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100 STREETS - Film Review Directed By Jim O'Hanlon

Directed By Jim O'Hanlon  Genre: Drama The film follows the volatile relationship of a glamorous-yet-troubled former rugby player Max (Idris Elba) and his wife, Emily (Gemma Arterton) as they repeatedly clash and reconcile. Elba gives a gritty performance as the long-suffering Max, tormented by the exploits of his self-obsessed on and off wife. Emily’s actions lead to Max’s lust and drug fuelled decline, which culminates in some of the film’s most dramatic moments.  While Ma...

UNDER THE SHADOW Film Review

UNDER THE SHADOW - Film review Directed By Babak Anvari Genre: Horror - Thriller Writer/director Babak Anvari’s first feature, the Farsi-language horror movie UNDER THE SHADOW, has been selected as the UK’s Foreign Language Academy Award entry for 2016. Set in 1988 in a realistically recreated Tehran at the height of the Iran-Iraq war (and shot in Amman, Jordan), it’s easy to see UNDER THE SHADOW as an allegory of the powerful forces that the horrors of war can unleash....

A DOZEN SUMMERS Film Review & Trailer.

Directed By Kenton Hall Genre: Comedy/Drama/Family For an actor to step behind the camera isn’t unusual: in fact, it’s almost becoming de rigeur. But when he’s directing himself, producing, writing and composing the songs, the danger of a whiff of vanity project is all too apparent.  Thankfully, that isn’t the case with Kenton Hall’s A DOZEN SUMMERS, which starts its roll-out around the country today.  If anything, it’s a labour of love. It’s also one that turns the ...

ADULT LIFE SKILLS Film Review & Trailer

Directed By Rachel Tunnard Genre: Comedy Rachel Tunnard’s debut feature ADULT LIFE SKILLS is a quirky, witty and also moving film about grief and identity. Anna (an endearingly off-centre Jodie Whittaker from Broadchurch) has been living absurdly like a teenager in a shed in her mother’s garden since her twin, Billy, died eighteen months ago. She is still stuck in paralyzing grief, missing their close relationship and continuing on her own to make the jokey space-age thumb videos (with ...

A UNITED KINGDOM Film Review

Genre: Biography - Drama - Romance  The European Premiere of A UNITED KINGDOM, director Amma Asante's wonderful, moving evocation of an interracial love story that threatened the British Empire is the first by a black woman director to be the Opening Gala of the BFI London Film Festival. The popularity of the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency books and TV series has created a cosy image of Botswana as a prosperous, stable democracy. But Amma Asante’s ironically titled A UNITED KINGDOM, based o...

AND THEN I WAS FRENCH Film Review

Directed By Claire Leona Apps Genre: Thriller AND THEN I WAS FRENCH is the debut feature from Claire Leona Apps, and it’s an ambitious endeavour, but ultimately drifts wayward before it’s shocking – and surprising – ending.  The timid Cara (Joanna Vanderham) lives a mundane life with very little excitement or adventure.  She lives at home with her aunt in the countryside and is friends with a know-it-all friend, Zoe (who has been with her boyfriend a long time). But a...

BritFlicks Reviews Gareth Bryn's Welsh Language Supernatural Thriller, THE PASSING (Yr Ymadawiad).

Gareth Bryn’s debut feature, a mystery/supernatural tension winder, slides onto screens on 8th April, and what a treat it is for any high-brow lover of all things weird. It will also hopefully see another UK director get snapped up into bigger budget film making. Quite right too, for the sheer depth, and yet artiness of this film deserves an Oscar for its director, just for keeping us entertained, if not fascinated for the 97 minutes it runs for. Set in a misty, rainy valley in Wales, one...

ANTHROPOID Film Review & Trailer.

Directed By Sean Ellis Genre:  Biography – History - Thriller ANTHROPOID opens in familiar Second World War film fashion – two undercover Czech freedom fighters, Jan Kubiš (Jamie Dornan, The 9th Life of Louis Drax) and Josef Gabcík (Cillian Murphy, Peaky Blinders), are parachuted by the British into the woods outside Prague in 1942. Risking betrayal and supplied with out-of-date information, they have to make contact with the local resistance, including leader Uncl...

