ESSENTIAL KILLING no stars

Boredom personified. As an Afghan prisoner who escapes when the vehicle in which he is traveling crashes, Vincent Gallo, in a totally wordless performance, is excellent, (Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival), but Jerzy Skolimowski's picture "Essential Killing" goes nowhere very, very slowly. Skolimowski brings a documentary-like fidelity to the material that might be admirable in another context as Gallo is pursued through the inhospitable terrain by his mostly faceless and nameless enemies. It's fairly grim stuff; the 'essential killing' of the title is what Gallo is forced to do in order to survive but this isn't "The Revenant" and as man-in-the-wilderness movies go it has little to recommend it.

HUSTLERS *

Based on a true story "Hustlers" is about a group of pole-dancers who turn to crime; "Widows" it ain't. What it is, is a glossy female caper about sisterhood turning sour that takes too long to get to the point, though it is mostly redeemed by a star turn from Jennifer Lopez, (looking stunning), as the tough cookie who masterminds the hustle. The film itself is a fairly minor affair that for some obscure reason has wowed a lot of the critics with 'Sight and Sound' putting it in their top twenty films of the year. There is a story to be told here for sure but sadly we've seen it all before.

THE DAY OF THE LOCUST ***

Critically much maligned but really rather an outstanding screen adaptation of Nathanael West's 'difficult' novel about Hollywood in the 1930's and based on West's own experiences there as a 'hack' writer. The British director John Schlesinger helmed the picture, bringing much the same jaundiced eye to bear on proceedings as he did in "Midnight Cowboy". Waldo Salt wrote the excellent script and the outstanding cast included Karen Black as the wannabe actress trying to make it big in the movies, Burgess Meredith as her drunken father, William Atherton as the young art director in love with her and Donald Sutherland as the sad and lonely Homer Simpson that Black all but destroys and whose presence instigates the films tragic ending. The great Conrad Hall photographed the picture and the monstrous child is Jackie Earle Haley.

HUMPDAY ***

A classic comedy of embarrassment from writer/director Lynn Shelton who brings an unerringly accurate eye to her tale of two life-long buddies who decide to make a 'gay' porn video together, ('Two straight guys bang each other'), drawing totally terrific performances from leads Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard, (the guys), and Alycia Delmore, (Duplass' much too talented wife), in the process.

It's a very funny and surprisingly truthful picture, full of the kind of people you would probably cross the road to avoid, (with the exception of Delmore who is sexy and sweet in equal measure). Amazingly the premiss never feels that far-fetched; the chemistry between Duplass and Leonard is strong enough to make you think there might be more to their friendship than meets the eye and if their characters aren't that endearing the movie most certainly is.

THE CAPTAIN ***

The story told in "The Captain" really stretches credulity and yet it's true. A young deserter from the German army in the closing days of the War finds a captain's uniform and when he puts it on isn't just mistaken for a captain but becomes, in his own mind, a figure of great power; in fact, he becomes a mass murderer yet amazingly no-one in authority, or even the grunts he comes across, think to question his age. We are told at the end of the film that when he was charged with war crimes he was only 21 years old.

This German made film looks at a shocking event in their recent history and it shows, without apology, the terrible things the Nazis did but, significantly, it doesn't condemn the German people; there are 'good' Germans here, too or rather Germans so sickened with what is happening they rebel in what little way they can. Things happen here that happen in many war films if perhaps in a more surreal fashion but fundamentally the real theme of Robert Schwentke's film is how, once an idea is planted in the mind, it ceases to be an idea and becomes a reality.

Surely there must have been evidence that our young deserter, (Max Hubacher, terrific), was always a monster and putting on the uniform only gave credence to this but more significantly the uniform itself becomes a symbol of power to others. It's like those psychological experiments where simply saying something is fact makes it so, particularly if you have a prop, only in this case it was no experiment but quite possibly the very personification of evil. "The Captain" will chill you to the bone.

A COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG no stars

Possibly the worst film ever made by a great director. Chaplin made "A Countess from Hong Kong" in 1966, nine years after "A King in New York" which, although a failure at the time, now seems like a lost masterpiece compared with this totally unfunny farce. Working in colour for the first time and with two Oscar-winning actors, Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren, this could have been, should have been the final work of genius rather than the self-indulgent disaster it turned out to be.

Brando is the American diplomat sailing from Hong Kong to America and Loren is the exiled Russian countess who has stowed away in his cabin. Loren looks as gorgeous as she ever did and even manages to give a comic performance of some depth but Brando looks very uncomfortable as if he knows just what a load of merde he's landed himself in, (it's one of his few really bad performances; even Sydney Chaplin as his best friend out-acts him).

Charlie himself turns up in a cameo and it's sad to see him make his final appearance in something as bad as this. It's now fashionable to try to find favour with the picture as if someone like Chaplin could never have made anything quite so terrible but let me assure you that with "A Countess from Hong Kong" he could and he did.

SYMPATHY FOR MR VENGANCE ****

Let's forget about the extreme violence for a moment, if that's possible, and just say than Chan-wook Park is one of contemporary cinema's great visual stylists and that "Sympathy for Mr Vengance" is a terrific looking picture. It's also highly original, a kidnap drama with a deaf mute hero who kidnaps a little girl so he can get the money to pay for his sister's kidney transplant. You might even say it would be darkly funny if the 'comedy' were more pronounced but then comedy isn't really Park's style. His style is violence which, for maximum effect, he keeps in the background until he's ready to spring it on us in a welter of blood-letting. as well as having a remarkable eye for composition; sometimes the sheer beauty of his images allows him to get away with things that other directors couldn't. "Sympathy for Mr. Vengance" is an horrific film with its horrors delivered so matter-of-factly they shake you up in ways more conventional films don't and I can't imagine an American mainstream director treating this material in quite the same way. This may yet prove to be his masterpiece but I'm not sure I'd ever want to see it again.

