The Harder They Fall (15)
Directed by Jeymes Samuel
★★★

MY BIGGEST beef with Westerns is that they generally revolve around women being murdered, raped, or both — sadly Jeymes Samuel’s bold debut feature, which launched this year’s London Film Festival, is no different.

It opens with 10-year-old Nat Love (Anthony Taylor Jr) watching his mother being brutally murdered, along with his father, by ruthless outlaw Rufus Buck (Idris Elba). Years later, on learning that his sworn enemy has been freed from prison by his associates Trudy Smith (Regina King) and Cherokee Bill (LaKeith Stanfield), Love (Jonathan Majors) reunites his old gang to hunt Buck down and exact revenge.

Inspired by the stories of real-life African-American cowboys, British singer-songwriter turned film-maker Samuel delivers an ambitious, slick and stylish Western with a fantastic all-star black cast. However, the characters are just as vicious and heinous as their former white counterparts, though the women are portrayed as independent and badass, with shrewd business acumen.

But any merit is lost when women continue to be violated in order to advance the plot, which is inexcusable in 2021.

MD
In cinemas October 22 & on Netflix November 3

Mothers of the Revolution (15)
Directed by Briar March
★★★★

THIS rousing documentary recounts the unbelievable tale of the group of ordinary women who took on the world’s super powers in their fight against nuclear proliferation — and won.

In 1981, 36 women set off on a 120-mile-long march from Cardiff to Greenham Common in Berkshire to protest against the planned arrival of US nuclear missiles on British soil.

They sparked a major protest movement, galvanising over 70,000 women into action to protect their children and future generations.

The rest, as they say, is history. Narrated by Glenda Jackson, the film skilfully combines archive footage, contemporary interviews with the original Greenham Common women and dramatic re-enactments that bring their stories to life.

The sacrifices and risks they took in their determination to save their children from nuclear destruction is awe-inspiring.

This powerful and moving film, co-written and directed by Briar March, is a testament to the unwavering courage of these extraordinary women.

MD
Available via video on demand

The French Dispatch (15)
Directed by Wes Anderson
★★★

EVEN the staunchest supporters of hipster auteur Wes Anderson will freely admit that his otherworldly signature style comes in myriad, distinct flavours — flavours the director of Moonrise Kingdom heaps onto a full-blown dessert cart with the wildly uneven, but still uniquely enrapturing, French Dispatch.

Anderson’s 10th feature since 1996’s Bottle Rocket follows a trio of stories spawned from the writing staff of a New Yorker-style Kansas newspaper supplement, based in a fictional town in France — possibly the most Andersonian set-up conceived to date.

Each with their own tone, contrast, visual trappings and stylistic vision, these three tales offer the director that which he ultimately prioritises more than anything: to chance to assemble a top-tier troupe and create “cinema.”

But the exuberance and astoundingly well-realised perspective he brings to that nauseating notion keeps The French Dispatch — and arguably his body of work thus far — afloat.

The first third is madcap, the second a somber, almost Woody Allen-esque affair, and the third is a quirky live-action cartoon replete with bonafide animation — it’s a lot. It’s too messy to be great, but it’s got a fair amount of good.

Van Connor
In cinemas

Dear Evan Hansen (12A)
Directed by Stephen Chbosky
★

IN EASILY the most glaring example since Cats of how badly adapting a stage musical for the big screen can go, Broadway hit Dear Evan Hansen is now a movie. And, after enduring two hours and 17 minutes of it, you’ll rather it was Goodbye Evan Hansen.

The sole cast-member to transition to the screen, Ben Platt — indistinguishable from a mid-30s Paul Simon in Free Guy cosplay — remains Evan.

Riddled with anxiety and hazily defined mental health issues that call to mind undue criticisms of Tropic Thunder, he finds himself mistakenly marked as the sole friend of a classmate who took his own life.

An assumption he allows to play out, owing in equal parts to awkwardness and a crushing desire to date the dead kid’s sister. With musical numbers.

What you’d get if you forced Ryan Murphy to adapt You at gunpoint, it’s poorly staged and even more terrifyingly performed.

VC

In cinemas

The Boss Baby 2: Family Business (PG)
Directed by Tom McGrath
★★★

WITH his last outing garnering a surprise Oscar nomination, a half-billion in box office receipts and a Netflix series, The Boss Baby’s back in business with this about-as-good animated sequel-cum-retread.This time around the titular tyke and brother Tim are full blown adults (and still mercifully voiced by the better-than-this Alec Baldwin and James Marsden), with Tim now a father himself.

The pair are brought back into the action when youngest daughter Tina (Amy Sedaris) reveals herself as a Boss Baby, de-ageing the pair to aid in another world-saving adventure.

Largely more of the same — though notably shaving the edges off the gleefully darker corporate wit of its predecessor — Family Business will go down gangbusters with the same young audience as before, but loses its hold for the parents.

A throwaway sequel to a throwaway original, this meeting could have been an email.

VC
In cinemas