thrillers
Black Bear review - unexpected knotty treatMonday, 26 April 2021
We’ve all experienced the “fast food film” – enjoyable while we watch it, but realise afterwards it was an empty thrill with little nutritional value. Much rarer is the film that can only be truly appreciated once the credits roll. Black Bear, with... Read more... |
Night in Paradise review - lukewarm bloodbathSunday, 11 April 2021
Since launching his directing career in 2011 with The Showdown, Park Hoon-jung has established himself as a promising devotee of the bloody gangster genre. The pandemic may have slowed the South Korean director’s momentum, as the producers were... Read more... |
Blu-ray: I Start CountingSunday, 04 April 2021
Released in 1970, David Greene’s I Start Counting is as much an examination of childhood innocence as a psychological thriller. Fans of 1960s architecture will also find plenty to enjoy - never has Bracknell looked so good on film, with starring... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Silent ActionTuesday, 30 March 2021
Silent Action makes for a snappier title than the original La polizia accusa: il Servizio Segreto uccide, though the frenzied action in Sergio Martino’s 1975 thriller is anything but silent. The film opens with the grisly murders of three Italian... Read more... |
The Flight Attendant, Sky One review - first-class entertainmentSaturday, 27 March 2021
“I get to see all these beautiful places and look passengers right in the eye and say the word trash.” Meet Cassie Bowden (the excellent Kaley Cuoco), flight attendant on Imperial Atlantic Airways. In firm denial about her alcohol problem, she... Read more... |
The One, Netflix review - the downside of scientific matchmakingThursday, 18 March 2021
Readers of John Marrs’s 2017 novel The One should probably look away now, since Netflix’s dramatisation of the story bears scant resemblance to the book. The basic premise – that a corporation has invented a method of DNA testing which can match... Read more... |
Blu-ray: CharadeTuesday, 16 March 2021
Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant in Paris in the summer: Charade was the last word in old Hollywood’s glamorous cool. It was almost the last word for Grant, feeling if not looking his age. Its tricksy, trapdoor plot, with a baffled Hepburn hunted for a... Read more... |
Deutschland 89, Channel 4 review - the Wall comes down, what next?Saturday, 06 March 2021
Joerg and Anna Winger’s gripping drama of East Germany, a loose portrait set over the final decade of that country’s existence, has reached its culmination, and this first episode of Deutschland 89 landed us right in the unpredictable maelstrom of... Read more... |
Courttia Newland: A River Called Time review - an ethereality checkTuesday, 05 January 2021
It is near impossible to imagine what the world would look like today if slavery and colonialism had never existed, let alone to write a book on the subject. Courttia Newland sets himself this daunting task in his latest novel, A River Called Time.... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Le Cercle RougeTuesday, 08 December 2020
Misdirection is at the heart of Le Cercle Rouge. The Buddhist quote that opens Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1970 thriller – "when men, even unknowingly, are to meet one day… they will inevitably come together in the red circle” – is fake, written by... Read more... |
Cordelia review – Antonia Campbell-Hughes and Johnny Flynn star in an off-kilter tale of traumaFriday, 23 October 2020
There's something deeply uncanny about Adrian Shergold's Cordelia. When the film's poster was released on social media, many mistook it for a kinky period drama with the power dynamics reversed. It definitely isn't a costume drama, but... Read more... |
The Best Films Out NowMonday, 05 October 2020
There are films to meet every taste in theartsdesk's guide to the best movies currently on release. In our considered opinion, any of the titles below is well worth your attention.Enola Holmes ★★★★ Millie Bobby Brown gives the patriarchy what-for in... Read more... |
