Buried review

Buried (15, 95 mins)
Director: Rodrigo Cortes
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The ‘what if’ question is one that has lent itself to many fine (and not so fine) movie ideas over the years. The central conceit of Buried, ‘what if you were buried alive?’, has surfaced in any number of movies and TV shows, but never before has it been the focus of an entire film.

Ryan Reynolds is the only credited actor in Buried which, though in English is actually a Spanish production. This is a country that has given us many of the best horrors of the last few years, so initial signs are encouraging.

An ominous, Jaws-like score over the opening credits gives way to complete darkness and total silence, which is broken eventually by the sound of someone breathing increasingly heavily. This turns to the noise of someone pounding and becoming more panic stricken until mercifully a lighter flickers and we see Paul Conroy (Reynolds), bound and gagged and trapped inside a coffin.

The how and why of his situation is supplied early on thanks to the mobile phone he has been left with. We learn quickly that he’s a contracted truck driver in Iraq whose convoy was attacked and if a $5m ransom isn’t paid within a few hours, he’ll never be found. Though he manages to contact the authorities, they've no idea where he is and the race is on to find him in time.

The potential problem for such a high concept is that there isn’t enough incident and development to sustain the running time. A man trapped in a box is all very well as an idea, but it can offer interest for only so long unless the stakes are raised; it is supposed to be a thriller after all.

And like other movies where there’s only one person on screen for most of the time, you need to ensure that your leading man has the chops to carry the film alone – most of what was good about the likes of Cast Away or I Am Legend came down to the presence of superstars like Tom Hanks and Will Smith.

In Reynolds we get an actor who has demonstrated extreme charm and likeability on many occasions, but Buried demands an awful lot more than that from him. Early details about who he is ensure we’re invested in him, and Reynolds’ range is impressive as he moves through panic, terror, frustration and impotent rage at those unable or unwilling to help him.

The tension is supplied automatically by the finite air supply that Conroy has, but by introducing ever escalating dangers, director Rodrigo Cortes ratchets the claustrophobia and terror to sometimes agonising levels. He also manages to keep it pacy and fresh by finding an infinite number of angles from which to shoot the action, and even an emotional element late on.

Thanks to a compelling and committed performance from Reynolds, and accomplished work from its director, Buried is a cracking thriller that for once carries a high concept from idea all the way through to execution.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps review

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (PG-13/12A, 133 mins)
Director: Oliver Stone

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

When we left Gordon Gekko at the end of 1987’s Wall Street, it looked very much like he was on his way to prison for insider trading. Michael Douglas reprises his Oscar winning role as the former superstar corporate raider, and we meet him at the start of this belated sequel just as Gekko is getting out of jail in 2001, penniless and a man out of his time.

Fast forward to 2008 and he’s written a book called ‘Is Greed Good?’, a riff on his most famous line from the original movie, and doing the lecture circuit. Meanwhile on Wall Street, Jake (Shia LaBeouf) is a young analyst living the high life on his huge bonuses with his girlfriend Winnie (Carey Mulligan), who just happens to be Gekko’s daughter.

But as the depth of the bad times hit and shares plummet, Jake’s mentor (Frank Langella) loses a fortune and kills himself when his business is consumed by rivals. Jake goes toe to toe with Josh Brolin’s rival investor whom he blames for Langella’s death, hoping to take him down from the inside, with the aid of some advice from Gekko who hopes to reconcile with Winnie.

Given the monumental financial upheaval of the last couple of years, this seems like the ideal time to revisit these themes. The flash and vulgarity of the 80s is gone, replaced with the subprime excess of the 00s, and the overriding theme is that greed is not good.

Oliver Stone directs at a clip, delivering stunning photography of the New York cityscapes and boardroom scenes that are lit like something out of The Godfather, while clearly having something to say on the issue.

Gekko believes we are all to blame for this but the movie is not really about his comeback as such, nor is it simply a retread of the original with a new protégé in place of Charlie Sheen. It’s more a character study than a thriller but it’s still tremendous fun.

LaBeouf is charismatic though he has a tendency towards mumbling and Douglas is just as good as he was first time round, with an added dose of mischievous humour, plus fine support from a slimy Brolin and a sly cameo from an old friend for fans of the original.

