Category: Reviews

Based on the Irvine Welsh novel set in Scotland, we follow the booze and drug fuelled rollercoaster that is Bruce Robertson (James McAvoy). Robertson is an Edinburgh Detective Sergeant who is juggling his addictions with a serious murder case and hatching evil schemes against his fellow Sergeants, making him the forerunner for the upcoming promotion to Detective Inspector.

Filth is exactly what you would expect it to be – possessing a very dark sense of humour chock full of swearing, sex and plenty of ‘ching! (cocaine). It is a great film, purely because we won’t see another film like this in years to come! It’s refreshing to giggle and laugh at something so vile and twisted.

The on screen chemistry between James McAvoy and Jamie Bell (The Adventures Of Tintin) is great; “The Beast” integration scene on the “schemes” is a brilliant piece of banter. Many are placing this as McAvoy’s best work and it could possibly be that. Glasgow born McAvoy is known for some big roles, he’s portrayed the young Charles Xavier in X-Men: First Class and again in its forthcoming sequel. For his serious work, the boy has had several nominations as Best Actor for his leading roles in Atonement and The Last King Of Scotland, so to say Filth is McAvoy’s best work, that is huge!

Whilst McAvoy’s performance steals the movie, I have to give props to Eddie Marsan (The World’s End), his portrayal as the almost pitiful Bladesey is spot on! He’s the only innocent bugger in this film and he gets put through some horrible, horrible stuff – he’s more or less a beloved punching bag for Bruce.

High Def enthusiasts beware! Flith is grainy and I think it needs to be like this. This isn’t Steven Spielberg. Notable scenes like Bruce and Bladesey going to Hamburg, the nightlife scenes are as rough as a scene from Scorsese’s Taxi Driver – which I think is a wise choice; this is one film that shouldn’t look polished, I don’t want to see the deep fried Mars Bar sweating out of McAvoy’s pores!

Special Features on the Blu-ray release include Outtakes which I expected to be as outrageous as the film, but they’re actually rather bland. There are four Deleted Scenes, mostly additional scenes from the book which are out-of-context from the film’s main plot, but the most notable Deleted Scene is Bruce attempting to film some inter-species erotica in the countryside as well as a cameo appearance from Irvine Welsh back in Edinburgh.

The disc also comes with three interviews with James McAvoy, director Jon S. Baird and of course author Irvine Welsh. Jon’s interview is particularly interesting as he details the story of how he was introduced to the novel and years later meeting Welsh and proposing his ideas for the feature film.

Overall – it’s bloody filthy and I loved it!

4/5

Wolf Children is the story a 19 year old university student called Hana whose life turns into a fable as she quickly falls in love with a werewolf. As the years pass the couple give birth to two children, an energetic daughter, Yuki and her timid younger brother Ame. The wolf children find themselves able to change from child into wolf as they desire.

At the sudden loss of their father, Hana and her children leave the city and move out into a rural countryside amongst the mountains. The story continues on with Hana’s struggle with raising the children and protecting their identity as they are introduced to the world.

Now you may think that I got a little in-depth with the plot there, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg! Wolf Children is a wonderful film from Mamoru Hosoda, the man behind Summer Wars and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Having only caught Girl… and upon watching trailer for Wolf Children, I knew this film was going to be a tear jerking, emotional rollercoaster. Hana’s English narration at the beginning of the film already left me with a lump swollen in my throat.

The film is a wonderful drama, you constantly feel your heartstrings being pulled as the children struggle to adapt in society and even when they start attending school. The characters are so kind hearted, seeing them suffer is tormenting.

The story itself is wonderful too! It’s not based on any novels or manga as far as I am aware – and I’m glad it didn’t attempt to be anime aimed towards the Twilight audience. My experiences in anime haven’t ventured further than the work of Satoshi Kon and of course Studio Ghibli – so that’s Hosoda 2/2 in my book! I think I’ll break the seal on my copy of Summer Wars very soon after this.

Wolf Children has received its UK release through Manga Entertainment releasing it on DVD and a beautiful collector’s edition Blu-ray set that includes additional discs and sketches from the film. The special features include a U.S. Actor & Staff Commentary, English Language Trailer, Stage Greetings, PR Video Director’s Version 01 and 02 as well as several trailers and teasers for the film.

Overall, Wolf Children is a definite buy! Anime fans will be on this quicker than a Pikachu Onesie! Trust me, this is a wonderful film.

4/5

Written and directed by ‘Six Feet Under‘ writer Jill Soloway, Afternoon Delight follows the relationship between Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) and Jeff (Josh Radnor). Their relationship is a little lacklustre, they’d much rather live their lives through social networks and even their sex life has dried up. In attempt to kick-start their relationship they go to a strip club, Rachel meets 19 year old stripper McKenna (Juno Temple), and the carefree attitude of McKenna captures Rachel’s curiosity.

Rachel returns to the scene of the crime in an attempt to find out more about McKenna. After sharing a coffee together things escalate quickly when McKenna is suddenly made homeless and Rachel moves her into the family home, introducing her to friends and family as the new nanny! Nothing can go wrong, right?

Afternoon Delight is described a comedy drama, unfortunately it seems to be 80% drama, which buries the mere 20% of comedy. What comedy there is largely comes from the smart mouth of Rachel, her thoughts on the world, her continual references to current social media and her ability to cope when giving back to the community through volunteering.

