Cannes Film Festival Preview

Here is the list of films in competition at the Cannes Film Festival:

Opening night film: Grace of Monaco, dir: Olivier Dahan

Clouds of Sils Maria, dir: Olivier Assayas

Saint Laurent, dir: Bertrand Bonello

Kış Uykusu (Winter Sleep), dir: Nuri Bilge Ceylan

Deux Jours, Une Nuit (Two Days, One Night), dir: Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne

Mommy, dir: Xavier Dolan

The Captive, dir: Atom Egoyan

Adieu au Langage (Goodbye to Language), dir: Jean-Luc Godard

The Search, dir: Michel Hazanavicius

Maps to the Stars, dir: David Cronenberg

The Homesman, dir: Tommy Lee Jones

Futatsume no Mado (Still the Water), dir: Naomi Kawase

Mr Turner, dir: Mike Leigh

Jimmy's Hall, dir: Ken Loach

Foxcatcher, dir: Bennett Miller

Le Meraviglie (The Wonders), dir: Alice Rohrwacher

Timbuktu, dir: Abderrahmane Sissako

Relatos Salvajes (Wild Stories), dir: Damián Szifron

Leviafan, dir: Andrey Zvyagintsev

Lots of big films being shown here for the first time and as ever the competition is expected to be of a very high standard. David Cronenberg returns with Map to the Stars as he looks to shake off the heavy criticism he received for Cosmopolis and A Dangerous Method in recent years with a modern satire of Hollywood itself, almost moving into Lynch territory in his critique of the profession that pays his bills.

Steve Carell whose known for his roles in major comedies moves into new territory with Foxcatcher which is by Bennett Miller, who directed Moneyball. Foxcatcher is the story of Olympic Wrestling Champion Mark Schultz and how paranoid schizophrenic John duPont killed his brother, Olympic Champion Dave Schultz and also stars Channing Tatum. The other film that stood out to me was The Search by Michel Hazanavicius as he looks to build on the success of sublime The Artist. 

Film Review: Magnolia

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

A 1999 drama film that followed the lives of six different characters of the course of 180mins of film. In terms of plot and length it was quite a risky film for Paul Thomas Anderson to create but the critics fell in love with the film and its ensemble cast. Tom Cruise was the only one to be nominated at the Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor and he actually won that category at the Golden Globes.

The film opens with a narrator recounting three factual instances of pure coincidence and asks us to consider the role of chance in our lives. We follow many key characters who are all going through rather tough times in their lives whether it be terminal illness themselves or for a relative, drug addiction, losing your job or struggling on a TV gameshow.

A sprawling drama all set in one small metropolitan area of Los Angeles is excellently crafted, Anderson takes us through the tough lives people lead as they all share the relative highs and lows. The acting itself is what elevates this movie to another level, John C. Reilly taking on a different type of role to what he had previously and succeeding. Tom Cruise adds a dose of almost dark comedy as he plays a narcissist who is peddling a pick-up artist self-help course to men, his on-stage speeches are truly legendary and a clever satire on the many self-help courses out there today.

Leaving logic at the door as the film slides into a deep melodrama and onwards to the edge of reality as the stories all come to a head in an almost bizarre climax. All of these threads converge, in one way or another, upon an event there is no way for the audience to anticipate. This event is not "cheating," as some critics have argued, because the prologue fully prepares the way for it, as do some subtle references to Exodus.

3/4 Deeply impressive but slightly overdone film

Film Review: Captain America: The First Avenger

Director: Joe Johnston

The Marvel Avengers series was still in start-up mode for most of its characters in their individual set of films, with the backstory of Captain America being displayed during World War Two. Jon Favreau who was heavily involved in the Iron Man films also helped with the writing and directing here despite not being officially credited. Early in the film we see impressive special effects to shrink down Chris Evans down from his actual size to the size of a small teenager before he is Captain America.

Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) and Steve Rogers (Chris Evans)

Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a small sickly man who wishes to join the army and help fight in World War Two but is denied. He is finally allowed to join at the request of Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci) who admires his bravery and heroism more than his current physical prowess. Erskine harnesses the power of the tesseract to improve Rogers' physical form to its optimum levels making him a super soldier which will help him battle the evil Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) who wants to steal the tesseract for his own evil plans.

