Author: Alistair Nunn

Conclave (2024)

Papal boardroom politics combine with detective mystery in this engaging mix of high- and low-brow

Director: Edward Berger

Cast: Ralph Fiennes (Cardinal Thomas Lawrence), Stanley Tucci (Cardinal Aldo Bellini), John Lithgow (Cardinal Joseph Tremblay), Sergio Castellitto (Cardinal Goffredo Tedesco), Isabella Rossellini (Sister Agnes), Lucian Msamati (Cardinal Joshua Adeyemi), Carlos Diehz (Cardinal Vincent Benitez), Brian F. O’Byrne (Monsignor Raymond O’Malley), Jacek Koman (Archbishop Janusz Wozniak)

Few things have changed as little over 500 years than the election of a pope. Sure, they didn’t need to take away the phones of the Borgias and Medicis, but the idea of locking away the Princes of the Church in the Sistine Chapel until the Holy Spirit guides them towards choosing the next Heir to the Throne of St Peter hasn’t changed. But then neither (probably) has the ruthless politicking and barely concealed ambition of the cardinals (after all some were Borgias and Medicis!), many having dreamt their whole lives of moulding the Church into the shape they believe He wants it to be.

Politicking and spiritual and moral struggles with the temptations of ambition are at the heart of this excellent adaptation of Robert Harris’ novel. After the pope dies, Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), Dean of the College of Cardinals, is responsible for organising the new Papal Conclave. Lawrence, struggling with doubts whose request to resign was recently rejected by the Pope, is part of the moderate wing and a supporter of Cardinal Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci). The other major candidates are conservative Canadian Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow) and ultra-traditionalists Italian Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto) and Nigerian Cardinal Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati). Lawrence slowly discovers severe reasons to doubt the suitability of all these candidates – while the number of cardinals suggesting he himself might be a suitable candidate grows.

Conclave is a very enjoyable dive into the mysterious world of papal politics. Part of its appeal is seeing that, under the mystery of centuries-old practices, elaborate robes and beautiful artworks, the struggle to elect a pope is a highly political business. Things ain’t changed that much since the Borgias, as various sexual, financial and other scandals crop up to scupper the chances of one candidate after another. As per 15^th-century papal tradition, take away those flowing robes and lapses into Latin, and this is a cut-throat boardroom succession struggle that leaves more than a few reputations in ruins (and it ain’t going to be easy – even the late pope’s signet ring only comes off his finger after a rough-handed struggle).

In fact, Conclave works as well as it does because it’s a sort of Succession meets Father Brown, a brilliantly paced and staged merging of high-brow settings with pulpy page-turner thrills. At its heart is a superb performance by Ralph Fiennes as Cardinal Lawrence. Softly-spoken, Lawrence is dutiful, decent and diligent – and plagued with doubts about everything from his faith to his ambition, with permanently sad eyes, full of world-weary resignation. At one point Lawrence stares up at The Last Judgement, his eyes catching a man twisting in torment: he knows how he’s feeling. Unlike all the other cardinals, dripping with certainty, he’d rather be anywhere but there.

Lawrence becomes Father Brown, the quiet, level-headed priest going the extra mile to sniff out wrong-doing. As his concerns about many of his fellow cardinals emerge, he goes to rule-bending lengths to confirm these suspicions – and part of the delight of Conclave is how entertainingly it plays out murder mystery conventions alongside its papal shenanigans. Lawrence carries out his dogged investigation with an earnest sense of duty but what’s great about Fiennes’ performance is that he also manages to suggest the possibly of guilty ambition underneath. After all, Lawrence is a cardinal too, right? Why can’t he have a crack at being the Holy Father?

Lawrence has moments of temptation when the Holy See is dangled before him. Part of Conclave’s argument is that power is best suited to those most reluctant to carry it. Lawrence is one of the most reluctant among the papal players – but even he isn’t immune to guilty temptation. When he opens the concave with an off-the-cuff speech on moral conduct, is it subconsciously to establish his leadership? When he very publicly exposes one candidate’s misdeeds, is a side benefit demonstrating his own virtue? Conclave tracks Lawrence’s vote every time – and when he is tempted to vote for himself, an act of seemingly divine intervention takes place to almost tick him off.

It’s said at one point all cardinals have thought about their papal name. Lawrence shrugs this off, but later unhesitatingly gives an answer. Perhaps the only cardinal who hasn’t really thought about it is Cardinal Benitez (Carlos Diehz, wonderfully serene), secretly appointed Cardinal of Kabul by the late pope, a man almost alone in thinking this is a quest to find the holiest. The rest? They could probably tell their regnal names without thinking. And unlike Lawrence, they are certain about everything: from their own suitability to how pleased God will be when they land it.

Peter Straughan’s sharp and intelligent script gives an array of opportunities for excellent character actors (Conclave would make a good play). Sergio Castellitto’s scene-stealingly bombastic Tedesco, forever vaping when not growling about how chucking the Latin Mass was the end-of-days, can’t imagine he won’t win. It’s a trait he shares with Lucien Msamati’s Adeyemi, although Msamati finds a vulnerable humility that makes Adeyemi’s eventual downfall surprisingly affecting. Lithgow’s imperious Tremblay drips with arrogance (his eventual comeuppance sees Lithgow brilliantly deflate like a pricked balloon). Stanley Tucci is brilliant as the charming, morally upright Bellini who then surprises even himself with how fiercely ambitious he is.

Berger sets all this in a brilliantly oppressive setting, for all the beauty on the walls around them. Berger superbly conveys the isolation of the conclave, lit almost entirely artificially in heartless hotel rooms (that feel like monastic jails) and a fluorescent-lit canteen. The sound design is a massive part of this, the rooms devoid of ambient sound, just a crushingly deadened stillness. Frequently Lawrence’s breathing fills the soundtrack, giving the film a confessional feeling. It all means the late on surprise sound of a gust of wind carries the same impact for us as it does the cardinals.

Male voices dominate in the Vatican, so it’s telling Conclave deliberately undercuts this by giving one of its standout moments to Isabella Rossellini’s primly professional Sister Agnes. Like the other nuns staffing the conclave, she barely speaks – meaning when she does, it seizes the viewer’s attention as much as she does the crowd of cardinals. The flaws of this world return in the film’s final (slightly forced) twist, which helps question how much the alpha-male clashes between these papal academics may have shaped the atmosphere of the Church, and not for the better.

Conclave is tightly directed film, and a great adaptation of a page-turning novel with a faultless cast brilliantly led by Ralph Fiennes. It mixes pomp and ceremony with a fascinatingly tense struggle for power, made all the more gripping that in the parade of languages we hear (and all the cardinals can switch easily from English to Latin to Italian to Spanish) the language of power and ambition is constant but unspoken – and when it is explicitly stated, it has a devastating impact on those who use it. It’s a great touch in an entertaining and engaging film.

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Laughton’s only masterpiece is a fairy-tale, stuffed with beautiful images and dreamlike logic

Director: Charles Laughton

Cast: Robert Mitchum (Harry Powell), Shelley Winters (Willa Harper), Lillian Gish (Miss Rachel Cooper), James Gleason (Uncle Birdie), Evelyn Varden (Icey Spoon), Don Beddoe (Walt Spoon), Billy Chapin (John Harper), Sally Jane Bruce (Pearl Harper), Gloria Castilo (Ruby), Peter Graves (Ben Harper)

Few films have had their critical reputation change quite as much as The Night of the Hunter. When released, its reception from film critics and audiences was so negative that the crushing disappointment saw director Charles Laughton decide his debut would also be his last film. Flash forward seventy years and it’s now hailed as one of the great American films, a pictorial masterpiece. The Night of the Hunter sits alongside Citizen Kane as the classic film unappreciated in its day.

Adapted from Davis Grubb’s best-selling novel, it follows the nightmareish experiences of young John Harper (Billy Chapin) and his sister Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce). These kids witness their father Ben (Peter Graves) dragged away by the cops to imprisonment and execution – but not before he’s hidden $10,000 in Pearl’s doll and sworn them both to secrecy. Word about the money gets out: it’s why sinister ‘Preacher’ Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) arrives and starts a-courting their mother Willa (Shelley Winters). After swiftly disposing of Willa, Powell turns his attentions to the kids – who flee down river, eventually coming under the protective wing of kindly widower Rachel Cooper (Lilian Gish) and her brood of young waifs and strays. Is it far enough though to escape Powell’s clutches?

