Not one person in half-measure crime film Tainted looks like they’re having fun, and not just because of the subject matter. Ex-con Lance is recruited by the Aryan brotherhood and Russian mob to do a hit, which he begrudgingly has to fulfill if he wants to live a normal life. Lance (Alan Van Sprang) meanders…

Whoever does PR for this film deserves a raise and 15 years of favours from the casting director. How anyone thought putting a man who went to jail for choking a female Hollywood executive and, well, Mel Gibson in a movie together needs to find a new calling. I’m all for forgiveness in Hollywood, but…

Though Hammer is a crime-thriller that goes through a paint-by-numbers plot, there’s nothing typical in the execution here. Writer-director Christian Sparkes, best known for Newfoundland film Cast No Shadow, makes a thriller worth remembering with this drug-deal-gone-wrong drama. It’s not the action in the script that keeps you holding on, though. The familial relationships and…

The career trajectory of of Game Of Thrones alum Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has been an interesting one. From playing the layered Jamie Lannister to roles in Swedish classic Headhunters, horror fare like Mama, and playing a philandering husband in the awful The Other Woman, his choices have been all over the place. Indies like prison drama…

This film about the famine in the 1930s Soviet Union is interesting, but never really achieves incredible heights. While James Norton is convincing as Welsh journalist Gareth Jones, who exposes the truth about what’s going on, he isn’t a hero we particularly leap for. Much more interesting is the committed performance of Peter Sarsgaard. Long-underrated,…

It’s one thing to miss the mark on a film with a regular budget. But when a 200 million, CGI-laden Disney film like Artemis Fowl falls flat, well, we call that a fiasco. With a stacked cast, some really insightful material to adapt from, and the huge Disney conglomerate behind it, this should have been…

When I was growing up — and my mind and heart began to gravitate toward film — I became as aware of the cult classics and big bombs as I did Oscar winners. Time and time again throughout my youth, I heard about Showgirls: The NC-17 stripper film about drifter Nomi, who makes her way…

In Da 5 Bloods, Spike Lee has created his most ambitious, revelatory picture of all time. Part war picture, part adventure film and full political race relations opus, Lee takes all these different ideas and genres and creates one epic film. He walks a tonal tightrope in the story of four African American Vietnam vets…

There are some roles actors are absolutely born to play. They say familiarity breeds contempt, and yet sometimes going close to home churns out some truly remarkable results. Eminem’s rewarding turn as a poverty-stricken rapper in 8 Mile comes to mind, and now, under Judd Apatow’s steady comedic direction, SNL’s Pete Davidson takes his persona…

Jeffrey Dean Morgan has been commanding the television landscape for four years as Negan in the Walking Dead. Here, he headlines serial killer thriller The Postcard Killings, and he almost helps the B-movie stick the landing. The charismatic, gravelly-voiced Morgan absolutely steals all his scenes. He’s more involving than the eventually-revealed serial killers. Perhaps that’s…