Category: Crime drama

Reversal of Fortune (1990)

Irons Oscar-winning turn is the stand-out of an otherwise dry picture lacking in energy

Director: Barbet Schroeder

Cast: Glenn Close (Sunny von Bülow), Jeremy Irons (Claus von Bülow), Ron Silver (Alan Dershowitz), Annabella Sciorra (Sarah), Fisher Stevens (David Marriott), Uta Hagen (Maria), Jack Gilpin (Peter MacIntosh), Christine Baranski (Andrea Reynolds), Stephen Mailer (Elon Dershowitz), Felicity Huffman (Minnie)

It was a trial that engrossed America in the early 80s. Did Claus von Bülow (Jeremy Irons), second husband of millionaire Sunny von Bülow (Glenn Close), pump her full of insulin and leave her on the floor of their ensuite to die? Sunny von Bülow, in a permanent vegetative state, narrates this tale Joe-Gillis-style from her coma as Claus is convicted of her attempted murder and hires law professor Alan Dershowitz (Ron Silver) to appeal. But did Claus do it, or is he the victim of public perception?

Of course, no one can know (Sunny even tells us in voiceover, if we want the answer, we’re going to have to wait until we see her wherever she happens to be now). Answers are not on the cards for Reversal of Fortune, which struggles to find something engaging enough to take their place. With some decent lines and striking moments, it focuses on a long breakdown of the might-have-beens, disputed facts and point-of-views of those involved, leaving it up to you to decide if Claus is just a European eccentric with an unfortunate manner and sense of humour or a cold-hearted killer who twice attempted to murder his wife for her money.

Your interest in this will be roughly proportional with how engaging you would find a true crime podcasts without any expert debate. As a rundown of the core facts, it often settles for a series of rather dry scenes of Dershowitz’s legal team reading to each other the various ins-and-outs of the prosecution case, poking holes where needed. There is a singular lack of energy about this, despite the film’s, in many ways admirable, decision to focus on the nitty gritty of cases being built instead of showpiece court confrontations. What Reversal of Fortune fails to do is make this collection of facts and arguments compelling. There are very few scenes of questioning witnesses, consulting experts or uncovering evidence – no investigative energy so crucial to making this sort of film work.

On top of this, it’s hard not to take the film with a pinch of salt, since it takes its entire perspective from Dershowitz, a lawyer who (for all his work for those on Death Row) has shown himself more-and-more as being at least as interested in self-promotion as he is in justice, taking on any case if it brings media prominence. After all, he rolled from von Bülow to representing OJ Simpson, Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein. The biggest argument against Bülow’s innocence today might be to say “take a look at that client list”.

Reversal of Fortune walks a fine line between acknowledging Dershowitz’s ambition, while stressing his moral unease. Ron Silver is very good at Dershowitz’s showmanship, self-conscious scruffiness and room-controlling charisma. He has slightly less scope to explore Dershowitz’s moral flexibility: Reversal of Fortune argues it’s important to protect the civil rights of rich people, to prevent precedents hurting the rights of those who can’t afford a houseful of lawyers to pick holes in their cases. Reversal of Fortune further weights the deck to make us see Dershowitz heroically by fictionalising an actual a Death Row case he’s worked on alongside the investigation, representing two young men who broke their criminal father out of prison (who later went on to kill someone). In the film several facts about this case are changed from reality to make them more noble and sympathetic, most crucially changing the race of those involved from white to Black and radically reducing the number of murders involved (as well as not mentioning they also broke another convicted murderer out of prison).

The real strength of Reversal of Fortune is the Oscar-winning performance of Jeremy Irons as Bülow. This was a perfectly fitting, gift of a part for Irons – did they tell him to be as Jeremy Irons as possible? His performance is sly and darkly witty. Bülow is forever making poor taste puns about his possible crimes that Irons’ savours like mouthfuls of the richest caviar. It’s a performance of arch strangeness, Irons playing Bülow as a man so unreadable, taking such a naughty delight in the side benefits of being accused of a crime (he jubilantly states at one point he never before got such good tables in restaurants), so full of elegant European-gentility, he just looks naturally guilty to the parade of straight-shooting American citizens with the power of life and death over him.

Irons’ is also masterful at suggesting this unflappable, dark humour and quirk is actually a desperate front for a man deeply scared but used to hiding his real feelings. Irons suggests Bulow is genuinely using this facade to control his fears and keep him in fighting. The key to the character is nerve: it’s what he describes backgammon as being about, poo-poohing the idea that it’s down to luck, saying winners hold their guts in place. It’s the key to his whole character, the same gambling guts what he’s banking on to get him through this (someone actually guilty would never behave like this right?), and Irons simultaneously plays this front and keeps the frightened man underneath constantly present.

It’s a fascinating, funny, hugely enjoyable performance that lifts the entire film which struggles and slackens the second Irons leaves the screen. Aside from him – and Glenn Close’s arch narration (her agent did fine work nailing her top billing for this) – Reversal of Fortune is a surprisingly dry, rather slowly paced film which, while it is mercifully light on speculation, is also unfortunately light on drama.

Emilia Perez (2024)

Controversial arthouse film which clumsily tries to do to many things, many of them not well

Director: Jacques Audiard

Cast: Zoe Saldaña (Rita Mora Castro), Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Pérez/Juan “Manitas” Del Monte), Selena Gomez (Jessi Del Monte), Adriana Paz (Epifanía Flores), Édgar Ramírez (Gustavo Brun), Mark Ivanir (Dr. Wasserman)

Sometimes a film comes along that manages to annoy everyone. Emilia Pérez seems to have achieved that unwanted goal. Jacques Audiard’s Cannes Jury Prize winner is a wild, audacious piece of film-making that misses as much as it hits. It’s also been bashed as a musical full of people who can’t really sing, denounced as transphobic, and savaged by Mexicans. Perhaps Emilia Pérez shows us the downside when an auteur French director works with Netflix who accidentally promote what would have otherwise been a little-seen arthouse film into the heart of a culture war. I don’t think Emilia Pérez intends to be racist or transphobic (but yeah most of the cast can’t sing), but it does deal with these issues at times very clumsily. It’s also a curious mish-mash that places a transitioning character in a traditional “hard-to-escape-your-past” plot.

