collioure_bee Reviews (22)

The Huntress of Auschwitz (2022)

Waste of time

[2/10 · 13 August 2022]

What was Rula Lenska doing taking part in this? Was it a favour or is she that hard up for work?

This is dreadful from start to finish, poorly acted, directed and the script is utterly laughable with some really cheesy clichés thrown in and so many feed lines not picked up on. I would liken it to a local am dram group getting hold of a cam corder but that would be insulting to the am dram group.

Don't waste your time. Totally unbelievable in any realm of the imagination.

Catch the Bullet (2021)

Love a good Western...sadly this isn't

[2/10 · 1 November 2021]

Imagine throwing every Western cliche into a hat then pulling them out one by one and making them a script.

The acting in this at least matches the terrible script. Somehow I imagine they had portable washing machines with them on the ride across the same old scenery because their clothes look so clean and well pressed throughout, along with the faces of the people wearing them.

I loved how a ranch back in those days had electric lighting and white PVC modern doors. Well ahead of their time back then...I've seen more intimidating criminals in the old Adam West Batman series and why did the young lad run out into the open so he could be so easily seen, when he was hidden away, they didn't know he was there and there was plenty of cover to get away from them, just at the back of the shot?

Absolutely awful, don't waste your time on it.

Women (2021)

Waste of time

[3/10 · 1 August 2021]

Story full of plot holes, about the only decent acting is from the detective who is capable of better than this. The fight scene near the end was almost funny.

A Rebel Born (2019)

Funniest film in years...

[2/10 · 23 May 2020]

...but not deliberately The direction, script, production are all utterly abysmal but still far better than the acting. Some scenes even had the voice appearing to be dubbed over. One scene where Forrest was being recruited had the recruitment officer stumbling over his lines and seemingly reading them. Avoid like the plague. Even a school play has more merit than this.

Sarah's War (2018)

I thought it was funny

[2/10 · 27 October 2019]

Dreadful acting, awful storyline and the filming was terrible too. But I loved the minefield with all of two mines that were so badly paper machéd they were hilarious.

Ignore the high marks, they must be from the actors, crew or friends. No one with any love of film would mark this highly.

A school play or local am drams would have done this better. Like I say, I found it so toe curlingly bad it was funny.

The Haunting of Borley Rectory (2019)

One to Avoid

[1/10 · 8 March 2019]

I am trying to find something positive to say but just can't.

Just about everything in this film is so bad. The acting is dire, with so many feedlines missed and some very wooden and cliched characters appearing.

The apparent scary bits were no more frightening than your average episode of SpongeBob SquarePants and as for the story line.......not sure there was one of any substance.

Plenty of silly and basic errors in sets and "plot" - using the word plot very loosely - all I can say is, the best thing you can do with this film is leave it on the shelf.

Welcome to Curiosity (2018)

Oh Dear

[2/10 · 19 November 2018]

Why is this not billed as a comedy? It's hilarious. As is most of the acting. Ironic that one character gets killed by a piece of ham as there is plenty in it. That said, Kacey Clarke whose character did this stood out as probably the best in it.

I particularly enjoyed the way O'ar Pali managed to balance those two big caterpillars above her eyes throughout without dropping them though.

Operation Dunkirk (2017 Video)

Is this a joke?

[1/10 · 2 December 2017]

Utterly awful. Badly acted, the research that has gone into this film must have been done by a two year old as absolutely nothing is right, willys jeeps used by the BEF? Red berets at Dunkirk? That is in the first five minutes. Five so called expert soldiers (according to their red berets) get stopped by one French resistant with the worst French accent on earth.

Just skip this. Waste of time and film.

Richard the Lionheart: Rebellion (2015)

Surely this is a joke?

[1/10 · 19 October 2015]

Bad direction, bad script, bad production, bad research and acting. This is very low budget (nothing wrong with that) but it shows. According to this the Battle of Devil's Bridge was fought by about ten people. The scenery around the North West of France is snow capped mountains (it isn't) and the first castle they battled in was defended by one knight.

Had to give up after just fifteen minutes (if that but it felt like longer) and walk out. Felt to me like they were just mugging me off.

Apparently I need ten lines of text for the review. Which is ten more than the film merits. Originally, all I wanted to say was "Oh dear. Why?"

Hooligans at War: North vs. South (2015)

Got to be a joke!

[1/10 · 17 April 2015]

All I wanted to say about this dreadful waste of time is that it is laughably bad, but apparently I need to use more words than that.

Everything about this film is terrible. The acting, directing, script, storyline, soundtrack. There is no tension, no depth in the characters or script and the fight scenes are like something off Magic Roundabout. Even after overlooking the historical inaccuracies of the scenes in Bosnia this is just one massive joke. And the joke was on me sitting right through it. Not one of the actors in this would get a decent part in a local am dram group.

