Category Archives: Crime

Feb 23 2026
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

The General (1998).

Brendan Gleeson is one of the finest out there and even in a stinker he’s never the one doing the stinking.

Jon Voight, best known these days as an outspoken MAGA acolyte, has his considerable talents on display as our protagonist’s Gardaí nemesis, the Nineties his thesp Indian summer. This and his barking turn in Anaconda (1997) is a mighty double bill I would recommend to anyone.

The black and white works, it’s frequently thrilling, and he’s a very funny character who maintains your interest.

Superb movie.

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Dec 22 2025
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Monkey Man (2024).

What a title for a movie and this is what caught my flagging attention when sieving through the shambolic content we have for streaming. The crap littering the landscape is rather outrageous and this needs to stop.

I was dubious Monkey Man (2024) would be any good – but then one, that is I, never approaches a movie with an open mind and I refuse to watch a film if the poster insults me.

A rags-to-relative-riches yarn, our resourceful hero surmounts the shackles of social stratification (accidental alliteration) by using his primary skill: the fact that he’s lethal, a Jason Bourne type … donning a monkey mask. The action is hair-raising stuff; seldom has brutal hand-to-hand scrappage looked so soothing, if you’re into that kind of thing. The movie has a heart, though. Our lad loses the mask – the beatings he takes imbued with elements of latent masochism – and becomes all he can be.

Recommended.

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Dec 12 2025
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Film

Patriot Games (1992).

Sean Bean is the villain. And he dies. This isn’t even a spoiler as it’s a given, for we are in the ’90s and this Mr. Bean was the go-to bad boy when a thriller needed a bit of Sheffield rough.

He’s actually okay in this, despite his wandering accent.

But Harrison Ford looks bored as hell. Everyone else looks bored. The Irish Peace Process looks bored.

I was also bored.

Boring movie.

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Dec 08 2025
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Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies

Blank Check (1994).

I watched this abomination of a movie because someone (British) said “blank cheque” on the bus, but that’s by the by.

The viewing was a major mistake, for this was definitely one of the worst nostalgia trips I’ve subjected myself to. 

Horrible little film. 

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Nov 24 2025
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

The Player (1992).

The master of the slow zoom and the overlapping conversation, frequently several happening at once, Robert Altman’s very amusing, freewheeling thriller is half satire, a director taking the absolute piss and slandering his own environment. 

It’s peerless entertainment and one of his most enduring works. 

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Nov 03 2025
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Why Julianne Moore is almost top billing in The Fugitive (1993) – answered at last.

Thank you, IMDB. This has bothered me for decades:

‘Originally, Julianne Moore’s character had a bigger role in the film, even after she exposes him briefly. Kimble was to have sought her out for help and eventually fall for her. These scenes were filmed and deleted from the final cut of the film. This is the reason that her name is still credited as one of the main stars of the picture.’

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Oct 20 2025
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies

Urban Legend (1998).

It’s definitely not Scream (1996). It’s certainly not I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997). It’s not even Cherry Falls (1999). This is not good in any way, as derivative and formulaic as they come, a copycat slasher from the late ’90s churn-them-out age. These pictures are meant to scary, or at least attempt to purport to be. This mess isn’t, but remains a peculiarity because tripe like this was once made. And continues to be shat out in great buckets. 

The movie’s risible/mad premise is that all these students of a certain university campus sit around chatting constantly about urban legends in a movie called Urban Legend, even discussing urban legends with a class lecturer who looks scarily like Freddy Krueger. How postmodern! With all the urban legend-inspired murders of thoroughly stabbable ‘characters’ played by C-list irritants, there isn’t time for anything else; not a single conversation in this pointless morsel of trash alludes to the wider world, a reality outside of their wee sorority of … urban legends.

Regrettably, Brad Dourif stutters up regurgitating his Billy Bibbit act from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975). Weird. 

I hate urban legends but I hated this movie more.

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Oct 13 2025
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies, Technology, Uncategorized

The Conversation (1974).

With the films of Alan J. Pakula, The Conversation (1974) sits right in the middle of Watergate as a dark inspiration, and you couldn’t get a more clinical, claustrophobic portrait of paranoia.

Hackman is masterful. His character’s job and the perfectionism he demands is his entire life, and once he makes mistakes, succumbing to emotions that compromise his skills, he is at a loss, a petrified wreck, playing his saxophone in a torn-to-pieces-apartment. 

It’s one of Coppola’s few original scripts and one wonders at the output if he did more of that. There is so much going on in this film, from the moody low-key jazz score to the extraordinary sound design, and it’s a movie obsessed with the peculiarities of its era. 

The twist ending is just shocking and I must confess I never saw it coming. 

And Harrison Ford is in it. 

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Sep 20 2025
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies

Danny Dyer.

How this lad is somehow an ‘actor’ will never cease to beguile me.

Bye for now.

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Sep 08 2025
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Art, Cinema, Crime, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized, United States

The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990).

First viewing after years of hearing the most scathing reviews, and they’re not wrong.

I thought Brian De Palma was meant to engulf daft, badly scripted projects with his patented style; whatever happened, the movie is that of visual neglect, as anonymous as the work of the next hack.

I didn’t get any of it. Was it satire? Was it meant to be funny? Was there an underlying point to anything?

I didn’t believe a moment of the picture and even the title vexed me.

It’s as shite as they say, and Tom Hanks is as awful here as he has been anywhere else.

Rubbish.

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