With a real sense of the vibe and mood of London during the swinging sixties running through the movie this is a stylishly told tale of the notorious Kray twins who controlled most of the East End gangland scene in the late 1950’s and through most of the 1960’s but while watching it I somehow felt that the movie lacked some substance and was it was not for the superb performance of Tom Hardy, particularly as the unbalanced Ronnie Kray, this would just have been another average thriller.

Maybe this is where my problems with the movie stem from because it looks like Ronnie would have been the more interesting focus but it’s Reggie, and in particular his relationship with his first wife Frances that takes the main focus of the movie and her narrative voice over is completely unnecessary turing what should be a gangland tale into some form of Beauty and The Beast love story.

Director Brian Hangeland has obviously taken some notes from Martin Scorsese movies as this sometimes feels like a homage to Goodfellas but lacks the writing or directing to match that classic and the lack of backstory or build up means that, unless you know about or have read about the Krays, there is no exposition to show why the Krays were the characters that they were. Their henchmen and gang members are mainly just faces and names and there is no character development of their mother Violet who was such an integral part of their life.

There are some bright spots with David Thewlis sometimes stealing scenes as the slimy fixer Leslie Payne and some good but all too brief Chazz Palmentieri appearances as Angelo Bruno, a go between for Meyer Lansky and the American mob (one of the best scenes in the whole movie involves this character, Ronnie Kray and a blunt announcement of his sexuality preferences)

Overall the movie is entertaining and well worth a watch but it fails to raise itself to it’s true potential levels and if you have knowledge of the Krays there’s so much more that could have been done with the material.

DJ Speaks Rating: 6 out of 10

 

The demon Bughuul is back and is looking to recruit more children to assist in adding to his library of Super 8 snuff tapes but this time it’s without any of the surprise that the originality of the first installment gave us and where the original had the over the top performances of both Ethan Hawke and Vincent D’Onofrio this offers nothing in the acting stakes.

We are supposed to believe that a mother would knowingly move her kids into a house with the history it has without any other obvious reason than the fact that she is trying to hide from her abusive ex-husband. At least in the first movie Hawke wanted to do research into the murders so it gave some purpose behind his logic.

The ex-deputy from the first movie, who seems to be the only person that actually knows what is going on, decides that the information that he has is best kept to himself and never advises the family of the danger they are in. Instead he hangs around like some form of macabre rubbernecker waiting on the bloodshed to begin and acts like the David Arquette Officer Dewey character from the Scream series of movies.

Where the idea for introducing the Ham radio came from is a mystery as it takes the premise of how the movie operates and pushes it in a whole different direction. Remember, this demon can already control laptops and TV sets so presumably this change is only done to try and keep the medium of the equipment that Bughuul uses retro for the inevitable third installment.

The fact that director Ciarán Foy tries to use the demon as representation of the abuse the children suffered through their father is touching upon an interesting concept but this gets lost in the attempts at pointless jump scares and the only sequence which has any real sense of dread is the final fifteen minutes which is mainly shot from behind the lens of the old school camera and the cuts from in front of the camera to the silent views from behind the camera, is the only ‘sinister’ thing through the whole movie so, if you haven’t seen the first film watch that instead as at least there are some memorable moments and also because this sequel presumes you have the knowledge of the events of part one. Then once you have done that don’t bother watching this one.

DJ Speaks Rating: 4 out of 10

Biographical drama based on the book Seven Deadly Sins about the rise and fall of Lance Armstrong through his use of performance enhancing drugs and the crusade of journalist David Walsh to bring the cover up to light.

Kudos to Ben Foster who actually took performance enhancing drugs while filming the movie to fully get into character and he does look uncannily like Armstrong but the film seems to skim along through the story rather than really go into any depth over how and why most of the events took place. He meets his wife and gets married in a thirty second segment and she’s never seen again so it’s only really Armstrong and Floyd Landis who are given any real character development. Even Chris O’Dowd as David Walsh feels like a secondary character rather than one of the central pivots of the whole tale being told. This leads to the movie making it look like Armstrong turns up, gets beaten, takes drugs and effortlessly wins when in fact there were a number of years between his arrival in Europe and his Tour wins and while he did win seven Tours it was still a three week slog each time.

