You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsay, 2017)

Yes, it's a film centring on a hitman/hired muscle. Yes, he's got psychological issues. So far, so blah.
But when you cast Joaquin Phoenix in the role, an actor who you can never be quite sure about in terms of the psychoses of his characters, things take on a different slant. Each one of his tortured flashbacks as he gets into deep water following an attempt to rescue a senator's daughter from a trafficking ring is horrifyingly credible. And despite the extensive and intensive violence committed along the way (purposely unglamorously shot), it's really just about a man going through the motions while being resigned to, and pretty much hoping to, die. It's simply quite the most compelling take on the genre for years and should be shown to Liam Neeson on a daily basis so he might finally just hang up his boots and go back to grown-up acting.

8/10

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (David Yates, 2018)

The milking of the Potterverse continues with Eddie Redmayne now charged with tracking down Johnny Depp's escaped Grindelwald in Paris. The FX-laden images are undoubtedly spectacular once more, with the 1920s cityscapes particularly stunning. But the beasts of the title are sidelined this time to adverse effect by a cast that has grown quite too large, all given their own agendas, some of which are frankly indecipherable. Depp's villain is obviously meant to channel Hitler, with his creation of an army of wizards to be set against mankind, but in truth he doesn't get much to work with except looking a bit scary and making speeches about his vague plans for the future of the world. Rowling simply cannot do political metaphors, and the film doesn't manage to sustain a sense of drama because of all its digressions. Then the realisation that we won't see any conclusion here because it's just meant to lead to a third part sinks in, and that's somewhat depressing.

5/10

The Infiltrator (Brad Furman, 2016)

Bryan Cranston moves to the other side of the war on drugs as agent Robert Mazur, seeking to bring down Pablo Escobar's cocaine organisation in the 1980s. He duly sets himself as the got-to-guy for money-laundering on a massive scale and survives numerous close calls where his real identity is nearly exposed.
The disadvantage of fact-based stories is always two-fold: firstly, we are likely to know the end result, and yet secondly the awareness that it is a representation of actual events can be intrusive, in that any more extreme moment can raise a nagging doubt about how much the drama or violence have been souped up for effect. Nevertheless, Cranston's performance is as good as his Walter White, all smooth topshow covering barely-contained panic, and the menace surrounding him is quite palpable at times.

6/10

Allied (Robert Zemeckis, 2016)

Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard star as allied spies in World War 2, who fall for each other and then have a child together. It's a splice of Casablanca, where the first half plays out under high tension, and, eventually, Pitt's previous actioner Mr. & Mrs. Smith when to moves to London. Pitt and Cotillard are dependably fine, but it all feels somewhat derivative, with all the standard wartime elements thrown in, including the Blitz, the doughty French resistance and even slimy August Diehl from the nerve-racking bar scene in Inglourious Basterds as a cunning Nazi again. And despite a concerted effort to make the second part, when doubt is cast on Cotillard's character, a proper psychological thriller, it falls as flat as the chemistry between its otherwise charismatic leads.

5/10