Brighton Rock

2010’s Brighton Rock is a massive disappointment. Despite nice period detail and a great cast it is unbelievably boring.

Sam Riley plays Pinky, a member of a Brighton gang who after killing a rival gang member, befriends Angela Riseborough’s Rose in order to keep an eye on her as she has witnessed the gangs behaviour before the murder. She falls head over heels in love with Pinky and the film charts their relationship and Pinky’s subsequent role within the gang.

1960s Brighton looks wonderful here and the clothes, hair and makeup all look genuine. It is a very nice film to look at. Angela Riseborough is the pick of the cast, outshining the likes of Helen Mirren and John Hurt. She is wonderful as a shy and impressionable young waitress who falls for the sociopathic Pinky. Riley’s Pinky is deeply unlikeable and without any redeeming features. He is played well by Riley. Andy Serkis plays rival gang leader Colleoni and is also wonderful. The acting as a whole is marvellous but the film is just so boring. I couldn’t engage with the film and didn’t care what happened to any of the characters.

The transportation of the film to the 1960s to coincide with the Mods and Rockers clashes seemed pointless. There was no reason for it to have been set in that time and would have worked just as well if it had been set in the 1940s like the original. The film didn’t make any use of its time change. Sam Riley is also too old to have played the character in my view. Riseborough looks and acts like a girl in her late teens or early twenties but Riley looks about thirty. He is too old to be an up and coming gangster.

5/10

The Grey

I read somewhere the other day that in the last three years, Liam Neeson has had more number one movies than Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Matt Damon, George Clooney or Denzel Washington. This is down to movies such as The Grey. It is a no nonsense stupid action movie that draws in the teenage and young adult audience like a chav to a velour tracksuit.

Neeson plays John Ottway, who is employed by an oil company to kill wolves in the wilds of Alaska. During a flight back to Anchorage, the plane crashes, killing most on board but leaving a few survivors to fend off the isolation, bitter cold and a pack of ravenous wolves who seem hell bent on killing everyone. Joining Ottway in his quest for survival are a bunch of typical action movie characters; there’s a cocky, arrogant man who learns cooperation is better than going it along, an annoying, say what you think guy, a geeky type with glasses and a notepad and a few more cliché characters who have the task of speaking briefly with Neeson before being eaten alive. 

Fight for survival

The freezing Alaskan landscape creeps into the audience during the film. It feels very cold! You feel like the actors were really there, freezing their bits off. A faulty multiplex heating system also helps add to the cold feeling so I have our local Cineworld to thank for the freezo-vision.

The animatronic and CGI wolves look quite realistic and behave in a menacing way throughout. The human actors are also quite good and there is an unexpected emotional scene just after the crash which surprised me. It was really good.

The plot is fairly formulaic. It is obvious that the men will be picked off one by one until there is only one left, and I bet you can’t guess who that one will be? This being said, the ending was very satisfying. The film happily wastes 117 minutes of your life and goes along at a decent pace. There are some silly bits and plot holes and it is extremely annoying when Neeson, who is obviously in the wolf’s den, almost turns to camera and says “I’m in the fucking wolfs den!” But other than this, The Grey is thoroughly enjoyable. 

7/10