Movie Review: The Thursday Murder Club (2025)

Genre: Crime Mystery Dramedy 

Director: Chris Columbus  

Starring: Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan, Celia Imrie, Naomi Ackie  

Running Time: 118 minutes  

Synopsis: At the Coopers Chase retirement home in England, residents Elizabeth (Helen Mirren), Ron (Pierce Brosnan), and Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley) form an amateur club to solve cold murder cases. Elizabeth has mysterious connections in the enforcement world, Ron is a former trade unionist, and Ibrahim is a retired professor. They are soon joined by new resident Joyce (Celia Imrie), a retired nurse. A controversial plan to redevelop Coopers Chase and evict the residents seems to result in a murder, and the amateur sleuths team up with police constable Donna De Freitas (Naomi Ackie) to delve into the case.

What Works Well: This is a lighthearted Agatha Christie-adjacent mystery, riding on effortless star charisma and picturesque English countryside settings. The whodunnit elements are carefully crafted, with enough peripheral but essential characters and motivations to sustain the guessing game. The sub-plots encompass a cold case involving a woman stabbed and thrown from a window, Ron's son (a former boxing contender reduced to shadowy jobs), a falling-out between business partners, a Polish handyman, and another elderly resident (and former law enforcement official) now in a coma.

What Does Not Work As Well: Lighthearted also borders on lightweight and frivolous, and the few attempts to introduce a bit of jeopardy (Elizabeth has a couple of threatening encounters) don't convince. Fun and entertaining, but never more than that.

Key Quote:

Joyce (excited): Now we've got a real case to solve, isn't that wonderful!...obviously, RIP and all that.

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Movie Review: The Red Sea Diving Resort (2019)

A covert action drama and thriller, The Red Sea Diving Resort offers a fascinating story of surreptitious refugee resettlement, but lacks character depth.

In the late 1970s, Ethiopia is in the grips of a brutal civil war. Mossad agents Ari (Chris Evans) and Sammy (Alessandro Nivola) work with local organizer Kabede Bimro (Michael K. Williams) to secretly relocate Jewish-Ethiopians to Sudanese refugee camps for subsequent passage to Israel. But Sudan's authorities crack down, briefly arresting Ari and Sammy before the CIA's Walton Bowen (Greg Kinnear) secures their release. Back in Israel, Sammy decides he has had enough of secret missions.

But Ari is still passionate about helping Kabede rescue Ethiopian Jews, and secures the backing of his boss Ethan (Ben Kingsley) for the Mossad to take over an abandoned and secluded diving resort in Sudan as cover for large-scale marine evacuations of refugees. Ari convinces Sammy to join the operation, and assembles a team including agents Rachel (Haley Bennett) and Jake (Michiel Huisman). When actual tourists show up the evacuations becomes more complex, then local Sudanese army Colonel Abdel Ahmed (Chris Chalk) starts to get suspicious about the resort's activities.

Inspired by real events and carrying echoes of Argo complete with all the unnecessary Hollywoodizations, The Red Sea Diving Resort enjoys quick pacing and a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction vibe. Writer and director Gideon Raff injects regular thrills and close calls to juice the action, and teases out the absurdity of secret agents actually entertaining clueless tourists in an enemy country.

While the events portrayed are memorable, the characters are not. The Mossad agents are loose interpretations of real people and largely devoid of meaningful background. Ari gets just the one stock scene to demonstrate a typical disintegrating family life due the perpetually absentee dad. Otherwise, Raff repeatedly plays the same two hollow notes of tension between Ari and Sammy. Ari operates on instinct and enjoys fast and loose improvisation; Sammy prefers more orderly mission planning. They bicker throughout, and that's the extent of human interest - the other agents could have been performed by robots.

A decent if not altogether successful attempt is made to avoid the white saviour trope. Kabede's character is a prominent events influencer, and narrates the film with often morose and overly solemn prose about the Jewish Ethiopians waiting for thousands of years to find Jerusalem. But give or take one kid and one outspoken mother, the refugees are reduced to huddled masses shuffled from here to there. And Jerusalem is treated like a mythical and perfect pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, with no mention of the real challenges experienced by the new arrivees in Israel.

When it comes to conveying danger, Chris Chalk does have fun in the antagonist role as the Sudanese intelligence officer menacingly sniffing something fishy at this waterfront. The Red Sea Diving Resort has no shortage of audacity, but mostly dives in shallow waters.



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Movie Review: Dave (1993)

A mild comedy and low-key romance, Dave carries old-fashioned sweetness into the tale of a do-gooder who stumbles his way into presidential power.

United States President William Mitchell (Kevin Kline) is a heartless womanizer, and his marriage to Ellen (Sigourney Weaver) is a sham. His closest aides are Chief of Staff Bob Alexander (Frank Langella) and Communications Director Alan Reed (Kevin Dunn).

The good-hearted Dave Kovic (also Kline) works at a small-town temporary employment agency, and in his spare time impersonates the President at local events. Secret Service agent Duane Stevensen (Ving Rhames) spots Dave as a useful stand-in and recruits him for a walk-on appearance. 

When Mitchell is incapacitated by a stroke mid-coitus, Alexander identifies an opportunity to grab power by installing the impersonator as a puppet President. The naive Dave is duped into going along with the plan, and within a few weeks he improves the White House's public image through displays of humanity. But Dave then takes an interest in Ellen and starts to impose his views on policy decisions, undermining Alexander's agenda.