Captain America: The First Avenger suffers from the same sort of problems that many other franchises had in their first film, setting the backstory takes up a lot of time and its always very tough to make the story engrossing to watch whilst creating a character you care about. Films such as Thor and Spiderman (new franchise with Andrew Garfield) were both pretty average debut films but now have more freedom in what they can do in the second film.

Captain America

Naturally with Captain America you are constrained to his initial story being about him fighting the Nazi's who are obviously an easy target. The plot shifted from a delightful pulp retro feel to being overly nostalgic for 1940s America but it certainly provided a different dynamic to most super heroes just battling their way through generic cityscapes. Whilst Chris Evans actually puts in a strong lead performance as the tiny but brave young soldier who suddenly becomes the hero.

2/4 Underwhelming opening does finally produce a decent platform for film #2

This week's releases

Transcendence: This film marks the directorial debut for Wally Pfister who made his name as a cinematographer on films like The Dark Knight and Inception. This gave him the opportunity to work on Transcendence and to work with Johnny Depp.

Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp) is an artificial intelligence researcher and part of a team of scientists striving to create a machine that possesses sentience and collective intelligence, an event which Will calls "Transcendence". But his work is threatened by anti-AI activists who shoot him and also launch terrorist attacks simultaneously around the world.

Exhibition: A contemporary artist couple, D (Albertine) and H (Gillick), have their living and working patterns threatened when their house is put up for sale. The couple feel the house has their dreams, memories and fears which makes parting with it all the harder in this independent drama.

Film Review: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Director: Michel Gondry

Here Gondry mixed a romantic drama with a touch of science fiction in this 2004 film that uses a nonlinear narrative to explore the nature of memory and romantic love. The film was a financial and critical success with the writers winning an Academy Award for the Best Original Screenplay whilst Kate Winslet was nominated for Best Actress.

The film is presented in a non-linear format but in order we basically learn that Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) was dating Clementine (Kate Winslet) but after the breakup she hired a company called Lacuna Inc to erase her memory of the relationship. Joel finds out through friends who were told by the company not to mention Joel to her and decides to have the treatment himself so we follows Joel's subconscious as the memories are deleted from his brain.

Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) having his memories erased

I was truly astonished by this film. It had everything from being touching and sweet to sobering and sad as well as a few funny moments thrown in, the overall film itself was very clever. The plot itself is at times slightly confusing as we jump through different timelines and from reality to sub-conscious but it has a true emotional center that feels incredibly real. The relationship between Joel and Clementine feels genuinely authentic as they go through the honeymoon period towards status quo that so many us have gone through in relationships.

*spoilers ahead*

Without doubt, this was Jim Carrey's most impressive acting performance in a film. The scene where in his dreams he realises his memories of Clementine are being erased and calls for the Lacuna employees to stop was heart-breaking. The following attempts to try and steal the memories of Clementine by burying them in places where she didn't really exist really showed the true value of our memories. We've all had horrible things happen to us in our lives and in the immediate aftermath we would love to be able to delete our memories of that incident. But realistically it's what makes human and in most cases makes us a stronger person for having got through that which is the essence of the movie. Winslet plays a free spirit whose hair colour changes nearly as much as the scenery and was a refreshing change to a lot of the roles she's become known for playing.

Joel with girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet)

The shots of the snowy beach in Montauk were excellent along with the surrounding scenery of the beach house and the woods. This is the memory that they sub-consciously share that gives them the possibility of reconciliation in the future, it will always be there place and the scene driving back from where they originally first met was incredibly sweet as Joel's friend asks him who he was talking to. Gondry completes the full circle loop to the beginning in emphatic style after treating us to a film within which we wished for nothing more.

4/4 The film had everything

Film Review: Along Came a Spider

Director: Lee Tamahori

A 2001 crime drama that somehow manages to look far more dated than it actually was, it looks like something straight out of the mid-90s.  The screenplay by Marc Moss was adapted from the 1993 novel of the same title by James Patterson, but many of the key plot elements of the book were eliminated. This was presumably at the detriment of the movie as a whole because the key plot elements from the book can hardly have been worse than the key plot elements they decided to introduce.

