Moon Dogs review - gritty, refreshing and very funny

It’s a road movie, a rites-of-passage drama, a romantic comedy (even a teen sex romp at times), by turns whimsical, brooding and downright dark. Moon Dogs seems pulled in so many directions at once that it’s a wonder the film holds together at all. But hold together it does, and it does far more than that.

American Made review - Tom Cruise flies again

How funny are gun-running, drug-smuggling and money-laundering? It depends who’s doing them. In American Made none other than Tom Cruise gets behind the controls of a twin-engine plane and flies back to the 1980s, a sepia-tinted yesteryear when all America had to worry about was commies and cocaine.

The Hitman's Bodyguard - potty-mouthed, turgid waste of talents

No cliché is left unturned in this odd-couple action comedy. Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L Jackson are the salt ‘n’ pepper rival bad-boys on the run. Cue shoot outs and high-speed vehicle chases through assorted European cities, interspersed with routine bouts of mutually insulting dialogue before bromance blossoms. Come back, Eddie Murphy/Nick Nolte, Chris Rock/Anthony Hopkins, Will Smith/Tommy Lee Jones, Mel Gibson/Danny Glover, all is forgiven.

Ryan Reynolds plays Michael Bryce, a...

Final Portrait review - utterly convincing portrayal of an artist at work

I hate biopics about artists in which the portrayal of “genius” is hyped to the point where it becomes a ludicrous cliché. Although I appreciate that, as far as entertainment goes, seeing pigment brushed onto canvas is on a par with watching paint dry, I still can’t forgive directors who resort to dramatic extremes in the hope of evoking the tribulations of the creative process.

Tom of Finland review - engaging biopic of gay pioneer

Finnish director Dome Karukoski has made a sympathetic and quietly stylish biopic of Touko Laaksonen, the artist who did as much as anyone to define 20th century male gay visual culture. There’s a degree of irony in the fact that we know him by his national pseudonym – he started signing his work “Tom” for anonymity,...

Atomic Blonde review - ferocious female action franchise

Bowie’s “Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” plays as Charlize Theron’s Lorraine Broughton makes her entrance. She’s the last Cold War super-spy, a female Bond sent to Berlin as the Wall crumbles. “Killer Queen”, prominent on early trailers, would have done just as well.