Review: Resistance***

As wartime dramas go, one begins to feel very much like another. But what debut feature-film writer-director Amit Gupta has created is an alternative 1940s ‘reality’, based on a fascinating novel by Owen Sheers, about what if the Nazis had succeeded with their invasion plans of Old Blighty. Resistanceactually reignites our interest in the genre, as well as points to a fascinating real-life back-story. It’s WWII and Britain is occupied. A group of women in a remote Welsh village wake up to discover all of their husbands have mysteriously vanished overnight, possibly to join the Resistance. Meanwhile, a German patrol led by commanding officer Albrecht (Tom Wlaschiha) arrives in the valley on a mysterious mission….

Review: Tomorrow, When The War Began***

Although adapted from the first novel in a series by John Marsden about an invasion and occupation of Australia by a ‘foreign power’, you can’t help thinking while watching Tomorrow, When The War Began, “Crickey, the Japanese are coming!” This rather untimely inappropriate and harsh fictional assumption, given recent natural disasters in the Land of the Rising Sun, is further enhanced by the film’s ultra-cool and contemporary cross between Pearl Harbor and The Bridge on the River Kwai – minus the massive film budget, but with all the blockbuster effects. As in the book, the story is narrated by the main character, an average teenage girl called Ellie (Caitlin Stasey), who goes away on a…

Ironclad

Now and then, there are films that need to show raw violence, in order to recreate the reality of a situation, contrary to the sensitivity of some. Writer/director Jonathan English may have never experienced 13th Century Britain, but it’s safe to suggest that the blade resolved most disputes – be that of the sword or axe variety. English’s Ironclad is a medieval maniacal massacre with a desperate, ferocious and no-holds-barred bloodlust that surpasses even last year’s Centurion that relished in its body count and blood spillage. Ironclad’s story has a significant purpose, though, that captures the contemporary imagination: freedom for every man. It’s for this reason that we empathise with its characters’ determination to defend this…