jonathan_pickett

Having waded through too many sub-standard and lacklustre murder mystery dramas in recent times I was not optimistic that this would mount to much. How pleasantly surprised my wife and I were. Beautifully presented and shot along the River Thames and the small town of Marlow, this is well acted (on the whole), likeable and enjoyable. Don't expect this to be Morse or Lewis standard, it isn't as predictable as Death in Paradise and the acting, script and production is better than Sister Boniface, Madame Blanc and numerous other low key murder mystery farces. And don't get me started on the dreadful Johnny Vegas Murder series.....

If you are looking for a decent representation of the British Beano comic Dennis & Gnasher in cartoon form this is it. Excellent animation, with suitably voiced characters from Dennis, the noises of dog gnasher and mum and dad. Having been a fan of the comic as a child both myself and my wife were pleasantly surprised that this excellent tv series emerged for our own children to watch around 2004. Having got a DVD collection of 13 episodes they are worth repeat viewing. The humour and jokes stand up to adult viewing and definitely are not just for the children. Brilliantly observed humour fully getting into the spirit of the comic creation. A much underrated gem of a cartoon. Avoid all the many imitations before & since especially the far inferior American version.

Claustrophobic, slow, tense, bleak even haunting at times. It is difficult to like or even enjoy the film as little happens and the two characters barely speak to each other. The sense of foreboding is ever present and in that sense the film works well.

Why is there mention of New England though? They even mention Solva and the Pembrokeshire coast or did I see a different version of the film? This is obviously off the Welsh coast and New England is miles away.

Interesting, intriguing but ultimately just not enough happening to be a classic. Not enough drama or tension for a full length film.

Having read some of the 10 star reviews and some of the 1 star reviews as always the film deserves to be somewhere in the middle.

The cast alone is enough for 5 stars, so I've gone for 7. It's not a great film, it isn't even the best western I've seen. It isn't even the best John Wayne western I've seen but it is undoubtedly worth watching.

I love Jimmy Stewart but he never changes whatever part he plays. But he is dependable. John Wayne is his typical macho self. Vera Miles plays an honest and decent woman, Lee Marvin is okay as the villain and Lee Van Cleef has little chance to do much wrong.

The storyline is pretty good too.

However the sets are poor (many older westerns look more realistic) and some of the bit part actors are mere caricatures and don't get me started on the parts played by extras hamming it up awfully in the background. Some scenes are played for laughs and that's fine and acceptable in parts.

However the tension is wafer thin in comparison to better westerns and the climax weakly put together. I hoped for better but it's a decent film worth seeing if only to see these actors altogether on screen and tick another 'classic' off my to watch list!!

A quietly amusing and enjoyable light hearted murder mystery.

I wasn't sure if I would like this or not but I was pleased to have watched it. As a period piece it was authentic and well acted and I particularly enjoyed Saoirse Ronan's performance as the young Police woman.

It is gently humorous but the jokes are well timed and subtly delivered. Don't expect a rip roaring comedy or a deep detective drama, it is neither but it never purports to be so.

It delivers a watchable and thoroughly likeable film with a decent plot, good actors and an interesting story line.

A good evening's entertainment. Watch it and enjoy.

Thank goodness for Marilyn Monroe. This film would be little without her. Thin plot, which meanders to an unsatisfactory conclusion. The final 40 minutes dragging wild horses to the ground is rather distasteful and I'm no horsey person. The film was beset with problems and this really shows as the film out stays it's welcome.

However the first hour or so is promising and Marilyn is radiant, beautiful, caring and her usual vulnerable self. In fact this is one of her better performances. She certainly steals the film from the trio of male actors, though Eli Wallach gives a good account of himself.

Stop the film on the hour and a half mark and you won't be missing much.

It's always hard judging films from a different era, as you tend to compare them with movies from later periods.

However, I was disappointed with this film. It has a gritty realism, and for its time, 1971, it may have been cinematically innovative but now the jerky camera action and 'documentary' style approach seems dated and slightly jarring.

There are too many drawn out scenes where little happens of great interest and the film is dominated by the car-train chase scene, which is tense and exciting but not earth shattering.

Gene Hackman improves on his role in The Conversation, which was a particularly dull film but this also fails to deliver.

The plot is thin, the characters unsympathetically drawn.

I hoped for better.

Very similar to the Pit and the Pendulum but with less drama and tension. Price almost repeats his role. Corman's horrors are very Hammeresque but without the heaving busoms and lacking any real script and with a wafer thin plot.

This is to perhaps be expected as Poe's books are largely short stories so the drama is in the writing and any film, such as this one, involves much padding and sections where little of worth is happening.

