I. Daniel Blake

You’ve got to hand it to Ken Loach, when the British Film industry was on its knees and only capable of squeezing out the odd Carry On or Confessions Of film he was exploring and exposing social injustices with wit, intelligence and determination. With his latest film he shows us that his spark has not…

The Free State of Jones

Director Gary Ross has described this as his academic mid-life crisis. Long before Sea Biscuit or The Hunger Games he had come across this extraordinary historical episode and resolved to make a film about it. Getting it to the screen has involved more than 20 years of meticulous research, persuasion, toil and bravery, but for…

The Fencer

Tastefully shot in muted autumnal shades Klaus Haro’s fictionalised account of life in Estonia in the aftermath of WWII centres on Endel Nelis (Mart Avandi), a rather haunted young man who arrives in the small backwater town of Haapsalu in 1952. He takes a job as a sports teacher at the local high school despite…

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

My guess is that Tim Burton accepted a bet that he couldn’t reference 20 different films in his latest horror/fantasy/ superhero movie aimed squarely at a 12A audience who are missing their Harry Potter fix. Well I think he’s managed it. Adapted from the books of Ransom Riggs, Asa Butterfield (Hugo) stars as Jake, a…

The Girl on the Train

What a dreary disappointment. I found almost nothing to like or admire in Tate Taylor’s adaptation of Pauline Hawkin’s blockbuster, even the normally reliable Danny Elfman doesn’t seem to be able to conjour any inspiration on a soundtrack which is every bit as grey and soggy as the film itself. I haven’t read the source…

Swiss Army Man

Where to start? I suppose it is sort of encouraging that a film as deranged as this can still get made. No doubt its ability to attract the support of Daniel Radcliffe and Paul Dano, two of the best young actors from either side of the pond, was a pivotal factor. The film opens with…

The Clan

In the early 1980s, following its ill fated military adventure in the Falklands, Argentina was transitioning from a dictatorship to a fragile democracy. For many people, after suffering years of family members disappearing, President Alfonsin’s government represented new hope as it tried to weed out some of the cancer embedded in the state’s secret police.…

Hell or High Water

Plenty of the former and none of the latter in David Mackenzie’s beautifully scripted odyssey set in the badlands of West Texas. Ostensibly this was the story of a pair of mismatched brothers driven to desperate lengths to prevent their family farm from falling into the hands of an unscrupulous bank, eager to profit from…

Anthropoid

Solid performances from Cillian Murphy and Toby Jones anchor this well intentioned but ultimately disappointing WW2 account of the Czechoslovakian resistance and their mission in 1943 to assassinate Reiner Heydrich (The Butcher of Prague). There’s a rather perfunctory feel to proceeding leading up to a protracted fire fight which takes place in the cloisters and…