Tag: 2015

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2

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★★★½
“Not exactly Harry Potter vs. Voldemort, shall we say”

mockingjay2Unlike the adventures of our schoolboy wizard, where the final installment took the most at box-office, this was the least successful of the Hunger Games movies. And I can see why: almost without exception, it’s a relentless downer, rather than a grandstanding finale. I have not, to this point, read the book on which it is based, so can’t say how accurately this cynical tone reflects the novel, but based on the movie, let’s just say, politicians as a species do not come out of it with a glowing portrayal! It begins immediately after the end of the events of Part 1, when Katniss (Lawrence) was attacked by brainwashed ally Peeta (Hutcherson). Meanwhile, the rebellion gains momentum and territory, as they head towards the Capitol. Katniss’s role is now as a ‘Joan of Arc’, a rally point, and she is sent into the Capitol as part of a propaganda squad. However, she subverts the mission, claiming secret orders to assassinate President Snow, although it becomes clear that the lines between “good” rebels and “evil” establishment are increasingly vague.

Perhaps more than in the other installments, it’s apparent here how good an actress Lawrence is, and how much this helps. Some of the scenes are extraordinarily impressive, such as her quietly talking to a loyalist soldier who has his gun jammed up underneath her chin. There are also some impressive moments of spectacle, such as her squad’s entrapment by a massive, rising flood of tar. Two hours of that, ending in Katniss delivering a monologue and shish-kebabbing President Snow, would I think, have been superior to the rather bloated two-parter we were given – even if it’s not as gratuitously over-stretched as The Hobbit. Still, even looking strictly at this final part, the last third (and given the film runs almost 140 minutes, that’s a fair amount of screen time)  feels more like reading the Very Deep political thoughts of a somewhat paranoid teenage boy. Virtually all nuance is replaced with the movie’s largely unsubtle whacking on the audience’s head with a copy of the script, when not tying up a love triangle, which has been an irritant for the entire series.

Even if none of the four entries managed to achieve our seal of approval (this one likely came the closest), you can’t argue with the success of a franchise which earned almost three billion dollars at the box-office worldwide, and countless more on DVD, etc. Depending on your definition, no action heroine film before this had taken even $140 million at the North American box-office; the lowest figure achieved here was more than double that. It has, unquestionably redefined the landscape and shown that, yes, girls with guns bows can hold their own in purely commercial terms. We can but hope that its success will open the door for other ventures, whether based on existing properties or fully-original ones. Though those will probably have to overcome the significant difficulty, of not having an Oscar-winner like Lawrence to anchor them. At least going by her ongoing work as Mystique in the X-Men universe, it doesn’t seem our genre’s biggest star now considers action to be beneath her – hopefully, that will continue. For there can be no question that throughout this, she was The Hunger Games’s biggest strength, and whatever its flaws overall, she gave us a Katniss Everdeen the character deserved.

Dir: Francis Lawrence
Star: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson

Awaken

  By

★★
“Liver and let die.”

awakenThere’s a stellar B-movie cast here, of faces you’ll recognize, even if you don’t remember their names; let me start by listing a few. Vinnie Jones! Daryl Hannah! Edward Furlong! Robert Davi! Michael Paré! David Keith! Even Benny Urquidez, whom I don’t recall seeing since he memorably battled Jackie Chan in a couple of 80’s flicks. Shame the plot is such nonsensical garbage. The heroine is Billie Kope (Burn), whose sister disappeared five years ago and Billie has been trying to solve the mystery ever since. She mysteriously wakes up to find herself on a tropical island with a group of other, similarly abducted people, who are occasionally hunted by camo-clad soldiers, under the command of Sarge (Jones). Turns out they are, effectively, a holding pen for an organ trafficking ring run by Rich (London). With the help of some of the the other prisoners, such as Nick (Copon), Billie has to fight her way off their island prison and find the truth about her sister’s fate, before becoming a live organ-donor herself.

There’s so much here that doesn’t make sense, with characters wandering in and out of the movie without logic; for example, leader of the prisoners Quentin (Davi) just walks out of the plot, and you never find out either what happens to Mao (Hannah), whose daughter is intended as the recipient of Billie’s liver. I’m not certain of the medical accuracy of much of what’s depicted either, but I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, so we’ll leave that alone. Instead, I wallowed in some of the more surreal aspects, such as the football commentary Sarge is listening to on the radio; seriously, just listen to it and see if it sounds like any game you’ve ever heard. Though at least Jones, and to a lesser degree Hannah, appear to have realized the dumbness of what they signed onto, and decided to go full, bone-in ham and have some fun with it. If only the rest of the cast had adopted the same approach.

