Tag Archives: thriller

485 – Verity

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We love a good thriller, and Verity is one… depending on your expectations. It’s reliant on three excellent star performances, Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson and Josh Hartnett all charismatic and committed to getting the best out of the entertainingly daft screenplay. Verity does tricks on the tightrope between sincere and self-knowingly nonsensical, and is dramatic and funny in equal measure.

On top of this, we discuss the nuance – such as there can be, in the context of a somewhat absurd thriller – of the characters’ actions, how the opening sets a tone that might be easy to overlook, and the layers of irony and uncertainty built in to the themes of truth and villainy. And we consider some depressing aspects of the real world that the film reflects, including the general societal illiteracy and stupidity it unwittingly reproduces in its dialogue and the novelistic and journalistic writing we’re shown, the new media environment in which the podcast interview has become at least as important as legacy media, and the sizeable and vocal section of society that’s devoted to demonising women as manipulative, psychopathic, murderous liars.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

476 – Disclosure Day

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Steven Spielberg returns to science fiction with Disclosure Day, an ambitious alien thriller that consciously recalls Close Encounters of the Third Kind, still one of his defining films fifty years on. We marvel at its extraordinary visual storytelling, virtuoso camerawork and sense of cinematic wonder, while asking whether its ideas about conspiracy, religion, the media and empathy are as sophisticated as its technical brilliance. We also revisit the perennial debate between CGI and practical effects, and consider the different worlds in which Disclosure Day and Close Encounters were made and released. Is Spielberg’s enduring belief in communication and human connection still resonant in an age of fractured media and competing truths?

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

472 – Sirât

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Sirât is all about tone, and the time it takes to establish it. It begins with an array of massive speakers being set up in a desert, and over the next several minutes, we experience an outdoor rave, the music trance-inducing, the ravers moving freely and in their own worlds, as we gradually narrow our focus on an out-of-place father, Luis, and his young son, who we learn are searching for his daughter, last seen five months ago. Failing to find her there, Luis latches on to the mention of another, upcoming rave, and, while war breaks out in the background, uncertainly follows a group of ravers there.

It’s possible to spoil Sirât severely – some of what occurs is barely signposted and hard to believe, but just as we’re told about the music that underscores everything, this is a film for dancing to, not listening to. It would be all too easy to watch Sirât at a remove and find the events depicted ludicrous and laughable, but director Óliver Laxe demonstrates such control of tone that it’s easy to be lured into the emotional state he needs to shock us when he wants. The only thing you should be prepared to expect is a lack of easy answers. Sirât is a film about a world coming apart that leaves you wondering what it’s all for.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

471 – The Secret Agent

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We’ve previously seen Bacurau, writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s last film, which we loved, and find The Secret Agent a similarly fascinating depiction of political corruption and persecution in Brazil, though much more grounded and fleshed out, particularly given the historical setting in 1977, at which time Brazil was subject to a military dictatorship. To José, who grew up in Franco’s Spain, The Secret Agent‘s depiction of life under fascism richly, and scarily, evokes the dynamics at play in such a society. As Wagner Moura’s protagonist discovers, simply upsetting the wrong person can be enough to have hitmen sent after you.

Mike argues that the film takes too long to get going – in developing its picture of the lawless world in which Moura joins other political refugees and a dissident network, it makes us wait to find out who he is and why he’s among that group. José doesn’t share that assessment, finding the time well spent and trusting the film’s pacing. We discuss the flights of fancy, including an animated segment which dramatises news reports of a supposedly supernatural severed leg killing people (in fact, the police and media are all too happy to make use of the nonsensical urban legend to cover up their extrajudicial murders); Moura’s performance, which earned him an Oscar nomination; the generations’ differing attitudes to maintaining historical records and keeping the past alive; and the hereditary aspect of positions of power, in which such figures as the police chief, wealthy industrialists, and even contract killers are always accompanied and assisted by their sons.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

469 – Send Help

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Send Help sees Rachel McAdams marooned on a desert island with her asshole boss in a cartoonishly gory comic adventure the likes of which made director Sam Raimi’s name. We discuss how feminist it really is – at the very least, it’s a bloke’s idea of female empowerment – and praise McAdams’ and Dylan O’Brien’s performances, upon which the entire film relies.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

467 – It Was Just an Accident

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One of Iran’s most celebrated filmmakers, Jafar Panahi, has spent the last quarter of a century in conflict with the Iranian government, which objects to his films’ criticisms of their actions and the wider social conditions in the country, and has both arrested him several times and banned him from making films for twenty years – which hasn’t stopped him. His latest, It Was Just an Accident, won the 2025 Palme d’Or, and tells the story of former political prisoners who capture a man they suspect was their torturer.

