Eleanor Reviews

**/*** (2.5 stars) DVD Release In 1970s America, Irving Rosenfeld makes a living as a successful con man. When he meets Sydney Prosser, the pair decide to branch further afield into the world of conning, eventually falling under the eye of the law. To escape prosecution, they must help a young, hot-headed FBI agent to expose the rampant political corruption in the area. I find it hard to comprehend why this film was ever nominated for such an abundance of awards - it was even in the 'Best Film' category! 'American Hustle' isn't engaging, it is wholly unoriginal, and the majority of the characters are wholly unlikeable. It also goes on and on... and on and on! The film is full of glaring inconsistencies that I just couldn't move past: sometimes there is a narrative voice-over, sometimes not; whilst at other times the camera flicked from the face of the person speaking to their hands and then back again, which I found incredibly fr...

***/**** (3.5 stars) DVD Release Sergeant Gerry Boyle lives and works within a small coastal community in Ireland, balancing his drug and prostitute habit with the everyday crimes that occur in his patch. Following the discovery of a body and the subsequent arrival of a humourless FBI agent, Boyle finds himself being roped in to help hunt down a team of international drug-smugglers. Well, Brendan Gleeson, who plays the eponymous guard, is obviously excellent: his small nuances and subtle line delivery are spot on, and you could almost miss some of his ‘jokes’ if you weren’t paying attention properly. Here, Gleeson has a multi-layered character to get his teeth into, as Boyle is not simply an unorthodox policeman with a drugs habit, but also son to a dying mother, and genuinely caring individual. With the arrival of FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle), we begin to break down Boyle’s cold exterior, but his true nature is never fully revealed to us. I would have liked ...

**** It's been five years since we last visited Berk, and the inhabitants are now living successfully and harmoniously with dragons. Our heroes Toothless and Hiccup are an inseparable team and spend their days perfecting their flying techniques and exploring new islands. On one such exploration, they come across a group of dragon trappers, working for the mysterious Drago who is said to be building a dragon army and threatens to ruin all that Hiccup has striven for.  I really liked 'How To Train Your Dragon'. Being an utter softie, I cried a couple of times and then went out and bought it on DVD so that I could enjoy the blossoming relationship between Hiccup and Toothless again and again. I was, then, wary of seeing the sequel - would it live up to one of the best children's films I'd seen? I shouldn't have worried. Unlike a couple of sequels I've seen recently, this film can really hold its own and, whilst it isn't quite as good as the first,...

**** In the 1700s, Dido Elizabeth Belle is brought to live with in England. She is the illegitimate child of a Royal Navy Captain and a slave, but her great-aunt and uncle decide to take her in. She is raised amongst the aristocracy alongside her cousin, Elizabeth, receiving the same education and care. However, her colour prevents her from being fully accepted into society, regardless of her position as an heiress. Alongside her journey of self-discovery is the Zong case, over which her great-uncle is presiding, the outcome of which will effect Britain’s involvement in the slave trade. This is a beautiful and heart-felt period drama which deals with both a pivotal court case and a love story. Comparisons have been made to Jane Austen when it comes to the love triangle, and indeed the excellent script (written by Misan Sagay) displays the same elegant command of the English language as her books, but I would suggest that this film has slightly more ‘bite’ than you would ini...

(I haven’t given this a star-rating because I can’t decide upon one.) In 1932, Jimmy Gralton returns to his home county in Ireland, ten years after he fled the country for fear of imprisonment after building a community hall without the permission of the Church. Upon returning, he finds that little has changed for the members of his community, who still live in fear of eviction and the Church. It is in this political climate that he chooses to reopen the hall. For starters, I don’t believe this story works as a film – there are too many characters, too many different relationships and a great deal of politics floating around, and I think it would’ve worked far better as a TV series rather than a one-off film. As a film, it is wholly unremarkable and rather problematic, although not without moments of merit, and feels very televisual, something that would play on TV on a Sunday afternoon rather than in a cinema. Within the first few moments of the film opening, I felt that it...

*** Humans and mutants alike are being hunted by the Sentinels, apparently sentient and ruthless beings set on destroying everything. In a desperate attempt to save mankind, the remaining X-Men decide to send Wolverine back in time to stop the Sentinels ever being created. Well, this is a completely ridiculous film, even more so than a radio-active lizard and, perhaps more importantly, the other X-Men films. Whenever time travel becomes a major plot point, massive loopholes open up and this film is just not good enough to distract the audience from these issues. The script leaves much to be desired – there is rather a lot of forced exposition at the beginning, and later on we have some seriously poor one-liners that sent ripples of amusement through the audience when they were meant to be inspiring and heart-felt. There is also a bonkers side-note about the assassination of JFK that never should have made it into the final cut, but there it is, sticking out like a sore thu...

***** DVD Release Based on the true story of Captain Richard Phillips, the film follows the story of how the Maersk Alabama was hijacked off the coast of Somalia in 2009. Tom Hanks is Captain Phillips, a seasoned captain of cargo vessels, who, in 2009, was charged with delivering a vast quantity of goods around the Horn of Africa and across the Somali Basin. Everyone seems to know that it is dangerous, and yet that is the route they must take to have the goods delivered in the time set out. Hanks is excellent as Phillips, and we go on an emotional roller-coaster with him, from leaving his wife at the airport to having his ship overrun with pirates, to then being taken hostage (not a spoiler – this is shown in the trailer!). With this being a Paul Greengrass movie, the dialogue is very naturalistic, feeling almost improvised, and this allows Hanks to play the part with complete realism – there are no epic speeches, just short replies and interjections. Opposite Hanks is ...