, all self-depreciation, quirky awkwardness, acute observation and razor-sharp wit for the trendy crowd. Tiny Furniture, which she wrote and directed at the age of 23, is almost a semi-autobiographical look at the beginnings of post-graduate life, following on from her 2009 college days flick, Creative Nonfiction. This new feature film’s authentic feel will ring alarm bells as Dunham’s character Aura returns home to New York’s trendy Tribeca, and attempts to carve our a worthy existence after student life. Native New Yorker Dunham instantly taps into the fears of…
Review: The Hunger Games***
Forget 2012; finally, the games have arrived. Author Suzanne Collins’s post-apocalyptic world is projected for all to watch on the big screen. The obvious parallels between the existence we are introduced to in The Hunger Games and the possible collision course we are on are eerily not lost – it’s just a shame that the film for the uninitiated book reader results in more questions than satisfying answers. If it weren’t for such a powerful central lead by Winter’s Bone actress Jennifer Lawrence, we probably wouldn’t be half as captivated. North America in a not-to-distant future is gone, and all…
Review: Wild Bill****
Shot in the heartland of London 2012, actor-turned-director Dexter Fletcher’s new gritty Brit drama Wild Bill could be set anywhere, if it wasn’t for the occasional skyline prompt. But unlike the gloomy, award-winning Junkhearts that follows a similar ‘deprived London’ vein – and was released at the same time as Fletcher’s directorial debut at last year’s London Film Festival, Wild Bill has a more genuine heart to it for those of us who know the London Borough of Newham area, and it’s not obsessed with trying to hit rock bottom to provide grim reality portrayals. Wild Bill may well be guilty of…
Review: Contraband****
Chris Farraday in Contraband is another “made for Mark Wahlberg” part, the kind that allows this Boston-born star the chance to tap into his own tough upbringing experiences of being on the wrong side of the law, while showing a softie side. Although perfectly cast in the likes of Four Brothers, The Departed and The Fighter, like his comical Terry Hoitz role in The Other Guys, Contraband is not all grit but has some surprising hidden wit, complete with a running joke threaded through for the audience’s amusement in a tale of corruption, deception and good ol’ family values that…
Review: John Carter***
Writer-director Andrew Stanton tries his hand at live action this time, putting some of his fun Pixar magic from the likes of award-winning Finding Nemo and Wall-E into John Carter, an other-worldly adventure staged on Mars – or Barsoom, as adapted from Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs’s work, A Princess of Mars. Whatever faults this film has, it does something that the dull Cowboys and Aliensfrom last year tried and failed to do; marry Western and sci-fi genres and the analogies between American civil war history between cowboys and Indians far better, opening up the Barsoom landscape that looks like…
Review: Bel Ami***
It’s before the turn of the 20th Century in decadent, gay Paris, home of the can-can and every eccentric and intellectual soul trying to bring about a second Enlightenment with a political downfall. It’s also another chance for Twilight vamp Robert Pattinson to enlighten us further as to the next step in his career path, after appearing in some fairly average films, Water For Elephants and Remember Me, meant to break the Cullen spell. In Bel Ami, Pattinson is Georges Duroy, a former soldier who happens upon his former command leader Forestier (played by Philip Glenister) in Paris, now a successful…
Review: Project X****
Imagine throwing the party you’ve always dreamed of in a venue primed for purpose – pesky neighbours and law enforcement aside. Imagine all the coolest people attending and dancing to some kick-ass tunes. It’s the stuff of decadent dreams that this out-of-control juggernaut feeds off, tapping into a real deep-rooted deviance from our days of youthful carefree living. After all, someone else can pay later; it’s all about tonight and now. And for The Hangover fans – director Todd Phillips produces this time – there is an even greater sense of the party boys being plunged into the virtual unknown…
Review: Hunky Dory**
Welsh director Marc Evans (Patagonia, My Little Eye) returns with a nostalgic take on growing up in small-town Wales in 1976 in the midst of the summer heat and raging hormones. Schooldays films are ten-a-penny and ever enticing as we get to reminisce at a safe distance at the thrills and fears of our teenage years. Indeed, what this promises is a healthy inject of 1970s glam rock for David Bowie fans – much like a 70s Glee. For admirers of the ever-fearless Minnie Driver, the actress plays an attractive, inspirational drama teacher who (surprise, surprise) stirs more than a…
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