andymcneill75

Bad goes to worse and so on and on and on and on in this botched heist movie that is absolutely bonkers but has so much happening that it hardly stops for a minute! Robert Pattinson is tremendous here and the Safdie Brothers show exactly why they will be a force to be reckoned with in the future. Crazy, crazy film and well worth checking out!!

Great show with excellent cast, superb writing, fantastic theme tune and so much more. Fantastic characters, brilliant stories and cameos and early roles by some excellent actors like JK Simmons, Lee Tergeson, Harold Perrineau, Dean Winters, Ernie Hudson, Eammon Walker, Terry Kinney plus cameos by Luis Guzman, Mark Margolis, LL Cool J and Method Man. 10 out of 10.

Just watched the first season & hard to believe this was cancelled. 10 episodes whittled down from 13 because studio decided to cancel the show before it was even watched in full is totally bemusing. Especially considering how much effort was put into this, the story was dark but a lot of fun with plenty of gory effects, horror and very inventive. The first couple of episodes were excellent and the season itself only slightly dips towards the end thanks to the fact the funding wasn't there!! Still very good all the same. Visually sharp and very well made set to a brilliant score by Brian Taylor. Acting wise everyone is great, Virginia Madsen ( excellent ), Jennifer Beals ( enjoyably hot ) with Kevin Durand entertaining as the mad scientist Jason Woodrue but the real star of the show is the underrated Will Patton as Avery Sunderland. This is possibly his best fully-formed role he has played and he was over the top, manic and brilliant and would be disappointing to not see more of his character! One of the best baddies of recent times and this show deserves to be picked up and continued on another channel. The cancellation wasn't justified and there is so much more that can be done with this story. One of the best comic book tv shows of recent times.

Great wee sci-if film with so much to come from the ' what if ' scenario. Good for it's time of release but just watched it again and far ahead of it's time & poses so many relevant questions. If remade I agree with my fellow reviewer Gold 5 that this could be absolutely terrific! Everyone excellent in their roles with Martin Sheen outstanding as always. Nice direction & cinematography too. 8 out of 10.

Not going to give a big description on the story as most of you know what it's all about. In short this is a rollicking good war movie with 5 men on a tank going about their business as they roll through war-torn Germany in April 1945. It's a film about the futility of war and the coming of age of a young man who joins a tough unit on board a tank. The cast is great with Brad Pitt on a good role of acting choices of late, Shia Labeouf doing his teary-eyed best ( wee bit overdone mate!), Michael Pena providing comic touches & Jon Bernthal doing his quirky bit as an oddball but the real star of the show is Logan Lerman, who is brilliant as young typist turned tank gunner Norman.

The battle scenes are ferocious, gory, thrilling and the film moves quickly from start to finish, David Ayer did a grand job on directing duties and if you want a good war movie of recent times then look no further, also stands up well with a lot of the classics and it's an enjoyable film to boot.

When i heard of the premise for this i was a bit unsure with the whole Groundhog Day thing but have to say they nailed it and made an ingenious,funny, smart and very entertaining blockbuster with brains. Tom Cruise is great as usual and ably supported by Emily Blunt with good work from Bill Paxton & Brendan Gleeson. Doug Liman has done a superb job of crafting a great film from what could have been a very run of the mill one. Effects great, action thrilling and enough to keep you thinking, over and over and over again, oops sorry i'm stuck in a loop too!! Overall a pleasant surprise and a good addition to the sci-fi genre and something fresh!

