Category: REVIEWS

In Hard Paint we follow Pedro, a shy and socially awkward young man. Pedro has no friends and, with his sister recently moving out to another part of the city, he has no family nearby either. To top this off, he now has to pay the rent on his home entirely alone and must pay the fine that was given due to the noise made at his sister’s moving party.

However, he finds himself an escape from this life by uploading erotic videos onto a gay website. Here, under the name of Neonboy, he strips down and covers himself in neon body paint.

Made in and set in Brazil, what we have is a film that will appeal to a good deal of people. Especially those in the LGBTQ community. Before I go further into the film, I will say that I am glad that we are getting more films for the LGBTQ. Respect for this community has come a long way in my lifetime and I am happy with how far we have come.

That being said, a lot of these LGBTQ films I find to be unfortunately boring. And sadly, Hard Paint was not one to break this trend.

While I have no complaints to the acting, which is handled very well. Everyone feels natural. Like the sets they are in, the characters feel real and lived in. Like there’s a past to it all, even if we are not told it. I also think that some of the uses of body paint is very well used. It’s a fantastic mix of beautiful and sleezy, and on top of that it is essential to the plot. But as good as these are the film still fell flat.

My main issue is the camera work, which was just flat. Every shot felt very basic. There are moments that felt like the quieter moments in the Star Wars Prequels – it’s just showing us what we need to see without much style to it. I was fine looking at the scenes with the body paint because otherwise it’s one of the greyest films I’ve seen in a while.

I have a feeling that the filmmakers were relying on the provocative nature of the film to affect the audience more. I am sure that this will do the trick for many. For me, it wasn’t as provocative as it thought it was. The homosexuality wasn’t as sweet or taboo as other films before it – or done in the ways of such films as Love Simon or Spetters. And the exotic videos aren’t as provocative as such films as Basic Instinct.

I couldn’t get into Hard Paint. For me it was too dull and just didn’t break any new ground. The online and body paint aspects to it were intriguing and visually nice to look at. But beyond that, it is nothing special. I’ve certainly seen worse and it’s nicer to see something like this over something that was clearly made by a committee.

If you feel like this film may connect to you, then it will be worth the watch as it’s subject is touchy and will hit home with a lot of people in the end.

Hobbs & Shaw: The BRWC Review.

Ever since hulking lawman Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), a loyal agent of America’s Diplomatic Security Service, and lawless outcast Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), a former British military elite operative, first faced off in 2015’s Furious 7, the duo have swapped smack talk and body blows as they’ve tried to take each other down.

But when cyber-genetically enhanced anarchist Brixton Lore (Idris Elba) gains control of an insidious bio-threat that could alter humanity forever — and bests a brilliant and fearless rogue MI6 agent (Vanessa Kirby), who just happens to be Shaw’s sister — these two sworn enemies will have to partner up to bring down the only guy who might be badder than themselves.

The long-running The Fast and the Furious film franchise is among of the highest grossing of all time, with a number of the entries managing to gross over one billion dollars. It appears that audiences agree that there is something oddly entertaining about a group of high-testosterone men driving fast cars and beating each other up for a couple of hours, and that is exactly what David Leitch’s Hobbs & Shaw is.

When it comes to the entertainment value here, it is truly a blast to watch and there are barely any boring scenes throughout its titan-sized running time. Whether its The Rock running around and punching villains in the face, Statham getting caught up in car chases, or the two of them together simply trading hilarious insults with one another, it is a genuinely fun film to sit back and enjoy.

You don’t go into a Fast and the Furious film expecting Oscar levels of filmmaking. You go into these films expecting an absolutely ridiculous popcorn flick that in all reality makes no sense and can be over-the-top corny at times, but still manages to stay highly amusing. What makes it work so well though, is that the filmmakers are extremely self-aware about the film. They know that this is not a film to be taken extremely seriously, and therefore, it all feels like a joyride that we can sit back and relax for, rather than one with high stakes.

The action sequences throughout the film are actually a ton of fun to watch, and there are gratefully a bunch of them. For the majority, the action scenes are handled fairly well, managing to stray away from the loathed “shaky cam” tactic of filmmaking, and instead attempting to focus the camera on the actors. There are two true standout scenes in Hobbs & Shaw that are so highly unbelievable yet incredibly amusing that you just cannot help but smile while watching it.

Idris Elba portrays the main antagonist of the picture, Brixton Lore, a cybernetically enhanced man who has a big evil scheme up his sleeve and will take out anybody in his path to succeed. He is most definitely the definition of a mustache-stroking villain.

A villain with no real motive if you really stop to think about it, but that all ties into my earlier point – the filmmakers are aware that Lore is a corny villain and they manage to poke fun at him numerous times here and there.