A liberal-leaning gentle satire of political machinations, Dave aims for comfortable smiles and simplifies the presidency to an almost dull routine of inconsequential appearances and bureaucratic meetings. Writer Gary Ross and director Ivan Reitman wander down the "if only a good man..." route, and emerge with a harmless - and toothless - tale of doing good by playing with a lonely kid and spending money on homeless shelters. 

Almost everything about Dave lands in the middle of the road. Alexander is the closest thing to a villain, but the worst he can come up with is a veto of a barely defined bill, and later abstract accusations of wrong-doing. The marital tension within the White House is defined by silence, and melts away on cue. The subsequent romance between Dave and Ellen barely warms the temperature to tepid levels.

Through it all Dave plays the out-of-place pragmatist getting to grips with his new surroundings and quick to cut through the nonsense of politics and towards doing the right thing. Kevin Kline spends most of the film in amiable mode as Dave, although the much shorter President Mitchell role offers better opportunities for venom. The cast also includes Laura Linney as an office assistant and the object of Mitchell's lust, Charles Grodin as an accountant and Dave's friend who helps balance the US budget in one night, and Ben Kingsley as the absent-until-the-third-act Vice President.

While the plot ambles along in an inconsequentially dreamy state, the sets look real. Reitman comfortably navigates replicas of White House exteriors and interiors (including the Oval Office) to create the illusion of location filming. 

A tolerable distraction, Dave reduces the presidency to a frivolous job, and treats it with fluffy innocence.



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Movie Review: House Of Sand And Fog (2003)

A brooding drama, House Of Sand And Fog traces an increasingly obstinate conflict over house ownership, with both sides convinced of their rights.

In the San Francisco area, recovering alcoholic Kathy Nicolo (Jennifer Connolly) has been abandoned by her husband. The County now seizes her house for non-payment of back taxes, although she disputes the charge. Sheriff's Deputy Lester Burdon (Ron Eldard) is stuck in a loveless marriage and shows some sympathy towards Kathy.

Also in San Francisco, Massoud Behrani (Ben Kingsley), his wife Nadi (Shohreh Aghdashloo), and son Esmail (Jonathan Ahdout) are rebuilding their lives. Massoud was a colonel in Iran's army under the Shah, but fled his homeland after the revolution. Now he works two menial jobs to try and keep up appearances of wealth and prestige within the expatriate community.

Kathy's house is put up for auction, and Massoud seizes the opportunity to buy it at a low price with the intention of quickly flipping it for a profit. His family moves in, but Kathy seeks the advice of lawyer Connie Walsh (Frances Fisher), gets help from Lester, and starts manoeuvring to get her house back. Massoud is not easily intimidated, and is determined to hold on to his newly acquired property.

The Andre Dubus III novel comes to the screen dressed in a serious cloak of doom. House Of Sand And Fog is humourless, perhaps suitably so, in a depiction of a dispute spiralling towards ripples of pain. A level of beauty emerges from grim emotions, and director Vadim Perelman does not hold back on images of grey San Francisco fog and flashbacks to the sands of the Caspian Sea, where Massoud enjoyed his glory. James Horner's music score adds to the somber aesthetic.

Embedded within the screenplay by Shawn Lawrence Otto and Perelman is a narrative intent to create a judiciously symmetrical struggle, where both the Behranis and Kathy have a case, and both have been buffeted by society's disparagement. Massoud is an immigrant and always treated as such; Kathy is a recovering addict with an absentee husband who could not care enough to stick around. Both are convinced they deserve the house: Massoud purchased it fair and square; but Kathy only lost it due to a bureaucratic mix-up. Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connolly plumb the depths of their characters, stone-faced as they demand respect but receive revilement.

But the intended emotional balance wobbles. Kathy fares worse within the story's structure and is quickly on the back foot. The opening scenes establish her as a slob on the doorstep of depression. She never mentions any intentions of supporting herself, instead wrecking Deputy Sheriff Burdon's marriage and manipulating him to do her dirty work. Massoud has his old fashioned foibles, but garners much better sympathy for his focused diligence on a plan to improve his family's fortunes.

The final act features moments of humanity and acts of kindness, undermined by contrivances and unhinged folly serving the script by steering towards obtuseness. Nothing if not consistent in tone, House Of Sand And Fog bleakly embraces the outcomes of intransigence.



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Movie Review: Transsiberian (2008)

A crime thriller, Transsiberian is full of good ideas percolating in unique locales, but is hampered by too many coincidences and some conveniently poor character judgments.

In eastern Russia, detective Grinko (Ben Kingsley) investigates a murder scene and determines criminals are muscling-in on the established drug trade routes. In the meantime, American married couple Roy and Jessie (Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer) finish a missionary assignment in Beijing and board the trans-Siberian train for a seven day trip to Moscow. Roy is wholesome and a fan of all things trains; Jessie suffered a wild upbringing, and is now a recovering alcoholic and amateur photographer. 

On the train Roy and Jessie meet another traveling couple, Carlos and Abby (Eduardo Noriega and Kate Mara). Carlos is charismatic and immediately shows interest in Jessie. Abby is a younger, darker version of Jessie, and appears to be with Carlos just for the thrill. Carlos repeatedly tries to isolate Jessie, and is carrying a mysterious collection of babushka dolls. At a train stop Jessie and Roy get separated; and at the next stop she finds herself alone with Carlos in the wilderness. The trip suddenly takes a very dangerous turn.

