Dead Man Down
[ Hits:88 ]
Review: The original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo duo, Niels Arden Oplev and Noomi Rapace, have teamed up again for Dead Man Down. While another revenge-fueled crime thriller in the style of Guy Ritchie and Jo Nesbo, Dead Man Down has more artistic appeal in the vein of Killing Them Softly. The mix of gangster grit and borderline cheesy girl next door romance is propelled by a serial killer plot line as an anonymous middle man taunts a crime lord with a puzzle. While there are some notable similariti...
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Sleeper's Wake
[ Hits:527 ]
Review: Crime haunts us in South Africa. We live on the edge in order to stay one step ahead of what seems to be an unofficial tax for living in such a beautiful country. Being grateful that we're alive (and insured) are how we get by, yet the toll of the trauma and stress remains a mystery...Sleeper's Wake deals with the darker, primal urges of living in a seemingly lawless country, where citizens are confronted with the unthinkable and pushed to the edge. We're introduced to a writer, whose family has...
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Argo
[ Hits:253 ]
Review: Ben Affleck has been to Hollywood and got the t-shirt. As an actor, his career has been tumultuous - racking up a hit-and-miss list with roles ranging from romantic leads to superheroes. As a writer, his career started as a one-hit wonder, winning an Oscar with Matt Damon for Good Will Hunting. As a director, he's quickly becoming a Hollywood great in the same class as Clint Eastwood with Gone Baby Gone, The Town and now Argo.
Affleck has also become a family man over the last seven years, afte...
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End of Watch
[ Hits:209 ]
Review: End of Watch is a buddy cop movie that has been shot like a found footage film. This film immerses itself in the world of two super cops in the L.A.P.D., documenting life on the beat and their personal relationships, as they inadvertently draw the attention of a notorious cartel.
David Ayer knows cop crime drama thrillers, having written Training Day, Dark Blue and S.W.A.T. As a director, he's notched up Street Kings and Harsh Times - making Ayer something of a specialist when it comes to solid...
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Jack Reacher
[ Hits:230 ]
Review: Tom Cruise is Jack Reacher, in the adaptation of One Shot, a novel by Lee Child, in which ex-military hero, Jack Reacher, becomes the lead investigator in a multiple shooting homicide after the prime suspect of an "open and shut" case calls for the drifter by name.
Tom Cruise has played Ethan Hunt several times in Mission Impossible, had a convincing turn as a contract killer in Collateral and has a history of strong performances in military dramas, A Few Good Men and Born on the Fourth of Ju...
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The Cold Light of Day
[ Hits:312 ]
Review: The Cold Light of Day is as inane as its title. It's cold - thanks to a wishy-washy script and wooden performances; it's light on intrigue and intelligence - two pillars of great espionage films; and ironically most of the action sequences happen at night.
The Cold Light of Day just doesn't give you a reason to care. We're complete strangers to the main protagonist, a Wall Street investor, who becomes ensnared in a mystery in another city when his family go missing.
Henry Cavill is the talk ...
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Wolwedans in die Skemer
[ Hits:1653 ]
Review: Wolwedans in die Skemer has been described as a boere-noir thriller, adapted to film with a tie-in novel, based on the popular '70s radio show of the same name. Renowned Afrikaans author, movie critic and TV screenwriter, Leon van Nierop, has condensed his writing and film experience into his and director Jozua Malberbe's first feature film.
To his credit, Leon van Nierop has written an unpredictable thriller that keeps you guessing until the last minute. The story is enticing, employing some c...
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Dark Tide
[ Hits:462 ]
Review: Dark Tide is a shark thriller starring Halle Berry and directed by Blue Crush and Into The Blue director, John Stockwell. The film is set in Simon's Town, South Africa, which lends it some Proudly South African flavour with its setting, film crew and local acting talent. Although, that doesn't change the fact that it's a shark thriller starring Halle Berry.
Halle Berry can act. Monster's Ball, Things We Lost in the Fire, Frankie & Alice, Gothika and even Die Another Day testify to her range...
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The Grey
[ Hits:605 ]
Review: If you've never survived a plane crash only to be pursued by a pack of bloodthirsty wolves whilst bracing a bitter Alaskan blizzard, tired, afraid and hungry, you need to see The Grey. It may not be as informative as Man vs. Wild with Bear Grylls, but it's fascinating in a White Fang meets Alive kind of way.
Liam Neeson joins The A-Team director Joe Carnahan again to bring us a survival adventure and thriller comparable with The Edge starring Anthony Hopkins. The Grey, based on the short stor...
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Take Shelter
[ Hits:561 ]
Review: Michael Shannon is quickly becoming everyone's favourite crazy guy. He has real on-screen presence and the smarts to carry the lead in just about any film. He impressed with the stage-to-screen adaptation of Bug and delivers more of that psychological intensity in Take Shelter, a surreal character portrait about an everyman whose apocolyptic nightmares are beginning to take root in his waking life.Think Revolutionary Road meets Twister, with a strain of Noah and the Ark in this arthouse thriller...
