New Movies

Wyndham Hacket Pain @WyndhamHP Set during the Japanese occupation of South Korea in the 1920s, Lee Jung-Chool (Song Kang-Ho) is a former member of the Korean independence movement, who has betrayed his former loyalties and become a member of the Japanese police force. An order for him to take down the resistance group he was once affiliated with brings him into contact with Kim Woo-Jin (Gong Yoo), an art dealer who he attempts to befriend in the hope that it...

By Stephen Mayne @finalreel Some narratives are so obviously constructed to hit a series of emotional highs; the power begins to ebb away. The Olive Tree is like that, marching along a transparently pre-ordained path. And yet it remains a mostly charming experience through the sheer weight of emotion brought to bear by director Iciar Bollain and writer Paul Laverty. The tree of the title plays a vital role in bringing a number of moving parts together, though the crux...

By Wyndham Hacket Pain The Salesman beings with what at first appears to be an earthquake. A high-rise building is at risk of collapse and those within it are escaping, fearing for their lives. The opening sequence may be an obvious visual metaphor for events to come, but brilliantly sets the tone for a film that is meticulously constructed. The plot twists with precision and brilliant calculation, so that events feel believable but never predictable. The film moves between an...

By Linda Marric @linda_marric Tempers run high and relationships start to instantly disintegrate in Ben Parker’s claustrophobic thriller The Chamber. Set in a single location, the film offers a promising premise, but sadly falls short of bringing anything new to the horror/thriller genre. Trapped in a small submarine off the coast of North Korea, four people must find a way of getting back to the surface before it’s too late. With a small budget and even smaller cast, The Chamber...

By Linda Marric @linda_marric There’s one thing Catfight director Onur Tukel cannot be accused of, and that thing is lacking in originality. However you chose to read his film, one thing is for sure, this curious little production manages to pack more punches and raise more laughs than the majority of comedies being made in Hollywood right now. Divided into three main chapters, the film plays with ideas of femininity in a way that has seldom been depicted on screen...

By Linda Marric The opening scene to Elle is perhaps one of the most shocking scenes you will encounter in recent cinema. The film opens with a brutal rape sequence which will have you ask yourself, what have I let myself in for? Directed by Paul Verhoeven and staring the always brilliant and majestic Isabelle Huppert, Elle is a story like no other. It isn’t so much a social commentary piece, but more of a perverse cautionary tale of intrigue...

By Linda Marric One minute into the credits of Kong: Skull Island and you can’t help but smile, because you know this isn’t going to be one of “those” monster films with unending battle scenes and little else. So if you were expecting a testosterone drenched blockbuster a la Michael Bay, rest assured that this is nothing of the sort. Produced by the same team who brought us Godzilla (Gareth Edwards, 2014), Kong: Skull Island not so much borrows but...

By Stephen Mayne @finalreel A montage near the end jumps through a diverse collection of fans explaining what heavy metal band X Japan means to them. Aside from adoration in their homeland, others from around the world express admiration, ranging from people who used their music to deal with dark emotions to an elderly woman attending her first concert since Elvis. It’s a hint of what could have been in a shallow and otherwise amiable documentary that skates through the...

Wyndham Hacket Pain @WyndhamHP It takes some time to adjust to the accents of the characters in Trespass Against Us, not because they are difficult to understand, but because gangsters and criminals are not meant to sound like this. The rural west of England is not the traditional location for such dramas, which are much more accustomed to bleak inner city areas. There is a strange juxtaposition between the idyllic countryside and the brutish behaviour of the Cutler family. The...