Reviews
Film round up
Jeremy Clarke
A teenage drama built around 1990's legendary Stone Roses gig at
Spike Island (15; 96 mins) has its heart in the
right place but sabotages itself with multiple plot storylines and
a lack of focus. Less serious romp Bula Quo! (PG;
90 mins) features the Status Quo pair Rick Parfitt and Francis
Rossi as themselves in a paranoid plot loosely reminiscent of Help!
Alex Gibney's thoroughly researched, deftly executed documentary
We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks (15; 130
mins) isn't kind to the authorities, but achieves complex, nuanced,
portraits of both 'rock star' Julian Assange and whistleblower
Bradley Manning without whitewashing either.
Based around a US drugs policy
designed to make convicts name further suspects,
Snitch (12a; 112 mins) places itself in the action
movie camp by casting Dwayne Johnson as a caught-red-handed youth's
concerned dad. Steven Knight bravely tries to turn the action genre
on its head with Jason Statham in Hummingbird (15;
102 mins) as a homeless, former special forces soldier in gangland
London who also helps a nun fund a soup kitchen. Iain Softley's
more conventional Trap For Cinderella (15; 100
mins) concerns a young heiress, her best friend and a complex,
convoluted murder plot that keeps you guessing right to the end.
The much simpler Black Rock (15; 83 mins;
pictured) realises its modest, three-women-in-peril-on-an-island
plot more than adequately.
Shot circa 1928 in London on the tube and elsewhere,
Underground (BD/DVD double pack, PG; 93 mins)
exploits a handful of characters to paint a memorable portrait of
the capital. Terrific Icelandic entry The Deep
(12a; 95 mins) masterfully relates 1984's tale of a man who
survived against all odds when his fishing vessel sank in
treacherous conditions. The reasons he lived become a compelling
conundrum to baffle science. A woman in an isolated hunting cabin
is cut off from civilization by The Wall (12a; 107
mins), an inexplicable, invisible barrier which causes her to
reassess her very existence.The deftly observed vignettes
comprising Here, Then (DVD, 15; 94 mins)
constitute a bold experiment in style chronicling Chinese youth.
Iran's Abbas Kiarostami made Like Someone In Love
(12a; 109 mins) in Tokyo; a heady mix of escorts, academics and the
generation gap proves a beguiling exercise in storytelling.
Frances Ha (cert tbc; 86 mins) trades on Greta
Gerwig's likeable personality in an essay on a would be dancer
pursuing her dreams.
The Children's Film Foundation Collection: Weird
Adventures (DVD, U) includes 1961's The Monster of
Highgate Ponds (56 mins) and Powell & Pressburger's
1972 The Boy Who Turned Yellow (52 mins). Finally,
Studio Ghibli's animated From Up On Poppy Hill (U;
91 mins) deals with issues of absent parents and identity.