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Out on Friday 19 June
Sir Ian McKellen reinvents Sherlock Holmes. Entourage moves from TV to cinema, and calls itself... Entourage. Stephen Greenes directorial debut looks a bit like something by David O. Russell. Thats right, heres this weeks new releases. Click on for our reviews of Mr. Holmes, Entourage, Accidental Love, Les Combattants, The Burning, One By One, The Longest Ride, The Long Good Friday and Natural Resistance. For the best movie reviews, subscribe to Total Film.
MR. HOLMES
Given the superhero treatment that Sherlock has had over the last few years, youd half expect old man Holmes to look like something that would fit nicely in Frank Millers The Dark Knight Returns. Instead, we get Sir Ian McKellen sitting quietly in a chair by the seaside. No Watson. No pipe. No deerstalker. No Sherlock youve ever met before unless youve read Mitch Cullins source novel, A Slight Trick Of The Mind, which reimagined the super sleuth as a man in his quiet, twilight years; tending his bees, pottering around the garden and trying to write his real memoirs. Grown old and tired of his own legend, this Holmes is a Victorian celebrity cast adrift in 1947, washing up in a Sussex farmhouse under the care of his brusque housekeeper (Laura Linney) and her young son (Milo Parker). Watson may be absent, but he still casts a long shadow over the film as the author of the sensational tabloid tales that made them both famous. Ever more interested in fact than fiction, Holmes wants to set the record straight before his mind fails him completely. Theres still a bit of super-sleuthing to be done in the form of a few flashbacks, but the real mystery to be solved is Sherlock himself. The character is a literary enigma that was underwritten by Doyle and overplayed by many on screen. McKellen, though, gives us the most human Holmes weve ever seen. Stripped of his powers and slowly realising that he never really had any Holmes at 93 is finally someone we can understand; even love. Dragging the baggage of a hundred other adaptations behind him, McKellens Holmes is at odds with his own reputation: still capable of assassinating a strangers character from a single missing shirt button but still incapable of realising just how hurtful that can be. Bill Condon (reuniting with his Gods And Monsters lead) directs without ostentation, letting McKellen set the shuffling pace. The end result treads a risky line between melancholic and made-for-TV. Theres sweetness and light from Linney and Parker, but Condon struggles to let them into his story as much as Holmes does. Quibbles aside, this is easily the best Sherlock story that Conan Doyle never wrote. A film more about retirement and regret than questions and answers, it sees McKellen gently, brilliantly expose the frailties of an immortal character. THE VERDICT: Anyone expecting opera and opium will be disappointed. But a majestic McKellen rescues a safe script, giving us a fresh look at an icon even the most casual viewer will be (over)familar with. Director: Bill Condon Starring: Sir Ian McKellen, Laura Linney, Milo Parker, Hattie Morahan, Patrick Kennedy Theatrical release: 19 June 2015 Paul Bradshaw
ENTOURAGE
Entourages big screen bow opens with Piers Morgan yes, that Piers Morgan essentially explaining the premise of HBOs long-running TV show via an entertainment news report: how it follows movie star Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) and his merry band of childhood bros, whove spent the last eight series navigating Hollywood. If intended to bring first-time viewers up to speed, Morgan neednt have bothered. Entourage DMovie is not for newbies. Its for viewers whove invested enough time in this group to feel safe in their crude company; less a film than a feature-length episode and not a very good one at that. Moving on from 2011s finale, it sees Vincent given the chance to direct his first script, a blockbuster adaptation of Jekyll And Hyde, by his biblically angry, long-time friend Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven), an agent-turned-studio head. Its a huge risk, complicated by difficult Texan financiers Larsen McCredle (Billy Bob Thornton) and his son, Travis (Haley Joel Osment). But the plot is secondary to scenes of the guys getting up to douchey Hollywood hi-jinks mostly involving women, banter and partying with the likes of Gary Busey and Pharrell Williams. This is no bad thing. The TV show is cameo-heavy, hardly known for subtlety, and centres on male friendship. But as with Sex And The City, what worked on the small screen the satirical bite, the endearing camaraderie fizzles on film, something strangely apparent in nearly all of the groups interactions, which come off as as limp and forced, as though theyve all suddenly just realised that TV movies are a bad idea. THE VERDICT: Entourages big screen leap is a mild disappointment for fans, a bafflingly flat take on Hollywood for everyone else. Pivens still funny, mind. Director: Doug Ellin Starring: Adrian Grenier, Jeremy Piven, Kevin Dillon, Kevin Connolly, Jerry Ferrara Theatrical release: 19 June 2015 Stephen Kelly