However, Burr isn’t too bad: she also co-produced and co-wrote the film, so credit is certainly due for her passion. While she could do with some more muscle, she packs the right attitude and the scenes of her training with her father (Urquidez) set the tone early. She uses a brisk, no-nonsense style of fighting, closest to MMA than kung-fu, and the fights in general are edited and put together well – fast-paced, yet still coherent, which is less common than it should be. Unfortunately, it’s the storyline which strangles this puppy, and any viewer who is moderately high up the evolutionary ladder will be alternating raised eyebrows and derisive snorts for much of its duration. Occasionally-decent action makes this just about an adequate time-passer, and there’s worse on Netflix. Yet, that last clause falls more into the “damning with faint praise” category, and is hardly much of a recommendation.

Dir: Mark Atkins
Star: Natalie Burn, Michael Copon, Jason London, Vinnie Jones

Battle for Sevastopol

  By

★★★
“Russian into battle.”

battleWe wrote previously about Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a.k.a. “Lady Death” one of the many bad-ass Soviet women who helped fight off the Nazis in World War II. So, if you’ve been paying attention, you should already know her story, as a female sniper credited with over three hundred enemy kills before being wounded and forced out of front-line action. She then became a spokesperson for the Russians, globe-trotting to raise funds and elicit overseas support, becoming the first Soviet citizen received at the White House, by then President Franklin Roosevelt, and his wife Eleanor – with whom, if this film is to be believed, Pavlichenko developed a strong friendship.

The movie was a Russian-Ukrainian co-production, which is interesting in itself, given the often strained nature of recent relations between the countries. I guess one of the few things on which they can both agree, is that killing Nazis should be lauded. The results are solid enough, hitting the expected notes and telling a respectful, if somewhat too distant, portrait of a heroic figure. The original Russian title translates as Indestructible, and that seems perhaps more appropriate, as she get blown up, shot, and blown up again, defiantly begging her way back to the front repeatedly. Mokrytskyi is at his best with these large-scale spectacles, unfolding over a soundtrack both period and contemporary; in particular, a sequence during an evacuation by boats is stunningly well-constructed, giving a real sense for the hideous, beautiful chaos of war.

It’s rather less successful at giving us insight into the character of the heroine, as played by Peresild; she’s clearly a strong-willed young woman, but that’s about all you get. There are various semi-romantic interludes, as various of her male comrades are wheeled on and off, yet these seem only to provide pauses before the next burst of (undeniably impressive) mayhem. The structure also leaves a little to be desired, switching back and forth between her wartime exploits, and Pavlichenko’s trip to the United States where she met Mrs. Roosevelt (Blackham). It’s all a little bit fragmented, without much narrative flow, and feels more like a selection of unconnected segments, rather than providing a sense of Lyudmila developing as a character. Perhaps it might work better for an already audience familiar with the backdrop of time and places in which it’s set; my knowledge of the Eastern front and Soviet geography is sketchy, to say the least, and the movie appears to presume a higher level.

This is somewhat disappointing, though some of that is because it makes for a really good trailer (below), and because this has been teasing me from the “to watch” pile for what feels like ages, as I waited for coherent English subtitles to be available. Not to say this is a bad film – far from it – just that Mokrytskyi has a better handle on the explosions than his character. Perhaps he is the Michael Bay of Russian cinema? If so, at least it’s closer to good Michael Bay, e.g. The Rock, than bad Michael Bay (Pearl Harbor).

Dir: Serhiy Mokrytskyi
Star: Yulia Peresild, Joan Blackham, Yevheniy Tsyganov, Vitaliy Linetskiy

Suffragette

  By

★★★
“Worthy, rather than worthwhile”

suffragetteI generally find that films based on historical events, which also feel the need to make up entirely fictional characters, occupy a bit of an awkward middle-ground, as if they want both to be documentary and drama. Such is the case here, with a somewhat clumsy combination of  people who actually existed, such as suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst and Emily Davison, who was fatally injured in a protest at the 1913 Derby, with an entirely made-up heroine, Maud Watts (Mulligan). She works in an East End laundry, but become part of the burgeoning movement to win women the vote, after her trip to the House of Parliament, in support of a colleague testifying there, turns into Maud having to speak on behalf of her friend. As Maud’s commitment to the cause grows, she is jailed, her marriage breaks down and she loses custody of her son, but remains unwavering in her support. Indeed, she becomes more militant, alongside chemist Edith Ellyn (Bonham-Carter), with the group moving into more hardcore methods of protest.

