Thanks to Elspeth (Kathleen Richardson) and her henchman Springfield (Aaron Poole), Reacher (Alan Ritchson) and Tamara (Sydelle Noel) live another afternoon. This is good, because Reacher’s concern for manners and proper behaviour is such that he is willing to break every finger belonging to pharmaceutical billionaire Ahlquist (Shawn Doyle) to …
For a show so keen to avoid spoilers, they might have come up with a different title for this episode! That said, “Plum Out of Luck” begins with a bang thanks to the fight in the abandoned restaurant. The smoke of the flash grenades is a very clever way to …
In the festival circuit, with each announcement of a major festival, there is a name that people expect to hear: Hong Sang-soo. In February, he premiered The Day She Returns , which played at the Berlinale’s Panorama. Six months later, the Korean master is back with his latest, Nowhere to …
In the first seconds of Rehmat by Gurvinder Singh, a black screen explains the political context of the film. During the forced migration in the Indian subcontinent, the Punjab was partitioned. Independence in 1947 divided the country along religious lines: Hindus and Sikh east in India, Muslims in the west …
I had to go to France just to see De Gaulle: Liberté, and the movie is so good I just might do it again. Along with its first half, De Gaulle: Résistance, this is an extremely important movie for two reasons. Firstly, French cinema is now focused on films for …
Well, this day had to come eventually: Reacher (Alan Ritchson) made a mistake, and as a result a lot of people are dead. This is hard to take, not just because it means the plot can no longer be discussed without spoilers, but also because there’s an unpleasant subtext kicking …
A karambit is a little knife curved like a claw. It was invented in Indonesia, which is where Lila (Agnez Mo) and her mother Amisha (Anggun) are from. Its unpleasant appearance in this episode means the enemy has a much yuckier appetite for destruction than Reacher (Alan Ritchson) and the …
There’s another content warning for suicide at the start of “One Small Step,” which is the kind of consideration for viewers that some tough guys think isn’t necessary. Considering how much violence takes place in the average episode of Reacher, it’s kind of sweet that here is the one thing …
Alan Ritchson’s gift for stillness and subtle facial expressions is put to exceptional use in “Cage Fight.” There is also some audience pandering – screengrabs of which are all over social media already, but it would be churlish to spoil that fun – that makes it clear this season really …
In a small Romanian town, Marius (Adrian Văncică) is the medical chief at the local hospital. He just lost his wife, and his son, Ioan (Teodor Butănescu), is almost finished with high school. This is the setting of You Don’t Belong Here (Nu e locul tau aici) by Florin Şerban. …
Tang is the powdered drink mix marketed as enjoyed by astronauts and which purportedly had more vitamins and minerals than orange juice. One of the guests at the titular wedding, Guy (Xavier Lacaille), has recently become its regional head of sales so at one point he goes into his full …
Films festivals normally only reward a movie one single prize. If your movie wins, say, best actress, then it can’t also win the main festival award. But the jury led by Maggie Gyllenhaal at this year’s Venice Film Festival broke that rule for Woman Unknown: its lead actress Mathilde Arcel …
In 1789, Ben Franklin famously wrote that “in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” The Uprising, set 400 years before the American statesman put ink to paper, sure has an awful lot of both. It’s a story about the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt in …
Nagi is a real town in rural Japan. It is next to a ‘self-defence force’ base which uses live ammunition in its training. As compensation for the constant sounds of shooting in the background, the town was given a world-class art museum, the Nagi Museum of Contemporary Art. There is …
We must congratulate director Andrey Zvyagintsev both for winning the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and for using his thank-you speech to ask Putin to stop the carnage of the war in Ukraine. Mr Zvyagintsev now lives in exile in France thanks to his political beliefs, but …
The French title of this film, Garance, is the uncommon name of the heroine and also that of the flower which is known in English as the rose madder. The choice to use Another Day instead of something like “Rose Madder” for the English title dampens the effect of that …
Hollis Shaw has it all: a famous doctor husband, a daughter at NYU studying film, and a super popular food blog with a following that thinks she’s a domestic goddess. But then, in a shocking moment, she sees it all come undone. Her husband passes away in an accident right …
Tony is a love story, but not the kind we are used to. It is about the love a young man has with his wide-open future, supported by slightly older roughneck men who understand 1) exactly how this young man is falling in love 2) and that he has no …
If I make you a delicious sandwich, which you eat and think is delicious, then inform you that mixed in with 99% of bread, mustard, salami and cheese is 1% sh*t, then it was a sh*t sandwich. If you still think it was delicious after knowing that you’ve just eaten …
The absence of any major American films from this year’s Cannes Film Festival competition allowed room for some French films to sneak in. The Birthday Party aka Histoires de la Nuit is a film which would have never otherwise been allowed to compete for the Palme d’Or. It’s the kind …