Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

GIRLS AGAINST BOYS

The opening flash-forward of Girls Against Boys tells you everything you think you need to know: the striking, stick-thin redhead Lu is seducing a police officer in an hotel bedroom, and once he’s handcuffed and blindfolded, she cocks his gun and suddenly his mood deflates dramatically.

But this pre-title sequence is as much of a deception as the one practised in Lu’s entrapment, for Girls Against Boys is less concerned with the graphic nature of its premise than it is by the emotional consequences. There’s sexual violence and violent death aplenty, but mostly performed off-screen or in medium and long-shot; or in the case of the rape that precipitates the killing spree that is the film’s selling point, out of focus on the very edge of the frame.

Shae (Danielle Panabaker) is having a bad day. Forgoing a party with friends in order to spend the weekend in the Hamptons, with the older boyfriend she then discovers is leaving her to go back to his wife, Shae returns to the bar where she works, hooking up with Lu (Nicole LaLiberte), a co-worker who it is immediately apparent is a halfpenny short of a shilling. After an entire night of carousing in the company of three lads they meet at the club, Shae eventually arrives home as day is breaking and in spite of spurning his advances, is sexually assaulted by Simon (Michael Stahl-David). The second half of the film is concerned with the aftermath and Shae’s revenge.

Despite sharing a general premise with other such films as Baise Moi and I Spit on Your Grave, the direction Austin Chick’s film takes couldn’t be more different. Eschewing explanations in favour of moral ambiguity (there can’t be more than thirty pages of dialogue in the entire screenplay), it is up to the viewer to decode the meaning and import in the clues that follow. And while Lu is the one who takes the initiative, Shae is entirely complicit to her conduct, and her reaction to the first death is telling. There is in the final act a comeuppance for one of the two girls, but for the other it appears the cycle will begin again, an avenue for redemption and a potential happy ending having just been closed down.

Fluidly directed with crisp camerawork and icy cool performances over a shimmering electronic soundtrack, Girls Against Boys is visually sharp but psychologically indistinct, and clearly has ambitions towards a deeper philosophical import. Yet although the film borders on being a cautionary tale about the dangers of taking empowerment too far, the conclusion it arrives at is considerably more equivocal. As a result, Girls Against Boys is an enigmatic and not entirely fulfilling experience.

Special Features: Making of

INFO REVIEW: GIRLS AGAINST BOYS / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: AUSTIN CHICK / SCREENPLAY: AUSTIN CHICK / STARRING: DANIELLE PANABAKER, NICOLE LALIBERTE, ANDREW HOWARD / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 15TH

 

TOM HOLLAND’S TWISTED TALES

Tom Holland directed the original classic Child’s Play as well as few episodes of Tales from the Crypt and wrote the original Fright Night, so the release of this webseries onto DVD, with all the episodes written and directed by him, should be cause for celebration.

In addition, the talent involved here, including some well-known genre actors, should confirm that that celebration is for good reason. However, do not be fooled.

Taking into consideration that these team episodes must all have had a zero budget considering that they were originally part of a webseries, then the most important things that must shine through are the stories and the acting. Unfortunately, these stories fall well short of what you would expect from Holland.

Apart from some half-decent turns from the experienced actors here – which we guess were down to favours called in – the acting is poor, and in some circumstances absolutely shocking. There are points where you will openly beg for certain characters to not have another line of dialogue, and then they speak again.

The stories are pretty sub-par too, either clichéd and already well worn by being told around the campfire, or just dull.

We always try to find the best in everything we review and maybe we could have excused some of the issues here if this had been helmed by a first-timer, but considering Holland’s pedigree, this collection is woeful.

Ignore us if you dare, but don’t tell us we didn’t warn you!

Special Features: None

INFO: TOM HOLLAND’S TWISTED TALES / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: TOM HOLLAND / SCREENPLAY: TOM HOLLAND / STARRING: A.J. BOWEN, DANIELLE HARRIS, RAY WISE, WILLIAM FORSYTHE, ANGELA BETTIS, AMBER BENSON / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 15TH

 

MORTDECAI

I think it’s probably a safe bet that most people will know that Mortdecai wasn’t exactly popular with film critics when it arrived on cinema screens. Actually, most gave it the critical equivalent of the beating Private Pile received from his squad mates in Full Metal Jacket. Even knowing all of this though, we wanted to like Mortdecai. It has a solid cast and reasonably funny trailer going for it and – if nothing else – the negative reviews should lower our expectation bar to a suitable level to at least enjoy the film.