Featuring beautiful cinematography as the titular train snakes its way through the rugged snowscapes of remote Russia, Transsiberian draws strength from sparse and less familiar thriller terrain. Director Brad Anderson co-wrote the script with Will Conroy, and invests in a small group of five characters, the two couples and one detective engaging in far-fetched but nevertheless tension-filled games of attraction, repulsion, and manipulation.

The plot is driven by a drug-smuggling pretext, enhanced by the spurious comfort of superficial normalcy. The all-is-not-what-it-seems slow reveals are satisfying, as character backgrounds and motivations come to the fore and play a critical role in defining the unfolding trip dynamics. With deliberate pacing, the opening two thirds are particularly strong, a good amount of time deployed to define the characters and start the process of building tension on board the crowded, sometimes claustrophobic train. Frustration, temptation, and the whiff of criminality seep to the surface. As the danger torques, the premise of an innocent couple quietly getting embroiled in a dangerous situation threatens to draw Hitchcockian comparisons.

But the final act is less cerebral and more routine. Although the often unpredictable narrative is always enjoyable, it also relies heavily on some wild coincidences (Roy showing up with the detective in tow; a perfectly timed train crash), and unexplained logic gaps (exactly why did Roy miss that train). Jessie's pathetic decision making does not help, as she allows herself to get sucked into a horrible situation by repeatedly abandoning all common sense.

The performances are uneven and trace the infused character depth. Emily Mortimer stands out as Jessie deals with a wild roller-coaster of events and emotions; Woody Harrelson never quite grabs hold of Roy; and Ben Kingsley munches the Russian scenery as he decorates Grinko's dialogue with folkloric idioms.

Although undoubtedly bumpy, Transsiberian is spectacularly scenic and suitably twisty.



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Movie Review: The Walk (2015)

A biography of French high-wire artist Philippe Petit, The Walk is an inspiring chase-the-dream story enlivened by breathtaking risks and remarkable cinematography.

In 1973, Parisian street performer and aspiring tightrope walker Philippe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) spots a magazine article about the construction of the mammoth World Trade Centre twin towers in New York City. He decides he must walk a tightrope between the two buildings, and starts planning to make his audacious dream a reality.

He embarks on a romance with fellow street performer Annie (Charlotte Le Bon), befriends photographer Jean-Louis (Clément Sibony), and seeks mentorship from crusty circus tightrope artist Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley). With the construction of the buildings nearing completion, Philippe relocates to New York for intensive reconnaissance and logistics preparations, and gathers a ragtag group of accomplices. He sets August 6, 1974 as the date of his unsanctioned stunt, but on the big day little will go according to plan.

Directed and co-written by Robert Zemeckis based on Petit's book, The Walk is an exquisite recreation of a bold act of mad artistry. Gordon-Levitt as Petit narrates his story directly to the screen from atop the Statue of Liberty with the twin towers in the background. This playful narrative device mimics Petit's cheerful but seriously determined approach to his craft, and the film is infused with a maverick's spirit.

The opening chapters provide an interesting-enough but familiar backstory, Petit the only character provided with context, while Annie, Papa Rudy and the ever-expanding group of accomplices remain at the basic sketch level. Petit's personality is revealed through fairly mundane scenes from his humble family origins, early tourist performances, and interactions with Papa Rudy in the big tent.

The final third is dedicated to the walk itself, and soars to a whole other elevation. Petit and his crew have to execute a heist-like sequence to avoid security guards and set-up the rope without anyone noticing. Then with majestic elegance, Zemeckis, cinematographer Dariusz Wolski and their special effects team master the dual challenges of buildings that no longer exist and creating the illusion of an actor walking a tightrope more than 400 metres in the air. The cinematic adventure in the void between the towers' two corners is one long astounding and heart-stopping sequence.

Running through the experience is the fundamental question of what drives an individual to absorb such risks. Remarkably, The Walk demonstrates an answer of exhilarating freedom. By the time Petit is near the clouds, his attitude is pure detachment from earthly constraints, and eternal oneness with two great buildings and a rope.



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Movie Review: Operation Finale (2018)

A recreation of Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann's capture by Mossad agents, Operation Finale squanders a good story and stalls on minutiae.

It's 1960, and the Mossad leadership receive intelligence that Eichmann (Ben Kingsley), a principal architect of the Holocaust, is living with his wife Vera (Greta Scacchi) and son Klaus (Joe Alwyn) in Buenos Aires. Eichmann's identity was exposed when Klaus started dating the German Jew Sylvia Hermann (Haley Lu Richardson), who alerted her father Lothar (Peter Strauss). Israel's Prime Minister Ben-Gurion authorizes Eichmann's capture and transport to Israel to stand trial, recognizing the historic importance of publicly prosecuting a Nazi leader. 

A team of agents including Peter Malkin (Oscar Isaac), interrogator Zvi Aharoni (Michael Aronov) and doctor Hanna Elian (Mélanie Laurent) is dispatched to Argentina. They establish a safe house and conduct surveillance. The agents then abduct Eichmann at night while he is walking back home from his factory job, but extracting him back to Israel will not be straightforward.

An attempt to tap into an Argo-type vibe, Operation Finale stumbles on misdirected focus. Eichmann's globally televised trial is a milestone event in history, so writer Matthew Orton and director Chris Weitz seek nonexistent tension in a battle of wills between the Mossad agents and the captured Eichmann over whether or not he will sign a piece of paper. In an operation in which everything is forged, the coerced signature of a kidnap victim is a simply insufficient central plot device.

