Death on the Nile Following his well-received Murder on The Orient Express remake, Kenneth Branagh returns as director and lead character – the iconic detective Hercule Poirot – in another Agatha Christie film remake, Death on the Nile, which we previously saw in 1978. The film largely follows the template of the 1978 version as a ‘well to do’ group
Read moreThese days, it’s almost a spoiler to use the term ‘Liam Neeson film’ as, for the last decade most of his movies have just been a waiting game for Neeson’s gruffly charming, taciturn character to reveal himself as an indestructible tough man on a morally righteous quest which usually involves shooting and beating the crap out of sneering scumbags. Honest
Read moreDirector Steve McQueen has distinguished himself with confronting and intelligent films that, while not highly experimental, avoid many of current cinema’s clichés. He impresses once again with a contemporary US adaptation – co-written by Gone Girl novelist Gillian Flynn – of Lynda la Plante’s 1980’s British crime drama Widows. Leading a superb cast, Viola Davis plays Veronica, the wife of
Read moreRestrained true crime drama The Old Man and The Gun is purportedly Robert Redford’s last film as an actor. It seems appropriate that it’s a meditation on ageing and the forces that defined a person’s life. This is apparently a true story based on the life of bank robber Forrest Tucker who, in 1981, led a trio of elderly crooks
Read moreAmerican Animals is a heist film with a difference. As the opening titles insist, it’s not based on a true story, it is true and almost qualifies as a docudrama as the real people involved periodically talk about the case. The film concerns a 2004 robbery in which four college students plotted to steal rare and extremely valuable books from
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