0:00:00 > 0:00:00on BBC News, it's time for the film reviewment
0:00:00 > 0:00:05-- review.
0:00:18 > 0:00:23Hello and welcome to the Film Review on BBC News.
0:00:23 > 0:00:26To take us through this week's cinema releases is Mark Kermode.
0:00:26 > 0:00:28So Mark, what do we have this week?
0:00:28 > 0:00:34We have Darkest Hour, for which Gary Oldman is tipped for Oscars. We have
0:00:34 > 0:00:42Mukkabaaz a boxing movie come political romance. And Three
0:00:42 > 0:00:51Billboards.Darkest Hour, you wait years for a Churchill film to come
0:00:51 > 0:00:55along and you get two at onceWe reviewed Churchill on the show a few
0:00:55 > 0:01:00months ago. The story was that Brian Cox was playing brilliantly, I
0:01:00 > 0:01:05think, Churchill anxiety ridden in the run up to D-Day. Now Gary Oldman
0:01:05 > 0:01:11as Churchill, anxiety ridden around the time of Dunkirk. It's 1940. The
0:01:11 > 0:01:15Nazis are sweeping across Europe, the resistance is crumbling
0:01:15 > 0:01:18everywhere. He's being advised to appease rather than fight. Here's a
0:01:18 > 0:01:25clip.Nothing even remotely patriotic in death or glory if the
0:01:25 > 0:01:31odds are firmly on the former. Nothing inglorious in trying to
0:01:31 > 0:01:35shorten a war that we are clearly losing.Losing! Europe is still...
0:01:35 > 0:01:47Europe is lost. And before our forces are wiped out completely, now
0:01:47 > 0:01:51is the time to negotiate. In order to obtain the best conditions
0:01:51 > 0:01:57possible. Hitler will not insist on outrageous terms. He will know his
0:01:57 > 0:02:01own weaknesses. He will be reasonable.When will the lessons be
0:02:01 > 0:02:10learned? When will the lesson be learned? ! How many more dictators
0:02:10 > 0:02:18must be woulded, a-- wooed, appeased, before we learn! You
0:02:18 > 0:02:25cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.That is pretty
0:02:25 > 0:02:28much the give me an award clip. There's no surprise it's got such
0:02:28 > 0:02:33awards buzz about it.He won a Golden Globe.Yeah, I think I
0:02:33 > 0:02:37remember in 2012, when it looked like he was going to win the Oscar,
0:02:37 > 0:02:41then beaten to the punch. I think this time may be his year. It is a
0:02:41 > 0:02:44terrific performance, despite being buried under a lot of facial
0:02:44 > 0:02:48prosthetics, you know, you can see his personality coming through. It's
0:02:48 > 0:02:53a very interesting take on Churchill. I think the performance
0:02:53 > 0:02:57has conviction and grit, much as I really, really like the Brian Cox
0:02:57 > 0:03:04films, this is a really solid, awards-courting and probably awards
0:03:04 > 0:03:07worthy performance. The problem is the film itself, which is not as
0:03:07 > 0:03:13good. It's to Joe Wrigtt's credit that he's trying to inject a sense
0:03:13 > 0:03:20of immediate Agassi and urgency into -- urgency into a bunch of people
0:03:20 > 0:03:25arguing in rool essentially. But he mixes up on one hand very well
0:03:25 > 0:03:28created, you know historical recreations with utterly fanciful
0:03:28 > 0:03:32dramatic license. Such as a scene in which Churchill suddenly decides to
0:03:32 > 0:03:37take a quick referenda of the way the British public feel by going on
0:03:37 > 0:03:38the Tube train and asking people what they think about what's going
0:03:38 > 0:03:44on, in a scene which whatever the emotional truth of it may be, just
0:03:44 > 0:03:47struck me as utterly preposterous. The central performance is very
0:03:47 > 0:03:55good.It's a crack cast.It's a very good cast and clearly a crowd
0:03:55 > 0:04:00pleaser. It's going down incredibly well with the American critics and I
0:04:00 > 0:04:04think, I have no doubt that it will play very well. I have to say, from
0:04:04 > 0:04:13my point of view there were moments in it that I thought it was cringy.
