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Tag: crime

Film Reviews

Killers of the Flower Moon

Saturday, October 21st, 2023 Film Reviews,

In the language of Hollywood, “based on a true story” usually means: “a wildly distorted account of some real event that retains a mere spectre of the truth.” This usually prompts me to go home and look up the actual story, if only to satisfy my worst suspicions. After three-and-a-half hours of Martin Scorsese’s Killers […]

Film Reviews

Saint Omer & One Fine Morning

Friday, June 9th, 2023 Film Reviews,

Hollywood scriptwriters are on strike, protesting about poor rates of pay and the threat of being replaced by AI. There may be quality writing on cable TV, but the stuff we get in American action films and superhero flicks could already have been written by AI, or by a fridge, or a lawnmower. My most […]

Film Reviews

Cairo Conspiracy

Friday, May 12th, 2023 Film Reviews,

It would be fascinating to make a study of films that have rendered their makers persona non grata in certain countries. Cairo Conspiracy would certainly do the trick for Swedish-born filmmaker, Tarik Saleh, whose father was Egyptian. A ban, however, would be superfluous, because Saleh has been barred from returning to Egypt since 2017, when […]

Film Reviews

The Innocent

Friday, April 14th, 2023 Film Reviews,

Although I didn’t get to write about this year’s French Film Festival, our national love affair with French cinema shows no signs of abating. As usual, a good percentage of the movies shown during the festival will get a local release. This comes as something of a relief, as we have gone into the annual […]

Film Reviews

Women Talking

Friday, February 17th, 2023 Film Reviews,

Women Talking proves that dialogue can supercharge a film no less successfully than action. The box office blockbusters of our era are short on talk and long on CGI, hardly more than a few lame jokes and the odd sentence required to introduce the next fight or explosion. Canadian director, Sarah Polley, has reversed this […]

Film Reviews

She Said

Friday, December 2nd, 2022 Film Reviews,

Harvey Weinstein, co-founder of film production company, Miramax, was the driving force behind a string of Hollywood hits. From his prison cell in California, where he is currently serving a 23-year sentence for sexual offences, Weinstein must have taken cold comfort from the poor box office that greeted She Said, which garnered only US $2.2 […]

Film Reviews

Decision to Leave

Friday, October 21st, 2022 Film Reviews,

Among Korean directors, Bong Joon-ho achieved worldwide fame when Parasitewon the Oscar for best Picture in 2019, but one should not ignore the claims of his contemporary, Park Chan-wook. At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Park won the award for Best Director, while his new film, Decision to Leave, has been selected as South Korea’s […]

Film Reviews

The Night of the 12th

Friday, October 14th, 2022 Film Reviews,

Never has a whodunnit been less dependent on suspense than Dominik Moll’s The Night of the 12th. At the very beginning we are told the French Criminal Investigation Department opens 800 murder investigations every year. “Some are never resolved,” we read. “This film is about one of these.” Even though we know this is the […]

Film Reviews

Maigret

Friday, May 27th, 2022 Film Reviews,

Not for the first time I feel as if my reading habits might be working against my ability to enjoy a film-as-film. The great Belgian crime writer, Georges Simenon (1903-89), is a personal addiction. By any standards, Simenon is one of the most remarkable authors of all time. He is said to have written in […]

Film Reviews

To Chiara

Saturday, May 14th, 2022 Film Reviews,

Thanks to The Godfather and then The Sopranos, we’ve become accustomed to the idea that a Mafia movie can also be a family drama. Yet these are fables of wealth and power set in the United States, where money buys a good deal of respectability. Jonas Carpignano’s To Chiara looks at Italy’s criminal underworld from […]