SHORTCUTS

NEW RELEASES

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom: This biopic has the potential to stir emotions, but it sacrifices historical accuracy for the sake of drama, as it sweeps through decades of struggle a little over two hours of its running time. The drama focuses on Nelson and Winnie Mandela. ★★★★ Before Midnight: The third film in the series which began with Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, sees Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as Jesse and Celine, the once young lovers now firmly ensconced within the regret and compromise of middle age. Director Richard Linklater masterfully sets them up to grapple with intimations of ageing and mortality. ★★★★ Shuks! Your Country Needs You: Combining a loose script with Leon Schuster’s signature Candid Camera gags, this film adds a father-and-son element to the usual romp, in the form of Rob van Vuuren playing Schuster’s offspring. The film’s gags are slightly more palatable than usual. “Punked” celebrities, including Peter de Villiers and Jack Parow, add a little value. ★★

ON CIRCUIT

Enough Said: Enough Said marks one of the final appearances by the late James Gandolfini, playing a frumpy, overweight academic named Albert who embarks on an awkward romance with Eva (Julia LouisDreyfus), a masseuse who, like Albert, is a divorced parent of a teen daughter about to leave home for college. The film sparkles within and without, just like the rare gem that it is. ★★★★ The Hunger Games: Catching Fire: The second instalment of the Hunger Games franchise is darker and more mature. It accentuates yet further the Orwellian elements in the Suzanne Collins novels from which it is adapted, and benefits from another full-blooded performance from Jennifer Lawrence as the warrior heroine, Katniss Everdeen. Yet, Catching Fire is caught somewhere between nightmarish political allegory and adolescent escapism. ★★★ Detachment: Director Tony Kaye’s depiction of a substitute teacher’s hellish experience in a public high school makes his film American History X seem lighthearted by comparison. Adrien Brody delivers a fine performance as the central role of the disaffected Henry Barthes. ★★★ Justin and the Knights of Valour: This 3D CG-animated feature, produced by Antonio Banderas, is pallid compared to Pixar’s Brave. The plot is some subArthurian whimsy about a red-haired youngster who yearns to be a knight. Even the top vocal talents (David Walliams, Saoirse Ronan) struggle to enliven matters. ★★ Imogene: A dismal sitcom stretched out to wafer-thin feature length, this film is composed of simplistic potshots and walking clichés, its humour confined to the lowestcommon denominator. Failed playwright and lovably neurotic Imogene (Kristen Wiig) fakes attempted suicide to win back her distant Wall Street boyfriend, and in doing so inadvertently convinces a doctor to place her in the emergency care of an immediate relative: her estranged mother (Annette Bening). ★ Captain Phillips: A taut, finely crafted, superbly acted maritime thriller about the 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates of the MV Maersk Alabama. ★★★★★ Insidious: Chapter 2: Three years after Insidious introduced movie-goers to the Lambert family and its troubling connection to the spirit world, the sequel continues the tale, but it has enough thrills, laughs and a story of its own to stand alone. ★★★ The Bling Ring: A modern-day cautionary tale about youth running amok, based on the true story of a group of teenagers who robbed the homes of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and other celebrities. ★★★ Thor: The Dark World 3D: Director Alan Taylor’s valiant attempt to balance the action with humour is helped by Tom Hiddleston’s sleekly malevolent performance as Loki, a more engaging figure than Chris Hemsworth’s monosyllabic Thor. ★★★ The Butler: Forest Whitaker plays Cecil Gaines, a sharecropper’s son who serves eight US presidents as a White House butler. But, building a heroic film around Gaines requires Herculean effort, which the director doesn’t quite manage. ★★★