AaaaaaaaH! Film Review & Trailer.

The surreal conceit is cleverly introduced like an Attenborough camera poking through the African jungle without narration. However, in Oram’s film it’s a locked frame staring into a South London patch of woodland as the director and Tom Meetan emerge out of the fauna and flora before resting on a fallen tree stump. It’s difficult to spot the animalistic tendencies at first, but it soon becomes clear that Meetan’s actions are one of deferment to Oram’s alpha male. Next we mov...

AFTERDEATH Film Review, Interview & Trailer.

Directed By Gez Medinger & Robin Schmidt  Genre: Horror - Sci-Fi - Thriller Where do you go to when you die? That’s the question AFTERDEATH seeks to answer and director Gez Medinger unveils a unique vision of where we go before being sent to heaven or hell. The horrible nightmare of this place for the group of people who arrive there is slowly revealed and offers the notion that the journey to eternal happiness and joy is rigged against them. The main issue i...

51° NORTH Film Review

Directed By Grigorij Richters Genre: Drama/Mystery/Sci-Fi When film maker Grigorij Richters watched a documentary on Channel 4, in 2010, about Asteroids, or, what is also known as, ‘Near- Earth-Objects, ( NEO’s),  it made a very strong impression on him. So much so that it set off a train of thought, which led to the making of, 51 Degress North, his low budget, debut feature. 51 Degrees North is a very modern feature about the frightening prospects of asteroids, (or anything e...

AGE OF KILL Film Review & Trailer.

Age of Kill opens up with an intriguing premise: a teenage girl with a sniper rifle. Unfortunately, this is not the premise of the movie. Instead, the theme is a formulaic but efficient re-working of a 24 plotline: Jack Bauer is forced to work for the bad guys because they have somebody he has sworn to protect at all costs. This invariably exposes the paradox which underlines the whole premise: Jack Bauer is willing to kill the few in order to protect the many; except when the few are personally...

ANTI-SOCIAL Film Review & Trailer.

Directed By Reg Traviss Genre: Crime Writer/Director Reg Traviss and his excellent cast take two types of independent film and successfully mash them together to create a very ambitious (if a little flawed) independent British film. Traviss has impressively stretched his small budget to its very limit, getting many bangs for his buck. The two sides of the film are represented by two brothers. Dee (Gregg Sulkin) is a thoughtful graffiti artist who starts to rise in the underground art scene. His ...

ARTHUR AND MERLIN Film Review & Trailer.

Directed By Marco van Belle Genre: Fantasy A spirited, enthusiastic and original re telling of the ancient and well- loved Arthurian legend. However, less haste and more thought could've led to a far better film. One of the problems with a good concept for a film is that the enthusiasm it engenders sometimes leads to over enthusiasm. Add in a ready-made audience already in love with the Arthurian legend, and a lot of naïveté, and any film production might tip over into a hasty gallop into prod...

AMAR AKBAR & TONY Film Review & Trailer.

Directed By Atul Malhotra Genre: Comedy/Drama/Romance AMAR AKBAR & TONY is a film which would like to be many things. First, it would like to be cool. We know this because of the large, yellow Pulp Fiction style fonts, accompanied by Boyz’n’Hood rap soundtrack (but with an Indian flavour). It would also like to be funny. We know this because the care-free womanizing character from the titular trio is so witless and tragic in his attempts at courtship, only in mo...

A DARK REFLECTION Film Review

Directed By Tristan Loraine Genre: Thriller A Dark Reflection opens with two nervous passengers in the back of an SUV, weaving its way through mountainous Afghanistan en route to a covert rendezvous. The thumping soundtrack puts us firmly in Bourne territory and gives us a clue to how the meeting will pan out. Like its stylistic cousin, 'A Dark Reflection' takes its time knotting all the different plot threads together. Back in England: an air traffic controller is ...

APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR Film Trailer & Review.