The acting is timid at best, even Price struggles to ham it up to any great affect. Worth watching for fans of the director, Vincent Price or Poe but little of merit to entice anyone else.

I'm a big fan of Father Brown and programmes like Shakespeare & Hathaway. Good casts, decent plots and nice settings.

Sister Boniface has only the latter. It was always stretching it for this to be a spin-off of Father Brown. A bit part in an early episode. Deary me. Tenuous to say the least.

The programme lacked any sparkle or wit, the plot was wafer thin and the acting abysmal across the board. Truly awful.

Saying that, my wife enjoyed it but for me it is too light hearted, too fluffy and life is too short to watch these sub-standard dramas.

Yet another film that I knew of, had seen some scenes from but never watched from start to finish.

Call it my film education, if you like. Therefore with all the hype through the years this is a 'must see' film.

What a disappointment then. Great soundtrack but a weak plot, distasteful (by today's standards) storyline and bizarre action. There is little of merit. I like Dustin Hoffman, and he gives a decent performance but generally this is a film stuck in an American 60s haze.

If it wasn't for Simon & Garfunkel it really wouldn't be much of a film.

Watch it if you are a film buff or fan of Hoffman otherwise don't bother. It certainly isn't a 9 or a 10 but not bad enough to rate really low. A period piece best left alone.

Erm maybe I'm missing something here or maybe it's far too early to judge after just one episode but the ratings of 10/10 and funniest comedy ever are baffling.

I watched The Office many years ago and it's presentation was original and often very funny if very cringy at times.

This Country though just feels like they've tried the same idea but in a rural setting which really doesn't make enough difference for me. The lad is played, sounds and looks so much like Gareth from the Office that is should be done for plagiarism. Even to the point of some of his phrases.

It is trying too hard to be funny but in episode one, I chuckled just the once. For 30 minutes of a comedy that ain't enough. The question is, is it worth watching anymore......

The older I get the more I seem to demand from my movies. A list stars (Reynolds, Jackson, Hayek etc), buckets of bloodletting, killing galore and lots of 'seen it all before' action scenes do not a good film make.

Zero plot, rubbish script, basic acting, and crap soundtrack all add up to puerile teenage pap.

Giving it a 5 is generous but if you like lots of swearing, lots of killings, blood spurting from everyone's wounds, very weak jokes but a few big actors and half decent production values then this film will be for you.

Personally this is best left to a teenage audience who have yet to see a quality film but will hopefully grow a pair in the near future.

Jackson & Hayek presumably took the money and ran.

Drivel. But high quality drivel.

It may be just me but what started off as an innovative, stylish, cool and powerful drama for possibly three series has lost touch with its origins since series four.

Since then it has become a victim of its own hype. It looks good still, the production values remain high but does anyone really care what is happening anymore.

Once it lost its Birmingham roots, Peaky Blinders lost its soul. Yet another series which didn't know when to quit.

Still very stylish but lacking any real substance.

What to say about this western? One of the most bizarre ones I've seen in this genre. It's like two different films in one ; and neither are much good.

John Wayne tries in vain to lift the film but it's plot, script and acting are just sub-standard throughout. It often looks dubbed, poorly edited and badly filmed. Not Howard Hawks finest hour for sure.

It starts as a decent cavalry film with a train robbery, moves to a dodgy 70s sex farce (without the titallation or flesh on show) and ends up as a cowboy film without ever retaining any interest or excitement.

The women are young, glamorous and seemingly sex starved but have little or no acting pedigree much the same as the rest of the cast.

Unless a fan of John Wayne; avoid.

An improvement on Fort Apache, this second instalment in John Ford's Cavalry Trilogy, is nevertheless a fairly light on action affair.

The Cavalry troop are at least a better organised group, stationed in a proper fort and without the distraction of Shirley Temple.

John Wayne has a better role as Nathan Brittles and plays it well. An understated and likeable commander nearing retirement, he looks as though he's enjoying himself for a change.

Some of the Cavalry scenes are comedic or plain daft but overall the film is worth seeing. The soundtrack is slightly less grating than the first film and other than Wayne, the horses once more nearly steal the show but ridden with aplomb and at speed throughout.

I was interested to see the first of Ford's cavalry westerns. Another film starring John Wayne and Henry Fonda and interestingly, also Shirley Temple.

The film has moments of decent action but is largely overblown and over rated. Wayne is rather subdued, Fonda uneasy as the stiff commander and Temple merely adds some girly glamour.

There are moments of farce and out of place humour, some OTT acting and the film score mostly dreadful and often inappropriate.

I could say it is a film of it's time, 1948, but generally it lacks the quality and class of other films of this era.

A film with good intentions but far from one of Ford's or Wayne's better westerns and one for Fonda to forget.

