thriller

REVIEW: Luther: The Fallen Sun (2023)

Brilliant but disgraced detective John Luther (Idris Elba) breaks out of prison to go after the gruesome serial killer (Andy Serkis) who is terrorising London.

Look, who needs Idris Elba as James Bond when he’s got John Luther in his repertoire? Luther is back with a bang and he’s still his wonderfully clever and morally grey self but there’s still those odd moments where you can see the humanity beneath the tough guy façade.

The Fallen Sun puts Luther against two adversaries, a serial killer and the police force led by Odette Raine (Cynthia Erivo). As Luther and the police both try and find who is behind these heinous crimes, Luther also has the cops on his trail. It’s fun to see how he stays ahead of them when he knows how they work and especially when Luther’s former boss Martin Schenk (Dermot Crowley) is brought in to help. The dynamic between them two was always one of my favourites in the show and that trust and respect is still there.

Andy Serkis is brilliant as the mastermind behind these killings. It’s great to see him being a proper scary villain again and the crime(s) committed are suitably unnerving for a Luther story. There’s something so calm but menacing in Serkis’ performance which makes when he turns on the showman charm even more unsettling.

The score by Lorne Balfe is great too and the way it heightens the tension is top-notch. There’s some fun moments where you can see how the filmmakers perhaps had more time and a bigger budget compare to making the TV show. For instance, there’s some interesting long takes as Luther fights his way out during a prison riot.

Luther: The Fallen Sun has everything you want from a Luther story; creepy and disturbing crimes, a game of cat and mouse, and Luther on the backfoot. If you like the show, you know exactly what to expect and Idris Elba delivers 100%. 4/5.

REVIEW: Plane (2023)

After a terrible storm forces commercial airline pilot captain Brodie Torrance (Gerard Butler) to land, he has to fight to save his crew and passengers after realising they’ve landed on an island run by militia.

Plane is a proper 90s throwback action movie that does a simple premise well and has a lot of fun while doing it. A film being called a “90s throwback” may be deemed an insult but honestly with Plane it’s a compliment. It’s a solid action film done well with a great couple of lead characters.

Gerard Butler is probably a bit underappreciated for what he can do in an action film because he’s been playing this kind of charismatic but tough guy for years now but that doesn’t mean what he does isn’t good. Butler is allowed to be Scottish in Plane and naturally one of the first things his character does is be insulted someone thought he was English. Butler’s captain is just a good buy, he’s a reassuring presence for his crew and passengers and he is good at his job. Shoutout to his co-pilot Dele (Yoson An) who is also pretty great and the two of the make a good team. Not going to lie, Dele is the kind of nice secondary character that you fear for because he’s so likeable and not a big name so could potentially be expendable.

Butler also makes a good team with Mike Colter’s Louis Gaspare, a prisoner who was being transported on the plane. The two characters compliment each other well and become reluctant allies as Gaspare is more of a military-mind and a planer while Torrance wants to go in all guns blazing to save his passengers.

The bad guys as a group are pretty intimidating and there is a lot of blood spilt when they are around but there isn’t really a memorable villain leading them. In Plane the gunshots and stabbings are visceral and the sound effects on some of the killings do make you wince.

Overall Plane is a really good time. It’s a simple action film that’s very enjoyable with a group of leading characters that are easy to like and feel for. 4/5.

REVIEW: The Forgiven (2021)

When driving to a friends lavish party in the middle of the Moroccan desert in the dark, David and Jo Henninger (Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain) accidentally hit a teenage boy. While the police aren’t interested, the next day the boy’s father arrives and asks David to return to his village for the burial. David reluctantly agrees while Jo stays at the mansion in the desert, partying the weekend away.

The Forgiven feels like the kind of lavish film for adults that you don’t tend to see as often nowadays. It’s a grown-up film that deals with a lot of unlikeable but interesting and complex characters and is also darkly funny at times too. Perhaps The Forgiven isn’t as great as I think it is but when superhero movies (which I tend to enjoy) are the bread and butter for cinemas, it’s great to see a film where the “morals” are complex and people are messy.

One of the fascinating things about The Forgiven is how no character really comes across well. There are moments of growth or change, or at least the start of potentially something better for them, but that doesn’t mean they completely stop saying bigoted things or start treating people better.

