Film choice

99 Homes (2014) FILM4, 9.00PM ★★★★

Ramin Bahrani’s film is a terrifically acted moral nail-biter revolving around two men, a corrupter and a corruptee. Michael Shannon plays a hard-faced estate agent in Orlando, Florida. The excellent Andrew Garfield’s hardworking builder is one of his victims. What makes it so thrilling isn’t the corruption, but the speed with which it happens. Laura Dern and Noah Lomax are among the great supporting cast.

The Firm (1993) SKY LIVING, 9.00PM ★★★★

Sydney Pollack directed this accomplished yet curiously uninvolving adaptation of John Grisham’s legal potboiler. Tom Cruise plays Mitch Mcdeere, an ambitious young lawyer who takes a well-paid job at a Memphis law firm that sounds too good to be true. And it is: the firm launders money for the Mob. Can Mitch escape with his morals and marriage intact? Gene Hackman provides excellent support.

Django Unchained (2012) 5STAR, 10.00PM ★★★★

Quentin Tarantino doesn’t care too much for history. The message is: never mind the chronology, feel the brutality. Django (Jamie Foxx), a black slave, is freed by bounty hunter Dr King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) and now wants to find his wife (Kerry Washington). It’s a violent, strange and deliciously indulgent pulp odyssey; Django himself is Tarantino’s best-developed character since 1997’s Jackie Brown.