Author: Garry Arnot
DVD review: Tiger Raid
Based on Mick Donnellan’s black comedy play Radio Luxembourg, writer and director Simon Dixon delivers Tiger Raid, an intense thriller that follows two Irish mercenaries through treacherous Middle-Eastern territory. Paddy (Damien Molony) and Joe (Brian Gleeson) are men on a covert mission, driving through the dusty night to kidnap Shadha (Sofia Boutella), the daughter of a local tycoon. In the beginning, they exchange lurid banter about their shady pasts but before long, their motives and loyalties become uncertain, leading to a multitude of twists, turns and revelations.
DVD review: Money Monster
With her fourth feature in the director’s chair, actress-turned-filmmaker Jodie Foster takes on the financial thriller genre in ‘Money Monster’, starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts. The action unfolds from within the confines of a TV studio where presenter Lee Gates (George Clooney) advises his viewers on the dos and don’ts of stock market trading with the help of his friend and the show’s director Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts). After a bad tip involving financial services company IBIS Clear Capital, their show is interrupted by disgruntled labourer Kyle Budwell (Jack O’Connell), who made a substantial loss on the investment. Desperate for answers, he holds Gates hostage with a gun and a bomb, demanding an explanation as to where his money has gone.
DVD review: The Nice Guys
Shane Black is no stranger to the crime buddy movie genre, having penned the screenplays for the Lethal Weapon films through the late eighties and early nineties. Now, as a director and co-writer alongside Anthony Bagarozzi, he returns to the field for neo-noir comedy ‘The Nice Guys’ starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling. When hard-man enforcer Jackson Healy (Crowe) is hired to rough up private eye Holland March (Gosling), to say they get off on the wrong foot would be an understatement. However, circumstances around the mysterious death of porn star Misty Mountains force them to form an unlikely alliance. Together the mismatched pair aim to track down a missing girl linked with the investigation, leading to an action-packed and hilarious wild-goose-chase through the underbelly of 1970s Los Angeles.
DVD review: Everybody Wants Some!!
In 1993, writer and director Richard Linklater helped launch the careers of Ben Affleck and Matthew McConaughey with cult teen comedy Dazed & Confused. Now he is back in the same academic territory with what is being considered the ‘spiritual sequel’. Named after the Van Halen song, coming-of-age flick Everybody Wants Some!! follows freshman Jake (Blake Jenner) as he begins a baseball scholarship in Texas 1980. When he arrives at his new digs, he meets his many housemates including party animal Finnegan (Glen Powell), fun-loving Dale (J. Quinton Johnson) and hallucinogen hooligan Willoughby (Wyatt Russell), and is instantly initiated into their chaotic college culture.
DVD review: Green Room
The positive critical reception of low-budget revenge film Blue Ruin helped served as a financial springboard for writer-director Jeremy Saulnier’s next project. Sticking with colour-themed titles, Green Room follows four-piece punk band The Ain’t Rights as they tour through the Pacific Northwest. Led by Pat (Anton Yelchin), the group find themselves gigging at a very shady, isolated bar where most of the clientele are vicious neo-Nazis. After their suitably riotous performance, they are horrified to witness a brutal murder in the venue’s green room, and are held hostage by Darcy (Patrick Stewart) and his gang of skinheads. The group, musically influenced by artists such as The Misfits and Minor Threat, come together in an intense battle for survival but in their situation the threat they face is far from minor.
Trailer: Supersonic
Directed by: Mat Whitecross
Starring: Liam Gallagher, Noel Gallager
Release date: October 2016
DVD review: Suburra
In Italy, organised crime and politics have never seemed worlds apart and the affiliation between the two is dissected in Stefano Sollima’s latest feature ‘Suburra’, named after a quarter of ancient Rome. The neo-noir drama is based on a novel by Carlo Bonini and Giancarlo De Cataldo, and marks a return to film for the director following his television work on the likes of Gomorra and Romanzo Criminale. Set in 2011, the contemporary tale of corruption centres around shady lawyer Filippo ‘Pippo’ Malgradi (Pierfrancesco Favino) as he mixes business with pleasure in Rome’s criminal underworld. A feared Mafioso going by the name of Samurai (Claudio Amendola) is behind a project to turn the capital’s waterfront into the “Las Vegas of Europe” but when local mobsters inadvertently foil his plans, a violent gang war ensues that spells trouble for Malgradi and everyone around him.
DVD review: True Story
If you see that Jonah Hill and James Franco are in the same film, you’d be forgiven for assuming it would be a lightweight comic affair, given their mutual associations and previous work. However, in artistic theatre director Rupert Goold’s first foray into film, laughs are nowhere to be found. The mystery thriller ‘True Story’ is based on the memoir of the same name by former New York Times writer Mike Finkel, following his journalistic fall from grace. After losing his job due to fabricated storytelling, Finkel (Hill) discovers that Christian Longo (Franco), who is awaiting trial for the murder of his wife and three children, is using his name as an alias. Eager to explore the matter further, he arranges a prison visit, which triggers a psychological meeting of the minds that changes both of their lives forever.
DVD review: Miles Ahead
Cinema Perspective 