It’s honestly great to see so many multifaceted characters on screen and them being so messy that you’re never sure who is – or even if there is – the “good” person. David and Jo are arguing and appear to be in a stagnant marriage before the accident and at the first introductions to them both you’re more predisposed to like Jo rather than David. She comes across as the put-upon wife dealing with a functioning alcoholic of a husband and a man who doesn’t appear to have said anything politically correct in his life. As the plot unfolds though David starts to see the consequences of his actions meanwhile Jo is drinking, flirting and revelling in her new found freedom.

Richard (Matt Smith) is their friend and it’s his and his boyfriend’s, stylist Dally (Caleb Landry Jones), party and home the Henninger’s are at. Richard is one of the most likable in an unlikable bunch. He’s a posh, sassy toff but he seems to be one of the only people that has any amount of understanding and respect of the Moroccan culture and traditions. He and Dally have a staff made up of Moroccans and while the staff seem to not be able to stand Dally, there is sometimes signs of a grudging respect when it comes to Richard. That’s not to say he and his guests don’t say or do things that hurt the staff, just that he’s a bit more aware of what’s going on. That being said, the staff have some of the funniest lines and Hamid (Mourad Zaoui), Richard’s righthand man, is a fascinating character as he toes the line of silently judging the people he works for.

The whole cast is brilliant in their roles. It is a lot of fun seeing Matt Smith being catty and cruel, while Chastain and Fiennes’ verbal sparring is wonderful and the film does feel like it misses that when they’re a part for so long. Chastain is delightful as she lounges about with a wine glass in hand, delivering cutting remarks to anyone who comes too close.

The Forgiven is a tension-filled culture clash and it’s often morbidly funny too. It’s such an interesting and compelling film and one I’m really glad I saw in the cinema with a pretty full audience. 4/5.

R is for Rope (1948)

Brandon (John Dall) and Phillip (Farley Granger) attempt to prove they’ve committed the perfect crime by hosting a dinner party after strangling their former classmate to death.

I’ve currently only watched like three Hitchcock films but this is definitely my favourite. It has so many tropes I love like the plot just being contained to one location and disaster gays because yep, this film from the 1940s is one of the gayest things I’ve ever seen. Honestly, I went into Rope knowing nothing about it and 10 minutes in I had to pause it and google “Rope Hitchcock gay” as I wasn’t sure if I was reading too much into it from a modern perspective but nope, turns out it was understood to be pretty gay in the 40s too.

This comes from the relationship between Brandon and Phillip, two friends and flatmates. Dall and Granger have great chemistry and their relationship is fascinating. While Phillip slowly starts to unravel as the guilt and tension gets to him, Brandon relishes in their crime and the fact their dinner guests are unaware that the missing guest is currently dead and in a chest in the middle of the living room they’re all sitting in.

Rope is so gripping as you spend most of the film in the murders shoes and not wanting them to get caught because they are both very likable. Brandon’s effortlessly charming, though he can make a biting comment now and then, and Phillip is sweet and as he gets stressed about their situation, so do you.

It’s Rupert (James Stewart), their former school housemaster, who poses the biggest threat to the murderers. A lot of the theories about morality that Brandon buys into he learnt from Rupert and as he knew them both when they were younger, Rupert is likely to be the one to figure out when something’s not quite right.

Filmmaking-wise Rope is just great. It’s just set in their New York apartment and so much of the action takes place in the living room, with the chest with a body inside a presence in the room that as the viewer, you’re always aware of. Rope is comprised of a lot of long takes, each are often five minutes long or more, and it’s so interesting when you realise what’s happening. It makes the film feel like everything’s happening in real time and therefore the tension builds organically. The way the camera and actors move around the set is like a dance and a lot of the cuts are “hidden” so it zooms into the back of someone’s jacket before moving out again or something similar.

While obviously Dall, Granger, and Stewart are the main focus of Rope (though Stewart doesn’t actually appear on screen until almost 30 minutes into this 80-minute film) the supporting cast are a good too and the characters feel and act as they would at a slightly awkward dinner party. I loved Janet (Joan Chandler), Phillip and Brandon’s friend and the girlfriend of the missing party guest. She has a wry sense of humour and isn’t afraid to call out Brandon’s sly comments.

Rope is just a really interesting film. It’s a tense film with a great cast and the homoerotic subtext between Brandon and Phillip just adds extra layers to it all. 5/5.

P is for Psycho (1960)

Secretary Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) steals $40,000 from her employer, goes on the run, and checks into a remote motel run by Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), a young man with a domineering mother.

