Tinsel Town (2025)

It's no surprise to find that Tinsel Town is directed by Chris Foggin. He's done comforting family-friendly fare a few times now, and has at least one other Christmas movie under his belt. The surprise comes from the fact that this formulaic bit of fun needed at least three main writers, as well as additional material from three other contributors (apparently). Maybe that's why it's so inconsistent though. Some of the expected scenes fall flat, but a few moments really hit the spot. And I was pleasantly surprised to find the panto moments actually feeling like panto moments.

Kiefer Sutherland stars here as Bradley Mack, a movie star who has coasted along on the success of an action movie franchise for some time now. He's not viewed as a great actor though, nor as a great human being. In fact, he's lazy, entitled, and about to crash back down to earth when his agent send him for a theatre gig in England that is actually panto in a small village. There's no way out of it. Bradley can't afford the price it would cost to wangle out of the contract he signed without reading it. So he ends up grumpy in the company of Cassandra (Meera Syal), Jill (Rebel Wilson), a pair of ugly sisters (Asim Chaudhry and Jason Manford), among others. On the plus side, he can spend some quality time with his young daughter, Emma (Matilda Firth). If he can stop being so selfish and self-pitying for long enough.

There's certainly fun to be had here. The lead character being bamboozled by his English village surroundings, and the very notion of panto, allows for some chuckles, as does the occasional angry outburst. There's even an effective musical number for Sutherland, while his character is in his full costume for Buttons, his panto role. The expected transformation of our lead isn't handled very well though, it's more a series of sudden turnarounds than a gradual journey to a much better place, and a few elements feel like they should have some more impact on the plot. Danny Dyer is a local bad boy, Kieran, who antagonises people, but could have ultimately been left out of the movie. The same goes for a minor sub-plot about a number of local burglaries, which may or may not have been sanctioned by Kieran.

While Foggin directs well enough, the awkward screenplay leaves everything in the hands of the cast. Sutherland is a big plus in the main role, and game enough to fully embrace his panto turn (once his character finds out that there's no way out of it), Katherine Ryan has a few fun moments as the angry agent, and young Firth does well as the child who retains faith in a man that many others have long since given up on. Derek Jacobi also brings something special to the project, especially in a key scene that explains how someone can keep the theatre at the heart of their life. Wilson isn't so good, to put it mildly. Not only is she stuck delivering a standard dramatic turn, she's also required to do so (for some reason) with a Yorkshire accent. It's not a great delivery, and that choice feels like it could have been easily swerved with one explanatory line of dialogue. Chaudhry and Manford are fun, Lucien Laviscount and Savannah Lee Smith are pleasant enough, and Dyer does what Dyer does. Alice Eve and James Lance are sadly wasted though, and it's a shame that the actual Yorkshire setting isn't given more of a supporting role.

The good just about outweighs the bad, but it's a very close call. The extra writers seem to have tried to overstuff the runtime, the cast could all have been given pages for at least three very different films, and there's a disappointing lack of full-on Christmas sweetness for the majority of the runtime. It really nails that panto atmosphere at times though, and the final scenes are sweet, funny, and rewarding. Which means it should at least leave you with a smile on your face as the end credits roll.

5/10

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Concrete Plans (2020)

Although it brings nothing very original to the table, Concrete Plans is an enjoyable thriller that puts people into a bad situation and slowly makes things worse and worse until it is time for the end credits to roll. The script isn't bad, and the cast all help to lift it slightly.

A group of workmen are hired to renovate an old farmhouse, not knowing that the posh owner who hired them (Simon, played by Kevin Guthrie) is having some major financial issues. He keeps doing all he can to delay making any payments, which is no good for the foreman/boss, Bob (Steve Speirs), and leads to him being badgered about it by his increasingly-wary workers. The group is made up of Dave (William Thomas), the old hand, bratty young Steve (Charley Palmer Rothwell), Jim (Chris Reilly), and hard-working Viktor (Goran Bogdan). As storm clouds start to gather, it soon becomes clear that at least one of the men will push things further and further to ensure they get the money due to them.

Trying to balance everything out, and not with complete success, Concrete Plans has a group of central characters it is often hard to like, making it potentially more satisfying when everything starts to go wrong. Viktor seems like a nice guy, Bob too, and Dave has been in the game long enough to know that causing a fuss might lead to you not being picked for future jobs (although paying someone for their work is a pretty basic civility). Steve is a twat, there's no better word for him (okay, maybe brat, but a brat is just a twat with added childishness and energy), and Jim has, we discover, lied his way on to the job. Then there's Simon, the worst kind of toff, someone who feels entitled to shout at others, and try to boss them around, even when he's not actually in any position to be giving orders.

Writer-director Will Jewell, making his feature debut (I'm not counting This Time Next Year, a 2011 film that only runs to an hour), handles everything well enough, and puts all of the pieces in place nicely for a third act that delivers some nastiness and a number of twists and turns. It's a shame that the execution of the material leaves it slightly lacking the full impact it should have (Jewell dilutes the strength of things by having one or two moments happen offscreen, or he presents them in a way that allows you an extra moment to see things one step ahead of the characters), but the overall end result is still good enough to make this worth your time.

I mentioned that the cast all help to lift the material, and that is true, although some are more restricted than others. Some of the less likeable characters are made even worse to make the third act more tense and satisfying, which leaves both Guthrie and Rothwell stuck in their respective “horrible shit” pigeonholes. Reilly is riveting though, and all of the relatively good characters are excellent, even with the moral ambiguity (to put it diplomatically). There are also good turns from Amber Rose Evah (as Amy, Simon’s girlfriend) and James Lance (Richard, a slippery financial advisor).

Probably not a film destined to be remembered as a classic, or one you will turn to for numerous rewatches, this at least provides an enjoyably tense distraction for about ninety minutes, and at least shows Jewell as a writer-director who takes good care of his material when getting it from script to screen.

7/10

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