Shameless Self Expression

  Scott Adkins is Mike Fallon, an assassin who specialises in making his kills look like accidents, and then heads off to the pub to beat people up in what he refers to as Post-Murder Therapy. Mike’s not in a great head space at the moment, to be honest. His girl has left him, and being an arrogant dickhead with an inflated opinion of his masculine appeal to women, Mike can’t understand that. Worse, she left him for another woman (Ashley Greene), and he can’t even begin to get his head around that one. Mike is one of a collection of assorted eccentric assassins who all join up at a watering hole called The Oasis, which is manned by Mike’s no-nonsense mentor, a former assassin called Big Ray (Ray Stevenson), who now lives somewhat of a quite life behind the bar. The plot kicks in when Mike finds out that his cheating ex-girlfriend has been killed in an attack that Mike suspects was an inside job. So which one of Mike’s fellow assassins carried out the kill? And on whose orders? Mich...

  High school teen Matthew Broderick hacks into the school’s computer system to change grades to show off to pretty classmate Ally Sheedy. On a high and a bit cocky, he then takes on a riskier task: Hacking into the new whizz bang super computer system at NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command), which to anyone born after the 1980s is basically a warning and protection system for North America. Yeah, this kid’s cocky but he sure ain’t a thinker with any sense of foresight whatsoever. This one action sets off a whole catastrophic chain reaction as the computer system starts to play its war games simulations ‘for realsies’…and it may not be able to be stopped. Oops. Dabney Coleman is the man behind the implementation of new system which is dubbed ‘Joshua’, with John Wood as its reclusive inventor. Barry Corbin plays the stern, no-nonsense General. Eddie Deezen and Maury Chaykin play geeks, whilst Art LaFleur, John Spencer, and Michael Madsen (in his screen debut) are seen ea...

  Peter Cushing stars as a Scotland Yard detective-inspector investigating a series of strange murders that leave the victims drained of blood and covered in unusual scratches. Robert Flemyng plays an entomologist acquaintance who might be able to shed some light on this bizarre mystery. Wanda Ventham (Benedict Cumberbatch’s mum!) plays Flemyng’s pretty daughter, whilst Vanessa Howard plays Cushing’s daughter, and William Wilde plays a foppish young entomology enthusiast whom Ventham takes a shine to.   Robert Flemyng reportedly hated working on it, and Peter Cushing apparently considered it the worst movie he ever appeared in. Cushing was known for being an utter gentleman, with even long-time friend and co-star Christopher Lee writing in his autobiography about just how gentle and rarely to complain the man was. So one wonders, is this 1968 creature feature/murder-mystery hybrid is bad as all that? Well, my guess is Cushing’s feelings are more akin to Flemyng’s, in that ...

  Frenemy LE agents Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and Shaw (Jason Statham) reluctantly team up to clash with a cybernetically-enhanced criminal (Idris Elba) who is looking to take back the deadly super-virus that was stolen by Shaw’s sister and fellow MI6 agent Hattie (Vanessa Kirby). Hattie has actually injected herself with the virus (bold move to say the least), so Hobbs and Shaw must seek a cure for the virus as well for Hattie, whilst also stopping humankind from being exposed to it once the virus becomes active. Eddie Marsan plays the scientist who created the virus, Dame Helen Mirren is Mrs. Shaw, Cliff Curtis and Roman Reigns play Shaw’s family in Samoa, and we get comedic cameos by Kevin Hart (almost entirely ripping off Joe Pesci in the “Lethal Weapon” sequels) as an over-eager Federal Marshall, and Ryan Reynolds (as Hobbs’ also over-eager CIA superior).   I only started take even the most remote interest in the “Fast and the Furious” franchise once Dwayne ‘The Rock’ ...

  Passengers in a cabin on a train are joined by a peculiar man named Dr. Schreck, who volunteers to give tarot card readings to one and all, leading to several macabre tales of their fate. In the first, Neil McCallum is a real estate agent who uncovers a werewolf on the loose in an estate. Secondly we have Alan Freeman and family terrorised by a malevolent plant vine. Jeremy Kemp and Bernard Lee attempt to lend assistance. In ‘Voodoo’, struggling jazz musician Roy Castle finds rhythmic inspiration from a voodoo ceremony in the West Indies, despite being warned not to mess with such things. The fourth tale features pompous art critic Christopher Lee publicly shaming artist Michael Gough, and then injuring the poor chap to the point where he can’t use his hands anymore. Gough has revenge in mind for his harshest critic. Finally we have ‘Vampire’, featuring Donald Sutherland as a doctor whose wife (Jennifer Jayne) may…well, the title says it all really.   Amicus Studios were...

Maverick CIA operative Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) reteams with his seemingly unkillable ‘asset’, assassin Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro) as they wage war on the drug cartels operating along the US-Mexico border. Meanwhile, we follow the separate plights of the kidnapped private school daughter (Isabela Moner) of a kingpin, and young Miguel (Elijah Rodriguez) an impressionable Mexican-American who idolises the wrong family member and ends up a drug mule. Jeffrey Donovan plays another op, Catherine Keener is the CIA head honcho, and Matthew Modine is a too-slick Secretary of Defence.   This 2018 sequel from director Stefano Sollima ( “A.C.A.B: All Cops Are Bastards” ) and screenwriter Taylor Sheridan (the first “Sicario” , Oscar-winner for “Hell or High Water” ) makes a smart move in putting the first film’s most interesting character into the lead role. It makes sense to remove Emily Blunt’s character, as she was kind of the audience surrogate, and we don’t really need her now that...

  Four young men (Barry Keoghan, Evan Peters, Jared Abrahamson, and Blake Jenner) plan a and attempt to carry out a robbery at the Transylvania University’s library, which houses several valuable rare books. Ann Dowd plays the librarian, whilst Udo Kier plays a European man one of the four would-be robbers supposedly met in Europe to act as a ‘fence’ for the stolen property. Documentary interviews with the real-life participants are interspersed with the fictionalised re-enactment of the incident.   Just because you can do something a certain way, doesn’t mean it’s the best way or something you should even do in the first place. So it is with this 2018 real-life heist film made simultaneously as fictional recreation with known actors and as a talking heads documentary by writer-director Bart Layton. Layton is a documentary filmmaker (His “The Imposter” is absolutely fascinating stuff that’ll drive you mad) and this story could’ve easily worked as either documentary or in ...

  Overseen remotely by John Malkovich, the film concerns a team of top-secret U.S. Government tactical command ops led by Mark Wahlberg, and also featuring Lauren Cohan and Ronda Rousey. The main plot centres around Iko Uwais as a rogue foreign agent seeking asylum in exchange for valuable information. It’s the Overwatch team’s job to lead Uwais to safety and uncover the location of materials for a ‘dirty’ bomb. Easier said than done.   Peter Berg has made some clunkers in his career as filmmaker ( “Very Bad Things” , “Battleship” ), but seems to have a good batting average when teaming with star Mark Wahlberg ( “Lone Survivor” , “Deepwater Horizon” , “Patriots Day” ). Unfortunately, this confusing and irritating mess from 2018 represents their first failure together. The opening sequence is tense and exciting, and star of “The Raid” Iko Uwais gets a plum role in which he doesn’t disappoint. He’s about the only thing that doesn’t, with Mark Wahlberg dialling up the obnoxi...