A lot of people and critics have taken a swipe at the film but it's far better than any of them say and is overall a nifty, tense apocalyptic thriller with a lot to recommend it. Yes there is a distinct lack of blood and guts when it comes to a film about zombies but you know what? It was refreshing and different to see rather than the same old repetitive rubbish that populate a lot of these films. It works well dealing with the issue of family and finding a cure and gives the story a good shake, rather than drag it screaming to places we've seen a dozen times over. Brad Pitt is good and leads the line well, there is some good supporting roles for the likes of James Badge Dale, David Morse and Scotland's own Peter Capaldi & John Gordon-Sinclair. There is a fair bit of tension and the build-up is cool even though Glasgow only gets 5 or 6 minutes doubling for Philly!! Marco Beltrami's score is very effective and well used as Pitt's Gerry Lane goes from place to place scouring the globe for a cure in the midst of a global pandemic. The set-pieces are great, especially in Israel and South Korea and mid-flight en route to Wales! Racks up the tension and entertains nicely, although not totally like the book it takes a lot of good aspects and creates a good story of it's own, although not to everybody's liking i'd say the movie is a good addition to the zombie genre and very good at showing the effects on a large scale and the swarms of undead and their leaping and climbing give it an edge over other dull zombie flicks!! Enjoyable and keeps moving from beginning to end! Can't wait for WWZ II !

I'm gonna keep this review short but this was a great little horror thriller set in medieval times and all about the spread of the pestilence of the black death and how a small army of men seek out the evil and hunt witches and end up in a real battle with a witch. Sean Bean is the star of the film but for me Eddie Redmayne was excellent and there was great support from John Lynch, Andy Nyman, Tim McInnery and Carice Van Houten. Overall i wasn't expecting it to be as good as it was but was pleasantly surprised and thought it was entertainingly bleak, creepy and quite a haunting film that will stay with you when you've finished with it. Christopher Smith is a director to really take note of and the script was brilliant and Christian Henson delivers a superb score!! Up there with Witchfinder General and it's like and well worth watching!!

I absolutely loved Drive and think this is honestly the best film i've seen in the cinema in a long, long time. This is a modern classic of great film-making and has everything in it - it is a haunting, retro- styled piece of ultra-cool film noir and has great acting, superb visuals, great direction along with a superb soundtrack mixed in with emotion, suspense, tension and some shocking moments of violence. Ryan Gosling is fantastic in this and plays Driver as a quiet loner-type with a very dark side that you'd never think he was capable of and his performance seems very calm, peaceful and a lot of what he does comes off in nuances and when he goes off he truly explodes, he could win the best actor Oscar but a nomination is the very least he deserves. The support is excellent in the film from Carey Mulligan as the troubled neighbour he has a soft spot for and young Kaden Leos as her son is great, Bryan Cranston is cool as Driver's confidant and garage boss Shannon, Christina Hendricks brings a bit of sassiness to a small role as Blanche and Ron Perlman is good as the partner of Albert Brooks, who is just amazing as the shady criminal boss Bernie Rose. Brooks has had a long career of playing the funny man but he is deadly serious in this and they should just hand him the best supporting actor Oscar now because he was brilliant!!! Nicolas Winding Refn has come along way since the Pusher films and is on his way to great things starting with Drive and there is every chance he may get a nod for best director at the Oscars! I think it deserves shots for best picture, director, actor, supporting actor, cinematography, music and theme song ' A Real Hero' by College featuring Electric Youth, which is a great tune. Anybody who doesn't like this knows nothing about what makes a good film and has gone into this without thinking about what they are seeing. This film is unlike anything else and is cinema it's finest. " I Drive "

Just seen this and have to say i really enjoyed it and that it a great wee British action thriller set in the hills of Scotland and that it rattles along at a good pace. Director Julian Gilbey has created a tense, fun little game of cat & mouse about a set of hill-climbers who are pursued by two maniac kidnappers through the glens and woods, streams and rock-faces after finding a little girl buried alive in a whole in the ground and attempt to get help from the nearest village. Anyway i'm not going to bore you with giving away the plot and will just say that this a nifty little thriller with some great twists and turns, two great baddies (Sean Harris and Stephen McCole as a pair of cold- blooded thugs)and Melissa George looking hot and giving Ripley a money as the all-action heroine. Add the great cinematography, amazing scenery, a sweeping score and some good supporting actors (Ed Speelers, Garry Sweeney, Karl Roden & Eammon Walker) and you have a tense, cool thriller to keep you moving!! Julian Gilbey will be a director to look out for over the next few years and he's crafted a good thriller here! Enjoy the walk!!

