coming up next we have the guests. coming up next we have the film review. hello and welcome to the film review on bbc news. to take us through this week's cinema releases, mark kermode is back. what have you been watching? as you'll know, awards season is upon us. we have darkest hour, for which gary oldman is hotly tipped for oscars. we have the brawler, mukkabaaz, a boxing movie cum—political romance. and three billboards outside ebbing, missouri, from martin mcdonagh. darkest hour. you wait years for a churchill film to come along and we've had two quite recently, really. so we reviewed churchill with brian cox here on the show a few months ago.

the story then was that brian cox was playing brilliantly, i think, churchill anxiety—ridden in the run up to d—day. now we have gary oldman as churchill, anxiety—ridden around the time of dunkirk. it's 1940. the nazis are sweeping across europe. the resistance is crumbling everywhere. he's basically being advised by all sides to appease rather than fight. here's a clip. nothing even remotely patriotic in death or glory if the odds are firmly on the former. nothing inglorious in trying to shorten a war that we are clearly losing. losing! europe is still... europe is lost. and before our forces are wiped out completely, now is the time to negotiate. in order to obtain the best conditions possible. hitler will not insist on outrageous terms.

he will know his own weaknesses. he will be reasonable. when will the lesson be learned? how many more dictators must be... wooed, appeased. good god, given immense privileges. before we learn! you cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth! that is pretty much the give—me—an—award clip. there's no surprise it's got such awards buzz about it. and he won a golden globe, didn't he? yeah. i think i remember in 2012, when it looked like he was going to win the oscar, then he was beaten to the punch byjean dujardin, i think it was. i think this time may well be his year. and it is a terrific performance. despite being buried under a lot of facial prosthetics, you know, you can see his personality coming through. it's a very interesting take on churchill. i think the performance has conviction and grit. much as i really, really

like the brian cox film, i think this is a really solid, awards—courting and probably awards—worthy performance. my problem is the film itself, which is not as good as his performance. on the one hand, it's tojoe wright's credit that he's trying to inject a sense of immediacy and urgency into a film which could become a bunch of people arguing in rooms, essentially. and he does that well. but he also mixes up, on the one hand some very well created, you know, historical recreations, with some utterly fanciful dramatic license, such as a scene in which churchill suddenly decides to take a quick referenda of the way the british public feel by going on the tube train and asking people what they think about what's going on. in a scene which, whatever the emotional truth of it may be, just struck me as utterly preposterous. i think the central performance is very good. and it's a crack cast. it is. kristin scott thomas. it's a very good cast and clearly a crowd pleaser. it's going down incredibly well

with the american critics. i have no doubt that it will play very well. i have to say, from my point of view, there were moments in it that i thought it was cringy, where it was much too on—the—nose. i felt like it was explaining everything. you know, obviously, this is complicated subject matter, but there are certain moments in which characters don't have to be introduced by their name, their title and rank whilst they're actually in the room with you. but the thing that will carry it is the performance. and it is a really good performance. i think it will continue to be rewarded with awards. we will soon know in the next few weeks. what's the second choice? the brawler, mukkabaaz. which is this boisterous politically tinged boxing movie cum—romance from the director of the gangs of wasseypur, which i think we spoke about on this show here. young boxer struggling to find his place in the world, finds himself at odds with the local big boss. he falls in love with a young woman who has no voice but whose

actions speak volumes. it's a strange and occasionally ramshackle affair. the dialogue is full of cussing, and colloquial cussing at that. there is music in it but it is very racy in its lyrical content. the fight sequences, you really feel that you're watching people beating seven bells out of each other. it has the ability to eschew conventions and mix in grit and substance with its story. i think it's a bit overlong — 2.5 hours. i felt it could be tightened up a little bit. but what i liked about it, firstly, it is a bit anarchic, a bit ramshackle. you're not sure where it's going. it seems to switch genres at certain times. it always keeps you on your toes. i mean, a boxing movie should do. it is a film which dances around you and keeps you alert. i enjoyed it. it's not perfect, but it's a pretty solid thriller with some sort of social things to say, as well. ok, yeah, that's interesting. good to bring us something that i certainly didn't know too much about.

ifeel like i've read a lot about three billboards. i'm a huge frances mcdormand fan. me, too. so talented. and a big martin mcdonagh fan. so this is the latest from martin mcdonagh who, of course, made in bruges. frances mcdormand probably still most famous for fargo. 0h! fantastic. an extraordinary cv. so, like darkest hour, this is shaping up to be a major oscar contender. it's a western—inflected tragicomedy. frances mcdormand is a grieving mother. her daughter was abducted and killed. and the local police force, headed up by woody harrelson as the chief, hasn't made any arrests. in a state of desperation, she decides to take those titular three billboards and emblazon them with signs that name and shame the police department and say, "how come there have been no arrests?" here's a clip. when the dna don't match no—one who's ever been arrested, and when the dna don't match any other crime nationwide, and when there wasn't a single eyewitness from the time she left your house to the time we found her...

