Reviews

This is only Jeremy Saulnier's second film, yet he proves himself adept behind the camera and delivers an accomplished film that, despite its subject matter suggesting otherwise, feels polished and well-made.

I think announcing what happened early on was the film's death knell for me, as I lost a great deal of interest from that point as the film seemed to have been done and dusted within a short time.

What I do feel with Tarantino's films is that they follow, by and large, a set formula: in Django Unchained, we had the plantation-owners and slave-traders as the enemy; here, the Nazis are the enemy; and there seems to be a similar formulaic approach to most of his films.

Danny Boyle has stated that of the films he has directed, this is his father's favorite, and that whenever a new film directed by Boyle junior is released (including Slumdog Millionaire (2008), which won the academy award both for best film and best director) and he asks Boyle senior's opinion, his ...

It's based on Stefan Zweig's writings, but it really feels like a thoroughly original work - I certainly can't think of another film like it, and I'm sure you could say that about most of Anderson's films.

One of the words used in the film's tagline is "epic" - I think even the film's biggest detractors couldn't argue with that, as this is a film that must have required many man-hours and a great deal of effort for it to come to fruition, and it shows in the end product, which is huge in scope.

According to the real Henry Hill, whose life was the basis for the book and film, Joe Pesci's portrayal of Tommy DeSimone was 90% to 99% accurate, with one notable exception; the real Tommy DeSimone was a massively built, strapping man.

Filmed over a period of twelve years, it's a film in which actual character progression seems relatively lacking, in which the acting is often unconvincing and flat, and in which the novelty wears off fairly soon.

Willie Nelson did a good job, come to think of it, and I think the film could have benefited from his being used more, but again there's too little of the good stuff in this film and too much bad.

It's still got the elements that made Lynch famous, and his idiosyncrasies and quirks are plain for all to see, and there are even subtle nods to his other films (I thought so, anyway), but this is still a film that many audiences could get something from, I think.