TL;DR – a stylistic western revenge flick with a killer soundtrack that tells more of the story than the dialogue and visuals.

Review (warning: spoilers)

A husband, his wife and their son sit down at the table for supper. The husband says grace, thanking the Lord for their meal, but they are interrupted by a knock at the door. When the husband sees who it is, he whispers, ‘No.’

The husband backs away, looks longingly at the rifle perched on the wall out of reach. The stranger enters, spits on the floor and sits down at the table taking out two gold plated revolvers and puts them on the table. The husband sits down and asks the stranger to leave his husband and son out of this. He expresses that the quarrel is with him not with his family. The stranger calmly raises his two guns and points one each at the wife and son. The husband pleads to leave them alone. The stranger points both guns at the wife and fires killing her instantly. He then turns and shoots the husband. The son screams seeing his parents murdered before him. The stranger takes a razor out of his pocket and proceeds to cut the boy’s forehead while he continues to beg and scream. Thus is the opening of The Harder They Fall, a film by Jeymus Samuel in his directional debut.

Samuel is a singer-songwriter and music producer and clearly uses this strength in adding story-telling and atmosphere through the choice of songs (most of them original) designed for this film. A mix of reggae and religious sounds that is used extensively and, at times, compensates for lack of story.

After the opening violence, we fast forward and are introduced to Nat Love (Jonathan Majors), outlaw and leader of the ‘Nat Love Gang’ who rob from other outlaw gangs who rob from banks. Make sense? Basically, a robber who robs from robbers. But that is not his primary drive. His primary drive is hunting down the Buck Gang led by Rufus Buck (Idris Elba) who was responsible for killing Nat’s parents (yes, Nat is the boy we see screaming in the opening scene and has a cross cut into his forehead by Rufus’s razor blade).

Nat’s gang comprises of sharpshooter Bill Pickett (Edi Gathegi) and quick draw Jim Beckwourth (RJ Cyler) along with Mary Fields (Zazie Beets), Nat’s previous love who left him because she couldn’t bare not knowing if Nat would come back alive from each of his revenge kills.

The last one alive on Nat’s mission of revenge is, of course, Rufus Buck himself and the story that unfolds is largely linear with the mandatory twist in the final scenes. When a large number of bodies are scattered on the ground and Nat faces off against Rufus, it is then we finally get to see Rufus’s motive for killing Nat’s parents. In short, Nat’s father had a previous life as a violent outlaw who was married and had a son. That son was Rufus. Seems Nat’s father had the dark past of beating his first wife and son leading to one day killing Rufus’s mother who was trying to defend him. The father leaves and starts a new life as an honest man, remarries to another woman and has Nat.

So the twist is a revenge within a revenge or rather a cycle of revenge. Rufus didn’t kill his half brother, Nat, because he knew that Nat would want revenge and become an outlaw himself. To Rufus, it was the ultimate revenge on his father who killed his mother and left him to rot.

Another interesting mechanic used by Director Samuel is that while the story is entirely fictional, the characters are based on real people. And practically all these historical figures are of African American or Indian descent. But this is not a film about race. There’s only one scene where race is played out when Nat and his gang robs a bank in a town whose population is all white, but there is no particular narrative or message being said.

More subtly, Rufus has created a town called Redwood, which has a black population and there is inference that Rufus seeks to create a mecca or sanctuary for black people. However, again, this is just a by-product that is not examined in any significant detail. The story is simply about revenge and how revenge spawns more revenge (yes, there is a final shot where Nat having achieved his revenge rides off with his love, Mary, but we see the arm of someone holding a hat looking down on them from a cliff and if you’ve been following you will know that it belongs to a character named Trudy (Regina King) who was Rufus’s right-hand woman…) So, sequel perhaps?

Overall, I couldn’t help feel that the film was more style over substance. The reliance on the soundtrack and the solid cast unable to hide its flaws in the story. For example, Mary talks Nat into letting her “scout” Redwood, which doesn’t make much sense especially when she ends up simply trotting into town on her horse and trying to make a deal with Rufus (who does the logical thing of capturing her and using her as bait to flush out Nat). Bizarre move on both Nat and Mary’s part. At some points, I also felt the film was more about showcasing songs that fit into the narrative rather than the story standing on its own two feet with support from the soundtrack. By the end, there is not much to savour as all the shooting and killing feels templated and Rufus’s revelation (which admittedly is delivered with as much gravitas as Idris Elba can muster) is anti-climatic.

A case of buy the soundtrack but not the movie.

6 out of 10

TL;DR – This is the story of British translator Katharine Gun who worked for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and blew the whistle on her own government and the United States for attempting to blackmail UN diplomats of other nations to vote with the UK and US on the invasion of Iraq.

