Hello and welcome to the Geeky Brummie Film Roundup! Each week we take you through the biggest new cinema releases and some of the reasons we’re looking forward to them. This week, we have an expert hacker, a hacked phone, and the man behind the original Trojan Horse…
Usual disclaimer: unless otherwise stated, I haven’t seen these movies yet so all of my opinions are based on trailers, early reviews and other rumours and buzz.
The Amateur
Rami Malek stars as Charlie – a CIA tech whizz whose wife is murdered by a gang of armed terrorists. When his superiors refuse to act, he decides to take matters into his own hands and hunt down her killers. But when he comes to realise that ‘gun toting revenge rampage’ is not on his considerable list of skills, he has to find more inventive ways to get the upper hand against the seasoned thugs of the criminal underworld.
Malek is pretty perfect casting here. None of his most famous roles (Mr Robot, Mr Mercury, etc) fit the mould of the classic action hero, so he’s much more believable as a computer nerd who’s completely out of his depth with his finger on a trigger. But he also sells the intensity and determination of someone who will refuse to let that stop him when someone he loves is in danger. The supporting cast is strong too, with appearances from Laurence Fishburne, Rachel Brosnahan and Jon Bernthal.
The revenge thriller plot has been done a million times before, but it’s refreshing here to have a hero who uses his brain instead of his brawn to achieve it. That should allow for some inventive kills as Charlie lays elaborate traps for his enemies – the rooftop pool scene shown in the trailer looks particularly impressive. This should be a very entertaining watch.
- The Amateur on IMDB
- The Amateur on Rotten Tomatoes
Drop
After some persuasion, Violet (Meghann Fahy) agrees to leave her son with a babysitter while she goes on a blind date in a rooftop restaurant. After a nervous start the date appears to be going well, until she receives a series of anonymous airdrops to her iPhone that quickly turn threatening. The limited range means it has to be someone in the restaurant, but with her son’s life on the line if she tells her date what is happening, can she figure out who her mysterious tormentor is before it’s too late?
Coming from Blumhouse, which is often a good source of effectively crafted horror movies, this has a lot of potential. The existence of mobile phones is often a thorn in the side of a good thriller plot – when everyone has a means of calling for help, photographing evidence, shining a torchlight or googling vital information sat in their pocket, it’s hard to put them in a situation where they are ever really at risk. Many films have to fill the potential plot-holes by establishing that they are set somewhere without any signal, or having the phone destroyed or stolen early in the story, or showing it running out of battery. So building the suspense around the phone is a lot cleverer than it might appear. It also makes this very relatable – we can all imagine getting a creepy message appear on our mobile, and I think there will be a lot of entertainment in putting ourselves in her shoes to try and identify the baddie.
The cast includes a few people who have been in things that I have seen and enjoyed, including Fahy (White Lotus), Violett Beane (CW’s The Flash) and Brandon Sklenar (Westworld), but I’m not particularly familiar with any of them. Still, Fahy looks like she’s carrying the film well from the trailer and the film is getting decent reviews (currently 88% on Rotten Tomatoes). This should be a lot of fun.
- Drop on IMDB
- Drop on Rotten Tomatoes
The Return
As a big mythology nerd, I was very excited to hear that Christopher Nolan is adapting The Odyssey for his next film, with a ridiculously starry cast including Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal and more. But before we get that undoubtedly huge blockbuster, which promises to live up to the term ‘epic poem’, we also have The Return – a much lower budget adaptation of the final chapters of Homer’s tale.
Ralph Fiennes stars as Odysseus, who starts the movie washing up on the shores of his island kingdom of Ithaca after a decade away battling Trojans and taking the long route home. Haunted by memories of the lives cut short by his actions, emaciated by his years at sea, and aged almost beyond recognition, the king arrives as a beggar to find his wife Penelope (Juliette Binoche) and son Telemachus (Charlie Plummer) plagued by suitors eager to become the new king. Penelope has been holding them off by promising to select a new husband when she finishes weaving her wedding shroud, which she unpicks every night, but she cannot keep it up forever. Can Odysseus rescue his family, fend off his rivals and reclaim his throne?
Eschewing the more mythical parts of the myth in favour of a more serious character study, this looks like a faithful but grounded adaptation. Odysseus has been through a lot by this point in the story, and Fiennes has the acting chops and gravitas to bring that weariness to his heroism. And the world of Ithaca certainly looks the part – one glance at the architecture, landscape and lighting and you know you’re in the Mediterranean.
I really like the look of this one. So many filmmakers try to put their own twist on their adaptations of ancient myths by rationalising the magic and monsters or bringing them to a modern setting, it’s quite rare to see one that stays true to the source material. Kudos to director Uberto Pasolini for spotting that by focusing on the less fantastical, but more dramatic, part of the story he can craft a straight adaptation on an indie budget. My only disappointment is that this wasn’t made by TSG, whose vanity card has been spoiling the climax of this part of the Odyssey for cinema audiences for years. Maybe there’s still time for them to get involved in the Christopher Nolan one…
- The Return on IMDB
- The Return on Rotten Tomatoes
Holy Cow
Heading from Greece to France now, our last film on the list this week is Holy Cow, which follows teenager Totone who lives a carefree life of drinking and dancing. That lifestyle is cut short when he finds himself having to provide for his younger sister, and when he struggles to hold down a job he decides to put everything into producing an award winning comté cheese so that they can live off the prize money.
Although it sounds like what you might get if you typed “write a French film” into ChatGPT, this looks very sweet and heartfelt. The cast is made up entirely of non-professional actors, but it’s done well on the festival circuit (with first-time director Louise Courvoisier notably winning the Youth Prize at Cannes) and currently has a rating of 96% on IMDB. In a rare week where none of the new releases have any overtly sci-fi or fantasy elements, this is far and away the most realistic entry. If you’re into indie or foreign cinema then this is going to be well worth catching.
- Holy Cow on IMDB
- Holy Cow on Rotten Tomatoes
If you only see one film this week…
It’s a tough call this week but I think I’m going with Drop, which looks like it’s finding just the right balance of drama and entertainment.
Still in cinemas and worth a watch
- Death of a Unicorn – Exactly as daft as you’d expect it to be, with some fun creature design and the occasional sudden gory moment of violence. Will Poulter stands out as a spoilt rich kid who thinks he knows better than everyone else, but Richard E Grant, Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega are all as watchable as ever. Special mention to Anthony Carrigan, whose long-suffering, Riff-Raff-esque handyman Griff manages to steal every scene he’s in.
- A Minecraft Movie
- Flow
Trailer of the week
There have been a lot of good trailers this week (some honourable mentions include Mission: Impossible – the Final Reckoning, Love, Death & Robots and Predator: Killer of Killers), but I’m going for our first look at Tron: Ares. In a twist from the previous Tron films, this stars Jared Leto as a computer program who is sent from the digital world to the real world on a dangerous mission. It looks every bit as slick and shiny as the earlier entries, and the Nine Inch Nails soundtrack sounds pretty awesome. Tron: Ares will be light-cycling its way to our screens on October 10th.
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