It’s a brilliant thriller which, despite the gravity and darkness of its subject matter, is energetic and entertaining. It effortlessly raises both moral and practical questions – What’s the right thing to do with their captive? Have they become the torturers? If they let him live, won’t he just come after them again? – without entering morality play territory, neither pretending to have the answers nor admonishing its characters for their choices and emotional responses. It’s a vivid expression of the lasting effect the actions of the Iranian regime have had on its people, for whom merely the suggestion that they might be able to exact revenge on their torturer causes instant emotional outbursts.

We discuss all this and more, including the depiction of a lawless culture in which you’re constantly expected to give bribes to get by; the filmmaking, in which no filming permits were provided and Panahi had to once again violate his filmmaking ban; the question of how ambiguous the end might be and what that means; and a comparison with American cinema in Trump’s America and the question of what might be happening under ICE, the immigration enforcement agency that’s expanded into a neo-paramilitary force over the last year.

It Was Just an Accident is a magnificent film. See it.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

466 – Nuremberg

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Russell Crowe shines in Nuremberg as Hermann Göring, who became the face of the Nazi Party following Hitler’s suicide and the end of the war, as he’s held in custody and probed by a psychiatrist as the titular trials approach. Indeed, while a mediocre film, its actors’ performances are a pleasure – with the exception of Rami Malek, whose psychiatrist is twitchy, busy, and a failure. A shame that he’s the protagonist, then.

We discuss the film’s structure and screenplay: José contends that Malek’s character is not just badly played but an irrelevance, and the drama would be much better served by focusing on Michael Shannon’s prosecutor; Mike criticises what he claims is a stupid person’s idea of clever writing.

And there’s more to think about: how Nuremberg compares to Bridge of Spies, which similarly depicted a novel trial that had obvious implications beyond the courtroom, and Judgment at Nuremberg, the other major dramatisation of the trials; the film’s tone, which is able to handle moments of humour but sometimes veers into the overly glib and kitsch; the present-day rise of fascism and the genocide in Gaza to which the film speaks; the use of real footage of Holocaust victims and the purpose to which it’s put; and whether we think that its critique of the Catholic Church for its support of the Nazis, and suggestion that dropping the atomic bomb on Japan was an unjustifiable atrocity, are surprising and bold things for a mainstream American film to do… or not particularly impressive, and shouldn’t people just know this stuff anyway?

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

464 – Bugonia

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Yorgos Lanthimos’ fourth collaboration with Emma Stone yields a darkly comedic thriller about two conspiracy theorists who kidnap a CEO, determined to reveal the truth that she’s an alien from Andromeda. We’ve all at least considered it.

While funny and absurd, Bugonia is also tragic and misanthropic, and we’re unconvinced that its ending is either earned or fitting, despite Mike’s insistence that he’s seen it coming for weeks. We consider the film’s messaging, aesthetics, and tone; what its stars bring to it and how they differ; what the title might mean; and how a comparison with Alex Garland’s Ex Machina reveals the lacks in the storytelling here. We pick at Bugonia left, right and centre, but despite our complaints, it showed us a very entertaining time, and there’s a lot about it to recommend.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

461 – One Battle After Another – Second Screening

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Listen to our first podcast on One Battle After Another here.

We’re joined by our resident Paul Thomas Anderson expert (and Mike’s brother), Stephen Glass, to whom we’ve previously spoken about Phantom Thread and Licorice Pizza, for another discussion of One Battle After Another. Stephen’s seen it in both VistaVision and IMAX 70mm, and can offer a sense of the experience Mike and José missed seeing it in IMAX Digital, and so begins a wide-ranging conversation about the film’s aesthetics, tone, politics, influences and more.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

458 – The Long Walk

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Cheap, simple, high-concept and reasonably graphic, The Long Walk is a throwback to the days of the B-movie. In its dystopian, totalitarian version of the USA, an annual event, the Long Walk, is designed to inspire a work ethic and national pride in the citizenry, and in so doing restore the country to that self-defined global number one status it craves; to make America great again. The televised competition sets fifty young men, one from each state, against each other in a test of endurance: they must walk for as long as they can, maintaining a speed of over 3mph at all times, with success rewarded with unimaginable riches and the fulfilment of a personal wish, and repeated failure to keep up punished with on-the-spot execution. There is one winner.

What promises to be quite dumb is not quite as dumb as Mike anticipates. The worldbuilding is fairly thin, and the premise of the competition an immediate hurdle for the audience to clear, but The Long Walk is able to develop thematically in surprising depth through the interactions and conversations between its competitors, who share their thoughts on the event, the personal histories that draw them to it, and their intentions if they win. With a number of reservations – we find its visual direction lacking and differ on how good the performances and screenplay are – it’s easy to recommend The Long Walk, which shows us an America in need of revolution, and asks its characters what it might take to achieve it.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.