The Night of the Hunter plays out like a fairy tale. Its images are full of the magic of the countryside and mysticism of nature. It frequently, deliberately, uses artificial sets and locations to create a dream-like state. It’s got a classic monster its heart, with Powell a demonic force-of-nature. It follows a pair of children on a journey reminiscent of Hansel and Gretel. There is a kindly old woman and a moral message of the importance of love, family, faith and loyalty. Everything in it feels, to various degrees, heightened. This is Southern drama via Hans Christian Anderson.

I wonder if that’s what threw people off on release. I’d agree that the film’s opening – Lilian Gish’s face superimposed over a starry night sky (followed by a cut of five kids heads superimposed over the same sky raptly listening) – might tee us up for the film’s mood, but looks and feels kitsch. The moments where Laughton deliberately aims at heightened, almost cartoonish, reality push the envelope of what you can accept – why does Powell, at one point, chase the kids up a flight of stairs, hands stretched out before him like he’s in a live action Tom & Jerry cartoon? Stumble onto The Night of the Hunter unwarned about its fantastical grounding and melodrama and it must look and feel odd, bizarre and even a bit laughable.

But it’s these same qualities that have made the film last. Laughton created a film of magical force and power, crammed with striking, imaginative images and beautiful sequences that tip between dream and reality. Its real heart lies in the children’s escape down the river, a remarkable sequence as the camera follows the boat drifting down an obviously artificial river, the children asleep as it glides past spider’s webs, frogs and other wildlife. From a film that opens with the aggressive arrest of the Harper’s dad, this burst of Where the Wild Things Are mysticism intentionally feels like we are crossing into a completely different world, let alone movie. But it’s also part of the film’s striking originality and quirky memorability. Few things look conventionally ‘real’ – in fact, like the farmhouse the kids stop at overnight in their long drift down river it feels even intentionally artificial – but it also gives the film a timeless, poetic feeling.

It’s a beautiful sequence in a film stuffed with them. Laughton worked closely with cinematographer Stanley Cortez and several sequences are awash with poetic visual flourishes inspired by some of the great German silent cinema of the 1920s. Who can forget the visually stunning shot of Willa’s body in a car at the bottom of the river, her hair flowing in matching waves with the weeds around her (possibly the most beautiful image of death in the movies)? From the countryside shots that bring back memories of Murnau’s Sunrise to striking sets that seem to have emerged from The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. Most striking is the high-ceiling, Church-like set that is Powell and Willa’s bedroom, a shadow-laden expressionist nightmare. The scene is played with the same carefully choreographed expressionist force, from Mitchum’s vivid gestures to Winter’s corpse-like resting.

Death comes from Mitchum’s Preacher, one of the great monsters in cinema. With those famous ‘Love’ and ‘Hate’ tattoos, Mitchum makes the role truly terrifying. Mitchum kept up a studied public contempt for acting, but he immerses himself in Preacher in a way he did with few other roles. He makes him horrifyingly charming (he wins adult confidences easily) and his smooth gravel-voice and masculine bearing are both imposing and intimidating. But Mitchum also embraced the weirdness, the psychopathy of a man who murders without a second thought while keeping up a private conversation with the Lord. Preacher is an animalistic demon wrapped up in human skin – he lets out the most bizarre, piercing screams when foiled or injured – twisting his body into unsettling shapes before his misdeeds or letting his eyes boil with anger and disgust (most particularly at sex, something he seems to find repulsive and fascinating).

It’s an extraordinary, terrifying, monstrous performance unlike almost everything else in Mitchum’s career in its willingness to go to such twisted, eccentric, unnatural extremes. Mitchum credited Laughton as his finest director – and Laughton’s skill with actors is clear from all the performances. Shelley Winters’ has rarely been better in a role she skilfully downplays, as an unhappy woman, desperate for redemption, forced to feel ashamed of her desires. The two children are very good, in particular Chapin’s frequently raw panic and trauma and determination. The rest of the cast is stuffed with striking, Dickensian pen portraits, performances of striking eccentricity.

These performances fit within the magical realism of the film in a film that is as stylised as this. Again, I can’t imagine that audiences at the time – used to blockbusters, shot on gloriously realistic locations – were ready for something that aped so strongly the artistic flourishes of silent cinema. But it works spectacularly for a film about a children’s semi-magical quest into the wilderness. It’s hard to think of another film that leans so completely into such an aesthetic unreality as this one – even the town the kids eventually escape to feels like it’s a movie set rather than a real place.

The film’s final act in the home of Miss Rose Cooper is not as strong as those before. There is something rather po-faced and self-satisfied about the slightly clumsy moral message of finding faith and goodness which feels rather twee and disappointing considering the gothic film we’ve just watched. The film’s final sequence, on a peaceful Christmas day, belongs in a more conventional film (even though you could argue it’s also a conventional fairy tale ending). Much as I enjoy several moments of Lillian Gish’s performance as a tough old woman – like a shot-gun wielding Whistler’s Mother – the shift of focus away from Preacher’s demonic schemes feels like a loss.

The Night of the Hunter, for me, isn’t the complete masterpiece it’s sometimes hailed as – there are clumsy moments (I would agree the Tom & Jerry Preacher chase feels tonally out of place, and neither the opening or closing is strong), but it’s also filled with moments of pure cinematic magic – and has a performance from Mitchum that is one for the ages. Its imagery is beautiful, it’s tone mostly perfect and its imagination limitless. The greatest sadness about watching it is that Laughton never directed again – based on this, imagine how good his next film might have been?

The Taking of Pelham 123 (1974)

Effective thrills on a well made heist drama with some interesting social points to make

Director: Joseph Sargent

Cast: Walter Matthau (Lt. Zachary Garber), Robert Shaw (Mr. Blue), Martin Balsam (Mr. Green), Héctor Elizondo (Mr. Grey), Earl Hindman (Mr. Brown), James Broderick (Denny Doyle), Dick O’Neill (Correll), Lee Wallace (Mayor), Tony Roberts (Warren LaSalle), Jerry Stiller (Lt. Rico Patrone), Rudy Bond (Police Commissioner), Julius Harris (Inspector Daniels)

Colour coded crooks carry out a crime? Tarantino was clearly a fan of The Taking of Pelham 123. And who can blame him? This is exactly the sort of well-constructed, entertaining thriller Hollywood used to churn out so well. It even manages to mix its cunning crooks with more than a bit of cynical social commentary on the contemporary mess that was New York. It’s grimy, surprisingly hard-edged but with a lean slice of black humour: you can see why it’s a bit of a cult classic.

On the New York City subway, a gang of determined, efficient criminals take control of the front car of downtown train ‘Pelham 1-2-3’ (a train name now banned in New York due to copycat fears!). They are led by polite but utterly ruthless Mr Blue (Robert Shaw) and include nervous train-expert Mr Green (Martin Balsam), loyal Mr Brown (Earl Hindman) and trigger-happy Mr Grey (Hector Elizondo). Their demands are simple: $1million dollars (such humble ambitions these days!) in one hour, or they execute one of their 18 hostages every minute. And no negotiation, no matter how much City Transit Police cop Zachary Garber (Walter Matthau) might try over the radio. With the crooks seemingly having thought of everything, can Garber stop playing catch-up and work out their plan?

You only need to look at the popularity of Die Hard to see what guilty pleasure there is in fanatically prepared criminals trying to get away with it. The Taking of Pelham 123 has all of this. Blue’s team is professional, prepared and have anticipated everything. From calmly telling the passengers how futile any escape attempt would be, to anticipating every single action of the authorities, to delivering (with fatal results) on every one of their promises, these guys have the sort of competence we always sneakly admire in film. Match that with Mr Blue’s strangely samurai-like sense of honour (he’ll keep every deal he makes, despises anger and sadism and respects worthy opponents – even while he emotionlessly executes a hostage) and a bit of you will root for the criminals to get away with it. Right up to, of course, when they start to deliver on their fatal promises.

