TABOO, 1.4 (TV Review)

BBC One – Saturday 28^th January 2017 – 9.15pm

Created by: Tom Hardy, Edward “Chips” Hardy, Steven Knight

Written by: Steven Knight and Emily Ballou

Directed by: Kristoffer Nyholm

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THE JOINT IN THE SEE-SAW

“Delaney is turning London into his own private bear pit!”

Just when I didn’t think Taboo could bring any more grit and gore to primetime Saturday night television, the BBC’s decency-touting new mini-series descended to shocking new lows (or highs, depending on your tolerance for the controversial) in its fourth week: there’s rapey jail cell harassment from figures of authority, throat slittings, prostitutes give blow jobs, doctor’s lick cow shit, brothers use voodoo to have intercourse with their half-sisters from afar… and in an eye-poppingly visceral visual, intestines spill from a eviscerated stomach after a long-winded slug-fest turns bloody.

Hacksaw Ridge (Cinema Review)

15 – 139mins – 2016

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CONSCIENTIOUS PARTICIPANT

I have always struggled with war films. I just feel a disassociation from the genre which I have struggled to shake off. Maybe I never will. Nevertheless, the amount of love Mel Gibson’s first directorial effort in over a decade has received (despite many a person’s reservations about his off-screen personality) has made Hacksaw Ridge hard to ignore. I saw the elongated runtime and grimaced, but having put aside my hesitations in a packed cinema this afternoon, I can confirm that the man they call ‘Mad Mel’ has won me over.

Mechanic: Resurrection (DVD Review)

15 – 95mins – 2016

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TOOLBOX MURDERS

“It seems reports of your demise have been greatly exaggerated…”

A sequel no-one asked for to a remake everyone bar the biggest Jason Statham fans had forgotten about, Mechanic: Resurrection somehow managed to outgross its 2011 predecessor and more than triple its $40million budget when it landed at the box office last August. The Stath’s endearing mug no doubt managed to persuade both action-mad lads and charmed lasses alike into multiplexes, but this follow-up to Simon West’s Charles Brosnan re-do is surprisingly heavyweight in the casting department.

The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman (DVD Review)

15 – 99mins – 2013

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BY SHIA WILL

Hollywood golden boy Shia Transformers LaBeouf edged his way out of mainstream blockbusters and towards more edgy, indie fare with this trippy and über-violent coming of age romantic drama from debuting director Fredrik Bond, enticing a number of well-known faces along for the Euro joyride.

Under the Shadow (Netflix Review)

15 – 84mins – 2016

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BOMBS UP IN MY FLAT

“A woman should be scared of exposing herself above everything else.”

Set against the sobering backdrop of the War of the Cities during the Iran-Iraq conflict of the 1980s, this Tehran-set spine-tingler manages to astutely capture both the palpable anxiety civilian’s felt living with the threat of missiles literally crushing their homes and the repressive social inequality of the period metaphorically crushing their livelihoods.

Split (Cinema Review)

15 – 117mins – 2017

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STEP INTO THE LIGHT

I have a lot of time for M. Night Shyamalan. While I openly acknowledge that his filmography includes some rotten clangers (The Village, The Happening, The Lady in the Water), I admire his perseverance against the grain; there is no denying he always delivers a surprising and atypical movie experience and it has become all to easy to write off his more uncharacteristic endeavours (After Earth, The Last Airbender) and overlook his immense talents and icon-acquiring success.

TABOO, 1.3 (TV Review)

BBC One – Saturday 21^st January 2017 – 9:15pm

Created by: Tom Hardy, Edward “Chips” Hardy, Steven Knight

Written by: Steven Knight

Directed by: Kristoffer Nyholm

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A PINCER MOVEMENT

After a fortnight of moaning that episodes 1.1 and 1.2 of the BBC’s Ridley Scott-produced historical miniseries were more concerned with entrenching us in grimy atmosphere than propelling the story forward, with Saturday’s third instalment opening with cunning comeback kid James Delaney (Tom Hardy) weak and wobbly after being stitched up from the knife wound he sustained at the hands of a bonneted assassin, I feared we would be in for another hour of slow burn consternation as our enigmatic protagonist recovered from the thrust of a blade.

War Dogs (DVD Review)

15 – 109mins – 2016

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ARMS AND THE DUDES

“This isn’t about being pro-war… this is about being pro-money.”

It is 2005 and the War in Iraq is ongoing. Struggling to support his girlfriend (Knock Knock’s Ana de Armas) and incoming new addition, 20-something Miami Beach masseur David Packouz (Allegiant’s Miles Teller) is persuaded into the morally murky waters of online international arms dealing when he reconnects with old childhood friend Efraim Diveroli (Sausage Party’s Jonah Hill) at a hometown funeral.

Equals (DVD Review)

12 – 98mins – 2015

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THE LOVE BUG

“We cured cancer, we cured the common cold, we can cure S.O.S.”

In a starkly clinical ‘utopian’ potentiality where to be “Switched On” to your emotions is to be labelled “defective” and sent to the doctor for inhibitors, tantamount to a disease which is on the verge of being cured, two members of the Collective struggle to keep their love for one another under wraps.

Ley Lines (Blu-ray Review)

18 – 105mins – 1999

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HALF-BREED HEROES

“Go home if you don’t like it!”

Two years after Rainy Dog, Takashi Miike closed out his uneven and indecent Black Society Trilogy with another hard-hitting drama exposing the disreputable underbelly of his home country. Sick of being bullied and treated like outsiders, three optimistic Japanese youths of Chinese decent (among them Kazuki Kitamura, who would go on to star in Hollywood action sequel The Raid 2) move from the countryside to seek their fortune in Tokyo… and end up falling foul of the trigger-happy boss (Naoto Takenaka) of a city crime syndicate.