David R. Walker

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To Catch a Killer

Director: Damian Szifron

Cast: Shailene Woodley , Ben Mendelsohn, Ralph Ineson, Jovan Adepo, Jason Cavalier, Rosemary Dunsmore, Mark Camacho

Running Time: 1 hour and 59 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

PLEASE NOTE THIS FILM MIGHT ALSO BE KNOWN AS MISANTHROPE

IN OTHER WORLD TERRITORIES.

Argentinian Oscar winning director of Wild Tales, Damian Szifron directs his first English Language film: a murky and bloody detective story, To Catch a Killer starring Golden Globe nominee Shailene Woodley (The Descendants, Big Little Lies) as a rookie cop Eleanor Falco in Baltimore, Maryland who teams up with veteran FBI investigator Lamar, brilliantly played with a maverick style flair by Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn (Animal Kingdom, The Dark Knight Rises).

The pair team up with an arsonist investigator Mackenzie played by Babylon star Jovan Adepo when a lone marksman shoots 29 people dead in various Baltimore skyscrapers on New Year’s Eve.

The Trio upon increasing pressure from the FBI and city authorities are racing against time to find the perpetrator before another massacre occurs. That happens very soon in a city shopping mall, whereby the suspected killer is cornered in a food court and resorts to extreme violence to escape.

To Catch a Killer is a relevant film to watch at the time when America is experiencing its worse wave of gun violence in US history, with mass killings happening on a weekly basis in almost every state of the country. This film asks relevant questions. Why should individuals with severe mental illness or disabilities be allowed to carry heavy guns and deadly rifles? Why aren’t the laws in America strict enough? It’s a complex issue for a country of that size whereby the gun laws differ from state to state.

As a film, Szifron keeps the cinematic palette dark and saturated with murky colours adding a sombre ambience to a film about death and mass killings. Fortunately both Shailene Woodley and Ben Mendelsohn are talented actors to keep this distressing detective film engaging and thrilling. The best scenes in the film are between the two main leads.

Woodley is superb as the recovering drug addict turned investigator and Mendelsohn is excellent as the flamboyant lead detective on a prolific case which ultimately consumes his personal and professional life.

To Catch a Killer has enough plot twists to keep audiences guessing and when the killer is finally revealed, his blandness and ordinary status as an ex-abattoir worker makes his final confession even more chilling and psychopathic. In this case, the banality of evil is done for its own sake without any moral justification or redemption.

This film highlights the epidemic of gun violence currently sweeping America, the role that the media plays in this and the devastating personal cost which happens to the victims who are senselessly murdered and to the survivors that are traumatically left behind.

As Lamar says to Eleanor at the film’s beginning, “Opinions never caught anyone, but good detective works does”.

To Catch a Killer is an exciting but bleak look at gun violence, microscopic detective work and the toll that mass killings takes on a society. The film gets a rating of 7 out of 10 and will appeal to audiences that enjoy a gritty American detective story.

John Wick 4

Director: Chad Stahelski

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Lance Reddick, Donnie Yen, Ian McShane, Bill Skarsgard, Clancy Brown, Hiroyuki Sanada, Rina Sawayama, Shamier Anderson

Running Time: 2 hours 49 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

After the success of John Wick 2 and 3, director Chad Stahelski accelerates the style and the action in John Wick 4 elevating the high powered action film to another level including shooting the film in stunning locations including Osaka, Japan; Morocco, Paris and Berlin.

With a bigger budget than John Wick 3, Keanu Reeves reprises his most famous role as the lethal assassin who has to battle an ambitious young Marquis in France, wonderfully played by Swedish actor Bill Skarsgard (Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2) who decides to destroy the Continental in New York, the safe haven luxury hotel for assassins in a murky Manhattan and upsetting the carefully orchestrated order of assassins, an ornate mythology which director Stahelski explores as the action moves swiftly to Osaka, whereby the Marquis attempts the same disruption in Japan.

In Osaka, John Wick meets the head of the Japanese Continental, Shimazu played by famed Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada (Mortal Kombat, Bullet Train, Mr Holmes) and his daughter Akira played by Rina Sawayama. Naturally the Osaka Continental doesn’t fall without a vicious fight as the Marquis’s French army battle it out with Japanese assassins armed with Samurai swords and lethal skill. Basically everyone brings a knife to a gun fight.

