Film choice
E4, 9.00PM ★★★
British director Rupert Wyatt, making a confident leap into the big-time after his nifty 2008 debut The Escapist, fashions much of this prequel movie as a simian prison flick. It’s grand entertainment as intelligent ape Caesar (a subtle mo-cap performance by Andy Serkis, though you never quite believe that you’re watching a real ape) is imprisoned in a sanctuary and begins to question nature’s hierarchy.
TCM, 9.00PM ★★★★★
This punchy, pared-down and sexy (it was X-rated in its day) thriller follows the mission of a career criminal (played by Lee Marvin) hunting down a former accomplice who shot him at point-blank range. Adapted from the crime noir pulp novel The Hunter, it was one of the definitive films to emerge from Hollywood in the Sixties, and John Boorman’s direction would go on to influence Scorsese and Tarantino.
UNIVERSAL TV, 9.00PM ★★★
Tony Scott’s remake of the exciting 1974 thriller about the hijack of a New York subway train ditches the original tight storytelling and evocative sense of place in favour of Scott’s characteristic bombastic action. The strong premise, a battle of wits between low-key train dispatcher hero Denzel Washington and a goateed criminal John Travolta, makes it watchable. James Gandolfini also appears as the NYC mayor.