0:04:13 > 0:04:17I felt like it was explaining everything, you know, obviously,
0:04:17 > 0:04:20this is complicated subject matter, but there are certain moments in
0:04:20 > 0:04:23which characters don't have to be introduced by their name, their
0:04:23 > 0:04:26title and rank whilst they're actually in the room with you, but
0:04:26 > 0:04:29the thing that will carry it is the performance. It is a really good
0:04:29 > 0:04:34performance. I think it will continue to be rewarded with awards.
0:04:34 > 0:04:41We will soon know in the next few weeks. What's the second choice?The
0:04:41 > 0:04:47Brawler, Mukkabaaz, a politically tinged boxing movie. Young boxer
0:04:47 > 0:04:53struggling to find his place in the world he finds himself at odds with
0:04:53 > 0:04:58the local big boss. He falls in love with a young woman who has no voice
0:04:58 > 0:05:03but whose actions speak volumes. It's occasionally a ramshackle
0:05:03 > 0:05:12affair. The dialogue is full of cloak we'll can youing. The --
0:05:12 > 0:05:17cussing. The fight series you feel that you're watching people beating
0:05:17 > 0:05:22seven bells out of each other. It has the ability to eschew
0:05:22 > 0:05:27conventions and mix in grit and substance. I felt it could be
0:05:27 > 0:05:31tightened up on time a bit. But I liked that firstly it is a bit
0:05:31 > 0:05:36anarchic. You're not sure where it's going. It seems to switch genres at
0:05:36 > 0:05:39certain times. It keeps you on your toes. I mean a boxing movie should
0:05:39 > 0:05:43do, it is a film which dances around and keeps you alert. I enjoyed. It
0:05:43 > 0:05:48it's not perfect, but it's a pretty solid thriller with some sort of
0:05:48 > 0:05:55social things to say as well.OK, yeah, that's interesting. Good to
0:05:55 > 0:05:59bring us something that I didn't know much about. I feel like I've
0:05:59 > 0:06:10read a lot about Three Billboards. I'm a huge Francis McDormott fan.
0:06:10 > 0:06:16She's most famous for fargo. Like Darkest Hour this is a major Oscar
0:06:16 > 0:06:23contender. It's a western inflected tragedy, comedy. This is a grieving
0:06:23 > 0:06:28mother who her daughter was abducted a killed and the local police force
0:06:28 > 0:06:32headed up by the police hasn't made any arrests. In a state of
0:06:32 > 0:06:35desperation she decides to take those Three Billboards and emblazen
0:06:35 > 0:06:38them with signs that name and shape the police department and say how
0:06:38 > 0:06:45come there have been no arrests? Here's a clip.When the DNA don't
0:06:45 > 0:06:49match no-one who's ever been arrested and when the DNA don't
0:06:49 > 0:06:53match any other crime nationwide, and when there wasn't a single
0:06:53 > 0:06:57eyewitness from the time she left your house to the time we found her,
0:06:57 > 0:07:02well, right now, there ain't too much more we can do.You could pull
0:07:02 > 0:07:09blood from every man and boy in this town, over the age of eight.There's
0:07:09 > 0:07:13several rights laws prevents that's. What if he was just passing through.
0:07:13 > 0:07:17Put Blackpool from every man in the country.What if he was passing
0:07:17 > 0:07:23through the country?If it was me, I'd start up a database, every male
0:07:23 > 0:07:29born that was born, his him on it. Cross-reference it, make 100%
0:07:29 > 0:07:34certain it was a correct match, then kill him.Yeah, well, there's
0:07:34 > 0:07:38definitely civil rights laws prevents that.You can see from that
0:07:38 > 0:07:44clip that what the film does is it plays with your sympathies. What
0:07:44 > 0:07:47she's saying there is outrageous. Suddenly the chief is reasonable. I
0:07:47 > 0:07:54think the real triumph of this film is it's a tragi-comedy, that's one
0:07:54 > 0:07:57of the few clips we could play without the swearing in it. It is
0:07:57 > 0:08:05very funny. It can make you laugh and guffaw.He writes brilliantly.
