This is my monthly round up of films seen at home on services other than Netflix.

Starting with films I saw on Amazon but can be rented on all the usual services:

Paris Memories
Virginie Efira stars as Mia who survives a gun attack at a bistro. Three months later, feeling numbed and with a frustratingly hazy memory of the attack she is determined to reconstruct the sequence of events and attempt to regain an idea of normality. In the process, she forms bonds with fellow survivors.

We often see PTSD depicted on screen as suffered by soldiers returning from war, but less often see it from the point of view of survivors of a terrorist atrocity. Mia’s bafflement, her inability to go back to her previous life and determination to piece together what happened all feel very realistic. That realism is enhanced by the excellent Efira.

I would have rated this higher had it ended about 15 minutes sooner tham it did. There was a perfect opportunity to do so as Mia rode on the subway. That would habe left the story appropriately tinged with ambiguity. Instead, Mia’s romantic entanglements, the one part of her story I struggled with, are brought to a head and loose ends are tied up.
Rating: 8 out of 10

97 Minutes
A hijacked 767 is destined to crash in just 97 minutes when its fuel runs out. NSA Director Hawkins (Alec Baldwin) prepares to have the plane shot down before it does any catastrophic damage on the ground, so it is left to Alex (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), an undercover Interpol agent who has been embedded in the terrorist cell to overcome the hijackers and save the innocent passengers.

You can do a lot of nit-picking with the story. For instance, an engine that runs out of fuel does not catch fire and a plane that runs out of fuel does not just fall from the sky. Plus Baldwin is really phoning it in. However, I am a sucker for plane bound films, Meyers is pretty good and MyAnna Buring excellent as the doctor who helps him. There is a good twist towards the end and a ridiculous one shortly after.
Rating: 6 out of 10

Over on Sky Movies for subscribers:

Sick
In April 2020 during the pandemic, college student Parker Mason (Gideon Adlon) takes her best friend, Miri Woodlow (Bethlehem Million), to her family’s lake house to quarantine her. They arrive at the luxurious and secluded lake house when Parker receives a cryptic text message. This is written by Kevin Williamson, who has an illustrious CV in horror, and he manages to create a lot of tension from a simple premise. The twist towards the end is unique though I am not sure it entirely works.
Rating: 7 out of 10

Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World
Khris Davis stars as the former World Heavyweight boxing champion in this biographical drama. It is pretty faithfully told and is a solid enough piece of work but it is quite uninspiring both in and out of the ring.
Rating: 4.5 out of 10

The Last Rifleman
With The Great Escaper still in cinemas, The Last Rifleman starring Pierce Brosnan is released on Sky Movies and it has an identical plot, though it does not claim to be a true story. Artie Crawford (Brosnan), is a Northern Irish World War II veteran who, on the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, decides to secretly escape his care home and embarks on a journey through Ireland and across to France.

It is odd seeing this so soon after Michael Caine’s towering performance. It has a nice line in melancholy but lacks The Great Escaper’s humour and feels a little pointless.
Rating: 5 out of 10

She Came to Me
Composer Steven Lauddem is creatively blocked and unable to finish the score for his big comeback opera. At the behest of his wife Patricia, he sets out in search of inspiration. The cast of Peter Dinklage, Anne Hathaway and Marisa Tomei fail to ignite this meandering drama.
Rating: 4 out of 10

Little Dixie
Ex Special Forces operative Doc Alexander (Frank Grillo) goes up against a Mexican drug cartel when his daughter, Dixie, is kidnapped by them. Far too much of the plot is taken up with setting up the story and there is not enough action for Grillo fans.
Rating: 4.5 out of 10

The following can be seen on My5:

The Baby Swindler
Pregnant and newly single, Julia faces a looming catastrophe when she loses her job. An unlikely lifeline arrives in the form of her new friend Alana, who says she knows people who’d pay handsomely for positive pregnancy tests. An interesting concept is let down by a poor script that dissipates any tension.
Rating: 4 out of 10

The Gabbi Luck Mysteries
Most of the cosy Hallmark mystery series are a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. The Lifetime channel has decided to get on on the act with the Gabbi Luck Mysteries that feature Jackée Harry as an ex-criminology professor who turns her hand to investigating murders.

