:00:00. > :00:00.against Milos Raonic which saw him get through to the Australian Open
:00:00. > :00:07.final. That is all coming up in sports day with me at 6:30 PM. But
:00:08. > :00:18.now it's time for the film review. -- Sportsday.
:00:19. > :00:21.Hello and welcome to the Film Review on BBC News.
:00:22. > :00:23.To take us through this week's cinema releases is Mark Kermode.
:00:24. > :00:38.We have Spotlight, which is 1 of the front runners in the best film
:00:39. > :00:46.contender for the Oscars. We have 13 Hours, Michael Bay goes to war. And
:00:47. > :00:52.Youth, a new film starring Michael Cain. Spotlight much anticipated,
:00:53. > :00:57.great reviews in America. Terrific reviews over here as well, nominated
:00:58. > :01:00.for several Oscars. A film which has got a really good critical response.
:01:01. > :01:04.So good that I think it has kind of court the film-makers slightly off
:01:05. > :01:08.guard. I think they thought it was a good piece of work but they didn't
:01:09. > :01:11.realise exactly how good until the reviews started coming in. It is
:01:12. > :01:18.based on the true story of the Boston Globe's Spotlight team
:01:19. > :01:21.uncovering a scandal involving the Catholic Church. It's a terrific
:01:22. > :01:29.cast, Michael Keaton and Rachel McAdams and indeed mark Ruffalo. Its
:01:30. > :01:33.1 of these things in which you think there should be a nomination for the
:01:34. > :01:43.entire ensemble cast. Anyway, here's a clip. We got law, this is it. This
:01:44. > :01:47.is 1 covering for another priest. There are another 90 out there. I'm
:01:48. > :01:52.not going to rush this story, Mike. We don't have a choice. If we don't
:01:53. > :01:59.rush the print someone else is going to find these letters and rush the
:02:00. > :02:04.print. Mike! What? Why are we hesitating? He told us to get the
:02:05. > :02:09.system. We need the full scope. That is the only thing that will put an
:02:10. > :02:15.end to this. We will do it when I say it's time. It's time, Robbie!
:02:16. > :02:21.It's time! They knew and they let it happen to kids! OK? He could have
:02:22. > :02:25.been you, it could have been me, it could have been any of us. We've got
:02:26. > :02:29.to nail these scumbags. We've got to show people that nobody can get away
:02:30. > :02:37.with this, not a priest or a cardinal or they freaking Pope!
:02:38. > :02:40.That's 1 of the rare kind of grandstanding moments in a film
:02:41. > :02:44.which otherwise is distinguished about the fact that it's a film
:02:45. > :02:50.about hard, journalistic work. It's about sitting down at desks and
:02:51. > :02:58.going through records and shoe leather. It draws comparison with
:02:59. > :03:01.All The President's Men. It doesn't have the same shadowy surveillance
:03:02. > :03:06.thing going on but what it does have is really clear storytelling. It
:03:07. > :03:09.takes a story which is, located and it doesn't simplify it but it makes
:03:10. > :03:13.it gripping and engrossing. Essentially it's a story about an
:03:14. > :03:17.outsider, Martin Baron, this new editor coming in and seeing a
:03:18. > :03:22.subject for the 1st time from the outside. At 1 point somebody says,
:03:23. > :03:27."So he's a single man of the do you see faith who hates baseball those
:03:28. > :03:32.quote. That's the point! It's in Boston, coming into this catholic
:03:33. > :03:38.conclave and looking as it is an outsider is what that team is
:03:39. > :03:43.spurred on to investigate it. It's not just heroes and villains, the
:03:44. > :03:46.Spotlight team discover that everyone is kind of complicit in
:03:47. > :03:50.this silence including their own paper. Should they have acted
:03:51. > :03:54.earlier? I think it was terrifically well done, most particularly because
:03:55. > :03:57.it tells its story so well. It tells it in a way that doesn't suggest
:03:58. > :04:00.that in order for this to be palatable for an audience you have
:04:01. > :04:04.to have great big dramatic stand-offs. What it says is the
:04:05. > :04:07.subject matter is interesting. I think 1 of the reasons perhaps that
:04:08. > :04:12.the visual style is quite flat is that it's almost as if the director
:04:13. > :04:17.is saying the story is what matters. The better the story the less you
:04:18. > :04:25.have to sell it? Exactly, and it sells its story really well. What
:04:26. > :04:35.about the story of 13 Hours? It is a very famous cause celebre. Now told
:04:36. > :04:39.by Michael Bay of the Transformers movies and Pearl Harbor. What
:04:40. > :04:43.Michael Bay said is, this isn't political at all, this is absolute
:04:44. > :04:46.news of what happened on the ground. This is a ground level account of
:04:47. > :04:51.this event. Of course there is politics in it inasmuch as it's a
:04:52. > :04:55.film that says that the people to blame our Lily livered bureaucrats
:04:56. > :04:59.and that sort of stuff. What's more important is that I went into this
:05:00. > :05:04.movie knowing very little about this case and came out knowing even less.