That transitioning character is Emilia Pérez (Karla Sofía Gascón), formerly a notorious drug-lord. With the (initially coerced) aid of crusading lawyer Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldaña), Emilia succeeds in faking her death, moving her family to Switzerland to protect them, extricating a fortune from her criminal empire and flying to Israel for her operation. Four years later, Emilia finds she can’t live without her children and Rita is roped back into retrieve her wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and kids and move them in with their “aunt” Emilia. Simultaneously Emilia, wanted to be cleansed of her criminal past, starts a foundation to “discover” the graves of those killed in Mexico’s drug wars. But returning to a world she left behind only makes it harder for Emilia to escape her criminal past.

Emilia Pérez: an Audiard crime story with songs! Audiard described it as an opera fantasia, and I feel it was his intention for nothing in it to be treated as traditionally “real”. The characters frequently burst into song or throw themselves into dream-like dance sequences to express complex feelings. Aside from the film’s explosive, guns-blaring conclusion, filmed on isolated, dusty, abandoned houses and roads, key scenes are tightly shot on sparse sets with very little back lighting, giving them a dreamy black-box effect. Emotions are as heightened as the (sometimes clumsy) lyrics and the film throws itself into every dialled-up event with a comic-book energy.

All of which means Emilia Pérez is an acquired taste and, like many ambitious films that zig when they should zag, fails as often as it hits the jackpot. Its finest scenes are the key song-and-dance numbers, all left in the hands of Zoe Saldaña (excellently torn between idealism, fear, cynicism and regret with complex feelings about her dubious employer). Saldaña is a dynamic and fearless dance performer, throwing herself into synchronised movements through a Mexican market in the film’s opening “El Alegato” and dominating the film’s central show-piece, an athletic, sensual dance around and over tables at a charity ball in “El Mal”.

But even Saldaña falls foul of the film’s largest musical failing: with the exception of Selena Gomez (who struggles with a Mexican accent so terrible, even non-Spanish speakers can tell it’s awful) no one in the cast can really sing. Criticism like that somehow feels shallow when you apply it to an arthouse film, but it’s legitimate. The cast largely go for fast-paced, Henry-Higgins-ish, rhythmic speaking, big on husky intensity but not exactly something you would sit and listen to. Gascón is a particularly poor singer, especially noticeable with the operatic high notes she is frequently given. Even the controversial AI-upgrade her voice was given in post-production can’t help her.

Throw into that the clumsiness of some of the lyrics. For a film dealing with as sensitive an issue as this, are lyrics like “Man to woman or woman to man? Man to woman. From penis to vagina” really a good idea? Is a song about Emilia’s son singing about how her smell reminds him of his Dad (body smell being a hot topic for this community) tasteful? Since this issue (the perception of bodily odours) is a key issue for the trans community, writing a whimsical song about it rather suggests Audiard and team didn’t really do enough to wrap their heads around controversial issues.

Perhaps that’s because Emilia Pérez is, at heart, a classic “just when I thought I was out…” movie that tries to spice up the formula by having its gangster character be a trans woman (the partial implication of a sex change being a type of disguise is another hot-topic issue the filmmakers should have got themselves familiar with). It does, I think, make for a fresh take to see even incredibly macho, hardened killers can have longings like Emilia – and Gascón’s performance is actually at its best showing the fear that lies below the aggression before Emilia’s transition, and when embracing her tearful joy at the success of her operation. But the point remains this is a film not looking to make a real statement on transgender issues, or even demonstrating any real interest in the experience of being trans. It is instead just using a trans identity as a new context for a familiar “starting a new life” storyline. With minimal changes, Emilia could have undergone extensive plastic surgery or gone into witness protection and it would have made few changes to plot or themes.

It is interesting to get a trans character who is not always completely sympathetic (although I get that the community find it a blow upon a bruise to finally get a film with a trans lead, and she’s as a morally questionable and unlikeable as this). Emilia’s desire to restart her life away from crime is fatally undermined by refusing to make the sacrifices needed. Slowly she drags her family back in (passing herself off, Mrs Doubtfire-like, as her own sister), reconnects with the criminal underworld (albeit for humanitarian reasons) and reverts to the threats and violence she used in her old life (when, let’s not forget, she had a plastic bag slammed over Rita’s head to motivate her).

Emilia Perez also never explores the outrageous moral stance of a murderer in a new life, using their knowledge to “help” their victims by “discovering” the graves of people she ordered put in the ground. In fact, the only person affected by Emilia’s past crimes whom the film shows her encountering is the widow of an abusive husband (who is actually grateful to the gangsters for saving her the trouble). It scrupulously avoids any contact with, say, a grieving relative of one of her past victims. Similarly, the film avoids engaging with Emilia’s appalling emotional manipulation of her family. Karla Sofía Gascón gives a committed performance, but she is not able to coalesce all these complicated feelings into a character that feels real and the film constantly veers awkwardly between giving her implied criticism and absolution.

Audiard offering not exactly the most flattering image of Mexico was the final nail in the film’s coffin, even if to be honest it’s his nationality as the face of a film about Mexico (Paz is the only Mexican involved) that has probably raised most hackles. Emilia Pérez has moments where Audiard’s impressive film-making stands out, a dance number captures your imagination or there is a flash of compelling acting. But then it will segue into the sort of scenes we’ve seen in hundreds of crime movies, or songs so out-there they raise the wrong sort of gasps. Emilia Pérez might not be intentionally trying to be racist or transphobic, but it certainly handles both themes with real clumsiness. Fundamentally, it’s a traditional plot told in an outlandish style, over-exposed into a world of criticism that Audiard (who has basically apologised if people don’t like the movie) and his collaborators just weren’t ready for. The film itself? Good moments, bad moments, but not worth all the fuss.

