crime
Magnum P.I., Sky 1 review - slick and formulaic remake of Eighties originalThursday, 17 January 2019
Perhaps inspired by the success of the revived Hawaii Five-O, CBS and Universal have gone back to the Eighties, and back to Hawaii, to see if the venerable Magnum P.I. could benefit from a similar overhaul. Early evidence suggests that as formulaic... Read more... |
Luther, Series 5, BBC One review - welcome return for Idris Elba's maverick 'tecWednesday, 02 January 2019
“Can you breathe?’ “Yeah.” “Shame, that”. Another ne’er-do-well is being banged to rights after a chase through container stacks in the dark. Luther is back, and he hasn’t upgraded his Volvo or changed his tweed coat – but we don’t really mind, do... Read more... |
The ABC Murders, BBC One, review - John Malkovich's dark reboot of PoirotThursday, 27 December 2018
Sarah Phelps’s annual reboot of a canonical murder mystery by Agatha Christie has rapidly established itself as a Christmas staple of TV drama. And Then There Were None, The Witness for the Prosecution and Ordeal by Innocence (which was postponed to... Read more... |
The Old Man & the Gun review - sundown on SundanceFriday, 07 December 2018
Despite having enjoyed a prolific few years in which he has appeared in (among others) All Is Lost, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Truth and Our Souls at Night, Robert Redford has said that The Old Man & the Gun will be his last film role... Read more... |
Ralegh: the Treason Trial, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse review - gripping verbatim court caseThursday, 29 November 2018
Forget the cloak in the puddle. Never mind potatoes and tobacco. The children's book cliché of Sir Walter Raleigh (or Ralegh as he seems to have preferred in an age of changeable spelling) represents little of the real man and is at best misleading... Read more... |
Shoplifters review - deserved Cannes prize winnerSaturday, 24 November 2018
When a film is about a crime family, audience expectations tend to involve mobsters and thrills, but that’s not the territory that Hirozaku Kora-eda is exploring here. He opens his tale with a camera tracking leisurely across a Tokyo supermarket. A... Read more... |
Siberia review - Keanu Reeves's duff Russian missionMonday, 19 November 2018
It is appropriate that Keanu Reeves sounds especially croaky and muffled throughout Siberia. Business meetings for his character Lucas Hill (a diamond trader) don’t normally involve much talk, just a swift briefcase handover and a confidential... Read more... |
Michael Connelly: Dark Sacred Night review - a pairing of loner detectivesSunday, 04 November 2018
The master of the Southern California police procedural is back. In Dark Sacred Night Michael Connelly puts centre stage his oldest creation, the Vietnam veteran turned original, ethical policeman who marches to his own moralities, Hieronymous – aka... Read more... |
Dogman review - Matteo Garrone takes on the mafia againFriday, 19 October 2018
There aren’t many movies that cater to audiences with a passion for canine grooming, the mafia and dismal seaside resorts but Dogman more than satisfies all those cravings. Ten years after Matteo Garrone won Cannes with the searingly brutal Gomorrah... Read more... |
The Outsider, Print Room at the Coronet review - power in restraintThursday, 20 September 2018
As the Syrian conflict enters its final convulsions, renewing memories of how the Sykes-Picot agreement – between an Englishman and a Frenchman – would cause more than a century of political resentment in the Arab world, The Outsider seems... Read more... |
Never Here review - conceptual art may damage your healthWednesday, 19 September 2018
Beware the hidden powers of the cellphone. When in Never Here New York conceptual artist Miranda Fall (Mireille Enos) finds a stranger’s phone, she uses it as the basis for her next art show, tracking down and interviewing the owner’s contacts,... Read more... |
Strangers, episode 2, ITV review - conspiracy theories multiplyTuesday, 18 September 2018
You might consider it odd that a man whose wife spends half the year in Hong Kong without him hasn’t managed to get around to catching a plane from Heathrow to visit her in the Far East, but that is the case with Jonah Mulray, the stressed-out... Read more... |
