Seventies-style buddy movie minus the flares
There are no corduroy flares or Concorde-sized lapels, but otherwise Mississippi Grind (15) is a very Seventies-style buddy movie. Think Midnight Cowboy meets California Split.
Ben Mendelsohn and Ryan Reynolds play sad sacks Gerry and Curtis who team up after a card game and hit the road for a high-rollin’ poker tournament in New Orleans. En route they meet tragedy, comedy, women ( just to prove they’re not, you know) – and, er, that’s it.
The stars are never less than engaging (Reynolds can be mesmerising), but writer/director team Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s storyline is perilously short on drama – meaning Gerry and Curtis have little to do but riff off each other.
Still, at least they’re making some connection. The same can’t be said for Bruce Willis and Kellan Lutz, a father and son CIA team in the brain-dead shoot’em-up, Extraction
(15) Having a tooth removed would be more fun.
The same goes double for Criminal Activities (15) in which John Travolta strong-arms Michael Boardwalk
Empire Pitt and Dan Downton Abbey Stevens into kidnapping a local gangster. What could possibly go wrong? Who could possibly care?
In Andrew Renzi’s debut, The Benefactor
(15), Richard Gere plays Franny, a wealthy philanthropist – and the only person to come out of the car smash the movie opens with. Alas for Franny, all is not well. Long after his wounds have healed he’s in permanent pain. When his doctor refuses to sign off on any more pills, his behaviour grows more and more erratic. Renzi and Gere handle this setup beautifully, but things go off the rails when Franny takes Olivia (Dakota Fanning), the daughter of his deceased best friend, and her medico boyfriend Luke (Theo James) under his wing. Unfortunately the script just isn’t sturdy enough to make the relationships convincing. Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette (12)
is even shakier. It’s 1912, and Carey Mulligan, Anne-Marie Duff and Helena Bonham Carter are demanding the vote. It’s a subject ripe for drama, but Abi Morgan’s script is so bald its characters never come to life, and the film ends up insulting the women it wants to celebrate.
Treat of the week is the beautifully restored Blu-ray of Comfort
And Joy (PG) Bill Forsyth’s Martini-dry comedy about a radio DJ (Bill Paterson) caught up in the Glasgow ice cream wars. Sounds weird? Trust me: no movie lives up to its title more than this one does.
‘No movie lives up to its title more than Comfort And Joy’