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This weekend there are ten new films out for you to choose from: action in Hardcore Henry, Danish drama in The Absent One, low-budget Irish drama in My Name Is Emily, a couple in a hole in Couple In A Hole, Welsh drama following a car crash in The Passing, the French economy tanking in The Measure Of A Man, Kristen Wiig goes weird too far in Nasty Baby, Robin Williams’ last-ever movie in Boulevard, Hollywood sci-fi nonsense in Midnight Special, and tedioous real-life drama in The Man Who Knew Infinity.
Hardcore Henry is known in some territories as, simply, Hardcore and is an actioner which looks more like a videogame, such as the brilliant Just Cause 3 as well as a number of other games.
And now a second trailer has been released with even more action!
It’s told from a first person perspective where you remember nothing, mainly because you’ve just been brought back from the dead by your wife (Haley Bennett). She tells you that your name is Henry. Five minutes later, you are being shot at, your wife has been kidnapped, and you should probably go get her back. Who’s got her? His name’s Akan (Danila Kozlovsky); he’s a powerful warlord with an army of mercenaries, and a plan for world domination.
You’re also in an unfamiliar city of Moscow, and everyone wants you dead. Everyone except for a mysterious British fellow called Jimmy. He may be on your side, but you aren’t sure. If you can survive the insanity, and solve the mystery, you might just discover your purpose and the truth behind your identity….
Hardcore Henry also stars Sharlto Copley, Tim Roth and Cyrus Arnold and is written by Ilya Naishuller and Will Stewart, the former of whom directs, and I’m really looking forward to this.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
The Absent One
Rugged and irritable Carl Morck (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and his colleague, the Syria-born Assad (Fares Fares), run the cold-case division of the Copenhagen police. After a desperate appeal to Morck about the unsolved killing of his own teenage children, an ex-cop commits suicide. This leads the detective pair on a twisted mission to discover what really happened in the 1990s at one of the country’s poshest boarding schools. Director Mikkel Norgaard reunites with lead stars Kaas and Fares to portray this taut fiction which again alternates deftly between the past and present.
The film also stars Borgen‘s Pilou Asbæk and a review is online here.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
My Name Is Emily
A teenage girl runs away from a foster home with the boy who loves her. She searches for her visionary writer father who is locked up in a psychiatric institution. It is a story of redemption.
The film stars Evanna Lynch, Martin McCann and the always brilliant Michael Smiley, and based on the trailer, is shows that this low-budget drama is easily more of a draw than most of the high-profile output this week. Alas, I bet it won’t get shown on many screens so I’ll end up having to see it on the small screen instead. Here’s hoping the Blu-ray release isn’t far away.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Couple In A Hole
A British couple – John (Paul Higgins – The Thick Of It) and Karen (Kate Dickie – The Witch) end up living like savages in a hole in the middle of a vast forest in the French Pyrenees. That’s the brief premise for another film to add to the “weird but brilliant” as I am very intrigued to see how this pans out.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
The Passing
When two young lovers crash their car into a ravine in the remote mountains of Wales, they are plunged into a lost world. Dragged from the river by a mysterious figure, they are taken to a ramshackle farm, a place untouched by time. As events unfold we learn the explosive truth about the young couple’s past. More unsettling still, we discover the ghostly truth about Stanley, and the tragedy of the valley he once called home.
Starring Mark Lewis Jones, Dyfan Dwyfor and Annes Elwy, and spoke entirely in Welsh, there’s a lot to this drama that I want to see. Again, it’ll be one where I’ll have to wait for the Blu-ray as I can’t see it grabbing much in the way of multiplex screens, sadly.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
The Measure of a Man
Vincent Lindon gives his finest performance to date as unemployed everyman Thierry, who must submit to a series of quietly humiliating ordeals in his search for work. Futile retraining courses that lead to dead ends, interviews via Skype, an interview-coaching workshop critique of his self-presentation by fellow jobseekers; all are mechanisms that seek to break him down and strip him of identity and self-respect in the name of reengineering of a workforce fit for a neoliberal technocratic system. Nothing if not determinist, Stéphane Brizé‘s film dispassionately monitors the progress of its stoic protagonist until at last he lands a job on the front line in the surveillance and control of his fellow man and finally faces one too many moral dilemmas. A powerful and deeply troubling vision of the realities of our new economic order.
Based on the trailer, this is another great-looking drama demanding of your attention.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Hit!
Nasty Baby probably sounded like a great idea on paper, but as a film it left me cold. Partly because the trailer’s so bloody weird, and partly because I’m really not a fan of Kristen Wiig.
The film is about a close-knit trio where gay couple Freddy (Sebastián Silva) and Mo (Tunde Adebimpe) are trying to have a baby with the help of their friend Polly (Wiig). At the same time, they’re being confronted with a brutal scenario that causes them to take a life.
Nasty Baby is written and directed by Silva, it also stars Alia Shawkat, Mark Margolis and The Wire‘s Reg E Cathey, and premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, and also screened in the Panorama section of the 65th Berlin International Film Festival, where it was named winner of the Teddy Award for best LGBT-themed feature film.
Check out the trailer below and click on the poster for the full-size image.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Boulevard stars Robin Williams in one of his final movie roles as Nolan Mack, a devoted husband in a marriage of convenience is forced to confront his secret life.
Also starring Kathy Baker, Giles Matthey, Roberto Aguire and Bob Odenkirk, best known for Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul and the TV series version of Fargo, this looks okay, but not exactly a fitting tribute to the work of Robin Williams in this, billed as his final onscreen appearance.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Maybe!
Midnight Special has a rather oversimplified premise that it’s just about a father and son who go on the run after the dad learns his child possesses special powers.
In fact, the son turns into Geordi La Forge from Star Trek: The Next Generation and shoots lasers out of his bloody eyes! However, that’s the only interesting about this trailer. Perhaps he’s really Gort from The Day The Earth Stood Still??
Directed and written by Jeff Nichols (Mud), the others getting caught up in this mess are Joel Edgerton, Adam Driver, Michael Shannon, Sam Shepard and Kirsten Dunst, who was otherwise doing so well in Fargo.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
The Man Who Knew Infinity is Srinivasa Ramanujan Iyengar (Slumdog Millionaire‘s Dev Patel) who, while growing up poor in Madras, India, earned admittance to Cambridge University during World War I where he became a pioneer in mathematical theories under the guidance of his professor, GH Hardy (Jeremy Irons).
Also starring Toby Jones, Jeremy Northam, Kevin McNally, Enzo Cilenti and Stephen Fry, the film is written and directed by Matt Brown.
The Man Who Knew Infinity is out this week, but based on this trailer, it’ll be an infinite length of time before I volunteer to see it.
Hit or Miss? Verdict: Miss!
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.