Monty Pigeon
Striker
No, not seen that. I'll stick it on the list.
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SMB Film Thread 2025
- Thread starter Fletch73
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- Status
No, not seen that. I'll stick it on the list.
FlyingLotus
Midfield
Bradshaw and spoilers? Surely not!
If he publishes a memoir it should be called "It's a sled, he's a ghost, he's his Dad, he's imaginary, her head's in the box, they're twins, it's not his mother it's him"
Doogie Hauser
Midfield
Cloak and Dagger (1946)
Gary Cooper’s scientist is tasked by the OSS with contacting nuclear scientists in enemy territory.
Pretty good. I found it slightly too long, and the ending would have been better left to Fritz Lang, but there are some good scenes throughout. The fist fight was very well filmed, and the atmospheric photography shone.
7/10
Gary Cooper’s scientist is tasked by the OSS with contacting nuclear scientists in enemy territory.
Pretty good. I found it slightly too long, and the ending would have been better left to Fritz Lang, but there are some good scenes throughout. The fist fight was very well filmed, and the atmospheric photography shone.
7/10
Motor City Cobra
Striker
Warfare
Latest from Alex garland
Poulter and cosmo
Loved it - 90 minutes of intensity. Based on a military operation in Iraq, actual story based on the memories of those that were there.
Loud and brutal at times.
9/10
Latest from Alex garland
Poulter and cosmo
Loved it - 90 minutes of intensity. Based on a military operation in Iraq, actual story based on the memories of those that were there.
Loud and brutal at times.
9/10
MSC
Striker
Good review.
A Fair Way of putting it tbh.
Doogie Hauser
Midfield
Always have a soft spot for Alex Garland due to his love of Digitiser back in the day.
Strongroom (1962)
Very low budget British B, with Derren Nesbitt leading a trio of vault breakers at a bank. They lock the manager and a clerk in the vault while they make their getaway.
Part suspense, part farce, this is quite an effective little film. The way the problems unravel and mount up is ridiculous, but it makes sense as long as you suspend disbelief. Nesbitt plays his part well, with an attack of conscience forcing him to address the issue that they’ve effectively sentenced two people to death, and will face a murder rap if they die. I enjoyed the last 10 minutes a lot. A good, old-fashioned cheap and cheerful thriller with an escalating sense of urgency.
6.5/10
Dilemma (1962)
Peter Halliday comes home from work. His wife is missing. There’s a dying bloke in the bathroom, and a pair of scissors covered in blood. He does what any husband would do: bury the body under the floorboards.
Oddball nonsensical drama with some goddawful acting and genuinely annoying characters. The entire premise is absurd, and the way it plays out is intensely annoying in places. The internal logic of the motive makes sense, but it’s just too daft to be suspenseful, with several moments of comedic relief and some cheesy music undermining the severity of the scenario. It just doesn’t know what it wants to be.
4/10
Havoc (2025)
Damn it. I really love Gareth Evans’ early stuff. The two Raid films are excellent pieces of OTT action cinema, constructed from the best of the kung fu and heroic bloodshed genres.
This should work. So much of it doesn’t, though. I’ll get the whinges out of the way first:
- the characters are thoroughly dislikable. Hardy’s has zero connect with the audience. He’s just a gruff shaven head with no charisma.
- the story has the simple ingredients to work, but the execution is messy. Basic things are badly explained and confusing.
- the shaky-cam. I mean, come on, Gareth. What’s this shit all about? You didn’t used to do this. The Raid films had long cuts and pan outs. This featured far too much camera movement. As usual, it masks the relative lack of skills from the performers.
- the colour palette is messy, and the music too intrusive in places.
I enjoyed the film on the whole, but it feels like a missed opportunity. It was too dimly lit, there was too much chaos, and the characters really dragged the premise down. I’m used to absurd levels of balletic gunplay, featuring barn-door assailants, and people taking hilarious levels of damage, but I didn’t care about any of these dwabs.
Evans badly need an Iko Uwais and the Indonesian stunt team to create clearer action sequences. Or, if the focus is on gunplay, the team behind The Night Comes For Us (2018), which features insane levels of bullet-sponging. I hope he leaves the shaky-cam nonsense alone in future.
5.5/10
Strongroom (1962)
Very low budget British B, with Derren Nesbitt leading a trio of vault breakers at a bank. They lock the manager and a clerk in the vault while they make their getaway.