Hobbs & Shaw is an absolutely absurd film, but that’s why its so much fun. It is a blast of a blockbuster with a bunch of action, over-the-top moments and some great comedic banter from Johnson and Statham.

Socrates is a powerfully written and directed Brazilian drama co-written, produced and acted by at-risk teenagers from local low-income communities, with the support of Unicef. Socrates (Christian Malheiros) suddenly has his life turned upside down when his mother dies. Being only fifteen years old, Socrates is suddenly thrust into the world of adulthood and realises that there is a lot ahead of him that he is unprepared to deal with. Socrates also finds out that the adult world is not prepared to deal with him either.

All Socrates needs is someone to help him through his complicated life, helping him find work, dealing with his absent father and getting through the grief for his mother, however he starts to realise that nobody will help him. Socrates is also dealing with his own emotions and finding out who he can trust when dealing with his own sexuality. Overall, Socrates has never been more alone.

Directed by award-winning short film director, Alexandre Moratto, Socrates is a tale of loss, grief, hopelessness and the struggle that children face when they suddenly have to cope with things that are difficult to deal with at such a young age. With help from teenagers from low-income Brazilian communities, Socrates paints a realistic picture of what could happen to any child at any time and perhaps anywhere in the world.

The events of the film and its tone are in no doubt inspired by the filmmakers’ own experiences, and whereas it may only skim the surface of what these children have to deal with, it still leaves a bitter taste in the audience’s mouths.

Being his first cinematic acting role, Malheiros is most certainly thrown into the deep end with the role of Socrates. However, he is able to keep his head above water and prove that he is just as capable as the rest of the cast. Faced with many difficult scenes, both physically and emotionally, Malheiros manages to keep his audience compelled by his story and even at the worst of times he maintains the audience’s sympathies towards his situation, which rapidly go from bad to worse. Malheiros is shown to be an actor with a good range and I am sure will have success in his future career.

Socrates can be a difficult film to watch at times but I believe it to be an important one to view. Although partially supported by Unicef, the film never feels like a public service announcement about the dangers that children face when they are left with nothing.

Instead, the film feels like a realistic depiction of a young man whose life quickly spirals out of control with very little he can do about it, never forcibly pulling at its audience’s heartstrings to get its message across.

Socrates shows its audience how easy it can be when we as a society let down our children, treating them like a problem to be swept away rather than finding a solution that could be so easily handled.

Surviving Confession Review.

Discerning and evaluating the nature of inner conflict can make for an entertaining and enlightening movie experience. Should audience members walk out of the cinema with new insight and the impulse to have a conversation, then the filmmaker has achieved their goal. However, if undertaking this investigation, and coming to a result that garners no progress from where we began, then the filmmaker has failed. After viewing “Surviving Confession” there is no beating around the bush, director Matthew Tibbenham has failed.

Surviving Confession tells the story of Father Morris (Clayton Nemrow), a conflicted and fourth wall breaking priest who has come to despise the sacrament of reconciliation. Not because he doesn’t see its importance, but because he finds it unbelievably frustrating that his parishioners repeat their sins every week. Throughout one evening in his confession room, Father Morris battles his wavering faith with a revolving cast of believers looking to confess, along with one girl who won’t leave him alone. That girl is Amber, (Jessica Lynn Parsons), a disgruntled youth who comes to confession but refuses to confess, hiding her dark past in the process. 

Above all its other flaws, Nathan Shane Miller’s script is the biggest. For all its religious links and debate over the pros and cons of the church Surviving Confession has astoundingly little to say. At no stage does the film make up its mind about any of the issues it presents and provides nowhere near enough depth for us to alter any of our stances.

It plays like an overview of things we already knew but presents it like it is new-age thinking. All culminating in a severely melodramatic finale that becomes more humorous than impactful or sad. The final twist is nothing to laugh at, but it is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. The ending was shaping to be where the film finally clearly stated its opinion after being nothing but contradictory arguments all the way through. Instead, it is an empty and over the top ending that fails to provide closure for either characters or audience. 

The performances are hot and cold, but in saying that I must highlight Nemrow and Parsons who work terrifically well together. They have a bouncy chemistry with one another that makes the concept work as best it can for small periods. Nemrow shines particularly bright and carries half the movie on his back as a result. For almost the entire film, we never leave the confessional room where Father Morris sets up at the beginning. The rest of the cast is made up of amateur actors coming in to confess their sins to Father Morris, and this doesn’t work.

They are often depicted in tight unwavering close-ups as they present their deeply unrealistic depiction of Confession. Each one falls flat, we do not know these characters enough for them to be presenting their troubles to us so passionately, and almost all of them are deeply flawed. Overall Surviving Confession is overly pessimistic for no discernible reason, and that is a big issue. Its view of the world is a cold one, and its unfunny humour fails to come close to lightening the mood. 

The score manages to elevate moments above the mindless monologues that would have been happening otherwise. It becomes the only real aspect to generate any empathy in the entire endeavour. The concept alone is one that could easily have inspired many different emotions.

Father Morris wrestling with the idea that he is wasting his life could have made for a compelling movie. However, the only thought I had when the film was over was “why would someone like that ever become a priest?”. Throughout, almost every decision Father Morris makes appears to be the objectively wrong one, and certainly not one an actual priest would make. By the end, the film numbs itself from emotion and tries to claw it back missing the mark by a long way in the process. 

Surviving Confession manages to say nothing about surviving or confession in any sense. Throwing the major twists all into the final sequence was a disastrous decision and resulted in throwing any overarching message out the window. Clayton Nemrow gets a platform to shine, but outside of that Surviving Confession offers very little.

The Bromley Boys Review.

Supporting a terrible football club is not easy. There is a strange phenomenon that occurs between matches when you support one. You watch your team lose, usually by a substantial margin, write off any chance of them getting better anytime soon, and still come back and watch them next week. At times it resonates more with Einstein’s definition of insanity than anything else. Director Steve Kelly explores this with his newest film that adapts the memoir of David Roberts (Brenock O’Connor), a man who found himself supporting one of Britain’s worst football clubs in 1970, Bromley FC.

The premise of this movie is a fun one. David is a friendless and partially neurotic 15-year-old boy. It’s not that he doesn’t want to make friends, it’s that none of them wants to see Bromley play with him, and it’s hard to blame them. With half of the team players being old and out of shape Bromley are woeful when it comes to game day, and their only real prospect in 1970 is avoiding relegation. Regardless, as the film states, ‘you can’t choose who you’re going to fall in love with’ and with that said David’s undying love for Bromley FC leads him to friendship, a girlfriend and a chance to become a football manager. 

As fun as the plot is, it’s difficult to highlight much to praise in the execution. Everything is too run of the mill. Kelly appears satisfied with allowing The Bromley Boys to wander off to its conclusion without anything unpredictable occurring. From start to finish the film plays as if all too happy to tick off movie tropes and crack jokes about it along the way. All in all, this makes what seemed a somewhat original concept play like it’s entirely unoriginal and that detracts from the experience drastically. 

The humour is only sporadically funny, in saying that, when the jokes land it can be quite hilarious. I found the trio of friends David makes to be the most amusing. Roy Oliver (TJ Herbert), Peter Batchelor (Mark Dymond) and Derek Dobson (Ewen MacIntosh) are three fans who become friends with David thanks to their mutual interest. They combine to have the best laughs of the movie, which is why it’s so disappointing that the script fails to utilise them. Understandably, a movie based on David’s memoirs is primarily about David, but the fact remains that even with the charming and witty daughter of the club owner Ruby McQueen (Savannah Baker) by his side he’s just not funny enough.

“Show don’t tell” is a basic storytelling rule that “The Bromley Boys” has a difficult time following. There is a decent flow and pace to the narrative, which works rather well, but the cost is that the characters like to hit us over the head with every revelation and twist. There is an entire scene where the major twist is explained outright through dialogue, and it was blatantly jarring. These characters are likeable and funny at moments; there just needed to be more from them in terms of carrying the story by their actions, not their words.

The performances are all up to scratch, but the casting in one instance is rather strange. Comedian Alan Davies is in the only non-funny role in the entire film, David’s father. He manages it just fine, but it’s altogether strange he’s there. By trade, his job is to be funny, and he’s quite good at it. He easily could have slid into any number of other roles that would have seen him shine far brighter. Suffice to say that his presence in the film only serves to allow us to wonder what could have been. Outside of this O’Conner and Baker make for a winning couple, despite the fact they are so mismatched it’s entirely unrealistic, the two young performers manage to make it work.

The tone is the film’s final issue. The dramatic side of the film revolves around how connected David has become to the club. Their failure directly impacts his life for the worse. This rollercoaster is the films strongest narrative point; it makes for a unique look at desperation, one that in the final moments is almost pulled off.

Unfortunately, by the end, it’s hard not to think that it falls short. It’s clear why this comedy film doesn’t spend more time on this, but I can’t help but feel they should have. As a result, this tonal change towards the end is quite stark and doesn’t work so well as the director intended. Nevertheless, it’s a strong concept slightly reminiscent of a very watered-down version of Robert De Niro’s character from The Silver Linings Playbook.

Overall The Bromley Boys always manages to slip itself up whenever it gets going. Had there been more method to the madness, this could have been an enjoyable heart-warmer, but it misses that mark. There are still aspects here to like and some genuinely funny moments, but ragged tonal changes and a blunt unimaginative twist see The Bromley Boys relegated to a missed opportunity.