Kneecap
SimilarApollo 13 (1995), At Close Range (1986), Do the Right Thing (1989), Eyes Wide Shut (1999),
Jackie Brown (1997) La Haine (1995), Sliver (1993), The Killing Fields (1984), Titanic (1997), Walking Tall (1973),
Watch afterAquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023), Avatar (2009),
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) Barbie (2023) Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), Dune (2021), Dune: Part Two (2024), Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), Fight Club (1999), Inception (2010), Interstellar (2014), Joker (2019),
Oppenheimer (2023) Poor Things (2023), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023),
StudioBFI,
“Every fucking story about Belfast starts like this…” star Mo Chara bemoans in the opening lines of Kneecap as a barrage of footage from the Troubles flashes by on screen. “But not this one,” he adds with a smirk we can feel. And it seems writer and director Rich Peppiatt is taking the same stance when it comes to music biopics, tossing the playbook solidified by movies like Walk the Line in the trash.
Instead, we’re going to get a stylish, sexy, political, and hilarious story about how the Irish-language hip-hop trio Kneecap was formed that cares less about being accurate and a lot more about the fight for Irish identity in a world where only around 71,000 people call themselves daily Irish speakers.
Set in 2019, right when the Official Languages (Amendment) Bill 2019 was first introduced, tensions between Irish and English speakers in Northern Ireland are high. Street hoods Mo Chara (himself) and Móglaí Bap (himself) are petty drug dealers and wannabe hip-hop stars. After a scuffle, Mo Chara is arrested and questioned by the police, but he refuses to speak English with the cops, and JJ Ó Dochartaigh (himself) is brought in as an interpreter. Continue Reading →
Kill
Similar9 Songs (2004), Alexander (2004), Bed and Board (1970), Blown Away (1994), Con Air (1997), Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000), Death Proof (2007), Die Hard (1988), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), He's Just Not That Into You (2009),
Jackie Brown (1997) Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Lethal Weapon (1987), Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), Lethal Weapon 3 (1992), Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), Lucky Number Slevin (2006), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985),
Manhattan (1979) Miami Vice (2006), Minority Report (2002), Mortal Kombat (1995), Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997), Oldboy (2003), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), The 6th Day (2000), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), The Glimmer Man (1996), The Godfather (1972), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), The Matrix Revolutions (2003), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), The Terminator (1984), War of the Worlds (2005),
Amrit Rathod (Lakshya) is a commando. He is a peerless soldier among peers. He's as ruthless as he is skilled, and when he fights, he wins. It might be a slugfest, and he cannot walk off a hit like it's nothing, but if someone fights him, he's the one who walks away from the fight. He's also a good friend to his fellow commando Viresh (Abhishek Chauhan) and a loving partner to his girlfriend Tulika Singh (Tanya Maniktala. When Tulika's wealthy father arranges her engagement to someone she doesn't love, Amrit and Viresh catch the Singhs' train. The plan is simple—link up with Tulika and elope.
The trick is that their train has been marked for robbery by an extended family of bandits—fathers, siblings, and cousins. Fani (Raghav Juyal) may not be the patriarch, the strongest, or even the most respected among the bandit crew. But he is ruthless, sadistic, and determined to come out on top. No one will stop him from pulling the robbery off, and he will not tolerate disrespect. When the bandits make their first play, Amrit wants to stop them. After Fani makes his play, a vicious move that introduces the title card 45 minutes in, Amrit wants them dead. And he has the ability and the will to make that happen.
Writer/director Nikhil Nagesh Bhat's Kill is a decent entry in the growing hyper-violent 21st-century action cinema library. Like Gareth Evans' The Raid, Kill uses the geography of its setting to its choreography's advantage. Like John Hyams' Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, Kill pays attention to the immediate psychological effects of extreme violence. Like Timo Tjahjanto's The Night Comes for Us, Kill builds some of its strongest action beats on improvised weaponry and unique flavors of grody that can result from its creative application. It doesn't reach their level, but it's a worthy swing with strong narrative escalation and an enjoyably despicable turn from Juyal. Continue Reading →
Blue Jean
SimilarJFK (1991), Maria Full of Grace (2004),
Watch afterBarbie (2023) John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), The Whale (2022),
StudioBBC Film, BFI,
A portrait of a closeted lesbian woman living in England during Margaret Thatcher’s oppressively homophobic 1980s reign, Georgia Oakley’s Blue Jean illustrates a unique paradox for a critic. How does one navigate criticizing a film’s self-imposed binaries while also accounting for the realities of a restrictive period, the gravity of the subject matter (and parallel current circumstances), and the differentiation of what is intended as cinematic affect and what constitutes clumsy filmmaking? Continue Reading →
Rogue Agent
In Adam Patterson and Declan Lawn’s spy thriller Rogue Agent, English actor James Norton plays Robert Hendy-Freegard. Or, more aptly, Norton plays every version of Hendy-Freegard — lovable, charming, terrifying, convincing, evil. Norton’s up to the task, and the film rewards a level of misunderstanding and a lack of knowledge about Hendy-Freegard and his history (he has already been made into a docuseries). With each passing moment, Norton becomes more persuasive, more potent in his convictions, and more believable in his alleged employment as an MI5 agent constantly on the run. Continue Reading →