Horrible Bosses (2011)

10.00pm RTÉ 2

This entertaining black comedy about a group of employees who conspire to rid themselves of their horrible bosses is elevated above the ho-hum by a cracking cast that includes Jennifer Aniston, Jamie Foxx, Justin Bateman and a barely recognisable Colin Farrell.

Motherless Brooklyn (2019)

8.00pm, Saturday, Sky Cinema Premiere

‘’Frank said anyone teaching God’s love while they hit you with a stick should be ignored on every subject’’ It took almost 20 years for Edward Norton to bring his passion project to the big screen, but the result was certainly worth the wait. Adapted from Jonathan Lethem’s best-selling novel (though transposed from the 1990s to the 1950s), Motherless Brooklyn is a complex story of power and corruption in postwar New York which unravels through the eyes of a solitary detective (Norton) living with Tourette’s Syndrome. The story opens with Norton and his colleagues investigating the baddies who killed their boss (Bruce Willis). The investigation soon takes a dangerous turn, however, when the trail leads to City Hall and a corrupt planning department presided over by Alec Baldwin. Beautifully shot in sepia tones by Dick Pope (some of the set-pieces echo Edward Hopper), the story do s a trilby to classic gumshoe noir movies while owing a major debt to Polanksi’s Chinatown (1974), another story about a big city with an underlying seam of corruption. Norton juggles many balls on this project, but he succeeds on all fronts, notably in the central role of the protagonist through whose eyes all the events unfold. He is well supported by a cracking cast including Willem Dafoe, Bobby Cannavale, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Alec Baldwin, in full-on Glengarry mode. Listen out for a fantastic jazz soundtrack.