Pillion (2025)

While Pillion has been referred to often as "the gay biker movie", and sometimes as the "sub/dom film with the lad that used to play Dudley Dursley", it's actually got a lot more going on than those short descriptors might suggest. Not that those descriptions are wildly inaccurate. Pillion IS a gay biker movie, to some degree, and it IS the sub/dom film starring Harry Melling (seeing his Harry Potter role shrink smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror as he moves, for better or worse, from one interesting project to the next). 

Adapted from a book, "Box Hill", by Adam Mars-Jones, this is the tale of Colin (Melling), a young man who encounters Ray (Alexander Skarsgård). Ray can give Colin what he is seeking in a relationship, but maybe not everything. Colin, you see, has a real affinity for devotion. He enjoys being very submissive. And Ray is very happy to be dominant. As long as he sees that the dynamic is working for the two of them. Can it keep working though?

Directed by Harry Lighton, who also adapted the source material into screenplay form, this is one hell of a directorial feature debut. It's bold, in terms of the exploration of the relationship and the sex and nudity shown onscreen, it's interestingly nuanced, and it's surprisingly moving by the time all of the pieces fall into place for the finale. While the relationship shown onscreen isn't a great depiction (there are no important conversations about rules, boundaries, reciprocity, etc), it's arguably a necessary one for someone still trying to find out their own boundaries and self-imposed rulebook. The negatives are placed alongside the positives to show something that, while more extreme than most, puts the main characters in a very similar position to many other people (no matter their gender or sexuality). Every relationship can have aspects that seem odd to those looking on from the outside, but if things work and happiness is maintained then that's all that matters (as long as everything is legal, of course, and nobody else is being hurt). 

And that's the thing about Pillion. While it will upset the homophobes, and maybe make more unprepared viewers gasp at some of the more graphic moments, it's basically about things that we've seen in many other movies. Self-discovery, what it takes to make a relationship work, grabbing moments of happiness. The sub/dom dynamic may make it all seem unique, but the journey will be very familiar to those who see beyond the assless chaps and symbolic padlocks.

Melling may be the one who goes through more of a transformation here, but both he and Skarsgård are equally good. The fact that the relationship can be so easily believed, even as one individual is being constantly tested, is testament to how good the leads are. It's also worth mentioning Lesley Sharp and Douglas Jones, playing the parents of Colin. They have a very good time playing generally understanding parents who find themselves a bit bemused when they see their son starting to become some kind of man-servant for a handsome stranger, and Sharp is especially delightful when dropping a well-chosen insult during a dramatic dinner scene.

I could say much more. I enjoyed the score from Oliver Coates. I thought the visuals and sound design were fantastic. There's not really any one element I would criticise, although things become almost unbearable for viewers at times. Thankfully, the third act delivers a very welcome silver lining after a sky full of gathering clouds.

9/10

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Gemini Man (2019)

Three years before Will Smith spectacularly self-harmed Will Smith in front of millions of viewers, Will Smith starred in a film which had him trying to avoid being caused harm by . . . Will Smith. Many might have tried to call Gemini Man a prescient film when it was released, but nobody could have seen just how prescient it ended up being.

A high concept written by David Benioff, Darren Lemke, and Billy Ray, and directed by Ang Lee, Gemini Man is an action thriller based around the sci-fi idea of cloning a top assassin to then kill and take over from that assassin when they have come to the end of their usefulness. Smith plays Henry Brogan, and younger images of him are used to portray Junior (aka the clone). Brogan ends up being targeted when he's due to retire, and he ends up on the run with an agent named Danny Zakarewski (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) as they attempt to stay one step ahead of the soldiers under the command of the ruthless Clay Verris (Clive Owen).

Although this film would have benefited from keeping the central idea a bit more of a mystery (I have mentioned it here because it's on the poster and was all over the marketing), it still manages to be quite good fun when delivering on the action front. Okay, viewers may get a bit impatient while they wait on Brogan to accept the strange reality of his predicament, but Lee and the writers try to keep everyone distracted with a fine opening sequence, a great late-night attempted ambush, and an extended gunfight that is inventive and thrilling. And that's without even mentioning the great moments that have Owen chewing the scenery in a turn that has him one step removed from Dr. Robotnik.

