Reviews
Film round-Up
Jeremy Clarke
The overlong In
Darkness (cert 15; 143 mins) concerns Jews living in the
sewers of Nazi-occupied Lvov, Poland. Some of the undeground
sequences are difficult to watch because you can barely see what's
going on. It's based on a true story and I desperately wanted to
like it because of the plight of its characters, but it just
wouldn't engage me. An unlikely tale of present day Nazis on the
moon plotting to invade the Earth, Iron Sky (cert
tbc; 93 mins) boasts amazing visuals, stunning special effects and
a mind-numbingly inept script.
The screenplay for the even more visually dazzling John
Carter (cert 12a; 131 mins, pictured) is slightly better,
but feels like one big battle after another lacking any real
emotional connection with the main characters.
Two teenage comedies are much better scripted. The reboot of the TV
series 21 Jump St (cert 15; 110 mins) partners
Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum as two cops forced to go undercover
as teenagers, thus reliving the angst of their teenage years. It's
loud and crude with some hilarious (and clever) action sequences,
but the script by Michael Bacall understands the characters enough
to make us care about them. Bacall also scripted the unexpectedly
impressive Project X (cert 18; 88 mins) in which
three teenagers plan the most awesome 17th birthday party ever for
their mate which results in the house burning down. A guilty
pleasure, perhaps, but a great ride. Just don't try it at
home.
The Iranian director Jafar Panahi (The Circle, Offside)
made This Is Not A Film (cert U; 75 mins) while
under house arrest for planning films that his government took
exception to. Shot in his Tehran apartment, partly on an iPhone,
and smuggled to the Cannes Film Festival in a cake, it's an
engaging piece musing on life and film making, and his pet lizard
Iggy.
Dexter Fletcher's directorial debut Wild Bill
(cert 15; 96 mins) features a terrific performance by Charlie
Creed-Miles as an ex-prisoner in London's East End trying to go
straight and reconnect with his two young sons. A highly effective
gangland drama, it really gerts under the skin of problems faced by
ex-convicts on release.
Finally, the tremendous Norweigian thriller
Headhunters (cert tbc; 98 mins) concerns a
corporate headhunter moonlighting as an art thief who gets suckered
into a deadly game of cat and mouse. Containing a lot of sex and
violence and a pit latrine scene that outdoes the one in
Schindler's List, it's a clever script with a central
character who, while you may not like him that much at the start,
has won your sympathy by the end of the fim. Don't miss.
Jeremy Clarke