I can’t argue with the performances here, which are, almost without exception, upper-tier stuff: Mulligan’s transition from laundry lady into crypto-terrorist is particularly well-handled, bringing the audience on the journey of enlightenment with her. The problems are more elsewhere. That this is based on history – and well-known history at that – means there is precisely zero tension here. We know they’re going to end up getting the vote – though it didn’t happen, on even the most limited terms, until after the Great War, years after the events depicted here. So scenes like the protest at Parliament, where David Lloyd-George announces there will be no change in the law, and Maud is arrested for the first time, have little or no impact. The script also borders on the misanthropic: between abusive husbands, an abusive boss and a police officer (Gleeson) devoted to bringing the movement down, there is literally not a sympathetic male character to be found here, except perhaps Edith’s husband, who is so bland and uninteresting, you’ll forget him entirely.

The film climaxes with the events of that Derby Day, and again, the impact is diluted since we know it’s going to end in Davison’s death (the question of how intentional or accidental it was remains unanswered; naturally, the film frames it as an act of heroic martyrdom). The movie ends in newsreel footage of the subsequent funeral, without giving Maud any particular closure, and she just happens to be nearby at the time, a fortunate observer to a pivotal moment in history. A few captions fill in the blanks, and everyone heads off for a nice cup of tea. For it’s all terribly British, mostly replacing righteous anger with polite indignation, and despite Mulligan and her crew acting their crinolines off, is only somewhat successful at capturing the passionate beliefs that I sense these women actually held.

Dir: Sarah Gavron
Star: Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Brendan Gleeson, Anne-Marie Duff

Assassination

  By

★★★½
“Burning Japanese.”

assassinationNot, in any way, to be confused with The Assassin, despite both being distributed in the United States by Well Go, this is substantially more entertaining, being a nicely put-together period actioner that, in some ways, reminded me of Inglourious Bastards. In 1933, Korea was occupied by Japanese forces, against which a slew of liberation movements fought. As part of the rebellion, plans are afoot to assassinate Kawaguchi Mamoru, the local Japanese governor and Kang In-gook (Lee G-y), a Korean tycoon who has collaborated with the occupiers. Tasked with leading a small group to carry out the mission is Ahn Ok-yun (Jun), a lethal sniper; she’s bailed out of military prison where she has been sent for “accidentally” shooting her superior. Yeom Seok-Jin (Lee J-j) is overseeing the operation, but is actually working for the Japanese, and hires an independent hit-man (Ha), known as “Hawaiian Pistol” to sabotage it. Making things infinitely more complex, it turns out that Kang’s daughter is actually the twin sister of Ahn, the women having been separated and brought up, oblivious of each other’s existence.

There’s a very good sense of time here, with a lot of money having clearly been spent on sets, costumes, motor vehicles and everything else necessary to create Korea of the time. The action sequences are slickly put-together, without ever devolving into excess; to be honest, they’re probably a bit more plausible than the plot, where the “twin” aspect leads, in the final reel, to some developments that pass beyond incredible to uncredible. It is also more than somewhat relentless in its anti-Japanese message, bordering on the xenophobic, albeit perhaps for understandable reasons, and at 140 minutes, feels a good 20 too long. That said, there’s still an awful lot to enjoy here, in the performances and complex plot, which ends up spanning nearly 40 years from prologue to epilogue, as well as the glorious set-piece battles. The pick of these is probably the group’s first attempt as assassinating their targets, diverting them to a gas station and into a killing zone on their way out of the city, but equally as impressive is a gun-battle when a wedding devolves into a siege situation [which explains the image, above right!]