And then the film started.

What strikes you first is how oddly flat the whole thing instantly feels, starting with Depp’s opening narration and exchange with some bad guys that leads into one of the dullest fight scenes committed to film. We think it’s meant to be funny, but the jokes don’t ever land and the slapstick of the fight ends up being on a par with a You’ve Been Framed video clip. We wanted to laugh at it. Our brain even told us that we should at least try and raise a smile at the attempt at humour, but it just wouldn’t happen.

It’s a shame, because we’re big fans of the screwball caper comedies of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s that the film is trying to emulate. We’d love to see some modern takes on that era of comedy and part of us wants to admire the film for at least trying to bring it back. But that’s the overall problem with the film; it’s trying to emulate that style! There is an ease to those films that made the comedy feel natural and hid the work and effort that went into crafting a joke.

In Mortdecai you can see the multiple behind-the-scenes meetings that led to the “joke” we’re supposed to be seeing on screen. We’ve not read it, but apparently the book on which this film is based is a fantastically funny read that was tailor-made for a big screen adaptation. So why does it fail so spectacularly?

It would be easy to lay the blame at the feet of Johnny Depp. His track record since the first Pirates of the Caribbean film has been patchy at best. All the praise he received for playing Jack Sparrow that first time has been an albatross around his neck, with every producer, executive and director wanting to capitalise on that Pirates box office by unleashing the zany Depp (and we include the last three Pirates films in that list).

It’s not really Depp’s fault. As an actor you can understand his desire to play characters that are a little more out there. If nothing else, it must make his days at work more interesting and – to be fair – when he does it well, it’s a treat for the audience. It’s just a shame that he doesn’t seem to be given the films or supporting characters that are descent enough to surround his zaniness with. And that’s the problem here.

The supporting cast are wasted in forgettable roles that could have been played by anyone and largely seem to be there to set Depp up for his next bout of zany antics. If any of them come away with any kind of dignity it’s probably Paul Bettany, but that is damning with faint praise given what he is up against.

With films like Stir of Echoes and Ghost Town under his belt, David Koepp has proved himself as a capable director in the past and there are some attempts at quirk and flare on screen here, but they feel forced, oddly jarring and out of place in a film that they should slot seamlessly into. The film needed a director like Steven Soderbergh who could have brought a kind of style and feel to the film that Koepp seems unable to achieve.

If a comedy can at least entertain you, it is possible to enjoy it, even if you don’t find it funny. Unfortunately Mortdecai fails to even do that and instead manages to be both boring and unfunny. The direction is flat, the writing is flat, the editing is flat, and the performances and delivery of the lines are flat. And with the all the talent that is involved in the making of the film, that really shouldn’t be the case. All of them should have known better and, sadly, all of them are to blame for the end result.

As for the extras, they consist of two documentaries (Stolen Moments: The Making of Mortdecai and The Art of Noise: Making Music for Mortdecai), both of which are as dull as the main film, with Stolen Moments in particular featuring talking head interviews – in which cast members remind you of better films you should have watched instead – and on set outtakes that are even less funny than the finished scenes in the film!

Special Features: Two documentaries

INFO: MORTDECAI / CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR: DAVID KOEPP / SCREENPLAY: ERIC ARONSON / JOHNNY DEPP, GWYNETH PALTROW, EWAN MCGREGOR, PAUL BETTANY, OLIVA MUNN / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 8TH

THE HOUSE WITH 100 EYES

The hundred eyes of the title being CCTV cameras, relaying much of the film’s action to its audience. It is found footage, then, but has enough gimmicks up its sleeve that it doesn’t feel hampered by the format. As such, it’s one of the only found footage horror films that manages to bypass a question as old as Cannibal Holocaust and The Blair Witch Project – why are they still filming when it all falls apart? Because, by the time it’s too late, it’s out of the characters’ hands.

The plot, then. A husband-and-wife serial killing duo, amassing a collection of homemade snuff videos, indulge in a snuff threesome (fivesome?), picking up a young lad and two girls straight from the street. The torture chamber beckons, but what our murderous man-and-wife haven’t reckoned on is the human survival instinct. What follows is a brutal fight for survival, with neither party guaranteed (or even likely to achieve) survival. Whatever the case, those hundred eyes are on hand to capture it all, for better or worse.