Super is a fantastic little film about a guy who decides to fight crime in much the same vein as Kick-Ass & Defendor. Rainn Wilson is excellent as Frank who decides to become The Crimson Bolt and Ellen Page is hilarious as his eventual sidekick Boltie as they attempt to tackle all manors of criminals and cause bodily harm. I don't want to go into the story but i felt the film was amazing and had great acting, nice direction, a smart and sincere script and a brilliant score by Tyler Bates to give it a great atmosphere. There was great support from Liv Tyler, Michael Rooker, Nathan Fillion and Gregg Henry but Kevin Bacon is his usual reliable self and is not only funny but adds a bit of flair to his scenes. I can't say anything but the finale to the film was absolutely tremendous and there were some really violent gory scenes alongside some very funny scenes along with a heartfelt message and terrific action!!! If you liked Kick-Ass then you will LOVE this ( at least you should do! ) but it was a terrible shame this film was largely overlooked in the cinema as it deserves a lot of credit for what it is and it IS Super!! Shut up, Crime!! :]

Villain is a harshly overlooked and much maligned British crime film which is up there with some the 70s best of it's type, it can hold it's head up there alongside Get Carter and The Long Good Friday. Richard Burton is great as sadistic gay cockney gangster Vic Dakin and although people have a go at him for his accent he actually pulls off being a more believable gangster than a lot of others try to and can't. He's got some great lines and takes to beating up quiet a few people while caring for his mother and planning a daring robbery alongside some other goons. A lot of great British character actors turn up and all add fun to the film such as Joss Ackland ( who only eats eggs as he's got an ulcer!!), T.P. McKenna, Del Henney and Colin Welland ( all later seen in Straw Dogs), Nigel Davenport, Donald Sinden ( as a sleazy MP), Ian McShane as Burton's boyfriend Wolf and Fiona Lewis as Wolf's bit on the side ( and she is hot!!). There's a lot of great banter and good acting in this film along with a nice script by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais and a cracking funky odd soundtrack by Jonathan Hodge. Look out for a super robbery scene which also includes the use of a Jif lemon thingy to squirt in a guard's eyes and a well-staged police hospital break-out of Joss Ackland's character Lowis!

Overall an entertaining crime film that has been overlooked but has inspired a lot of other films and deserves to be seen, Richard Burton was great in this!!

Great little B-movie feature that harks back to 50s/60s sci-fi films and is a cool satire on consumerism and is extremely smart and witty. Michael Moriaty is so funny as Dave Mo Rutherford and really has a great time hamming it up and does a great Southern accent and sends up a lot of stereotypes. Garrett Morris, Danny Aiello and Paul Sorvino all turn up in small roles and all lend black humour to Larry Cohen's witty and telling script. The FX are dated but are hilarious and there are some really unexpected little scenes that will have you laughing, like when Mo meets up with some company types and ends up knocking out one of them! Enjoyable Stuff indeed!! P.S. look out for Eric Bogosian & Abe Vigoda in blink and you'll miss them roles and also recent A-Team villain Brian Bloom as the brother of the little kid in this! Eat it up before it eats you up!! Moriarty was the man in this!!

I bought Valhalla Rising the other day and was quite surprised by this violent, little thought-provoking thriller. Director Nicolas Winding Refn from Denmark is quickly becoming a very stylish and talented director and the film is almost an art film as well as a drama / thriller. The story revolves around a mute one-eyed viking warrior ( called One Eye ) who is used as a slave and paid to bash the living daylights out of and kill other fighters in the glens of the Scottish highlands. One Eye fights for his owner but eventually overpowers them, slaughters most of them and walks free. He befriends a young boy and ends up meeting a clan of Christian warriors who say will he join them on their journey to the holy land on their boat. The film is very moody, beautifully shot and shows the amazing scenery of Scotland through wide shots, tinted filters and stunning imagery, there is a part where the film gets quite slow but never loses you and it's 85 min running time is just about right. Mads Mikkelsen ( Le Chifre from Casino Royale ) plays his part brilliantly without speaking a single word and Gary Lewis, Jamie Sives and Ewan Stewart all lend good support.