If that wasn’t thrilling enough, the fast paced action of John Wick 4, quickly moves from Japan whereby Wick encounters Caine, a blind assassin brilliantly played by Chinese star Donnie Yen (Mulan, Rogue One, Shanghai Knights) who is being paid to kill Wick, to the nightclubs of Berlin and to some iconic locations in Paris including the Louvre and Le Sacre Couer.

What is really impressive in John Wick 4, is the stylistic elevation of the entire narrative particularly creating scenes that are beautiful and entrenched in imagery. The scene between Bill Skarsgard and Ian McShane comes to mind in the Louvre. It’s a simple dialogue scene but director Chad Stahelski elevates the scene to something extraordinarily beautiful and sinister. The same can be said for the astounding car chase scene which is phenomenal, shot at the extremely busy infamous roundabout in central Paris at the base of the Arc de’Triomphe.

After John Wick reunites with his Belarussian underworld family, and on the advice of Winston played by Ian McShane and with assistance of the Bowery King, played once again by Laurence Fishburne, Wick challenges the Marquis to a pistol duel at dawn on the steps of the Le Sacre Couer in Paris. What precedes this dual is brilliant fight sequences, an unbelievable car chase and enough guns and knives to make this action film really worth seeing for those that like their films bloody and violent. And there is a vicious dog.

John Wick 4 excels on every level, technically as an action film and stylistically as an incredibly exotic and fast paced chronology of an underworld which is brutally shifting taking few survivors.

John Wick 4 gets a film rating of 8 out of 10 and is highly recommended viewing for those that enjoyed the first 3 films. This one is truly exceptional and has to be seen on the big screen.

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Directors: John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein

Cast: Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Hugh Grant, Rege-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, Chloe Coleman, Daisy Head, Bradley Cooper

Running time: 2 hours and 14 minutes

Film Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Thank you to UIP for the invitation for the Film Premiere held at Suncoast Cinemas on Tuesday 28^th March 2023

Spiderman: Homecoming screenwriting duo John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein take on the director’s chair in the big screen adaptation of the role playing game Dungeons and Dragons in a lavish fantasy adaptation entitled Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves which premiered at the South by South West Film Festival in Austin, Texas in early March 2023 https://www.sxsw.com/ .

What the directing duo perfect at the beginning is the casting in Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves which features a gorgeous but funny male lead, Chris Pine (Hell or High Water, Wonder Woman) as Edgin, the manipulative hero and as the villainous and vain enemy, Forge wonderfully played with a British panache by Hugh Grant (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Florence Foster Jenkins).

In between the villain and the hero is a host of sidekicks characters including action woman Michelle Rodriguez taking a break from the Fast and Furious franchise to star as Holga, Chloe Colman to star as Edgin’s daughter Kira, screen newcomer Rege-Jean Page as the mysterious fighter Xenk, Justice Smith (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) as the young wizard Simon and the beautiful Sophia Lillis as the changeling Doric.

Filmed mostly in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the directing duo definitely take inspiration from HBO’s Game of Thrones and created a similar slightly medieval allegorical universe complete with dragons, both fat and vicious, mazes with strange creatures in it and wizardry galore but to make this pure fantasy epic work so brilliantly is the superb on screen chemistry between all the cast and particularly between Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez and of course between Hugh Grant and the rest of the cast as he tries to fool everyone into believing that Forge is a benevolent dictator, when in fact he is just a conman.

At 2 hours and 15 minutes, viewers will get their money’s worth in a dazzling and lavish fantasy epic which will suitably satisfy fans of the D and D games and its superb reincarnation as a cinema franchise. Most definitely the scriptwriters and directing duo had to make an impressive franchise debut which will attract fans of fantasy films and they have cleverly pivoted the storyline to attract younger viewers as they also hint at a potential sequel.

By far the funniest scene in the film is when Edgin and the gang visit the graves of dead soldiers as they try and resurrect the dead to question them about a vastly powerful helmet which can protect the wearer from pervading evil sorcery.

