Knives Out: And if this doesn’t win a few awards then “I suspect foul play” 

A true contender for my film of the year! All my life I have sat and watched murder mystery after murder mystery with my family. From your Agatha Christie’s to your Midsummer Murders, Morse to Monk I’ve seen them all, and this one, although be it a tad predictable to the trained eye, was an absolute bundle of fun for all involved. With a wall to wall cast of the creme de la creme of acting royalty flounced across the screen, it wasn’t long before I relaxed into a cracking two hours of pure entertainment. Some great stand out performances by Christopher Plumber, Chris Evans, Michael Shannon and Toni Colette (yes that is most of the cast but that’s how good it is.) However the two I want to talk about are our next Bond due, an early glimpse to some wonderful on set chemistry, Ana De Armas who plays the magnificent lead an Mr Bond himself, Daniel Craig.

Everything you need to know about this film is explained within the first 10 minutes, including a beautifully genius characteristic of our lead Ana De Armas, who can’t lie without vomiting, a trait that plays out very nicely as the film progresses. Each actor seems to be playing their opposite casting with great mirth and none so much as Daniel Craig who plays a private detective with the most ridiculous southern American accent that can’t help but put a smile on your face, inspiring the iconic line form Chris Evans “what’s this CSI KFC?” 

Ryan Johnson has done a fantastic job of directing and writing these wonderful characters in a brand new modern take on the classic ‘who done it.’ These characters do appear fairly one dimensional at the beginning but as the plot thickens, so does the characterisation of these potential perpetrators by a truly phenomenal cast. 

This is a brilliant movie to take the family to see over the Christmas holidays with performances that all can enjoy. I give this film a very high rating of 8.9/10 and a must must see for all you murder mystery fans out there. It is certainly much better than the travesty that was the newest adaptation of Murder On The Orient Express and I’m very glad Ryan Johnson wasn’t put off making this movie, when after that ‘train crash’ by Kennith Branagh, there may not have been a market of Knives Out. 

I’ve been Christopher Whitmore, thank you for reading. 

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The Irishman: Englishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar and three hours later they start contemplating their own existence. 

Martin Scorsese’s latest movie is a masterpiece in character lead story telling. It is a tad long yes, but that is how long it takes to tell an almost entire and extraordinary life of the lead character Frank Sheeran (no relation apparently). Played by a man who needs little introduction, Robert De Niro who, unsurprisingly, really delivered with this performance. When you then back that up with stellar performances from Joe Pesci, Al Pacino and Stephen Graham it’s very hard to go wrong.

Hoooooowever ... I’m definitely one for slow paced, long scenes of epic dialogue, heck I even enjoyed Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but I do have to admit that even I was limping to the finishing line with this one. But this wasn’t an issue with lazy editing, no. The reason why I think this film was verging on the tedious was this whole de-aging fad. This coming from a man (Scorsese) who has caused huge

controversy with Marvel fans saying their beloved movies are more “theme park rides than real cinema.” The hypocrisy of it is maddening. The technology itself, even though it’s putting actors like me out of work, isn’t the issue. It was actually pretty good in this film and didn’t distract too much. The problem I had with it is they de-age the face but they can’t de-age how an actor moves. In scenes when a “younger” Frank is threatening and being physical with people who cross him and his family, unfortunately Robert De Niro’s movement was laughable. When you take the threat and the danger out of a movie like this, scenes lose tension and drive, so even the best dialogue and acting can’t stop you thinking “but it looks like a light breeze would knock him down ....” This is why this film for me will always pale in comparison to Goodfellas or The Godfather when these actors were in their prime. Just use younger actors to play the characters younger selves! That way you can establish these aggressive mafia dons early on so when you do have scenes of long dialogue with the older actors they have more potency. 

I did still very much enjoy large parts of this movie. My favourite scene where Stephen Grahams character Tony is late for a meeting Pacino and from interviews I've seen I know a lot of that scene was improvised and it's lovely to see the actors have some real fun with it. I can happily give it a solid 8/10, but as I said it won’t be going down in the history books as one of the all time greats in my opinion. In fact it’s not even the best film of the year, which is still held by ‘Joker.’ Being on Netflix however does make it very accessible, so I would highly recommend sitting down with some popcorn and once again just hash it out with our “old” friends Scorsese and De Niro.