I do like a good western. This is an entertaining classic that has all the makings of a great film but for me doesn't quite match the hype and the acclaim.

The film may couple a great director with a larger than life Hollywood star but this combination alone does not make it a classic. Time may not have been it's best friend but despite this there are too many flaws for me to rate it higher than a 7.

The landscape is fabulous though some obvious studio bits let it down a little. The soundtrack lacks the impact and majesty of many other westerns and the acting is laughable in parts. Some characters are comedic and if this is intentional it jars with the serious nature of the film.

John Wayne plays himself and is a difficult character to like or empathise with, but is he ever. Some fight seems were just funny and some characters just barmy. Does the Wild West make folk simple and dim?

Having found the girl after 5 years(?) of trying they then seem to give up until the Comanche reappear and they end with a gunfight. Debbie was about 7 when she was taken and looks at least 18 (or more) when they find her. That's a little longer than 5 years by my maths. She also does not want to leave the Comanche but on the following attempt to save her she has suddenly changed her mind and is happy to be saved. Bizarre.

Likewise John Wayne spends the whole film determined to kill Comanche Indians whenever possible including the 'tainted' Debbie but has a miraculous change of heart once she is scooped into her arms. What a hero he is after all.

Worthy of seeing but there are better, more realistic westerns out there than this, better acted with better characterisation and infinitely more memorable film scores.

Martin Scorsese, you are seeing things in this film that I ain't that's for certain.

For its time this is a wonderfully colourful romp through the legend that is Robin Hood.

The sets, cast, action and design are all first rate. The film needs to be taken for what it is 'an enjoyable action adventure' movie very much of its era (amazing to think this was made in 1938). Overall, for me it is only let down by hammy fighting scenes (the men of King John are next to useless) and the music that just doesn't know when to slow down and let the dialogue take precedence. However the sword fight between Robin and Guy de Gisburne is worthy of its Hollywood legend, the colours are glorious and Maid Marian is beautiful indeed, for once. Swashbuckling drama.

For a short story this is a compelling and surprisingly creepy ghost story. Well told and atmospherically put together, this neatly brings a fresh take on an MR James classic. Some of the 70s tales are looking dated and slow and often lack the chills of this adaptation.

I saw this many years ago and thought it was a poor film then. I thought it worth re-watching given its status as a 'great action Christmas movie'.

My verdict has not changed over time. 5 out of 10 is quite generous as a film rating, it could be. 7/10 as an action film of its time.

Bruce Willis is never convincing as the hero, the American cops as useless as ever, the terrorists are disorganised and although they hold up to 30 people captive they never seem to use this as leverage to get out of the building.

The film lacks a decent plot and garners little sympathy for the captives or Bruce Willis who swaggers about with typical American bravado. Very early into the film I lost interest in who gets killed or if Willis escapes.

Paper thin plot, sub-standard acting, perfunctory action and weak comic touches. Even Alan Rickman looks disinterested.

What a shame. Great animation as always from Aardman but for me the story was weak and the voices awful. It would have worked better with no voices at all as the action could have spoken for itself. The Robin doesn't look right and is not cute enough and the kids voices for the mice are all wrong and not cute either. The magpie looks more like a jackdaw too. However Richard E Grant voices well and the cat is fine. But oh what a missed opportunity this is. Shame. Bring back Wallace & Gromit.

A wonderful cast that bring together lovely characters and often laugh out loud humour. I was put off this for years as American comedies often don't do it for me with a few exceptions. The quality of the writing to be so consistently funny for so many series and episodes is outstanding and puts many British comedies to shame. Every character even the minor ones are amusing, and add to the overall charm of this truly great comedy. I disagree with many of the reviews here that say this tailed off after the first few series, I found it funny throughout. Maybe the final series had some less funny episodes but even these were funnier than most. My wife and I are grateful that this got us laughing throughout the pandemic when we needed the humour more than ever. You'll find it hard to find a comedy with better writing, funnier episodes and stronger female characters. Brilliant. And I don't say this lightly. For me it is up there with the best of American sitcoms Friends, Scrubs and Cheers.

A charming and simple story nicely told and put together. A shining star in a meagre Christmas TV schedule.

Watched with my wife as she fondly remembered the books. Hoped it might be up to the Just William adaptations the BBC revived a few years ago. Sadly not. No humour, acting was poor and there was no action or storyline to get you interested at all. Even my wife was disappointed.

Superbly funny time and time again. Consistently one of the funniest programmes on TV. If I need a pick me up this is the programme to do it. Even the less good episodes are very funny.

The combination of Lee Mack, David Mitchell and Rob Brydon is comedy gold. The stories can be funny, the guests hit and miss but it really doesn't matter.

Fabulous entertainment