THIS IS MY STREET *

This slice of so-called British realism came after a slew of really outstanding kitchen-sink dramas and was really something of a let-down. As directed by the lack-lustre Sidney Hayers it's more of a throwback to the British films of the forties and fifties, watchable certainly but nothing to get excited about. It's also let down by the highly inadequate performance of the pretty but vacant June Ritchie, cast here as the unhappily married housewife seduced by randy neighbour Ian Hendry. He's excellent, certainly a lot better than his material. However, none of the supporting cast, including a very young John Hurt, make much of an impression.

THE OCCUPANT no stars

A home invasion movie with a difference. "The Occupant" is a slow-burn of a Spanish thriller that has a nice idea but which just crawls along, building suspense at a snail's pace. Javier, (Javier Gutierrez), has lost his job and is forced to give up his expensive Barcelona apartment so naturally, what do you think he does? He finds a spare set of keys and sneaks in when the new tenants are out. Then he insinuates himself into their lives planning on destroying the husband's career, marriage and just about everything else he holds dear.

It's a reasonably well made psychological thriller about a dangerously psychotic individual but it lacks credibility. A sub-plot involving a paedophile feels very manufactured while Gutierrez gives a strictly one-note performance. On the plus side it's nicely shot by Pau Castejan. Like I said, a nice idea lost in a film with too many red herrings.

THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME ***

This classic was co-directed by Irving Pichel and Ernest B. Schoedsack and while some of its effects might seem rather rudimentary by today's standards it's still a cracker. The basic story has been filmed countless times in one form or another but "The Most Dangerous Game" still knocks its competitors for six. Set in one of those exotic South Sea Islands so beloved of filmmakers in the 1930's, (you know, the kind of place where King Kong hung out), this is the one about the big game hunter, (Joel McCrea), becoming the hunted, victim to the monstrous Count Zaroff, (a splendidly over-the-top Leslie Banks). There's also a woman involved, (a screaming Fay Wray, naturally), and it's both exciting and superbly designed, (Zaroff's 'fortress' home could just as easily have housed Dr. Frankenstein or Count Dracula). Clocking in at just 63 minutes, this is a B-Movie with A-Movie credentials and is hugely enjoyable.

FOR ELLEN ****

Paul Dano is outstanding, (when is Paul Dano anything less than outstanding), as the rock star on a road trip to see his young daughter, Ellen, (the extraordinary Shaylena Mandigo). The Korean director So Yong Kim made this very American film and, like so many other 'outsiders', brings a very astute eye to both the characters and the landscape as well as paying homage, in its closing shot, to one of the great American films of the seventies.

Not a great deal happens but the films emotional core is very strong thanks, in large part, to Dano's extraordinary performance. He's never really off the screen and he dominates virtually every shot. His lack of an Oscar nomination is still something of a mystery to me. In the small but telling part of Dano's lawyer, a mother's-boy infatuated with his client, Jon Heder is also outstanding. Both these performances are Oscar-worthy but "For Ellen" is a small, independent film that never recieved the distribution it should have so not many people saw it. If you are one of those who allowed it to pass you by, seek it out; you certainly won't regret it.

THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN ***

"The French Lieutenant's Woman" was another of those books everyone said could never be filmed. John Fowles wrote it, both as a Victorian melodrama and as a 20th century comment on such melodramas and he gave it alternative endings, one 'happy' and the other 'unhappy'. How could any filmmaker film this and make it feel original? The novel idea that Karl Reisz and screen-writer Harold Pinter came up with was to do a reasonably straightforward film of the Victorian novel in the style of any period drama but to intersperse it with scenes of the actors playing the characters in a modern story in which they are shooting the film of "The French Lieutenant's Woman" and just as there is an illict love story between Charles and Sarah Woodruff, the French Lieutenant's Whore as she refers to herself, so too there is an illict love story between Mike and Anna, the actors who play them and in these roles both Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep are superb, even if Streep's put-on English accent is ripe for parody.

When the film was released it met with very mixed reviews. Some people felt it failed miserably in its cross-cutting while others thought it was something of a masterpiece. Neither view is entirely accurate. The Victorian scenes are indeed terrific, not just in how they are played but in their design and in the way they are shot by Freddie Francis while the contemporary scenes do feel out of place with the parallels to the Victorian story made much too obvious but at least this gives Reisz and Pinter their chance to give us both endings. It's not the greatest adaptation of a book but it never ceases to be fascinating all the way up to those alternative endings.

CHAOTIC ANA no stars

Ana, (Manuela Velles), is a young hippie living in a cave in Ibiza with her father, painting pictures which she sells to tourists. One day Justine, (Charlotte Rampling), happens by and takes Ana off to her colony of artists in Madrid where she meets the handsome Berber Said, (Nicholas Cazale). Julio Medem's "Chaotic Ana" aims to be a kind of dark fairy-tale with a heroine whose life is more chaotic than it first appears. Under hypnosis it seems she lived several lives before this one.

The problem is Medem's film can't quite make up its mind what it wants to be; a psychological study of a young woman with multiple (past) personalities, a cool thriller about a kind of cult, a political movie about refugees and Middle-Eastern politics or a movie about performance art? As Ana, Velles is certainly a blank slate but it's a blankless lacking in personality and unfortunately Ana is actually quite boring and she's the film's dominant character, (Rampling flits in and out, saying and doing very little), and at around two hours it's very long. This is a film with too many ideas that never amount to anything and is ultimately a lost opportunity.