0:08:05 > 0:08:10He had a cynical edge before. But this actually has heart. Because the
0:08:10 > 0:08:14tragedy is if anything more powerful than the comedy. What you get is a
0:08:14 > 0:08:19story about people who are eaten up by rage, eaten up by anger, eaten up
0:08:19 > 0:08:24by desperation. It's really a film about how those things impact upon
0:08:24 > 0:08:29the characters. There are these lines that are delivered as trite
0:08:29 > 0:08:34little greeting card messages, anger only begets greater anger. Through
0:08:34 > 0:08:38love comes calm. Yet they seem to be sincere. What really surprised me is
0:08:38 > 0:08:42how tender this film S yes, it's funny, yes, very violent. Yes it's
0:08:42 > 0:08:47very dark. Yes it deals with edgy subject matter. But it has a really
0:08:47 > 0:08:53tender heart. It upsets some people because all the characters are seen
0:08:53 > 0:08:58to be three dimensional, like Sam Rockwell is introduced as a racist
0:08:58 > 0:09:04come. But as it goes on, you see he is a victim of his circumstances.
0:09:04 > 0:09:07That doesn't play very well with everybody because it is a film about
0:09:07 > 0:09:10moral ambivalence in which there isn't a good character or a bad
0:09:10 > 0:09:16character. Everybody is in this more ras. I have seen it twice. Second
0:09:16 > 0:09:20time it was more powerful. When it needs to be funny, it is blistering
0:09:20 > 0:09:25funny. But it's really tragic. Oddly enough, very tender.Goodness. Rich.
0:09:25 > 0:09:29Very rich film.Yes, I'd be interested to know what you think
0:09:29 > 0:09:35about it.We can discuss next week, for now, I know Best Out is another
0:09:35 > 0:09:39film, stunning scenery, beautiful setting, but bleak as well.Yes
0:09:39 > 0:09:45hostiles the end of an era western. Christian Bale is a battle hardened
0:09:45 > 0:09:49captain ordered to take his nemesis back to his sacred lands to die. It
0:09:49 > 0:09:53is a film therefore about coming to terms with the legacy of violence.
0:09:53 > 0:09:58Actually the reason I've chosen it is because it has a brilliant score,
0:09:58 > 0:10:05which is really einvolve Tiff. The -- evocative. It seems to come out
0:10:05 > 0:10:09of the landscape. It really captured me. I think it's not getting perhaps
0:10:09 > 0:10:12the attention that it should have got. It's a very interesting piece
0:10:12 > 0:10:16of work. It's called Hos tiles. It's worning it for the score alone --
0:10:16 > 0:10:20worth it for the score alone.For DVD, one of the films of last year
0:10:20 > 0:10:26Detroit. Why isn't that on the film radarI don't begin to understand.
0:10:26 > 0:10:35So well made.Anatomy of an uprising. Both actors brilliant. I
0:10:35 > 0:10:40would have had both of them in Supporting Actor nominations.
0:10:40 > 0:10:43Fantastically directed yet somehow it seems to have slipped off the
0:10:43 > 0:10:46radar, which is a shame. I thought it was a really gripping piece of
0:10:46 > 0:10:50work.Absolutely. A hard watch, but brilliant.It has to be tough
0:10:50 > 0:10:54because of the subject matter. It would be wrong if it waebts.
0:10:54 > 0:10:58Absolutely. This is the chance to see it if you didn't see it in the
0:10:58 > 0:11:03cinema. Thank you very much. See you next week. There is of course, more
0:11:03 > 0:11:09film news and reviews from across the BBC on the website. You know the
0:11:09 > 0:11:12address, bbc.co.uk/Mark Kermode. Find our previous programmes on the
0:11:12 > 0:11:16BBCi player. It's a busy week at the cinema. Enjoy your cinema going. See
0:11:20 > 0:11:29-- you next time, bye-bye.