The film’s middle section could have been edited, but overall, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor among Thieves is a fantastic family action film bound to keep fans enthralled with its spectacular visual effects. For its pure fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor among Thieves gets a film rating of 7.5 out of 10 and is strictly recommended for fans of this genre.

Shazam! Fury of the Gods

Director: David F. Sandberg

Cast: Zachary Levi, Rachel Zegler, Helen Mirren, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Adam Brody, Lucy Liu, Djimon Hounsou, Ross Butler, D. J. Cotrona, Grace Caroline Currey, Gal Gadot , Meagan Good

Running Time: 2 hours and 10 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Swedish director David F. Sandberg returns to the Shazam franchise to make the highly anticipated sequel to the 2019 film, simply known as Shazam: Fury of the Gods.

The Gods in this case are the perilous daughters of Atlas, Anthea played by West Side Story star Rachel Zegler, Kalypso played by Lucy Liu (Kill Bill, Chicago, Charlie’s Angels) and the eldest sister Hespera oddly played by Oscar winner Helen Mirren (The Queen) who is quite surreal in a superhero film. However, Mirren does bring a certain gravitas to a film which is primarily aimed at school kids. The scenes between Mirren and Levi are hilarious.

At the centre of Shazam: Fury of the Gods, is Shazam himself wonderfully played again by Zachary Levi in which his younger 18 year old self Billy Batson is played by Asher Angel, who along with his fellow superheroes including Freddy, the older version played by Adam Brody and the younger version brilliantly played by Jack Dylan Grazer, team up together to fight the evil Daughters of Atlas, who unbeknownst to the human population of Philadelphia decide to wreak havoc on the city.

Instruments of havoc for the Gods include ancient Greek creatures and a fearsome dragon which Kalypso loves to ride, referencing the infamous scenes from HBO’s Game of Thrones and more recently The House of the Dragon. During the epic battle scenes unicorns roam the streets of Philadelphia which elevates the film completely into fantasy.

Shazam tries to negotiate with Hespera at a fast food outlet only to be chucked against the wall, as all three daughters possess enormous unearthly powers. While the two older sisters aren’t looking, the beautiful Anthea wonderfully played by Rachel Zegler falls in love with the younger, slightly awkward teenage Freddy superbly played by Jack Dylan Grazer, who at nearly twenty years old is a talent to watch. The onscreen chemistry between Zegler and Grazer grounds the visual effects heavy superhero film and gives the narrative a positive romantic shine, unexpected in most comic book capers. Then again there is always the crush that Shazam has on a more powerful superhero: Wonder Woman.

Unlike the menacing world of director Matt Reeves’s excellent film The Batman, Warner Brothers Discovery Studio decided to make a brighter superhero film and in that respect Shazam: Fury of the Gods delivers a fantastically entertaining film which is perfect for light entertainment. If viewers don’t take the film too seriously, then they will find it immensely enjoyable.

Shazam: Fury of the Gods gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and there is a wonderful surprise at the end as the DC Superhero universe continues to expand exponentially. Recommended viewing as a family film.

What’s Love Got to Do with it?

Director: Shekhar Kapur

Cast: Lily James, Shazad Latif, Emma Thompson, Oliver Chris, Sajal Ali, Alice Orr-Ewing

Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes

Film Rating: 6 out of 10

Pakistani director Shekhar Kapur made some commercially successful films with the impressive Elizabeth (1998) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) both starring Cate Blanchett, but his latest film with a title which is both unoriginal and boring, What’s Love Got to do with it? is a cross cultural romantic comedy fortunately saved by the performance of the two main leads Lily James (Yesterday, Baby Driver, Darkest Hour) as documentary film maker Zoe and Shazad Latif (The Man who Knew Infinity, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) as Kazim, a doctor in contemporary London.

Audiences should not get this film mixed up with the 1993 film of the same name starring an Oscar nominated Angela Bassett as Tina Turner opposite Laurence Fishburne.