Made in Dagenham review

Made in Dagenham (15, 113 mins)
Director: Nigel Cole
★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

3000 cars a day were rolling off the production line of the Ford plant in Dagenham in 1968, which boasted a workforce of 55,000, of whom 187 are women. They're employed mainly as sewing machinists and are classed as unskilled, and therefore paid less than the men. It’s their story we’re told in this charming drama in which Sally Hawkins timid Rita is chosen to represent the workers at a meeting with management and more than holds her own. The result is that the women go out on strike, something unheard of in those days, with their actions threatening the future of the entire plant. Telling Rita’s story and the bigger picture of equal pay for all women, this is a crowd pleaser buoyed by a wonderful turn from Hawkins and backed up by a host of familiar faces from Bob Hoskins to Miranda Richardson. But it does have a tendency to go on a bit, subplots are undernourished and it never fully demonstrates why it’s not just a television drama.

Enter the Void review

Enter the Void (18, 143 mins)
Director: Gaspar Noé
★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

It’s not often you begin to despise a film during its opening credits, but Enter the Void begins with a flashing, thumping, endless sequence that gives a good idea of the neon seizure that’s to follow. For the first couple of reels the camera is the eyes of a young American man in Tokyo, who takes and deals drugs and visits friends before being killed by cops in a nightclub. The film then becomes even more hallucinogenic, eventually teasing out a fragmented story of sorts about the guy and how his sister, who has followed him to Tokyo, ends up working as a prostitute. Enter the Void is more sensory assault than movie, a drug-fuelled kaleidoscope of strobing lights (at one point the screen convulses white for a full minute), with a swirling, hovering camera that can go through walls and inside bodies. The effect is nauseating, like being vomited on while on a rollercoaster and it’s one for people who like their cinema with an overdose of breathtaking pretentiousness matched only by unendurable tedium.

The Town review

The Town (15, 124 mins)
Director: Ben Affleck
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Town begins with a title card telling us that the Boston neighbourhood of Charlestown has over the years produced more bank robbers than anywhere else in the world. One such villain is Ben Affleck’s Doug MacRay, who along with potentially psychotic partner in crime Jimmy (Jeremy Renner) holds up a city bank managed by Rebecca Hall’s Claire. When Doug is forced to make contact with an unsuspecting Claire to find out what she’s told the police, it’s the catalyst for a muscular crime drama that marries a classical cops and robbers thriller to a believable romance and a search for redemption. A lean Affleck impresses in his first starring role in years, as does an edgy Renner, and Mad Men’s Jon Hamm is superb as the unswerving fed trying to build a case against them. It’s the relationship between Doug and Jimmy that gives The Town much of its dramatic and thematic heft, neatly sketching a tight-lipped community of blood brothers and codes of honour. As director Affleck expertly orchestrates thunderous shootouts and dizzying chases, and as co-writer peppers what could be well-worn scenes with crisp and evocative dialogue, even if the movie as a whole never quite achieves the moral complexity of his magnificent Gone Baby Gone.

The Hole review

The Hole (12A, 92 mins)
Director: Joe Dante
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Has it really been 26 years since Gremlins was released? Indeed it has, but what’s just as astonishing is that its director, Joe Dante, has barely made another movie of note in the time since.

Sure, Innerspace was fun and Gremlins 2 had its moments, but outwith forgettable efforts like Small Soldiers and Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Dante has more or less been working on TV ever since. Which is a shame, because he proves with The Hole that he’s still more than capable of making a cracking family horror, albeit one with a distinctly 80s vibe.

Gremlins, along with another 80s horror classic, Poltergeist, was produced by Steven Spielberg, and The Hole is a film that seems to have his hand all over it. So it’s a surprise to learn he’s not actually involved given the Spielbergian setup of a single mother moving with her two sons to a new small town.

The boys are Dane (Chris Massoglia) and Lucas (Nathan Gamble) who discover a trapdoor in the floor of their basement not long after they move in that has a tendency to open by itself and seems to be bottomless. It’s not long before its contents and secrets are causing all manner of terrifying incidents and the result is a very well paced adventure that builds and escalates steadily, though it doesn’t quite unleash the funhouse you might be expecting, preferring to go even darker and stray into deeper themes that tap into childhood psychological trauma.

The relationship between Dane and Lucas of brothers who spend most of their time tormenting each other is wonderfully drawn and there are neat cameos as well as some nice updates on Gremlins gags. What lets it down is the 3D effects that are pretty much redundant for a good hour in the middle and then underutilised when it comes time for the action climax.

But Dante knows exactly how to deliver scares and fun in equal measure, although The Hole probably does lean more towards frights than frolics. In fact it’s profoundly creepy and really quite intense in places and though it has a child-friendly rating, be warned that youngsters could be terrified. Coulrophobes need not apply, with the scariest movie clown since Poltergeist terrorising Lucas in what is probably the best scene in the best horror of the year.

