A searing biopic of rap icons NWA, Zac Efron's electronic music drama, a video game adaptation and a beautifully observed character study - here are this week's film reviews. Don't spill your nachos without reading!
Straight Outta Compton ***1/2
Director: F Gary Gray
Starring: O'Shea Jackson Jr, Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, Neil Brown Jr, Paul Giamatti, Aldis Hodge, Marlon Yates Jr, R Marcos Taylor, Alexandra Shipp
Duration: 147 minutes
Cert: 15A
F Gary Gray's long-awaited film about west coast rappers NWA biopic has all the ingredients of a great music biopic but it tells a story that may be less than palatable to a wider American public. Straight Outta Compton is fast, smart and funny, and it's also a sharp reminder of a time when rap really was the soundtrack of an oppressed generation of black America...
Read Alan Corr's full review here.
We Are Your Friends **
Director: Max Joseph
Starring: Zac Efron, Wes Bentley, Emily Ratajkowski, Jonny Weston, Shiloh Fernandez, Alex Shaffer
Duration: 96 minutes
Cert: 16
We Are Your Friends centres on a 23-year-old DJ named Cole Carter (Zac Efron) who is struggling to make a name for himself in the world of electronic music. He lives in Los Angeles with three of his childhood friends, and they spend their days promoting a club night and trying to make enough money to move out of "the Valley". Cole's life changes when he meets James (Wes Bentley), a charming older DJ who takes him under his wing. Things get complicated when Cole starts to fall for James's girlfriend Sophie (Emily Ratajkowski), forcing him to make some tough choices about his future...
Read Kayla Walsh's full review here.
Hitman: Agent 47 **
Director: Aleksander Bach
Starring: Rupert Friend, Zachary Quinto, Ciarán Hinds
Duration: 96 minutes
Cert: 15A
Rupert Friend, Zachary Quinto and Ciarán Hinds – on the face it, a fine cast for any film. But a fine cast can only do so much with a script that has more deaths per minute than dialogue. And there's an impressive body count here that would make for a very dangerous drinking game. Based on the Hitman video game series, this version was written by Skip Woods. He wrote the original 2007 adaptation, and his CV includes A Good Day to Die Hard. Both of those films were panned by critics...
Read John Byrne's full review here.
45 Years ****
Director: Andrew Haigh
Starring: Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay
Duration: 95 minutes
Cert: 15A
Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay are Kate and Geoff, a couple who have weathered 45 years of marriage together. However, in the days leading up to their anniversary party, the arrival of a letter threatens their intimacy and trust. Directed by Andrew Haigh - who attracted much praise for his 2011 debut, Weekend - and based on a David Constantine story, 45 Years is an absorbing take on old age, its frustrations and small pleasures...
Read Paddy Kehoe's full review here.
Miss Julie ***
Director: Liv Ullmann
Starring: Colin Farrell, Jessica Chastain, Samantha Morton
Duration: 129 minutes
Cert: Club
Liv Ullmann should write a fresh screenplay and forget about adapting Strindberg. Yes, put Colin Farrell in it and Samantha Morton and Jessica Chastain if she wants, but dream up something new. Surely she is well capable, having worked closely over many years with the late, great auteur, Ingmar Bergman in those tormented, angsty films of the 1970s. Liv was the star, powerful and vulnerable at once in masterpieces like Persona, Cries and Whispers, Face to Face and my personal favourite at the time, A Passion. Along with the films of Truffaut and Fellini, some of Bergman’s creations numbered among the greatest European films of the late-ish twentieth century...
Read Paddy Kehoe's full review here.
Also on release
The Wolfpack ****
Director: Crystal Moselle
Starring: Bhagavan Angulo, Govinda Angulo, Jagadisa Angulo, Krsna Angulo, Mukunda Angulo, Narayana Angulo, Susanne Angulo, Oscar Angulo
Duration: 89 minutes
Cert: 15A
Talk about haunting. You won't forget the Angulo brothers after spending some time in their lair in The Wolfpack, and such is the impact of Crystal Moselle's documentary that the Oscars red carpet probably beckons for the first-time director and her six subjects. Probably? Well, Senna didn't get a nomination in 2012, and 2016 would also be all the poorer if this must-see isn't in the shake-up. It's a character study meets cautionary tale, one that explores parents' fears, children's dreams, the corrosive effects of isolation and, ironically, the escapism of cinema...
Read Harry Guerin's full review here.
Vacation *
Director: John Francis Daley, Jonathan M Goldstein
Starring: Ed Helms, Christina Applegate, Chevy Chase, Chris Hemsworth, Leslie Mann, Steele Stebbins, Charlie Day, Beverly D'Angelo, Skyler Gisondo, Norman Reedus
Duration: 99 minutes
Cert: 15A
This reboot of Harold Ramis' 1983 classic National Lampoon's Vacation rehashes the central plot of the original but loses the heartfelt family sentiment along the way. Fans of the original get ready for some nostalgia! Just like dad Clark (Chevy Chase) before him, Rusty Griswold (Helms) wants to take his wife Debbie (Applegate) and their two kids - sensitive, guitar-strumming teenager James (Gisondo) and potty-mouthed rascal Kevin (Stebbins) - on a cross-country road trip to Walley World to relive the best vacation of his childhood...
Read Laura Delaney's review here.
Sinister 2 **
Director: Ciaran Foy
Duration: 96 minutes
Cert: 16
Sinister 2 is a sequel to the 2012 horror film, but this time around it was directed by Irishman Ciaran Foy. Foy got the job via Twitter – a story which is sadly more interesting than the film itself.
The plot focuses on a single mother and her 9-year-old twins, who move into a haunted house where the children are tormented by the demon Bughuul (otherwise known as the Bogeyman or Mr. Boogie). Bughuul and his cohort of possessed children lure the less bratty of the twins, Dylan, into the basement every night. There he watches a horrific collection of snuff films made by the kids. The idea is that Dylan will eventually murder his family and add his own homemade flick to the pile. Watch out for the twist!
Read Kayla Walsh's full review here.
The Great Wall ****
Director: Tadhg O’Sullivan
Duration: 74 minutes
The Great Wall is brave, provocative cinema which deals with the tragic situation of the influx of immigrants into Europe - ever more topical with each day that passes. Topical the subject may be, but the film appears to shirk topicality and news-worthiness to make its point with more force and subtlety. It avoids the standard news footage, because it knows intuitively that most of us have seen the images of crowded boats, of disoriented families clinging together on quays in Sicily, or trying to survive long enough in the water to make landfall on Greek islands. We have seen this material, but The Great Wall wants us to think in a sensation-free zone...
Read Paddy Kehoe's full review here.
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