Dial M for Murder (1954)

Second-tier Hitchcock thriller, with some interesting flourishes and entertaining moments

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cast: Ray Milland (Tony Wendice), Grace Kelly (Margot Mary Wendice), Robert Cummings (Mark Halliday), John Williams (Chief Inspector Hubbard), Anthony Dawson (Charles Alexander Swann), Leo Britt (Party goer), Patrick Allen (Detective Pearson)

Tony Wendice (Ray Milland) is in a bind. A former tennis pro turned barely-successful sports goods seller, he loves the high life. Unfortunately, he’s running through cash like water – and, worst of all, most of it isn’t even really his but the property of his socialite wife Margot (Grace Kelly). And Margot is in the middle of an affair with trashy fiction writer, American Mark Halliday (Robert Cummings). An affair Tony knows all about, having stolen Margot’s love letters to anonymously blackmail her. But his new scheme is somewhat more permanent: blackmail disreputable Charles Swann (Anthony Dawson) into murdering Margot at a time when Tony has a perfect alibi. Sadly, things don’t go to plan – when do they ever? – and with Swann skewered in the back with a pair of scissors, Tony hurriedly improvises pining a pre-meditated murder charge on Margot all while avoiding the suspicions of Chief Inspector Hubbard (John Williams).

In his later extended interviews with Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock gave less than a few minutes to talking about Broadway-adaptation Dial M, describing it as, at best, a one-for-the-money assignment or sort of warm-up for Rear Window. He was similarly dismissive about the film being shot for 3D, which he described as a ‘nine-day wonder’ which he joined on the ninth day. Hitchcock had a tendency to play up to ideas of his genius, laying sniffy dismissal on what were viewed by critics as his lesser works (although Truffaut said Dial M grew on him every time he saw it). Actually, while Dial M does have the air of an assignment to it, there are some neat little Hitchcock touches it that, while not making it a classic, does make it an entertaining way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

After all, not many other directors would have so relished Swann’s body sliding down onto a small pair of scissors. Or found so many fascinating angles for shooting a (mostly) single-set, from lofted over-head shots that give Tony’s detailing to Swann of his elaborate plan a God-like force to crashingly tight close-ups on the phone Tony will use to dial in his alibi. Hitchcock also adds more than a little sexual energy to the play. There Margot’s affair is very much in the past, as opposed to here being very much keenly anticipated by Grace Kelly’s sensual stare over a newspaper to a clock counting down her assignation with Halliday. Hitchcock also avoided the sort of tedious ‘duck now!’ shots that has made 3D a joke in cinema-going circles, framing shots with a great deal of depth, placing key objects in different depths of field in the shot.

Dial M For Murder itself though, even with these little Hitchcock touches, tends to feel exactly like what it is: a well-heeled adaptation of a Broadway entertainment that is far more about plot, procedure and Christie-lite mystery than character or themes. (Actually, a mechanical operation like Dial M might well have appealed to Hollywood’s greatest ever proponent of the masterfully constructed tension piece more than her cared to admit). It’s a page-turner, Airport-novel transposed into glitzy, breezy entertainment where we get to flirt with someone completely naughty and wicked, but can be pretty sure the ‘howdunnit’ will become clear to everyone in the play, not just us (after all, the idea that Hitchcock – or anyone – will let Grace Kelly be executed for a crime she didn’t commit is of course preposterous).

Dial M plays very much into the Hitchcock playbook, where tension arises not from what we don’t know, but from the fact we know a little bit more than most of the characters. Just like Vertigo revealing its mystery surprisingly early, or watching a bomb tick down in Sabotage while its victims remain oblivious, we know from the start that this is all a scheme designed to entrap Margot. We know all the time exactly what Tony has done and the tension lies solely in working out whether Halliday or Inspector Hubbard will work it out and how they might manage to get Tony to pay for it. (There are also some echoes of Strangers in a Train, from Tony’s tennis-playing background to his sociopathic crime swop with Swann).

Tony is played with a suave, smugness by Ray Milland, which is just about likeable enough for a bit of you to want the selfish, shallow, self-obsessed Tony to get away with it. Milland won’t allow a slightly smug grin to disappear from his face – except in a burst of twitchy nerves when a stopped watch makes him concerned that he’s going to miss a vital phone call back home to establish his alibi during the attempted murder – and never once does he appear troubled by morality. In fact, he thinks rather sharply on his feet, pivoting in seconds from surprise at Margot’s survival to smoothly improvising a very convincing story, framed to (literally) hang Margot in. It’s an effective, enjoyable, pantomime-hissable performance which Milland has a lot of fun with.

He gets most of the film to himself, since Kelly is given a role that gives her little to do – although it does showcase her ability to communicate a great deal from looks alone, from her excitement at a future liaison, to growing fear as the police net draws around her. She’s certainly a far more magnetic performer than the bland Robert Cummings who has little about him to suggest he could set Grace Kelly all aflutter. The other key roles were filled out with actors from the original production: Anthony Dawson’s weasily opportunist Swann is perfectly convincing as the sort of cove who’d agree to murder to make his life easier while John Williams’ cements the image of the unflappable pipe-smoking detective who understands far more than it looks and lulls suspects into making fatal mistakes with an avuncular reassurance.

Dial M For Murder offers plenty of entertainment, even if it’s largely just a fairly routine plot-driven mechanical puzzle, spruced up by the odd inventive shot and engaging performance. But Hitchcock was probably right, that it sits very much in the second tier of his work.

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.

Basic Instinct (1992)

A sensationalist hit, this Trashy Hitchcock-pastiches looks very pleased with its own naughtiness today

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Cast: Michael Douglas (Detective Nick Curran), Sharon Stone (Catherine Tramell), George Dzundza (Detective Gus Moran), Jeanne Tripplehorn (Dr Beth Garner), Dorothy Malone (Hazel Dobkins), Denis Arndt (Lt Philip Walker), Leilani Sarelle (Roxy Hardy), Bruce A Young (Detective Sam Andrews), Chelcie Ross (Captain Talcott), Wayne Knight (Assistant DA John Correli), Stephen Tobolowsky (Dr Lamott)

If there is one thing Basic Instinct proves for sure, it’s that Paul Verhoeven is a very naughty boy. A sensational smash hit in 1992, largely because of the instant iconic status of that scene (you know which one), Basic Instinct remixes Hitchcock (especially Vertigo and Psycho) with lashings of explicit sex and violence, a touch of The Silence of the Lambs and a dollop of Fatal Attraction. It’s a deeply silly, dirty film that was a sort of Fifty Shades of its day: vanilla porn for those who feel too self-conscious to actually go and watch a real one.