Review (warning: spoilers)

Anyone who has followed the events leading up to the 9/11 World Trade Centre terrorist attacks and the political aftermath will be aware of British whistle blower Katharine Gun, who in 2003 leaked a top secret memo in relation to an illegal operation between British and American intelligence services to spy on UN diplomats. The UN Security Council were looking to vote on a resolution supporting the invasion of Iraq. This operation sought to spy on those nations that could swing the vote to the US and UK’s favour by obtaining information they could use to blackmail those diplomats.

US President George W. Bush declared a war on terror after the 9/11 attacks. Bush together with UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, sought to convince the rest of the world that Saddam Hussein held weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Other countries opposed the invasion and held the position that there was insufficient evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. This in turn led to worldwide protests against the Iraq War.

Official Secrets is a no-frills drama of the conflict within the UK between anti-war advocates and government agencies waging war on terror. Katharine Gun (Kiera Knightley) is driven to act when she sees news reports regarding the US and UK government pushing to invade Iraq based on ‘intelligence’ she knows is not backed by solid evidence. It also looks into the machinations of the British newspaper, The Observer, and journalist, Martin Bright (Matt Smith) as he receives the top secret memo through a middle person who knows Katharine and seeks to authenticate the information.

In the film, the key scene is when Katharine sits down with Scotland Yard detective, TinTin (Peter Guiness) and is interviewed:

“What were you employed to do?” asks TinTin.
“Well, I can’t be specific,” responds Katharine.
“Be general then.”
“I translated signals intelligence and I report anything I thought might be of interest to my clients.”
“Your clients?”
“The Foreign Office. The Ministry of Defence.”
“So, you work for the British government.”
“No, not really.”
“No?”
“Governments change. I work for the British people. I gather intelligence so that the government can protect the British people. I do not gather intelligence so that the government can lie to the British people.”

Detective TinTin then drills down on Katharine that her work involves being a spy and as a spy it is her job to eavesdrop on private conversations regardless of who they may be (including UN diplomats).

Katharine’s response is calm and measured as she says, “I don’t object to being asked to collect information that could help prevent a terror attack. What I object to is being asked to gather intelligence to help fix a vote at the UN and deceive the world into going to war.”

What follows is the British Government charges her for breaching the Official Secrets Act and the pressure exerted on her to plead guilty in order to receive a more lenient sentence. Katharine hires lawyer, Ben Emmerson (Ralph Fiennes) to represent her and after going through the charges and the likely prosecutor’s case, they do their own research and discover that the Attorney-General Peter Goldsmith had written an advisory document stating that it would not be lawful to use force (and instigate a war on Iraq) without a new Security Council resolution. Further this document existed at the same time the GCHQ were emailed a memo to spy on UN diplomats. Goldsmith later reversed his position after going to Washington stating that the UN’s resolution of the 1991 Gulf War could be reactivated to legitimise a new war with Iraq (which the film depicts as a ‘fringe view’ at best).

Ben Emmerson then proceeds to try and put the legality of the Iraq War on trial and requests documents from the government. In a remarkable final scene, the prosecution drops all charges on Katherine as the documents in question would have shown that the government had deceived the British people into entering a war on Iraq.

Words are then shown on screen indicating in 2010, Goldsmith’s advice to Tony Blair was made public indicating it would be illegal to go to war without a Security Council resolution and this coincided with when Katharine leaked the memo. Statistics are then shown of the number of Iraqis killed and wounded during the four years of war, along with the number of US and UK soldiers that died. Real life footage at the end shows Katharine being mobbed by the press and being asked whether she would do it again and she indicated she would.

Overall, Official Secrets depicts another example of why people distrust and are disillusioned by politicians and governments. Sadly, the film does not attempt to show anything of the other side (other than news footage of Bush, Blair and Colin Powell urging the UN to vote for the invasion into Iraq). The 9/11 terrorist attacks created an atmosphere of global fear that still echoes on today and generated a need for governments to be perceived to be acting against terror threats. A time when emotions were so high that the need to act (even if those acts involved violation of human rights and privacy) was unbearable. It was an impossible time for political leaders, but arguably a time when political leaders needed to rise above the emotion and be the voice of calm.

If you want to learn what happened leading up to 9/11 and the events after, I recommend watching Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror, a docuseries that shows much of humanity’s failings and the destruction caused by war and hate.