Due to pop culture osmosis, I knew the general gist of Psycho and a lot of the twists before watching it. That doesn’t mean it didn’t surprise me though and I was thoroughly gripped throughout. Seeing how those famous pop culture moments unfolded was probably just as thrilling as if I knew nothing at all about it.

As soon as the opening titles appear accompanied by that iconic score by Bernard Herrmann I was enthralled. The fact that it starts with that unsettling and creepy music puts you on edge from the very beginning. The music, along with it being a Hitchcock film, makes you unsure who to trust long before anything really bad or suspicious happens. When Marion is leaving town with the money and encounters a police officer, the way he’s framed and the fact she can’t see his eyes because of his sunglasses makes it feel like he’s always watching her. His presence makes her act more nervous and guilty and that makes his presence felt even more.

Anthony Perkins is just brilliant as Norman Bates. He’s young and good-looking, and he has that boy next door kind of charm to him so when he does become serious it feels more unnerving. He does a great job of juggling the various shades of Norman’s personality and Psycho is one of those films that wouldn’t have worked so well with someone else in the role.

It’s kind of fascinating watching Psycho now, sixty years after it was made because it’s clear that it’s the inspiration of so many other films and the filmmaking feels ahead of its time. The silent by imposing police officer reminded me of the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day and so many of the scares have been riffed on in other films and shows but seeing the original now just demonstrates how great it actually is.

I’m very pleased I’ve finally watched Psycho. It’s a classic that lives up to its reputation; it’s creepy, foreboding and just fantastic filmmaking. 5/5.

G is for The Good Shepherd (2006)

Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) loves and believes in America and will sacrifice everything to protect it, but as one of the covert founders of the CIA, Edward’s youthful idealism is slowly eroded by his growing suspicion of everyone around him.

The Good Shepherd is Robert De Niro’s sophomore film and it sure is a well-directed film and De Niro has an eye for detail that’s impressive. However, good direction doesn’t necessarily make an interesting film.

The Good Shepherd is set in the 1960s as Edward looks for a mole inside the CIA but there’s a lot of flashbacks to his father’s death, his student days, and how he’s recruited and works in counter intelligence in Europe during the Second World War. So, while The Good Shepherd is framed as the origins of the CIA, it’s more about Edward’s life and how he’s involved with various elements of the CIA and historical events. I had to google to see if Edward was a real person and he’s not but apparently the character is loosely based on a man called James Jesus Angleton who was chief of counterintelligence in the CIA from 1954-1974.

Angelina Jolie plays Clover, Edward’s wife, and she’s given the thankless task of being the typical dutiful wife at home that’s kept in the dark about everything her husband does. It was pretty jarring having Eddie Redmayne play their son in the 1960s. Considering Jolie is only six years older than him and Damon is 11 years older than him, it looks weird every time the three of them are on screen together as he looks too old/too close to their own ages to be their university-aged son.

The Good Shepherd is juggling a few things with Edward’s life story, family drama and life in the CIA, but it doesn’t really make any of them particularly interesting. In fact, for a so-called spy thriller, it actually becomes quite tedious. The hunt for the mole storyline has a few decent moments and Michael Gabon as Edward’s university professor and mentor is one of the most engaging characters, but overall, it’s not a film that really grabbed my attention for its two-and-a-half-hour runtime. 2/5.

F is for Firefox (1982)

When the Russians create Firefox, a prototype jet that’s invisible to radar and can be commanded by the pilot’s mind, the West send pilot Mitchell Gant (Clint Eastwood) to the Soviet Union to steal it.

The plot to get Gant into Moscow is convoluted and the plot moves from him to the Russian high command to back to mission control in the West and none of it’s particularly interesting. Or when it does have the potential to be interesting it moves from that group of characters to another suddenly. Some scenes seem too long and just fizzle out while others don’t have enough context to be worthwhile.

As well as the KGB being a threat to him, Gant also has PTSD and panic attacks that can make him freeze up. The way these panic attacks are shot is kind of interesting with the sound and camera movement as well as overlapping scenes of the incident that gave Gant this trauma. It was kind of nice that while other characters including Gant’s superiors knew of his mental health issues they aren’t really talked about negatively and he manages to deal with them to the best of his ability.

Firefox is one of those 80s films that’s almost futuristic. While it’s definitely set in the 80s with the Cold War paranoia, the fact that the jet can fire missiles and pick out targets with just the thought of the pilot is a kind of sci-fi twist. It feels very 80s that they thought that technology could even progress to that point.