Smith is great in the lead role, and his familiar visage is used well for the younger version of himself. He's always convincing, and this feels like an a-list star doing their best to elevate b-list material. It's a gimmick film, but that gimmick is boosted by Smith's presence. Winstead is very good, and convinces in the action set-pieces, although she has to rely on Smith, sadly, and I still think she deserves a full-on action lead role with franchise potential (Kate came closest, but also seemed to quickly get lost in the sea of wannabe-Wickflicks). As for Owen, see my previous comment about him. It's no criticism. I love his performance here, and he seems to be having loads of fun in his role. The other person worth mentioning is Benedict Wong, playing a good friend/facilitator named Baron who wants to help keep our leads breathing.

It doesn't really matter how good the acting or the action is though. What matters is how convincing the film is when old Will Smith comes face to face with young Will Smith. I would say that, for the most part, it works well enough. Using a variety of tricks to hide his face for certain sections of the film, Smith the younger looks decent enough when finally allowed to be front and centre. There are a few moments that have him looking like a paused videogame character compared to the fully real humans alongside him, but they don't really unbalance the film. Until the very last scenes. I'm not sure if this was shot in reverse order or if the technology couldn't handle showing us this character in full daylight, but the very end of this movie has the worst computer imagery of the entire film, which makes it hard to get through the end credits while remembering the earlier highlights.

There are other mis-steps. Both main Smiths are a bit over-emotional when you consider their occupation, the timeline never feels quite right, and some turns in the third act feel a bit too hasty and implausible. I still rate this as a fun time though. It's not great, but it's good enough to help you pass a couple of hours.

6/10

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Prime Time: G20 (2025)

The fact that it took four writers to come up with this - a film essentially summed up as "Die Hard at the G20 summit" - is bewildering. G20 is yet another film that has tried to emulate Die Hard throughout the past four decades without really understanding what makes that film such an enduring classic.

Viola Davis plays President Danielle Sutton, someone who handily comes from a military background. While attending the G20 summit with her family, Sutton has to call on her past skillset to stay one step ahead of some pesky terrorists (headed up by Rutledge, played by Antony Starr). She is helped by Agent Manny Ruiz (Ramón Rodriguez), but we all know that things are leading to a face-to-face battle between the terrorists and a lone Sutton.

Director Patricia Riggen seems to make the mistake of relying on a very weak script here. Writers Caitlin Parrish, Erica Weiss, Logan Miller, and Noah Miller don't really know what they're doing, sadly, when it comes to the movie template they have to work with. They know how to make something that feels like a standard survival-action videogame, especially in the third act (which will feel familiar to anyone who has repeatedly battled Wesker in the Resident Evil game series), but they don't know how to make a fun action movie full of characters that you care about, or that you believe to be in genuine peril. 

It doesn't help that the whole thing also feels like a streaming film, as opposed to something with an aim to be more than just content to add to the constant stream of content. There's a flat ugliness to the visual style, a presentation that feels paradoxically expensive and cheap at the same time (don't ask me exactly how, but I'm sure other film fans will know what I mean), and every main plot beat is predictable and quite safe. Aside from some villains and one or two disposable characters, nobody orbiting the central storyline ever feels in real danger. This is complete escapism, fair enough, but a lack of thrills means that you should expect to see some impressive action sequences, at the very least, and that does not happen.

Davis is fine in the lead role though. Capable and strong enough to let you fleetingly believe that America would actually consider voting in a black woman as POTUS, when we all know that in reality they would find reasons to besmirch and reject her. Anthony Anderson is also fine as her loving husband, and both Marsai Martin and Christopher Farrar do well as their kids, the former being the tech wizard who could prove useful after proving her credentials in some very early scenes of rebellious teenage behaviour and the latter being an extra factor to plan around when it is time for the bullets and bloodshed. Rodriguez does what is asked of him, although he has to get out of the way at some point for our brave POTUS to start doing full-on brave POTUS stuff. As for Starr, you can see him poised to chew the scenery and have a blast, but he's never let off the leash, which is a great shame. He could have helped to lift this up, but his character feels disappointingly sidelined until a big finale that has him fairly neutered. Douglas Hodge is amusing, as a stuffy and pig-headed Prime Minister, but there's nobody else who stands out from a supporting cast that could have easily made room for one or two scene-stealers.

