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)
M. Night Shyamalan’s thriller The Happening was released into cinemas worldwide in 2008. It came as another step in a decade-long journey of diminishing returns: The Sixth Sense (1999) had been a global sensation, Unbreakable (2000) slightly less so, and then audience response seem to … Continue reading REVIEW: The Happening (2008)
The Intrigue, a 1916 silent feature directed by Frank Lloyd, has its problems but it also offers a chance to see a very early example of the espionage thriller. 106 years from release, however, and it is definitely of greater … Continue reading REVIEW: The Intrigue (1916)
“Russell Crowe is Unhinged” went the marketing copy, and I would not be surprised to discover that was the premise that sold Solstice Studios on this mercifully brief and vaguely unpleasant road rage thriller. The cast – including Crowe – do … Continue reading REVIEW: Unhinged (2020)
Before hitting the big time with his Monkey King trilogy, Soi Cheang was the director of a number of excellent Hong Kong thrillers. Motorway (2012) was one; before that he helmed Accident (2009), a remarkable exercise in style, tension, and growing paranoia. The … Continue reading REVIEW: Accident (2009)
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