The X Files was a fine television show for its time. A feature film seemed a great idea, and all the quality we have come to expect from the show has been transferred successfully into the new format. The only problem is, film is bigger than TV. What we are left with is a fine episode of The X Files the TV show thrown onto a big screen. Mulder and Scully are left to run around in a world of suddenly expanded possibility, but the film makers fail to scale the concept up to fulfil the potential that it brings. Read the rest of this entry »

To quote Amsterdam in Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, it’s warm under the wing of a dragon. This largely factual account of a young Scottish doctor recruited by one of the world’s most infamous warlords as his personal physician is a well made and enormously entertaining drama, centred around a phenomonal performance by Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin. Read the rest of this entry »

Strangely flat, given the fact that it has a great cast, a top director and is based on a popular novel. Read the rest of this entry »

The impact of Doug Liman’s interpretation of Robert Ludlum’s most famous novel, The Bourne Identity, is such that the writer will likely be most remembered for the quality of a screenplay that he didn’t write, and that is largely unrelated to the original work. That’s a shame, but it’s a credit to the film that the body of work of such a proficient writer should be overshadowed at all.

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Pure class! Don’t expect another Se7en, this is a completely different beast – in a way, a far more mature film – less shocking (although it will shock in parts) and more emotionally involving. Read the rest of this entry »

In recent years, Mexico has really emerged as one of the most exciting industries in world cinema. Having brought us some of the most talented film-makers currently working, auteurs like Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu, the world has really started to sit up and take notice. According to Mexican film fans, the next director destined to make a splash is Rodrigo Pla, and if his debut feature La Zona (The Zone) is anything to go by, his searingly intense focus on social ills is likely to set him off on a similar path to Inarritu.

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The 90′s was a bit of a golden age for crime films. Thanks to the Tarantino-mania that gripped film industries around the world, hardly a week would go by without a new gritty film about scary, desperate criminals fleeing from even scarier, more desperate criminals hitting the cinemas. Australia was no different. In fact, Bill Bennett’s Kiss or Kill even picked up Best Film at the 1997 AFI Awards – which is interesting because, these days, the film doesn’t stand out as one of the better Australian films of the decade, even within its genre. Read the rest of this entry »