THE KID WHO WOULD BE KING
(PG)
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THIS is a family-friendly spin on the sword in the stone from writer-director Joe Cornish.
Twelve-year-old Alexander Elliot (Louis Ashbourne Serkis) clings on to memories of his father, who vanished many years ago to “battle his demons”. The boy’s mother (Denise Gough) tries to protect her boy from spectres of the past but she is powerless to stop Alex falling victim to bullying classmate Lance (Tom Taylor) and his sidekick Kaye (Rhianna Dorris) at Dungate Academy.
Fleeing his tormentors, Alex seeks refuge in a building site where he pulls a sword from a block of stone just like Arthurian legend. This simple act by a pure-hearted hero stirs King Arthur’s evil halfsister Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson) in her subterranean lair.
She reanimates fallen warriors to slay Alex and steal Excalibur.
In response, a young Merlin (Angus Imrie) materialises and inspires Alex to undertake a quest before Morgana and her army of the dead can rise in the shadow of the forthcoming solar eclipse.
OSCAR-NOMINATED documentarian Matthew Heineman makes an assured feature film directorial debut with a dramatisation of the life of foreign affairs correspondent Marie Colvin, who was killed in 2012 while covering the siege of Homs.
Her selfless crusade for the truth, regardless of the personal cost, flanked by photographer Paul Conroy was powerfully distilled in Christopher Martin’s recent documentary Under The Wire.
A Private War stages a similar assault on our nerves, championing the vital role played by journalists in shining a light on moral outrages and injustice in a time of conflict.
Donning a black eye patch, which became Colvin’s trademark after she lost the sight in one eye in a grenade blast in Sri Lanka, Rosamund Pike delivers a fearless and ferocious lead performance as a champion of civilian casualties.
“You’ve seen more war than most soldiers,” observes Conroy, played with a wavering Liverpudlian accent by Jamie Dornan before the pair make their courageous intervention in Syria.
At its heart, Heineman’s picture is an intimate psychological study that feels uncomfortably timely with civil war continuing to rage in Syria several years after Colvin’s death.
That tragic sequence, which bookends the film, is orchestrated with verve and a pulse-quickening combination of handheld camerawork and aerial photography, which captures the devastation of repeated shelling of a city already reduced to smouldering rubble.
Colvin puts herself in the line of fire under the aegis of editor Sean Ryan (Tom Hollander) so she can open the eyes of readers to atrocities behind enemy lines.
In 2003, she recruits Conroy as her photographer and together they seek out important stories, including the Arab Spring and an exclusive interview with Colonel Gaddafi (Raad Rawi).
Back home in England, Colvin seeks temporary sanctuary from her nightmares in the bed of wealthy businessman Tony Shaw (Stanley Tucci) but she is unwavering in her determination to glimpse horrors that would otherwise be buried.
“I see it so you don’t have to,” she reminds her editor.
When Syria attempts to block foreign journalists from covering the civil war, Colvin and Conroy enter the country without permission, living on their wits to avoid reprisals.
“If the government catches you, they’ll kill you,” Ryan warns Colvin.
Anchored by Pike’s gutsy portrayal, A Private War weaves between documented fact and artistic licence (Tucci’s paramour is fictional) to underscore how one defiant voice can be heard clearly around the world through a cacophony of falling shells.
Arash Amel’s script exposes Colvin’s deep psychological wounds and the weight of responsibility she carried on broad shoulders far from home.
Annie Lennox’s song A Requiem For A Private War is the final elegant pluck of our heartstrings.
HUNTER KILLER (15)
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BASED on the novel Firing Point by Don Keith and George Wallace, Hunter Killer is entertaining hogwash. A shootout beneath the ice of the Barents Sea close to Russia immobilises the USS Tampa Bay. Admiral Charles Donnegan (Gary Oldman) sanctions a mission to discover the fate of the missing submarine. Commander Joe Glass (Gerard Butler) is appointed captain of the USS Arkansas, and the crew prepares to sail into hostile waters. Covert surveillance reveals the Russian defence minister has staged a coup and is holding President Zakarin (Alexander Diachenko) hostage so Glass and his crew prepare a rescue.
■ Download/stream from February 18 and on DVD/Blu-ray from February 25.