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tv   The Film Review  BBC News  August 25, 2017 8:45pm-9:01pm BST

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country's busiest rail routes. the country's busiest rail routes. just give you the latest we are getting on an incident in the centre of brussels this evening, a man attacked two soldiers with a knife. he was shocked but he is still alive, and we're hearing from the authorities that the man who is in a critical condition, is not known to have any links to terrorism. that is the latest from the capital of belgium, brussels. as we get more details, we will bring them to you here on bbc news. now it's time for the film review. hello and welcome to the film review on bbc news. to take us through this week's cinema releases is mark kermode. so mark, what do we have this week? a splendidly mixed bag.
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we have detroit, which is the new movie by kathryn bigelow. we have logan lucky, which i keep wanting to call lucky logan because it looks like the look words should be round that way. and tom cruise is back doing what he does best in american made. i'm glad you've got a logan lucky issue because i have as well. i keep wanting to say lucky logan. detroit, i've seen many rave reviews already. i'm a big fan of kathryn bigelow who won an oscar for the hurt locker and directed zero dark thirty. the film is set in 1967 in the detroit riots, it begins with a broad canvas and the film slowly focuses in on a particular event. at the beginning, a speak easy is raided, rioting breaks out, the state troopers and national guardsmen are sent in, the rioting continues. we then follow a particular character played by a musician
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who is denied his moment in the spotlight because the riot is breaking mout. he takes refuge in the algiers motel. the police then discend on the motel where they believe there is a sniper. the police are led by a character called krause played by will poulter. who is described by writer mark boal as a character who is inspired by the recorded deeds of a detroit policeman, although he is a fictional character. meanwhile john boyega who is such a brilliant actor, is a security guard who finds himself in the middle of an impossible situation. he's somebody who is distrusted by both sides and attempts to make peace with both sides. here is a clip withjohn boyega. hey, fellas, melvin dismukes. i'm with united security, i'm guarding that grocery store across the street. i come bearing gifts. oh, thank you. ain't this nice, boys? hey, all things considered,
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this is pretty good. thank you. i don't have my usual appliances. got any sugar? don't push it, man. you can see from the clip the film is shot with that very, sort of, distinctive documentary—like style. barry ackroyd is a brilliant cinematographer. it does what bigelow has done before. turning fact and fiction, working with mark boal, turning something into a drama based on real life but there's a dramatic contrivance. the film narrows its focus down until it gets to a single corridor of the algiers motel where this terrifying interrogation and worse takes place under the auspices of this cop played by will poulter. the thing i like about this is that kathryn bigelow is extremely dextrous and the movie seems to move through different genres. it starts off as a social document then moves into something almost a musical at one point, when it is in the hotel it becomes a horror movie. some people have taken issue
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with this but you remember kathryn bigelow directed near dark, which is a vampire western. i think it's a brilliant horror movie. and later it becomes a courtroom drama. i think those shifts are its strength. its greatest strength, beyond the way it's put together, the brilliant editing job which leads you through it... it's like jostling through a crowd of people, different stories, different genres, until we're finally focusing on one central event. but it's the performances that carry it. john boyega is brilliant, he has a way of telegraphing really strong emotions through the tiniest of facial expressions. will poulter is fantastic. he plays a character which has a malevolence hidden under a facade of innocence. it's a tightrope that could easily fall over into caricature but it never does. the experience was thoroughly immersive. it's very, very gripping. it's often terrifying and kathryn bigelow is a fine film—maker. it's an urgent film, despite it having a period setting, it feels urgent and contemporary.
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that's definitely on the list. what of logan lucky? neither urgent nor contemporary. steven soderbergh is back and it's a heist movie. it's described in one moment of dialogue as ocean's 7—11. channing tatum is the mastermind behind this plan to rob the charlotte motor speedway during the coca cola 600. it's a nascar racetrack. he was going to carry out this heist with his brother adam driver. it's a heist caper movie, so it's an impossible job, it can't be done. but they have figured out a way to do it with tunnels under the track. and getting this guy, joe bang, who is an explosives expert played by daniel craig. looking for all the world like a beenyean—paul gauthier. getting him out of prison to do thejob, then getting him back into prison. it's written by rebecca blunt who nobody has heard of before, and some people have taken it to be a nom de plume for the director. but they say no, it's someone we've heard before. there is a certain amount of satire,
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some american flag—waving for memorial day, and there's a line in it one person says, "nascar is like america, you're making us harm america". but the fact is all that satire is very much like nascar, it goes past you and then we're back. i enjoyed it, it's fun, it's flippant and flimsy. it doesn't really stand up. i have a sense you thought about it deeply since you saw it. i have to say, after i finished smiling my way through the movie, i moved to the next thing pretty swiftly. the fact is, it's not easy to make a film that is fun and flippant. there are enough bad movies out there trying to do that. this does it rather well. take us to tom cruise and american made. the thing that tom cruise does best is flying, wearing aviator shades and smiling in a way that says, "trust me, i'm tom cruise". this is directed by doug liman. it's inspired by a real life story and some is true and not true.
