Film Review: The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a man of many passions and interests, chief amongst them being sex, doing enough drugs to incapacitate the population of Manhattan, and money. So much money; hire midgets so you can throw them at a giant bullseye money. As a stock broker who loses his job at a reputable (by Wall Street standards) firm, gets filthy rich by conning people into buying super cheap shares on which he gets a high commission, then sets up shop with his business partner (Jonah Hill), he is able to live a lifestyle of cartoonish excess. But as profits soar and parties get ever more extravagant, Belfort starts to attract the attention of an FBI agent (Kyle Chandler) who doggedly pursues him and his associates. But when you're obscenely rich, what does it matter if you're breaking the law?

Film Review: Spring Breakers (2012)

One of the strengths of genre film making is that it provides ample opportunity for intelligent writers and directors to secret social, political and cultural commentary beneath the more visceral, lizard brain pleasures of horror, sex and violence. The appeal is easy to see: you can make an insightful, even subversive point without the audience feeling like they are being beaten over the head with an ideology, while still making a film which is actually fun to watch. It's a tricky bit of misdirection to master, but it's largely why the likes of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Society and Shock Corridor remain so fascinating decades after they were initially released.

Film Review: Killing Them Softly (2012)

Released on the cusp of the 2012 awards season, Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly was strangely, some might say cruelly, ignored by most of the mainstream awards, a fate which mirrored its failure to connect with a broad audience. Granted, it's still the most commercially successful film of Dominik's career and it did not want for critical attention, but this seems much too modest a fate for a film which, whilst flawed, is still a fascinating, often brilliant attempt to make a down-and-dirty crime thriller which doubles as a (perhaps too) pointed political commentary.

Film Review: Ill Manors (2012)

Covering a week in the lives of the denizens of a London estate, the debut feature from Ben Drew (better known as Plan B) initially seems to be a fairly standard entry into the gritty, British crime drama sub-genre. Its collection of small time criminals, drug dealers, prostitutes and wayward youth are pretty standard archetypes, whilst its multiple storylines, taken separarely, are overly familiar.

Film Review: Lawless (2012)

When we think of Prohibition, we think of gangsters. Historically, we think of Al Capone and his ilk building empires on spilt blood and illicit liquor, whilst cinema gives us James Cagney rising to the top, then falling face down in the gutter. These are indelible, iconic images, and it's no surprise that whenever film-makers tell the story of Prohibition, they tell it through the eyes of gangsters; grandiose and tragic figures who strut around in sharp suits brandishing Tommy guns.

Film Review: The Imposter (2012)

In October 1997, Carey Gibson received a call informing her that her missing younger brother, Nicholas Barclay, had been discovered in Spain. She was bewildered and overjoyed. Thirteen year old Nicholas had disappeared three years earlier whilst walking back to his family’s San Antonio home, and this one call was the first they had heard from him. Once Nicholas returned, though, something seemed subtly off. His altered demeanour and appearance was explained as the result of years of sexual abuse he claimed to have suffered, so his quiet, withdrawn attitude could be due to that trauma. However, that was not the case.