Jerry & Marge Go Large (Paramount Plus)
A good natured telling of a true story of a couple who discover a way of guaranteeing wins on the lottery in America on the rollover weeks. Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening are engaging as the pair but once they become successful in their plans, it fizzles out somewhat.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10

Honor Society (Paramount Plus)
Honor Rose (Angourie Rice) is a smug, smart-arsed, high-school girl who tries to plot her way into Harvard. Not as funny as it should be, and fairly mean spirited, Rose’s constant addressing the camera becomes very tiresome.
Rating: 3.5 out of 10

Father of the Bride (Sky Movies)
This is the third version of this familiar story of a middle-aged man trying to arrange and survive his daughter’s wedding. It has two main differences to the Spencer Tracy and Steve Martin vehicles. The family has Cuban origins and it has no laughs. A waste of the talents of Andy Garcia and Isabela Merced.
Rating: 3 out of 10

Into the Deep (Sky Movies)
Jess (Ella Rae-Smith) is looking for an escape from her life. When she meets Ben (Matthew Daddario) she agrees to take a trip on his boat, but is he what he seems? I really wanted to like this more as we do not get many good British suspense movies, but if mainly falls flat. The performances are mediocre though the actors struggle with playing such unlikable people. A little tension is generated towards the end though.
Rating: 5 out of 10

She Will
This unnerving psychological horror from promising director Charlotte Colbert tells the story of an aging, Norma Desmond type, actress who goes to a remote retreat in rural Scotland. Strange events, connected to her past when she was treated inappropriately as a child actor, start to happen. It is full of striking visual imagery, possessing a wonderful score by Clint Mansell and has an intense lead performance by Alice Krige. However, it lacks a cohesive or totally compelling story.
Rating: 6 out of 10

The Outfit
Leonard, a seemingly mild mannered cutter (someone who makes suits) becomes involved in a mob dispute in 1950’s Chicago. As this film is set entirely in a couple of rooms in Leonard’s shop, you might think it is based on a stage play, but is is, in fact, written for the screen by Graham Moore and Johnathan McClain, Amazingly, thanks to a clever, twisting screenplay and adept direction by Moore it feels very cinematic, in a slightly claustrophobic way. Mark Rylance is incredible as Leonard, gradually revealing a more devious and dark side to his personality. Able support is supplied by Zoey Deutch as his receptionist and a scary Johnny Flynn as a dangerous Mafiosi. I am sure that the story has a full holes if you examine it, but I was totally swept along by this lowkey thriller.
Rating: 9 out of 10

Wolf
Jacob (George MacKay) is sent to an institution with the intention of curing him of his belief that he is a wolf. In there, he meets fellow patients who also think that they are various animals. With a cast that includes Paddy Considine as a doctor with radical, maybe cruel, treatment methods and an under used Lola Petticrew as an inmate who believes she is a parrot, as well as MacKay, this should have been a lot better than it was. Instead, it moves at a leaden pace and, whilst writer/director Nathalie Biancheri clearly wants our sympathies to lie with the patients and even lead us to think that they should be allowed to live as they want, my thoughts were more with the frustrated families. It all feels a bit pretentious.
Rating: 4 out of 10

A Banquet
After she witnesses her Dad’s painful death, Betsey (Jessica Alexander) claims that her body is now in service to a higher power. As a consequence of this, she stops eating but does not lose any weight. This psychological drama is less than the sum of its parts. It has a strong cast that includes Sienna Guillory and Lindsay Duncan as Betsey’s Mum and Grandmother respectively, as well as an excellent performance by Ruby Stokes, who was so good in Rocks a couple of years ago, as Betsey’s younger sister. The screenplay touches on issues such as eating disorders and female body image and there are some striking images. But it feels like there is so much going on that it becomes quite unfocused. Also, I lose patience with any film that uses the trick of showing something shocking only to cut to someone sitting up bolt upright in bed panting, showing that it was only a dream.
Rating: 6 out of 10

American Carnage (Sky Movies)
In this satirical horror comedy, a group of kids of illegal immigrants are offered the choice of being deported or working in an old folks home. The fate that will await them there, though, is worse than being sent to a country that they have not been to before. Much better than expected with Jorge Lendeborg Jr. giving a winning performance as the young man who uncovers the terrible plot. Jenny Ortega once again gives good support in a horror film this year, following Scream, Studio 666 and X.
Rating: 6 out of 10

A Journal for Jordan (Sky Movies)
A very schmaltzy and sentimental story of a dead soldier’s journal he has left for his son. Hard to stomach.
Rating: 2.5 out of 10

The Good Neighbour (Sky Movies)
FBI International’s Luke Kleintank stars as David, an American journalist working in Latvia who runs over and kills a young woman when drunk and tries to cover it up. A by the numbers thriller from Stephen Rick that co stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Robert, David’s neighbour who might as well have a sign flashing “creep” above his head from the moment he appears. The decent cast also includes Bruce Davison and Eloise Smyth.
Rating: 5 out of 10

The Sky is Everywhere (Apple TV+)
Just what we need, another movie about a teen coping with death, Depressing in more ways than one.
Rating: 2 out of 10