An interesting little film and you should check this out as with The Pusher Trilogy, Fear X and Bronson also on his CV Refn is a director worth keeping an eye out for, he for me uses elements and styles from a variety of people including Hitchcock and Werner Herzog and the film is very similar to Aguirre - The Wrath Of God. 8 and a half out of ten.

Stunningly beautifully shot film.

The first English language film from Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn is a bizarre but powerful little thriller which although nothing much really happens it has a hypnotic feel to it. John Turturro is simply brilliant in this and is completely drawn to trying to track down the man responsible for the murder of his wife. He plays a mall security guard called Harry Caine, who covers his wall in pictures of potential suspects and watches videos of people walking through his shopping precinct in hope of some clues.

One day he has suspicions of a house opposite his and breaks in and finds a photo negative on the floor, he has this developed and on closer inspection this leads him to a town in Wisconsin and asking questions which stir up things. This is quite an unnerving and edgy and stylistically Refn takes a lot of inspiration from Stanley Kubrick and uses the colour red and freakish dream images to create something very odd. This is based on a story by Hubert Selby Jnr. and like Requiem For A Dream this is unusual but not as disturbing. Rounding out the cast are Deborah Kara Unger and James Remar, who is also very good and plays his character like a man with a death sentence hanging over him.

Good film, pretty .. pretty good and also very under-rated and overlooked. Turturro brilliant!

Those were The Driver's words after he take a crew of bank robbers for a test drive in their dodgy looking orange Mercedes and proceeds to trash it completely, knocking off both bumpers, tearing off a door, bumping both sides and flattening the roof. A classic scene and this is a good, late 70s action thriller from Walter Hill. It's film noir at it's best and it's pretty cool that every character doesn't have an actual name, we've got The Driver, The Detective, The Player and so on. Ryan O'Neal is cool without actually having to say very much and Bruce Dern is just Bruce Dern, wild eyed and crazy as the Detective determined to catch the Driver by using some strange policing. Isabelle Adjani is very quiet and a sexy foil for things to revolve around. The car chases and mash-ups are as good as some of the stuff used in Bullit, French Connection, The Seven-Ups and other top rate chase scenes.

Dern is a highlight as he is bonkers as ever and Walter Hill does a great job in direction and keeping things nice and compact.

Check it out!

I watched 'Derailed' the other night and have to see it was a nifty little thriller with some good directorial touches and good acting from all round. Clive Owen was quite intense and restrained in other scenes and played his role pretty well, Jennifer Aniston was surprisingly and Vincent Cassel was great as the nasty villain of the piece, Laroche. Credit must go to Rza for giving a brilliant supporting performance and he will go on to bigger things in acting terms. Wu-Tang y'all!!! Xzibit was good too and Giancarlo Esposito turned up yet again as a detective who has a reason for wanting Laroche dealt with!

Overall pretty enjoyable stuff with a tense and violent finale which made a lot of sense.

I was totally taken back by how good a small, low budget movie like this really is. Christian Slater is unlike any role he has ever played as Bob McConnell and was just brilliant in this role. I think he was vastly overlooked in terms of honours and seriously could have merited an Oscar nomination at the very least for this role. He plays a sad, lonely, disgruntled office worker who harbors dark thoughts about his nasty co- workers and is going to go on a shooting spree, instead he ends up being called a hero for killing another worker who beats him to the punch and shoots up his office. A lot of the film deals with his relationship with a girl he fancies who ends up shot and paralysed( Elisha Cuthbert) and how he tries to be there for her and how he finds some happiness with her while never quite getting ahead with his life. This is a great little film which is quite sad, gentle, touching and very well written and directed by Frank Capello. Although there are a few cheap effects the movie has enough great ideas and shows some good skill in film-making.