What could have been but a simple dull torture movie is enlivened by a frequently inventive streak, from the purposefully cheesy and stilted video introductions of killers Ed and Susan, to the armless, legless woman kept captive in a pet carrier, cheerily grinning her way through the movie. As Ed, writer/co-director/lead actor Jim Roof channels the look and act of magnetically repulsive Hot Tub Time Machine star Rob Corddry. Like Corddry, he’s endlessly irritating for every moment of his screentime but undeniably watchable. Shannon Malone gets less to play with as Susan, but she’s a fine foil to his mania. The kids are perfectly serviceable, doing what they have to do (die, mostly) well enough.

The House with 100 Eyes is smart, well-done horror filmmaking. Its style and story won’t be to everyone’s tastes – it’s thoroughly unpleasant; a torture film through and through – and it struggles with its tone, but it does manage to transcend its limitations to create something a little bit special.

Special Features: TBC

INFO: THE HOUSE WITH 100 EYES / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: JAY LEE, JIM ROOF / SCREENPLAY: JIM ROOF / STARRING: JIM ROOF, SHANNON MALONE, LARISSA LYNCH, LIZ BURGHDORF / RELEASE DATE: JULY 13TH

 

HORSEHEAD

Freddy Krueger by way of David Lynch. In this intriguingly-titled horror film, a young woman seeks the meaning to her recurrent nightmares, chasing the titular Horsehead into a lucid dreaming state. Where, it should be added, things don’t make that much more sense.

While there’s no denying the inevitable Nightmare on Elm Street influence, Romain Basset paints his story more as surrealist nightmare than teenage slasher flick. Just as this year’s It Follows re-purposed the mood and paranoid tone of many a John Carpenter joint in its own fashion, so Horsehead takes the bare bones of Wes Craven’s masterwork (your opinion may vary) and carries it off in an entirely different direction. Its own bathtub sequence makes the gloved fingering of Freddy look positively prudish by comparison – that sweaty sense of sexuality puts it more on a par with the much maligned (but fantastic, no matter what they tell you) Freddy’s Revenge. Its sense of rural English Gothic, however, is very much its own. Like Germany’s Der Samurai, it’s esoteric, almost experimental and not at all what viewers might have been expected.

It’s not quite as clever as it would like to be or no doubt thinks it is (“pretentious” is a word you’ll probably hear bandied about by some) but it’s infinitely more preferable to the dull no-budget slasher movie the title Horsehead conjures up in one’s imagination (think Smiley or The Bunnyman Massacre, except probably worse). And, true, the Horsehead costume doesn’t hold up at all past the very impressive pre-credits scene (think real-life Bojack Horseman in a smock – scarier Horsehead masks can be found littering YouTube and fetish websites everywhere, in all their flappy latex glory) but Horsehead himself is used so fleetingly that it doesn’t really matter. What Horsehead has going for it is its sense of arty surrealism, well-employed visuals (rarely betraying the skimpy visuals) and a great atmosphere.

It’s probably too nebulous for some, but far more than just the one-trick pony it could have been. Don’t listen to the inevitable neigh-sayers – this new nightmare should be cause for horror celebration.

Special Features: TBC

INFO: HORSEHEAD / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: ROMAIN BASSET / SCREENPLAY: ROMAIN BASSET, KARIM CHERIGUENE / STARRING: LILLY-FLEUR POINTEAUX, CATRIONA MACCOLL, MURRAY HEAD, GALA BESSON / RELEASE DATE: TBC
 

SWORD OF VENGEANCE

Sword of Vengeance’s preference for putting style over substance isn’t its biggest problem. Rather, its style is so unoriginal, bleak and drab that if you plan on watching this film for enjoyment, you’d be better off revisiting that Game of Thrones episode. A film that puts all its staying power on how it looks isn’t always a bad thing, especially if those visuals turn out to be the film’s strongest element. But in Sword of Vengeance, none of these elements come together in a worthwhile package, which is a shame because Sword of Vengeance has everything it needs to be a hells-bells thrills-for-all action romp.

Sword of Vengeance is a Viking action film about a mysterious outsider who, on his mission for vengeance (see what they did there?) against a ruthless Lord, becomes entangled in the affairs of a group of warriors keen on overthrowing the Lord’s corrupt and brutal kingdom in an attempt to restore order and peace to their world. Subplot? Intrigue? Three dimensions? Jog on.

