I'm not posting my reviews every week now since the site traffic is so low. I'll just post a few together maybe each month or so.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) dir George Roy Hill
The first of two films watch the weekend after the death of Robert Redford.
Probably Redford's most famous role, and the one that gave the name to the film festival he founded. Paul Newman and Robert Redford star in the title roles, loosely based on the true story of two wild west outlaws in the 19th – early 20th century. After a series of train robberies they find them selves on the run from a team of lawmen with an expert tracker. The decide to go to Bolivia, with Sundance's Spanish speaking girlfriend played by Kathrine Ross, who for me outshines the two highly talent male leads at times. It's a great story, light-hearted at times, and with plenty of the sort of shoot-outs you expect in a Western. There's a very good score by Burt Bacharach, including the song Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head and some impressive cinematography with the opening and some later scenes shot in a very old-style black and white. The story is in some ways reminiscent of that between Arthur and Dutch in RDR2, they even mention wanting to go to Australia after they've done with Bolivia.
9 / 10
The Great Gatsby (1974) dir Jack Clayton.
The second Redford film, this watched with my wife so one more to her liking, but one I remember seeing manty years ago and it always seemed another iconic role for him that he was very well suited to. He plays the tile character in an adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald tragic novel of the same name. Jay Gatbsy is a mysterious, reclusive, millionaire living in his New York mansion where he throws lavish parties throughout the summer, sometime in the early 1920s. The story is told, mainly, from the point of view of a young Wall Str. banker, Nick (Sam Waterson), who is renting a normal sized house next to Gatsby's estate. His cousin Daisy (Mia Farrow) is Gatsby's long lost love and now lives with her husband Tom (Bruce Dearn), also a millionaire, in another estate nearby, across the bay that separates the fictitious Long Island villages of West and East Egg. The story of what happened in the past between Gatsby and Daisy, before the then Lt. Gatsby went off to fight in the First World War, slowly unfolds. It implies Daisy only married Tom for his money which Gatsby, at that time, did not have much of, and now she may be regretting it. In fact how Gatsby acquired his money is never really clear and he tells different people contradictory stories about it, but given this is the time of prohibition there is a strong suspicion he may not have acquired it all legally. There is also a connected plot line about Tom's mistress, Myrtle (Karen Black), something he barely bothers to try and hide, who is the wife of local mechanic / gas-station owner, played by Scott Wilson, who to me puts in the best acting performance of a very good cast, as a troubled, poor, man lacking in self-confidence and knowing he is powerless against the likes of the ultra-rich Tom and Gatsby. Having said all that, I should make it clear the story definitely portrays Gatsby as the good guy to Tom's villain. It has some very stylish sets and costumes and good Jazz-era music (which it got Oscar nominations and wins for). Redford is very good, but that was par for the course with him, although he is barely in the first half hour of the film.
8 / 10
Mindhorn (2016) dir Sean Foley
Julian Barratt, more well known in TV comedy, plays middle aged actor, Richard Thorncroft, who's only real claim to fame was back in the 80s when he had a hit TV show playing detective Mindhorn. He gets asked to help police with a murder investigation because the deranged killer was a big fan, seems to think Mindhorn was real and is threatening to kill again unless he gets to talk to his hero. It's all set on the Isle of Man where the TV series was set and filmed. (The Isle of Man is a part of the British Isles in the sea between Britain and Ireland with some degree of autonomy but not actually an independent country. It has bit of a reputation for people who are a bit strange. But they don't seem to mind playing up to that stereo type for comedy value.) Thorncroft goes back to the island, and being a “serious” actor, really gets back into and stays in his character, ending up trying to solve the case himself. Barratt is perfect for this role, he is the sort of person who does a funny character in a slightly weird but trying to be normal way, so either that's actually him in real life or he only does those sort of roles. There's good support from various others, including Essie Davis, Steve Coogan and Simon Farnaby, all playing people who used to be in Mindhorn but, unlike Thorncroft, stayed on the Isle of Man after the show finished. Andrea Riseborough is a good as the actual detective and Russell Tovey as the killer (or is he? - Thorncroft/Mindhorn aims to get to the truth!) Also Kenneth Branagh and Simon Callow make cameo appearances as themselves. It's obviously a comedy and not to be taken seriously at all with some moments I found very funny. It pokes fun at 70s/80s cop shows. The plot has a habit of appearing to go in quite predictable directions, but then making a twist to somewhere else, so I would say it was well written, by Barratt and Farnaby.
