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PICK OF THIS WEEK’S FILMS
CHARLIE’S ANGELS (12A)
In 2015, Elizabeth Banks was in fine voice behind the camera of Pitch Perfect 2, propelling the feelgood sequel to bumper box office takings. She is a safe pair of hands to harmonise script and direction of this outlandish, if pointless, globe-trotting escapade based on the popular 1970s TV series, which promoted a brand of girl power distinguished by fabulously coiffed hair and fetishistic figure-hugging couture. Banks’s script gleefully punishes male characters who underestimate the titular heroines and expects her high-kicking Angels to weather as many crunching blows to the face as the nameless hulking henchmen they must disable to save the world. It’s equal opportunities bruising, garnished with male eye candy – a handsome scientist (Noah Centineo), a spiritual and physical wellbeing guru (Luis Gerardo Mendez) – whose lingering presence barely troubles the gossamer-thin plot.
KNIVES OUT (12A)
After the creative misstep of Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, writer-director Rian Johnson pays loving tribute to Agatha Christie with a tongue-in-cheek country house whodunit. Knives Out assembles a starry cast of prime suspects including Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette and Michael Shannon and cleverly conceals the murderer’s identity until a classic final act reveal. Johnson’s script lovingly embraces the tropes of a murder mystery while fishing for red herrings, assembling the accused in a wood-panelled drawing room for a private detective’s pithy summation replete with overlapping flashbacks. Curiously, the film’s weakest link is the brilliant mind in charge of the case: a dashingly tailored sleuth played by Daniel Craig with a hammy accent fried in the Deep South. Pieces of Johnson’s elaborate puzzle slot satisfyingly into place as the ensemble cast have fun with their colourful roles, concealing deviousness and greed behind angelic smiles.
FROZEN II (U)
According to lovable snowman Olaf (voiced by Josh Gad), who is a permafrosted font of wisdom about the natural world, water has memory. Considering that audiences who flocked to the original Frozen are largely made of water, it’s safe to assume that their memories of Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee’s Oscar-winning adventure will ebb and flow throughout this visually stunning sequel to the highest-grossing animated film of all time. The realistic movement of water has always been a chink in the armour of computer animators. Not so here. Disney’s platoons of digital wizards repeatedly quench our thirst with jaw-dropping set pieces, including a thrilling gallop over crashing waves of an angry sea astride an untamed water horse.
21 BRIDGES (15)
Opportunistic thieves are in the wrong place at the wrong time, sparking a night-time police manhunt through the streets of
Manhattan, in Brian Kirk’s propulsive action thriller. Screenwriters Adam Mervis and Matthew Michael Carnahan milk droplets of dramatic tension from their simple and efficient set-up, running a stopwatch on the frenetic gun fights and car chases from the moment the lead investigating officer reminds colleagues, “If we don’t catch these guys in the next three to four hours, they vanish.” Chadwick Boseman trades Black Panther’s figure-hugging Vibranium weave mesh suit for more simple, functional attire as a morally incorruptible NYPD detective, who has been raised to never shy away from doing the right thing. Northern Irish director Kirk is a willing accomplice to explosive skirmishes beneath the gleaming glass and metal of a cityscape that never sleeps. With a sleek 99-minute running time, there’s no time for us to slumber.
HARRIET (12A)
The biggest surprise about writer-director Kasi Lemmons’s biopic of crusading abolitionist Harriet Tubman is that it has taken Hollywood so long to immortalise the 19th-century African-American trailblazer. Born into slavery in Maryland as Araminta Ross, Tubman personally shepherded fellow slaves across the border to safety, served as a spy for the Union Army and remains one of the only women to lead an armed expedition on American soil. Scripted by Lemmons and co-writer Gregory Allen Howard, Harriet romanticises the lead character on a pristine surface level, relying on a barnstorming lead performance from London-born Cynthia Erivo to atone for a sinful lack of character development. Supporting players are reduced to historical footnotes, portrayed vividly by an esteemed ensemble cast including Tony Award-winning Hamilton star Leslie Odom Jr, Janelle Monae and Clarke Peters. Tears course down their cheeks more readily than ours.
