Non-Stop

In years to come I think it's unlikely they'll be releasing retrospective box-sets regarding Jaume Collet-Sera cannon of films. However, from his short career so far he's proved he's a safe pair of hands when it comes to productions where the plots revolve around hidden or mysterious elements. So he's in his comfort zone here as, on a flight from New York to London, air marshall Bill Marks (Liam Neeson) receives a text from a passenger informing him that someone on the plane will be killed every 20 minutes unless a ransom is paid. The problem is Marks can't find the culprit and when the bodies start piling up his employees on the ground and the passengers and crew begin to suspect Marks himself is up to something. It's as ludicrous as it sounds. For example, though Marks is an air marshall he, get this, doesn't like flying! Always a pre-requisite qualification for that kind of job I've always thought. Crucially though, the film is a big pile of dumb fun. Collet-Sera has form when it comes to hiding plot twists (see the whammy reveal at the end of Orphan) and here he does it in the form of highlighting so many people (in the form of a cross section of society) as possible suspects, that you can't really spend much time thinking about who the culprit could be (though if you know your B-list actors you might have a fair clue about what's going down). Neeson can do this type of action malarkey in his sleep now (imagine you told someone that ten years ago), but Michelle Dockery looks in shock before anything has actually happened and Julianne Moore just looks like death warmed up. If you're not going to suspend your disbelief then don't bother checking in. For the rest of us, our first entrant in the stupidly fun Friday night film award of the year has touched down. I mean, how many films do you get where the co-pilot screams at his airplane, "Come on, you wanker!". Rating: 7/10.

The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty

Though not synonymous outside of the US, you've probably heard someone described as a "Walter Mitty type character", the inference being that person is a bit of a dreamer who imagines a fantasy life which they could never possibly lead. Ben Stiller's new film (his first as director in five years) pretty much follows this fantastical template, though it's only loosely based on James Thurber's original short story from the 1930's. In this version Mitty (Stiller) works in the photography department of a soon to be closed magazine and finds himself on a mission to locate a missing photo negative that has been mooted to be the front cover of the last ever issue. Before long Mitty is day dreaming of adventures that take him far and wide in pursuit of said negative. The film has plenty of entertaining moments (look out for the great scene where Mitty pulls off a series of cracking tricks on a skateboard whilst love interest Cheryl (Kristen Wiig) keeps looking away at the most inopportune moments), but when its all said and done there really isn't much substance behind all the spectacle. In addition, with the exception of the portrayal of the downsizing managers (all young, bearded and coffee drinkers) this lacks the satire and the darkness of the original material, settling instead on a much lighter concoction. Whether this works or not is hard to say as I'm not sure who the target audience for this is meant to be. You can look at this film two ways I suppose. One is that its a bit of a waste of your time as, in effect, we have a film that utilises a MacGuffin within a MacGuffin. Alternatively you could say this is a silly bit of entertaining nonsense, capped off with one of the most moving and heart warming denouements of the year. As for the actual direction, this is easily Stiller's most impressive film thus far. Rating: 7/10.

12 Years A Slave

I've always thought that I would have enjoyed Steve McQueen's previous films (Hunger and Shame) a lot more if he had dropped the pretentiousness, reeled in the drawn out scenes and realised that what he thinks is "art" the majority of the public would describe as "arse". Thankfully, 12 Years A Slave is affectation less McQueen, though with the subject matter of this film being slave era America, it's safe to say that even McQueen knows that this is no time for self indulgence. Adapted from the 1853 memoir of the same name by Solomon Northup, the film focuses on Northup's (Chiwetel Ejiofor) ordeal as he's kidnapped as a free man and sold into slavery. This is an impressive film, which McQueen doing justice to Northup's story with as meticulous an eye to detail as the productions research could uncover, ranging from the historically accurate clothes to the employment of dialogue coaches to capture the intonations of the time. In effect this is a documentary of a person's life and with minutiae such as this we're a long way from Tarantino's bombastic approach in Django Unchained and the somewhat shameful grandstanding of Spielberg's Lincoln. Ejiofor is one of the best actors around when it comes to portraying dignity in the most inhuman situations and with a Scrabble winning support cast made up from Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch and Lupita Nyong'o the thesping is solid across the board. Arguably it's actually Sarah Paulson as the wife of Fassbender's unhinged plantation owner who is the most memorable character of all, smugly enjoying the trappings that were afforded to the fomenters of the slavery system, whilst also taking wicked pleasure in the mental and physical torture going on around her. You'll know from McQueens previous work (including his short films) that he isn't shy when it comes to showing the form of the human body and the abuses put upon it by ourselves and others and he doesn't hold back here with a number of near unbearable to watch whipping scenes. These scenes of brutality are a tough watch, though it's actually the sideways glances at the era that are the most disturbing at all (one moment has Northup stumble across a lynching in a woods which is portrayed as a simple daily run of the mill occurrence). The film isn't without it's faults though. Sometimes the more belligerent players veer towards caricatures and Hans Zimmer's score is one of his most unmemorable for a long time. Also, though this is now being put forward as a touchstone film that everyone should see in order to understand the history of that time, this does actually lack quite a bit of scope and, though it's always up to the individual person to investigate more themselves, the film could have been improved by touching more on the full scale of the slavery system at that time. Overall though this is what mainstream adult film making is all about, impressively achieved with a budget of under 20 million dollars as well. Rating: 8/10.