well, right now, there ain't too much more we can do. could pull blood from every man and boy in this town over the age of eight. there's several rights laws prevents that, mrs hayes. and what if he was just passing through town? pull blood from every man in the country, then. and what if he wasjust passing through the country? if it was me, i'd start up a database. every male baby what's born, stick him on it. and as soon as he'd done something wrong, cross— reference it, make 100% certain it was a correct match, then kill him. yeah, well, there's definitely civil rights laws prevents that. you can see from that clip that what the film does is it plays with your sympathies. on the one hand, frances mcdormand is set up as the heroine. but then what she's saying there is outrageous. and suddenly, the chief is the one who's reasonable. i think the real triumph of this film is it's a tragicomedy that is very funny. that's one of the few clips that we could play that doesn't have

chaucerian swearing in it. martin mcdonagh has a real ear for this stuff. and it is very funny. he can make you laugh and gasp. he writes brilliantly. he does. before, he had a cynical edge, but this actually has heart. because the tragedy is, if anything, more powerful than the comedy. so what you get is a story about people who are eaten up by rage, eaten up by anger, eaten up by desperation. it's really a film about how those things impact upon the characters. there are these lines that are delivered as trite little greeting card messages. "anger only begets greater anger". "through love comes calm". and yet, they seem to be sincere. what really surprised me is how tender this film is. yes, it's very funny. yes, it's very violent. yes, it's very dark. yes, it deals with edgy subject matter. but it also has a really tender heart. it has upset some people because all the characters are seen to be three dimensional — like, sam rockwell is introduced as a racist cop.

but as it goes on, you start to see he's also a victim of his circumstances. that doesn't play very well with everybody. because it is a film about moral ambivalence in which there isn't a good character or a bad character. everybody is in this kind of morass. but i thought it worked really well. i've seen it twice. second time round, it was more powerful. when it needs to be funny, it's blisteringly funny. but it's also really tragic. and, oddly enough, very tender. goodness. rich. yes. very rich film. yeah, i'd be interested to know what you think about it. we can discuss next week. for now, i know best out you're saying is anotherfilm — stunning scenery, beautiful setting, but quite bleak, as well. yes, hostiles, which is an end of an era western from scott cooper. christian bale is a battle hardened captain ordered to take his nemesis back to his sacred lands to die. it is a film, therefore, about coming to terms with the legacy of violence. actually, the reason i've chosen it is because it has a brilliant

score by max richter, which is really evocative. the score seems to come out of the landscape. it uses this incredible instrument called a yaybahar which i'd never heard of before until i heard this film. it really captured me. i think it's not getting perhaps the attention that it should have got. i think it's a very interesting piece of work. it's called hostiles. it's worth it for the score alone. and dvd, you've picked one of my films of last year. detroit. superb. why isn't that on the awards radars? i don't begin to understand. it's so well made. really, really brilliant. the anatomy of an uprising. set in the late 1960s but i think relevant to today. fantastic ensemble cast. john boyega, will poulter, both absolutely brilliant. i would have had both of them in supporting actor nominations. fantastically directed by kathryn bigelow. yet somehow, it seems to have slipped off the radar, which is a shame. i thought it was a really gripping piece of work. absolutely. a hard watch, but it is brilliant. but it has to be tough because of the subject matter. it would be wrong if it wasn't. absolutely. this is the chance to see it, if you didn't see it in the cinema.

it's on dvd this week. mark, thank you very much. see you next week for more. there is, of course, more film news and reviews from across the bbc on the website. you know the address — bbc.co.uk/mark kermode. you can find our previous programmes on the bbc iplayer. it's a busy week at the cinema. enjoy your cinema—going. see you next time, bye—bye. hello once again. i suspect that the weather in the past 2a hours in the west of cornwall has been a tough watch as well, 36.2 millimetres of rain in campbell, just down the road would have a big maritime equivalent is off to the isles of scilly said as airport, 1.8 celsius was the warm spot, small comfort i suspect however that were shrouded in cloud and rain also. through the small

hours of the rain will peter away and some will keep going elsewhere, quite a bit of clout around a different mix you may end up with some frost and fog. it went be a widespread problem. first thing sunday, you may catch some of the rain along the line of where the rain along the line of where the rain fell on saturday, sadly, but as the day gets going the rain peters out and we end up with a bit of clout, double brick and there is some sunshine around— some — but that essentially a cloudy day with freshening wind, especially across the north—western quarter of scotland. further south of the breeze may eventually liverpool versus man city but that is the only thing you will really notice about the weather with regard to the premier league football matches through because of sunday. as i say, the wind gathers all the while and accompanied why some heavy rain also, gradually slumping its way down across the british isles, such that i sunday, monday morning, sorry, it will be all over the south—eastern quarter. the very last

of the relatively mild air because once that is the way, my word, it gets really cold. exacerbated by the strength of the wind which is there to be had at first thing on monday morning across the south—east. then we get a raft of really heavy showers, possible thunderstorms, and we go into colder, brighter conditions, provided you are not stuck underneath the snow shower which initially will be there across the higher ground of scotland and northern ireland come tuesday and it will slump its way further south, and the reasons that is the temperatures slumped their way into it further south also. no better than seven or eight degrees in the south, two or three and feeling much colder because of the strength of the wind. there we are on wednesday, all of those isobars. he comes the feature running through, wet and windy on its southern flank and it will be less breeze on its northern flank that there we could see some snow. it will be about cold, much colder across all parts of the british isles on the forthcoming week. wendy too and they will be some snow in the forecast. quite a

bit going on. look at our website. this is bbc world news today. i'm samantha simmonds. our top stories. an incoming ballistic missile warning is sent out across hawaii in a text alert, but it was a false alarm. the alert sparked widespread panic with people running for cover. the state governor has apologised for the mistake. iam angry i am angry and disappointed that this happened. we are doing everything that we can come immediately, to ensure that it never happens again. reports of another chlorine gas attack on the rebel—held enclave of eastern ghouta in syria, already under siege by government forces. a british crew becomes the fastest ever to cross the atlantic ocean in a rowing boat. they broke the record by six days. this challenge is the world ‘s toughest rowing challenge. we