police
Cannes 2019: Too Old to Die Young - nightmarish LA noirMonday, 20 May 2019
This year, Cannes has been adamantly defending traditional cinema, with more than a few jibes at Netflix (who remain persona non grata at the festival), but that hasn’t stopped them screening two episodes of Nicolas Winding Refn’s new Amazon TV... Read more... |
Line of Duty, BBC One, series 5 finale review - big highs and BiggeloeMonday, 06 May 2019
The porn was a bit disappointing, was it not? Dear old Ted, no longer romantically active, admitted to being a user. The Superintendent Hastings fanclub sighed for sorrow to witness him toss away his status as an essentially decent heartthrob for... Read more... |
Dragged Across Concrete review - Mel Gibson's hard-boiled highThursday, 18 April 2019
Mel Gibson’s vile drunken rants a decade ago, his 63 years and the price of both inform his role as cop Brett Ridgeman. Writer-director S. Craig Zahler won’t comment. But as Ridgeman and patrol partner Anthony (fellow Hollywood right-wing rarity... Read more... |
Line of Duty, Series 5, BBC One review - already it's dark, dirty and dangerousMonday, 01 April 2019
Congratulations to Stephen Graham, guest-starring in this fifth season of BBC One’s Line of Duty, for still being alive at the end of episode one, a favour not routinely granted to headline names in Jed Mercurio’s diabolical labyrinth of deception.... Read more... |
Shetland, Series 5 Finale, BBC One review - Sicario-on-Sea?Wednesday, 20 March 2019
Thing is, a lot of this unpleasantness could have been avoided if DI Jimmy Perez had just watched the second series of The Missing. From this he could have deduced that there was every chance that Derek Riddell (who plays Chris Brooks in Shetland (... Read more... |
Border review - genre-defying Oscar-nominated Swedish filmSaturday, 09 March 2019
This might just be the most challenging film review I’ve had to write in decades. The best thing would be to go and see Border knowing nothing more than that it won the prize for most innovative film at Cannes. Don't watch the trailer, and... Read more... |
DVD: The GuiltyFriday, 22 February 2019
It’s another night in an emergency services dispatch room in Copenhagen. Policeman Asger Holm has been taken off active patrol pending a conduct investigation and is stuck on the phones. Drunks, druggies, posh blokes complaining of being mugged in... Read more... |
Crackdown 3 review - spectacular super-powered action that was great fun many years agoThursday, 21 February 2019
Did you play videogames back in 2010? If you did, there’s a reasonable chance you played Crackdown 2. Only a reasonable chance as the game was just on Xbox 360 – this was back in the days when there was a lot more console-exclusive titles. But if... Read more... |
Endeavour, Series 6, ITV review - reassuringly accomplished return of the brainy copperMonday, 11 February 2019
The end of series five of Endeavour found PC George Fancy shot dead, Cowley police station closed and the old crew dispersed. With Led Zeppelin on the soundtrack (it’s 1969), the sixth series opened minus WPC Trewlove, but with Fred Thursday demoted... Read more... |
Destroyer review - Kidman shines in middling crime dramaSaturday, 26 January 2019
Destroyer. It’s an apt name. Like the film, it's grandiose and blunt. Nicole Kidman is almost unrecognisable (a requirement when aiming for nominations) as Detective Erin Bell, a damaged survivor of an undercover heist gone wrong. When her target... Read more... |
Monsters and Men review - an impressive debutSaturday, 19 January 2019
This well-crafted addition to the films inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement is subtler and less commercial than last year’s The Hate U Give but covers similar terrain. Writer-director Reinaldo Marcus Green sets Monsters and Men in... 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... |