There’s definitely a feeling that director Jim Weedon defiantly chose to shoot Sword of Vengeance with as much visual charge as possible, and in doing do pretty much left everything else by the sidelines. The plot is somewhat shallow, the characters clichéd and campy, and the acting is downright hammy. But the visuals? If you can get past all the throat-slitting and stomach-gutting, they’re actually arresting enough to sustain some interest.

Weedon seems to have a knack for pulling plastic emotion out of his cast; what little conviction of character the cast can exude, Weedon snatches what he can from them and rams it down your throats with as much sharpness as lead Stanley Webber’s sword. Weedon also demonstrates he’s got some capability of piecing together some hooky action sequences, but again, because of Sword of Vengeance’s lack of everything apart from bloody thrills, all those gory fight scenes must be thinking “oh crud, we’re all this movie’s got – let’s turn it up to eleven!”

But without an engaging plot or characters that have a bit of spark to them, those many, many fisticuffs moments are rather hollow. If you like your movies with nothing but action, some more action, and a little bit more action thrown in, then Sword of Vengeance is to be recommended. But with barely anything to hook the viewer in for the long run, you’d be better off dusting off that copy of Battle Los Angeles and giving that another try. All in all, Sword of Vengeance has a lot of drive, but ends up careering in all the wrong directions.

Special Features: None

INFO: SWORD OF VENGEANCE / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: JIM WEEDON / SCREENPLAY: JULIAN UNTHANK / STARRING: STANLEY WEBER, EDWARD AKROUT, MISA BERIC, PETER J. CHAFFEY / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 1ST

TOKYO TRIBE

Find genre cinema all too samey? Fed up of yet another found footage horror followed by yet another Nazi zombie movie? Then check out Tokyo Tribe – a Japanese hip-hop musical crime epic, set in the future. Now that’s a genre far from over-saturated. Of course, uniqueness is no guarantor of quality…

Let’s briefly attempt to explain the plot (“attempt” is the key word there). Each district of future-Tokyo is ruled by a different gang, each with their own hairstyle, clothing, or gender-based gimmick (a gang who are all girls – where do they come up with this stuff?). Naturally, they don’t all get on; enter another gang’s territory and you’re dead.

The most dangerous gangsta of all is Mr. Buppa (Riki Takeuchi), a deranged Elvis Presley lookalike whose over-acting makes Nicolas Cage seem subtle. Sunmi (Nana Seino) is captured by Buppa’s men and made to work in his brothel – but what they don’t know is that she’s desperate to lose her virginity so that her Satanic High Priest father can’t ritually sacrifice her. Then a visit to this brothel by some horny kids from the one ‘nice’ gang goes awry, and all-out war engulfs Tokyo. Got that?

As you may have guessed, the plot doesn’t hold up to being taken seriously, with character motivations very sketchy; the reveal of a villain’s true reason for hating our heroes is genuinely the dumbest twist you’ll ever see. Plus there’s the dodgy gender politics – sure, there’s kind of an effort to make Sunmi an interesting character, but that’s squandered by silly over-sexualisation like the female police officer who, rather impractically, struts around in a short skirt and heels.

What works in Tokyo Tribe’s favour is its madcap energy that, through force of relentless ludicrousness, is difficult to totally dislike. The action is bizarrely over-the-top, a highlight being a CGI battle tank smashing through all laws of physical plausibility as it skids around a corner at high speed. Oh, and it’s a musical – the characters rap their dialogue, and while you may get tired of hearing the same beats for two hours, this does build on the enjoyable daftness and allow for such lines as “fuck you, you’re a monkey-ass wanksta”, “kickin’ some wicked sticky-icky-icky yo” and the unforgettable “dogs before bitches”.

So Tokyo Tribe isn’t by any means a good film, but it’s certainly different to any other film you’ve seen. Which is some kind of achievement, right? Its bizarre OTT shenanigans are perfect drinking game viewing – let us know when you’ve devised a good set of rules.

Extras: Deleted Scenes / Trailer / Making Of / Limited Edition Collectors’ Booklet

INFO: TOKYO TRIBE / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: SION SONO / SCREENPLAY: SION SONO / STARRING: RYÔHEI SUZUKI, NANA SEINO, RIKI TAKEUCHI / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 15TH

THE LOFT

Secrets, lies and deceit: those are the ingredients for The Loft, an American remake of the Belgium film Loft, both directed by Eric Van Looy. It’s safe to say that once you’ve watched one of them, you’ve watched both of them. When watching the trailer for this film, you would think ‘cool, vengeful murder mystery with a great male cast’, but sadly… well, let’s just say the trailer is as deceptive as its characters.