There was a lot of thought put in to this and the film pays off really well and the whole point of making films like this is that it doesn't matter how much it cost to make it's the idea that counts.

What makes Christian Slater so good in this movie is that he plays Bob as a misunderstood soul and a person looked down on who is not a bad person but just confused and i thought he was phenomenal in this role, if only he stretched himself and played more parts like this. Elisha Cuthbert was also very good in this and William H. Macy added good support as the slimy boss.

Capello should get some bigger jobs after this because i think he did a great job in storytelling and had some vision in making this under- rated gem.

I'd put it in the same category as films like Secetary, One Hour Photo, Memento and others as a cult movie with a quite indie feel to it. Check this out!

I bought this on DVD the other week and had heard about it and had known that it was overlooked and after seeing it i have to say it is an extremely clever, smart little film and well worth seeing. It is really interesting thanks to some great twists and turns along the way and is well written and directed by David Mamet, who as soon as i saw his name attached just knew this would be good. Chiwetel Ejiofor was brilliant in this and was well supported by Emily Mortimer, Alice Braga (sexy!)and Tim Allen in a surprising serious role. Great fight scenes, moral messages and good drama and some nice wee other touches throughout make this a real surprise and well worth checking out! If you get the DVD check out the amazing magic tricks of Cyril Takayama - superb!

This deserves so much more praise and to be seen by more people.

Black Sunday is a great suspense thriller from the 70s with Robert Shaw as a mossad agent on the trail of members of the Black September movement and a sexy female one at that! She ( Aya ) is in the job of recruiting a crazed Vietnam vet to carry out mass murder at the Superbowl in Miami, planning to use thousands of steel darts to massacre spectators and even the watching president himself ( Jimmy Carter in a cameo!!). Will this be carried out or will Babakov ( Shaw ) be able to stop them? You'll have to wait and see but along the way you get a nifty little suspense thriller which has some great action sequences and bags of tension. Robert Shaw is brilliant in one of his final roles and is ably supported by the unhinged Bruce Dern as the loopy pilot and the lovely Marthe Keller as the evil Aya. There's a great chase scene with the terrorist Faisal ( who shoots just about everybody in his path ) and the finale builds up great tension and the suspense is fantastic and the riveting score by John Williams highlights that brilliantly ( quite possible one of his most under-rated pieces of music) and John Frankenheimer directs with good skill to deliver one of the 70s best and most overlooked thrillers. Very good.

Like i said above Tom Hardy was brilliant in this and played Bronson like a hard, ruthless maniac that he really is. I liked how he had good bits of comedic value, brought a stagey feel to the role and although very over the top it was a short and sweet film. Not brilliant but well made and very different to the classic and very violent Pusher films that Nicolas Winding Refn made - can't wait for his viking epic set in Scotland, Valhalla Rising! Matt King was great in his cameo as the very camp Paul and had a couple of funny lines too. Although the film is good Hardy is a real star in the making and has a wide range of roles that he has played and he will move on to some great things. From the camp thug in Rocknrolla to this to playing a 80s ned in TV's The Take to playing Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights this guy sounds like he will do anything and he's in Inception so that's testimony that his talent has been noticed!

Hardy for a best supporting actor nom at least?

Engrossing, enjoyable and thought-provoking i was very surprised by The Parallax View. Well scripted and well paced with good action scenes and scenes that come out of nowhere you will find this as a very under-rated 70s thriller. Warren Beatty wasn't too bad in this and a number of familiar faces pop up to add to the paranoia of the whole situation. Basically a female reporter comes to Beatty and says that she believes witnesses to the assassination are being knocked off themselves and that she is worried, next you know she's on a mortuary slab and Beatty goes on a mission to attempt to uncover the truth... but there is a lot more to it than meets the eye and he discovers about the Parallax Corporation and what may be a team of assassins. The music is edgy and the whole thing has a sense of unrealness which builds the tension and Alan.J.Pakila did a nice job in direction. The only scene that goes on and is not quite as good as another film is the test film montage ( bit like A Clockwork Orange only too long and a bit flat ) but apart from that i really enjoyed this film.