In Murder 101 a Gabbi Luck Mystery, Gabbi takes a job as a guest lecturer at Whitmore College, But the morning after she arrives, the Dean is found dead. In A Gabbi Luck Mystery: Old Flame, New Murder, Gabbi helps her daughter, Lisa, investigate the death of Lisa’s father’s business partner. In Murder for Sale: A Gabbi Luck Mystery, her friend Kimberly, who is selling her house, finds her estate agent dead in her back yard.

The plots for all of these are fine, but the films suffer from the usual Lifetime movie issues. They look cheap, are amateurishly directed and have bad performances. Unfortunately, Harry is one of the worst.

Ratings out of 10:
Murder 101: 3
Old Flame, New Murder: 3
Murder For Sale: 3.5

Finally, on Amazon Prime and Freevee:

Totally Killer
When the infamous “Sweet Sixteen Killer” returns 35 years after his first murder spree, the victim’s daughter, 17-year-old Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) accidentally travels back in time to 1987, and determined to stop the killer before he can start. In order to explain her situation, Jamie frequently refers to Back to the Future. I, though was put in mind of Happy Death Day, and its sequel.

It is not quite as goid, but does share a deft mixture of horror and comedy. Writers David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver and Jen D’Angelo smartly highlight attitudes that were normal in the 80’s but unacceptable now to most people, excluding perhaps Esther McVey! Shipka shows herself to be a fine comic actress with decent support from the rest of the cast.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Kandahar
Gerard Butler stars as Tom Harris, a CIA operative in Afghanistan who has to flee across country when his presence is uncovered. With him, is only his interpreter Mo, short for Mohammed (Navid Negahban). I am a convert to Gerard Butler action movies in recent after hating the one that put him on the map, 300.

In this case, nearly all the action is left until the second half when Tom and Mo try to stay alive as various Afghan, Pakistani and Iranian factions hunt them. The first half is more concerned with establishing characters and spy craft, and it is all the better for that. Only the final confrontation disappoints.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10

The Covenant
Guy Ritchie seems to be churning out films for Amazon Prime, His latest, The Covenant, follows US Army Sergeant John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Afghan interpreter Ahmed (Dar Salim). After Ahmed saves Kinley’s life, Kinley feels indebted to him. When Kinley learns that Ahmed and his family were not given safe passage to America as promised, he decides to repay his debt by returning to the war zone to retrieve them before the Taliban does.

So, the first half of the plot has striking similarities to Kandahar but is done in a much more sombre way. Surprisingly, all of Ritchie’s annoying visual ticks are dispensed with, leaving The Covenant his most mature movie and possibly his best one. Gyllenhaal and Salim are both excellent.
Rating: 8 out of 10

Also on Amazon Prime:
In One True Loves, Phillipa Soo stars as a woman torn between the love of two men, her husband who she thought was dead, and her new fiancée. This is a very slushy melodrama with a poor soundtrack.

Michael Peña stars in the biopic about astronaut Jose Hernandez titled A Million Miles Away. Peña does his best but it is a very leaden story.

In Prisoner’s Daughter, a father fights for the love of his daughter and grandson, after serving twelve years in prison. The top drawer cast including Brian Cox and Kate Beckinsale, cannot save this poorly written drama.

Inspired by true events, Sitting in Bars with Cake follows twenty-something extrovert Corinne (Odessa A’zion) convinces her shy baker friend Jane (Yara Shahidi) to agree to spend a year of bringing cakes to bars, to help her meet people and build confidence. What initially seems like it may be a fun concept soon becomes bogged down in a cancer storyline too deliberately engineered to generate tears.

War of the Worlds: The Attack is a very loose adaptation of the famous story. The usual characters are replaced by three irritating teens. You would be better off listening to the 1938 or 1967 radio versions of this story or even watching the flawed 1953 film.

There have been two adaptations of The Three Musketeers released this year. On Prime, you can see the version directed by Bill Thomas. The low budget is painfully obvious and the performances unconvincing.

Ratings out of 10:
One True Loves: 2.5
A Million Miles Away: 4
Prisoner’s Daughter: 3.5
Sitting in Bars with Cake: 3
War of the Worlds: The Attack: 3
The Three Musketeers: 3.5