Freelance is a disposable action-comedy from French filmmaker Pierre Morel, best known for putting Liam Neeson through his paces in the thriller Taken in 2008. Freelance stars former wrestler turned actor John Cena as Mason Pettits, a former special forces operative who left the military after a mission in the fictitious South American country of…
The lavish Italian/French co-production Caravaggio’s Shadow by actor-director Michele Placido looks at the final years in the life of Caravaggio (born Michelangelo Merisi). This is something of a passion project for Placido, who had been fascinated with the artist for over half a century and had long wanted to explore his life and legacy on…
Where did it all go so wrong? After several era-defining movies, the Marvel franchise seems to be sputtering. Judging by the ill-conceived and frankly illogical The Marvels, it seems to have run out of ideas for these characters. The Marvels draws together Captain Marvel (2019), the Disney + mini-series Ms Marvel and a few scattered…
Another formulaic survival story, The Dive is a remake of the little-seen 2020 Norwegian drama Breaking Surface, and it adds little that is new or surprising. Sisters Drew (Australian actress Sophie Lowe) and May (Louisa Krause) share a love of deep-sea diving, instilled in them from a young age by their father. Every year the…
AI is a hot topic right now, so it’s only natural filmmakers would want to explore it. One of them is Garth Davis (Lion), who adopts a measured but sometimes oblique approach in Foe. Davis is clearly passionate about the project, having worked with novelist Iain Reid to adapt Reid’s novel of the same name…
After a three-year break, David Fincher is back with a very un-Fincher-like film with The Killer. This finely crafted film sees the director subverting just about every convention of the hitman sub-genre in a way I found both inventive and a little perplexing at the same time. Fincher is of course known for the directorial…
Toys run amok, killing and maiming, in director Emma Tammi’s Five Nights at Freddy’s. Mike (Josh Hutcherson) is a troubled soul. A shopping centre security guard, his massively aggressive treatment of the father of a young son sees him fired and looking for a new job. At that stage, we – the audience – don’t…
Australian director Craig Gillespie continues his successful foray into American film with Dumb Money. The film showcases Gillespie’s fast-paced directorial style in a David vs Goliath story that replaces slingshots with sub-Reddits. For whatever reason, Gillespie seems to be attracted to stories that say something about America and its people. That was certainly the case…
This November, the 2023 Cunard British Film Festival (presented by Palace Cinemas) will bring the finest British filmmaking, production and acting to Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Canberra and Byron Bay. Many of Britain’s most enduring and well-known faces feature in this year’s stunning selection including Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Spall, Olivia Colman, Helena Bonham Carter,…
The powerful Australian produced and shot drama Shayda is set in suburban Australia in 1995 but has contemporary resonance as it deals with some important themes. It centres around Shayda (Iranian actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi) who is married to Hossein (Osama Sami) who has moved to Australia to study medicine and become a doctor. He…