Detective Alex Cross (Morgan Freeman) retires from the police force after losing control of a sting operation that results in a colleagues death. He's drawn back in when the daughter of a US senator is abducted and the kidnapper calls him directly to alert him to the fact. From there he works out the kidnapper is looking to emulate the "crime of the century" which was the nickname for the 1932 Charles A. Lindbergh Jr. kidnapping. He begins to work with U.S. Secret Service Special Agent Jezzie Flannigan (Monica Potter) to try and solve the case.

Alex Cross and Jezzie Flannigan at the school where Megan was abducted

The film is clear from the outset that the mystery behind the disappearances is deeper than what is initially discovered by Alex Cross, we learn who the kidnapper is immediately so the suspense is supposedly kept in what may happen in the final act. When the finale does become clear its rather preposterous and unbelievable that it makes the rather disappointing slog through the first two acts a bit of a waste really. None of the acting within the film was particularly noteworthy in either a positive or negative sense, it was all very average. In the end its a rather hollow thriller that never really traps you in its web.

1/4 Poor twists follows a rather dull kidnap plot

This week's releases

The Amazing Spider-Man 2: The second installment for Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone in the latest Spider-Man franchise.

Full preview here

Love Punch: Romantic comedy drama for the Marigold Hotel audience as Emma Thompson and Pierce Brosnan play a divorced couple who come up with a scheme to steal back their retirement funds in this very British production.

Film Preview: The Amazing Spider-Man 2

After a rather underwhelming opening to the re-boot of the Spider-Man franchise with Andrew Garfield taking over the lead role, its time for the all important second edition. Many film franchises have vastly improved from a sequel and gone from strength to strength with the most famous being The Dark Knight but the likes of Captain America have enjoyed similar success with the backstory already dealt with in an early film. Now its time for Spider-Man to go the same way as he locks horns with Electro played by Jamie Foxx who should prove an interesting antagonist.

Spider-Man and Electro

Peter Parker continues to struggle with balancing his life as a high school student and his responsibilities as Spider-Man. When Peter begins to investigate more about his father's past, thanks to the help of his friend Harry Osborn, he begins to realize that the new threats of Electro and the Rhino all have one thing in common: OsCorp.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is released in the UK on 16th April 2014 and the trailer is embedded below:

Film Review: The Raid 2: Berendal

Director: Gareth Evans

After the huge success from almost nowhere that The Raid: Redemption had comes the second film from Welsh director Gareth Evans whose already carving a name for himself in Asian Martial-Arts cinema. The second film was larger in terms of ambition and scope with the script for Berendal having been written before the first movie was put into production. Evans was unable to secure enough funding so only re-opened Berendal after the success of Redemption meant production company's were willing to offer more funding.

Rama fighting to the death in a large industrial kitchen

Within hours of the end of the first movie, Rama (Iko Uwais) is sent undercover to infiltrate the biggest crime family in Jakarta run by Bangun (Tio Pakusadewo) and his son Uco (Arifin Putra). But first Rama must critically injure someone using his false identity to get into prison with Uco and get close to him. Naturally Rama, now as Yuda, creates some enemies in prison which means he has to right just to survive his sentence before he can even begin his real investigation into the criminal underworld and its corrupt cops.

The second film is arguably more brutal than the first with some of the machine gun fire replaced with a multitude of battles using weapons like clubs, bats, knives and hammers. The martial-arts aspect is ramped up as guns are hardly used which allows Iko Uwais to really display his amazing abilities infront of the camera. Throughout the film Iko Uwais is excellent not just as a fighting action star but as a genuine lead actor in the non-fighting scenes, he was thoroughly impressive.

Alicia aka The Hammer Girl and Baseball Bat Man

 Despite the long run-time, Evans keeps the tension ratcheted up in the scenes between the fighting and you do feel a realistic tension for Rama as to whether he will be discovered as a police officer by Bangun and his gang. Certain plotlines that appeared to be predictable actually turn out to be red herrings or never actually happen which helped avoid the film falling into predictable clichés. The plot itself isn't particularly complex or ground-breaking but holds together long enough to bring forth the incredible action scenes and a fascinating finale. The only downside was the lack of scenes involving The Hammer Girl and Baseball Bat Man who got very little characterization or actual action scenes despite being superb to watch on screen.

3.5/4 Gareth Evans has truly crowned himself the new king of the Martial Arts genre

Fun Fact: The Raid 2 has been banned in Malaysia for the past fortnight since its release but as of yet no official reason has been given.