The cast of Official Secrets are all spot on especially Kiera Knightley and Adam Bakri who plays Katharine’s husband, Yasar Gun. Director Gavin Hood delivers a tight film that is worth the watch even if it doesn’t delve into the complexities of a time when the political climate was at a tumultuous high. In truth, if Hood decided to lump all that in as well you would have a running time over three hours. Better off watching the docuseries I mentioned above.

7.5 out of 10

TL;DR – A psychiatrist uses hypnosis to take control of women who look like his late wife. A drivel of a film lacking any substance.

Review (warning: spoilers)

Hypnotic opens with a female security guard being asked over the intercom by some male security guard to go ahead and do her rounds and he will come and cover the desk. It is late in the evening and the place is largely empty. The desk has a single monitor with CCTV coverage of various areas of the building. The camera then shifts to inside the building to an office with the name ‘Andrea B’ on the glass door and a woman peeks through the blinds from within. The woman is Andrea Bowen (Stephanie Cudmore), she’s scared and nervous as she makes a call to a Detective Wade Rollins (Dulé Hill) from the Portland PD and leaves a message saying she believes ‘he’ is still watching him. With eyes, red-rimmed and tearful, she walks to the elevator which takes her down from the 18th floor to ground, as the numbers count down, she receives a phone call from ‘Unknown Caller’ and thinks it is the detective.

Cue strange man’s voice who says, “Andrea, this is how the world ends.” The elevator stops suddenly, Andrea starts screaming as the walls of the elevator start closing in… literally. Trapped in a vice, the scene fades as Andrea is crushed.

Without having read anything about this film, given this opening scene and movie title, I’m guessing there’s a psychopathic psychiatrist who uses hypnosis on his patients and when using a key word or sentence such as “this is how the world ends”, triggers the patient to mentally believe they will die even if part of their brain says, “I’m in an elevator and elevator walls do not suddenly start moving in to crush me like a garbage compactor”.

We now meet Jenn Tompson (Kate Siegel) who arrives at a party with a pot plant that has seen better days. At the front door, she is greeted by her friend, Gina Kelman (Lucie Guest), and Jenn confesses she bought a bottle of wine to bring to the party but already drank it and instead brought a plant that she now notices is dead. Gina doesn’t care about the plant and says she tried calling her to tell her ‘Brian’ is here. Jenn’s expression is all you need to know that her and Brian were once a thing but they are now not a thing anymore. Jenn decides to brave the party anyway and asks for a glass of wine. Clearly, alcohol being the only thing getting her through life at this moment.

During the party Jenn is introduced by Gina to Dr Collin Meade (Jason O’Mara). Gina speaks glowingly of the assistance and therapy Collin has given her and attributes her recent promotion up the career ladder to him. For all the alcohol consumed, Jenn is still astute enough to say to Collin that she didn’t know that therapists could hang out with their patients. To which, Collin replies bashfully that he follows the rules 99% of the time then lowers it to 95%, which gets a giggle out of Jenn.

She excuses herself when she sees Brian (Jaime M. Callica) and ends up in a four-way conversation with him, Gina and Gina’s husband, Scotty (Luc Roderique). Collin inserts himself into the conversation by asking what Jenn does and discovers she is a software engineer like Brian. We also find out that Brian has a severe sesame seed allergy requiring an epi-pen to be carried around with him. I’m already guessing Brian is not going to make it to the end of the film and will consume sesame seed unknowingly with no epi-pen in sight. Collin leaves his business card for Jenn before the party ends.

Sessions ensue involving hypnotherapy and three months pass with Jenn turning her life around. She invites Brian over for dinner (at the suggestion of the good doctor). To prepare, she is at a grocery store when she receives a phone call from an ‘Unknown Caller’ and she freezes. She then awakens sitting down in her house with dinner laid out on the table, she doesn’t remember any of this (and has lost a passage of time) and hears someone choking in the bathroom. Sure enough, it’s Brian having an allergic reaction. She manages to find an epi-pen and calls the ambulance, but Brian ends up in a coma (so, I was close, he doesn’t die but almost).

The rest of the film follows the path of psychological thrillers where Jenn tries to figure out what is happening to her, and the good doctor espouses ‘therapy’ that talks about not letting fear win and allowing her to trust him when we know he is said psychopath. It’s a by-the-numbers affair which delivers style over substance and thus falls short of any thrills.

I cannot stress strongly enough that this film takes great liberties surrounding what it portrays as ‘therapy’. The idea of just being happy and not letting fear win is not something any proper psychiatrist would seek to instil in their patient. Part of who we are is feeling the spectrum of emotions that comes from being human and that includes happiness, joy, sadness and fear. Suffice to say, however, that even if I turn my mind off and treat the idea of hypnosis as mind-control purely as a story mechanic designed to bring tension, it still falls flat. That Collin uses hypnosis to control women who look like his late wife is both contrived and cliché. Any attempt at twists or shocks failing miserably due to a plot that has nothing going for it.