I'm sure many people here did their best, including the cast. It's hard to see that though, considering how bad both the writing and direction are (Riggen may do well with certain material, but an action director she is not, sadly). This is the kind of easy viewing choice that makes you resent giving it your time, and I hope others avoid it. If you're after something in this vein then just ask me, let me know what streaming services you have available, and I'll happily give you at least half a dozen better options.

3/10

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Joker (2019)

Director Todd Phillips, who also co-wrote the screenplay for Joker with Scott Silver, isn't really someone you might associate with gritty and compelling psychological dramas. He sets out to change that here, and many people view it as an absolute success. I really like Joker, but there are two main points (maybe three) that drag it down slightly, which I will get to in due course.

Joaquin Phoenix plays Arthur Fleck, a man with some serious mental health issues, and a pretty poor quality of life. He wants to be a comedian, but he's not good at making people laugh. He may, however, be good at laughing while he plans to get revenge on people around him. But his fortunes may change if he gets the chance to appear on the chat show hosted by Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro).

Okay, first of all, a lot of people have criticised Joker for being little more than a diluted mash-up/reworking of Taxi Driver and The King Of Comedy. I'm not going to wield those reference points as weapons in any criticism of the film, because I feel that other great films can come from directors hewing close to past classics. This does go VERY close to both of those films, but there are so many worse films that Phillips could have had in his sights.

What works here, and works so well, is the performance from Phoenix. His portrayal of a man pushed further and further into the black pit of a complete mental breakdown is absolutely compelling. He's a superb Arthur Fleck. What he isn't, to me, is a superb Joker. I just don't see enough of that character in this interpretation, which is entirely to do with my own experience of the character through the years, from the comics to the TV show to the various movies. I am all for all of the praise being heaped upon Phoenix for his performance here. I just can't agree with anyone who labels him as the new gold standard for interpretations of the Joker (although nobody will ever be worse than Leto, I think that low point is safe).

There's also a good world created onscreen, a Gotham that is teeming with people who are struggling to get through their everyday lives. This is a pre-Batman Gotham. Not so much dark and full of convenient shadows, it's more like an interconnected set of glass cubes, each one oppressive and reeking of nicotine and potentially-contagious diseases.

The rest of the cast also do a great job. I'd be tempted to call them flawless if the casting of De Niro in his pivotal role didn't seem so much like an obvious stunt. He is good though, and has fun in his small amount of screentime, as is Zazie Beetz, the third point in the central triangle that the film creates. Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Shea Whigham, Marc Maron, and Douglas Hodge are on par with one another, portraying a mix of new characters and some you may be familiar with, albeit in a different guise.

These positives are enough to make this a very good movie, and it remains a very good movie, despite my three main problems with it. So bear that in mind, and let's move on to the negatives.

First up is the script. It's not terrible, by any means, but Phillips and Silver rely on the cast to elevate their words. Which the cast manage to do, seriously limiting the damage that could have been caused here.

My second and third main issues stem from the same thing so I'll just bundle them together here. This film has been hailed as an interesting departure from standard comic-book movies, it has been described as a scathing commentary on some major problems in the current climate in America. It's not. It's neither of those things, and that stems from Phillips giving himself an easier option when the opportunities arose. He made much of the fact that this was a standalone film, this Joker was different from what you'd seen before, and it didn't necessarily have to tie in to any DC movie universe. So why, WHY, even bring in the characters who make up the Wayne household? Those scenes feel like fan-service, they feel out of place, and they feel totally unearned (I know that doesn't seem like the right word, but it is, somehow). And as for the scathing commentary, I don't deny that Phillips works some very good points into the movie, and even has them at the heart of the whole thing, but he gives himself an "out" by setting it in the early 1980s. That allows him to shrug, it gives him plausible deniability, it really dulls what could have been a sharp, relevant message for people who may squirm when forced to look at the mirror being held up to modern society. Phillips decides not to commit to holding up the mirror, instead settling for a kaleidoscope. And everything looks a little better through a kaleidoscope.

There's plenty to like here, even plenty to admire, and it does feel like a more interesting film from Phillips than anything else he has done, to date. It's far from perfect though, and I think people have forgiven some mis-steps because they were impressed by the kaleidoscope.

8/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy the movie here.