Film Review: Out of the Furnace

Director: Scott Cooper

The second film from the young director Scott Cooper, his first was Crazy Heart starring Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal. The parallels between the films small town roots are easily apparent even if Out of the Furnace delves much further into the murky criminal underworld in Pennsylvania rather than the country music world of the South-West.

Russell (Bale) is a hard working employee at the North Braddock steel mill that is being threatened with closure, his brother Rodney (Affleck) is having a hard time adjusting to the quiet life in a small town after serving four tours in Iraq with the US Army. After Rodney loans money from Petty (Willem Dafoe) he decides to start bare knuckle boxing to pay his debt but has a hard time taking instructions on taking a dive which lands him in more trouble with sadistic drug dealer Harlan DeGroat (Woody Harrelson).

Russell (Christian Bale) and Rodney (Casey Affleck)

The new vogue in Hollywood film making seems to be taking the criminal underworld's from the big cities of New York and Los Angeles then transporting them out into the small towns now. Winters Bone being easily one of the most successful adaptations on this theme with Out of the Furnace lacking with a poor script and rather predictable plot. The film plays out as almost a homage to the psychological scars of war we see in The Deer Hunter with not only the plot but the 1970's feel that encompasses the action.

Christian Bale produces a strong performance as the protagonist who always does right by everyone until he himself is crossed with Casey Affleck once again looking like a product of the 70s (akin to his role in Aint Them Bodies Saints). Unfortunately its Harrelson who is less than impressive as the supposedly menacing DeGroat, the drugs kingpin doesn't genuinely make you associate a sense of dread and fear whenever he's on screen. His actions portray a sadistic man but his body language just doesn't pull it off quite like you'd expect.

2/4 Superb cast let down by a lackluster script.

Film Review: The Monuments Men

Director: George Clooney

Released just over a month ago, The Monuments Men disappeared from the public-eye amongst all the Oscar buzz that other films received. A film released with an impressive ensemble cast was clearly expected to challenge for some honours fell flat and wasn't even in the conversation. This was Clooney's fifth feature film in the directing chair and he's proving to be a rather hit or miss film-maker. His second film Leatherheads suffering similarly poor reviews but films like Good Night and Good Luck and The Ides of March being much more popular.

Frank Stokes (Clooney) convinces the US president to setup a task force whose sole job is to save artistic treasures during the second world war, stopping them from being destroyed by bombing or stolen by the Nazis. He entlists six other men to help him Granger (Matt Damon), Campbell (Bill Murray), Garfield (John Goodman), Clermont (Jean Dujardin), Savitz (Bob Balaban) and Jeffries (Hugh Bonneville). They also try to garner the help of Claire Simon (Cate Blanchett) who is a curator in Paris who fights to stop the Nazi's from stealing precious artwork.

Five of the Seven Monuments Men

Right from the beginning you struggle with the script, the film is very much a light hearted war film with quite a few jokes and efforts at sharp dialogue interspersed throughout. Unfortunately the whole thing falls flat as its neither clever not that funny, a joke between Damon and a young American/German driver about being from North Jersey being excruciatingly painful in the opening few minutes. If you don't have a good script then you have nothing, but even then the acting comes across more as a group of esteemed actors on a jolly more than anything else.

Elsewhere the story itself just wasn't that engaging with its hugely nostalgic feel, the characters all struggle in their fight for screen time which means you end up with seven characters you aren't interested in rather than three or four that you do. Whilst many European critics called it a "Hollywood propaganda film" for its lack of historical accuracy, the group tasked with saving these monuments was actually setup before the Americans even joined the war which unfortunately means this film can't blame its dull narrative on it being factually accurate.

0.5/4 Dull and poorly scripted but Hollywood is consistent in trying to distort history.

Film Review: 3:10 to Yuma

Director: James Mangold

A 2007 Western that was a remake of the original film from 1957, it was written by Elmore Leonard who unfortunately died last summer but leaves behind a legacy of some brilliant screenplays and books that he wrote. Mangold came onto the project after the success of his previous film Walk the Line. At the time many commented on the hiring of the two lead actors for an American Western as Russell Crowe is Australian and Christian Bale is English, although Bale performs much better in the accent stakes.

