Writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson’s rigorous commitment to excellence in filmmaking (Magnolia) pays off again big time in One Battle After Another. Featuring stellar performances from Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro and others, it is an epic, darkly comedic, dramatic, action thriller. As Pat Calhoun, DiCaprio is in a frenzied relationship with…
A gripping psychological thriller, Job pits a patient against a psychiatrist in a battle of wits and wills. Jane (Jessica Clarke), who is a content moderator in Big Tech, is on paid sick leave following a mental breakdown. Video recorded of the incident went viral, but now she is desperate to get back to work….
A thriller centred around a fixer who negotiates deals between corrupt corporations and whistleblowers, Relay becomes more tightly wound as it reaches its climax. Tom (Riz Ahmed) is that middleman or fixer I speak off. An IT whiz, he is a problem solver for those who can’t see any other way out. He makes money…
A murderous plan, oh most foul. That is at the heart of Dial M for Murder, written by Frederick Knott in 1952 and popularised by Alfred Hitchcock’s suspenseful movie two years later. TV crime writer Max Halliday (Leon Walshe) visits Margot Wendice (Bridget Bourke) in her London apartment a year after the pair had a…
British intelligence is under the microscope in Black Bag. George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) is an elite operative at Britain’s closely guarded National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). He can’t stand liars. He seeks them out an exposes them. That has included his own father. Now there appears to be a mole in the ranks of the…
Passion, intellect, history and legacy explode on stage in the masterfully written, acted, directed and produced romantic, dramatic, thriller Berlin. Australian Tom (Lachlan Hamill) has just landed in the German capital, keen to get to know the real city, not the tourist offering. He’s directed to a small watering hole, where he meets and is…
Be careful what you wish for. That is one of the takeaways from the psychological thriller Companion. It is a decidedly awkward first meeting at the supermarket for Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and Josh (Jack Quaid), but their connection is immediate. Iris falls hard for Josh and they become a couple. Sometime later, they take a…
So far over the top, but fun, Flight Risk is a guilty pleasure. It is all about carrying a government witness across hostile terrain to testify against a mob boss when everything that could possibly go wrong does. Madolyn Harris (Michelle Dockery) is a Deputy U.S. Marshal. She is tasked with escorting crooked, scared, chatterbox…
Subterfuge and tension abound in the compelling papal thriller Conclave. The Pope has died and cardinals have been summoned from around the world to elect his successor. The man charged with the responsibility of seeing the process through to finality is the College of Cardinals dean, Brit Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes). Of late, he has…
Hugh Grant was once the affable if slightly awkward star of romantic comedies like Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill. But since Guy Ritchie cast him against type in a couple of his gritty thrillers, Grant has carved out a niche for himself in playing villainous types. He was great as the main…