Yes, it is low budget but that is no excuse, I've seen many decent films on a low budget This film just looks like it was a load of mates with a poor quality camera just playing about. An utter waste of time.

Angel of the Skies (2013)

Where do you start?

[1/10 · 10 January 2014]

If you are going to make a film paying tribute to the South Africans that volunteered and fought in WWII then at least make an attempt to do it well.

The film opened well enough, with a CGI dogfight over the Channel but it plummeted downhill from there. The CGI used wasn't a problem for me, it saves money and there aren't many WWII planes left to play with. The film was so full of holes it took away any sense of respectability.

The first problem was the acting, particularly the pub scene. Lots of wood speaking with very strange accents and it didn't endear me to the cast as it was supposed to. Then we had an RAF bombing raid flying during the day. This was the job of the Americans, the RAF went at night. They went with no fighter escort and the side gunner hanging out of the side opening was ridiculous.

After the plane went down, the crew broke all the rules of getting home, they traveled by day and slept at night, no one keeping watch, all sleeping. They also used a barn on a farm in Germany in an area they knew they were being hunted. It just got more laughable. Two go out to rescue a captured mate, taking a short cut given to them by the farmer's wife, and manage to run through and catch up to a motor vehicle and overpower it. They manage to shoot a German with a revolver while a German soldier with a machine gun missed them from the same distance. OK. This is now showing the Allies were great and the Germans useless. There was also an SS Captain who was every comic book cliché an SS man could be. There was a lot more to criticize but let's just say I was willing the SS to catch them quickly and put an end to the film. I really didn't care about the most unlikeable aircrew I've seen in a film.

All in all. Bad story, badly done and I've seen better acting at AmDram. Forget it.

The Great Escape II: The Untold Story (1988 TV Movie)

Untold Story because it never happened like this

[2/10 · 24 March 2012]

I read someone comment if you had read the book you'd know there is a lot of truth to this. If you'd read the book you'd know this film is very loosely based on a book and then played with to give it an American interest. Apparently Bushell was caught after being betrayed by a Frenchman. No he wasn't, the depiction in the original film is how he was caught. Apparently an American made a "home run" No he didn't. By the time the escape took place the Americans had been put in a separate camp and none went out. Apparently a former American cop lead the investigation. No he didn't, it just goes on making it look like the Americans were the heroes and in this case, they weren't. They even make Winston Churchill look like a three foot tall midget. Bad casting at it's most obvious. The acting was pretty bad, and Charles Haid's accent was abysmal. I liked him in Hill St Blues but what was that accent all about? As for the romance angle, that was purely laughable. Had this been portrayed as an escape story it could have been passable but to pretend it is the true story of what happened next, or even insinuate it, is frankly an insult to those who really took part. If it's just a mooovie, then don't try to pretend that it's telling us something that really happened like this.

The story of The Great Escape and the subsequent events is incredible enough without having to make things or change events. In fact this film waters down some of the events like the officers that were captured and taken to a concentration camp and escaped from there by tunneling out.

Watch it for entertainment, but don't expect to learn any sort of accurate facts from it.

Dark World (2008)

Utter Drivel

[1/10 · 25 January 2011]

I sat and watched this film with mouth wide open, shocked that such rubbish could not only be made but then marketed. Not even Theresa Russell saves this film. The acting is so bad, it reminds you of a class assembly at school where most of the kids don't want to be there in front of everyone. The sets look like Prisoner Cell Block H rejects and the dialogue is really toe curling. Pare is truly dreadful, his monotone delivery of the fifties b-movie style detective film talkover is so laughable there is no way the producers were serious (is there?). As for the rest, they just try to outbadact each other. The storyline looks like it was made up as they went along and nobody thought anything was a bad idea. Not one of the characters in this waste of a couple of hours is one bit believable. Don't waste your time, this is an absolutely shocking film.

SoulBoy (2010)

Disappointment

[2/10 · 31 October 2010]

I was really excited about this film being released, based round the northern soul scene, the recreation of the Wigan Casino and all that, so was very pleased to see it was showing in Portsmouth to coincide with my visit.

I left feeling disappointed. It is basically a boy meets girl out of reach, boy chases girl out of reach etc. He tries to impress her and win her by getting involved and interested in the club she travels from Stoke to, The Wigan Casino.

The cast do well with a script that follows the well worn scenarios we've seen before in other films and the nostalgia is great. Seeing the sign of the Casino Club as they got off the coach genuinely put the hairs on the back of my neck up and some of the indoor dance scenes were OK too, even if they relied too heavily on the old documentary shots from the seventies to fill. I thought they had brought in loads of dancers from the current scene to film? Surely they could have used more of these? The music choice was great and there were some genuinely funny moments, but overall I felt it was more a film that started as a storyline and they needed a cult scene to base it round to fill seats because without it there wouldn't be much of a film and chose northern soul. That is probably not right but I just felt that.

