In 1917 the Dutch exotic dancer Mata Hari was shot by firing squad after being successfully prosecuted for espionage during the First World War. It is almost certain that she was not guilty of the crimes for which she was … Continue reading REVIEW: Mata Hari (1931)
A corporate boss lies dead in his own home, bludgeoned to death with a bronze urn. Court-appointed prosecutor Akira Kido (Ken Utsui) thinks he has the killer, the method, and the motive all worked out – all he has to … Continue reading REVIEW: The Black Report (1963)
Quiet loner Patrick Hill (Jason Statham) takes up a job as a security guard riding armoured trucks. The first time his truck is attacked by armed robbers, Hill unexpectedly shoots and kills all assailants, without suffering so much as a … Continue reading REVIEW: Wrath of Man (2021)
On 6 December 1989 a 25 year-old man, armed with a semi-automatic rifle, entered Montreal’s École Polytechnique and murdered 14 women and injured an additional 10 women and four men. After 20 harrowing minutes, the shooter turned his rifle on … Continue reading REVIEW: Polytechnique (2009)
During a crippling Tokyo heatwave, a homicide detective (Toshiro Mifune) has his gun stolen out of his holster while taking the tram. When the stolen gun is used to murder someone, the desperate rookie teams up with a veteran detective … Continue reading REVIEW: Stray Dog (1949)
Guillermo Del Toro uplifts a 1940s potboiler with outstanding visuals and a top-notch cast, but a sullen, overly worthy pace is ever-present to potentially derail it. Nightmare Alley is really good, but it is frustratingly close to great. Mysterious wanderer Stanton … Continue reading REVIEW: Nightmare Alley (2021)
Mimi Cave’s debut feature Fresh sits in a tricky sort of niche where part of its appeal is the unexpected direction its story takes, but where discussion of that direction will inevitably give away some of its secrets. Even by mentioning this … Continue reading REVIEW: Fresh (2022)
We return, once again, to the problem of the mediocre movie. They’re simply a pain: disappointing to watch, difficult to recommend, and – for the poor film critic – challenging to review. My own general rule is to write about … Continue reading REVIEW: Black Water: Abyss (2020)
One of the most significant actor-director partnerships in history kicked off in 1948, when Akira Kurosawa direct his seventh feature: the atmospheric film noir Drunken Angel. Sanada (Takashi Shimura) is an alcoholic doctor working in a post-war Tokyo suburb. One night … Continue reading REVIEW: Drunken Angel (1948)
Adrian Panek’s war-time thriller Werewolf may not be sufficiently sensitive to history to earn the approval of all audiences. It is a bleak and viscerally bloody combination of horror movie and Holocaust drama: very good at what it does, but what it’s … Continue reading REVIEW: Werewolf (2018)
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