Conclave ★★★½ RALPH Fiennes continues to be a little under-rated. In nearly 100 performances across three decades, he has rarely given a bad one. Schindler’s List, Quiz Show, Strange Days, The English Patient, Oscar and Lucinda, Red Dragon, The Constant Gardener, In Bruges, The Reader, Great Expectations, Hail! Ceaser, The […]

Cardinal Fiennes in fine form

Shame ★★★ THE 1988 Australian drama Shame is a film before its time. If it had been released within the last few years, Shame would not have been overlooked and may even have created a lot of interest and controversy. But back in 1988, the story of a country town […]

Shame that Shame is overlooked

Assassin’s Plan ★★★ AMERICAN crime thriller Knox Goes Away was released in Australia under the title Assassin’s Plan. It was obviously done to make the film more enticing, but the new title it just makes it seem like a hundred other films you can watch on streaming services at home. […]

Not according to plan

Wicked ★★★½ TWO films are going to dominate Perth cinemas from now until at least Christmas. One meets high audience expectations while the other probably exceeds some lower expectations. Wicked is the former while Gladiator II is the latter. The screen version of the hit Broadway musical is a triumph […]

Spectacular return to Oz

Anna ★★½ WHAT do Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johnsson, Bridget Fonda, Zoe Saldana, Mila Jovovich, Anne Parillaud, Sasha Luss and Maggie Q all have in common? They have all been part of Luc Besson’s decades-long obsession with depicting sexy women kicking ass on-screen. If Leon: The Professional is the French director’s […]

Besson’s obsession continues

Mad Dog Morgan ★★★ BETWEEN his appearances in two classic films -1969’s Easy Rider and Apocalypse Now in 1979 – Dennis Hopper popped down to Australia to make a little movie called Mad Dog Morgan. Philippe Mora’s film isn’t a classic, but it’s an extraordinary oddity that has so far […]

Mad dog Hopper runs rampant

The Apprentice ★★★★ ‘A CHEAP, defamatory and politically disgusting hatchet job.’ That, allegedly, is Donald Trump’s view of Iranian director Ali Abbasi’s new film The Apprentice. I beg to differ. It may be cheap, as in relatively low budget, but this biopic is not only ferociously entertaining, it’s probably the […]

Abbasi’s Apprentice comes up trumps

The Critic ★★★ NO DOUBT Ian McKellan enjoyed playing his character in the British period drama The Critic. We are in London, 1934, and Jimmy Erskine is the long-standing theatre critic for The Daily Chronicle newspaper. Erskine is a knowledgeable but acerbic reviewer who feels he is entitled to destroy […]

Veteran has a ball playing critic

Southern Comfort ★★★½ AFTER recently watching the ludicrous (Re)assignment, one of Walter Hill’s later, and lesser, efforts, I needed to remind myself what made Hill one of the most popular directors of the late 1970s and early ‘80s. While it wasn’t as financially successful as some of Hill’s other films […]

Comforting return to one of Hill’s best

Black Medicine ★★½ BLACK Medicine is a little-seen British thriller lifted above the average by an intriguing premise and decent performances. Antonia Campbell-Hughes plays the central character, a doctor working illegally in the criminal underworld. This usually means patching up assault victims, until she is faced with a significant moral […]

Black Medicine a decent dose

V/H/S Beyond ★★★ HORROR anthology films have been around for decades but now they have a regular franchise. V/H/S/ Beyond is the seventh instalment (if you exclude two spin-off films). While it continues with the found-footage approach, it leans more heavily into science-fiction than its predecessors. The format still comprises […]

Found footage franchise leans into sci-fi

Turbo ★★★ DREAMWORKS’ Turbo is an underrated animated film boosted by a collection of interesting voice performers. It’s a classic story about succeeding against all odds, in this case a snail who realises his ambition to win the Indy 500 car race. Ryan Reynolds plays young Theo, aka Turbo whose […]

Cast rev up Turbo