I was trying to figure out why Jun was familiar, and eventually realized she had starred in the live-action adaptation of Blood: The Last Vampire. While that was largely forgettable, she has become a huge star in her native Korea, both in film and on television. This is certainly more impressive than Blood, and she is certainly the emotional heart of the film, as well as providing some of its most memorable moments, such as when she pauses on the way to begin her mission, to take out a pair of Japanese machine-gun nests, with a grand total of four bullets. This kind of swift characterization demonstrates her character’s competence early, and the film even avoids the obvious desire for a romantic subplot. Despite the obvious issues noted above, the positives are good enough to outweigh them, and overall, this provides an enjoyable couple of hours of wartime derring-do.

Dir: Dong-hoon Choi
Star: Jun Ji-hyun, Lee Jung-jae, Ha Jung-woo, Lee Geung-young

Guns For Hire

  By

★½
“Fires nothing but blanks.”

gunsforhireThe first spectacular misfire of 2016, I was hoping for much more, than a story that could only be claimed to make any sense if it was entirely the ravings of a mentally-deranged idiot. Beatle (Hicks) is a tow-truck driver/assassin – yes, that’s what it says on her business cards – who rescues Athena (Carradine) from her abusive ex-boyfriend, Kyle (Mendelsohn). In revenge, he sets deranged psychopath Bruce (Morgan) on their trail, and he is prepared to stop at nothing to bring them back to his boss. Meanwhile, Athena hires Beatle to kill her, but they have to hang out until the change in Athena’s life-insurance policy, making Beatle the beneficiary, is officially completed. Except, is Beatle actually a killer at all? For her therapist seems convinced otherwise. The entire saga unfolds in flashback, as Beatle is being interrogated by a detective, who has found the videotape of Beatle’s infomercial for her hitwoman business. Certainly sounds like an unusual set-up, and potentially interesting, right?

Wrong. It’s an overly talky and thoroughly unconvincing slab of pretentious nonsense, which is nowhere near as smart as it thinks, and completely fails to provide the “Nonstop action!” proclaimed on the cover. Both Beatle (seriously, what kind of name is that?) and Athena are the kind of characters you would actively seek to avoid if you met either of them in real life, and the film does nothing to make spending 75 minutes in their company any more attractive. Perhaps it might have worked, if the story had done more with the question of whether or not Beatle is an assassin only in her own mind, following the American Psycho approach. That would, at least, have tied in with the final twist, which basically screws up everything you’ve endured to that point, and throws it out the window. Thanks a bunch, for wasting the audience’s time, Ms. Robinson.

There’s a subplot involving Beatle and a stripper, which seems present only to provide some gratuitous lesbian titillation for undemanding male viewers, and – speaking as the apparent target audience – doesn’t even work on that level. Instead, you’re left to cope with performances which range from the passable (Morgan does his best, in limited screen time) through the gratuitously excessive (Tony Shalhoub turns up as a DMV employee, for no reason) to the spectacularly incompetent (I’ll spare the name of the “actor” “playing” the “detective” – all three sets of quotes used advisedly). Add dialogue which, I can only presume, must have sounded an awful lot better in writer-director Robinson’s head than it plays on screen, and you’ve got something that fizzles an enormous amount more than it sizzles. As the first of our “coming in 2016” films to be reviewed, it feels more like a New Year’s Day hangover than any kind of shiny, positive resolution.

Dir: Donna Robinson
Star: Ever Carradine, Michele Hicks, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Ben Mendelsohn

Sicario

  By

★★★½
“Not sponsored by the Mexican Tourist Board.”

sicarioThis has no small element of local resonance, kicking off in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler (albeit filmed in New Mexico!), where an FBI raid on a house uncovers dozens of bodies in the wall and a booby-trapped basement, all the results of the Mexican cartels encroaching on the United States. In the aftermath, lead agent Kate Macer (Blunt) is invited to join a group working to take down the mobsters responsible, in particular cartel boss Fausto Alarcón. To that end, she joins a force that heads across the border to Juarez, and extradite one of his associates, and then begins a plan to prod the gang’s leader in America, Manuel Diaz, into returning to Mexico for a meeting with Alarcón. Heading the force are CIA “advisor” Matt Graver (Brolin) and the even more shady Alejandro Gillick (del Toro), who has extremely personal reasons for wanting Alarcón brought to justice. Neither have quite the same attention to… procedural detail, shall we say, as Macer, and she soon discovers her new partners will go to absolutely any ends to achieve their goals.