With events confined to the safe house for long stretches, other miscalculations abound. After seizing Eichmann, the ten day delay to secure a flight out of Buenos Aires is presented as an unplanned challenge for the Mossad team, and yet is a barely explained piece of operational incompetence. The fate of several characters crucial in the opening act is left hanging. And other than Malkin, the remaining Mossad agents remain essentially undefined.

The performances of Ben Kingsley as Eichmann and Oscar Isaac as Peter Malkin are better than the material, and their scenes together create a crackling duel between a manipulative master of evil and fiery trained assassin suppressing his instincts for revenge. Malkin's family history (he lost his sister and her children to Nazi death squads) provides an undercurrent of sorrow, but is also overplayed.

The just-in-time final act is Hollywoodization at its worst. Despite good source material, Operation Finale boards the wrong flight.



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Movie Review: Searching For Bobby Fischer (1993)

A sports drama, Searching For Bobby Fischer explores the clash between adult aspirations of dominance and life's simple pleasures through the story of a chess prodigy.

In New York City, seven year old Josh Waitzkin (Max Pomeranc) demonstrates a natural talent for chess, to the surprise of his parents Fred and Bonnie (Joe Mantegna and Joan Allen). Josh sharpens his skills playing speed chess with the sketchy Washington Square Park locals, where he establishes a friendship with Vinnie (Laurence Fishburne).

Fred hires chess coach Bruce Pandolfini (Ben Kingsley), and Josh starts to dominate tournaments. Bruce believes Josh could be as good as legendary world champion Bobby Fischer, and along with Fred they both get over-invested in the child's success and pressure him into adopting a winning-is-all mentality. But Josh also enjoys baseball, fishing and just being a kid, and seeks a more rounded approach to life, supported by Bonnie.

Based on a true story and Fred Waitzkin's book, Searching For Bobby Fischer is sweet, tender and only sometimes overblown. Writer and director Steve Zaillian ensures the story of a child thrust into a competitive world appeals to children and their parents, and while the simple life lessons for both kid (be yourself) and dad (back off) are none too subtle, the package is undeniably appealing.

The topic is chess, but it could be any sport. Zaillian skips past trying to explain the rules or intricacies of the game (other than Pandolfini obliquely referring to it as "art"), and focusses instead on the pressures imposed on a youngster displaying natural talent and aptitude. Fred gets emotionally wrapped-up in his son's potential, Pandolfini want to make amends for his past failures (only cryptically alluded to), and suddenly what started as fun for young Josh becomes a pressurized cauldron.

In snippets and historical flashbacks Josh narrates the story of eccentric American champion Bobby Fischer, a child prodigy who gate-crashed the heretofore Soviet-dominated chess world of the early 1970s before promptly disappearing. Josh gets saddled with the "next Bobby Fischer" label, both an honour and an unwanted weight on his young shoulders. According to Pandolfini, Fischer and most world champions are singularly dedicated to chess and display arrogance and disdain towards their opponents. Josh acknowledges the strength of his upbringing by recoiling from the cut-throat nastiness seemingly required to reach the top and stay there.

The mass market concessions appear in the portrayals of chess as a slam-down event, players almost always making their moves aggressively and theatrically whacking the timing clocks. James Horner's music score does not help by regularly soaring to extreme saccharine levels. The late introduction of a tournament nemesis sets-up a good if overly contrived climax. 

Zaillian shows restraint by limiting the running time to 110 minutes, and excellent work from the cast helps maintain spry energy levels. Max Pomeranc expresses mature self-awareness to nudge Josh's environment towards rationality, while Joe Mantegna, Ben Kinglsey and Laurence Fishburne are different versions of adults channeling aspirations through their kids. The wonders of genius are luminescent, but as one child demonstrates, the pathways to fulfilment are numerous.



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Movie Review: The Ottoman Lieutenant (2017)

A romantic drama set on the eastern front of World War One, The Ottoman Lieutenant is a clunky and stale story assembled from expired components.

It's 1914. In Philadelphia, 23 year old idealistic nurse Lillie Rowe (Hera Hilmar) meets Doctor Jude Gresham (Josh Hartnett), who is fund raising for his hospital mission in the village of Van near the east border of the Ottoman Empire. Lillie decides to donate a truck loaded with medical supplies and travels to Istanbul, where dashing Lieutenant Ismail Veli (Michiel Huisman) of the Ottoman Army is assigned to accompany her to Von. With war approaching, Ismail is also tasked with keeping tabs on local rebel activities.

Lillie and Ismail bond during the journey, and upon arrival at Jude's hospital she volunteers as a nurse and meets the mission's founder Doctor Garrett Woodruff (Ben Kingsley). Ismail and Jude both pursue Lillie's heart, but romance becomes more complicated when war erupts and tensions rise between the army and the Christian Armenian population.

A Turkish funded retort to 2016's The Promise, The Ottoman Lieutenant aims for epic overtones in presenting a more sympathetic view of Ottoman actions during the Great War. Here Armenian rebels side with invading Russian forces, and although atrocities against the Armenian population are on display, they are presented within a context of an army stamping out a wartime threat. And of course, Ismail as the heroic Ottoman lieutenant abhors unnecessary bloodshed and risks everything to prevent violence against civilians.