Catherine Trammell (Sharon Stone) is number one suspect for the murder of her boyfriend (or rather as she describes him “the guy I was fucking”) for two reasons: one she published a novel a few weeks earlier where she explicitly described the crime in detail and two she’s an obvious Hannibal Lector-ish genius psychopath. Doesn’t stop weak-willed detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) from becoming obsessed with her, sucked into a wild sexual affair. But is Catherine a misunderstood unlucky victim, or the genius manipulator her old college rival Dr Beth Garner (Jeanne Tripplehorn) – also Nick’s on-and-off girlfriend and psychiatrist – says she is?

Basic Instinct was the most expensive script ever sold, earning Joe Eszterhas $3million for what he claimed was fourteen days’ work. And you can see why – it’s got everything audiences could need for an addictive, trashy bit of fun. A femme fatale who is also a genius psychopath! A handsome macho cop! Brutal murders! A puzzle interesting enough to keep ticking over but obvious enough that you don’t need to think about it too much! And of course, lots and lots and lots of sex! And then even more sex! No wonder people saw dollar bills – at the very worst they had a chance at a so-bad-its-good box office smash.

But the good stuff. Basic Instinct’s comic-book Hitchcock pastiche actually works rather well, helped enormously by a marvellous Oscar-nominated score by Jerry Goldsmith, which brilliantly channels Bernard Herrmann’s luscious Vertigo strings. It’s no exaggeration to say Goldsmith’s score dramatically improves the film, from adding tension to a drawn-out elevator trip to adding a film noir lyricism to Catherine and Nick’s rather forced sexualised banter. Verhoeven also really knows his business: the film’s famous interrogation scene works as well as it does through his skilful editing between wide angles, close-ups and POV shots, aided by the striking uplighting from cinematographer Jan de Bont.

That scene – and the film – also works because of Sharon Stone. Taking on a role turned down by almost every single woman in Hollywood, Stone seizes hold of a part she knew was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Nick may be the lead – and Douglas, in the middle of his run of weak modern American men bewitched by strong women, may have been the high-paid star ($14 million to Stone’s $550k) – but both knew this was Catherine’s movie. Stone plays the role with a playful, sensual confidence and arrogant defiance, knowing full well she can seduce anyone. Despite the clunky dialogue, she makes Catherine sexy, smart and just about vulnerable enough to make some viewers doubt whether she’s the killer or not. (I mean she blatantly is, the film doesn’t really try and pretend otherwise. Most of the fun is seeing how shamelessly she can parade it and still get away with it.)

Away from that though, Basic Instinct is a terribly silly film, a well-made pandering to our lowest desires. Opening with an extremely graphic post-coitus stabbing frenzy (with blood spray everywhere and a nose skewered by an ice pick) – it then teases us three times that it will repeat this again after nearly every explosive session of rumpy-pumpy. Ah yes, the rumpy-pumpy. Basic Instinct slows at the half-way mark for an almost five-minute extended multi-angled, orgasm packed bit of horizontal jogging that Nick then rather pathetically spends most of the rest film bragging about being “the fuck of the century”.

But then Nick is a pathetic figure. Somehow keeping hold of his badge, despite gunning down two tourists while high on cocaine, he’s got such an addictive personality he makes Lloyd Bridges’ (“I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue!”) air traffic controller in Airplane look like a model of restraint. After internal affairs-mandated therapy (how’s that for a slap on the wrist) – hilariously compromised by Jeanne Tripplehorn’s Dr Garner crossing all ethical lines by repeatedly shagging him – Nick has proudly quit drugs, drink, smoking, and shooting before asking questions. Needless to say, under Catherine’s influence, he embraces all of these again, all while still managing to be the sort of middle-aged loser who wears a pullover to nightclub.

Eszterhas’ script mixes awful “tough” dialogue (“Looks like he got off before he got offed” Nick’s partner jokes over a victim) with clumsy psychological insight (my favourite is Tobolowsky’s consultant who confidently states two options: Trammel either did or didn’t do it – inevitably this childishly empty insight is met with the manly ‘tecs muttering “In English Doc!”) and blunt statements of the obvious (“She’s brilliant! And Evil!” screams poor Tripplehorn). The flirty banter is largely sold by Sharon Stone’s confidence, since the lines (“I’m not wearing underwear”) are hardly Double Indemnity. The film’s mystery is so irrelevant to its appeal (and, in many ways, plot), it merrily gets bogged down in several off-screen murders of characters we’ve never met.

Today Basic Instinct feels like a bizarre museum piece. George Dzundza’s sidekick cop is intended as comic-relief but comes across like a little ball of toxic masculinity. An early sex scene between Nick and Beth is pretty much impossible to watch today without thinking “yeah that’s rape”. The film uses bisexuality (though we only, of course, get girl-on-girl – Douglas made it clear he ain’t gonna kiss no man) as raw titillation, an entre for the soft porn of Douglas and Stone noisily going at it for about 10% of the film’s run time. Even the famous scene is uncomfortable to watch, since Stone has since made it clear she didn’t consent to that shot.

Basic Instinct is a deeply silly piece of trash. But then that was its appeal back then – no one felt they were actually watching Hitchcock when they sat down to this rip-off of the master (in fact Basic Instinct makes you feel it’s probably a relief the production code meant Hitchcock couldn’t give into his Verhoevenish instincts). Today most like to think of it as a sort of well played card trick. However, it’s hard not to feel a bit for Sharon Stone to whom it became a millstone (which she eventually exploited for a terrible belated sequel for which she pocketed $13.5million), despite being the person possibly most responsible for its success. So maybe Nick won in the end after all.

