Bleed For This (DVD Review)

15 – 112mins – 2016

---

 

AFTER THE LAST

In my review of survivalist horror The Shallows I commented how the man-versus-shark sub-genre is now at a severe disadvantage, having to come up with a pretty special story to not fall into the shadow of the behemoth Jaws. The same rule can be applied to boxing films where Rocky rules the roost. Perhaps this is why audiences failed to turn out to see Bleed for This is cinemas last November (it failed to recoup its $9million budget), but this Miles Teller-starring biopic is so much more than a second rate “Italian Stallion.”

Under the Shadow (Netflix Review)

15 – 84mins – 2016

---

 

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.