Movie Reviews

• The Raid

  Indonesia/USA 101mins TBC
  

  Offering a set-up as straightforward as they come, The Raid delivers bone-crunching brilliance on a truly epic scale. Full of arse clenching tension from the opening frames, the action grows increasingly mental as the film moves along and the... more

• One For The Money

  US/91mins 12A
  

  The professional demise of one Katherine Heigl continues, as she headlines another insipid flick that she quite probably sees as a departure from more straight up romantic fare. The kicker really is that Heigl is a talented comedic performer,... more

• Safe House

  US/114mins 15A
  

  A lean and muscular action flick, what Safe House lacks in plot complexity and originality it more than makes up for in visceral thrills. Ryan Reynolds and Denzel Washington make for a formidable on screen pairing, with the former matching... more

• The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

  UK / 124mins (12A).
  

  It's nice to have a film in the cinemas that appeals only to those over twenty four but did it have to be so predictable?A collection of British OAPs make for India (a) after the death of a loved one (Dench); (b) to recover from a poor... more

• Margaret (2012)

  An ambitious drama with lots to say Margaret has a lot going for its but tries to cram in too much. Margaret was shot in 2005 but has been sitting on the shelf since 2007 as writer-director Kenneth Lonergan struggled over the final cut; initially wanting the film to come in at three hours, Lonergan deferred the final edit to Martin Scorsese and his regular editor Thelma Schoonmaker. Margaret's habit of meandering from one thought to the next is a symptom of not having one voice to guide the movie.
  

  Director: Kenneth Lonergan.Starring: Anna Paquin, Mark Ruffalo, J. Smith Cameron, Jeannie Berlin.An ambitious drama with lots to say Margaret has a lot going for its but tries to cram in too much. Margaret was shot in 2005 but has been sitting... more

• Red Dog

  Australia / 92mins (PG).
  

  Okay, before I get into this can I just say what everyone is thinking? That dog looks evil, right? Cujo's cousin or what? Now that that's out of the way Red Dog is your latest 'dog movie' and just like the rest it has a way of wiping away... more

• Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

  US/95mins 12A
  

  More of a reboot than a sequel, that doesn't help this comic adaptation achieve anything resembling coherence. Cage obviously wanted to do something edgier than the (financially successful) Mark Johnson directed original. While he achieves that... more

• This Means War

  US/97mins 15A
  

  As trite as mainstream Hollywood produced cinema gets nowadays, This Means War should've been slick, popcorn hoovering fun. Instead it's horribly misjudged, sloppy and the proprietor of some of the worst action sequences in film with a budget in... more

• Rampart

  US/108mins 16
  

  Woody Harrelson has had a long, eclectic career and grown as an actor over those years. Once again leading productions after the huge success of Zombieland, this somewhat sombre affair comes from the same co-writer/director who helmed his... more

• The Woman In The Fifth

  France/Poland/UK / 85mins (15A).
  

  If the clichéd rom-com is about a woman who can't get a man but ends up with two before the end, then the cliched 'male writer's film' (a growing subgenre) usually contains a penniless writer in a picturesque city who meets women who say... more