Review: 10 Cloverfield Lane

10 Cloverfield Lane plays its cards as ambiguously as its title, from start to finish. But it is a decently performed psychological thriller. A woman who is fleeing from her ex-boyfriend finds herself driven off the road and knocked unconscious. When she wakes she finds herself captive to a strange man deep in an underground…

Review: Room

Definitely not to be confused with The Room. Room follows the lives of a mother and her five year old son who have been living in captivity for seven years. Held against their will in a single room by a man who gives them just enough to live by, they plot an escape. But what…

Review: The Gift

The Gift is an excellent example of how less is more; a surprisingly simple but escalating psychological thriller. Robyn moves into a new home with her successful husband Simon. But not long after they move they meet Gordon, a shifty but generous man who turns out to be an old school colleague of Simon’s. But…

Review: The Hateful Eight

Tarantino’s eighth directorial piece is a Western that almost didn’t happen, but we should be grateful that it did! John “The Hangman” Ruth has himself a bounty worth ten thousand, but his trip to Red Rock for the execution is thwarted by a blizzard. He and his prisoner must stay at a cabin until the…

Review: The Revenant

Leo is having a really, really bad day. Director Alejandro G. Inarritu returns after his colossal success with last year’s Birdman, and The Revenant is a whole new experience! In the 1820s, during an expedition on the Native American frontier for hide, a hunter accompanying them has his son murdered and is abandoned by his…

Review: Black Mass

Johnny Depp headlines this Boston crime lord biopic with a transformative performance, but excellence isn’t only reserved for him. Between 1975 and 1986, James Bulger started out as a low level criminal, but with a friend from the school yard now in the FBI and a senator for a younger brother, Bulger gained immunity for…

Review: Sicario

From the creator of 2013’s Prisoners, and getting ridiculously high critical acclaim, but Sicario is no Prisoners. An FBI agent who stumbles upon the dealings of a drug cartel is roped into a special Government taskforce to aid in the neutralisation of the drug trade on the US and Mexican borders. I don’t get the…

Review: Legend (2015)

This black comedy thriller follows the exploits of the Kray Twins, notorious London gangsters during the 1960s. It feels quite long, but Tom Hardy has a dynamite performance as both twins. Ronald and Reginald Kray are living the comfortable life as gangsters on London’s east side, they are seemingly impervious to the police while running…

Review: The Visit

Director M. Night Shyamalan funded this small and unique film himself to regain “creative control”. Honestly, it isn’t half bad! To help their mother cope with a divorce and have fun with her life, two siblings go to spend a week living with their grandparents, the daughter attempting to film their experience to give their…

Review: Ex Machina

Wow, I am struggling to think of problems with this intelligent sci-fi thriller. Caleb, a young computer specialist, is hired by a recluse multi-millionaire programmer to test groundbreaking artificial intelligence within a secret, isolated laboratory. Ex Machina is the directorial debut of Alex Garland, writer of incredible science fiction screenplays such as Sunshine, Dredd and…