Dan Evans (Christian Bale) is a war veteran who works on a farm with his wife Alice (Gretchen Mol) and two sons. Their barn is burnt to the ground and they lose all the cow feed they have left as Dan owes money to local loan sharks. Elsewhere we see Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) holding up the payroll cart to steal the money after a long pursuit by his gang lead by Charlie Prince (Ben Foster). When Wade is finally caught, Evans seizes the opportunity to make some big money by helping escort Wade on the 3:10 prison train to Yuma and avoid getting ambushed by the rest of Wade's gang.

Ben Wade (Crowe) and Dan Evans (Bale)

After a pretty intense and captivating first act the film slowly falls flat with a rather dull journey to Yuma in the middle section and a rather poor ending. It was a disappointing development of the old story when an honourable and conscientious man clashes with a law breaking thief. Certain aspects, as the film developed, became rather obvious and a bit cliché which may be a problem with the source material being from 50 years earlier but still could have been remedied.

The interactions between father and son were rather forced and obvious at times but Bale does but in a decent performance as the noble Dan Evans. Russell Crowe is capable at best as the villain whilst Ben Foster arguably puts together the best acting performance as Charlie Prince, who is completely loyal to his boss. Its not a bad film but was it worthy of remaking the original? I'm not so sure.

2/4 Early promise is quickly doused.

This week's releases

Draft Day: Kevin Costner is the GM of the Cleveland Browns in a perpetual funk and looking for a way to select the top college player in the draft.

Full preview here

The Raid 2: Berandal: After the huge success of the original, Gareth Evan is back to bring us the sequel to the story he planned all along.

Full preview here

Calvary: Brendan Gleeson and Chris O'Dowd star in this Irish story of a priest whose life is threatened by a man he is giving confession to. As he tries to work out who could hold a grudge against him he realises the dark forces at work all around him.

Film Review: Up

Director: Pete Docter

Another joint effort from Walt Disney and Pixar studios to produce a bright CGI movie that was originally released with a 3D option, naturally I saw the 2D option myself. The project had been going through pre-production since 2004 with Pete Docter working on a story of somebody escaping mundane life for an adventure and it took until 2009 for his vision to come to fruition. It became the first fully animated film to be released at the Cannes Film Festival as well as the first 3D film to do so.

Carl Fredrickson was a shy boy who idolized explorer Charles F. Muntz, who is claimed to be a fraud after he found a rare bird skeleton at Paradise Falls in South America. Carl always dreams of going to Paradise Falls to capture the bird but he eventually gets married to Ellie and the money that they save for the trip ends up being spent elsewhere, especially on the house. After a life changing event Carl decides to finally embark on his adventure.

Carl with Russell and the floating house

The early scenes showing Carl growing up and marrying Ellie with highlights of their life as they grow old were very touching and emotional. It mirrored so many people's lives as they go through life and their dreams often take a backseat to more mundane real-life problems. The first act captured the happy and sad moments of life perfectly but unfortunately the rest of the film fell into a rather annoying spectacle with a giant bird, talking dogs and the obvious bad guy. The character of Russell suddenly joined the annoying new characters in their attempts to make the film rather tedious as they just got on Carl's nerves for around half the running time of the film. A good opportunity lost for me.

2/4 Touching but ultimately annoying adventure

Film Preview: Draft Day

Anyone that knows me will tell you that I'm a huge fan of American Football and draft night is one of the highlights of the year. As the college players we've been watching and scouting all year have their futures decided on one night by 32 professional teams. After the success of Moneyball being adapted from the best selling book, statistics have become in vogue with sports especially when depicted in the world of film (Trouble with the Curve following a similar route). Now the thrills and excitement of the NFL draft is being captured by Draft Day as we follow the Cleveland Browns (the Buffalo Bills were originally asked but Cleveland was cheaper apparently) as they look to land a stud at the top of the draft, although any fan of the NFL will tell you there is no way this should have a happy ending since its about the Browns.

First Energy Stadium in Cleveland

Sonny Weaver Jr. (Kevin Costner) is the General Manager of the Cleveland Browns who is desperate to nab the number 1 pick in the draft to turn around the teams ailing fortunes as well as saving his own job. We see all the lead up to the draft and the deals done to try and make this dream happen.