The second title reincarnation of this film is a cross cultural love story which is both contrived and poorly written by screenwriter Jemima Khan. What’s Love Got to do with it? is billed as a romantic comedy although there is not much comedy in it besides a couple of goofy scenes by Zoe’s mother Cath awfully played by Oscar winner Emma Thompson (Howard’s End, Sense and Sensibility), who apart from Cruella has recently chosen some really dubious film roles. In actual fact, this was the worst I have seen Emma Thompson act in a film.

Fortunately Lily James is amazing as Zoe, a single documentary film maker who decides to take Kazim’s decision to embark on an arranged marriage with an unknown bride in Lahore, Pakistan as a fascinating subject matter for a documentary film. Except that this premise does fall flat as any documentary film maker should never fall in love with their subject matter?

The authenticity of Zoe as the film maker taking a peek into an essentially non-Western custom is questioned in terms of ethnographic film making. As Kazim says to Zoe in one of the better scenes of the film, that even though we are neighbours we are continents apart referring to the vast cultural differences between the British and the Pakistani’s.

Shazad Latif is easy on the eye and is dependable as the handsome male lead, completely dominated by his family.

As the action of the film moves from grey and dull London to bright and exotic Lahore in Pakistan, director Shekar Kapur’s handling of the issue of cross cultural relationships is muted without making a strong point except for a fabulous wedding scene, the rest of this near two hour film is not thrilling, but long winded and arduous.

By the time the two main romantic leads get together it is the end of the film. That being said, the onscreen chemistry between the gorgeous Lily James and the extremely handsome Shazad Latif holds this film together even when the supporting cast do not.

What’s Love Got to do with it? could have been so much better, a tale filled with wit and good humour but instead comes across rather surprisingly as a boring cross cultural love story which has been rehashed a thousand times since the Oscar winning Guess Who is Coming to Dinner (1967). Besides Emma Thompson should choose better film roles in the future.

What’s Love Got to do with it? gets a film rating of 6 out of 10, unoriginal and slow in parts but this romantic comedy will find a niche audience. Recommended viewing for those that enjoy an extremely lightweight and slightly exotic British romantic comedy set in London and Lahore.

95th Academy Awards took place on Sunday 12th March 2023 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles.

Best Picture: Everything, Everywhere all at Once

Best Director: Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert

Best Actor: Brendan Fraser – The Whale

Best Actress: Michelle Yeoh – Everything Everywhere all at Once

Best Supporting Actor: Ke Huy Quan – Everything Everywhere all at Once

Best Supporting Actress: Jamie Lee Curtis – Everything Everywhere all at Once

Best Original Screenplay: Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert – Everything Everywhere all at Once

Best Adapted Screenplay: Sarah Polley – Women Talking

Best Cinematography: All Quiet on The Western Front

Best Costume Design: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Best Make up & Hairstyling: The Whale

Best Visual Effects: Avatar – The Way of Water

Best Film Editing: Everything Everywhere all at Once

Best Sound: Top Gun: Maverick

Best Production Design: All Quiet on The Western Front

Best Documentary Feature:  Navalny

Best Original Score: Volker Bertelmann – All Quiet on The Western Front

Best Original Song: Naatu Naatu – RRR

Best Animated Feature Film: Pinocchio – directed by Guillermo del Toro

Best Foreign Language Film: All Quiet on The Western Front (Germany) directed by Edward Berger

Tar

Director: Todd Field

Cast: Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss, Julian Glover, Mark Strong, Noemie Merlant, Sophie Kauer

Running Time: 2 hours and 38 minutes

Film Rating: 9.5 out of 10

This film is in German and English

Director Todd Field came out of seclusion after making two excellent films in the early 2000’s In The Bedroom and Little Children, to make his masterpiece, a brilliant and vicious social commentary about celebrity, cancel culture and power dynamics in his new film Tar.

Tar premiered at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival to much critical acclaim with the lead actress, Cate Blanchett taking the prize for Best actress. Since its illustrious reception, Blanchett has received awards and praise for her brittle and beautiful performance of legendary yet fictional musical conductor Lydia Tar who heads up the prestigious Berlin Symphony Orchestra.

Field sets his masterpiece in New York and Berlin and opens the film by building Lydia Tar up to be a master conductor defying convention by being one of the first female conductors in the contemporary orchestral music world.