Of course, it helps that The Taking of Pelham 123 takes some intriguingly sharp pops at the forces ranged against the criminals. The mayor’s ineffectiveness is underlined by having him spend virtually the entire film in bed with a stinking cold. His decision about what to do hinges on how many votes he might get. He resents going to the scene, complaining he’ll get booed (guess what happens!) and is frequently brow-beaten by his more accomplished deputy. When he whines about where they are going to raise the money from (stop to remember for a second what a bankrupt, crime-ridden, mess New York was at the time) it’s even suggested (half-jokingly) he considers cleaning out one of his Swiss bank accounts. Around them many members of the police are heavy-handed, trigger-happy and frequently flustered by the relentless deadlines while the main representative of the train network sees the risk of 18 deaths as an irritating obstacle to an efficient transport system.

This has all been factored into the criminal’s plans. Ask for a big amount, but not so big that the authorities find it politically impossible to deliver. Give a deadline that is achievable but too short to allow anyone the time to make a plan. Count on the general disorganisation of the system being your best ally. Yup The Taking of Pelham 123 is a very 70s crime thriller, when cynical expectations about the efficiency and honesty of the authorities is crucial to the scheme!

Naturally, in a world like this, an awkward looking, scruffy maverick is our hero. Walter Matthau is the man you call for – particularly when the villain is Robert Shaw at his most smooth, clipped and articulate. Matthau’s homespun wisdom and gut instincts are, of course, the only thing the villains haven’t anticipated. It’s Garber’s focus on the people – as opposed to the obsession everyone else has about saving face and passing the buck – that marks him out: that and his authority-shirking cynicism and complete lack of interest in work-place turf battles.

The Taking of Pelham 123 barrels along from there with surprising efficiency and a little dark humour. Some of this humour is even – rather bravely – at the characters own lazy assumptions. One of Garber’s most knuckle-dragging colleagues is seemingly unable to comprehend the idea of a female police-officer. Garber himself isn’t immune: his increasingly rude handling of a group of Japanese transport officials rebounds on him with acute embarrassment when they reveal on departure that they speak perfect English (so understood all his derogatory slurs) and, on meeting his police liaison (Julius Harris) Garber awkwardly fails to hide his astonishment at discovering the authoritative, intelligent man he’s been talking to on the radio is Black (a surprise all too clearly noted by Harris).

Whimsical humour rebounds – not least the impact of the recurring cold of an excellently world-weary and avaricious Martin Balsam’s Mr Green and Garber’s instinctive, polite Gesundheit – among the surprisingly hard-edged violence and no bullets-pulled shootings. But the main thing that ends up compelling you is trying to work out, like Garber, exactly what the criminals are planning and how they intend to get away with it. In that sense, Sargent’s film keeps itself lean, mean and focused and zeroed in on the plot details. A stripped down, always exciting entertainment.

Gladiator II (2024)

Gonzo sequel sits firmly in the shadow of the illustrious predecessor it tries to imitate time and time again

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Paul Mescal (Lucius Verus/Hanno), Pedro Pascal (Marcus Acacius), Connie Nielsen (Lucilla), Denzel Washington (Macrinus), Joseph Quinn (Emperor Geta), Fred Hechinger (Emperor Caracalla), Derek Jacobi (Gracchus), Tim McInnerny (Thraex), Alexander Karim (Ravi), Peter Mensah (Jubartha), Lior Raz (Viggo), Matt Lucas (Master of Ceremonies), Rory McGann (Tegula)

There’s nothing particularly wrong with Gladiator II. In many ways, it’s a big, silly, perfectly inoffensive swords-and-sandals flick, with the violence dialled up. But as a sequel to Gladiator – a film that married scale with a hugely relatable emotional story about one man’s quest to avenge his family and unite with them in the afterlife – it’s not even in the same league. Gladiator II’s biggest problem is that when it tries to do something different from Gladiator it usually fails and when it hues close to the original, it only reminds you what a good film that was and how you’d honestly much rather watch that again.

Gladiator II picks up 16 years after the first film. The nephew of the late Commodus, Lucius (Paul Mescal) lives with his wife in the last free city of Numidia. That ends when the city is taken by a Roman army, under the command of General Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) and Lucius’ wife is killed. Lucius, taken as a slave, of course arrives in Rome and becomes a gladiator in the service of the ambitious, unscrupulous wheeler-dealer Macrinus (Denzel Washington). Macrinus has schemes to exploit the fragile Empire, ruled by brothers Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fred Hechinger). General Acacius and his wife, Lucius’ mother Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), also plan to overthrow the Emperors. And Lucius also plans revenge against Acacius and all of Rome in that order.

Gladiator II is awash in echoes from the first film. It gives Lucius mostly the same motivation as Maximus. It opens with a big Roman battle. It rushes to get Lucius back into the Colosseum, via a few reluctant bouts in the provinces. He is accepted as a leader by the other gladiators, marshalling them like troops. Connie Nielsen gets the same plot and versions of the same “visiting the hero in prison” scenes. There is a lot of talk about the power of the mob. Hands are frequently rubbed in the dirt. The famous quotes (“Strength and honour!”) are paraded out. Lucius cos-plays as Maximus for the film’s big ending. The final scene shows a survivor searching in the dirt of the Colosseum. Just when you think the film has at least not shown us a shot of a hand stroking some wheat… Gladiator II even chucks that in. It’s a big bit of nostalgia IP dressed up as homage.

But Gladiator II only seems to understand the surface elements of what made the first film successful – not the heart. Gladiator was a very simple story: it was a film about a man who deeply loved his late wife and son, determined to carry on living until he avenged them. Sure there were plot mechanics about the future of the Empire and “The Dream of Rome” – but this was window dressing to a plot focused on very real emotions, about caring for your loved ones. Maximus was carefully crafted as an honourable, decent man, a reluctant warrior who fought because he must. This narrative simplicity is completely lost in Gladiator II, a film so awash with subplots, schemes and shady deals that it becomes hard to follow – and eventually to care – who is on whose side and why.

There are at least four competing schemes at play in Gladiator II, each fighting for screen time like rats in a trap. It’s at best a bloody stalemate. The character who emerges best from all this is Macrinus. Based on the first Moorish Emperor of Rome (a fascinating, if short-lived, figure) he’s played with a meme-courting bombast by a clearly having-fun Denzel Washington (his rolling pronunciation of the word “Pol-leetic-sah!” designed to launch a thousand GIFs). A flamboyant figure, he effectively mixes elements of both Proximo and Commodus from the first film with the larger-than-life amorality of Washington’s Alonzo Harris (if Harris was a slightly camp Roman aristocrat). Most of the film’s enjoyable moments revolve around his increasingly brazen manipulations, first of a corrupt senator (an enjoyably sleazy Tim McInnerny) then the two deranged and incompetent Emperors. Every other plotline eventually falls into the shadow of Washington’s scenery-chewing excess (by the time Macrinus is using a character’s severed head as a prop to intimidate the Senate, you realise you just have to go with it).

Gladiator II though needs to split its focus between these multitudinal plot lines, to the detriment of all of them. The emperors fiddle and feud while Rome burns. Various soldiers and senators line-up familiar plots to restore the republic. Lucius, the character we are supposed to relate to the most, is the one who starts to lose our interest. Paul Mescal does an effective job as this growling, surly figure, even if he doesn’t quite have the force to pull off his final late-act speeches. But the film rushes his elevation to leader among the gladiators so quickly it feels unearned – as well as stuffing the film with a multitude of sidekicks so anonymous they blur into one, so much so you won’t even notice (or care) when they start to bite the big one.

On top of which, Lucius zigs-zags through motivations with all the logic of a charging rhino. He goes from wishing he was dead, to fighting desperately for life, to vowing revenge on one man to suddenly changing his mind, to leading a proto-Spartacus inspired revolt to ditching the idea, to denouncing his mother and birth-right until suddenly he doesn’t, to half-heartedly resenting Macrinus to announcing he only lives to see him die, from rejecting Maximus to cos-playing him – how are we supposed to keep up with this? The fact he’s a man of very little words doesn’t help.

