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!

  • Faithful: Review

    Faithful: Review

    Faithful has a psychic medium.

    Not too many films have been made which include a psychic medium. Some of the unforgettable ones feature in Poltergeist (1982, Tobe Hooper), The Sixth Sense (1999, M.Night Shyamalan) and The Changeling (1980 Peter Medak).

    Rory Alexander Stewart’s Daffy, the excellent Jenna O’Neill, does not disappoint. The mixture of her underlying creepiness mixed with the gentleness she displays in the well-chosen suburban church-hall, means her character remains enigmatic. An old friend she crosses paths with remains dubious. How do we know if she is telling the truth and does it really matter? Daffy sees herself as being helpful. With her crowd of eagerly awaiting onlookers, she delivers messages, occasional responses and resolution.

    Rory Alexander Stewart has created a well-scripted and tight 15-minute film. A student at The National Film and Television School, he has made other intriguing short films including Misery Guts, Good Girl and Wyld, working with a great group of actors – Jenna O’Neill, Ainslie Henderson and Julie Speers.

    His films have attracted a well-deserved array of awards.

  • Review: The Last Man On The Moon

    Review: The Last Man On The Moon

    As NASA astronaut and Navy Captain Eugene “Gene” Cernan left the final footprints of the great space race on the surface of the Moon in December 1972 his legacy was crystalised in the amber of human achievements. An epic tale of perseverance, pride and personal sacrifice, The Last Man on the Moon follows Cernan’s journey from youth, to the Navy, NASA, the Moon and beyond.

    Utilising a balance of original footage, digital reconstructions and contemporary interviews with former astronauts and NASA directors, director Mark Craig tells this uniquely fascinating account of a man who has done what only eleven other people have managed in the history of our civilization. There’s poetry to Cernan’s recollection of his time among the heavens, and a bittersweet realization that lives were lost in man’s pursuit of staking its claim on our solitary satellite.

    Adding to the emotional resonance of this documentary is a striking score from film and video game composer Lorne Balfe. His use of powerful motifs along with the otherworldly sound design and remarkable cinematography make for an immersive aesthetic. Whereas 2007 doc The Wonder Of It All gave a wider narrative from the Apollo Programme, and Ron Howard’s feature Apollo 13 showed a Hollywood-style dramatization of an infamous misadventure, here we are given a far more intimate exposure of a man who fulfilled the fantasy of every wide-eyed, would-be explorer who’s looked up to the night sky and pondered.

    Director Mark Craig captures wonderful moments as the contemplative Cernan recounts his life’s peaks and troughs. This is clearly a man who has spent the majority of his life since his career as an astronaut, as an orator. His tone and patter are amiable, grounding and humanizing a figure that, in his twilight years, remains an ambassador for those of us who truly dream big.

    Between 1968 and 1972, twelve people journeyed to the Moon. The United States went to great lengths in order to accomplish what seemed like the impossible only moments earlier. After the romanticized accounts in this documentary it boggles the mind that we haven’t returned since.

    ****

    The Last Man on the Moon is in cinemas from 8 April with a special Nationwide Live Q&A with Captain Eugene Cernan on 11 April only.

    http://thelastmanonthemoon.com

  • Review: The Passing

    The Passing starts off well with an ever shifting premise that leaves you thinking it is Macbeth redux and then the premise shifts again and that is somewhat engaging until it loses its nerve and in the words of Lady Macbeth “what’s done is done” and it cannot be undone.

    An enigmatic loner, Stanley (a commanding performance by Mark Lewis Jones) lives in remote rural Wales untouched by modern life happily building his well by hand. His daily routine is disrupted when a young couple, Iwan (Dyfan Dwyfor) and Sara (Annes Elwy), literally crash into his life. The more time they all spend together allows time to unravel the other’s secret that leads to an explosive end.