I’m just glad we saw this before going on holiday to Rocky Point, because between this and the documentary Cartel Land (as well as Backyard), we’ve crossed Mexico off our travel plans for the foreseeable future. Hell, Tucson is now looking a bit dubious. For it doesn’t exactly paint a glowing picture of American’s southern ally: even the cops are as likely to be gangsters as anything, and brutal violence is a casual part of everyday life. It’s a setting where, the film seems to be saying, you have to be every bit as brutal if you’re going to go against the cartels, and Macer’s high belief in “justice” is portrayed as idealistic and innocent to the point of naivety, when contrasted with the unflinching savagery of the opposition. Indeed, for much of the second half, she’s little more than a place-holder, present solely so the CIA and their assets can continue to operate with official sanction. The film becomes much more about Graver and Gillick, and the final mission sees the heroine taken out of action entirely, when her presence is no longer needed.

However, up until then, Villeneuve delivers tension by the truckload, during the opening raid, and in particular during the extradition raid to Mexico, when potential threats lurk absolutely everywhere. It had us growing very familiar with the edge of our seats for a lengthy period, and I’m feeling a bit more optimistic about the upcoming Blade Runner sequel, which Villeneuve is also directing. I’d rather have seen more of a character arc from Macer, perhaps buying further into participating in the grey-area methods of her associates, instead of becoming a bench player in what I was expecting to be her own story, and that’s why it falls short of getting unqualified approval here. However, as a grim action-thriller that pulls no punches in its depiction of the (probably unwinnable) drug war, it checks of all the necessary boxes and achieves its goals.

Dir: Denis Villeneuve
Star: Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Daniel Kaluuya

Lila & Eve

  By

★★★★
“Loss + mother love = vengeance.”

lilaandeveDriven by a strong and intense performance from Davis, as Lila, a mother who has lost her son to a drive-by shooting in Atlanta, this offers a more thoughtful take on the “vigilante vengeance” genre. Feeling abandoned by the authorities, and not impressed with the forgiving approach of a support group, she finds companionship in another grieving parent there who feels the same way. Eve (Lopez) urges Lila to take action against those responsible, and together, they work their way up the chain of pushers and street-dealers, to find the man behind it all. However, their actions bring them unwanted attention, both from the detective investigating the resulting murders (Whigham) and the boss at the top of the ladder. It’s entirely possible that Lila’s thirst for revenge could cost her everything, not least her other son, Justin (Caldwell).

It’s a little hard to discuss this, since there’s one aspect which talking about would require a major spoiler, though it’s something I figured out early on: the clues are there, if you look for them. While important, it’s not something on which the film stands or falls, however, and I don’t think figuring it out early hurt my appreciation of this. I was a little concerned early that this was going to be sappy and sentimental, not least because of the presence of Lifetime Films as one of the producers. However, it isn’t that way at all: instead, this is a gritty and entirely credible look at deep personal tragedy, and the reaction to it, even if the final act topples over the edge into implausibility. Davis is key, and is particularly impressive: you can see the pain in her eyes, and how that motivates her to engage in violence which, in some ways, is arguably as senseless as the slaying of her son.

However, the other aspects are mostly solid as well. Lopez provides feisty back-up, egging Lila on whenever her drive falters, and even the cops are portrayed as credible characters, who behave intelligently, as far as their limitations allow them. This makes for a sharp contrast to some similar films I’ve seen, most recently Eye for an Eye, which were little more than a hymn to the joys of vigilante action. Here, you get the negative aspects as well, such as when the mother of one of Lila’s victims turns up to the support group, only to receive a rather mixed reaction. This moral muddying of the water shifts the tone into trickier waters, and as mentioned, I’m not sure Stone negotiates through these successfully to the end credits. However, Davis’s performance is damn near impeccable, and is mesmerizing throughout. If there were any fairness in Hollywood, this would be among the Oscar nominated performances for 2015; if I’m not holding my breath there, you still won’t see much better this year.