Hypnotic is truly a boring affair.

1 out of 10

TL;DR – Officially the last trial by combat held in France. The judicial duel between Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris was triggered when Carrogues’s wife, Marguerite, claimed that Le Gris raped her. The winner was said to be the one who told the truth (through God’s will making him victorious), the other condemned to death.

Review (warning: spoilers)

Based on the book of the same name written by Eric Jager, The Last Duel depicts the harsh and ruthless time of medieval France when war raged constantly between the French and English. The story centres on three individuals. Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon), his wife Marguerite (Jodie Comer) and Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver).

Jean and Jacques are friends who have fought together in many battles, but their friendship becomes strained when Jacques earns the favour of Count Pierre d’Alençon (Ben Affleck). Jacques starts earning land and riches over Jean even though both have bled for their country and fought bravely. When Jean marries Marguerite, he was meant to receive a rich piece of land as part of her dowry, but instead Jacques seizes the land as payment of tax owed to the Count. The Count, in turn, having his financial affairs sorted by Jacques, gifts this land to Jacques.

When Jean attempts to sue the Count for the land he deems rightfully his, the King throws out the lawsuit. Adding insult to injury, the Count then appoints Jacques the captaincy of a fort that has been held and run for generations by Jean’s family.

After a period of time, Jean and Jacques attempt to bury the hatchet but the truce is temporary as it becomes clear that Jacques has eyes for Jean’s wife, Marguerite. When Jean leaves for a campaign to fight in Scotland, and Jean’s mother and her servants depart for the day, Marguerite finds herself alone in the castle. Jacques visits and tricks her into letting him in. He confesses his love for her and believes that Marguerite feels the same, but when she tells him to leave and he does not, she attempts to flee to her bedroom to lock the door. Jacques chases her down and rapes her.

When Jean returns from his campaign, Marguerite tells her what happened leading to Jean challenging Jacques to a duel even though he denies having raped Marguerite. The accusations are presented to the King who sanctions that duel and leaving it to God to show who is in the right.

Director Ridley Scott delivers an impactful film that captures the brutality of medieval times and how men held the power and the women were largely powerless. There are many strengths to the film. When I watched it in the cinema, the sound immediately grabbed me; every galloping horse, clashing sword, battle cry, and dying soldier reverberated through my entire body. The choreography was stunning as scenes were shot in both France and Ireland, and the dirt roads and castles made me feel how hard life would have been during that time. The costumes, both male and female, are elaborate, and the way knights are suited up in armour is captured in pain staking detail.

All these audio and visual elements are combined in a story told in three chapters. Chapter one is told from the perspective of Jean, chapter two from Jacques, and chapter three from Marguerite. Scenes are replayed in each chapter with both subtle and striking differences. These differences bring significant impact on how the viewer is presented the events leading up to the last duel.

Ridley Scott and company depict the truth as being Marguerite’s chapter. However, I have read that historians have long debated the innocence and guilt (and truth) of all three of these individuals.

Regardless, the final trial by combat had me shaking in my chair as both fighters (who were once friends) bloodied each other before the King’s audience and Marguerite who is standing alone in a wooden tower, chained to the floor, watching with heart in mouth. Marguerite did not know until too late that if her husband loses the duel then it would be viewed that God declared Jacques as telling the truth and that she lied about being raped. The penalty for her would be being tortured and burned at the stake.

Having read nothing about the historical events, I had no idea who would triumph. However, given the way the film unfolds, and it is the events of chapter three that is shown as the truth, I was relieved when Jean comes away triumphant and Marguerite is released from her chains and allowed to reunite with her husband. There is interesting ambiguity as the camera focuses on Marguerite as she rides silently several paces back from her husband who basks in his triumph and is being mobbed by the masses. It is an expression that speaks of how women were treated at that time, an expression that shows the crime of rape takes a backseat to a knight’s honour, and how women are cast in shadow, fit only to give birth to heirs.

Overall the film is engrossing. The only thing that I struggled with was the casting. More specifically, the casting of Matt Damon as Jean de Carrouges. The rest of the cast are excellent, especially Comer and Driver. However, while Damon puts everything into his performance, I was not convinced. His speech and accent were mixed at best, and I felt the role would have been better suited with another actor (dare I say, an actual French actor or an actor who can speak French may have been a better fit? Tahar Rahim comes to mind). Still I enjoyed The Last Duel and the fact I want to pick up the book and read it says a lot to how effective the film is.

8.5 out of 10