Shield of Straw (Wara No Tate) Review
Takashi Miike returns to Cannes with perhaps his most conventional film yet, an overblown but highly entertaining thriller about five cops transporting a despicable child murderer across Japan. Tatsuya Fujiwara, who is perhaps best know in the West for his portrayal of the naive and sweet Nanahara in Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale, plays Kiyomaru, the … Read more
Monsoon Shootout Review
Adi (Vijay Varma) arrives full of idealistic enthusiasm for his first day as a cop, but he quickly learns that the police force may not be the honest guardians of justice that he thought they were. He’s quickly embroiled in the deep rooted corruption of the police department when he’s instructed to cover up the … Read more
Nebraska Review
Filled with wry humour and pathos by the truck load Nebraska feels like something of a return to a familiar form and a higher standard for Alexander Payne, following his perfectly fine but rather underwhelming The Descendants. Nebraska begins with a shot of a solitary figure, which we later discover is Woody Grant (Bruce Dern), … Read more
Like Father, Like Son Review
Hirokazu Koreeda’s latest in a run of tender explorations of family dynamics rests on a rather unusual high concept, the idea of two children being swapped at birth in a hospital and the error not being discovered until much later. The two children, six year-old boys named Keita and Ryusei, have had very different experiences … Read more