Graduation, Ghost in the Shell, Free Fire The Film Review

That is all the sport for now. Next it is time for The Film Review.

Hello and welcome to The Film Review on BBC News.

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

A very mixed week. We have Graduation, a low-key and intense

drama. We have Ghost in the Shell, controversial live adaptation of an

anime. And Free Fire, the new film from Ben Wheatley. Ben Wheatley, we

are both bands of Ben Graduation. It is from Cristian Mungiu, the

Romanian director of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which we reviewed

a short while ago. This is another low-key and very intense drama. The

story is a doctor, his daughter is on her way to school, attacked, she

gets a broken wrist and the doctor is simply worried it will affect her

exams. He is desperate for her to get great exam grades because he

wants to be able to go and study in Britain. He is convinced she needs

to get away because the place they live is not somewhere that he wants

his daughter to grow up. All he can

focus on is this desire for her to get good exam grades. As a result of

it he gets drawn into a web of duplicity and corruption. Somebody

knows somebody who could perhaps ensure the exam grades are OK but

only in return for a favour for a deputy mayor who needs to be moved

up in his wait for a transplant. The daughter, understandably, is not

pleased about the idea of essentially cheating. Here is a

clip. Very intense, isn't it? It is.

Single shot, one at shot Perth scene. What I love about this, a

perfect blend of personal and political. On one hand the story of

a father and daughter, on the other hand social corruption is

everywhere. Every conversation is, that building is being going on for

ages, yes it will be a backroom deal, isn't everything? It's a film

in which the personalities of the characters completely draw you in

and you believe in their personal stories but you also understand it

is telling a wider story, about what it means to grow up in a society in

which everything seems to be sort of slightly on the wrong side of

completely honest. As is so brilliant with this director, what

he manages to do is get that point across, but never sounds hectoring,

you never feel like what you're watching is a political statement.

What you feel you're watching is an intense drama in which the doctor,

for example, concerned about his daughter, but has a mistress. At one

point he says to his wife's, everyone cheats in their final

exams. She says, I didn't. And he says, but look where it got you.

It's an interesting film about guilt and complicity. Some people have

compared him to Michael Hanika. Because lots of bad things are

happening under the surface of the superficially normal society. Yes,

but personally I think there is a lot more tenderness and humanity in

what is happening here. Hanika's film is a terrific but very harsh,

very sharp, sometimes accusatory, I think. Ghost in the Shell. In 1995

anime. Scarlett Johansson is a human ghost in the cyber Shell in the

future. She's a person, a robot, a weapon. That film has become the

cause of some controversy about whitewashing, that Scarlett

Johansson was cast in this role. The director of the 95 anime said there

is no basis for saying an Asian actor must portray that character.

It a controversy that has dogged the film. Like the plot of the film

itself, you can look at this thing, it's a soul of one thing

transplanted into a shell which is slightly artificial and slightly

more glossy. However, I was strangely impressed

by it. I went in with fairly low expectations. I thought it looked

terrific. It does a very good job of revoking the future world. People

have talked about it looking like Blade Runner, it looks more like the

fifth element. A very cluttered future. I was never bored. I found,

yes it changed and simplify the narrative to some extent, and loses

some of the melancholy and depth of its predecessors, but as a piece of

multiplex entertainment, it was better than I expected it to be by

quite some distance. Free Fire. The new film by Ben Wheatley, I'm huge

fan of Ben Wheatley. The story is in Boston in the 1970s there was an

arms deal going down between a group of people, all of whom are variously

incompetent. The whole thing looks very volatile and looks like at any

moment it could fall apart appallingly, and of course it does.

Here's a clip. I don't want to get any of those

burns on my new... Suit. Sorry, what was that?

I do know about you guys but I think the merchandise is a real gas. Do

you see what you did? Good. OK... I'll overlook it this

time. LAUGHTER Is there a lot of that? There is.

What I like about it is this, a tense drama about a bunch of people

in a warehouse, all of whom are armed and all who are fighting each

other in various different ways. However, it also has a kind of

screwball comedy element. The best way of describing it, it's like a

silent movie, slapstick sensibility will but with a soundtrack that

reminds you of those loony Tunes cartoons, that is really really put

together. It keeps you on the edge of your seat. It's tense but also

very comic. It's also very near a list it. The idea is all of these

people are variously untrustworthy and incompetent. They are all from

their ridiculous quotes and foolish mannerisms. Vernon keeps saying

watch and vern, what Chand vern. What I liked about it, what Ben

Wheatley and Amy jump managed to do is make it across genre film. Yes,

it's a thriller but also accommodate but a near list it comedy. It's a

comedy about the fact that if you take... People have compared it to,

they say it's like the last movement of Reservoir dogs stretched out...