One thing that amused/annoyed me was that one of the reasons Gant got chosen for this mission was that he’s fluent in Russian, but whenever he talked to a Russian when he was pretending to be Russian, he still talked in English and didn’t even put on a (potentially awful) Russian accent. It made sense for him to talk with his own American accent when he was pretending to be an American tourist but when he was infiltrating the base as a supposed Russian it just felt really wrong.

Firefox ticks a lot of the standard Cold War thriller trope boxes but it doesn’t do anything to make it stand out from other films in the genre. The first half of the film is often boring and in the second half, while naturally the fighter plane sequences look dated now and though it becomes a bit long there are some sparks of potential excitement in them. It’s like the film tried to be two things at once; serious Cold War thriller and fun sci-fi action film. The two tones don’t really mesh together.

On a personal note, I enjoyed seeing Freddie Jones in this. He played Aubrey, one of the British Intelligence officers involved with the mission. It was another instance of seeing an actor almost 40 years younger than I’ve ever seen him before as until fairly recently he was a regular on the British soap Emmerdale which I grew up watching.

Firefox is Clint Eastwood’s eighth film as a director so while you could blame some of the film’s shortcomings on it being an early film of his, Eastwood had directed Play Misty for Me and The Outlaw Josey Wales by then which are both great. Maybe this is an instance where a director can only do so much with a dull screenplay overstuffed with exposition. 2/5.

D is for Dead Man’s Shoes (2004)

Richard (Paddy Considine), a soldier, returns to his small hometown to get revenge on the small-time drug dealers and thugs who tormented his mentally challenged brother Anthony (Toby Kebbell) while he was away.

Dead Man’s Shoes is one of those DVDs that has been sitting on my shelves for years. Honestly, I could have had this film for close to ten years without watching it. Now I finally have and boy was it an intense but great viewing experience that I don’t think I’ll want to repeat anytime soon.

Paddy Considine is just fantastic. The fact he’s nearly always calm and measured when talking to people means he’s unsettling and threatening but you can’t quite put your finger on what it is exactly about him that makes you feel this way. He has all this bottled up rage, just simmering underneath the surface and the moment when you can see the rage in his eyes you know someone is about to suffer.

Toby Kebbell also does a great job portraying Anthony who is a bit simple, naïve and trusting. It’s hard for actors and scripts to portray this kind of role well and realistically, without becoming an insensitive cliché but Kebbell manages it.

What really pulled me in was the dialogue. The script is great as all the dialogue between the gang members especially feels natural and conversational and the actors’ performances are naturalistic too. Perhaps I shouldn’t be too surprised by that as it’s a Shane Meadows film and he is a director who can get natural and engaging performances from his casts. You definitely don’t feel sorry for the gang members as Richard gives them a taste of their own medicine but it’s easy to feel caught up in their desperate bid to survive even when everything is falling apart around them.

While it’s clear they are horrible people, Dead Man’s Shoes treads a fine line to begin with as Richard’s brand of justice almost seems disproportionate to what we see happened to Anthony in black and white flashbacks. But as his quest for revenge continues, we see more and more of what Anthony went through is revealed you start to wonder if there’s a limit to the violence Richard is willing to dish out.

Dead Man’s Shoes is brutal and intense and a very well-made film. The cast is brilliant and script that feels real and honest about how strong a brother’s love can be and Considine’s powerful performance really does anchor the whole thing together. 5/5.

B is for Blue Steel (1990)

Trigger warning for rape and domestic abuse.

After an armed robbery goes awry, rookie cop Megan Turner (Jamie Lee Curtis) finds herself as the target when a witness (Ron Silver) becomes obsessed with her.

I went into this film knowing very little, in fact the reason I had a DVD of it was because it’s directed by Kathryn Bigelow and I’d been meaning to watch more of her films.

Blue Steel is a bit of a strange film in a way. It’s mostly framed as a typical cop action/thriller but as it progresses it almost becomes a slasher film – having Jamie Lee Curtis, Final Girl extraordinaire herself, as the lead sure does help cement that feeling.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Jamie Lee Curtis does give a great performance as Megan, showing her vulnerability as well as her strength, but it’s a bit difficult to understand Megan’s motivations for becoming a police officer. Anytime someone asks her reasons she makes a quip about shooting people or shoving them face first into a wall. It seems like she wants to have power and some of her actions are questionable. The villain of the film alludes to the fact that they aren’t so different and you can see some of those similarities he’s talking about. It makes her as a hero interesting, because sometimes it’s almost as if you want her to survive just because that’s how the general narrative of these sort of films usually work, not because she’s a character you become attached to.