I also spent the film wondering why everyone was so bowled over by this blonde girl he was besotted with when the brunette that fancied him was far better looking.

Not a great film but an enjoyable one if only for the nostalgia, just don't watch it expecting it to be about the northern soul scene as such, two quick examples to that, the dance off at the end was embarrassing and not something you'd have seen at Wigan, same with someone spinning on their back, but it is a harmless ninety minutes if you want an easy film to watch.

Bundy: A Legacy of Evil (2009 Video)

Been Done Before and Far Better

[1/10 · 4 June 2009]

You would think with a wealth of stuff that the Bundy story gives you, that you could come up with a decent film on the subject with a different angle. The angle this one comes up with is a lack of character building, acting and coherent storyline.

From the first scene of a very unconvincing murder the alarm bells should have been ringing stop watching now. Then we are treated to a "young" Bundy who is the oldest High School boy in history and the conversation with his young girlfriend is laughable, especially when she says she wants her secret to be out, the secret being she is seeing a younger man. Younger man? It was embarrassing, it looked like she was dating her teacher or worse still, her dad, and the acting like a coy High Schoolboy was cringeworthy.

There is a scene in a Seattle Call Centre which should have come with a free sick bucket for the lines that followed two minutes of Bundy on the phone to a suicidal depressive, telling him to "get in your car and go for a drive, wherever you want to go...." They tried to paint him as some all American hero.

To be honest, after forty minutes you are hoping the police get a tip off and change history to catch him early, followed by a quick confession and jail sentence so we can all pack up and go home. Obviously this doesn't happen so you hope for some more quick clips and a decent court case. You get neither, just a hotch potch of Bundy standing up his first girlfriend after proposing to her, revenge for how she dropped him and then a drawn out murder scene in a school dormitory.

The judge uses the actual words that sentenced Bundy to death, but we didn't get the chance to see any of this great lawyer in action, just a few minutes of him glorying in his "work" as he makes the detective describe in detail the scene he met at the dormitory Bundy had killed and attacked a number of young girls in.

The only time tension starts to build is at the end towards the death scene, but as the tension starts, it's over before it's got going and leaves you feeling short changed. I'm not saying a long drawn out execution is the order of the day, but some build up would be nice.

There was also no explanation of the truth at the end, no write up about what happened during Bundy's time. I realise that the story is well known but there is a new generation that isn't aware of him or his history. Unfortunately they will not learn anything from this film.

If you want to see a better attempt at the Bundy legacy, try the made for TV two part NBC film Deliberate Stranger.

One-Eyed Horse (2008)

Now I like a Good Western

[1/10 · 8 April 2009]

But I didn't like this.

Think of an Am Dram Society that aren't that good. Then put them into scenes with just about every clichéd Western moment you can think of. Edit the film by using a pair of scissors then sticking the bits you want back together with sellotape and you have this film.

We are even treated to the scene in the theater where the local "cowboys" are shooting their guns at the ceiling because they enjoyed the act!!

I have tried hard to find something positive to say about this but I am sorry I am unable to.

If you like a good Western. Don't bother with this.

Crime Spree (2003)

Thoroughly Enjoyed

[9/10 · 8 April 2009]

I saw this without knowing what to expect.

It had me laughing from the first lines. I can't believe some of the bad comments that have been made about this film.

It has been likened to another film, which I have also seen but I preferred this, yes there were likenesses but not to the tune of what some claim.

Crime Spree had some very funny moments, more than most films and Depardieu's facial expressions were excellent.

Basically a group of incompetent French crooks muck up a heist and are sent to America by a Parisean crime boss for one big job to make up for it. They just get into more and more problems, and the more they try to get out of a scrape, the deeper they get and somehow manage to get into yet another one.

If you want a decent comedy to spend an evening with, I recommend this one.

I.D. (1995)

Waste of good idea

[1/10 · 8 March 2009]

On the face of it,a team of police officers going undercover in a local firm together evidence and one of them getting the buzz for the violence is a good idea.

Put into practice by this film, the idea is completely wasted.

Having read some of the comments about this film ie how it shows what goes on at an unfashionable London club proves how such a badly researched film can be dangerous in giving a false idea of football and it's followers, well or badly behaved.

I support an unfashionable London club and can say that even in the really bad old days it was nothing like this. I thought Green Street was a bad enough inaccurate portrayal but this pushed the limits of belief just too far.

The "firm" just didn't look the part, and the scenes in the pub were just surreal to be polite. What on earth was going on with the fire eater? And who wrote the chants? Why not just use real chants? We are expected to believe that one of the under covers lives on the manor with a wife in the police who goes to work from home in uniform? Is he going to make such a mistake that his thug mates are not going to see this or pop round unexpectedly? The film is so full of holes it is incredible. I can't believe some think this is so true to life! Whoever researched this appears to have just read Daily Mail type exaggerated reports to scare middle England and used that as their ideas of how it is or was. Well it is and never was anything like this.