When he does speak it’s never particularly punchy. Scarpia’s workman-like dialogue gives him a clumsy rallying cry – “Where we are not where death is. Where death is, we are not” – which manages to be both leaden word-soup and spectacularly unrallying. The film recognises this by having Lucius ditch it late on for a rousing cry of – what else? – “Strength and honour”. Scarpia’s script, along with its muddy plotting, is full of deathly, forgettable pap; as well as riffing so determinedly on Gladiator that you’d think not a day went by in the bowels of the Colosseum without a wistful discussion about Maximus. Gladiator II also manages to pee across several ideas at the heart of Gladiator, from the potential implication that Maximus may have cheated on his wife to father Lucius (even Russell Crowe questioned that one) to the idea that at the end of the film they buried him in the Colosseum, which seems like the last thing they’d do.

In fact, I started to think that Ridley Scott’s main motivation for doing Gladiator II was to chuck in all the gonzo ideas he couldn’t make work (or find the budget for) in the first film. A fight with a mad rhino. A flooded arena full of ships (with added sharks – how these were caught and conveyed in-land to the arena just doesn’t even bear thinking about). Lucius and his fellow prisoners take on man-eating poorly-CGI’d baboons (Lucius’ position as leader largely stems from him biting one of these beasts before strangling it to death). Outside the arena, heads, hands and arms are hacked off and Scott effectively opens the film with a re-stage of the battle of Jerusalem from Kingdom of Heaven – only the siege towers this time are on ships charging the sea walls.

All of this is pretty well done, don’t get me wrong. Scott can do historical epic on screen like few others. But Gladiator II actually suggests that where he lucked out on Gladiator was keeping it simple with a strong story. Gladiator II feels something where attention has been lavished on the scale and the bombast, but that plot and character have been rushed. The film is about 15 minutes shorter than Gladiator while telling a story twice as complex, a mixture that doesn’t work well. In fact, the main feeling I had coming out from it was that I didn’t need to see it again and if I could re-watch Gladiator and pretend this didn’t exist at all, I might be a happier man. Gladiator II lives so absolutely in the shadow of its predecessor, that its flaws become more apparent through the constant invitation the viewer is made to compare and contrast them. This one won’t echo to 2030 let alone eternity.

Thor (2011)

Branagh lives his dream by making the most comic-book, bombastic Shakespeare-homage ever

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Cast: Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Natalie Portman (Dr Jane Foster), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Anthony Hopkins (Odin), Stellan Skarsgård (Dr Erik Selvig), Kat Dennings (Darcy Lewis), Clark Gregg (Phil Coulson), Rene Russo (Frigga), Colm Feore (Laufrey), Ray Stevenson (Volstagg), Idris Elba (Heimdall), Jaimie Alexander (Sif), Josh Dallas (Fandral), Tadanobu Asano (Hogun), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye)

If you’d told people after Henry V that one day Kenneth Branagh would direct a high-octane comic book movie about a Norse God who bashes things with a hammer, you’d have been laughed outta town. But Branagh was who Marvel called to launch the Thor franchise – and doncha know it turned out to be a pretty shrewd choice.

Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is the arrogant son of Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and heir to the throne of Asgard, the planet that keeps peace in the Universe. After an attempt by Asgard’s old enemies, the Frost Giants, to re-capture a stolen super-weapon, Thor leads a reckless attack on their homeworld that threatens to shatter a hard-won peace. Disappointed and furious, Odin strips Thor of his powers and banishes him to Earth, where the fallen God of Thunder must learn humility to be worthy of regaining his powers. On Earth, he falls in love with gifted scientist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), while on Asgard the realm falls under the control of his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who manipulates events to make his own claim for both the throne and their father’s love.

You can sort of see the Shakespearean bits bubbling away there. Fathers and sons, ambition and power, tragic flaws. Destiny verses desire. Loki as a mix of Edmond, Iago and Cassius. Thor as a Prince Hal earning the maturity to lead. Odin as a kindly Lear. Hell, you could see Thor washing up on the shores of New Mexico, like Twelfth Night’s Viola, forced to pretend to be something he isn’t. He even has his own mini-Falstaff, in gluttonous warrior Volstagg. It’s a heightened story of Kings and Queens, Tempest-style magic and Hamlet-style family intrigue. Marvel, of course, partly hired Branagh to bring attention to this (effectively, paying Branagh for his Shakespeare-street-cred to make an otherwise snigger-worthy concept of Norse Gods in space get taken seriously), Thor does a great job of bringing this out without drowning the fun.

And of course, for those paying attention, Branagh had been dying to do bombastic nonsense for years. Shakespeare had disguised that Branagh adored loud crashes, big bangs, showy camera work (half of Thor is done in Dutch angles, apeing comic books) and pounding soundtracks. His Hamlet is crammed with half a dozen genres, from romance to action and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein showed he could fly over the top with the best of them. But he’s also an actor’s director, and he draws performances here from Hemsworth and Hiddleston in particular that would lay the groundwork for making these two of the most popular actors in the whole damn franchise.

Thor above all does a brilliant job of making us care for a lead character initially presented as a likeable but arrogant, immature and cocky hit-first-think-later warrior, cavalier about people’s lives. There is a very funny humiliation conga inflicted upon Thor on arriving on Earth (a classic rule-of-three gag) leaving him successively tasered, tranquilised by a syringe in the ass and knocked over by reversing car. It’s a brilliant way of breaking the haughty – the Mighty Thor, who trashed an army of Frost Giants, laid low by a middle-aged doctor yanking down his hospital pants. But it all sets us on a path for caring about him, helped by how chivalrous and polite he is with Portman’s winning Dr Foster. Sure, he’s still dripping with hubris – assuming once he gets his hands on his hammer Mjolnir again, everything will be as it was – but at wider traces of humanity emerge we start to care for him.

It’s cemented by a very effective scene where Branagh proves his worth as a director of actors. After failing to lift said hammer – being, at this point, unworthy due to having not really learned anything – Thor sits alone in an interrogation room, visited by a disguised Loki. Hemsworth is very good in his scene: he suddenly makes Thor humbled, fragile, accepting his failures, not lashing out but tearfully apologising for his past behaviour, meekly asking to just be allowed to come home then bravely accepts his permanent banishment. It’s actually an effectiveportrait of overcoming hubris: Thor’s true heroism isn’t trashing Loki’s rent-a-robot that is the film’s penultimate foe. It’s accepting, in his depowered state, his role in the battle is to stay out of the way and help get people out of the way before offering his own life as a sacrifice if he will end the robot’s rampage.

If Thor, in Hemsworth’s gently sweet and funny performance, overcomes hubris, Loki succumbs to it. Tom Hiddleston’s charisma here (cemented by his excellent turn in The Avengers) helped him become Marvel’s most popular anti-hero. Like Thor, he’s a complex character: a second brother who secretly resents his brother’s prominence, wants his father’s love, learns things about his past which make him lean into his worst instincts, all to try and be what he mistakenly thinks his family wants. Hiddleston carries all this angst and tragedy with real skill, while also filling the role with wit and playfulness: it’s a great, star-making turn.

It’s a sign of the film’s surprising complexity that it’s hero and villain switch perspectives over its course. Thor starts by dreaming of destroying the Frost Giants to impress Odin while Loki counsels restraint. He ends it by making enormous personal sacrifices to protect them from a genocidal plan unleashed by Loki who wants to prove he’s as tough as Thor. The film ends not with a hero triumphant, but alone and grieving losses. It’s stuff like this that makes Thor a truly interesting, engaging film in a way other MCU outings are not.

And a lot of it comes from Branagh’s skill with actors. Thor might not offer the greatest acting challenges to the rest, but Hopkins in particular was better here than he had been for years (he credited Branagh with helping him rediscover his passion for acting) and Portman and Skarsgård bring a lot of humanity to thinly written roles. Sure, in other ways Thor is less special: it’s action set-pieces are, by and large, fairly uninspired and run-of-the-mill, the small town trashed by a robot looks and feels like a backlot stunt show, some of the comedy lands flatly. But when it focuses on the character drama of two contrasting brothers and their love for their father it’s feels more real and engaging than a host of more technically adept comic book movies.

