A couple of films that had very limited theatrical releases earlier in the year are now available to rent and watch at home.
Director Nick Rowland’s feature film debut, ‘Calm with Horses’, is a brilliant rural Irish noir. Cosmo Jarvis dominates the movie as Arm, a former boxer now working as muscle for a family of drug dealers. When they tell him to kill someone for the first time, whilst he is also trying to reconnect to his five year old autistic son and ex-girlfriend, he starts to question his loyalties.
This is a tough, at times brutal, but more often a lyrical story, skill-fully brought to the screen by Rowland and writer Joe Murtagh. As well as the superb Jarvis, there are excellent performances from Barry Keoghan as Arm’s closest friend in the criminal gang and Niamh Algar as the mother of his child.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Emilio Estevez is someone we don’t see much of these days, but he stars in directs and writes ‘The Public’. He plays Stuart Goodson, an employee in The Cincinnati public library. In the middle of a freezing spell, the homeless people who frequent the building during the day decide to stage a sit in overnight in protest at the lack of spaces in homeless shelters. Stuart decides to join them.
The real joy of this film is in the early scenes, and the characters that are introduced at that time. Estevez is terrific and the relationship he has with his co-workers, Myra (Jenna Malone), Ernesto (Jacob Vargas) and Anderson (Jeffrey Wright) feels so natural that I could have watched an entire film, or TV series, on the day-to-day running of the library.
There are powerful moments once the sit in starts, and it is only the underwhelming climax that stops this being a film of the year contender.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Released directly to digital download services, ‘Astronaut’ is an interesting low budget drama featuring a stand out central performance from Richard Dreyfuss as an ageing widow who enters a competition to win a place on a commercial space flight.
With interesting takes on how experience is under valued and some poignant moments, this is a decent watch. However, the ending is as mawkish as it is absurd.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10