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The Hunger Games
[ Hits:724 ]
Review: The Hunger Games is old hat. We've seen our fair share of films involving a group of children, forced to do combat in a confined area in a kill-or-be-killed situation. Suzanne Collins has just commericialised the format made famous by William Golding's Lord of the Flies, writing a novel that has enough human interest and viral appeal to capture a young adult readership and broader film audience.
William Golding's Lord of the Flies is the source, a novel which pitted a stranded choir of British ...
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Man on a Ledge
[ Hits:924 ]
Review: Man on a Ledge stars Sam Worthington, whose robotic acting is best forgotten in blockbusters such as Avatar, Clash of the Titans and best remembered in Terminator: Salvation, where he was actually part cyborg. As you can imagine with any movie where the lead character wants to commit robot suicide off a high-rise building - expectations were low.
Thankfully relatively unknown director Asger Leth and TV movie screenwriter, Pablo F. Fenjves have managed to negotiate a pretty decent thriller with ...
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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
[ Hits:668 ]
Review: David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo... didn't they adapt the Millenium trilogy just two years ago? Why didn't they cast Noomi Rapace, the 'Girl' from the original? Is it a faithful adaptation of Stieg Larsson's novel? So many questions...
The original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was excellent and deserved its critical acclaim, but it wasn't in English, relegating it to a limited art house international release. While shooting on-location and in the native tongue added to the aut...
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Apollo 18
[ Hits:621 ]
Review: In the same low budget found footage horror subgenre as The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity comes Apollo 18. The horror science-fiction thriller plays up the fact that the U.S. has never returned to the moon and shows evidence to suggest that there may just be signs of alien activity on the moon.
Apollo 18 is directed by Spanish editor-turn-director, Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego. It's Lopez-Gallego's first English language film and while his editorial experience may give him an edge, it's ...
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Straw Dogs
[ Hits:874 ]
Review: The original Straw Dogs, directed by the legendary Sam Peckinpah and starring Dustin Hoffman is a controversial classic, notorious for its brutal "pleasure rape" scene, ultra-violence and previously banned video release status. Hoffman said he only did it for the money and from the outset, it seems that the new Straw Dogs adaptation remake may have had a similar motive.
Not true. Talented film critic-turn-director Rod Lurie, the man behind The Contender, The Last Castle and Nothing But The Trut...
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Contagion
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Review: Sure, a killer disease that resembles the symptoms of the common flu (except for the dying part) probably doesn’t sound like the most thrilling movie concept ever imagined, but Contagion’s success sprouts from much more than that. The first thing this risky film has got going for it is director Steven Soderbergh, best known for very serious movies like ‘Good Night and Good Luck’ and ‘Syriana’, as well as some delicious off-beat humour such as in films like ‘Oceans Thirteen’ an...
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Final Destination 5 [3D]
[ Hits:708 ]
Review: Final Destination 5... the franchise has come a long way - relying on a tried-and-tested roller-coaster formula that brings audiences back for another thrill ride. The Final Destination, or fourth installment of the series was a serious low - delivering extra cheese with a gimmicky aftertaste that just ruined whatever credibility Final Destination had racked up since 2000. So it was a sweet relief that the latest edition, Final Destination 5, has come back with a vengeance to leave on a high not...
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Sanctum [3D]
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Review: James Cameron is a name that has become synonymous with action blockbusters: Terminator 2: Judgment Day, True Lies, Aliens and Avatar have all been directed by the Hollywood juggernaut. Before Avatar revolutionised 3D technology and broke records at the box office, Cameron was investigating the deep. Deep space has fascinated the director, but deep sea has been just as integral to his career path.Titanic relayed life on the famous vessel before it plunged to the darkest depths, Aliens of the Dee...
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Source Code
[ Hits:836 ]
Review: Source Code is a Duncan Jones movie. Jones is David Bowie's son but judging from the critical acclaim generated from his first two movies, he'll probably be more famous for being a director with Moon and now Source Code under his belt. If Moon was inspired by Solaris and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Source Code comes with its own cinematic concoction, a sleek blend of Quantum Leap, Groundhog Day and Speed - starring Jacob 'Jake' Gyllenhaal... that's pronounced jill-en-hall.Colter Stevens (Gyllenhaal) ...
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Hanna
[ Hits:981 ]
Review: Hanna would be just like every other hitman movie out there... if it weren't for its 16-year-old girl assassin and Pride and Prejudice director.Saoirse Ronan is possibly Hollywood's hottest starlet, racking up an impressive filmography ranging from roles in Atonement and The Lovely Bones to Hanna. She embodies a rare quality, much like Jodie Foster did when she starred opposite Robert De Niro as a teen prostitute in Taxi Driver. A gritty innocence befalls Saoirse, whose mystical name could be li...
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