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a twa pilot, who became a drugs and arms smuggler claimed to work for the cia. ended up providing evidence for the dea. he is recruited by a mysterious shadowy figure played by donald gleeson, who never puts a foot wrong. ever. he says i know you are smuggling cigars, and you need to work for us now. we will give you this airline. here is a clip. the cia owns this? no, no. independent aviation consultants. iac. yeah. you'd run the company but after hours you can work for us. takes pictures? the work is covert. cove rt. so anyone finds out about it, family, friends, even lucy. it's lucy, right? yeah, that's right.
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that'll be a problem. all this is legal? if you're doing it for the good guys, yeah. just don't get caught. i'm backing tom already. but there's a lovely moment of threat there when donal gleeson says it's lucy isn't it? suddenly you see the harder edge. what then happens is, he starts off allegedly working for the cia filming the communist insurgents, then gets mixed up with pablo escobar, flying cocaine to the us, then has to run drugs. the whole thing has a chaotic momentum. meanwhile, money is piling up everywhere. so much so they don't have anywhere to put it anymore. it reminded me of a lot of films, things like air america, war dogs, catch me if you can. the latter is a much more substantial movie which bears up to much greater scrutiny. it has that accelerating pace of something like goodfellas, but none of the depth. if you think of things like the mummy and think, was i ever bored?
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no. did i think a character was ever properly three—dimensional? no. was it fun while it was on screen? yes, it was. it's a movie that seems to be based around an understanding of, there is a thing that tom cruise does. you can like or dislike tom cruise, but there is a thing he does which is he can do that... that big slightly crazy smile and you buy into it. again, i thought it was enjoyable fun. detroit is a movie with such substance and so much going for it, and in the case of american made and logan lucky, not lucky logan, they are fun but they won't stick in the mind like detroit will. one that will stick in the mind is the one you will pick as the best one. dunkirk, have you seen it? i haven't, and it's high on my list. you need to see it in imax if possible. it is an overwhelming experience, it's christopher nolan. he is such a great champion of film.
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i saw this in imax 70 millimetre. the interesting thing is, it's very complex. it is three time structures, one week, one day, one hour. all intertwined. if you have been a fan of nolan since memento, you know he's interested in travelling time. but it's a straightforward story. it's the story of dunkirk. as a piece of cinema, it's terrific. i've seen it twice now and both times, the end of the screening, everyone has been silent. people have literally been like that. that's a testament to how powerful it is. but see it on the biggest screen possible. a brief word about your dvd pick? lady macbeth. florence pugh is brilliant in this adaptation of the story. the script is by alice birch. the tale of a woman who refuses to confirm, refuses to be down—trodden, is vilified by society as a result of it. really powerful. fantastic sound design. that sounds like something only a film critic would say but believe me, it's the film
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you watch with your ears and it's a fine piece of work. good stuff. a quick reminder before we go that you'll find more film news and reviews from across the bbc online at bbc.co.uk/markkermode. and you can find all our previous programmes on the bbc iplayer. that's it for this week though. thanks for watching. goodbye. good evening. a relatively quiet weekend of whether to come here at home. but across the other side of the atlantic, a major weather story is starting to develop. hurricane harvey is now a category three hurricane, bearing down on the
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coastline of texas. you can see this storm does look like a hurricane on the satellite picture. it will bring some strong winds. it could bring a storm surge which will inundate coastal areas with flooding. the rain is the main risk. there could be 900 millimetres of rain in places. it could cause catastrophic flooding. back home, things are quieter. yes, some of us had rain today. more of us had dry weather and blue skies as captured by our weather watchers. there will be some warm sunshine and a few showers in the north and north east. some showers continue in northern ireland tonight. some showers through scotla nd tonight. some showers through scotland and northern england. further south largely dry with clear spells. tomorrow we continue to season spells. tomorrow we continue to season showers, but these increasingly confined to northern and eastern scotland and north—east england. some heavy and possibly thundery. northern ireland having a
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dry day of late. towards the south that will be fine with bowls of sunshine. by 4pm northern ireland largely dry. some showers the northern scotland. some heavy and perhaps thundery. sandra blinn down to north—east england. for manchester and the south—west it should be dry with bowls of sunshine. 21, 20 2 degrees. for east anglia and the south—east, the temperatures could get up to 2a or 25 degrees. looking ahead to sunday, mainly fine day right across the country. some damp weather into the far north—west of scotland where it will be a little bit breezy. generally, the wind is a little bit night and the sunshine. 18 in glasgow, 2a in london. divided fortu nes glasgow, 2a in london. divided fortunes for many. for scotland and northern ireland we will see rain and a cool feel to the weather. further south and east some sunshine
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and some real warmth. could get to 27, maybe 28 degrees across the south—east. 0n 27, maybe 28 degrees across the south—east. on balance, considering it as south—east. on balance, considering itasa south—east. on balance, considering it as a bank holiday weekend everywhere except for scotland, actually, the weather prospects are not looking too bad. this is bbc world news today. i'm samantha simmonds. our top stories: a powerful, life—threatening hurricane bears down on the coast of texas. as residents prepare for the worst, the state authorities ask the president to declare a major disaster. at least 28 people have died in northern india, after police used live ammunition on supporters of a self—styled holy man, who's been convicted of rape. the us announces tough new sanctions against venezuela, branding nicholas maduro‘s government corrupt and repressive. the united states will target the means with which the dictatorship can accumulate debt to enrich its
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corrupt regime insiders and perpetuate its behaviour. and it's shaping up to be the biggest money

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