PICK OF THIS WEEK’S FILMS

SORRY TO BOTHER YOU (15)

Casey Affleck as John Hunt and Tika Sumpter as Maureen in The Old Man and the Gun

Robert Redford makes his final screen appearance before retirement in David Lowery’s gently paced crime caper, a (mostly) true story, which is also an unabashed Valentine to the charismatic leading man. Based on a 2003 article of the same title in The New Yorker, The Old Man and The Gun possesses a simple, old-fashioned charm epitomised by the 82-year-old star at the film’s emotionally molten centre. Photographed in lustrous close-up, Redford beguiles us with each glance into camera as real-life bank robber Forrest Tucker, who ran rings around the authorities and escaped from San Quentin State Prison in a canoe. The script stages a couple of tense robberies with aplomb but characterisation always take priority and there is a lovely scene of verbal to and fro between Redford and co-star Casey Affleck in the corridor of a roadside diner. Lowery’s film is the cinematic equivalent of a warm hug: comforting, heartfelt and undeniably pleasurable in the moment.

Chicago-born rapper Boots Riley makes his feature film directorial debut with an audacious, wildly inventive and frequently uproarious satire about workplace culture, black exploitation and rampant capitalism.

It’s fair to say that Sorry to Bother You won’t be everyone’s tipple and there are madcap moments when the wheels threaten to come off this runaway train of thoughts. However, patience and gargantuan suspensions of disbelief reap rewards over almost two hours, which simultaneously bamboozle, delight and astound. The writer-director has a penchant for visual gags in background detail like a rogue photocopier, which churns out reams of paper, creating a snowstorm of tumbling A4 around despairing employees. Riley holds firm to his ambitious and outlandish vision, and occasionally draws blood with his barbs.

TULIP FEVER (15)

Filmed in the summer of 2014 before lead actress Alicia Vikander deservedly won her Oscar as best supporting actress for The Danish Girl, director Justin Chadwick’s lust-fuelled period romp has been wilting on a film studio shelf for more than three years.

Harvey Weinstein’s involvement as a producer can’t be blamed for the delay. Tulip Fever is a turgid, lifeless adaptation of Deborah Moggach’s novel, which fails to bloom on the big screen despite some half-hearted propagation from director Justin Chadwick (The Other Boleyn Girl) and his starry international cast. Not even Dame Judi Dench, pursing her lips beneath a wimple, can inject life into a plodding, waterlogged narrative in which a lowly fisherman brandishes a basket of pungent goods and tantalises one potential customer by boasting “I’ve got a nice thick eel” with a straight face.