Politics aside, The Ottoman Lieutenant is a bore and would have been considered uninspired back in the 1960s. When it's not plain silly, Jeff Stockwell's script is full of predictable and bland dialogue spouted by dull characters and devoid of any originality or bright sparks. The cast members are in over their heads, none more so than unfortunate Icelandic actress Hera Hilmar, who never convinces as a spirited American woman, her line delivery and narration inflicting physical pain. Reduced to caricature representations of the elegant soldier and utopian doctor respectively, Michiel Huisman and Josh Hartnett are far from the required level to create a compelling romantic triangle. Ben Kingsley appears to wander in from another, darker movie.

Director Joseph Ruben does capture some excellent vistas in the rugged terrain, almost compensating for a stupefyingly antiquated and repetitive Geoff Zanelli music score. Abandoned and incomplete subplots, including guns hidden at the hospital mission and Dr. Woodruff's background and physical ailments, litter the pretty scenery.

The Ottoman Lieutenant attempts to improve the image of a defunct empire, but is defeated by cinematic ineptitude on all sides of the camera.



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Movie Review: Hugo (2011)

A love letter to the origins of movie making, Martin Scorsese's Hugo is a story of loss and wondrous discovery through the eyes of children.

The setting is Paris in the early 1930s. 12 year old Hugo (Asa Butterfield) is an orphan living in the Montparnasse train station, operating the large clocks while evading the orphan-hunting station Inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen). Hugo idolized his father (Jude Law), and together they were fixing an old automaton when dad died in a fire. Hugo continues work on the automaton by stealing components from the toy store of the surly Papa Georges (Ben Kingsley).

After Papa catches the young boy in the act, Hugo meets the toy-seller's adventure-loving goddaughter Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz) and introduces her to the joy of watching movies. Together they finish fixing the automaton, and it reveals a visual clue related to legendary French filmmaker Georges Méliès. Hugo and Isabelle must now understand the clue's significance, a quest that introduces them to film historian René Tabard (Michael Stuhlbarg) and Papa's wife Jeanne (Helen McCrory).

The most un-Scorsese movie made by Martin Scorsese, Hugo is a child-friendly unabashed salute to the early days of cinema and the magical spell cast by moving pictures on the young and old. The healing properties of the flickering screen, from lifting spirits to changing life trajectories, are captured with loving affection through the experiences of curious children intent on finding adventure.

The film is slow to start, as Scorsese uses young Hugo (a vibrant Asa Butterfield) as an entry point to the grand world of a bustling train station. With frequently fluid and exploratory camerawork, Montparnasse is revealed as a public place teaming with travelers and workers, but also a private refuge where Hugo is stranded after the death of his father and disappearance of his uncle (the Dickinsian Ray Winstone). He uses his wits and talent to survive, inexorably drawn to the shop of Papa Georges to surreptitiously secure parts needed to repair the automaton.

Once Hugo befriends Papa's goddaughter Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz nailing the mischievous book lover with a penchant for over elaborate words) and the automaton reveals its secret, the film gains unstoppable nostalgic momentum. The past and the present come together to chart a new future, and Scorsese taps into a deep river of admiration for his industy's pioneers.

The film features several nods to the earliest achievements placed on film, including Train Pulling into a Station (Hugo's setting is no coincidence), Harold Lloyd's Safety Last! (neither are the clocks) and Georges Méliès's A Trip To The Moon. Meanwhile, the automaton central to the story is familiar from Metropolis.

Hugo is not without its faults. The film unnecessarily extends beyond two hours, with a few too many scenes of the Inspector and his dog chasing kids around the station. The whimsy factor sometimes trips into overindulgence, Scorsese seemingly entranced by the hidden maze of hallways connecting all the gears operating the station clocks.

But with a distinctive visual style, the transformative power of creativity easily rises to the top. Despite confinement to the forgotten corners of a train station, Hugo still uncovers the gateway to new worlds through the projector's flicker.

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Movie Review: Sexy Beast (2000)

A crime thriller with comic touches, Sexy Beast rides a wave of profanity in a patchy story of multiple dueling gangsters.

In Spain, retired British criminal Gal (Ray Winstone) is living the easy life with his wife DeeDee (Amanda Redman) and their friends, fellow-Brit couple Aitch and Jacki. After surviving an errant boulder that tumbles into his swimming pool, the out of shape but happy Gal gets a visit from notorious thug Don Logan (Ben Kingsley), who is recruiting a bank vault heist team for a job in London on behalf of mobster Teddy Bass (Ian McShane).

Gal is not interested, but the combustible Don will not take no for an answer, and over two days escalates the pressure and hurls steely insults at Gal, DeeDee, Aitch and Jacki. In the meantime, the ice cold Teddy will have the final say about Gal's fate.

An irreverent peek into the lives of thugs, Sexy Beast collects a cross section of retired and active operatives and throws them into a different kind of conflict. The script by Louis Mellis and David Scinto uses the actual heist as a secondary objective, and focuses attention instead on the personalities of men at different stages in life influencing each other. Gal and Aitch have serenely settled down to a post-work world in sunny Spain, Don is very much still engrossed in plotting the next job, and Teddy is an aging but effective master plotter.

Don's irresistible force methods to pressure and shame Gal into coming out of retirement is the film's centrepiece. First time director Jonathan Glazer comes from the music video world and jacks up Don's level of intensity into the vivid absurd. With Don Kingsley not holding back, this recruiter is more a force of nature than a man. His persuasive communication methods consist of a never ending stream of insults, mercilessly probing his target's emotional weaknesses to achieve the desired outcome.