Dir: Charles Stone III
Star: Viola Davis, Jennifer Lopez, Ron Caldwell, Shea Whigham

Haphead

  By

★½
“Virtually worthless.haphead“

A good idea goes entirely to waste in this woefully-executed cyberpunk webseries, with the episodes now combined back into something more or less feature-length. The heroine is Maisie (White), who gets an entry-level job working in an electronics factory belonging to the murky Asteri*k corporation. They’re making “haptic” cables which allow computers to interface directly with the brain; the potential in this idea is massive, but here, it’s explored only in a few scenes of Maisie playing a VR game in which she controls a rabbit with ninja skills. There’s some kind of rumblings that the skills learned stick in your brain, so as you become good at fighting in the virtual world, you become good in the real world. Except, this doesn’t go anywhere either – although this is probably wise, considering White’s fighting abilities, charitably described as wobbly. Instead, the film diverts in its second half into her investigation of the mysterious death of her father (Strauss), a security guard who took an unwanted promotion so she wouldn’t have to work in the factory, only to be killed by a “haphead”. Maisie investigates this, and soon discovers things are not quite what they seemed.

The problems here mostly stem from the script which comes up with any number of initially interesting concepts, including the positive and negative uses of technology, through corrupt practices of big business… and then discards them without doing anything significantly more than bringing them up (never mind even scratching the surface), instead scurrying on to the next one. The end result is less a frothy cybernetic souffle, and more a leaden lump of undercooked plot elements strapped together with old USB cables, like the parkour which shows up for no apparent reason, other than someone thought it would be cool. Or, equally likely, the film-makers’ mates wanted to be in the film.

You don’t even need big-budgets or incredible effects to do something like this justice. The makers could, and should, have learned a great deal from something like David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ, which covered a fair amount of the same ground, but did so with a script which truly explored the possibilities of virtual reality – and saved a lot of money, because the VR world was very, very similar to our own one. Of course, no doubt it helped to have Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jude Law, Willem Dafoe, etc. However, a low budget is no excuse for a bad script: indeed, the reverse is true, if your means are limited, you’d better be damn sure your script is engaging and well-written. Throwing a bunch of semi-“edgy” cyberpunk elements on top of a story painfully ill-suited to handle them, is not an acceptable substitute.

Dir: Tate Young
Star: Elysia White, David Strauss, Joanne Jansen, Kwame Kyei-Boateng

Tiger House

  By

★★½
“It’s Die Hard… In an English suburb.”

Kelly (Scodelario) sneaks into her boyfriend’s bedroom, only to find herself stuck there, when a group of criminals invade the home, intending to use his father as part of a robbery. Before being captured, the boyfriend does manage to injure the gang’s leader, Shane (Scott), who is then laid out on the bed to recuperate, while the gang regroup and adjust their plans. Unfortunately, it’s the same bed under which Kelly – who was a promising gymnast, up until an unfortunate accident with a crossbow(!) – has hidden herself. With no apparent way out, can she save the rest of the family and escape her perilous situation?

tigerhouse

An attempt to cross the ever-popular “Die Hard in a ____” and home invasion genres, the performances here deserve a significantly better script, than the largely sorry procession of coincidences and implausibilities we get here. Oh, look! There’s a crossbow in the attic! And, wouldn’t you know it, Kelly still carries around in her handbag, the bolt which ended her sporting aspirations! What are the odds against that? Some of the crooks’ behaviour also falls into the category of idiocy necessary to the plot as well; they seem strangely oblivious to their surrounding for career criminals, even when Kelly is literally hanging off the banisters above their head.

Counterbalancing these problematic aspects, both Scodelario and Scott deliver well-rounded performances – all the more impressive for the latter, since 90% of his screen time is spent lying on his back. Kelly is shown early on to be a strong-minded and independent girl, not reliant on anyone, least of all her boyfriend, who all but vanished from the movie after he leaves the bedroom to investigate a middle of the night noise. Assistance is provided by Callum, the psycho henchman – standard for both the genres – played by Skrein who appears to have gone on to greater things, starring in the recent reboot of The Transporter. The same goes for Scodelario, who is now the female lead in the Maze Runner series.

Notably not yet going on to Hollywood fame is writer Simon Lewis. You can increasingly see why that’s the case, the further this goes on, with Shane inexplicably switching sides and other plot points requiring so much suspension of disbelief, you could use it to build a small bridge. While the idea of interbreeding these two types of action-thriller is not a bad one, and the suburban setting adds a claustrophobic element, the storyline is in desperate need of several stiff rewrites, on its way to an ending that does deliver a satisfactory amount of heroiney goodness – albeit still with a deficiency on the logic front. You’ll have to go through more contortions than the gymnastic lead, for your mind to swallow this one.

Dir: Thomas Daley
Star: Kaya Scodelario, Dougray Scott, Ed Skrein, Langley Kirkwood