Starting with a trio of films rented on Amazon but are also available on similar sites.

A couple of years ago, I enjoyed writer Sarah Megan Thomas’ drama Equity. She has followed that with the very different A Call to Spy. Based on real events, she presents the story of the female spies recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in the Second World War.

Admittedly, she does under play the shambolic way the department was run and how the lack of training cost lives, but this is pretty effectively told tale. Stana Katic, best known to me from TV’s Castle, is credible as Vera Atkins but it is Turner herself who is the stand out performer as the heroic Virginia Hall. A tense depiction of a little known part of the war.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10

You will need a lot of patience to enjoy Monsoon. Kit (Henry Golding) fled Vietnam with his family when he was a child. Now, 30 years later, his parents have passed away and he returns to Saigon for the first time. Large parts of the running time are taken up with Kit wandering around the city with little purpose. When he is not doing that, he is hooking up with guys he meets.

The problem is, I did not care about Kit, his problems or his relationships. The performance of David Tran as his cousin is a highlight, but this is insubstantial stuff.
Rating: 5 out of 10

By far, the pick is a low budget British drama, Looted. Rob (Charley Palmer Rothwell) is caring for his terminally ill father, Oswald, but his Dad is unaware that he is also stealing cars with oldest friend Leo (Thomas Turgoose). With Oswald’s condition deteriorating, Rob takes a car that has a stash of drugs hidden inside…

You might think this is yet another dodgy British crime flick, but it is much more about the relationships between Rob and his Dad and his friends. The performances are excellent. Turgoose is one of better actors, Rothwell is terrifically compelling and Morgane Polanski (daughter of Roman) is brilliant as one of Rob’s friends who forms a bond with Oswald.
Rating: 9 out of 10

On Amazon Prime now is Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen. This is a typical crime caper that sums up Ritchie’s career. Some parts are very good, such as the nicely intricate plot and a wonderful turn by Hugh Grant as a sleazy investigator, and some parts very bad, like a script that relies too much on lazy clichés and the terrible writing of female characters. It feels very lightweight after Looted.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10

I was very surprised to find out that the Austrian drama What We Wanted (on Netflix) was written by three women, Sandra Bohle, Ulrike Kofler and Marie Kreutzer as the main female character, Alice, is so unlikable. Alice and her husband Niklas are having issues with conceiving a child. When they go on holiday, they meet a couple who have kids, and things come to a head. This could have been a heartfelt story, but Alice was so annoying, I lost interest pretty quickly.
Rating: 3.5 out of 10

Prolific documentary maker Alex Gibney’s Totally Under Control had a very recent cinema run and has already been shown on BBC2, so is still available on the iPlayer. It is an examination of how Donald Trump has mishandled the Coronavirus crisis in the US. Whilst it sums up the incompetence and ignorance of the president pretty well, the events portrayed are too recent and have had too much publicity already, so there are no revelations at all.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10