    The Passing is directed by Gareth Bryn. He manages to set a gentle pace and unsettling undertone. The sparse dialogue allows the audience room to draw their own conclusions during the first half of the film. Who is this mysterious couple and just what have they done. The main issue I have is the characters are not fully drawn aside from that of Stanley’s. Therefore it is hard to engage with them. You do need to engage with them somewhat in order to care what happens to them. Then comes the surprise twist and this sort of mechanism should be used sparingly as in The Sixth Sense The Others, The Usual Suspects – the moment of the reveal is crucial – one mustn’t peak too soon. What about two twists – doesn’t everyone love a bargain? Not really as it is too much and the grand finale twist came out of nowhere. Was I watching a family drama in the vein of The Dreamers or a thriller with supernatural overtones? For the grand finale twist to have worked it needed one of the character to be relaying the story to a third unconnected party sort of like the Woman in Black – the stage version.

    The attention to the detail, the fact that all the dialogue is in Welsh and the powerhouse performance of Mark Lewis Jones lifted this film to above average. It is unsettling and well paced but just lost its nerve towards the end. That is such a shame as without the big reveal at the end I might well have loved it.

    The Passing is released in cinemas on 8 April 216

  • The Absent One: Review

    The Absent One: Review

    This moody Danish crime drama is a sequel to 2013’s The Keeper of Lost Causes, and likewise based on a novel from Jussi Adler-Olsen’s Department Q series.

    Grumpy and belligerent detective Carl Mørck (Nikolaj Lie Kaas – who also co-writes) heads up a special department with his partner Assad (Zero Dark Thirty’s Fares Fares) to investigate old cold cases. Unfortunately, they’ve dug up little since the events of the last film, and as the laughing stock of the police station, they’re in need of a win.

    Following the suicide of a former police commissioner, “The Drunk and The Arab” – as their charming co-workers call them – delve into an unsolved murder from the 90s. They soon find themselves tangled up with an aristocratic group that indulged in drug-fuelled orgies of violence and rape back in their private school days, but dragging down Denmark’s business elite won’t be easy, especially when Mørck and Assad realise just how far their insidious influence reaches.

    Fans of the Nordic-noir film and television phenomenon will be familiar with the formula here, but unlike some, The Absent One is slickly cinematic, and aesthetically has more in common with Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remake than the gritty Swedish original. Stylish use of light, shadow and colour add flourish to the bleak yet beautiful landscapes and grubby underworlds of the Denmark presented here.

    Yet substance is still front-and-centre in the film, and while it’s keen to peek into the dark heart of human nature, it doesn’t dwell on gratuitous scenes of violence. Instead, it emphasises the emotional impact and implications of such behaviour, especially during sequences of teenage mischief that descend into disturbing depravity.

    As the second film of a series, it would have been good to see more insight into Mørck and Assad’s relationship beyond mumbled grunts through cigarette smoke, although a post-climax coda does hint at a deeper resonance for Mørck’s character development.

    Darker and more compelling than The Keeper of Lost Causes, The Absent One is released in the UK on 8th April, with a third film on the way.

  • Another Take: The Club

    Another Take: The Club

    Shocking, disconcerting and twisted are only but a few adjectives that come to mind after watching this Chilean movie directed by Pablo Larrain (Tony Manero, No).

    And yet, I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to watch it, for it not only sheds light on a subject rarely touched by film, but it handles it with such disturbing ambiguity all throughout that it challenges you on a number of levels. And I love when that happens.

    The Club narrates the story of a nun and four retired Catholic priests living in a small seaside resort. Their life runs like clockwork in a liturgy of meals, prayers and penitence, and a very limited amount of time when they can freely wonder about town.

    Their predictable living away from temptation is suddenly disrupted by the arrival on a new cleric and a mentally troubled young man who forces the group to face their fears and their disturbing past.

    A Vatican emissary comes to investigate their reactions to a shocking development and results in a sea of uncertainty with morbid and grotesque humour, where no one is sinless.

    Beautifully directed, The Club showcases outstanding performances and signature photography throughout the film. Awarded the Jury Grand Prix at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival, The Club was selected as the Chilean entry for Best Foreign Language Film at this year’s Academy Awards. Sadly, it didn’t make the nomination, though.

    Painful, often repugnant and hard to follow, The Club is a challenging watch that plays with your mind and the ‘socially acceptable’ conventions. However, if you’re prepared to come to terms with an array of horrendously tough subjects to digest and stomach churning scenes, I can’t but recommend this film.

    The Club is out in UK cinemas now. Watch the trailer here