Trevor Johnston

We’re all set for sparks to fly, but unfortunately reality doesn’t quite live up to the set-up.

It might be significant as an early independent movie made good, but Poitier got better when he got angrier for In the Heat of the Night four years later.

It’s just a shame the film is slightly ragged, with a tendency to preach when there’s more than enough drama to get the point across. Still, it’s an important story, told with commitment.

This super-gargantuan historical drama may not be much of a movie, but it delivers Hollywood spectacle of the sort we’ll never see again.

The cliché-averse will doubtless resist, but the laughter and tears here are never less than fully earned. A lovely film.

Tigers is a vivid, chastening look inside the ruthless promised land that is top-level sport.

This story of humanity manifesting itself in unexpected circumstances just doesn’t have enough surprises on offer to make good on that early promise. A noteworthy debut nonetheless.

The Forgiven takes the harder road, and actually proves more engrossing and haunting in retrospect than when you’re actually watching it. In an era of instant gratification, that, for all the film’s evident flaws, is still worth chin-stroking respect.

Pioneer delivers insidious, shadowy tension, while it’s genuinely surprising to find yourself so engrossed – story glitches notwithstanding – in key issues like compression sickness and divers’ gas supply.

Gout’s ambition pays off in a climactic flourish. And the assault-and-battery of camera tricks captures Mexico’s head-spinning everyday madness.

If it lacks the originality and sheer muscle of the best horror fare, this does offer an astute take on fragile thirtysomething machismo, and Spall treads a convincingly anguished path towards potential redemption.

It’s a zingy set-up but just as quickly, it hits the skids.

Hyena is startling, claustrophobic and penetrating in its analysis of the blurred lines involved in doing good.

Complications escalate to a tiresome degree, leeching the fun from the movie, which is slung together with cold competence (and not much more) by jobbing Icelandic maverick Baltasar Kormákur.

For a while the film broaches genuinely unexpected comedic and emotional territory, and while matters eventually return to the safe haven of pat formula, at least there’s been some vim and vigour added to the amiable observational humour and likeable performances.

Both actors are tremendous. Sy adds powerful dramatic shading to his usual irresistible charm, while Gainsbourg hints at a sunnier disposition beneath her volatile nervousness.

Instead of developing the story’s wartime context, Trueba and veteran screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière offer passing reflections on the relationship between observation and the largely mental process of creativity, but little that ignites genuine drama.

The film plumbs no great depths. But it snappily combines frisky aerial action, a sprinkling of fairy dust and much cuddly bonding with the massive furball of the title.

There’s enough sly wit in the margins to engage the grown-ups and the whole thing conveys Christmas cheer without being overly cynical.

Ultimately superficial yet watchable throughout, it’s the very definition of classy fluff.

Mirren’s performance movingly evokes the travails and rewards of seeking an accommodation with a nightmare past. Yet the clunky, often superficial movie around her tames the anger and anguish of memory in favour of a well-meaning but pat, feelgood ‘prestige’ product.

There’s much over-egged mugging from the grown-ups (bumbling toff Richard Griffiths, shouty sarge John Lynch), but the lads are spot-on: young Mackay is effectively touching and bristling O’Connell hints at Next Big Thing charisma.

This homegrown romcom is pretty much doomed from the start.

Yet just when the movie has us in its grasp, the script falls to pieces and turns into a crass female-in-peril button-pusher whose shameless psycho-killer clichés insult the intelligence.

With its intensely-felt performances, haunting winter lighting, and seemingly inescapable claustrophobia, it leaves a mark.