In the opening scene, Tar is being interviewed by a reporter from the New Yorker magazine at a public event. Tar is praised and glorified. In New York at the Julliard school of music Tar tries to lecture on what it means to be a famous composer like Bach, Mahler or Elgar to a group of woke non-binary millennials who continue to challenge the pantheon of music conductors by questioning their relevance in the 2020’s. It’s a terrific scene, prophetic and scathing.

Tar, using private jets and personal assistants, is whisked off to Berlin to her resident orchestra and her plush apartment that she shares with her girlfriend and first violinist Sharon Goodnow wonderfully played by German actress Nina Hoss.

In Berlin everything seems perfect until Tar’s prestigious world and status starts unravelling. Tar takes risks, flirting with the new Russian soloist Olga Metkina played by Sophie Kauer while back in New York the unexplained suicide of Krista Taylor, an aspiring musician starts to haunt Tar and allegations are made. Allegations which are taken seriously by trust funds sponsoring major orchestras and corporate shareholders who demand answers from Lydia Tar who is the face of the orchestra, the arrogant leader which commands the symphonies.

In some really brilliant scenes with Tar and her mentor Andris Davis played by Julian Glover (For Your Eyes Only), Tar offloads some of the professional and personal pressures onto Andris who has survived Berlin in her complex political phases as the German capital city.

What Tar is really about, and certainly director Todd Field’s main critique is the Western world’s ability to build someone up as a celebrity through social media and hype, a demi-god only to tear them done again when their expectations are not met or when that celebrity’s actions contradict their dazzling talent.

At the centre of Tar, is a truly mesmerizing performance by Cate Blanchett who is literally in every single frame of the film. Blanchett is a master class in acting, from speaking German to internalizing all the frailties and trauma of her character’s rapid descent into anonymity and her rebirth into a bizarre more exotic culture somewhere in South East Asia, possibly Laos or Cambodia, a location so far removed from affluent Germany or politically conscious New York.

Tar is a tour de force in social commentary of our contemporary age, a director whose vision is astute and specific, knocking down all the gods of high culture and reconfiguring them into a future world, in which the maestro is sacrificed and reborn.

Tar is a complex film which demands complete attention from the viewer and gets a film rating of 9.5 out of 10, a truly insightful and superb cinematic revelation.

Maybe I Do

Director: Michael Jacobs

Cast: Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Diane Keaton, Luke Bracey, William H. Macy, Emma Roberts

Running Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

Film Rating: 6 out of 10

The tricky part about converting a theatrical play into a film, is whether the film adaptation will work and appeal to audiences. The acting has to be brilliant and the theatricality of the play has to be modified for a cinematic aesthetic.

Playwright turned screenwriter and director Michael Jacobs film Maybe I Do has a hugely talented cast including Oscar winners Diane Keaton (Annie Hall) and Susan Sarandon (Dead Man Walking) along with Richard Gere whom Keaton reteams with after the 1977 film Looking for Mr Goodbar along with Oscar Nominee William H. Macy (Fargo) and the young lovers of the play, Michelle and Alan played respectively by Emma Roberts (Billionaire Boys Club) and Luke Bracey (Elvis, Point Break, Hacksaw Ridge).

Maybe I Do focuses on the budding relationship of Michelle and Alan as they decide whether to move onto the next phase of their lives: marriage.

However as they discuss the big leap forward, they decide that their parents should meet each other. Unbeknownst to the young lovers, their parents particularly Alan’s mother Monica, a vampish Susan Sarandon and Michelle’s father Howard played by Gere are having an affair. Simultaneously, quite by accident’s Alan’s father Sam wonderfully played by William H. Macy unknowingly meets Michelle’s mother Grace played by Diane Keaton in a movie theatre.

Unfortunately for Michael Jacobs his script is not brilliant and in a film which is primarily based on dialogue between characters, the actors are left adrift in an environment which is contrived and unconvincing and the actors are playing parts which they are not emotionally invested it. This play is set in New York, it should have been so much better.

Besides a couple of great moments between Gere and Sarandon, the rest of Maybe I Do fails partially due to the bad title and also the plot which is both unconvincing and unsophisticated. The story needed some naughty siblings to spice it up.