Family life and work can be so stressful sometimes that men just need a home away from home, apparently, or to just get away from their wives, maybe have an affair or two. So that is what Vincent (Karl Urban), Luke (Wentworth Miller), Chris (James Marsden), Marty (Eric Stonestreet) and Philip (Matthias Schoenaerts) do, all of whom are married men. Each have a key to a secret apartment (the loft) allowing them to bring back other women, fulfil their sexual desires and cheat on their wives. Operation Adultery seems to be working just fine, except, one day Luke enters the loft to find a woman’s dead body lying on the bed in her own blood. There are only five men and five keys, meaning conspiracies ensue.

It’s a whodunit, only the film wants us to know who it is (or at least think who it is) throughout the whole film causing, us to lose the whole thrill of figuring it out. Unlike a mystery where hints and clues have been strategically placed for us to discover and work out the mystery for ourselves, The Loft constantly feeds us incorrect information only to reveal that everything you have watched is utterly irrelevant to the actual mystery, there telling and leading us to one thing with a completely different yet ridiculous outcome. Yes, you don’t see the end twist coming, but there is absolutely no reason you should see it coming. It might as well have revealed that it was a ghost; that would have been just as plausible as the actual ending.

Five wealthy, good-looking but cheating men are of course going to be obnoxious and loathsome, but what is most troubling is that their actions have slight justification by the representation of their spouses. Luke’s wife Ellie is just one example. Ellie relies on Luke to help her take her insulin shots, she therefore ‘can’t live’ without him and claims she would tolerate him cheating on her. Ironically, Luke is the only key holder that doesn’t actually cheat. The weakness and lack of motivation in the female characters make the wives just as unlikeable as their husbands. And their husbands are despicable.

As the guys attempt to figure out this disturbing scenario, the film flicks to the not so distant past and future; the lead up to the murder and the guys being interrogated by the police – a narrative that hasn’t been cleverly devised. The film shows too much between these transitions, and they’ve obviously had to elongate the story so they attempt to deceive the audience from knowing where the actual plot is going. They leave the twists until the very end, but there is no good build-up of emotions, no thrill factor to keep us interested until the big reveal at the end. Even then the reveal seems like a cop-out. The end simply does not justify the means, leaving its audience deeply unsatisfied and deceived.

Special Features: TBC

INFO: THE LOFT / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: ERIC VAN LOOY / SCREENPLAY: BART DE PAUW, WESLEY STRICK / STARRING: KARL URBAN, JAMES MARSDEN, WENTWORTH MILLER, ERIC STONESTREET, MATTHIAS SCHOENAERTS / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 15TH

HOME SWEET HELL

A slick and soulless black comedy thriller entirely devoid of either laughs or drama, Home Sweet Hell is about as by-the-numbers as it comes. In spite of the occasional naked bottom, numerous F-bombs and a fair amount of blood spatter, the paucity of imagination and a complete absence of plot chicanery combine to produce something that appears to have been workshopped into anodyne Hollywood anonymity.

Don Champagne (Patrick Wilson) is the henpecked owner of a furniture store, his wife Mona (Katherine Heigl) so obsessed with achieving the “perfect life”, she schedules their sexual encounters for the 9th day of every second month. And then Dusty (Jordana Brewster) appears, the super-sexy new shop assistant who is only too keen to begin an affair with Don – until she reveals she’s pregnant and starts demanding money. But it’s Mona (and her parents) who control the purse-strings, and when Don can’t pay up things quickly spiral out of control.

Home Sweet Hell is a polished enough production, and perfectly pleasant in a glossy and serviceably mainstream way. But it is entirely functional, with nothing to distinguish it beyond the station it shares with the remakes of The Stepford Wives or The Wicker Man. With just a touch of inspiration and a little spirit it might have been as sharp as To Die For or as enjoyable as Heartbreakers.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the performances themselves, the actors have simply been left hanging by both script and direction. Heigl is generally strong in a criminally inconsistent part, but the likeable Wilson feels all at sea, never quite sure whether to play all out for the laughs. Jim Belushi, as Don’s workmate Les, does as much as he can with no more than the mildest of funny lines, and it is probably Jordana Brewster as Dusty, looking barely a day older than she did in The Faculty, whose character has the greatest cohesion and who therefore convinces the most.