Thor gets over-looked in the MCU rankings. But it’s a surprisingly thoughtful, well drawn character study about worthiness not being about muscle and force, but on your wisdom, compassion and humility and putting other people before your own needs and desires. All captured in a magic hammer that is otherwise impossible to pick up. Branagh’s film gets that, with added bombastic comic book thrills. Thor has entertained me each time I’ve seen it and will go on doing so.

Anora (2024)

Superb mix of tragedy, farce and social commentary laugh-out-loud-funny then suddenly deeply moving

Director: Sean Baker

Cast: Mikey Madison (Anora “Ani” Mikheeva), Mark Eydelshteyn (Ivan “Vanya” Zakharov), Yura Borisov (Igor), Karren Karagulian (Toros), Vache Tovmasyan (Garnick), Aleksei Serebryakov (Nikolai Zakharov), Darya Ekamasova (Galina Zakharova), Lindsey Normington (Diamond), Ivy Wolk (Crystal)

Who doesn’t love a Cinderella story? A plucky young woman comes from nothing to find a life of love and riches she never dreamed of is at the heart of dozens of fairy tales. And films for that matter: it’s impossible to not think about Pretty Woman when watching Anora. In fact, you could argue the at-times surprisingly charming, laugh-out-loud funny but cold-eyed realism of Anora is a Pretty Woman corrective, as if Richard Gere woke up a few days later, introduced Julia Roberts to his friends and family and immediately wondered what the hell he had done.

Not just that but Mikey Madison’s beautifully performed force-of-life Ani (real name Anora, but she doesn’t like it) feels far more like a high-end-stripper-and-occasional-sex-worker than Julia Roberts. She’s 24-years-old, living in Brighton Beach and working in a glossy Manhattan strip club. One night the manager asks her to entertain Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the dissolute, immature son of an extraordinarily wealthy Russian oligarch, because she can speak Russian. Ivan is taken with Ani, paying her $15,000 for a week as his girlfriend that peaks (after a hedonistic stay in Las Vegas) in a marriage proposal. Eloping, Ani returns home believing her life has changed forever. That illusion is shattered when Ani’s godfather Toros (Karren Karagulian), and heavies Garnik (Vache Tovmasyan) and hired muscle Igor (Yura Borisov) turn up at their home (really, of course, Ivan’s parent’s home) under strict instructions that the marriage must come to end. Over a long 24 hours of exasperation, farce and slow realisations our Cinderella story collapses.

Anora is a brilliant film, superbly directed by Sean Baker. You’d expect a film of cold-eyed social realism – and there are elements of this in Anora – but it’s also a hugely loveable, charming, surprisingly hilarious and deeply felt film, perfectly paced as its story develops across a series of events that beautifully lead into each other. A lot of its success comes from Mikey Madison’s extraordinary performance, one of those star-making force-of-nature roles where you start off liking her and end up loving her. Madison is warm but prickly and spikey, vulnerable but determined, worldly but naïve, someone who fights her corner to the end but can’t see any change at forming her own future. Madison embodies all this perfectly, switching from wide-eyed naïve delight at her luck, to spitting, incandescent fury when defending her rights, to an increasingly desperate disillusionment mingled with self-disgust as her dreams collapse around her.

Similar to his previous films, Baker presents the world of sex work with understanding and compassion. There is nothing leering about the lens of Anora, even as it opens with a pan (sound tracked to a disco remix of Take That’s Greatest Day) along a row of dancer. Baker understands the professional drudgery of exotic dancing, the hard work and effort needed to give each client the best experience. Ani is a master of ‘put the client first’ patter, her sing-song Brooklyn accent filled with awe at their dull lives, helping her clients believe they are special. What’s striking about Anora is this a world Ani needs to be ‘saved’ from as such – she’s comfortable with her profession, is good at it and understands it’s limits – but it one where she has subconsciously learned her value as a person is directly related to her body and what she is willing to do with it, complex feelings that return at the film’s conclusion with shattering impact.

What she doesn’t truly understand perhaps is people in the long-term. So swept up and impressed with Ivan’s ostentatious wealth, she misses all the clues to his true character. Anyone who still moves around his apartment by letting his feet slide across the floor, who doesn’t know where the water in the house is kept, plays video games obsessively and hurls himself into sex with the rabbit-like intensity of a horny teenager is about a million miles away from the app developer she first imagines he is. Ivan – very well played by Mark Eydelshteyn – might be sweet, excitable and full of joie de vivre, but he’s also staggeringly immature, extremely selfish and barely thinks about anyone other than himself. Or maybe Ani does notice, but she’s so used to being part of a perverse service industry, she assumes this is normal. Ivan may profess to love Ani, but he is the grasping, self-obsession of a spoilt teenager who no-one has ever said no to.

Baker’s care and regard for his characters is beautifully done – in fact what’s striking about Anora is how characters who at first feel peripheral and marginal are organically grow, emerging over time as crucial figures. In fact, what’s striking about it is that it becomes very much a film about class: about the have and have-nots and how all of us – from put-upon fixer to stripper – have more in common with each other than with the super-rich, to whom everyone else are nothing but staff, there to meet their needs. There is only a small degree of difference between the cleaner Ivan teases while she cleans his floors and Ani who he teases while she allows him to get his end away in bed.

This become clear when the film enters it’s hilarious second act, as Ivan’s godfather Toros (a side-splitting performance by Karren Karagulian as man on the verge of a nervous breakdown) can barely hide his resentment at being Ivan’s dogsbody – while still terrified at how his super-powerful parents could ruin Toros’ life in seconds (and clearly wouldn’t think twice about it). Such is their power, Toros leaves his own child’s christening to clean up Ivan’s mess – and its clear he’s been doing this his whole life (his first appearance is easy to miss, ordering Ivan’s drunken friends to get off the sofa at the debauched New Year’s party he throws). Equally good is Vache Tovmasyan as the increasingly bemused Garvik, medicine addled and slowly losing his composure over one never-ending night.

What these characters have in common – along with Yuro Borisov’s Igor, hired muscle like Ani valued only for his physicality – is that to their employers they are less people and more items of furniture or household utensils. Ivan is no different from his tyrannical parents, who may deplore their son’s selfish wastefulness but have never done anything to stop it. Anora’s tragedy (among the comedy) is watching (and Mikey Madison does this beautiful in a series of micro reactions) Ani release only the thinnest slither of affection makes her any different from Ivan’s cleaner. To Ivan, she’s a status symbol – an attractive woman, great in bed who his hangers-on can be impressed by, a tool for rebellion, marrying her the ideal fuck an immature teenager can imagine for the parents he fears and resents.

Baker’s film unfolds all this with astonishing skill, but also an overwhelming energy and joy – and I have to stress again, that Anora’s middle section is hilariously funny, much more so than many conventional comedies – but also an empathy that eventually lands with a devastating and surprising force. Mikey Madison’s extraordinary performance deeply invests in Ani, understanding how her spiky exterior hides a vulnerable interior she rarely exposes. Every performance is outstanding – kudos also to Yuri Borisov who so subtly draws Igor’s quiet decency under his thuggish exterior, that his growing prominence in the film feels completely natural.

Anora is a film that deconstructs the reality of Cinderella stories. But it’s also a film that feels very much about the world today, where all of us have our lives directed and influenced by the super-wealthy in ways we have become so used to, we don’t even notice it anymore. It’s more obvious with strippers, cleaners, fixers and hired muscle. But if Ivan’s parents sank a business, how many families would be drowned in the waves? Under the heartfelt characters, the superbly paced drama, the farce and the emotional moments, Anora captures a universal truth about our modern age that all of us, like Ani, have tried to close our eyes against.

Escape from New York (1981)

B-movie thrills and an epic piece of world building in this very fun cult actioner

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Kurt Russell (Snake Plissken), Lee Van Cleef (Commissioner Bob Hauk), Ernest Borgnine (Cabbie), Donald Pleasance (The President), Isaac Hayes (The Duke), Harry Dean Stanton (Brain), Adrienne Barbeau (Maggie), Tom Atkins (Captain Rehme), Season Hubley (Girl in ChockFull o’ Nuts)

In the 1980s New York was pretty much America’s crime capital, so it wasn’t too much of a stretch to imagine an insanely dystopian America of 1997 where Manhattan is turned into a massive jail surrounded by a wall with its population entirely made up of murderous gangs and criminals (sadly without the severed head of the Lady Liberty lying in the middle of the streets). That’s what we get in Escape From New York (great title!). Problem is, it also makes it incredibly hard to get into New York – a real issue when a hijacked Air Force One crashlands there and the President (Donald Pleasence) needs rescuing.