Unlike such brilliant films as Mike Nicol’s Closer or more recently Florian Zeller’s The Father, Maybe I Do is definitely not in that league. This is a very light romantic comedy, with some serious moments that fall flat.

For those that enjoy light but unchallenging adult comedy which tightly fits into a 90 minute running time, then catch Maybe I Do in cinemas. Maybe I Do gets a film rating of 6 out of 10, it’s fun but could have been so much better considering the calibre of talent involved.

The 76th British Academy Film Awards, also known as the BAFAs, were held on 19^th February 2023 at the Royal Festival Hall in London, honouring the best national and foreign films of 2022

Best Film: All Quiet on the Western Front

Best Director: Edward Berger – All Quiet on the Western Front

Best Actor: Austin Butler – Elvis

Best Actress: Cate Blanchett – TAR 

Best Supporting Actor: Barry Keoghan – The Banshees of Inisherin

Best Supporting Actress: Kerry Condon – The Banshees of Inisherin

Best British Film: The Banshees of Inisherin

Best Original Screenplay: Martin McDonagh – The Banshees of Inisherin

Best Adapted Screenplay: All Quiet on the Western Front

Best Costume Design: Elvis

Best Foreign Language Film: All Quiet on the Western Front

Rising Star Award: Emma Mackey

The Banshees of Inisherin

Director: Martin McDonagh

Cast: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan, Pat Shortt, Aaron Monaghan

Running Time: 1 hour 54 minutes

Film Rating: 8.5 out of 10

From the acclaimed writer and director of In Bruges and Three Billboards Outside Edding, Missouri, Martin McDonagh reunites his In Bruges cast, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in a slightly dark comedy about friendship gone south, isolation and gossip in the brilliantly titled The Banshees of Inisherin.

Set exactly 100 years ago in 1923 in a small desolate island Inisherin off the coast of Ireland at the time just after the Irish War of Independence in 1922, this superbly scripted film focuses on the friendship between two men: Padriag Sulleabhain expertly played by Colin Farrell in a career best performance and the lonesome fiddler Colm Doherty played by Brendan Gleeson (Hampstead, Live by Night, Assassin’s Creed). Colin Farrell won the Best Actor Prize at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival.

On this beautiful but bleak island in this desolate place, Colm wakes up one morning and decides that the slightly simple Padraig is boring and decides not to talk to him anymore, foregoing any more afternoons at the local pub discussing the world’s problems over a pint of Guinness to while away the hours into the early evening. Naturally, Colm’s sudden snubbing of Padraig leaves the poor man devastated, but initially he thinks Colm is playing an April Fool’s Joke on him, but as the days drag on he realizes that Colm is deadly serious. 

Padraig tries to make sense of the situation while discussing things with his brighter sibling sister Siobhan excellently played by Kerry Condon (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri). Siobhan has been looking after her brother for years but she yearns for a brighter literary career on the mainland to get away from all the mental and bitter people on Inisherin. Kerry Condon is absolutely superb as the no-nonsense Siobhan who realizes that what she really needs is to escape the island.

Meanwhile the sudden feud between Padriag and Colm escalates unexpectedly providing all the villagers something to gossip about. Padriag finds friendship with a simple young guy Dominic Kearney expertly played in an exceptional performance by rising actor Barry Keoghan (American Animals, The Batman) as a browbeaten tragic man trying to escape his brutal father.

What writer director Martin McDonagh does so expertly is peel back the layers of each of the four main characters and the motivations that drive them from spite to compassion, from a desire for freedom to the ideal of being left alone in artistic contemplation. What absolutely makes this film work although quite bizarre but equally plausible considering how tricky human relationships can be, is the brilliant acting by all four main actors set to haunting Irish music courtesy of Carter Burwell.

The Banshees of Inisherin is a top class film, a dark and brittle comedy about friendships that sour and superstition that becomes reality superbly played by four actors completely in tune with their characters and this fascinating narrative.

The Banshees of Inisherin gets a film rating of 8.5 out of 10 and is slow moving in parts but worth the wait in gold and Irish luck. Highly recommended viewing for those that enjoy an inventive character driven story, which is funny, sad and thought provoking.