The Critic (2023)

McKellen’s familiar star turn is the only life in an otherwise unremarkable film

Director: Anand Tucker

Cast: Ian McKellen (Jimmy Erskine), Gemma Arterton (Nina Land), Mark Strong (David Brooke), Lesley Manville (Annabel Lord), Romola Garai (Cora Wyler), Ben Barnes (Stephen Wyley), Alfred Enoch (Tom Tunner), Nikesh Patel (Ferdy Harwood), Claire Skinner (Mary Brooke), Ron Cook (Hugh Morris)

The murky streets of 1930s West End London are the kingdom of Daily Chronicle theatre critic Jimmy Erskine (Ian McKellen), famous for his poison-inked, vitriolic reviews of the many shows that fall beneath his high standards. But the times they are-a-changing, not least at the Chronicle where the former owner (a Rothermere-like bully who loved Jimmy’s take-no-prisoners prose bullying) is replaced by his son David Brooke (Mark Strong), a softly-spoken liberal who wants to take the paper in a new direction. With the arrogant Erskine on a knife-edge (not helped by his risk-taking penchant for rough-trade sex encounters with gentlemen in the park), Brooke is about to unknowingly discover how far the famed critic will go to cling onto his job and reputation – and how easily he will embroil an ambitious young actress, Nina Land (Gemma Arterton), in his schemes.

The Critic starts far more interestingly when it ends. It’s easy criticism, but you can well imagine it falling foul of Erskine’s fury if he had seen it unfold before him in a West End theatre on a Tuesday night. Despite the best efforts of all involved, it all too quickly becomes the sort of routine revenge-murder-conspiracy potboiler that relies a little too much on contrivance and coincidence, the stench of familiarity all over it. Atmospheric as it is – set in a dimly-lit, fog-bound London and in the plush retiring rooms of the rich and famous – and well-selected as its selection of faux theatrical memorabilia that litters Erskine’s home is, the actual story becomes all too predictable.

The main thing it has going for it is a fine performance by Ian McKellen, even if the part plays so neatly to his strengths you feel he could play it standing on his head. McKellen has long mastered mixing the twinkle of the bon vivant with the vicious, cold-eyed cruelty of the sociopath, even having recently done the same thing in The Good Liar. Erskine is selfish, demanding, cruel with a self-destructive streak (both financially – living a ruinous life well beyond his means – and his frequent drunken pride and stubbornness). He bitterly believes himself to deserve acclaim and standing (denied to his failed acting career) and treats almost everyone around him with contempt hidden behind a raised eyebrow or pursed lip. His primary motivation, to the very end, is that his theatrical writing should become a collected volume in every home cementing him as a sort of Wildean wit.

The Critic toys with a more interesting view of Erskine as not entirely unsympathetic. His homosexuality – and the abuse and persecution it has bought him – shows him fall foul of encounters with the police and sees him challenging preening National Front blackshirts. He’s disgusted by Fascism and despises racism, promoting his young Black lover, secretary and amanuensis Tom Tunner (a fine performance of mixed loyalty and Stockholm-syndrome-like support from Alfred Enoch). He’s genuinely touched when Nina Lane – who has lambasted for years in print – tells him his writing made her want to act. But these shades of grey get largely ditched for as the film focuses on darkening his shadow as the plot descends into conspiracy, blackmail and murder.

McKellen does provide the film’s best entertainment. He knows how to deliver a line, how a splutter can communicate outrage, how an intake of breath can communicate fury, how the eyes can turn any smile insincere. He’s long since mastered Iagos and if The Critic doesn’t ask him to do anything he hasn’t done before, he can still do it like an absolute pro. There are other decent performances. Mark Strong plays against type as a man as (surprisingly) decent and kind as he seems. Gemma Arterton expertly plays both “bad” and “good” acting as would-be theatrical giant Nina Lane, while mixing desperation and self-loathing in her off-stage persona. On the other hand, the film wastes Romola Garai as Brooke’s Nazi-sympathising daughter and Lesley Manville as Nina’s chatterbox mother.

The Critic builds up a contrived (and inadvertently creepy) plotline that links both Brooke and Nina – most convenient for Erskine’s improvised blackmail scheme – and that melodrama eventually suppresses The Critic’s more interesting moments. A film that looked at Erskine’s character having been formed in a world where his sexuality was a persecuted crime might have made for a more intriguing storyline. Or which explored how Erskine settled for being court jester to powerful, clubbing homophobes – so much so he actively resents the more liberal Brooke. Or looked at the creeping onset of fascist sympathy in the upper classes. Or one which took a more expanded look at Tom’s struggles in a defiantly non-diverse 30s London (instead the significance of Tom’s skin colour fluctuates according to plot requirements and its awkward uniqueness is undermined by the fact the theatre director is played by Nikesh Patel). It avoids all this for all too familiar tropes.

In most ways The Critic has its moments but fundamentally fails to deliver. And, perhaps worst of all, it does so in a way that doesn’t even really raise the critical heckles. Instead, you’re overwhelming feeling when this sub-Christie drama comes to its close is that it was okay. The sort of film Jimmy Erskine would have dismissed in a few short sentences.

Training Day (2001)

Pulsating corrupt-cop drama, highly entertaining with a full-throttle Denzel Washington

Director: Antoine Fuqua

Cast: Denzel Washington (Detective Alonzo Harris), Ethan Hawke (Officer Jake Hoyt), Scott Glenn (Roger), Tom Berenger (Stan Gursky LAPD), Harris Yulin (Doug Rosselli LAPD), Raymond J Barry (Lou Jacobs LAPD), Cliff Curtis (Smiley), Dr Dre (Officer Paul), Snoop Dogg (Blue), Macy Gray (Sandman’s wife), Charlotte Ayanna (Lisa), Eva Mendes (Sara)

“King Kong ain’t got nothing on me!” That’s the mantra of larger-than-life legendary cop Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington), who has immersed himself so much in the dirty neighbourhood gangland of LA that it’s hard to see where cop ends and crook begins. Alonso claims to believe to keep the town clean, you gotta break a few rules. But then he also believes in filling his own pockets with stolen money. It’s all going to come to a head in one day: first day on the job for ambitious boy-scout officer Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke) who thinks he’s auditioning to join an elite squad only to find he’s the victim of a series of elaborate mind-games and dodgy moves by Alonzo, testing to see whether he is potential asset or sacrificial pawn. It’s going to be a long day.