Devil review

Devil (15, 80 mins)
Director: John Erick Dowdle
★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

And so begins The Night Chronicles. With M. Night Shyamalan having demonstrated conclusively with The Last Airbender that he no longer knows how to make movies, he hands over the filmmaking reins on Devil, taking only story and producing credits and giving screenplay and directing duties to Brian Nelson (30 Days of Night) and John Eric Dowdle (REC remake Quarantine) respectively. An absence of press screenings didn’t bode well, but it turns out Devil is far from a disaster while also a good way short of memorable.

The basic conceit is that five people are trapped in a lift and one of them is the devil, but it begins with a suicide that’s being investigated by Chris Messina’s grieving cop. The lift in question is inside the building where his jumper fell from, and it’s stuck 20 floors up with no way of getting to it. Inside the five strangers are becoming increasingly anxious, and one of them is about to become increasingly violent.

With its darkening skies over a foreboding looking Philadelphia, Dowdle certainly manages to conjure a gloomy and portentous atmosphere. But inside the lift there’s not a great deal of fright-making going on. Anything significant tends to happen when the lights are off, so any sense of terror is hard to sustain and it just seems so much like a Twilight Zone episode stretched to feature length, with a lot of extraneous detail brought in to pad the running time.

But there are some decent moments of suspense, a lot of daftness and contrivance and, in true Shyamalan style, a passable twist as well as some rather pat themes of forgiveness and redemption teased out come the resolution. Still, there’s more to like here than in Shyamalan’s last three films put together, so here’s hoping The Night Chronicles can improve further with Twelve Strangers.

The Other Guys review

The Other Guys (12A, 107 mins)
Director: Adam McKay
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson are the toughest, craziest, best cops in town. Unfortunately they get killed on duty and so the ‘other guys’ must step in – Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg, who initially hate each other but must find a way to work together if they're to solve the big case involving Steve Coogan and some financial irregularities. The best compliment that can be paid to The Other Guys is that it’s hilarious without being a spoof, with Ferrell and Wahlberg playing it dead straight and the movie also working as a pin-sharp takedown of every overly macho cop thriller since Lethal Weapon. Both actors are exceptional, managing to throw in some moments of semi-improvised insanity alongside great character work and there’s sterling support from Michael Keaton as their long suffering captain and Eva Mendes as Ferrell’s “plain” wife. It’s easily Ferrell’s best film since Anchorman and it might just be the year’s best comedy.

Winter’s Bone review

Winter’s Bone (15, 100 mins)
Director: Debra Granik
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

In the bleak and harsh Ozark mountains of rural Missouri, 17 year old Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) looks after her sick mother and younger siblings, often forced to beg for food and charity from neighbours. Her no good father has skipped his bail and if Ree doesn’t find him within a week, they’ll lose their home.

It’s a place where crime is a way of life and practically the only employment is cooking methamphetamine. So no one is willing to help Ree, generally because it could cast a view on their own activities, and anyone asking questions for whatever reason, even if they're family (and most of the people in the region are family), are not to be entertained.

It’s a harsh land populated by hard people, many of them about one step removed from banjo twanging mountain folk, some of them not even that. It’s the sort of environment that’s usually home to horrors where teen partygoers get lost in the woods and are never seen again.

But here it’s the home to a sort of detective story in a world we never get to see in detail, with those in the know living by their own twisted code of honour. Full of local authentic flavour, it harkens back to something like The Wicker Man, with its closed, secretive, self-policing community.

With its simple, straightforward dialogue and brutally convincing characters, Winter’s Bone is a stunningly effective thriller that quietly grips and builds tension masterfully, offering some of the most dramatically and emotionally impactful scenes of the year so far.

Ree is a little girl having to grow up fast and Lawrence is exceptional, vulnerable and courageous in equal measure. But in a group of mostly unknown but perfectly cast actors, special mention should go to the outstanding  John Hawkes, who gives Ree’s unpredictable uncle, Teardrop, a razor sharp balance of menace, loyalty and unpredictability.

The only reason he, Lawrence and the film itself will probably not get the Oscar nominations it deserves is because it will end being very little seen, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t seek it out.

F review

F (18, 79 mins)
Director: Johannes Roberts
★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

The always dependable David Schofield takes a step up from character roles to leading man in this slick but empty Brit horror as a teacher who gives an ‘F’ grade to an unruly student and is assaulted for his trouble. Many months later the school is broken into by a gang of hooded youths who proceed to murder the staff while Schofield, who pulls off his part with conviction, tries to find his daughter. Though it may offer a chilling portrait of social ills and an extrapolation of the violence faced by teachers, F is repetitive and contrived in its execution, as the staff get isolated one by one and the faceless killers climb around the place like spider monkeys picking them off. It’s moderately effective once but not over and over, and as horror it simply doesn’t work.