7 / 10
The Thursday Murder Club (2025) dir Chris Columbus
My wife's choice of film, and one I was happy to go along with since this was adapted from the novel of the same name by Richard Osman. I haven't read that, but I enjoy his wit and intelligence in his TV appearances, e.g. quiz/game shows he presents. So I expected a decent plo, but I was disappointed and a little bored at times. I don't know how closely the plot follows the novel of course, but I can only comment on the film. This has a very good cast that seemed wasted on the material they had to work with. Helen Miren, Celia Imre, Ben Kinglsey and Peirce Brosnan play residents of a retirement community who get together each Thursday to play at being detectives and try to solve some real police cold-cases that they get access to via a previous member of the club who used to be a detective. Then there is a real murder following an argument between the community owner, David Tennant, and a builder, Geoff Bell, who did much of the development work, linked to a mysterious gangster played by Richard E. Grant. The Club befriend a real police woman, Naomi Ackie, somehow managing to get her assigned to the murder case along side the chief detective, Daniel Mays, so she can keep them informed and they can assist using their detective skills which appear to be far superior to those of the actual police. That aspect of the plot was the first thing I found a bit hard to take. If this was much more of a comedy with a bumbling, complete incompetent of a detective then it would have made sense. But although this is not to be taken too seriously, it definitely seemed more light hearted drama with the occasional laugh than an actual comedy to me (maybe I just did not get the jokes?). The detective there to be poked fun at and he makes mistakes, but they don't do it enough to make it that sort of comedy. There were some other plot elements I won't go into that also just seemed too implausible as well. Even my wife said it was the sort of thing that seemed better suited to an episode of a TV detective show, like Midsomer Murders, than a 2 hour film. It's a bit overly sentimental for me as well, with side plots about the elderly main characters and their friends and relatives (including Jonathan Pryce as Mirren's husband), some of whom are suffering from dementia and other conditions associated with ageing. I don't have anything against that, but to me they are subjects for a more serious film than this. And again there were plot elements drawn from this that just did not make sense to me. It's almost like it didn't know whether it wanted to be comedy or drama and ended up not doing either that well.
4 / 10
Freaks – Du bist eine von uns (2020) dir Felix Binder
(English; Freaks – You're One of Us)
An interesting German film about a young mother, Wendy (Cornelia Gröshel), who discovers she has super powers. It's not a super hero film, nothing like the many recent such Holywood films. There's not that much in the way of special effects, and although one of Wendy's fellow “Freaks” wants to use his powers as super hero, that is not what happens. It's more about how it would change your every day life, if you did suddenly get the power of super human strength, become invincible or have the power to create and harness electricity from your finger tips. For example in one scene Wendy is playing football with her son and kicks the ball too hard, sending it soaring up into the sky at immense speed, travelling far, far away from their back garden, clearly relieved he did not try to catch it! And when she tries to think of ways she could make some desperately needed money from her powers, she realises that other than using them illegally, e.g. for breaking and entering, there isn't really anything. There's a secretive organisation that have been monitoring Wendy and the others since childhood, giving them drugs supposedly for mental health problems that are actually to cancel out their powers and holding some against their will in a psychiatric hospital. It's after an encounter with a homeless man who recognises that Wendy, like him, has superpowers, that she stops taking her prescribed medicine and unlocks her powers. She then does the same for a work colleague she recognises is one of them and all three of them try to rescue other Freaks from the hospital. It's a decent enough, low budget film. The acting is OK, but nothing more was required. The script was a little repetitive at times and I felt it ended at the right time, after about 90 mins. Had they tried to make it longer I think I could have lost interest. It does seem like the ending is a setup for a sequel or maybe a TV series, but as far as I can see neither of those have been made.
6 / 10
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