Don also serves as a catalyst, his re-emergence forcing secrets from Gal's past life into the open and exposing vulnerabilities that either hold ex-cons together or tear them apart.

With every second word of dialogue a profanity, Sexy Beast often slips into stylistic excess at the expense of plot coherence, and the third act starts to sketch in events with minimal explanation. Ian McShane's Teddy Bass is an intimidating presence, his piercing eyes capable of boring into any skull, but Gal is almost reduced to a side observer in his own story as the film rumbles erratically towards a conclusion.

The beasts are human and their sexy days well behind them, but they still make for colourful subjects.

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Movie Review: Lucky Number Slevin (2006)

A raucous crime thriller, Lucky Number Slevin offers a delectable multi-faceted plot and jaunty execution. A busy story of gangland vendettas offers rich rewards and plenty of barbed wit.

After a series of seemingly unrelated murders including the killing of two bookies and a sniper attack, Goodkat (Bruce Willis) sits next to a young man at an empty bus terminal and recounts a strange story from 1979, when a struggling family was brutally annihilated as a result of a horse race fix gone wrong.

Back in the present Slevin Kelevra (Josh Hartnett) arrives in New York City to stay at the apartment of his friend Nick Fisher, who is mysteriously nowhere to be found. Jovial next-door neighbour Lindsey (Lucy Liu) makes friends with Slevin, but he is soon mistaken for Nick and abducted, twice: first by mobsters working for The Boss (Morgan Freeman), then by goons working for The Rabbi (Ben Kingsley).

The Boss and The Rabbi used to be gangland partners who ran the city's most powerful crime syndicate. Now they have fallen out, The Boss' son has been killed, and he wants Slevin to assassinate The Rabbi's son in retaliation. Meanwhile The Rabbi wants Slevin to repay an outstanding loan. Goodkat is lurking in the shadows, and police detective Brikowski (Stanley Tucci) tries to untangle all the motives as Slevin seeks to survive the impending mayhem.

Plenty of movies have attempted to recreate the sheer verve of Pulp Fiction; few have succeeded as well as Lucky Number Slevin. This is an in-your-face barely-in-control full throttle thriller, a white knuckle wild ride through the world of crime and punishment.

Combining numerous disparate events that slowly converge into a brilliant whole with a collection of memorable characters, Lucky Number Slevin is an intricate narrative puzzle. The film starts with the pieces all over the place, but writer Jason Smilovic and director Paul McGuigan know exactly where they are heading and how to get there. Every detail matters, and as the picture is assembled the narrative wizardry comes to the fore. Of course the plot holes are there to be picked, but overall the story of vendettas, revenge, goons and rogue assassinations is sly and resplendent.

Stylistically McGuigan deploys typical Tarantinoesque touches, including colourful marginal characters, just about everyone lying about almost everything, occasional philosophizing, brief explosions of violence, and oddities like rivals The Boss and The Rabbi occupying apartments across the street from each other. In relative terms the blood and gore are dialed back, and Lucky Number Slevin revels in the power of a single compact trigger event for all the mayhem.

The cast members stay within themselves and allow the script to star. Josh Hartnett is in the middle of the pandemonium as Slevin, and finds one of his career best fitting roles. Without stretching beyond established personas, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley offer plenty of weighty veteran talent, all three as men still trading in death when they should know better.

Breezy and fierce in equal measures, Lucky Number Slevin runs the perfect race.

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Movie Review: Bugsy (1991)

An uneven biography of Ben "Bugsy" Siegel's later years, Bugsy tries to turn a mobster into a visionary and a lover, and succeeds only in patches.

It's the early 1940s, and charismatic criminal Bugsy Siegel (Warren Beatty) is dispatched by his gang to open new territories in California. Despite advice from his lifelong crime partner Meyer Lansky (Ben Kingsley) to adopt a slow and low-key approach, Siegel wastes no time in flashing his money around Los Angeles and taking control of the local extortion rackets, including recruiting his main rival Mickey Cohen (Harvey Keitel) as his chief lieutenant.

Through his connection with childhood friend George (a reference to actor George Raft, portrayed by Joe Mantegna), Bugsy also falls in love with the Hollywood scene. He is immediately infatuated with starlet Virginia Hill (Annette Bening), who has a long history of association with gangsters and assorted semi-celebrities. She initially plays hard to get but eventually they become a couple, despite Siegel being married to Esta (Wendy Phillips).

Bugsy then divides his time between managing a criminal empire, sometimes with extreme brutality, and juggling domestic duties with one wife, two kids and one lover. He eventually turns his attention to the Nevada desert, where he imagines the possibility of opening a resort offering gambling, sex and luxury accommodation. But the Flamingo resort proves to be easy to envision but difficult to build, straining all of Bugsy's relationships.

That the movie is called Bugsy while the main character seethes in anger against any use of that nickname is a hint of the problems that nibble away at the film's intentions. Directed by Barry Levinson and written by James Toback, Bugsy was a long-term Warren Beatty project, who saw an intriguing subject matter in the cold blooded killer who got involved in the early business of building Las Vegas. He is a dreamer seeking love to fill the void in his soul caused by wanton violence; he is also a goofy family man, a fast talker, and a bad businessman with no sense for money. Unfortunately Levinson and Toback get lost in the puzzle of a complex man, and the film never latches onto a worthwhile arc.

