It is like layers of an onion, and the more you peel away, the more you feel like crying.

Hidden Agenda

(1990)

The closest Ken Loach will probably come to a starry cast and a mainstream thriller, but his subject matter is still as politically-charged as ever. Indeed, if there’s a failing here it’s that on the occasions where characters start sermonising it is particularly jarring to this kind of plot; the others in the scene are compelled to stop what they are doing and listen to a lecture.

Taking as its basis the investigation into the RUC’s shoot-to-kill policy, Loach’s film opens with the murder of a civil rights lawyer (Brad Dourif) by RUC officers. When Kerrigan (Brian Cox) is called in to interrogate the official story, he’s aided in his inquiries by the girlfriend of the deceased (Frances McDormand). Kerrigan learns that the account of what happened was fabricated and that the lawyer was in possession of a tape implicating senior military and Conservative figures in illegally manouvering Thatcher’s rise to power.

The cast is rounded out by a number of familiar faces including Maurice Roeves (as the British army officer who recorded the tape), The Bill’s John Benfield, Bernard Archard (as a wily government official) and Jim Norton (Bishop Brennan himself, on particularly malevolent form).

It’s a long time since I last saw this, and it took me by surprise how full-blooded the conspiracy plotline is; Oliver Stone would heartily approve. One might suggest this distracts from the serious points Loach has to make about Northern Ireland, but I heartily enjoyed its more extravagant machinations. The main players all do fine work, particularly Cox as a highly principled character who finds himself in over his head.

****

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She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

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(SPOILERS) "I think our film is arguably better than Spiceworld" said Neil Tennant of his and Chris Lowe's much-maligned It Couldn't Happen Here, a quasi-musical, quasi-surrealist journey through the English landscape via the Pet shop Boys' "own" history as envisaged by co-writer-director Jack Bond. Of course, Spiceworld could boast the presence of the illustrious Richard E Grant, while It Couldn't Happen Here had to settle for Gareth Hunt. Is its reputation deserved? It's arguably not very successful at being a coherent film (even thematically), but I have to admit that I rather like it, ramshackle and studiously aloof though it is.

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Ghostbusters (2016)
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The Avengers 5.24: Mission… Highly Improbable
With a title riffing on a then-riding-high US spy show, just as the previous season's The Girl from Auntie riffed on a then-riding-high US spy show, it's to their credit that neither have even the remotest connection to their "inspirations" besides the cheap gags (in this case, the episode was based on a teleplay submitted back in 1964). Mission… Highly Improbable follows in the increasing tradition (certainly with the advent of Season Five and colour) of SF plotlines, but is also, in its particular problem with shrinkage, informed by other recent adventurers into that area.

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An off-peak Joe Dante movie is still one chock-a-block full of satirical nuggets and comic inspiration, far beyond the facility of most filmmakers. Small Soldiers finds him back after a six-year big screen absence, taking delirious swipes at the veneration of the military, war movies, the toy industry, conglomerates and privatised defence forces. Dante’s take is so gleefully skewed, he even has big business win! The only problem with the picture (aside from an indistinct lead, surprising from a director with a strong track record for casting juveniles) is that this is all very familiar.

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Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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