There are some actors who aren’t household names but it always a pleasure to see. One of those, Steve Speirs stars in a nifty thriller, Concrete Plans that is now available to rent. He plays Bob, a foreman for a group of four builders who are employed to renovate a remote farmhouse in Wales. Tensions build between the men and also with the duplicitous owner of the property. Things inevitably end in bloodshed. This is a tightly made film, nasty at times with enough twists to sustain itself and decent performances from all the cast, most noticeably Speirs.
Rating: 7 out of 10
Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor is very reminiscent of his Dad’s (David) early films. Andrea Riseborough stars as Tasya Vos, an assassin working for a secretive organisation. Using brain implant technology, she is able to inhabit other people’s bodies to fulfil her contracts. Riseborough is impressively chilly here, following up her recent performance in Luxor, she is having a great year. The supporting cast featuring Jennifer Jason Leigh as her handler, Tuppence Middleton as one of the targets and Christopher Abbott as a person Tasya inhabits are all impressive too.
I also liked the gory practical effects and Cronenberg could well have a career like his Dad’s. In fact, with the presence of Leigh and the subject matter, this would make an intriguing double bill with eXistenZ. Unfortunately, despite all those positive aspects, I did struggle to emotionally engage with a movie that was a good 20 minutes too long and really lost its way in the second half,
Rating: 6.5 out of 10
From something very challenging to a much gentler offering, Summerland. Set in the south of England during the war, Alice (Gemma Arterton), a reclusive writer reluctantly takes in a young refugee called Frank (Lucas Bond). She initially resents him being there, but gradually forms a bond. So far, so BBC1 Sunday teatime. However, a more contemporary edge is given by the fact that Alice’s lost love is a woman, Vera, and a black woman at that, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
Arterton is not an actress who has made much an impression on me before, but she is excellent here, making the softening of her character very believable. Alice’s relationship with Frank is at the core of the film and both actors contribute to the warmth shown. Mbatha-Raw is underused in her flashback scenes so that part of the story does not come to life in the same way, but Tom Courtenay is in twinkly form as a kindly teacher.
Shortly before the end of the film comes a twist so preposterous that I had to rewind and watch again just to make sure I had not imagined it! It comes late enough so that it will not spoil the overall enjoyment, but I have no idea how writer/director Jessica Swale could think it was a good idea!
Rating: 7 out of 10
Whilst on Amazon, I watched the other two of the four Blumhouse releases. First up was Black Box, an extremely dull and implausible Science Fiction tale. A man suffering amnesia and the loss of his wife undergoes an experimental treatment. Something that might have made a 30 minute episode of a TV series is stretched interminably to three times that length. A better bet is the thriller, The Lie. A girl apparently pushes her best friend off a bridge, but what actually happened and why isn’t there a body? This benefits from an above average cast including Joey King and Peter Sarsgaard as well as chilly cinematography by Peter Wunstorf. It does, though, feel a bit like a TV movie and the twist is ridiculous.
Black Box: 3 out of 10
The Lie: 5.5 out of 10
Over on Sky, there is the sweet natured romantic comedy Then Came You. An American widow (Kathie Lee Gifford) takes a vacation in Scotland where she falls for her hotel owner (Craig Ferguson). Conventional yes but Ferguson’s charm carries a film with a surprising number of funny lines.
Apartment 1BR is a pretty satisfactory chiller about a young woman (Nicole Brydon Bloom) who moves into a new apartment block only to find that the other residents have a dark secret. Despite being quite implausible and having an ending that doesn’t make a lot of sense, this is an effectively and efficiently made film that wastes little of its running time.
Pleasant surprise of the week is Hooking Up, a movie that has been sitting on my planner for a few months. A sex addict, Darla (Brittany Snow) teams up with a cancer patient, Bailey (Sam Richardson) in order to re-enact her sexual conquests. Billed as a comedy, and with that synopsis, I thought that this might be either tiresomely raunchy or mawkishly sentimental. In fact, although it had some funny moments, it is mostly a perceptive, well acted, drama.
Then Came You: 7 out of 10
Apartment 1BR: 6 out of 10
Hooking Up: 7.5 out of 10