Trying too hard to soften the man's edges, the film ignores Bugsy's formative years as a cold-blooded hitman. Beatty's magnetism instead shifts the focus to creating a likeable guy who falls hard for an alluring woman and then pursues an enigmatic vision. The romance elements occupy the centre of the film and take far too long, with occasional jarring interruptions for scenes demonstrating Siegel's propensity for extreme anger. In pursuit of a fiction better than fact, compared to the real story the film overplays Bugsy's role in initiating the Flamingo project.

Beatty and Bening became a real-life couple soon after the film's release, and they do share unquestionable on-screen chemistry. Harvey Keitel and Ben Kingsley are serviceable but offer little beyond typical grim gangster traits. Elliott Gould has a couple of pivotal scenes as a none-too-bright Siegel associate who evolves from dimwit to a real problem.

Ennio Morricone contributes one of his least memorable scores, the emphasis on romance undermining any attempts to build rousing music worthy of a grand criminal enterprise. The film does look magnificent, with rich colours and lavish wardrobes capturing the glamour of Los Angeles at the height of the studio era.

Bugsy is a glossy but episodic effort, often stumbling over itself as it oscillates wildly between the red mist of bloodthirsty outrage and the soft glow of cutesy romance.

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Movie Review: Schindler's List (1993)

Based on the true story of one German businessman helping Jews escape the Holocaust, Schindler's List is a powerful drama and history lesson rolled into one. Steven Spielberg crafts a harrowing vision of hell in Poland, a place suffering under the insanity of fascism while one man awakens to his ability to make a difference.

The Germans have invaded Poland and forced all Jews to leave the countryside, register, and cram into the cities. Resourceful German businessman Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) arrives in Krakow looking to make his fortune by profiting from the chaos of war. When all Jews are forced into the Krakow ghetto, Schindler purchases a metalworks factory with the help of local Jewish leader Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley). Schindler recruits a fully Jewish labour force as a cost saving strategy, and uses the resourcefulness of black marketeers to gear up his production lines and make himself a rich man, with Stern as his chief accountant.

Second Lieutenant Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes) of the German army is tasked with the construction of Płaszów concentration camp. Once the prison is ready the Krakow ghetto is forcibly "liquidated" and all surviving Jews moved into the camp. Schindler witnesses the horrors of the mass killings, as well as Goeth's barbaric treatment of the prisoners. He does his best to use his influence to cajole Goeth into a more humane approach, while keeping his factory operating. With the war beginning to approach its end and the mass extermination of Jews accelerating, Schindler has an opportunity to use his wealth and clout to save many lives.

One of Spielberg's career highlights, Schindler's List is three hours of heart-wrenching drama only slightly alleviated by the faint light from an individual's act of kindness. While Schindler's story provides the overall context, this is a chronicle of the holocaust at close quarters, and it is not for the faint of heart. The film is an essential and emotional experience, as Spielberg recreates an altogether mad few years where the wholesale death of millions of people was a way of life for their oppressors.

The brutality of the Nazi regime against the Jews of Poland is laid bare and presented in gut wrenching close-up. The indiscriminate mistreatment and killing of men, women and children, from individual bullets to the head to mass killings by machine gun, is presented in graphic form and rendered mechanical in its efficiency. The Nazi death march was uncompromising, soulless and devoid of mercy. Jews were considered beneath contempt, and Goeth represents a regime degraded towards abject criminality, including using defenseless human being as target practice just to sow terror. His callous attitude to dishing out random death is nothing less than chilling.

Stylistically Spielberg creates this nightmare in black and white, the squalor of the ghetto and the misery of the concentration camps not places where colour can survive. The only break in the bleakness comes in the form of a red overcoat worn by a little girl caught up in the Krakow ghetto liquidation. Her blissfully unaware and yet tense wanderings ignite Schindler's transformation from shrewd businessman to saviour.

Schindler's List is intended as a history lesson, and Spielberg includes several factual text explanations to introduce events and chapters in the history of the holocaust, blurring the line between fact-based film and documentary. The final scene tilts fully to the latter format, and is a genuine and honest tribute to the man.

Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley and Ralph Fiennes eschew star charisma in favour of somber intensity, and contribute to the film's sense of historical events devouring mere mortals. The rest of the large cast consists of relatively unknown Israeli and Polish actors exuding authenticity in hundreds of small roles, the lack of known names successfully maintaining focus on the subject matter.

Oskar Schindler rose above to demonstrate the difference that one man can make, but Schindler's List is ultimately a devastatingly sad but brilliantly executed film about the incredible ability of humans to utterly lose their humanity.

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Movie review: Species (1995)

A science fiction horror film inspired by Alien, Species competently transforms the premise to a murderous hybrid alien on the loose in Los Angeles, but suffers from plastic characters and routine execution.

A secret government space exploration lab has made contact with a seemingly friendly superior alien race. The aliens transmit an ingenious DNA sequence, and scientists under the direction of Xavier Fitch (Ben Kingsley) mix the code with human genes to create a girl they call Sil (Michelle Williams). When she starts experiencing painful nightmares, Fitch decides to exterminate Sil with cyanide. She breaks out, escapes the facility and makes her way to Los Angeles. Killing when cornered, Sil quickly grows into a woman (Natasha Henstridge), and starts seeking men to procreate with.

Fitch assembles a team of experts to hunt down Sil. Press (Michael Madsen) is a specialist in exterminating inconvenient fugitives on behalf of the government, and he is joined by Dan (Forest Whitaker), who has special empathetic powers, while Stephen (Alfred Molina) and Laura (Marg Helgenberger) are scientists. With Fitch they track Sil to Los Angeles, where she is leaving a trail of corpses in her pursuit of the perfect man to mate with.