Directed By Desiree Akhavan Genre: Comedy It couldn’t look and sound more like New York – Brooklyn, specifically – but in fact Appropriate Behaviour is UK financed by independent production company Parkville Pictures. And that gave filmmaker Desiree Akhavan “carte blanche to do whatever I wanted because I wasn’t answering to any Hollywood types”, she says.  The result is an excruciatingly open, irresistibly funny and honest, closely autobiographical first feature film ...

BritFlicks Reviews Andrew Hulme's British gangster Film SNOW IN PARADISE.

Genre: Gangster/Thriller Directed By Andrew Hulme Inside this film is another, much more original, film that is trying to break out, but which never fully succeeds in doing so. Snow in Paradise is set in Hoxton, a grimy inner-city part of London that’s being gentrified. It’s where working-class old-school East End gangsters now rub shoulders uncomfortably with middle-class hipsters. But those are only two ingredients of Hoxton’s melting pot. The third is the Muslim immigrant community, its...

ALLIES Film Review & Trailer

Directed By Dominic Burns Genre: War/Action Allies tells the story of a secret British commando mission, led by an American Captain - played by Julian Ovenden. It takes place five months before World War II ended and this foray, into occupied France, precedes the notorious Battle of Bulge where the end of the film credits remind us 180,000 troupes on both sides were due to die. The commando's task is to steal some maps from the Germans. However, they're just six men and the chances of returning,...

A LITTLE CHAOS Film Review.

As period romances go, A LITTLE CHAOS has little original to offer a genre known for great passion and riveting romances, despite perhaps its decision to focus on two gardeners working on designing a new garden for Louis XIV. Andre Le Notre – the king’s garden designer has been tasked with creating a new space amongst the vast gardens at Versailles, and decides to take on assistant. This premise becomes the backdrop to a romance, as Le Notre’s (played by Matthias Schoenaerts) head is turne...

AMERICAN INTERIOR Film Review & Trailer.

Directed By Gruff RhysGenre: Documentary AMERICAN INTERIOR is Gruff Rhys's second documentary. Like Separado (2010) it's a quest to find a long lost relative. However, 2010's adventure saw the lead singer and guitarist of the Super Furry Animals (SFA) looking for a long lost Patagonian uncle - musician Renee Griffith. American Interior is the uncovering and retracing of a journey across America by a very distant relative - the explorer John Evans - who upped sticks from his Welsh valle...

A DANGEROUS GAME Film Review

Directed By Anthony Baxter Highlighting the big business of building luxury, ‘membership only’ golf courses, which only a few people can afford to join, in a world going through major economic recession and hardship, is good enough cause on its own for a documentary. However, add in the ecological damage these giant, luxury causeways are capable of causing to the local water table and damage to areas of natural significance, in a world where dwindling natural resources are increasingly ...

8 MINUTES IDLE Film Review & Trailer

As far a romantic comedies go, 8 Minutes Idle is lacking in both romance and comedy. The film feels uncomfortable throughout with a script which isn’t sure on tone or balance, actors who have little to work with and a production which can never rise above the film’s low budget.  Dan, a directionless office worker is thrown out of home by his crazy and aggressive mother. The reasons for this are given as Dan letting his father into the house. Doing this led to him stealing a winning lott...

ALAN PARTRIDGE: ALPHA PAPA Film Review.

The story is simple. North Norfolk Digital is bought out by a corporation who rebrand the station - Shape - and want to refresh the roster of DJs. Partridge, fuelled by fears of time-served Irish DJ Pat Farrell (Colin Meaney) and the keen eye he has for one of the producers at the station, Angela (Monica Dolan), he storms into a business meeting to announce no one should sack Farrell. Part way through his bungled attempt he realises it's him or Farrell. He quickly changes his tune and tells them...

A FIELD IN ENGLAND Film Review

‘A Field In England’ is a black and white, English Civil War British drama with a triple twist of psychedelia. It's directed by the prolific British film director Ben Wheatley (‘Down Terrace’ 2009, ‘Kill List’ 2011 and’ Sightseers’ 2012) and written by Amy Jump (Kill List). League of Gentlemen's Reece Shearsmith is the star of the film. He plays an unlikely hero called Whitehead; a god-fearing coward of a man who winds up alone, in the aftermath of a great battle. He teams up wit...