Training Day is basically a massive dance with the devil, offering his little Faustus all the wonders of the world in return for his soul. It’s all there for Hoyt’s taking: respect, glory, standing – and of course oodles of plastic-wrapped dollar bills. All he has to do is sacrifice every inch of his integrity and personal morality to Alonzo Harris, a grandstanding Mephistopheles. This first day is all about Harris pushing Hoyt to see how far he will go. Will he smoke a little dope so he could pass as an undercover druggie? Will he search a house under a false warrant? Will he rough up a suspect? Will he murder a drugdealer and steal his cash?

Throughout all this, Denzel Washington barnstorms to fantastic Oscar-winning effect. This is a delightfully Devilish performance, Washington leaving it all out on the pitch. Alonzo Harris has inhabited the persona of the gangsters he follows for so long he’s basically become one. Harris is scarily charismatic, the unshakeable confident cool he uses to cow and terrify criminals and punks on the street, also making him a hugely attractive figure. This is despite his complete amorality, his ruthless capacity for violence and his shocking willingness to abuse and use almost everyone around him. He does all this by convincing Hoyt for long stretches that his poor treatment, abuse and deception of him is all in Hoyt’s own interest: to toughen up this naïve puppy into a killer.

Hoyt spends half the time if this is some elaborate show-and-test. Who can blame him? Washington’s exuberance plays masterfully on the edges of someone putting on a massive performance. There are neat moment where we see how fragile some of Harris’ control is, once he is outside of his comfort zone: he’s in hoc for millions to Russian gangsters and as events of the day pile up his thermonuclear self-confidence tips into moments of impotent fury. Washington is fantastic as this street monster, whose seductive lines on modern policing (do a little bad to do a greater good) start off sounding like common sense before you realise they tip quickly into justifying open criminality. It’s a performance of perfect physical swagger matched with his limitless charisma, inverting the qualities that made him a perfect Steve Biko or Malcolm X into a Lectorish monster.

Ethan Hawke is also extremely good as his polar opposite, the eager to please rookie who realises there is a lot more going on here than he thought. Training Day suggests there may well be a middle ground between Hoyt’s straight-as-an-arrow idea of policing and Harris’ corruption – and it’s part of Harris’ appeal that his perverted mentoring ends up making Hoyt a tougher, more unrelenting (better?) cop than he was before. But also, Hawke is great at showing that Hoyt (under his sheen of moral uprightness) is also a tough, hardened professional. In classic story-telling style, Harris is a dark reflection of Hoyt: they share a stubbornness, a conviction that they are right, a refusal to be intimidated (Hoyt may nervously try to please Harris at first, but once he realises the score he refuses to be forced into doing anything he doesn’t want to do) and a capacity for throwing themselves into decisive action. There is a reason why this rookie can get the drop on Harris – much to his wicked mentor’s delight and admiration – in a way no one else can.

That alone shows the dark magnetism of people like Harris: like Hoyt we end up wanting their approval even when we hate or fear them. Even as he holds a shotgun to his head, there is a part of Hoyt you suspect is proud that Harris’ gut reaction is to shout an impressed “My man!”. Of course Harris knows his validation is important to people. Monsters like this know the weaker-willed crave their respect. But then Harris also knows no one else in his team – all of them weak-willed bullies, desperately trying to imitate them – have even a quarter of the independence of mind Hoyt has.

What Harris under-estimates is Hoyt’s survival instinct. The final third of the film, the clash that has been building inevitably between these two, again demonstrates both their similarities and their fundamental differences. The main difference between them being Hoyt cares for, and protects others, and Harris cares only about himself. Hoyt’s humanitarianism will save him from dangerous situations and even Harris’ girlfriend (a tough-but-cowed performance from Eva Mendes) recognises Hoyt has shown more concern for her son in a few minutes than his father, Harris, ever has in his whole life.

The final act of Training Day hinges a little too much on one whopper of a coincidence: the sort of narrative contrivance so colossal that, in a less magnetic film, you’d be throwing stuff at the TV shouting “oh come on!” It’s final, inevitable, confrontation between Harris and Hoyt feels rather too much like many, many other films before it in every single beat, while the ending has a whiff of Hays Code morality (all wrongs righted!) about it that rather undermines the edgy, unpredictable film it precedes.

But when Training Day focuses on the sound and the fury of Washington and the Faustian dance on the deep grey lines of street policing, this is a sensational, energetic and highly watchable cop thriller, pulsatingly directed by Antonie Fuqua. With Washington superb and Hawke easy to overlook as his straight-laced partner, it’s a character study that constantly shifts our expectations and leaves us genuinely worried about the fate of its hero. The sort of slick entertainment Hollywood does at its best.

Seven (1995)

Darkly, unrelentingly unsettling, Fincher’s true-debut is an outstanding psychological thriller

Director: David Fincher

Cast: Brad Pitt (Detective David Mills), Morgan Freeman (Detective William Somerset), Gwyneth Paltrow (Tracy Mills), Richard Roundtree (DA Talbot), R. Lee Ermey (Police captain), John C McGinley (‘California’), Julie Araskog (Mrs Gould), Mark Boone Jnr (FBI man), John Cassini (Officer Davis), Reginald E. Cathey (Dr Santiago), Richard Schiff (Mark Swarr), Kevin Spacey (John Doe)

Set in a city where decency and humanity goes to die, daylight is a stranger and everything is covered with constant rainfall, Seven covers the most chilling week-in-the-life of two detectives. One, disillusioned William Somerset (Morgan Freeman), is counting down to his early retirement. The other, his cocksure replacement David Mills (Brad Pitt) thinks he’s unbeatable and indestructible. But they are going up against someone who will shake them to their core, a calculating serial killer dispatching victims he judges guilty of the seven deadly scenes, framing their bodies in grotesque rituals. Can they track him down before he completes his terrible work?

