This is a short series of three, experimental, separate and stand-alone crime dramas, made for TV and screened on BBC2, each an hour long. Each scenario is new and different, and they’re all very much based in ‘possible’ real life situations. The stories start with a dead body, and gradually the timeline of the crime…
A Hijacking is 100 minutes of gruelling, gripping tension. It doesn’t seek to glamorise or Hollywoodise the very real threat of modern-day piracy to commercial shipping. Instead it starkly portrays the at times horrific possibilities when hostages are held long-term for ransom. It is not a barrel of laughs… The action switches between a Danish…
An Italian neo-noir thriller about organised crime in modern day Rome. Gritty, violent, explicit and enthralling, it depicts the semi-fictional events of a single week building up to its ultimate ‘apocalypse’. Suburra pulls absolutely no punches in its depiction of brutal, street level intimidation and corruption among politicians and the clergy at the highest level.…
Seeking something to spice up your Saturday night? Try these three gritty thrillers, which expose the ultimate extent of human cruelty and the defiance it inspires… The Treatment: This Scandinavian-style crime-thriller is not for the faint-hearted. It’s a subtitled Belgian production, masterful in its manipulation of emotion and plot. It’s utterly gripping, and not a…
The Hateful Eight: Quentin Tarantino’s eight film turned out to be one of his best. It’s a ‘return to your roots’, character-led drama of escalating tension and utterly outlandish, gory violence. If you prefer QT’s more action-adventure type films (‘Inglorious’ and ‘Kill Bill’ spring to mind) then this might be a bit too much talky-talk…
Jordskott is not the typical Scandi crime series, although during the first episode you could be forgiven for thinking it conforms to the pattern established by The Killing / The Bridge. The lead character is a determined female police investigator with a significant trauma in her past, and her return to the Swedish hinterland coincides…
If the TV schedules fill you with doom, gloom, despair and despondency – never fear; we have a remedy for the torment that is ‘light entertainment’. Film drama from Denmark and Sweden, every bit as good as The Bridge or The Killing, populated with credible characters who have bitter-black back stories and who do terrible…
Typically reserved and inward-looking, this intriguing Icelandic docu-drama treads much the same water (sorry) as Robert Redford’s All Is Lost romp. But while the latter is a ripping yarn of high-tension on the high seas, The Deep is far more remarkable because it’s a credible re-telling of actual events. The Deep explores the unlikely survival…
Don’t watch this looking for a Hollywood-style sword-n-savagery action flick (although there is plenty of bloodily realistic hacking, maiming and killing). This is not the Mads Mikkelsen you know from Hannibal. This is experimental, art-house, risk-taking film-making. It is weird and beautiful and brutal. It’s also minimalist, surreal, philosophical and prone to showing extended clips…
It’s Movie Monday which means crime-thrillers, murder mysteries, sci-fi fantasy, Eurocrime and Nordic noir; mainstream, indie, art-house and B-movies. Recent screenings feature Stellan Skarsgård, Persian vampires, Gillian Anderson, Ving Rhames, Victor Garber and Lance Reddick. Eclectic? Exactly. THE GUEST: savvy super-soldier action thriller This got off to a slow start but is worth holding your…
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