Part suspense, part farce, this is quite an effective little film. The way the problems unravel and mount up is ridiculous, but it makes sense as long as you suspend disbelief. Nesbitt plays his part well, with an attack of conscience forcing him to address the issue that they’ve effectively sentenced two people to death, and will face a murder rap if they die. I enjoyed the last 10 minutes a lot. A good, old-fashioned cheap and cheerful thriller with an escalating sense of urgency.
6.5/10
Dilemma (1962)
Peter Halliday comes home from work. His wife is missing. There’s a dying bloke in the bathroom, and a pair of scissors covered in blood. He does what any husband would do: bury the body under the floorboards.
Oddball nonsensical drama with some goddawful acting and genuinely annoying characters. The entire premise is absurd, and the way it plays out is intensely annoying in places. The internal logic of the motive makes sense, but it’s just too daft to be suspenseful, with several moments of comedic relief and some cheesy music undermining the severity of the scenario. It just doesn’t know what it wants to be.
4/10
Havoc (2025)
Damn it. I really love Gareth Evans’ early stuff. The two Raid films are excellent pieces of OTT action cinema, constructed from the best of the kung fu and heroic bloodshed genres.
This should work. So much of it doesn’t, though. I’ll get the whinges out of the way first:
- the characters are thoroughly dislikable. Hardy’s has zero connect with the audience. He’s just a gruff shaven head with no charisma.
- the story has the simple ingredients to work, but the execution is messy. Basic things are badly explained and confusing.
- the shaky-cam. I mean, come on, Gareth. What’s this shit all about? You didn’t used to do this. The Raid films had long cuts and pan outs. This featured far too much camera movement. As usual, it masks the relative lack of skills from the performers.
- the colour palette is messy, and the music too intrusive in places.
I enjoyed the film on the whole, but it feels like a missed opportunity. It was too dimly lit, there was too much chaos, and the characters really dragged the premise down. I’m used to absurd levels of balletic gunplay, featuring barn-door assailants, and people taking hilarious levels of damage, but I didn’t care about any of these dwabs.
Evans badly need an Iko Uwais and the Indonesian stunt team to create clearer action sequences. Or, if the focus is on gunplay, the team behind The Night Comes For Us (2018), which features insane levels of bullet-sponging. I hope he leaves the shaky-cam nonsense alone in future.
5.5/10
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Motor City Cobra
Striker
Bring them down. 7/10
Uk/Irish film.
Barry keoghan
About to families in rural Ireland who don’t get in at all - it escalates, badly. Told from two different perspectives.
Really enjoyed it, Keoghan a is clearly a talented actor but he sleep
Walked this as the usual strange young fella role - lad could do with some different casting for me like.
Uk/Irish film.
Barry keoghan
About to families in rural Ireland who don’t get in at all - it escalates, badly. Told from two different perspectives.
Really enjoyed it, Keoghan a is clearly a talented actor but he sleep
Walked this as the usual strange young fella role - lad could do with some different casting for me like.
Speakeasy
Full Back
Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning
2hrs 45mins of absolute switch-your-brain-off nonsense from start to finish. I bloody LOVED it! Had me absolutely gripped, even though you know fine well it's all gonna somehow work out in the end. Loses 1 point for the villain guy (Gabriel) not being a very strong character.
9/10
2hrs 45mins of absolute switch-your-brain-off nonsense from start to finish. I bloody LOVED it! Had me absolutely gripped, even though you know fine well it's all gonna somehow work out in the end. Loses 1 point for the villain guy (Gabriel) not being a very strong character.
9/10
Motor City Cobra
Striker
Same for dead reckoning. Great action. Car chase is one of the best.
TZMouk
Striker
That was my rating of it too, absolutely flew by. Think it'll be an Oscar winner for sound design (if that's a category).
Also watched Death of a Unicorn recently - bit of a mess of a film with too many different elements, but I kind of liked them all, think it would have been a better film if it fully committed to one genre - 6.5/10.
Doogie Hauser
Midfield
Sold. Love Bogarde and Baker.
Another trio of cheapies…
The Impersonator (1961)
John Crawford is a USAF officer stationed near the town of Jane Griffiths. He arranges to take her to a dance at the base, but there’s a mess up with the timings, so he takes cafe owner Patricia Burke instead, who winds up dead. He has to exonerate himself.
Not bad at all. Features one of the most annoying kids in the world, but the characters are mostly likeable, and there’s some good lighting in the night scenes. A couple of dud story beats couldn’t spoil my enjoyment. Frank Thornton appears in a small role as a desk sergeant.
5.5/10
Clue of the Twisted Candle (1960)
The first in my new Edgar Wallace Mysteries boxset. The machinations of Francis de Wolff land his business partner David Knight in the nick. Bernard Lee isn’t convinced, so starts to investigate.