To the doubters having a pop at Beatty - he was great in this and came across as a smart-ass but fitted the hero role well.

Really enjoyed this film and have to say i was quite surprised and this is definitely one of the best serial killer films in many a year. It's hard to believe how good Kevin Costner made a screen psycho and William Hurt was superb as his alter ego Marshall. Dane Cook was very good too as the snooping witness who wants more than you might expect, he fitted this role pretty well and could be a star to look out for, so long as he gets the parts. Demi Moore was also on good form as the cop on the trail of ' The Thumbprint Killer' and on her toes as another serial killer that she put away called ' The Hangman' has escaped from prison. The film twists and turns, has a sharp script with some laughs, well directed by Bruce.A.Evans and finds something different round every corner. All in all a very enjoyable film with lots of surprises, great performances and a superb score by Ramin Djawidi (Prison Break). Credit must go to Costner for giving one of his best performances and just great fun seeing him interact with William Hurt! Can't wait for the sequel!!

An accomplished and superbly crafted little thriller full of twists and surprises and some great performances. Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer play a couple on their way back across Russia who come into contact with Carlos & Abby ( Eduardo Noriega & Kate Mara ) who may or may not be drugs 'mules' moving weight across the country. Don't want to give any of the story but will say that once Ben Kingsley shows up as Narcotics cop Ilya Girenko the movie really kicks into gear and shifts quickly into as a great and surprising thriller. Director Brad Anderson is definitely one to look out for, after this and The Machinist he is a hugely talented guy who should be destined for bigger things. This and The Machinist have great Hitchcock style touches and are edgy and suspenseful. The script was tight, Alfonso Vilallonga's score was excellent and the cinematography was really good too and all round this was a pretty good film. Emily Mortimer really shone in this film and Ben Kingsley brought a touch of class despite feeling over the top, he nailed his part very well and his Russian really was convincing! Woody was fine despite being underused and Noriega and Mara were surprisingly good. Gotta laugh at what Thomas Kretschmann said on the DVD extras, that he always wanted to play a role saying nothing throughout an entire film, well he did speak but it was only a handful of words in Russian but he was also decent at playing Girenko's right-hand man and heavy. Take this trip and enjoy!

Truly a brilliant and epic movie adaption of a classic graphic novel, Watchmen is a phenomenal movie which will divide critics and fans but will be looked upon in the years to come as a bold and audacious statement on the superhero film. Zack Snyder has done a great job and everything looks as though it has jumped straight off the page. The graphic style, the colours, the artwork of this film are just great to look at and deserve huge credit. The Acting is roundly superb by all concerned especially Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach ( who in my opinion should be a front runner for next year's best supporting actor Oscar, a nomination at the very least!) and Jeffrey Dean Morgan who delivers a career-making role though which is limited in screen time is utterly believable as the sadistic and brutal Comedian. Billy Crudup and Patrick Wilson were great as well and although Malin Akerman has been getting pelters she's fine as is Carla Gugino and Mathew Goode adds a sinister shadyness as Veidt. Tyler Bates' score was very atmospheric and the film's use of songs in the soundtrack was brilliant. Those Opening titles are the best i have seen in a very long time. Not only is this up there with The Dark Knight as one of the greatest comic-book films it is also a huge homage to 50s sci-fi at it's best and has some nice film noir touches. I also think the ending worked perfectly well and i felt a touch sad but in the end it made perfect sense. Great film and the haters will change their opinions over the years and if it doesn't come to be truly appreciated it will most definitely become a huge cult classic. Alan Moore should be proud. Brilliant, bold, dark, exhilarating comic-book classic!! Overall an 'A'