With the monster effects created by H.R. Giger, the similarities with the Alien universe are numerous. Here again the alien is close to indestructible, seeks to breed, and uses humans to grow. When the Species alien beneath the skin is revealed, it may as well be the close cousin of the critters battled repeatedly by Ripley and company. Even the black-green tone and spaced title font on the film poster is derivative.

Species is never less than moderately exciting as an action movie with good, yucky special effects, and the occasional gory scare. But director Roger Donaldson, working from a Dennis Feldman script, is unable to do much with the premise. A fundamental problem resides with the characters of Fitch and his team members, who are underdeveloped, quite simplistic and generally unsympathetic. With no human protagonists worth investing in, Sil herself emerges as the most compelling character. And as a half-alien in a strange world, there is plenty for her to learn and then manipulate to gain the advantage over humans, LA style. Most appropriately, she picks up most of what she needs to know by watching television.

Sil's journey from frightened child to irresistible schemer is helped by newcomer Natasha Henstridge saying little and happily trading on her looks and sex appeal. She may be an alien in heat, but she is also in frequently naked human form, and the combination of seductive vulnerability and killer instinct becomes the driving force of the film.

But too often, the film defaults to stock humans-chasing-alien. A routine, prolonged, seemingly interminable climax in cave-like sewers below Los Angeles, trying hard to simulate a distant planet environment, sucks the remaining energy out of the film. Ironically, Species is at its most compelling when the alien is above the surface, disguised as just another California blonde.

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Movie Review: Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time (2010)

A video game adaptation, Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time contains some promise but also suffers as an overproduced spectacle occasionally trounced by excessive special effects.

The Persian Empire's kindly King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup) adopts scrappy street kid Dastan as his own child. Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) is raised as a brother to the king's sons, heir to the throne Tus (Richard Coyle) and the intense Garsiv (Toby Kebbell). 15 years later, Tus, his brothers and their uncle Nizam (Ben Kingsley) lead the Persian army on their latest military campaign. They debate whether to sack the mystical city of Alamut. Spies working on behalf of Nizam uncover evidence that Alamut is manufacturing and supplying weapons to Persia's enemies, convincing Tus to attack and defeat the city. Dastan's group of unconventional and highly athletic warriors are instrumental in forcing open Alamut's well-defended gates.

The victorious Persians come face to face with the defeated and exceptionally beautiful Tamina (Gemma Arterton), Princess of Alamut, but find no evidence of weapons being manufactured. Instead, Dastan realizes that an evil conspiracy is at play, and the real objective of the attack is to seize a magical dagger powered by the sands of time, which can unwind history. Dastan finds himself in possession of the dagger but accused of treachery and on the run with Tamina. He needs to clear his name, save Persia from a dark fate and help Tamina safeguard her destiny as the guardian of the dagger.

Transforming a video game into an engaging film is always a challenge, and this effort from Disney gives it a good go while staying within reach of the young adult core target market. The characters are fleshed out, a fairly complex plot is created, and themes of family, the bond between brothers, benevolence, honour and destiny are woven into the narrative. The relationship between Dastan and Tamina is also at least interesting, and the two take their time to transition from foes to allies to lovers.

Director Mike Newell also delivers plenty of attractive visuals, making good use of the desert, and finding some stylish, dramatic shots of silhouetted warriors. The camera work often echoes the trademark fluidity of the original games.

But the film stumbles when the CGI special effects kick in. While the Prince's remarkable jumping and running skills are already overplayed, Newell loses all perspective when it comes to several scenes of mass combat, which are barely coherent, and fall over the cliff of credibility when countless merciless Hassansins (secret mercenary assassins) enter the picture. Worse still are sequences of carnage with terrain and buildings disintegrating in so much incomprehensible rubble. The computers are overclocked to render over-the-top images tumbling over each other, and the end result is a mess of graphics that make little sense but all the same swallow up the characters.

The film also struggles with a dagger-and-sand story that gets ever more finicky as the film rushes to its climax, with Tamina revealing new angles on the mysteries of the small dagger and mountains of sand in frustratingly small increments and just when it suits the plot.

Other than being too white and speaking in bewildering English accents while representing Persians and Asians in the desert, the performers are adequate. Gyllenhaal and Arterton make for an attractively dreamy couple, while Alfred Molina steals the scenes he's in as an unlikely tax-evading entrepreneur specializing in, of all things, ostrich racing.

Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time is reasonably bloodless and harmless entertainment, but nevertheless an opportunity missed due to an over reliance on hard drive speed and not enough faith in character strength.

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The Movies Of Ben Kingsley

All movies starring Ben Kingsley and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Gandhi (1982)

Bugsy (1991)

Dave (1993)

Searching For Bobby Fischer (1993)

Schindler's List (1993)

Species (1995)

Rules Of Engagement (2000)

Sexy Beast (2000)

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001, voice only)

House Of Sand And Fog (2003)

Lucky Number Slevin (2006)

Transsiberian (2008)

Shutter Island (2010)

Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time (2010)

Hugo (2011)

Ender's Game (2013)

Self/less (2015)

The Walk (2015)

The Ottoman Lieutenant (2017)

Operation Finale (2018)

The Red Sea Diving Resort (2019)

Locked Down (2021)

The Thursday Murder Club (2025)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.