Film & TV
TRAILERS: 6 films in UAE cinemas this week
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (18)
You do have to hand it to Tom Cruise. Whatever misgivings one may have about his increasingly oddball off-screen persona, he is still able to pick action roles he can inhabit with a conviction few can match. He was terrific in Oblivion, decent in Edge of Tomorrow and entirely believable in Jack Reacher. A second outing for the latter, then, is very welcome news. Having cleared an accused assassin in the first film, Jack is now out to save himself. Violently.
In cinemas from October 20
Zach Galifianakis is certainly in the news at the moment, what with the release of Masterminds, a documentary about (of all things) gerrymandering and his Between Two Ferns interview with Hillary Clinton. The slapstick comic actor is back to type here, though, as one half of an ordinary suburban couple (alongside Isla Fisher) who discover their glamorous neighbours are covert operatives – Mr and Mrs Smith style.
In cinemas from October 20
Liam Hemsworth is a likeable chap, as we know at ShortList only too well, so his role as a Texas Ranger seeking to bring to justice Woody Harrelson’s Abraham Brand – wanted for a string of murders, one of which was of his father 16 years before – makes sense. But what ought to be a linear tale of good guy gets bad guy in post-Civil War America is unnecessarily muddied by myriad plot deviations, leaving the sense of a good opportunity missed.
In cinemas now
A schlocky, back-and-forth horror yarn about a group of young friends whose limousine has been forced off the road and into a canal by a gang of kidnappers. The confined-space drama has been done well before – Ryan Reynolds’ Buried for one – but the constant time-shifting of Steven C Miller’s direction impacts any sense of claustrophia, as does the inane dialogue between teens who ought to show a little more urgency. Fine but flawed.
In cinemas from October 20
Café Society (18)
Since 1999’s outstanding Sweet and Lowdown, there’s been an element of pot-luck when buying a ticket for a Woody Allen movie. Sometimes you strike it rich – Match Point, Blue Jasmine – but more usually, it’s a chronic anticlimax – Vicky Christina Barcelona, Scoop. Thankfully, this veers towards the former, with Jesse Eisenberg convincing as the young hopeful in 1930s Hollywood – although Kristen Stewart is the real revelation here.
The latest Dan Brown novel to get the big-screen treatment is hardly a shoo-in for critical acceptance, but there’s no denying that he understands how to spin a decent yarn – however ridiculous the premise. Inferno might lack the religious mystique of The Da Vinci Code, but in the hands of Ron Howard and with Tom Hanks back as Robert Langdon, and a backdrop of Dante’s 14th century poem, this race to save humanity is popcorn-chewing fun. Felicity Jones adds some youthful vigour.
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