The film is absolute junk and not worth the talents of some of the people in it.

Clubbed (2008)

Just Loved It

[9/10 · 16 January 2009]

To be honest, I reckon this knocks spots off any Guy Richie gangland type film. This is British Cinema at it's best and I was left wanting the film to just go on longer. The way it finishes with a blast of Bob Relf's northern soul number Blowing my Mind to Pieces just left you feeling excited about what had gone before. Yes it is brutal in places, funny too, as well as genuinely scary, not scary in the horror film type way but in the scared for the main characters. Brilliantly acted, the soundtrack of decent soul, Gwen Guthrie's Keep the Fire's Burning, Chic's Everybody Dance and even Willie Tee's One Way Street and the fact I found myself caring about the characters kept me hooked on the film right from the beginning. I can't recommend this film enough if you like a good hard film, well constructed with plenty of nostalgia thrown in.

1968 Tunnel Rats (2008)

Not a Great Film by any Means

[2/10 · 23 November 2008]

This film was based on true events and if the US soldiers were as badly trained and stupid as this outfit are portrayed, then it's a wonder they didn't lose the war sooner.

For example,we see two soldiers standing over a hole while comrades are below and these two soldiers see the VC coming. Do they find cover from which to fight behind? Nope one stands up swinging a big machine gun one handed arnie style shouting at them. They have a camp in the middle of the jungle and the VC attack, right from the first tent. How on earth would they have gotten that close to a base camp? No fences or guards on duty that day? Please. Then the CO calls for immediate air support as they are being over-run, been over-run would have been more like it. The immediate air support didn't turn up until later when everybody had gone home, had they flown all the way from America? You felt absolutely no sympathy with the characters, we had just about every clichéd character you could think of except the chirpy cockney and the scouse scallywag. They tried to build backgrounds and personalities to the characters but failed miserably, maybe because it was done very lazily, ie having two actors discuss all the characters for our benefit while they eat. The conversation just doesn't seem real.

It is a shame because the film started well and the scene in the tunnels involving the mother and kids was genuinely tense but it seemed so out of place with the rest of the film which was, badly acted to say the least. I seem to remember the excellent Tour of Duty TV series covering this subject in one episode and they managed to fit in more tension and understanding of these terrifying tunnels in a fifty minute programme than this film managed.

I just kept thinking that 1968 Tunnel Rats was like a bad horror film where the goodies (in this case the tunnel rats)were being picked off one by one by the evil monster (the VC) in different and more nasty ways and the only mystery was who is the one that is going to survive? Is it the guy that believes God will protect him? The CO that is nasty to his men as a way of protecting them and preparing them for the nasties of war etc?

Birthrite (2008 Video)

Awful in All Departments

[1/10 · 26 July 2008]

No siljwood you are not going mad, this truly is an awful film.

This isn't a case of straight to video, more like straight to landfill.

The acting is well below par, although Megan and Brent Dowd at least change the tone of their voices once in a while to put some attempts at acting in, the rest of the cast all speak in the same monotones whether they are trying to be kind or nasty. It's just all so flat and doesn't work. There is no expression whatsoever in any of the acting. The tension doesn't build at all and the violent scenes are not convincing in the least, when momma or Charlie hit out with lumps of wood they may as well be using lumps of sugar for all the effort they put into it, and momma was about as scary as Fred Flintstone. I really wanted this to be an under-rated little gem and give it a good write up, unfortunately the only good thing I can say about it was the scenery was nice. People may have put a lot of hard work into this for little or no pay but I can think of many that would do a better acting job for nothing.

I sincerely wish Mark well with his next venture and hope to be able to give him more positive feedback, he seems a decent enough bloke just wanting honest opinions and sounds like he is willing to listen to honest constructive comments on his work.

Felon (2008)

Is It Me?

[1/10 · 20 July 2008]

I cannot understand the fuss being made about this film.

It starts well enough making you very empathetic towards the lead character Wade Porter who reacts to a situation in the way we all like to think we would. The system then takes control of things and his life is changed forever.

There are some strong performances here, Stephen Dorf and Marisol Nichols cannot be faulted but they are not working with much to be honest.

The storyline stretches the imagination a little too far and our naive and scared newbie to the system suddenly becomes a world beater and face to be reckoned with overnight.

The final scenes seemed rushed to me, no real build up to breaking the system, just a sudden suggestion that if made earlier could have saved us all from wasting a fair amount of time.

The marks I've given this film are just for the film, as I said the performances from the main roles was good including Perrineau who I liked in Oz too.