Who ya gonna call? None other than grizzled, scowling, no-nonsense ex-Special Forces legend turned criminal Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell). Plucked from a line of convicts by Commissioner Hauk (Lee Van Cleef), Snake is given a simple offer: fly a glider into Manhattan, find the President and bring him back in 22 hours so he can speak at vital peace conference and in exchange get a pardon. And just to make sure he doesn’t back out? Inject him with explosives that will go off in exactly 22 hours unless Hauk switches them off. Into New York Snake goes, a Mad Max hell under the thumb of kingpin The Duke (Isaac Hayes), with his only allies an eccentric ex-cabbie (Ernest Borgnine) and married couple Maggie (Adrienne Barbeau) and an old (untrustworthy) partner-in-crime Brain (Harry Dean Stanton).

From all this pulp, Carpenter serves up a very entertaining slice of B-movie fun and games, that frequently makes very little narrative sense (by the end relying on hilariously convenient plot developments and off-screen meetings), where the 22-hour countdown seems to alter with as little consistent logic as the shifts between night and day (judging by the sky, at one point it takes Snake well over an hour to take a lift up the World Trade Centre which even in a dystopian hell seems like a long time) and where characters switch allegiances as easily as you and I change socks.

But that hardly matters when Carpenter was so focused on making B-movie fun and use every penny of his tiny budget to maximum effect. Escape From New York is above all a triumph of creative world-building. In broad strokes – the sort of well-built skeleton that leaves the audience wanting to fill in the muscles and skin themselves – it presents a compelling view of an America that has so comprehensively gone-to-shit that a city is now a prison, a forever-war is taking place with both the USSR and China, the President is a corporate stooge (with British accent!) and the whole country is run by a proto-fascist police force. It’s full of neat little touches – not least the computer voice at the Manhattan prisoner processing centre that offers prisoners the chance of voluntarily immediate cremation rather than be chucked into the city – that suggest a panoply of dystopian mess behind it.

The world of Escape From New York is so intriguing, it carries the fairly bog-standard urban warfare against lunatic gangs plot that Carpenter had already mastered with Assault on Precinct 13. Once Snake lands his glider atop the World Trade Centre (for extra un-intentional retrospective impact, hijackers also fly Air Force One into a couple of Manhattan skyscrapers), truthfully there isn’t much in terms of the action that we haven’t seen before. Shoot-outs on streets lined with trashed cars and graffiti, fisticuffs in abandoned train stations and boxing ring match-ups between Snake and a giant bruiser armed with a baseball bat full of nails. Most of the film is basically a hide-and-seek cat-and-mouse chase. Eccentrically presented stuff, but all fairly run-on-the-mill.

What makes it work is that post-apocalyptic mystique and Carpenter’s determination to make every shot count. Not least because the budget only stretched to about a day’s filming in New York (probably why both sequences atop the World Trade Centre illogically take place at nighttime). The rest was shot in a burnt-out district of St Louis. There is a great deal of demented imagination that has gone into the design of the film, not least the cyber-punk barminess of the gang costumes, from the Duke’s Napoleonesque shoulder braids to the punk-rocker scuzziness of his number two Romero (an eye-catching performance of bizarre oddness from Frank Doubleday).

It helps when you have some committed performances, not least from Kurt Russell as ultimate man’s-man maverick Snake Plissken. Strange to think now that Russell, best known for Disney work, was seen as an odd choice for the bitter, shoulder-chipped, ruthless Snake. But it’s a role he embraces whole-heartedly, making Snake both a selfish guy who literally barely cares about anything other than himself and the sort of ideal tough-as-nails maverick who gets things done that we all kind of want to be. He’s also – from his eyepatch to his grizzled monosyllabic dialogue to his unveiled contempt for all the double-dealers and bullies he meets – effortlessly cool.

Russell sets a lot of the tone for the movie, his low-key scowl allowing a lot of the rest of the cast to cut loose in eccentric roles. Ernest Borgnine overflows with cheery New York patter, which doesn’t even slow down when he lights a Molotov cocktail to ward off marauding gang-members. Harry Dean Stanton weasels as a constantly side-shifting guy we are assured is a genius (despite all evidence to the contrary). Donald Pleasance has a whale of a time as an uncharismatic functionary who, it becomes clear, doesn’t care about anyone other than himself. Best of all, Lee Van Cleef (perhaps flattered that Russell seem to be homaging his Spaghetti Western roles) smirks, gloats and scowls as a relentlessly ends-rather-than-means boss.

Escape From New York barrels along to a blackly comic ending (in which our pissed off maverick hero potentially scuppers a major peace conference out of a fit of resentful pique). It’s intriguing world-building riffs wonderfully on Mad Max (in fact, you could argue that later Mad Max films basically riff of Escape From New York) and while its action is fairly routine, it’s acted and directed with huge verve and fun. The sort of thing you call a guilty pleasure.

Letters From Iwo Jima (2006)

Thoughtful, sensitive, respectful and insightful war-movie – one of Eastwood’s best

Director: Clint Eastwood

Cast: Ken Watanabe (General Tadamichi Kuribayashi), Kazunari Ninomiya Private Saigo), Tsuyoshi Ihara (Lt Colonel Baron Takeichi Nishi), Ryō Kase (Private Shimizu), Shidō Nakamura (Lt Ito), Hiroshi Watanabe (Lt Fujita), Takumi Bando (Captain Tanida), Yuki Matsuzaki (Private Nozaki), Takashi Yamaguchi (Private Kashiwara), Eijiro Ozaki (Lt Okubo)

Eastwood’s original plan for his Iwo Jima epic was to tell the story from both perspectives, like a sort of Tora, Tora, Tora on the beaches. But, as the amount of story expanded and expanded, he decided to make two films (it helps being a Hollywood Legend when you change your mind like this). The American story would be covered in the melancholic-but-traditional Flags of Our Fathers, focusing on the soldiers who rose that famous flag on the peak of Mount Suribachi. For the Japanese story, Eastwood would do something more daring: tell the story in Japanese, entirely from their perspective presenting their military culture not as wicked or misguided but as a legitimate mantra as prone to extremes as the American one.

Letters From Iwo Jima is equally melancholic as its partner film, helped by its elegiac music score from Michael Stevens and Kyle Eastwood. It’s shot in a coldly austere, sepia-toned monochrome – there is barely any colour in it – and large chunks of it play out in gloomy subterranean quietness where the only sound of war is the artillery ground-pounding above the entrenched Japanese soldiers. This is the apogee of Eastwood’s moody, restrained style – perhaps he recognised and admired the reserve and formality in Japanese culture. Letters From Iwo Jima seems at first unfussy and objective so it’s a surprise how affecting and humane it becomes, all while seeing the virtues and deep flaws in a military system where the individual mattered a lot less than the whole.

Iwo Jima was a brutal fight to the death over an island less than 12 mi², a grey rock in the Pacific that’s only value was as an air strip for launching bombing raids on mainland Japan. Over 110,000 American soldiers took on 20,000 Japanese defenders in a campaign expected to last just a few days, but dragged out over a punishing 36. The relentless Japanese defence resulted in over 25,000 American casualties and c. 90% fatalities for the Japanese. Letters From Iwo Jima explores the mentality of an army that almost completely accepted (from commanding officers down to junior privates) their destiny, no their duty, was to not survive the island’s defence.

The defence’s success is due to the skilled command of General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, a remarkable, restrained performance of relentless determination mixed with deep humanity from Ken Watanabe (unfairly snubbed at the Oscars). Kuribayashi over-rules his senior officers desire for a bayonet charge against the overwhelming American landing forces on the beaches. He knows this traditional attack would lead to suicidal instant defeat for the out-numbered, out-gunned Japanese. Instead Kuribayashi orders a tunnel network built across the island, to allow hit-and-run attacks designed to inflict maximum casualties. Rather than committing suicide at their posts on defeat, soldiers were ordered to withdraw from indefensible positions to continue the fight for as long as possible.