The pacing is a mixed bag, and there’s several narrative leaps just seemingly thrown into the ether that have very little build up. The denouement features a lot of very telegraphable reveals and feels old hat, but then it’s going to for a film 65 years old, based on an even older book. I enjoyed this film as an old-fashioned, rather naive time capsule. Despite its flaws, it was nicely entertaining. Lee holds the whole thing together effortlessly.
6/10
Marriage of Convenience (1960)
The second on the Edgar Wallace boxset.
John Cairney is given special permission to marry is girlfriend despite being in the nick. He makes a getaway from the registry office on a scooter and ends up at Russell Waters’ chop shop. He is horrified to discover that his real girlfriend (Moira Redmond) has done a runner with another man and the 20k Cairney was convicted of stealing. He sets out to discover where they’ve gone, while being pursued by Harry H Corbett’s detective.
This held my interest entirely from start to finish. The web of links established gradually between characters is engaging, and the performances pretty good throughout. I was pleased with myself for identifying John Cairney through voice alone. He played Hylas in Jason and the Argonauts. After that I began to notice his visual similarity to a Technicolor performer dressed in Ancient Greek garb. Corbett gives a glimpse of what he was capable of before Steptoe. There’s a briskness to this film that I liked a great deal, and the location work at the end is appealing. Good stuff.
7/10
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Motor City Cobra
Striker
Greyhound - Apple tv
8/10.
Tom Hanks and small part for Stephen Graham.
Ww2 film based on the Atlantic crossings - this one is 37 ships and the danger of the u boats, particularly when vunerablewhen they have no air cover.
Hanks is the captain of an American destroyer leading the Convoy.
After 10 minutes pretty much non stop action - some brilliant scenes out in the Atlantic. Really enjoyed it.
8/10.
Tom Hanks and small part for Stephen Graham.
Ww2 film based on the Atlantic crossings - this one is 37 ships and the danger of the u boats, particularly when vunerablewhen they have no air cover.
Hanks is the captain of an American destroyer leading the Convoy.
After 10 minutes pretty much non stop action - some brilliant scenes out in the Atlantic. Really enjoyed it.
MSC
Striker
Excellent. Going to watch it this week. Cheers
Harry Gates
Winger
Mention of John Crawford made me remember...
Hell Is A City 1960 dir Val Guest.
The ever brilliant Stanley Baker and a cast of the usuals including Sting's fil.
Gritty robbery drama with Baker as our "hero" cop.
Hammer Production with Crawford superb as well.
7/10. Film4 iirc.
Hell Is A City 1960 dir Val Guest.
The ever brilliant Stanley Baker and a cast of the usuals including Sting's fil.
Gritty robbery drama with Baker as our "hero" cop.
Hammer Production with Crawford superb as well.
7/10. Film4 iirc.
Doogie Hauser
Midfield
Great film. Solid 8 for me. Again, Baker being absolutely excellent.
Monty Pigeon
Striker
The Thieves (2012) 5/10
Korean answer to Ocean's 11. In this case, gangs in Korea and China team up for a heist in Macau. Too many characters, too many double-crosses.
The Eel (1997) 9/10
A Japanese salaryman gets an anonymous letter telling him his wife has a male visitor whenever he goes night fishing. He returns early, finds her in bed with the man, and kills her. Years later, after release from prison, he attempts to make a new start. Excellent, slow-burning drama from Shohei Imamura.
A Damsel in Distress (1937) 6/10
Music by the Gershwins, story by PG Wodehouse. But some terrible English accents, and Joan Fontaine is a useless dancer (Ginger Rogers was taking a break, so Fontaine stood in for her as Fred Astaire's partner). Not worth sitting through the whole thing, but this Astaire set-piece is a belter:
Korean answer to Ocean's 11. In this case, gangs in Korea and China team up for a heist in Macau. Too many characters, too many double-crosses.
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The Eel (1997) 9/10
A Japanese salaryman gets an anonymous letter telling him his wife has a male visitor whenever he goes night fishing. He returns early, finds her in bed with the man, and kills her. Years later, after release from prison, he attempts to make a new start. Excellent, slow-burning drama from Shohei Imamura.
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A Damsel in Distress (1937) 6/10
Music by the Gershwins, story by PG Wodehouse. But some terrible English accents, and Joan Fontaine is a useless dancer (Ginger Rogers was taking a break, so Fontaine stood in for her as Fred Astaire's partner). Not worth sitting through the whole thing, but this Astaire set-piece is a belter:
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