If you are interested in cycling and can remember the events depicted in the movie then this film will be of interest to you but if you’re not a fan of cycling if may fall short.

DJ Speaks Rating: 5 out of 10

Jesse Eisenberg stars as a convenience store worker in a tiny West Virginia town who spends his days stoned and trying his best to do right by his girlfriend while creating ideas for a graphic novel all through which, in generally, he fails miserably. What he doesn’t know is that he is a man with a past and when his ex-boss, who finds out that he has been marked for termination, unknowingly pays him a visit and unlocks repressed memories via a secret codeword it all kicks off in spectacular style.

Part Jason Bourne, part Cheech & Chong, American Ultra motors along with an ever increasing body count totalled up using a variety of unusual everyday items but it all still feels predictable and there’s nothing new here that will stay with you after the end credits roll.

Both Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart do okay with their roles but, when it comes, the secondary twist is so left of center that it doesn’t really make any sense and given that the whole film is told in a flashback means that any suspense or intrigue as to what the outcome of our protagonist will be is put to bed in the opening minute.

DJ Speaks Rating: 5 out of 10

From the opening use of Juice Newton during a hilarious opening credit scene to the closing notes of Careless Whisper with the nod to Ferris Bueller, Deadpool never feels like its trying to take itself seriously. With constant fourth wall breaks and smart ass comments on all aspects of pop culture from Superheroes to Ryan Reynolds other movies and even the Spin Doctors (remember them?), it’s a refreshing  entry into the genre.

All credit to Ryan Reynolds who absolutely nails it as Wade Wilson and after his debacles in Green Lantern, Wolverine and Blade Trinity it took balls for him to have another stab in a Superhero film but he made this a project and never backed away from the challenge of getting this movie made and he plays it through every emotion almost flawlessly. The jumps from current to past and back again are well done and do a good job of building the back story without slowing the movie down as much as they could have, plus the action sequences, the use of both slow motion shots and the CGI are all excellent.

On the negative side the use of the secondary X-Men characters felt a bit shoehorned in just so that the movie could have a place in the Marvel Universe and both Angel Dust and Ajax just left like generic villains instead of building on the mutants characters that they are, although both of these points are brilliantly ripped apart in the movie anyway.

Overall, while not perfect it’s a must watch for any fan of the genre and with the large volume of upcoming superhero movies this year, it’s a great start.

DJ Speaks Rating: 7 out of 10

Based on the TV show of the same name (but without the brilliant synthesizer based theme tune by The Police’s Stewart Copeland) Denzel Washington stars as Robert McCall a mild mannered, DIY type store worker with a hidden past which gives him some very unique black ops style skills. Well respected by his co-workers but suffering insomnia, (presumably from whatever he done in his previous life and the death of his wife) he spends his nights reading classic books in an all night diner and it is here that he reluctantly strikes up a friendship with a young prostitute who uses the diner as a base between jobs.

When she ends up on the wrong end of a severe beating at the hand of her pimp, McCall takes offence to this and uses his former employment skills with deadly force, dealing with both the pimp and his gang, who have connections with big time Eastern European gangsters. From there it becomes a cat and mouse game between the gangsters, corrupt cops and our protagonist as he builds up the body count in the name of extreme justice.

The film teams up Washington with director Antoine Fuqua for their first outing together since Training Day and the combination works well again although not to the same levels. Washington will rarely let you down with his performances and once again he’s spot on as the man with the shady past who can switch from a killing machine to the man with a smile and a heart of gold almost instantaneously.

While it’s no Taxi Driver or even Man On Fire (despite having some similar traits to both) it’s still a very enjoyable action movie with a particular shout out to the Dead Rising like DIY tool kills in the last 20 minutes. The Equalizer 2 anybody?

DJ Speaks Rating: 6 out of 10