Movie Review: Jay Kelly (2025)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Noah Baumbach  

Starring: George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Patrick Wilson, Stacy Keach, Emily Mortimer, Greta Gerwig, Isla Fisher, Jim Broadbent, Riley Keogh  

Running Time: 132 minutes  

Synopsis: Jay Kelly (George Clooney) has enjoyed a 35-year career as a movie star. He wraps-up filming on his latest production, and his manager and life-long friend Ron (Adam Sandler) expects Jay to quickly transition to his next project. But a chance encounter with Timothy (Billy Crudup), a former friend from acting school days, forces Jay to re-evaluate his life. Having neglected all his family relationships, he takes off to Europe with Ron and publicist Liz (Laura Dern) to get reacquainted with his daughter, but forging genuine human connections does not come naturally to a lifelong actor.

What Works Well: Reflecting aspects of star George Clooney's reality, this is an introspective, thoughtful, yet also peppy and often humorous examination of choices. The script (cowritten by director Noah Baumbach and co-star Emily Mortimer) is neither judgmental nor moralizing, and avoids pat resolutions. Achieving and sustaining movie star fame meant Jay was never a good father, and he gained much more from his friendship with Ron than he ever reciprocated. Decisions and actions are presented as realities and trade-offs rather than rectifiable regrets, and Jay's reflections are rich with in-the-moment dilemmas, awkwardness, and poignancy. The superlative cast includes Stacy Keach as Jay's father, Patrick Wilson as another actor managed by Ron, Jim Broadbent as a mentor, and Riley Keogh as one of Jay's daughters. Many of the supporting characters are provided with well-rounded lives to add depth, texture, and context.

What Does Not Work As Well: The running time is longer than it needs to be.

Key Quote:

Jay Kelly (acting a death scene): That's the crazy thing...everything you thought you were...isn't true.

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Movie Review: Hot Fuzz (2007)

Genre: Comedy Action  

Director: Edgar Wright  

Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jim Broadbent, Timothy Dalton  

Running Time: 121 minutes  

Synopsis: Overachieving Constable Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) of London's Metro Police is promoted to sergeant and shuffled off to the sleepy village of Sandford, Gloucestershire. He finds the local police service under Inspector Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent) happy to generally do nothing as long as Sandford is competing for the Best Village award. Nicholas partners with Constable Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), the Inspector's son, and meets local supermarket owner Simon Skinner (Timothy Dalton) and other influential members of the Neighbourhood Watch Alliance. When a series of grisly "accidents" claim multiple lives, Nicholas is the only officer to believe a murderer is on the loose.

What Works Well: With Bad Boys II and Point Break as two favourite inspiration sources, this send-up of police action movies leverages all the cliches into over-the-top and mostly on-target comedy. Director Edgar Wright and his co-writer and star Simon Pegg deploy exaggerated violence and manic editing to also skewer traditional quaint English countryside attitudes. Pegg keeps a straight face as the way-too-serious cop who can never switch off, but humanity rises out of the carnage through the friendship he forges with Nick Frost's Danny Butterman. The supporting cast animates the pulse of a village with the darkest of underbellies.

What Does Not Work As Well: With focus meandering towards solving a slasher mystery, the running time drags on, and a couple of ultimately pointless chase scenes run out of breath. The all-guns-blazing final act leans more towards excessive action than wit, and is cluttered by a few too many barely defined side-characters.

Conclusion: Forget the gory deaths, find the missing swan.



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Movie Review: The Duke (2020)

A heist comedy-drama, The Duke is a charming character study about an eccentric-with-a-cause stumbling into high-profile thievery.

In 1961, sixty year old Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent) is on trial in London for stealing Goya's Duke of Wellington portrait. Flashbacks reveal the events of the previous 6 months.

Kempton lives in Newcastle with his wife Dorothy (Helen Mirren) and son Jackie (Fionn Whitehead). He is an unemployable anti-authoritarian windbag, and argues vehemently that seniors should be exempt from paying the television license fee. The long-suffering and exasperated Dorothy supports the family by working as a housecleaner.

The Wellington painting is the latest attraction at London's National Gallery. Kempton heads down to the capital to raise awareness for his campaign, and returns home with the stolen painting. Jackie helps him stash it in a dresser. With the authorities short on clues, Kempton starts sending letters offering to return the painting in return for a seniors' television licence fee exemption, but family complications disrupt his agenda.

Inspired by real events, The Duke is a laid-back, chuckle-full truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story. The British production is helmed with a light touch by director Roger Michell, and the production design recreates a working class 1960s Newcastle suburb in all its shabby glory. Writers Richard Bean and Clive Coleman recognize the character of Kempton Bunton as their ace attraction, and Jim Broadbent excels in portraying a man who was probably insufferable in real life, but jovial company for a 96 minute movie.

After establishing that Kempton is heading to court and pleading not guilty, the first half flashback briskly sets the stage by establishing the environment, the Bunton household dynamics, and the tension between husband and wife, all while the television and newspapers trumpet the arrival of Goya's painting at the National Gallery. Helen Mirren's Dorothy is the window into Kempton's world, her frustration and embarrassment always close to the boiling point as she carries the load of keeping food on the table while he tilts at windmills.

The second half is mostly set within the courtroom, as Kempton stands trial but uses the stage to push his anti-television license agenda with boisterous charisma. What looks like a clear-cut case of theft takes a few good twists and turns, and Kempton enshrines himself as a working class folk hero, Michell capturing the shifting dynamics through the reactions of court staff and the rowdy public gallery. The Duke is a feel-good story, proudly scrappy at the edges.



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Movie Review: Le Week-End (2013)

A drama about the twilight of marriage, Le Week-End is limited in scope and unsettled in tone.

Birmingham-based couple Meg and Nick (Lindsay Duncan and Jim Broadbent) arrive in Paris for a weekend trip to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. He is a college professor of philosophy and she is a teacher, both are approaching retirement and money is tight. The tension between them is significant, and Meg is infuriated by the cheap room Nick booked. She instead decides to splurge and checks them into a suite at an expensive hotel.

The passion has seeped out of the marriage, Meg and Nick no longer have sex, and she does not even want him touching her. They bicker and fight but also have some fun as they enjoy the sights and restaurants, sometimes skipping out on paying the check. With Meg's resentment rising, the dynamics of the weekend are altered by a chance meeting with Morgan (Jeff Goldblum), Nick's friend from their Cambridge days and now a celebrated author.

Featuring a tortured central relationship oscillating between cold and frigid with an abundance of awkwardness and just occasional hints of playfulness, Le Week-End offers little to attract. Director Roger Michell and writer Hanif Kureishi lean heavily on the performances of Lindsay Duncan and Jim Broadbent, but forget to create characters worth caring about. Meg displays a particularly acidic brand of meanness, still embracing her rage from a 15-year-old straying incident. Instead of emerging as a couple worth rooting for, this bickering pair is best served by having their gasping union shot behind the shed.

The introduction of Morgan is late in coming, and intended as a dual jolt: one class behind Nick at Cambridge, Morgan is now a successful author surrounded by beautiful people in a fancy Parisian apartment, while Nick is fading into a tainted retirement in Birmingham. And maybe to make matters worse, Morgan treats Nick as his inspiration, which reinforces Nick's insecurities and supports Meg's contention that Nick never fulfilled his potential.

The misery ends with a couple of speeches about failure and love, neither very convincing and both filed under too little and too late. Le Week-End was intended to celebrate an anniversary, but should instead denote the necessary demise of a tiresome marriage.



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