Spotlight, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, Youth The Film Review

against Milos Raonic which saw him get through to the Australian Open

final. That is all coming up in sports day with me at 6:30 PM. But

now it's time for the film review. -- Sportsday.

Hello and welcome to the Film Review on BBC News.

To take us through this week's cinema releases is Mark Kermode.

We have Spotlight, which is 1 of the front runners in the best film

contender for the Oscars. We have 13 Hours, Michael Bay goes to war. And

Youth, a new film starring Michael Cain. Spotlight much anticipated,

great reviews in America. Terrific reviews over here as well, nominated

for several Oscars. A film which has got a really good critical response.

So good that I think it has kind of court the film-makers slightly off

guard. I think they thought it was a good piece of work but they didn't

realise exactly how good until the reviews started coming in. It is

based on the true story of the Boston Globe's Spotlight team

uncovering a scandal involving the Catholic Church. It's a terrific

cast, Michael Keaton and Rachel McAdams and indeed mark Ruffalo. Its

1 of these things in which you think there should be a nomination for the

entire ensemble cast. Anyway, here's a clip. We got law, this is it. This

is 1 covering for another priest. There are another 90 out there. I'm

not going to rush this story, Mike. We don't have a choice. If we don't

rush the print someone else is going to find these letters and rush the

print. Mike! What? Why are we hesitating? He told us to get the

system. We need the full scope. That is the only thing that will put an

end to this. We will do it when I say it's time. It's time, Robbie!

It's time! They knew and they let it happen to kids! OK? He could have

been you, it could have been me, it could have been any of us. We've got

to nail these scumbags. We've got to show people that nobody can get away

with this, not a priest or a cardinal or they freaking Pope!

That's 1 of the rare kind of grandstanding moments in a film

which otherwise is distinguished about the fact that it's a film

about hard, journalistic work. It's about sitting down at desks and

going through records and shoe leather. It draws comparison with

All The President's Men. It doesn't have the same shadowy surveillance

thing going on but what it does have is really clear storytelling. It

takes a story which is, located and it doesn't simplify it but it makes

it gripping and engrossing. Essentially it's a story about an

outsider, Martin Baron, this new editor coming in and seeing a

subject for the 1st time from the outside. At 1 point somebody says,

"So he's a single man of the do you see faith who hates baseball those

quote. That's the point! It's in Boston, coming into this catholic

conclave and looking as it is an outsider is what that team is

spurred on to investigate it. It's not just heroes and villains, the

Spotlight team discover that everyone is kind of complicit in

this silence including their own paper. Should they have acted

earlier? I think it was terrifically well done, most particularly because

it tells its story so well. It tells it in a way that doesn't suggest

that in order for this to be palatable for an audience you have

to have great big dramatic stand-offs. What it says is the

subject matter is interesting. I think 1 of the reasons perhaps that

the visual style is quite flat is that it's almost as if the director

is saying the story is what matters. The better the story the less you

have to sell it? Exactly, and it sells its story really well. What

about the story of 13 Hours? It is a very famous cause celebre. Now told

by Michael Bay of the Transformers movies and Pearl Harbor. What

Michael Bay said is, this isn't political at all, this is absolute

news of what happened on the ground. This is a ground level account of

this event. Of course there is politics in it inasmuch as it's a

film that says that the people to blame our Lily livered bureaucrats

and that sort of stuff. What's more important is that I went into this

movie knowing very little about this case and came out knowing even less.

Because it's a Michael Bay movie. However contentious the subject

matter is, what you get is this rapidly edited visual style, loads

of explosions, loads of shouting, loads of shooting. There's a scene

in Pearl Harbor in which we get a Bond's eye view, literally following

a Bond, and we get the same shot in this. It says that Michael Bay is

not interested in the people or the intricacies come he's interested in

the machinery. It is, to all intents and purposes, a film about machinery

and hardware that just happens to have people and a political story

behind it. I'm not a fan of Michael Bay's and to me this was just

another chapter in what it is... There is an audience for this as you

well know. I think more so in America than here. I saw it in a

screening room full of people many of whom made the joke when they came

out, 13 Hours and told in real-time. Youth? This is an English-language

film with Sean Penn playing Robert Smith... This is much more

confident. The story is essentially Michael Cain and Harvey Keitel

playing a film-maker and a journalist looking back on their

lives, lives and lost loves. Here's a clip.

Do you remember Gilda? The film? No, the girl we were both in love with.

That was a hundred years ago. To me it's like yesterday. I would have

given 20 years of my life to have slept with her. That would have been

a pretty stupid thing. She wasn't worth 20 years of your life. She

wasn't worth a single day. How do you know? Did you sleep with her?

What? What did you say? You heard me. 60 years ago you swore you never

slept with her out of respect for my love for her. Now you've changed

your tune. It's difficult not to love this, for me! There is much to

love not least in those 2 performances and Michael Cain is

particularly terrific. It also has that thing of tragic comic absurdity

about it. We have levitating monks, we have Paloma Faith playing Paloma

Faith. Madonna is in it as well. Somebody who may or may not be,

that's the sort of central point... There are moments when it doesn't

work. Totally it is all over the place. A jolt surround from tragedy

and comedy and it doesn't always come together. However, when it

does, it has a lyrical beauty that is quite charming. There's a lovely

sequence of, and it's hard to imagine this, Michael Cain

conducting a field of cows. It's really beautiful and really

touchingly done. Although I think, it's far more confident than This

Must Be The Case. There have been people seeing it who have wondered

what it's all about. I liked it but I do think it's all over the shop

and I think it is totally very uneven but for the moments that work

and largely they are to Michael Caine's performance, it has a

melancholic... For all its mistakes, I feel very affectionate towards it.

Your best is Room. I still love it. It's not the film you think it is. I

thought this was terrific. Emily Blunt playing an FBI agent who is

trapped in a very difficult war with the Mexican cartels. It's a

cross-border campaign that she gets dragged into unknowingly. The

cinematography is absolutely terrific, it looks so good. It has

the best and most nail-biting traffic jam you will ever see in a

movie! Again, it's a thriller. It doesn't feel the need to explain

everything all the time. It's a movie that seems to think that the

audience is smart and that the audience will keep up. There are 2

or 3 set pieces in it which I thought were genuinely nail-biting.

You know when they say white knuckles. That's exactly what it is.

And you're right, not a car chase, but a traffic jam! We believe it

there. -- we will leave it there. A quick reminder before we go that

you'll find more film news and reviews from across

the BBC online, including Good evening. There was a bit of a

white knuckle ride with the weather today as