Seven is one of the finest, and most influential, of all serial killer films. Dark, haunting and relentless, it’s a perfect package of grim foreboding and nihilistic terror, expertly directed by David Fincher. Seven is very careful about what it shows you, trusting far more in the horror of suggestion and witnessing the reactions of the characters – you come out of it convinced you have seen more than you have. It never lets you relax for a moment, always dreading the worst – yet so many people never saw coming its infamous final act with its unexpected, horrifying, reveals and darkly, hope-free conclusion. Seven offers almost no comfort and never pets you at ease only a despairing look at how terrible the world can be and how desperate the struggle for goodness can be.

In a visual design that’s reminiscent of Blade Runner, the world of Seven is almost permanently dark, dingy and rain-soaked, the crime scenes filthy, terrifying haunted houses of grimness. The chaotic sounds of the city, mechanical and uncaring, are everywhere: Somerset even sleeps with a metronome ticking in an attempt to impose sone order on his world. The score uses base beats and near-industrial sound, the editing mixes smooth classic cuts and sudden shocks, the camera work is awash with tones from the green of greed to the blood red of lust. Not there there is any comfort in daylight, since the brightest, most open sequence of this claustrophobic film (even the Mills’ apartment violently shakes from passing trains, a subtle hint no where is safe) takes place in a pylon-stuffed field and it’s the most horrific, nihilistic of the lot.

Seven though is also darkly seductive: it plays on our fascination with the dark ‘genius’ of Hollywood killers, their love of patterns and the twisted purity of their quest for perfection. The film’s opening sequence, showing the killer’s preparations in a series of jagged, disorienting cuts, even places us in his perspective. When he is revealed, he mixes prissy politeness with dark, obsessive love for his work. Seven understands out fascination with the pattern killer – just as we were obsessed with Hannibal Lector and the Terminator, the guy in control is intriguing. It punishes us for this by stressing the horrific impact of his crimes and the traumatic impact on the survivors, is nihilistic ending even more effective for all the dark enjoyment the viewer has taken out of Seven’s grim momentum.

It’s also benefits hugely from its play on the conventions of the odd-couple detective pairing. Somerset and Mills are chalk-and-cheese: Somerset is calm, methodical and professionally distant, Mills is volcanic, lacks focus and becomes terribly personally invested. One of the films few touches of humanity and hope is the growing friendship between these two – slow-burning to say the least – that sees them go from butting heads to sharing jokes and supporting each other’s calls.

The performances are excellent. Brad Pitt (whose clout helped ensure producers couldn’t neuter the film’s shocking ending) is full of jittery energy masking his insecurity, doubt and fear; so worried about looking weak he resorts constantly to anger. Lacking patience (hilariously he can’t bring himself to read Dante and Chaucer, as Somerset recommends, instead resorting to hiding Cliff Notes books in his desk) he investigates the crimes with gusto, focused on the exterior not the interior. He can’t only see the killer as a lunatic, an under-estimation that makes him easy to manipulate.

The moral centre is Morgan Freeman’s Somerset, a superb performance. Somerset is completely disillusioned, convinced any trace of goodness in the world has disappeared. Despite this, events prove him wise (but not above terrible errors) and determined with a strong moral centre. He’s empathetic about crime in ways Mills isn’t (at an early crime scene, one of his first questions is if the victim’s kid has seen the body, a question dismissed as irrelevant by his colleagues) and investigates from inside the killer’s psyche, seeking to understand his motives. Perhaps no other film than Seven has given Freeman so perfect a vehicle, his expressive eyes full of sorrow and regret, his careful decency a mask of detachment that he slowly lets slip to Mills and his wife.

As that wife, Gwyneth Paltrow gives a striking, endearing and perfectly judged performance in a small but crucial role. Tracy Mills is the one unquestionably decent person in this crap-sack world, perhaps why she and Somerset are drawn together. Seven has a wonderfully quiet, humane moment in all this horror, when the two meet to discuss parenthood, a beautifully played exploration of doubt and fear from Paltrow and quiet semi-regret from Freeman. It’s a role pivotal for the film, Paltrow leaving a deeply tender impression on the viewer.

It’s vital for the film’s final act pay-off. Seven is perfectly constructed, both in its pacing of the murders and in not dragging out the mystery of the motive too long (it knows, of course, that everyone watching the film is ahead of the detectives on that score). It’s crammed with stand-out sequences: a SWAT team house storming promises drama but turns into a dark twist on the wrong-door routine; a chase sequence after a chance encounter with the unseen killer gives a perfect shot of adrenalin. It’s all unbalancing us for a shockingly unexpected move by the killer (the actor’s identity carefully kept a secret in advance, meaning his reveal is a genuine shock for the uninitiated) leading to its horrifically nihilistic ending that I defy anyone to anticipate (except its now probably as famous as the identity of Rosebud or Keyser Soze).

Seven is astonishingly brave in all its pulsating thrills and perfectly judged tension for offering very little hope. This is a film where good is essentially powerless against evil: Somerset is too detached to beat evil, Mills so invested in his own black-and-white world he’s easy prey for the coldly manipulative. The film’s conclusion is a punch to the gut, but logical in a film where we’ve seen ordinary people indifferent to the worst of humanity and evil being so devilishly determined and ingenious in its actions no one stands a chance to beat it. You can criticise Seven for its small beats of misogyny: while Tracy is pure, like a fairy-tale princess, the two female victims are a shallow, preening model while the lust victim is not the man who uses prostitutes but the prostitute herself – an attitude we shouldn’t be surprised the killer has, but is unquestioned by any of the (all-male) investigators. (I was uncomfortable with this when I first saw it in the nineties, and time hasn’t changed my mind).

But aside from that, Seven is a darkly compelling masterpiece, a brilliantly unsettling film from David Fincher, at last allowed to deliver a film that exactly matched his vision (in a way Alien 3 did not). The battle to keep its nihilistic dark and shocking ending was a battle well-won, and it makes for a film that is a chilling exploration of evil in the world as well as a compelling, darkly-bloody film noir set in a world of unrelenting hopelessness. One of the greatest serial killer films ever made.

