It’s January 1969. Richard Nixon has just been inaugurated as president. A new decade beckons. And seven very different but equally lost souls converge on a once-glorious resort that’s fallen – like its visitors – into disrepute, in Bad Times at the El Royale. Situated on the border between California and Nevada, the El Royale…
The intensely brutal prison drama A Prayer Before Dawn is like Kickboxer meets Midnight Express. This unflinching, hard-hitting and gritty and harrowing true story is set inside Thailand’s notorious Bang Kwang Central Prison, better known as the infamous Bangkok Hilton. Like Midnight Express, A Prayer Before Dawn is based on a real-life story. In this case,…
How not to plan and execute a heist. Four totally clueless amateurs get involved in something they should never have attempted in American Animals. Frighteningly, it’s based on relatively recent reality. The story centres around unpredictable wild child Warren (Evan Peters) and aspiring artist Spencer (Barry Keoghan), two friends from the middle-class suburbs of Lexington,…
While looking at the film poster, the first thing I thought was: “Wow, Halle Berry has a thing for films about kidnapping”. First, there was The Call. And then at the beginning of the year, I saw Kidnap. And now it’s a film about human trafficking. In particular, the kidnapping of young women who then…
Michael Pearce’s feature film debut Beast explores the line between evil and misunderstanding. Moll Huntford (Jessie Buckley) was home-schooled by her domineering mother, Hilary (Geraldine James) after an incident at school more than a decade earlier. Now a tour guide on the Channel Island of Jersey, she can’t stand the constraints placed on her at…
The fast-paced and decidedly “now” thriller Searching employs social media in its full glory. It also marks the first time a mainstream Hollywood thriller has been headlined by an Asian-American actor. David Kim (John Cho), his late wife Pamela (Sara Sohn) and their daughter Margot (Michelle La) were a great team. But Pamela unexpectedly became sick and died from cancer….
It’s not just the fact that defenseless young children are victims of unscrupulous people who use them in networks for pedophiles. The most disgusting aspect of this is that these circuits are visited by people who occupy important positions in daily life. Individuals who show a respectable and neat appearance to the outside world. But…
The Melbourne-shot drama West of Sunshine is an exploration of a troubled father-son dynamic. The film follows the plight of Jim (Damian Hill), an inveterate and hapless gambler who’s trying to pay of a $15,000 loan to a ruthless loan shark (Tony Nikolakopoulos). He has until five o’clock to pay off the debt or there will…
In 2016 we had the graphic animated comedy Sausage Party. Some absolutely hated it, while others regarded it a work of raunchy comic genius. Well, here we go again; as puppetry interplays with live action in The Happytime Murders. The film is many things: a murder mystery, a buddy cop story, a tale of diversity…
A hip gangster has to get down and get dirty in Superfly. This stylish 21st century remake of the 1972 film of the same name comes from a man who’s noted for music videos for the likes of Kendrick Lamar and Rihanna. He goes by the name Director X (born Julien Lutz). When Director X…
