Le Week-end

Le Week-end stars Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan as Nick and Meg a couple who head to Paris for the weekend for their 30th Wedding Anniversary, their marriage is clearly in trouble from the start, and as the Kids have now left home they attempt to find their feelings for each other.

This is a film with a lot of issues, firstly it goes nowhere, the relationship between Nick and Meg is as unresolved at the end of the Movie as it is in the beginning. Secondly it is far from original, it has been done many times before, and a lot better. Hope Springs from this time last year is a much funnier film, with much the same storyline.

There are a few good laughs along the way, mostly at the expense of Birmingham, and perhaps this wants to be a more serious piece than I am giving it credit for. Broadbent's speech at the dinner party is very good, with an honesty about it, and the characters of Nick and Meg are very well drawn with lots of issues. The Jeff Goldblum Character however is just stereotypically Jeff Goldblum, I'm not sure he knows how to play anything else.

I may not be the target audience demographic for this movie, but I struggled to enjoy it. If you want a older married couple discovering their love for each other movie, I suggest you fire up Netflix and watch Hope Springs 3/10

Romeo & Juliet

This adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet with screenplay written by Julian Fellowes is the classic love story, where previous adaptations have sought to update the language to more modern English, Fellowes sticks to the original Shakespeare play, which in some ways is great, but it does not aid the understanding when you have to think about and sometimes decipher what was said.

The seasoned actors in supporting roles, such as Damien Lewis and Paul Giamatti put in much better performances than Hailee Steinfeld and Douglas Booth in the title roles. Both the leads look beautiful but the chemistry between them is lacking. There is no spark or passion and that, unfortunately is the main downfall of this movie.

On the plus side, I'm not really a connoisseur of music in film, so the fact that I am even noticed the score enough to mention it means it must have made an impression, so credit to Abel Korzeniowski for his music.

There are much better versions of Romeo and Juliet, this suffers from a lack of spark and believable romance 4/10

The Fifth Estate

The Fifth Estate is a film about the rise of Wikileaks, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange and Daniel Brúhl as Daniel Berg. It is based on the Novel by Daniel Berg, and is quite clearly told from his point of view. Assange himself has said that the film is untrue and biased. At the end of the film, there is a short clip from an interview with cumberbatch playing Assange where he emplores the viewer to seek out truth, and not to accept everything you are told, this almost seems to be a bit of a concession to Assange, and can be taken as don't except everything your Governments tell you, but also don't believe everything you have just seen in this film.

Assange is portrayed as an uncaring, egotistical man, Who is driven by self promotion and self interest. Whilst I'm sure a lot of this is based on some understanding of the man himself, It is clearly a very biased viewpoint.

The performances of Cumberbatch and Brúhl are great, with the latter adding to his rising stock after a fine performance as Niki Lauda in Rush.

The main issue with this film is it's plot, there does not seem to be any great sense of Momentum, with much of the plot played out in irc chat rooms and no real tension, it lacks the sense of threat and danger that is really needed to get the audience to engage with the plot.

The US government discussion scenes are not nearly strong enough, I can't believe that the conversations around the table when the War Logs and cables were leaked were that calm.

Great performances, but failed by a poor script, the film never feels like it is going anywhere 6/10

Filth

Filth, Starring James McAvoy, is an adaptation of a novel by Irving Welsh.

Regular readers of my blog will know my views on sex and violence in film, but with Irving Welsh you know what to expect before you enter the cinema. I had considered adding Filth to my growing boycott list, for that reason, but it has had so many great reviews, that I felt I had to see it and make up my own mind.

Set in Edinburgh, it tracks the fall of Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson, who is in line for a promotion to Inspector, and will do anything to eliminate the competition.

McAvoy is superb as Robertson, as he goes about ruining his own life, and many of those around him, with descent into Drug, Alcohol, and sexual pleasure addiction.

The screenplay is great, with some very crude jokes along the way, It is a very difficult novel to film, as parts of the book are narrated by a tapeworm, and the way in which that is used in the film is interesting.

I also enjoyed the fact that the film leaves you guessing right up to the last second as to the eventual outcome, right up until the closing credits I didn't know if he would get the help he needed, or if his lifestyle would eventually destroy him.

However, I did feel that there is something missing that turns a good film into a great film. It is certainly not as good as Trainspotting, some of the minor characters are not very well drawn after the opening scenes where we are introduced to them, and the twist/reveal regarding Robertson's wife was just a little bit off the wall, I have not read the book so don't know how that is handled in the Novel, but I'm not sure about the way it is revealed in the screenplay.

If you enjoyed Trainspotting you will definitely enjoy this, but its just lacking that little extra something 8/10

Sunshine on Leith

Sunshine on Leith is a musical based on the Songs of The Proclaimers. It follows Davy and Ally, 2 Scottish soldiers returning home to Edinburgh after a tour of Afghanistan. It follows their relationships with Girlfriends and parents and siblings etc.

This is a film with many issues, the singing is very poor, and autotuned to within an inch of its life, and the acting between songs is almost as bad, and the plot is contrived in order to meet the demands of the songbook.

However, it is so rubbish that actually it is brilliantly entertaining, my head was telling me it is all wrong, but my heart went with it. despite not being a huge fan of the Proclaimers, and therefore not knowing some of the songs.

If you are a Proclaimers fan, you will enjoy this immensely, If you loved Mamma Mia I'm sure you will enjoy this too. For film making 4/10 for Entertainment 10/10

How I Live Now

Saoirse Ronan stars as Daisy, an American teenager sent to live with her cousins on a farm in Rural England, just as War breaks out and London is hit by a nuclear bomb. The cousins are then split up during an evacuation and we follow Daisy as she attempts to get herself and her young cousin Piper back home to the farm.

Whilst this film is quite harrowing in places, and deals with some tough subject matter of how civilians would be treated in a war situation, you have to be quite forgiving to follow the plot, lots of things are left unexplained, we are given no information about the "war" apart from the fact it is happening, so is it world war 3 or just internal terrorism? It is very confusing as to the nature of the threat, although the opposing forces seem to have a highly organised army.

The opening sequence of Daisy arriving at the airport is almost deliberately amateurism, the opening credits do not befit a film dealing with complex issues of death and destruction, and initially the terse set-up with Daisy not wanting to be there is extremely off-putting.

As the film goes through and once the plot gets going post nuclear bomb, the acting improves, and the film begins to show its true potential.

There are still a few niggles, such as Daisy leaving Piper on her own out in the open when there are plenty of places to tell her to hide, and the Hawk is just an unnecessary addition that adds little other than a convenient contrivance.

Worth a watch, stick with it through the opening half hour of setup because it does improve 7/10

Runner Runner

Justine Timberlake stars as Ritchie in Runner Runner, a modern take on a old story. When he loses thousands of Dollars on online poker he realises he has been cheated, and travels to Costa Rica to draw it to the attention of the Website owner Ivan Block, played by Ben Affleck. Block takes Ritchie under his wing and gives him a Job, but everything is not as it seems.

Runner Runner is an engaging gritty movie that moves along at pace and holds the attention throughout, however it suffers from a degree of predictability, so I found myself often one step ahead of the movie, and I'm not usually the most observant cinema goer.

The storyline is interesting, and keeps the right side of believability, with decent performances from Timberlake and, in particular, Gemma Arterton, this is a a decent film, but lacks that little extra that turns a good film into a great one 8/10