It is time for a round up of new films that I have seen on Netflix this month.

Northern Comfort
The great Timothy Spall stars in this comedy drama about a disparate group of people who share a disabling fear of air travel. They try to overcome their phobia through a fearless flyers course that involves them taking a short flight. This starts pretty well and I enjoyed the funny flight they take to Iceland. However it becomes increasingly strange, and strained, during the bulk of the film set in a luxury Icelandic hotel.

Spall cannot be anything other than great but his character makes little sense. He is both an award winning author who is scared to fly, which is believable, and an ex SAS operative who has flown hundreds of times, which is not. Whilst the rest of the cast is forgettable, Lydia Leonard shines as a woman desperate to have the courage to fly to her partner’s holiday destination.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10

Mea Culpa
When artist Zyair (Trevante Rhodes) is accused of murdering his girlfriend, his attorney Mea (Kelly Rowland) finds she is up against her brother in law who is the assistant DA. Tyler Perry, who wrote and directed this nonsense, continually gets money to make films and TV shows with very poor results. This tries to invoke the spirit of sexy thrillers from the 80’s/90’s, ignoring that most of those were rubbish, and this is even worse. The story is ridiculous, the dialogue risible and there is no chemistry between the leads.
Rating: 2 out of 10

The Abyss
Frigga (Tuva Novotny) works as the chief of security at the world’s largest underground mine in the Swedish town of Kiruna. When a series of earthquakes trigger large cracks, she realises that the town is about to be destroyed and she needs to rescue her family. This is a superior disaster movie, as writers Richard Holm, Robin Holm and Nicola Sinclair take time to fully develop the characters.

Frigga is a believably flawed but likeable hero, and Nivotny is terrific in the role. Felicia Maxime is also really good as Frigga’s brave daughter. The CGI is shaky, especially when the big quake devastates the town, but it is no worse than most big budget Hollywood movies.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Bhakshak
In 2018, details began to emerge of systematic abuse of scores of girls at a shelter in the Indian town of Muzaffarpur. That shocking story is dramatised by director Pulkit, who also co wrote the screenplay with Jyotsana Nath. This had the potential to be one of the best and most powerful films of the year, but it misses the mark in many ways.

Bhumi Pednekar is very good as the journalist who breaks the story, but the script lumbers her with too many on the nose speeches and there is a completely unnecessary sub plot about her marriage that contributes to a bloated running time of 134 minutes. Also, the abusers come across as a bit cartoonish thanks to poor writing and over the top performances.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10