BLUE STORY (15)
South London-born rapper-turned-YouTube star Andrew Onwubolu aka Rapman makes his feature film directorial debut with an urgent cautionary tale about the futility of gang warfare on the streets of the capital. He draws inspiration from newspaper headlines and his childhood in Lewisham to expand on themes from a semiautobiographical trilogy of shorts also entitled Blue Story and openly question the sense of youths laying lives on the line based on something as arbitrary as the postcode of their council estate. Rapman appears periodically on screen as a swaggering Greek chorus, underscoring a timely central message of cool heads under fire with lyrical narration. Stripped bare of the musical interjections, Rapman’s film follows a predictable trajectory from brotherhood to bloodshed, employing a Romeo and Julietstyle forbidden romance as the catalyst for enmity and petrol-doused retribution.
LE MANS ‘66 (12A)
In 1966, automotive designer Carroll Shelby and daredevil driver Ken Miles turbo-charged the racing division of Ford Motor Company to glory ahead of reigning constructor champion Ferrari at the Le Mans 24-hour endurance race. The battle royale between the two brands on the undulating asphalt of the Circuit de la Sarthe is recreated in muscular fashion by director James Mangold, working from a script written by Jason Keller and London-born brothers Jez and John-Henry Butterworth. Le Mans ‘66 is a crowd-pleasing drama of triumph on four wheels, anchored by terrific lead performances from Matt Damon and Christian Bale, who fire on all cylinders as the human trailblazers behind the roaring engines. Mangold’s film excels during breathlessly staged racing sequences in an era when the need for speed heightened the inherent dangers of the sport.
LAST CHRISTMAS (12A)
If there’s one time of year when the milk of human kindness can be aggressively sweetened with saccharine sentimentality, it’s Christmas. Dame Emma Thompson and co-writer Bryony Kimmings merrily spoon in the sugar to their seasonal romantic comedy while Bridemaids director Paul Feig unwraps cliches to a soundtrack of George Michael’s hits. His music is timeless and beautiful, providing gentle emotional crescendos on screen including a romantic ice skate to Praying For Time and a moment of selfpreservation that echoes the lyrics of Heal The Pain. Alas, the narrative twist on which the film precariously hangs is glaringly obvious and - in retrospect - illogical.
One intimate scene is a blatant cheat, presumably to throw us off the scent, and can’t credibly unfold as depicted.
THE IRISHMAN (15)
Martin Scorsese’s exhaustive and exhausting return to the criminal underworld with GoodFellas leading men Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci transplants the toxic masculinity from New York to the mean streets of Philadelphia. Stephen Zaillian, Oscar-winning screenwriter of Schindler’s List, confidently plunders Charles Brandt’s true-crime book I Heard You Paint Houses to recount an epic tale of brotherhood, which culminates in the disappearance of labour union leader Jimmy Hoffa in July 1975. Scorsese’s long-time editor Thelma Schoonmaker overcharges our patience with a running time – three-anda-half hours – that feels almost as bloated as some of the titular heavy’s lifeless victims.
THE GOOD LIAR (15)
Many film buffs are rather fond of director Bill Condon’s slippery thriller, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher from Nicholas Searle’s novel. “Fond” is such a quaint, terribly English word, and that simple expression of restrained and polite approval is weaponised to delicious effect by a silver-tongued octogenarian conman in The Good Liar. Everything is, as the scoundrel might say, “tickety-boo” in Hatcher’s script, which provides meaty roles for Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Helen Mirren as merciless hunter and unsuspecting prey. Blessed with these formidable acting talents, Condon frequently has little to do other than point a camera at his luminous leads and watch sparks fly as their verbal sparring lands the requisite blows. A couple of slickly executed set pieces, including a confrontation on a largely deserted London Underground platform at Charing Cross, ratchets up the stakes, building to an emotionally satisfying and brutal pay-off.
WESTERN STARS (PG)
Bruce Springsteen recently turned 70 but he’s refusing to slow down as he canters through a creatively rich period of a career stretching back to the mid-1960s. The 13 tracks of his 19th studio album, Western Stars, provide a contemplative, flowing narrative for this concert film, which was shot in the heat of summer in a 19th century barn on the musician’s 378-acre horse farm in Colts Neck, New Jersey. Each song is introduced by a tone poem penned by Springsteen, which burrows into the deeper meaning of the lyrics.