Movie PICKS

SATURDAY The Drop Film4, 9pm

Tom Hardy, James Gandol ni, Noomi Rapace and Matthias Schoenaerts star in Michaël R. Roskam’s tense thriller, based on a short story by crime novelist Dennis Lehane (who also wrote the screenplay). Bob Saginowski (Hardy) tends the bar at a Brooklyn joint managed by his moody cousin Marv (Gandol ni).

Marv used to own the place, but relinquished it to Chechen gangsters, who use the business as a front for laundering their illicit earnings.

Despite their bosses’ violent nature, things are ticking along for Bob and Marv — until the night when $5,000 of the gangsters’ money is burgled and the Chechens tell the cousins to replace it.

Bob’s life is given an extra, complicated twist when his discovery of an abandoned puppy leads to a friendship with a woman called Nadia (Rapace); the dog belongs to Eric Deeds (Schoenaerts), a killer who wants both it and his ex-girlfriend back...

Dog, Ch4, 9pm

Channing Tatum co-directs this human-canine-road-trip-comedydrama with writer Reid Carolin — who also penned Magic Mike.

Jackson Briggs (Tatum) is an Army Ranger with PTSD.

He wants back in the army but can’t get signed off. Then an officer offers Briggs a lifeline.

He’ll be reinstated if he escorts an army dog to her handler’s funeral.

The dog is Lulu — a Belgian shepherd —who is a war hero in her own right, after being involved in countless battle eld rescues. And Briggs served with her handler.

But Lulu is also traumatised and is now too dangerous to handle. She’s become so fearful of humans that her instinct is to attack. So, for their trip, Lulu must be muzzled and medicated.

And when the funeral is done, she will be put down. So far, so tragic.

But this is a road trip. And anything can happen on a road trip. There’s gonna be laughter. There’s gonna be tears. Only question is, will anyone get put down at the end of it?

MONDAY The Front Runner, TG4, 9.30pm

Hugh Jackman plays Gary Hart, former senator of Colorado, who becomes the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1987.

Hart’s intelligence, charisma and idealism makes him popular with young voters, leaving him with a seemingly clear path to the White House.

But all that comes crashing down when allegations of an extramarital affair surface in the media, forcing the candidate to address a scandal that threatens to derail his campaign and personal life.

FRIDAY Atlas, Netflix

Atlas Shepherd (Jennifer Lopez), a brilliant but misanthropic data analyst with a deep distrust of arti cial intelligence, joins a mission to capture a renegade robot with whom she shares a mysterious past.

But when plans go awry, her only hope of saving the future of humanity from AI is to trust it.