Draft Day is out in the US on 11th April and doesn't have a confirmed UK release date yet. The trailer is embedded below:

Guilty Pleasures

Everybody has that terrible film that was panned by critics and the public alike that you seemed to love but don't necessarily want to admit that you loved and have seen a dozen times. Many films actually developed a cult following based on a large number of people enjoying it as a guilty pleasure. Here are some of mine:

Dune: 
Ok so its nothing in comparison to the book, or so I'm told, but its a David Lynch movie so naturally I have a lot more time for it than anybody else might.

Phonebooth: 
Despite my intense dislike for Colin Farrell, I still seemed to enjoy the tension and stand-off as we spend 90mins trapped in a phonebooth with Mr. Farrell. The ending wasn't exactly stellar compared to what I'd hoped but it still never fails to entertain me.

Anaconda: 
With this being a mid-90's film it means the computer generated snake was poorly rendered and with a cast including Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube it also meant the acting was severely lacking. But somehow its funny and enjoyable in an entirely stupid way.

Ghost Ship:
Horror film suffered from the usual criticisms of having a weak plot and not being at all scary but it still had some fun factor. Like how many torso's can be severed in opening scene? Plus it actually has a decent plot twist in its finale to top it all off.

The Replacements: 
Keanu Reeves as a washed up American Football QB who gets his chance to get back into the pros when a labor strike means the teams need non-union players for the season to go ahead. A team of misfits produces a very funny sports comedy under-rated by many.

Feel free to share any of your own.

This week's releases

Rio 2: Animated comedy from 20th Century Fox, Blu, Jewel and their three kids leave their domesticated life in the city of Rio de Janeiro for a journey to the Amazon rainforest, where their owners Linda and Tulio were doing an expedition that seemingly found a hidden tribe of Spix's Macaws. Experienced director Carlos Saldanha is on board after his successes with the Ice Age franchise.

Divergent: Based on the novel of the same name by Veronica Roth, we see a futuristic dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions: Abnegation (selfless), Amity (peaceful), Candor (truthful), Erudite (intelligent) and Dauntless (brave), based on their personalities. Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley) is in Abnegation, the faction that looks after the poor and the factionless. After being tested to see which faction she is in it turns out she is divergent after showing traces of personality from each faction.

Noah: Based on the story from the bible of Noah (Russell Crowe) and his building of the ark to save the animals from extinction due to a flood. Rumours are that the story doesn't stick religiously to the original text in true Hollywood style. Jennifer Connolly, Ray Winstone and Emma Watson also star.

The Double: A double dose of Jesse Eisenberg in this psychological thriller.

Full preview here

Film Review: The Machinist

Director: Brad Anderson

A 2004 psychological drama directed by Brad Anderson whose more known for his TV work including the popular series Fringe. The film became renowned for Christian Bale's dramatic weight loss for the role as he shed 62 lbs to drop down to 120 lbs for the main role. He promptly regained the weight and more ahead of his next role as Batman in the Christopher Nolan series. The name Trevor Reznik is derived from Trent Reznor, the founder and primary creative force behind the industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails.

Christian Bale lost 62lbs for the role

Trevor (Bale) is a machinist in a local factory who suffers from severe insomnia having not slept properly for a year. He causes an accident at the factory which sees a co-workers arm sliced off because he was distracted by a mysterious man named Ivan, he blames the mistake on Ivan distracting him but the managers of the factory say there is nobody of that name working there. Other odd events add to his paranoia like post-it notes being left on the fridge without his knowledge and hallucinations as he struggles through day to day life.

Its a film that pays homage to many famous people and films of years gone past. The ominous music that creeps in to imply a danger or threat is positively Hitchcockian whilst the plot itself has a lot in common with the works of David Lynch, especially Eraserhead with its bleak industrial background, and the Christopher Nolan film Memento. Whilst the screenwriter Scott Kosar mentions the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky as his inspiration. 

The blood dripping from the freezer

Bale is excellent in the lead role of Trevor, in some shots early in the movie he looks emaciated. Trevor looks worse as the film progresses and his mental state diminishes Bale continues to make him look real in our minds. Questioning what is real and what is imagined by the main character as we try to work out if he is a reliable narrator for this story. The setpieces all slowly build to a truly stunning crescendo. The supporting cast are mainly there to feed into what Trevor sees without being fully developed characters themselves so Bale is very much left to carry the movie which he more than does.

3.5/4 Haunting yet clever psychodrama