It's not. It's like that sequence in naked gun two and a half when there

is a close rage gunfight with people hiding behind the straight same

dustbin, it's like that that stretched over 90 minutes. It has an

absurd Mr Roux. -- absurdity to it. A really terrific cast, and every

single one of them clearly rising to the challenge of this, thinking it's

a great script. It's beautifully mapped I know nobody ever summed

comes out of the cinema and says this, but the editing is amazing.

LAUGHTER Use of that quite well. The best of

the week is Get Out. Out in cinemas at the moment. Have you seen it? Not

yet. You should. It's described by the director as a social thriller,

inspired by Rosemary's baby in Stepford wives. It also alludes to

hurry horror movies like green room and films like tales from the hood

and to sleep with anger. It's a sort of horrifying satire about racism in

post-racial America, about liberal, rich white people with this broiling

undercurrent of racism. I saw it in a packed cinema and it really play

to the crowd. It's done terrifically well and I think it's great.

Briefly, Edge of 17. A coming-of-age drama written and directed by

someone who likes the protagonist. Smart, funny, intelligent and great

performances from Hailee Steinfeld and Woody Harrelson. I thought it

was really touching, very tender and very funny. Since this is our last

film review and I am on holiday from tomorrow, I'm taking it with me. You

will enjoy it. Go and see Free Fire at the weekend. I will do.

A quick reminder before we go that you'll find more film news

and reviews from across the BBC online at bbc.co.uk/markkermode.

And you can find all our previous programmes on the BBC iPlayer.

Gavin, you said this was our last show together an astonishingly

you've been here for how many years? Hundreds of years. So since it's

been such a pleasure and great working with you we thought we

couldn't let you go without having a quick montage look back at

highlights of your career. Watch and enjoy. Oh dear. 12 years of

political violence, two Lawler strikes and 9497. In 1975 the close

of the factory. A group of off-duty soldiers from nearby army camps were

drinking in the horse and Groom public house. Minutes later there

was an explosion killing five and injuring more. Some presidents like

Lyndon Johnson have had their time in the White House destroyed by war.

Other war leaders like Roosevelt have been the greatest president

this country has ever known. Now George Bush stands poised for his

place in history. Finally Mr President, you go to

Europe when you are facing sleazy criticism at home and in the British

papers no president has had to face before.

My job is to lead this country in its own path of internal revival.

The wind is gusting up to 70 miles an hour, the rain coming in the

horizontally. It's a measure of the Pentagon's's commitment to the state

of Alaska that they're prepared to spend so much money, time and effort

on the defence of an area which is so hostile.

Hello and welcome for the first time to BBC News 24. I'm Gavin Esler. I'm

Sarah Montague. Would you like to shake hands? Would you? I'm prepared

to. I was born in Glasgow and I spent the first few years of my life

living here in Clydebank in a council house with my mother,

father, two auntie 's and my grandmother. It's no exaggeration to

say it's areas like this upon which the entire future of Scotland will

depend. I'm Gavin Esler, in Holyrood in

Scotland on the day it decided its destiny.

Hello and welcome to a special edition of The Film Review from the

red carpet and BFI London film Festival.

Hello and welcome to dateline London's look ahead to 2017. What a

joy for year it's going to be. Britain will move calmly towards

Brexit, the European Union will solve all its problems with

migration, unemployment and insolvent banks. This Donald Trump

will begin a glorious four years as president, the Middle East will

finally be at peace and we can all dream.

I'm retiring from the BBC to become a clairvoyant. It is so

extraordinary and except for the bit where we are on the red carpet and I

look like your bouncer! Looking at all that, what are you most proud

of, is it possible...? I'm very proud of a number of Bill Clinton

interviews I did, including that one, because he was always late. We

were due to interview him at two o'clock in the afternoon in the

White House and at two minutes to two o'clock all of our lights blue

because the crew plucked strings in the right way. I turned round and

said guys, it's OK, don't panic, he's always late. At which point

behind me a man with an Arkansas voice said, who is always right? I'm

kind of proud I managed to hold it together to do that interview. And

at peace for which you won the RTS award. You said they made you do

that ten times? I never... Never work with producers and cameramen.

They made me do it ten times and after I started to swear and say

I've had enough, they said, we just wanted to see how long before you

would crack. The thing I'm most impressed by how well you held it

together on the red carpet. We did a couple of them at the London film

Festival, one in the howling wind. And another we were interviewing Ben

Wheatley for a film Tom Huddlestone within and the crowd behind, dressed

as the avengers, screaming at the top of their voice. Nobody could

hear what they were saying but you were unflustered. I asked questions

but didn't hear a single answer. It didn't bother me whatsoever. The

Film Review is great and I will miss it. We will miss you. Thank you for

doing it for so long. Thank you. Before the tears, actually be a,

here is the weather. Thank you Gavin, you will be missed

by everyone at the weather centre. Much better weather today than Gavin