Mississippi Burning (1988)

Earnest drama about racism, whose narrative perhaps focuses on less important issues and people

Director: Alan Parker

Cast: Gene Hackman (Agent Rupert Anderson), Willem Dafoe (Special Agent Alan Ward), Frances McDormand (Mrs Pell), Brad Dourif (Deputy Sheriff Clinton Pell), R. Lee Ermey (Mayor Tilman), Gailard Sartain (Sheriff Ray Stuckey), Stephen Tobolowsky (Clayton Townley), Michael Rooker (Frank Bailey), Pruitt Taylor Vince (Lester Cowans), Kevin Dunn (Agent Bird), Badja Djola (Agent Monk)

In June 1964 three civil rights workers – two white New Yorkers Andrew Goorman and Michael Schwerner and a black Mississippian James Chaney – were arrested, released and then murdered by Neshoba County law officials working alongside KKK white supremacists. An FBI investigation (codenamed Mississippi Burning) revealed the crime, arrested the criminals and managed to convict several (but not all) of them on the federal charge of violating civil rights (convinced the state charge of murder would lead to acquittal from racist juries). Mississippi Burning fictionalises this true-life atrocity into a hard-hitting thriller, mixed with the conventions of crime drama.

It’s directed by Alan Parker in the style of Midnight Express, pulling no punches in chucking the vileness of the KKK up on screen. During the course of Mississippi Burning we see Black people chased, beaten, flung out of moving cars onto the street, lynched and a praying child kicked in the face by a KKK thug. Rightly, the murderers are a vile parade of bullies, cowards and knuckle-dragging monsters portrayed by a group of actors (Dourif, Rooker, Sartain and Vince among them) used to going all-in on portraits of the scum of humanity. It’s a tightly directed, intense film – with a repetitively pounding score by Terry Jones – with Oscar-winning photography by Peter Biziou capturing the flame-lit night-time atrocities these repulsive people execute on innocents.

Mississippi Burning is undoubtedly well-made, with a very earnest message behind it. It’s impossible to fault its rightful disgust at the appalling injustice and racism, but you can’t help but feel it’s focusing its heroic lens on the wrong part of the story. It drew fire at the time for its fictionalisation of almost every element – wisely so in its portrayal of the initial crime, where their names and exact nature of their murder are altered – and the way this pushed the FBI (an organisation that had in many cases actively worked against civil rights) into a traditional heroic role, while reducing the Black people to passive recipients of beatings or kind words from whites. It’s hard not to feel today that, for all the skill of the film, the impact of those decisions have magnified the film’s flaws over time.

At heart, Mississippi Burning uses the conventions of a mis-matched buddy-cop investigative drama to add narrative drive to a social issues film. The two FBI agents are played so well by Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe, you barely notice both are stock roles straight out of central casting. Hackman gives such energy and life (with a lovely touch of shame that his own past conduct, as a Southern sheriff was presumably only a degree better than the people he’s investigating) to his role as no-nonsense, veteran maverick who understands the streets, that he transforms this cliché into a real person. Similarly, Dafoe plays the by-the-book, stuffy superior who has too learn rules-bending sometimes break the case, with such commitment you forget how role familiar it is.

The personal narrative of the film revolves around whether these chalk-and-cheese investigators will overcome their initial iciness – they address each other formally throughout the film and butt-heads frequently on the conduct of the investigation – to become a team which feels odd for a film where the other stakes (violent institutional racism) are so large. In many ways an alternative cliché – two disconnected investigators investing more in a case based on the injustice they see and the witnesses they talk to – might well have served it better and also reflected contemporary complaints that the FBI was more interested in the letter than the spirit of the law. Mississippi Burning does, at times, address this by having characters explicitly ask if the FBI would even lift a finger if two of the victims weren’t white. But seeing as the film generally considers raising the question the same as engaging with it, it doesn’t go anywhere.

The film requires the agents to undertake mis-steps in order to educate the audience (would Dafoe’s character really be as ignorant about the nuances of segregation as he frequently is here?) and blunder about for much of the early acts, most notably Dafoe’s public conversation with a Black man in a diner, that inevitably leads to the poor man kidnapped and beaten by the KKK. But on the whole, the FBI are presented as noble straight-shooters, aghast at the state of affairs in the South, rather than a body run by the morally-ambiguous J Edgar Hoover.

It also means Mississippi Burning relegates its Black characters to passengers and passive victims, reliant on white people for protection and vindication. While it would be false to claim the system in the South didn’t leave Black people largely powerless, the film’s failure to introduce a single memorable character giving voice to the Black perspective of a series of crimes that happened to them feels more and more uncomfortable as the film ages (particularly as the film’s hopeful ending very much places racism as a problem in the past, not a dilemma America continues to face).

The film’s real conscience (and the victim given most development) is instead Frances McDormand as the wife of Dourif’s vile racist sheriff. Parker’s film subtly indicating her lack of racism early (she consoling touches the arm of a Black man), and McDormand (who is excellent) brings real force to her pained, frightened longing to do the right thing. She contrasts neatly with the committed vile cowardice of Dourif, Rooker’s swaggering bullying and Stephen Tobolowsky’s Hiterlian racism as a KKK Grand Wizard. Parker successfully makes these guys so repulsive, that when Hackman’s Anderson gets free reign to intimidate, rough-up and bully them back it carries real satisfaction. But the film making the most developed victim of the film’s KKK a white, gentile feels more like filmmaker concerns that otherwise the bulk of the likely audience may otherwise have trouble relating to the bulk of the victims.

Mississippi Burning tries to be hopeful. This extends to some slightly forced moralising – the suicide of one character is attributed to guilt at the crime, rather than the more likely guilt at having ‘betrayed’ his fellow KKK – and a general sense that Mississippi is on the road to peace, feels a bit of a stretch for a region that had decades of continued unrest ahead. Saying that, in its sometimes clumsy way, you can’t doubt its power and its righteous disgust at racism. It’s well directed and has some excellent performances – Hackman and McDormand were both Oscar nominated – but it feels like a film that only focuses on part of an overall picture and not always the right part.