Juno Temple does a great job as McKenna, the sober living stripper who turns a lot of heads. Her character progression is pretty obvious – never move a stripper into the home of a struggling marriage! Her influence on both halves of the relationship is interesting.

‘How I Met Your Mother‘ star Josh Radnor seems to phone in this performance, he seems to spend most of the film in a fog. His character Jeff is a somewhat accomplished Apps salesman (see, it’s current!), but most of the ideas his wife suggests seem to bore him, all he wants to do is put Percy in the playpen.

Overall Afternoon Delight is mildly entertaining, it’s not really a comedy and there’s no laugh out loud moments. Heck, it seems to be a theme of some indie comedies that they always end up with women crying. I advise against purchasing but suggest waiting and watch the film streaming off Netflix, Amazon etc. instead.

2/5

Director Jonathan Teplitzky delivers a feature length film based on the autobiography of Eric Lomax. Who is Eric Lomax? He calls himself the Railway Man. Our story initially starts with Eric (Colin Firth) discovering his life partner, Patty (Nicole Kidman) on a train. Cut to the wedding day after their whirlwind romance we find out that Lomax suffers from a severe case of Post-traumatic stress syndrome triggered from his service during World War II.

Patty attempts to find out more about Eric’s troubled past, so she meets with his close friend and war buddy, Finlay (Stellan Skarsgård). Finlay reveals that he and Eric were technicians stationed in Malaysia when they were captured by Japanese forces and put into POW Camps. The Japanese forced them to build the Thai-Burma railway line north of the Peninsula of Malaysia.

Without going into too much detail, Finlay reveals to Patty that a key figure from Eric’s is past still alive and resides peacefully in Malaysia. Eric and Patty travel to Malaysia seeking closure from the horrific events, but Eric’s mind is set on vengeance.

This is a heavy film! Witnessing the tortured past of Eric Lomax, all I could think was that this actually happened! Hollywood heavyweights Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, Stellan Skarsgård and Hiroyuki Sanada all knock it out the park. I felt that they were the right team needed for this, it needed strong veteran actors to carry these performances. There would be no point attempting the same story with the likes of Pitt, Jolie, Cruise, Chan etc. Sure, it would probably make $100 million, but instead they brought us actors that had some miles on their clock, actors able of giving credible performances. The performances from the “cast in the past”, Jeremy Irvine and Sam Reid – playing the young adult versions of Eric and Finlay – also manage quite well. That said, some of the young officers do ham it up with some very, very British accents that just seem overly forced!

I almost can’t say anything bad about this movie, it’s a truly remarkable story. But the film itself does seem to run a little long, Teplitzky could just be letting the story simmer, with all of us knowing what the pay off will be, we know what was going to happen, but they needed to make us wait.

Special Features don’t go much further than a handful of interviews with the cast and crew. They question Firth’s thought process, on how he met the real Eric Lomax etc. Nicole Kidman receives a similar set of questioning, meeting the real Patty, listening to her telling of the tale and how she made sure to bring these small emotional cues and implement them into her character for key scenes of the film.

Overall a wonderful story and a basic DVD. But, it’s all about the movie for me.

3/5

Surprisingly not terrible… well, not terrible, it’s actually not bad… wait, wait, wait, this is actually pretty funny… and it’s actually really good! That ladies and gentleman is my thought process over the 90 minutes running time of Wong Tsz Ming’s Badge Of Fury. The film stars Jet Li, Wen Zhang and Michelle Chen as a trio of mismatched cops. Li plays Huang Fei Hong (sounds familiar right?) the veteran super cop whilst the young Wang Bu Er (Zhang) thinks of himself as THE ultimate super cop, and he is pretty special but 90% of the time he’s a total idiot. Guiding these two is Angela (Chen) a female inspector who is leading the case of the dreaded Smiley Killer.

Chief suspect is young actress Liu Jin Shui (Liu Shishi) as all of the victims happen to be her ex-partners. Digging a little further we are introduced to her older sister Yiyi, a real heart breaker; graced with supermodel looks and rather outstanding assets, this has led to many of her sister’s men grovelling at her feet.

Then we have their cousin Liu Jun (Stephen Fung) who does his best to help his cousins as well as care for his paralysed uncle. It’s up to our trio of crazy cops to get to the bottom of the grinning murders and all the clues are pointing to the Liu family! This is a comedy right?

Badge Of Fury is a rollercoaster of a movie, initial impressions from the trailers clearly made this film seem very cringeworthy and it seemed insane that Jet Li would be a part of it, but after watching the movie, I completely get it – this film must have been an absolute blast to film!

Understandably the zany cartoon comedy mixed with CGI and wire-work will annoy many, but it grows on you, and it suits characters like Wang Bu Er. The film also knocks occasionally on the fourth wall poking fun at actors, for example Huang Fei Hong’s reaction when he’s told that people pirate kung fu movies starring Jet Li.

The amount of notable old school kung fu actors making appearances in the film as well was personal highlight for myself, when Wang tails Yiyi they find a courtyard filled with ageing martial artists from the likes of Lau Kar-Leung to Fung Hak-On. Leung Siu-Lung even has a role in the film, not quite matching the bar he set on Kung Fu Hustle, but it was great to see him on screen once again.

Overall it’s like City Hunter for this decade; it’s zany, comical, it’s got villainously buxom females and the action is kick ass!

4/5