The film’s biggest problem, beyond its basic failure to intrigue, is the signposting of almost every plot development, and worse yet the shortage of developments in the plot. The premise promises the kind of hysteria of Very Bad Things, but Home Sweet Hell is more of a Big Nothing. Mona finds out about the affair, Mona deals with it, Mona gets dealt with. That’s it. The scriptwriters don’t even bother to devise an interesting method by which Mona makes her discovery; they simply have her husband confess. Every time there’s an opportunity for something diverting to happen, the dullest route is taken instead.

Which is a shame, as there is enough decent talent involved to make this very watchable. Just disengage your critical faculties first.

Special Features: Electronic press kit / Deleted scenes

INFO: HOME SWEET HELL / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: ANTHONY BURNS / SCREENPLAY: CARLO ALLEN, TED ELRICK, TOM LAVAGNINO / STARRING: KATHERINE HEIGL, PATRICK WILSON, JORDANA BREWSTER, JIM BELUSHI / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

DRONE

War is hell. We all know this statement from William T. Sherman, and it has become almost a clichéd line of dialogue when describing conflict. However, there are alternating definitions of what hell entails. Most would say that truly hellacious war is bullets flying, blood splattering and bodies piling high, which would be an accurate diagnosis in many ways but in others less so. As the world changes, so too do the occurrences within it. In the past, wars have of course been debated but now more than ever the conspiracies and controversies surrounding war have almost become as huge as the conflict itself (the success of Michael Moore’s Farenheit 9/11 on its release denotes). One such issue in modern day warfare is the usage of drones, as a means of surveillance and more importantly as an armed weapon. And that is where this documentary (if you will pardon the unintended pun) sets its sights.

Focusing on the issue both in the West and in Pakistan, this film by Tonje Hessen Schei looks to highlight the worrying direction that affairs in modern warfare are taking, and to this end the film is very successful. Though the film’s TV documentary format (it has been shown on television too) does rear it’s head throughout and occasionally leaves some arguments lightly covered, Drone is a documentary that raises the profile of this issue. Schei’s film focuses on the activist and legal activities in Pakistani regions (particularly Waziristan) and juxtaposes that with a former drone pilot’s (Brandon Bryant) disillusion at how his country has taken this mode of military equipment and created a worrying state of affairs built around self empowerment and secrecy. Now obviously this film is not entirely unbiased, leaning to the negatives behind the programme but the fact these urgings are backed by testimony of innocent lives lost among many other pieces of material, confirms (to even the most avid supporters) that there is a compelling set of issues to be addressed.

The linking of video gaming culture to modern day military recruitment some may read as treading close to conspiracy, but it makes a very astute point and adds an alarming angle to a film full of some informed talking heads (many former military) highlighting this topical and explosive (in all senses of the word) issue. True, due to it’s short running time, Drone more introduces the issue to the audience, making strong statements that those interested in can follow up on but the film is very interesting and very passionately assembled. Never is this more the case, than when it is discusses the psychology behind the drone programme: distance (literally) = distance (morally) or does it? This psychological angle and discussion permeates throughout the film and the concluding link to old sci-fi ideals of a governed state may sound like moral panic but it is scarily true in many ways. Especially considering the modern day trust the masses have in authority figures.

This is a film that takes a stimulating look at the effect on people. Those innocent victims of this dangerously advanced technology and perhaps even more surprisingly those operating the drones – suggesting many are suffering in silence under fears of being labelled traitorous. Personal politics will come into play when watching this film, but whatever your belief, there is a suggestion here that this issue will continue to grow. Drone may seem to lack the gut-ripping impact it could have had (had it run longer and deeper) but as it progresses the film still gathers urgency and is a very promising start into widely debating both sides of this issue. Although in the end, we wonder if anything will change when money is involved… as the film points out. And for all the talking heads, eyewitnesses and figures, in many ways this is the strongest thing to take away from Drone. This film makes statements – some familiar, some startling – but the endgame is the same as many other films, how far will this booming industry go and how long will it be before profits, technology and destruction not only affects those in the crosshairs but those with their fingers on the button and those who live without the knowledge of what their elected officials are doing? Drone is sadly quite brief but all the same an interesting, alarming and fascinating documentary feature that asks many bold questions about an issue that is unfortunately likely to worsen before answers arrive.

Special Features: None

INFO: DRONE/ CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & WRITER: TONJE HESSEN SCHEI / STARRING: SHAHZAD AKBAR, NOOR BEHRAM, BRANDON BRYANT, MICHAEL HAAS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW