film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Category: REVIEWS

Here is where you would find our film reviews on BRWC.  We look at on trailers, shorts, indies and mainstream.  We love movies!

  • Review: Waiting For You

    Review: Waiting For You

    Following his father’s death from a debilitating disease, Paul (Colin Morgan – Merlin, Humans) is faced with an emotional and financial hole in the family. As he digs into his dad’s military past he discovers an increasingly shady tale of violence and scandal. Travelling to the south of France in search of the truth, he finds enigmatic musician Madeleine Brown (Fanny Ardant), who Paul suspects holds the key to unearthing his father’s story.

    Waiting for You marks Charles Garrad’s directorial debut after a decades-spanning career as a production designer on such films as The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain and The Serpent’s Kiss.

    Here he concocts a slow-burning mystery that boils over into melodrama and doesn’t quite convince or engage emotionally. Simmering tensions born from colonialism and war crimes become glossed-over by soapy scandal, and a subplot pursuing Paul’s affair with a young local woman is a pointless flirtation, wasting precious time that might have been better spent on brewing a deeper narrative.

    Yet the film is handsomely shot, with Garrad and cinematographer David Raedeker (My Brother the Devil, Downton Abbey) making full use of the southern French countryside and the rustic château around which the story unravels. Ardant recalls her work with François Truffaut with a cool and composed performance that gives just enough hint of tragedy and trauma, while Morgan’s bewildered-Brit-abroad finds the right balance between maturity and his impulsive desire for the truth.

    A pretty picture with a promising start that gets a bit lost amidst its own plot twists, Waiting for You is out in UK cinemas from 26th October.

  • Jeepers Creepers 3: Review

    Jeepers Creepers 3: Review

    By Eric Trigg.

    Stay away from these peepers

    For 14 years fans of this series waited for the long overdue 3rd entry that seemed like it was going to remain trapped in development hell. Several years of speculation, and rumors would come but no 3rd film. Originally Jeepers Creepers 3 was going to be set 23 years after the first two installments and would follow Trish Jenner (Gina Philips), Jack Taggart Sr. (Ray Wise) and his son as they team up to hunt down and kill the winged monster. That idea was scrapped for a prequel set in between the first two entries and it does not work at all. The original films told the story about an ancient evil that awakened every 23rd spring for 23 days to eat from humans to regenerate body parts.

    Victor Salva returns to write and direct this 3rd installment, Jonathan Breck reprises his role as the creeper, and Brandon Smith returns to the series as Sgt. Tubbs. Starring Meg Foster, Gabrielle Haugh, Chester Rushing, Brandon Smith, and Stan Shaw. Jeepers Creepers 3 focuses on the creeper in pursuit of an old limb that was buried 23 years ago during it’s last feeding cycle. Once again set in Poho County we follow Sgt. Tubbs who teams up with a task force lead by Sgt. Tashtego (Stan Shaw). After years of promise and rumors fans were ultimately given a half cooked 3rd entry that was seemingly rushed from start to finish and not taken seriously at all.

    Our final girl Addison (Gabrielle Haugh) does not carry this film well compared to those that came before her and it’s amazing that she was casted in this role because her acting is some of the worst on screen. Jeepers Creepers 3 was set to reveal everything about the creeper and all it did was develop plot holes and raise more questions. For most of the film the creeper is hunting down this old hand that belongs to him because when someone touches it the hand exposes the creepers origins. This plot device raises several questions and makes the creeper look like a complete fool. Only operating for 23 days one must wonder why the creeper waited so long to start tracking this hand? Also, the plot device creates logic gaps in the creeper’s operations for Jeepers Creepers 2 which takes place days later.

    In the 2003 sequel the creeper attacks a school bus of cheerleaders and basketball players. During this film the creeper seems to have no problem abandoning limbs it no longer needs. So, since our winged bat knows that the limbs hold its origins why does it not care in Jeepers Creepers 2 which is days after the 3rd film? Did the creeper not learn its lesson or was Victor Salva very stoned while writing this? The narrative for this 3rd outing suggests that the limbs allow the person in contact with it to be granted access to the myths of the winged creature. Illogical writing is just one of many flaws in Jeepers Creepers 3 and the film gets progressively worse up until a nice surprise before the credits.

    Certain actors in the film seem to not care, while others just give bad performances, and then there are some that are trying but their on-screen love interest are very dull. Bad acting, illogical script, horrible visual effects, mixed with the best cinematography in the trilogy make this film the worst. Serving as a direct sequel to the first film it does not help that several characters are aware of the myths surrounding the creeper. What made the monster scary was that lack of knowledge that the viewer and the victims had during the first two films. The task force lead by Sgt. Tashtego (Stan Shaw) team up with Sgt. Tubbs (Brandon Smith) and this task force knows all the crucial information about the creeper’s operations. The film never addresses how they know it instead tries to reason it by letting the audience know the task force consist of people who encountered the creeper 23 years ago.

    So, by that logic if I meet a vicious grizzly bear and live to tell my story I now will have knowledge of its schemes including when it likes to feed? That is not how that works at all the narrative here is suggesting that the only way the task force know about the creepers operations is because they encountered it once before. In the original film a psychic was in the area, so she had a reason, but these guys just know due to contact it seems. Jeepers Creepers 3 might be a strong contender for worse 3rd entry in a horror franchise. The film switches back and forth from one group to the next it tries to focus on way too many characters at once.

    In the 2nd film you had a different set of characters that would get enough screen time to allow proper character development but here the movies focus on too many sets at once. For fans of the original two films I would say you will enjoy watching the creeper do its thing but that’s really it. Jonathan Breck gives another amazing performance as the creeper, but his peers do nothing but coast by. Avoid this movie unless you are a completest because this movie is not worth it.

  • Short Film Review: Fauve

    Short Film Review: Fauve

    In the 1980s I attended a school where the teachers had a penchant for the Public Information Film. So much so, that I was convinced that a generation of children in the 1970s had perished. Violent, gory (Gorey?) deaths.

    Public Information Films have changed a great deal since I was a child. Fauve is the most beautiful one I have ever seen. I’m joking of course, about the genre, not about the beauty. The locations chosen are stunning, textured expanses. Post-industrial rural Quebec, where nature is reasserting itself. This seemingly lawless place is the perfect playground for two bored kids. And that’s how it always starts. Urban myths, public information films, parental warnings. It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

    Fauve
    Fauve

    Parents are absent in Fauve, and our two protagonists, Tyler (Félix Grenier) and Benjamin (Alexandre Perreault) roam free. Their sparky friendship plays out as a series of pranks with the bravado of kids in their early teens. There is a certain age bracket, growing up, in which everything is a test. All boundaries are pushed, all of the time, and points are won through displays of machismo and pretending to be tougher and more worldly-wise than you really are. The gut-wrenching horror comes with the realisation that some mistakes cannot be fixed.

    Director Jeremy Comte is immersed in the process of filmmaking. Known for Ce qu’il reste (2016), Paths (2014), and Rueda (2013), he has credits for cinematography, editing, writing and producing. Paths and Rueda are both documentary films, highlighting his fascination with the human condition. This interest in realism shines through in Fauve, for which Comte has rightly won a stack of awards. Although Fauve is not a PIF, it will leave the same impression as those government-commissioned films, albeit with the aesthetic of Stand by Me (1986).

  • BRWC At #LFF: Dogman – Review

    BRWC At #LFF: Dogman – Review

    Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone, the director of ‘Gomorrah’ and ‘Tale of Tales’, returns with his new crime drama ‘Dogman’, a film about a young dog-groomer named Marcello, living in a bad neighbourhood in Rome.

    Marcello is a gentle and kind-hearted father, desperate to be respected and liked by his neighbours, and to earn an honest wage. His troubles come when he befriends Simoncino, an extremely violent and unhinged man terrorising the people of the area. Marcello finds himself mixed up in all of Simoncino’s criminal activities, putting his reputation and livelihood at risk.

    This is a film that rests largely on the shoulders of its main actor, Marcello Fonte. His performance may very well be one of the finest of the year. Fonte’s expressive face helps deliver an extremely charismatic yet raw performance that remains wholeheartedly human. Marcello feels like a real person at all times, brought to life by an actor able to bring the audience into the story with great skill. He’s incredibly watchable.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI2JE_xjAaY

    The film isn’t necessarily an easy watch. It starts off relatively light-hearted, with a healthy mix of black comedy thrown in for good measure, but the experience gets increasingly gruelling as the story develops. Garrone holds nothing back, and at times it can be quite taxing, but for the most part the tone is very well-balanced.

    There is no denying that the film has its silly or slightly misjudged moments, wherein it perhaps takes things a little too far one way or the other. At times, the line between humour and drama isn’t necessarily well-drawn, but this isn’t a regular occurrence and it certainly doesn’t detract away from the many things that the film gets right. For the most part, the balance is well-judged and tonally consistent, aided by perfect pacing and terrific cinematography from Nicolaj Brüel.

    ‘Dogman’ is a film directed with considerable style, telling a story about a character one can’t help but care a great deal about, in spite of the mistakes he makes. The narrative is far from straight-laced, and the story doesn’t go where you might expect it to. It’s not without its flaws, but it’s very successfully in drawing you in and it’s certainly not a film you’ll forget.

  • Review: Detainment

    Review: Detainment

    In 1993, in one of the most horrific crimes of the 20th century took place when two ten-year-old boys stole a toddler from a shopping centre and proceeded to torture and murder him and leave him dead on a railway track. Still, 25 years later, Jamie Bulger’s murder is ingrained into the British psyche as one of the most hideous acts of violence ever committed, making the two convicted boys Britain’s youngest murderers.

    Vincent Lambe’s 2018 short film ‘Detainment’ is based on the transcripts from interviews in which the two boys were first questioned, as the detectives struggle to get a straightforward confession. This is a powerful and painful study of right and wrong, truth and lies, and a child’s power to know the difference. Ely Solan plays Jon Venables, the child suspect who is seemingly torn apart by the guilt he feels. Solan is intense, powerful and convincing in the role as he wails into his mother’s arms. Robert Monahan (Leon Hughes) on the other hand appears to have little remorse and coldly passes most of the blame onto his friend and refuses to accept responsibility.

    This is by no means an easy film to watch, but the talented actors make the experience worthwhile and poignant. The parents’ anguish at hearing the horrors that their sons have committed is agonising and unimaginable; there is a harrowing moment in which Jon’s father (Killian Sheridan is unable to look at his son for the shock of hearing what he has done.

    This isn’t for the faint hearted, and 25 years later the details of this crime is no less difficult to confront, but this study of morality and the ability to understand our actions is also very poignant. The public’s perception of these boys is that they are monsters, inherently evil, whereas this film explores the perhaps more terrifying possibility that they were simply 10-year-old boys who did something appalling without a clear motive. It depicts them as humans who are unable to grasp the magnitude of what they have done, and that is something that is difficult to digest.