:05:05. > :05:09.Because it's a Michael Bay movie. However contentious the subject
:05:10. > :05:13.matter is, what you get is this rapidly edited visual style, loads
:05:14. > :05:19.of explosions, loads of shouting, loads of shooting. There's a scene
:05:20. > :05:25.in Pearl Harbor in which we get a Bond's eye view, literally following
:05:26. > :05:29.a Bond, and we get the same shot in this. It says that Michael Bay is
:05:30. > :05:33.not interested in the people or the intricacies come he's interested in
:05:34. > :05:37.the machinery. It is, to all intents and purposes, a film about machinery
:05:38. > :05:41.and hardware that just happens to have people and a political story
:05:42. > :05:46.behind it. I'm not a fan of Michael Bay's and to me this was just
:05:47. > :05:51.another chapter in what it is... There is an audience for this as you
:05:52. > :05:54.well know. I think more so in America than here. I saw it in a
:05:55. > :06:02.screening room full of people many of whom made the joke when they came
:06:03. > :06:15.out, 13 Hours and told in real-time. Youth? This is an English-language
:06:16. > :06:19.film with Sean Penn playing Robert Smith... This is much more
:06:20. > :06:32.confident. The story is essentially Michael Cain and Harvey Keitel
:06:33. > :06:36.playing a film-maker and a journalist looking back on their
:06:37. > :06:39.lives, lives and lost loves. Here's a clip.
:06:40. > :06:55.Do you remember Gilda? The film? No, the girl we were both in love with.
:06:56. > :07:00.That was a hundred years ago. To me it's like yesterday. I would have
:07:01. > :07:06.given 20 years of my life to have slept with her. That would have been
:07:07. > :07:09.a pretty stupid thing. She wasn't worth 20 years of your life. She
:07:10. > :07:19.wasn't worth a single day. How do you know? Did you sleep with her?
:07:20. > :07:25.What? What did you say? You heard me. 60 years ago you swore you never
:07:26. > :07:30.slept with her out of respect for my love for her. Now you've changed
:07:31. > :07:35.your tune. It's difficult not to love this, for me! There is much to
:07:36. > :07:40.love not least in those 2 performances and Michael Cain is
:07:41. > :07:45.particularly terrific. It also has that thing of tragic comic absurdity
:07:46. > :07:53.about it. We have levitating monks, we have Paloma Faith playing Paloma
:07:54. > :07:57.Faith. Madonna is in it as well. Somebody who may or may not be,
:07:58. > :08:01.that's the sort of central point... There are moments when it doesn't
:08:02. > :08:04.work. Totally it is all over the place. A jolt surround from tragedy
:08:05. > :08:08.and comedy and it doesn't always come together. However, when it
:08:09. > :08:12.does, it has a lyrical beauty that is quite charming. There's a lovely
:08:13. > :08:16.sequence of, and it's hard to imagine this, Michael Cain
:08:17. > :08:19.conducting a field of cows. It's really beautiful and really
:08:20. > :08:31.touchingly done. Although I think, it's far more confident than This
:08:32. > :08:37.Must Be The Case. There have been people seeing it who have wondered
:08:38. > :08:40.what it's all about. I liked it but I do think it's all over the shop
:08:41. > :08:45.and I think it is totally very uneven but for the moments that work
:08:46. > :08:52.and largely they are to Michael Caine's performance, it has a
:08:53. > :09:00.melancholic... For all its mistakes, I feel very affectionate towards it.
:09:01. > :09:08.Your best is Room. I still love it. It's not the film you think it is. I
:09:09. > :09:13.thought this was terrific. Emily Blunt playing an FBI agent who is
:09:14. > :09:19.trapped in a very difficult war with the Mexican cartels. It's a
:09:20. > :09:21.cross-border campaign that she gets dragged into unknowingly. The
:09:22. > :09:26.cinematography is absolutely terrific, it looks so good. It has
:09:27. > :09:31.the best and most nail-biting traffic jam you will ever see in a
:09:32. > :09:35.movie! Again, it's a thriller. It doesn't feel the need to explain
:09:36. > :09:38.everything all the time. It's a movie that seems to think that the
:09:39. > :09:42.audience is smart and that the audience will keep up. There are 2
:09:43. > :09:48.or 3 set pieces in it which I thought were genuinely nail-biting.
:09:49. > :09:54.You know when they say white knuckles. That's exactly what it is.
:09:55. > :09:55.And you're right, not a car chase, but a traffic jam! We believe it
:09:56. > :10:01.there. -- we will leave it there. A quick reminder before we go that
:10:02. > :10:03.you'll find more film news and reviews from across
:10:04. > :10:20.the BBC online, including Good evening. There was a bit of a
:10:21. > :10:22.white knuckle ride with the weather today as