The Fall Guy (12A)
Directed by David Leitch
★★★★

 
INSPIRED by the 1980s television series The Fall Guy (starring Lee Majors), this is a wonderfully fun and entertaining non-stop action-packed love letter to the unsung heroes of the film industry — the stunt performers who make action films and action stars look great.

Directed by former stuntman turned film-maker David Leitch (Bullet Train) this is a hilarious, high-octane rollercoaster-ride full of insane stunts, car chases and fight sequences including a world record-breaking number of cannon rolls in a car (eight-and-a-half actually).  

Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, on good comedic form, provide the star power and prove the heart of the film as star-crossed lovers — he a down-and-out stuntman and she a budding director. Their onscreen chemistry is superb, along with their killer repartees.

It is peppered with film references, jibes at Tom Cruise and a phenomenal soundtrack.

Someone should ask why there isn’t an Oscar for stunt performers — this film is evidence enough that there should be one.  

Out in cinemas now.

Red Herring (12A)
Directed by Kit Vincent
★★★★

 
“I DON’T want it to be a sad film,” but “something to remember me by,” says Kit Vincent who at 24 was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour. He was given a life expectancy of between four and eight years and so decided to film his life and his loved ones — his divorced parents and his girlfriend Isobel. His two siblings do not appear in this documentary.

Four years in the making, this is a very personal film which is equally upbeat and moving. His father Lawrence is a real character, very emotional, who, on hearing the original diagnosis, had a heart attack in the doctor’s office. His coping mechanism is to have lots of hobbies and interests which include painting, writing, and converting to Judaism.

Meanwhile his mother, a district nurse who deals with death in her job, seemed to have shut down.

“Mum has gone into survival mode around you,” the father tells him. Yet she slowly opens up during the course of the documentary, informing him that she was adopted and reveals some shocking news about her birth mother.

His girlfriend, who only appears sporadically, understandably refuses to discuss his health and other serious issues which they face on camera.

This is a brave, gutsy yet uplifting film which walks a fine line between humour and grief. I am in awe.  

Out in cinemas tomorrow.

Love Lies Bleeding (15)
Directed by Rose Glass
★★★★

 
FROM the writer and director of Saint Maud comes a deliciously dark and twisted crime and love story set in 1989.

Co-written and directed by Rose Glass, it centres on gym worker Lou (Kristen Stewart) who falls hard for Jackie (Katy O’Brian), an aspiring female bodybuilder who is passing through town on the way to a competition in Las Vegas.

They embark on a toxic, violent ride where it is them against the world and Lou’s criminal family and her deadly estranged father played to chilling effect by Ed Harris.

The film also stars Dave Franco as Lou’s wife-beater brother-in-law and Jena Malone as her sister who keeps forgiving her violent husband even after being beaten to within an inch of death.

Stewart and O’Brian deliver powerful performances and are electric together.

Gritty yet stylised and exceedingly brutal this slow-burning tangled-web thriller quickly spirals out of control, breaking all the moulds.

Out in cinemas tomorrow.

The Idea of You (15)
Directed by Michael Showalter
★★★★

 
THE hypocritical standards that allow men to date younger women while the reverse isn’t the same for women, who are vilified as a result, are explored in this thought-provoking romantic comedy by co-writer/director Michael Showalter.

Based on Robinne Lee’s acclaimed novel, it follows 40-year-old Solene (Anne Hathaway), a recently divorced single mother who embarks on a whirlwind romance with 24-year-old Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), the lead singer of the hottest band around.

While she has misgivings about their age gap he does not.  

Once their secret is out, she is threatened and abused online by his fans while her ex-husband (Reid Scott) is appalled by her liaison which is rich as he had left Solene for a younger woman.

Hathaway, who also produced the film and turned 40 during the shoot, is warm, smart and sexy as Solene showing that age is just a number. Her onscreen chemistry with Galitzine is sizzling.

While the pair navigate rom-com tropes with aplomb, it is refreshing to see this dynamic on screen in a film which asks why we feel so comfortable criticising women but not men where the age gap is significant in relationships.
 

Out in select cinemas and on Prime Video now.