This strategic defence-in-depth strategy is denounced by several of his senior officers as either defeatism or American-sympathy. Kuribayashi knows victory is impossible – he arrives on the island writing a letter to his wife stating he will not live to see her again. But he also knows his tactic is the only way to slow down the American juggernaut. In his opinion, protecting Japan from air attack for a few more weeks is worth sacrificing his and all the lives of the 20,000 men under his command.

Kuribayashi respects Americans – flashbacks show his happiness in the 30s as a military liaison in California, his easy friendships with American officers and desire for co-operation with the USA. But in the same scene he unquestioningly (though with a warm smile) says he will serve his country no matter what. He’s a man of principle and honour, and even if he doesn’t agree with the war, he is for Japan right-or-wrong and will not think twice about giving his life in its service. This attitude soaks through the Japanese soldiers, and Letters From Iwo Jima presents it largely without moral judgement. There are shocking moments where defeated soldiers in Suribachi, weep as they looks at photos of their loved ones while clasping live grenades to their chest so that they may die at their post rather than live with the shame of failing their country. But, the film subtly asks, how different is this from the self-sacrifice countless American war films have (rightly) praised in their soldiers?

The difference is cultural. Very few American soldiers would choose suicide in a cave rather than the thought of confronting their families as defeated men. For Japanese soldiers, this is the ultimate strength, a view shared not just by incompetent, trigger-happy bullies like Captain Ito but right up to Kuribayashi himself who never considers for a moment surrender and living, choosing a suicidal night attack with his last soldiers and suicide on the last piece of earth on Iwo Jima that could still be just about considered Japanese. That’s an institutional expectation of total self-sacrifice, even when the sacrifice is completely symbolic, that has no real comparison in Western militaries.

The soldiers – as we hear in their letters, read to us in voiceover – love their families and they relate to a wounded GI from Oklahoma who talks about his mother (a slightly twee moment in another wise subtle film), but they also believe that the whole (Japan) is far more important than the individual (themselves). Trees should always be sacrificed to slow the fire and protect the forest. Letters From Iwo Jima may show the dangerous excesses this produces in the most fanatical, but doesn’t denounce this extreme penchant for sacrifice or give a clumsy moment of realisation that it is inherently ‘wrong’. Neither does it present Western, individual ideals as superior (indeed the few American soldiers seen are a mixed bag, as much prone to vengeful violence as their opponents).

Letters From Iwo Jima follows Private Saigo (very well played with a bewildered sense of fear and growing desire to live by Kazunari Ninomiya), the character closest to acting as a criticism of the Japanese mindset. A baker, who wants to see his wife and new-born child, he doesn’t really want to die on the island, but never questions it is his duty to do so. And his objections to suicidal orders or kamikaze attacks isn’t grounded in their senselessness but that they run contrary to Kuribayashi’s wider orders. Even our most relatable (to Western eyes) character, one who eventually accepts the idea of surrender when all is lost, is still part of the same culture where placing your own needs and desires before the whole is considered deeply shameful.

Perhaps this thoughtful, non-judgemental exploration of Japanese culture is why Letters From Iwo Jima (unusually for American war films) did very strong business in Japan. Unlike the eventual death cult of Nazism (see the exceptional Downfall), where suicide came from bitter pride and fear, here it’s the ultimate, terrible-but-logical outcome for a mentality that turned a small island into a respected world power. It’s not presented as a freakish aberration or some sort of national genetic character flaw: it’s in many ways a sort of perverse nobility which has, like all noble systems, advocates who are broad-minded and empathetic and those who are prejudiced and fanatical. Letters From Iwo Jima’s strength is it never presents it as inherently evil, rather a choice with good and bad outcomes.

Eastwood’s superbly directed film, perhaps one of his finest, is full of such thoughtful, unjudgmental reflections on duty and service and what loyalties to something larger than ourselves drive us to do. Shot with an austere, haunting chill and superbly played by a faultless cast, Letters From Iwo Jima is an earnest, mature piece of work and a quite extraordinarily unique war film.

Juggernaut (1974)

Disaster film masquerading as a sort of state-of-the-nation political satire of 70s Britain

Director: Richard Lester

Cast: Richard Harris (Lt Com Anthony Fallon), Omar Sharif (Captain Alex Brunel), David Hemmings (Charlie Braddock), Anthony Hopkins (Supt John McLeod), Shirley Knight (Barbara Bannister), Ian Holm (Nicholas Porter), Clifton James (Corrigan), Roy Kinnear (Social Director Curtain), Caroline Mortimer (Susan McLeod), Mark Burns (Hollingsworth), John Stride (Hughes), Freddie Jones (Sidney Buckland), Julian Glover (Commander Marder), Cyril Cusack (O’Neil), Michael Hordern (Baker)

Based on an event that almost happened – a bomb threat against the QE2 that led to a bomb disposal team parachuting onto the ship at sea, only to discover it was a haux – Juggernaut was a popular 70s thriller that today looks surprisingly dry. The ship here is the SS Britannic, caught in stormy seas. A calm man calls the firm’s director (Ian Holm) and to state he’s placed multiple high explosives onboard. Bomb disposal expert Anthony Fallon (Richard Harris) and his crew fly to the ship, captained by Alex Brunel (Omar Sharif), to try and disarm the bombs while Superintendent John McLeod (Anthony Hopkins) – whose family, naturally, is onboard – races against time to find the bomber.

Juggernaut can feel as sluggish as the cruise liner it’s set on, with large chunks feeling like they are being played for surprisingly low stakes. The passengers feel strangely impassive about their imminent deaths. When a member of the bomb disposal crew drowns on arrival no one seems to care. There is a strangely sombre mood everywhere, a general air of misery that seems in place long before the bombs are even announced. The police investigation is carried out by a team that thinks its hopeless and the captain retreats to his cabin to fiddle with executive desk toys.

Then you realise. This isn’t The Towering Inferno full of can-do action. This is a British disaster film, which is really about the depressing, dreary, dead-end feeling a lot of people in Britain had about their country (seemingly permanently in the grip of strikes, economic depression and political crisis) throughout the 70s. Juggernaut reflects this completely, the ship a weird state-of-the-nation place where even a bomb threat can’t shake the general feeling of grim acceptance that life doesn’t get any better than this, everyone and everything in charge is useless, so best get used to it.

Richard Lester appropriately then directs events in a very distanced way – perhaps he also wanted to put behind him his Hellzapoppin’ style that bought him fame and success with the Beatles. Most of the moments of action and tension are presented in a deliberately prosaic style (the culmination of the film happens in a distant long-shot with the final dialogue mumbled quietly) with a journalistic lens (there are obvious debts to Fred Zinnemann’s The Day of the Jackal in its forensic laying out of procedure, but with that film’s pace or urgency carefully compromised, despite the clock ticking down). As part of this, the characters become devoid of exactly that – character.

Juggernaut actually is more about taking rebellious swings at British politics than solving a crisis. The British government – embodied by a smugly self-satisfied John Stride’s three-piece-suit apparatchik – makes it quite clear the 1,200 souls on the Britannic are expendable if the cost compromises the government. Juggernaut has more discussion of government subsidies than every other disaster film alive. The navy is run by fusty rules-bound types (interestingly, the private enterprise company is presented much more favourably – Holm, as its representative, is principled, decent and the only guy who really cares about the passengers). The bomber is a disillusioned former government worker, shafted on retirement by the cheapskate MOD (he even asks for an embarrassingly small amount of money). Fallon, in his cynical style, constantly bemoans how nothing in the country works and how useless his bosses are.

Juggernaut flings together an American style disaster and action plot, with a kitchen-sink drama about British society. While its interesting, personally I feel mashing these two genres together creates a slow, dry action-adventure and a shallow, social commentary. The tone seems to have confused some of the actors: Omar Sharif seems literally all-at-sea. A potential romance with Shirley Knight’s character deliberately goes nowhere – the film so takes the unconventional route with plots likes this that you state to wonder why on earth Knight even agreed to do it). Anthony Hopkins permanently feels like his attention is elsewhere. The smaller roles tend to come out best: Stride’s uncaring official, Roshan Seth as waiter who pretends to speak less English than he does (a neat social commentary on cultural expectations in the 70s), Michael Hordern in a scuzzy cameo as a bomb expert – all of them make more impact.

