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Film round-up

Van Connor and Maria Duarte review Martyr, SAS: Red Notice, The Little Things, Verdict, Locked Down and Come True

Martyr (18)
Directed by Mazen Khaled
★★★

THE death of a disenfranchised young man at the seaside in Beirut engulfs his family and friends in a tsunami of grief in this poignant drama, which explores masculinity and homoeroticism within Islam.

Writer-director Mazen Khaled was inspired by the real-life deaths of two men, killed when they dived in front of a crowd from a balustrade into the sea.

The rocky shore below is where men gather, cavort and swim — apparently establishing their pecking order. When a cash-strapped and disillusioned Hussane (a captivating Hamza Mekdad) accidentally drowns, his father decides his closest male friends should wash his body — sparking a heated debate as to whether or not this should happen, as he is declared a martyr.

This is a fascinating and haunting drama about true martyrs — people pushed to society’s (literal) edge — while paying a heartfelt farewell to life, youth, friendship and love.

Maria Duarte

Available on Curzon Home Cinema

SAS: Red Notice (15)
Directed by Magnus Martens
★★★

BASED on the best-selling novel by former SAS operative Andy McNab, this non-stop action-packed thriller delves into the murky waters of private military contractors hired by governments to do their dirty work, and what it takes to be a member of the SAS.

It stars Sam Heughan (Outlander) as special forces operator and functioning psychopath Tom Buckingham, who is taking his girlfriend, Dr Sophie Hart (Hannah John-Kamen), to Paris (in order to propose) when their Eurostar is hijacked by heavily armed mercenaries, led by the equally psychopathic Grace Lewis (Ruby Rose).

What ensues is effectively “Die Hard in the Channel Tunnel” (with political overtures) in which it is hard to distinguish the good guys from the bad as everyone is a murky shade of grey — merely players in the game of conflict.

With a stunning cast — Andy Serkis, Tom Wilkinson, Anne Reid (a wasted talent here) and Noel Clarke — director Magnus Martens delivers an entertaining ride, and a great audition bid by Heughan for James Bond.

MD
Available on Sky Cinema and Now TV

The Little Things (15)
Directed by John Lee Hancock
★★

WITH A-listers climbing over themselves to churn out highbrow, serialised thrillers for television and streaming, it’s fitting that John Lee Hancock’s The Little Things would resort to being nothing more.

This by-the-numbers procedural thriller — in which Denzel Washington plays a disgraced cop hunting the serial killer that got away — has such narrow limitations that the only surprise of substance it can offer is in how thunderingly lacklustre it is.

Hancock’s screenplay (which itself dates back to the 1990s) could charitably be described as what you’d get if Phillip Noyce was asked to remake Se7en; the film is only held aloft by its substantially impressive build quality.

The elder Washington owns the screen throughout, while Jared Leto provides salivating opposition as the Manson-esque antagonist.

But fellow Oscar winner Rami Malek doesn’t so much let the side down, as prove it was astonishingly miscast.

Perhaps there’s a market for good-looking, well-acted films with turgid and entirely predictable screenplays, but, for this transparent thriller, certainly not in awards season.

Where it does belong, however, is on streaming.

Van Connor
Available on demand

Verdict (15)
Directed by Raymund Ribay Gutierrez
★★★★

THE feature debut for Filipino director Raymund Ribay Gutierrez, the powerfully dogged Verdict takes us on an exasperating journey into the labyrinthine maze of hurdles and obstacles that plague domestic-abuse victims within the Manila legal system.

Naturalistic and rooted so firmly in verisimilitude as to present as documentary, Verdict sees Max Eigenmann as Joy, a young mother, immediately after a severe beating from her husband.

With their six-year-old daughter in tow, Gutierrez takes us along for the ride — not only Joy’s journey through legal spiderwebs, but also that of her petty-criminal husband Dante (Kristoffer King) as well.

Gutierrez delivers a sterling effort, channelling the desperation and tragedy familiar to many. Eigenmann is sublime — the foundation for a rock-solid supporting cast, and a harrowing drama that’s as much documentary as fiction.

VC
Available on demand

Locked Down (12A)
Directed by Doug Liman

REPORTEDLY penned on a dare, then written, financed and filmed during the pandemic, Locked Down dares to repeat the question of just what fresh hell awaits audiences when actors and filmmakers are, like us, confined by a global pandemic.

Our previous answer was last year’s spectacularly awful telethon-style cover of Imagine; this year its only marginally better.

Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor attempt to shudder themselves from repose for this tedious exercise, in which the bickering pair, confined by lockdown, find freshly common ground when Hathaway’s “working from home” role affords them the opportunity to fleece a priceless diamond from the rarely closed Harrods.

With ghastly dialogue, unlikeable characters, uninterested performances across the board and a turgid script, it’s nevertheless hard to argue for Locked Down as the worst celebrity product of the pandemic, but “it’s easy if you try.”

VC
Available on demand

Come True
Directed by Anthony Scott Burns
★★★★

IF YOU have problems sleeping or suffer from nightmares, this may not be for you as it centres on a teenage runaway who takes part in a sleep study, plunging her down the dark and disturbing rabbit hole of her mind.

Co-written and directed by Anthony Scott Burns, this sci-fi horror explores the power of dreams through the eyes of its protagonist Sarah, brought to haunting life by Julia Sarah Stone — captivating in the role as angst-ridden teenager caught in headlights.

As the sleep study progresses, so does Sarah’s journey into the macabre recesses of her REM sleep, bringing out her inner demons, resulting in a weird and eerie film. But it’s the killer final twist which makes this horror punch above its weight — definitely worth staying until the bitter end.

MD
Available on demand

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