The slasher element comes when Megan is being stalked by the witness. He makes himself a part of her life before showing her who he really is, though very few people believe her. He is suitably creepy and unsettling as you’re never sure what he’s going to do next. Plus, as bullets start flying, he almost seems to be indestructible as he shakes off injuries pretty quickly and just keeps coming after Megan. He puts her some mental and physical torture. The way in which he doesn’t stop is reminiscent of the slasher villains who never seem to stay dead. This kind of stretches the realm of plausibility as for the most part Blue Steel seems grounded in reality.

I in no way mean this as an insult but the score from Brad Fiedel is a great example of a 90s thriller/action score. The sound of it kind of encapsulates that time period and those kinds of films. It’s an unsettling score at times and compliments the action on screen, amping the tension well, but it also feels like a product of its time. It just instantly made me know what kind of film I was watching and when it was made. It’s quite the skill really.

Clancy Brown as the leading man is different (he played a detective and Megan’s reluctant partner) though I didn’t really believe in his relationship with Megan. It seemed to move too fast and was almost contrived. I think that’s the thing with Blue Steel, its ninety-minute runtime helps cover some of its flaws, as does the performances from the leads, but the story doesn’t really follow real world logic. If you think about it too long, you’ll probably like it less. 3/5.

As a side note, Blue Steel is one of those films I get enjoyment from just because of the cast. There were so many actors in this where I was like, “I recognise him” before realising that I was used to seeing them with white hair and looking 30 years older.

READ THE WORLD – Montenegro: Milena & Other Social Reforms by Olja Knežević

Translated by the author.

Trigger warnings for drug use, rape, and human trafficking. Milena & Other Social Reforms is also based on a real woman’s life.

Milena thinks she has it all when she lands a job as the President’s interpreter. Bright, young, beautiful, willing to take a chance, she is the embodiment of the new Eastern Europe. But a bold new title comes at a cost. As a country suffers the growing pains of greed, Milena is caught up in the machinery of crime, corruption and human trafficking.

Milena & Other Social Reforms spans over five years or so from the early 2000s when Monetnegro is young and finding its feet after Yugoslavia was dissolved, to the mid-2000s after the country has gotten its independence in 2006. It jumps between two times and places too. In Montenegro when Milena is working as an interpreter and getting to know various politicians and important and well-connected people in the country, and in London years later where she’s started a new life as a nanny for a wealthy Russian family.

It takes a while to really understand just what Milena’s life was like in Montenegro as how her job went from just being an interpreter to almost being a prostitute for the President of the country in order to get information from those he considers both allies and enemies, seemed to be one of those things that happened slowly then all at once. Things snowballed for her but because she had an intimate idea of how the politics and rules of the country worked due to having been in so many important meetings, it sometimes felt like an almost foregone conclusion that this is the position she’d end up in even though she definitely didn’t want it. It’s shocking and sad to see the depths of the corruption Milena encountered, with the police framing people, politicians being involved in everything and elections being fixed.

I liked how the story went between her life in Montenegro and her new life in London. Even though you don’t know the extent of what she went through to begin with, in the London sections it’s clear she’s still not OK and is sometimes struggling to deal with her past. The fact she often hangs out on the roof of the block of flats when she can’t sleep and one of her flatmates is concerned about her doing so is proof of that.

Milena is a smart and resourceful young woman but Milena & Other Social Reforms shows how that is not enough when faced with powerful and cruel men and corruption everywhere. Milena can’t trust the police or doctors or anyone who could be bought off, instead it’s other women that help her. Women who have escaped being trafficked or women who have some international political power (because there’s very few Montenegrin women in politics) or once she’s in London, women from other Eastern European countries who are looking to make a better life for themselves for whatever reason.

Milena & Other Social Reforms can be a tough read at times – in part because this self-translated, self-published novel doesn’t always have the correct English words, spellings or phrasing – but also because it shows the underbelly of the politics of a new country that is trying to show itself in the best light to the rest of the world. Still, it’s an interesting and thought-provoking read and it never shies away from the horrors of corruption and what people (often women) are left to face when they’re just trying to make a better life for themselves. 4/5.