The thriller genre seems to be lurching through a bad patch going by the recent ones I’ve seen (with the glaring exception of the superb Animal Kingdom). Polanski’s The Ghost was a creditable effort (is he even capable of making a bad film?), but as is endemic these days it seems, had some gaping plot holes. The Disappearance of Alice Creed started well, but fell apart. The Girl Who Played With Fire had a promising beginning but collapsed into schlock. The Killer Inside Me I hated for its gratuitous violence, its misogyny, its failure to give any insight into the psyche of the psycho-killer lead character, and its stupid ending.

I wasn’t expecting much of Chloe. Not only is it another thriller – it’s an ‘erotic’ thriller. Fark. That’s usually not good. Not in my experience, anyway. Continue reading ‘Chloe’ – Movie Review →

Humour’s a funny thing (heh heh – sorry). So often I sit there po-faced in comedies while the rest of the cinema crowd rolls about, overcome with hilarity.

A couple of weeks back watching The Other Guys, for example, I barely raised a smirk, yet all around young males (mostly) guffawed, stamped their feet, clapped their approval in the darkness even (never have seen the point of clapping at a movie screen, but there ya go).

Is it an age thang? Maybe, in the case of The Other Guys. But I think not. After the movie I ran into someone I know who’s a much older fart than I who laughed all the way through it. Besides, I got the jokes – I just didn’t find them funny.

Same went for The Four Lions. I thought that was real shite. Jihadist characters dumber than the Three Stooges, but not remotely funny. Stupid story. And as a satire with pretensions more serious than merely making people laugh – a miserable failure.

So, I wasn’t optimistic fronting up for The Reluctant Infidel (The Infidel in Britain…seems they figured we colonials needed some spoonfeeding). Well, you know what’s coming. Continue reading ‘The Reluctant Infidel’ – Movie Review →