Film Review: The Big Short (2015)

In 2010, Adam McKay ended the supremely silly buddy cop comedy The Other Guys with an apoplectic slideshow detailing the financial crimes committed by the banks and billionaires represented by Steve Coogan's character. It was jarring, to say the least, to go from jokes about Will Ferrell being an accidental pimp to a stark explanation of how the global economy collapsed, but The Other Guys' dysfunction now seems like a stepping stone to, and a mirror version of, McKay's latest, The Big Short. Whereas the earlier film told an undeniably absurd story laced with righteous anger, The Big Short is an undeniably angry film laced with absurdist humour, which McKay employs in the hope of making the 2007-08 financial crisis remotely understandable.

Film Review: The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)

"Heartthrob" Luke (Ryan Gosling) is a stunt motorcyclist working as part of a travelling carnival. He rides into town, performs for the locals, then leaves. Given his nickname and outlaw allure, it's hardly surprising that he leaves behind a string of women as well, and upon returning to Schenectady, New York, he discovers that Romina (Eva Mendes), a woman he had a brief encounter with a year earlier, is the mother to his child. Determined to do right by his son because he's afraid that growing up without a father would turn him into a drifter like him, Luke sticks around when the carnival leaves town.

Film Review: Drive (2011)

Drive, Nicholas Winding Refn’s minimalist action movie about a stunt driver (Ryan Gosling) who moonlights as a getaway driver, feels like a film out of time. Its methodical pacing, neon-soaked vision of L.A. and electronic soundtrack give it the feel of a lost Michael Mann film and it’s easy to see why the film received such a mixed response from audiences on its theatrical release. Anyone expecting Fast Five would be sorely disappointed by its lack of traditional spectacle in favour of a slow, chaste love affair between Driver and his neighbour, Irene (Carey Mulligan), broken up by scenes of startlingly brutal violence.