Lester does treat himself to several amusing background events. A nameless passenger who doesn’t let the ship’s imminent explosion get in the way of his exercise regime (he runs into almost every single main character at some point). Throw-away gags (very much in the style of The Three Musketeers) are common, such as market stall owner turning to place something on his stall, not noticing it’s been sent flying by a speeding police car or a flustered Holm feeding Rice Krispies to his kid then his dog. You could make the surrealist argument the real hero is Roy Kinnear’s entertainment officer, relentlessly continuing the good cheer. From umpiring half-hearted badminton matches in a squall to jollying the passengers through a fancy dress party that could also be their last evening on earth, Officer Curtain is determined ‘civilisation must be preserved’. Is there a better vision of what it felt like living in 70s Britain, clinging to the fading memory of the Blitz spirit?

Richard Harris – in a neat and no-doubt-boozy pairing with David Hemmings – is the only one of the leads seemingly allowed to inject life in this, or able to marry up the counter-culture harrumphing and tense wire-cutting action in a performance of amusing cynicism and cocky pride. Juggernaut – for all it boils down to our maverick hero having to choose between the red and blue wire – is actually fairly detailed (and praised by experts) on the process and teamwork of bomb disposal, even if Harris’ less-than-steady hands are not what I would want standing between me and death.

Away from him though Juggernaut is a curiously unhurried, slow and sometimes-less-than-gripping thriller that really shines a light on the slightly run-down, depressed and bewildering place Britain was to many people in the 70s. A land it seems where everything felt a bit hopeless and pointless and nothing seemed to work – except the bombs used to blow the place up. Expect that and you’ll find stuff to enjoy: expect The Towering Inferno and you are in for a disappointment.

The Substance (2024)

Twisted body horror isn’t quite the feminist statement it thinks it is, but still a unique film

Director: Coralie Fargeat

Cast: Demi Moore (Elizabeth Sparkle), Margaret Qualley (Sue), Dennis Quaid (Harvey), Edward Hamilton (Fred), Gore Abrams (Oliver), Oscar Lesage (Troy), Christian Erickson (Man at diner)

Getting old in Hollywood is not kind. Particularly for women. Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), a big star of the 90s, now eeks out a living as exercise queen for a daytime TV show. But TV exec Harvey (Dennis Quaid) decides people don’t want to watch a woman in her 50s and unceremoniously gives her the boot. Fearing a life of lonely irrelevance, miles from the limelight, Elizabeth accepts an invitation to try ‘The Substance’. This black-market drug creates a ‘younger, more beautiful, more perfect’ version of you – birthed from your spine. Taking the drug, Elizabeth spawns Sue (Margaret Qualley), a 20s version of herself who promptly lands her old job on the exercise show.

The two must swop places every week, one living their life (either in obscurity or vicariously enjoying much-lusted after career success) the other lying comatose on the bathroom floor. At first the balance works, but they soon grow to resent each other: Sue despises Elizabeth’s self-loathing bitterness while Elizabeth becomes consumed with envy at Sue’s hedonistic success. Quickly the balanced life between the two collapses, leading to inevitable disaster.

The Substance is one of those films you can pretty much guarantee people will remember about 2024. Pretty much everything in it is dialled up to eleven, a crazy mix of The Picture of Dorian Gray and Cronenberg-body horror (particularly The Fly) by way of David Lynch. Fargeat shoots it with a deliberate grindhouse intensity, revelling in the vast amounts of icky body horror, gallons of blood and guts, often filmed in a mix of dream-like drifting and trashy exploitation.

It’s a sharply directed, extremely intense film from Coralie Fargeat (who also scripts), punchy, vicious and darkly hilarious. It’s also been shot to be almost as uncomfortable to watch as possible. The camerawork is frequently disjointed, full of disconcerting jerky close-up. Nightmare Lynch-style dream horror images pop-up, along with haunting Mulholland Dr style floating heads and Kubrickian homages. Every moment of body horror is accompanied with revolting, squelching sound-effects. You’ve rarely seen anything as intensely, bizarrely OTT as this, the film carefully designed to get audiences either screaming “fucking hell!” or hiding their eyes behind their popcorn.

The film’s most successful moments are these moments of shocking body horror. Created from a host of ingenious practical effects (The Substance surely is destined for a make-up Oscar), the film superbly creates everything from green-fluid soaked birthing scenes to the grim disintegration of various body parts that slowly ages Demi Moore into a wizened babushka to the final hellish Elephant Man by way of the The Fly inspired ending. It’s superbly done, deeply unsettling, but blackly entertaining in its extremity. And The Substance is incredibly extreme, pulling absolutely no punches in this blood-soaked, Angela Carteresque fairy-tale horror.

Fargeat draws an extremely committed performances from Demi Moore, given the sort of acting challenge she never got when she was the biggest star in Hollywood, playing a woman so consumed with ingrained self-loathing and disgust (having so completely swallowed the ideology that your personal value is directly connected to your appearance) that she would rather live as a recluse in the shadow of another version of herself than build a new life. There is an extraordinary scene where a panic stricken Elizabeth prepares for a date with an old schoolfriend (possibly her last chance at a normal life) but is so consumed by self-loathing and doubt about her appearance (painfully ironic, since she of course looks great) that she goes through multiple attempts at make-up up in the movie, each time rubbing it off with such increasing fury that by the end she’s virtually sand-papering her face as if trying to erase herself from existence.

Just as fine is Margaret Qualley as the ‘perfect’ version of Elizabeth, but who has just the same self-loathing and insecurity as the original. It’s a similarly committed performance by Qualley, a carefully studied, surprisingly vulnerable performance while also being ruthlessly ambitious and self-indulgent, which embraces the hyper-sexualised expectations of young women in Hollywood. Dennis Quaid also throws in a fun cameo as a lasciviously camp, OTT executive full of ruthless, heartless bonhomie who sees women only as window-dressing for perverts. After all it’s an industry that forgets: from the opening montage of Elizabeth’s Hollywood star going from eagerly photographed to forgotten, through to the insultingly trivial gift stuffed in her hands as she is dismissed.

But The Substance’s satire is often rather forced and obvious (right down to Quaid’s exec being called Harvey). It feels like it misses a trick by having its only female character being a woman who has so swallowed the ageist views of Hollywood, she literally can’t imagine questioning it. So much so, her clone equally embraces life as a sex object. While The Substance invites us to understand the poison of this world independently, there is virtually no commentary on the unjust sexism within the film. In fact, The Substance so echoes the leering camera angles and pervy shots of the worst kinds of sexist cinema that sometimes it’s a bit hard to see it as satire and (as the camera stares at Qualley’s butt or down her top) more as just reality.

At no point do Elizabeth or Sue make any form of realisation about how they have been indoctrinated to only understand themselves as being worth something so long as they look like a pin-up. While The Picture of Dorian Gray understood the temptations of a selfish hedonism even when we know its wrong and The Fly was all about the damaging impact of ambition, for all its pointed smirking fun The Substance is at heart more of a pulpy gore-show revelling in extreme than a sort of social satire.

In fact the more you watch The Substance the more you think it’s real inspiration is Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and the ‘hag-horror’ of the 60s. A star name of yesteryear, takes on a role that riffs on their loss of youth and beauty, throwing them into an ever more twisted tale of obsession and revenge. You could argue The Substance trusts us to see for ourselves that all this rampant sexism is wrong: but you could also quite happily watch the film and assume it was Elizabeth’s vanity that caused all the problems, not the system that inoculated it in her.

There is another version of The Substance that could match its pulpy love of horror thrills with a bit more of an insightful commentary on gender politics. But the fact the film ends in an explosion of blood that makes The Shining look positively restrained (a sequence that goes on too long in an overlong film), you suspect its real heart is actually in creating shocking images rather than really exploring the issues it wants you to think it is addressing.