ACCIDENTAL LOVE
When a film is shelved for years despite a big-name director and bigger-name cast, theres usually a good reason witness Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Coopers widely derided period romance Serena, which finally slunk out to a limited release last year. Semi-political satire Accidental Love is a particularly interesting case, because its disastrous shoot came directly before director David O. Russell began an odds-defying Hollywood comeback. The Fighter kicked off a streak that would see him land an Oscar nominee in all four acting fields for Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle two years running, a feat last accomplished in 1981. Filmed and never completed in 2008 yet somehow still 30 minutes too long, Accidental Love is an initially promising blend of off-kilter premise, spiky performances and Russells characteristic brand of ensemble mania. Small-town waitress Alice (Jessica Biel) accidentally gets a nail shot through her head, and doesnt have the money or insurance to get it removed, leaving her with mood swings and the constant threat of fatal haemorrhage. She heads to D.C. and joins forces with a sweet-but-spineless congressman (Jake Gyllenhaal) to lobby for universal emergency healthcare. Given its chaotic birth key scenes were reportedly never shot, actors and crew walked off set over guild violations its no shock that the film is all over the place. Alices nonchalant doctors cutting her loose mid-surgery is an exaggerated but on-point skewering of the pitiless US health system, while Gyllenhaals plainly having fun playing a budding embodiment of cutthroat Washington politics. But as the stakes get more cartoonish and the set pieces more haphazard, the atmosphere of relentless frenzy familiar from I Heart Huckabees becomes exhausting. The film circles back on itself like a joke without a punchline, the lack of control behind the camera becoming obvious in front of it. THE VERDICT: Though disowned by its director, this isnt a car crash Biel and Gyllenhaal are game enough to make the OTT tone work, until the narrative holes become too gaping to ignore. Director: David O. Russell (as Stephen Greene) Starring: Jessica Biel, Jake Gyllenhaal, James Marsden, Tracy Morgan, Catherine Keener Theatrical release: 19 June 2015 Emma Dibdin
LES COMBATTANTS
Thomas Cailleys charming, off-kilter romance revolves around the unlikely meet-curt between French youth Arnaud (Kvin Azas) and tomboy Madeleine (Adle Haenel) on a beachfront self-defence class. Cue a fight of passage, as the smitten Arnaud follows Madeline to army camp to train as a survivalist. Crowd-pleasing without compromising on its uniqueness, the result has romcom structure but a beguiling adventure mood reminiscent of the best US indies: think of it as The King And Queen Of Summer. Both leads won Csars, as did Cailley, but the delightfully forthright Haenel (a Gallic J-Law) steals the show. Director: Thomas Cailley Starring: Adle Haenel, Kvin Azas, Antoine Laurent Theatrical release: 19 June 2015 Simon Kinnear
THE BURNING
THE BURNING Not the 1981 slasher flick of the same name, but a soggy eco-thriller set in the Argentinean rainforest. What sounds exciting on paper a topless drifter (Gael Garca Bernal) hunts a group of mercenaries who have kidnapped a young woman (Alice Braga) is in fact little more than an artfully shot snore-fest peppered with the odd gory scrap. Bernal does his best to bring grit to proceedings, yet the lush scenery acts most of the talent off the screen and the film never says anything more interesting than bullying bad, nature pretty. Director: Pablo Fendrik Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal, Alice Braga Theatrical release: 19 June 2015 Josh Winning
ONE BY ONE
A cafe worker (Heather Wilson) discovers Earth could be on the verge of apocalypse in this micro-budget Brit-flick. Writer/director Diane Millers feature debut feels less like a film, more a series of paranoid ramblings. At times the conspiracy theories are so ludicrous you half-expect a late twist revealing everything to have been one big parody, but the characters continue speaking the cringeworthy dialogue with the kind of self-satisfaction that the late Rik Mayall (who plays a character unironically named Ernest) used to mock in his most famous roles. Director: Diane Jessie Miller Starring: Steven Macaulay, Rik Mayall, Sean Meyer Theatrical release: 19 June 2015 Stephen Puddicombe
THE LONGEST RIDE
Nicholas Sparks has wrung a career out of writing romance novels about star-crossed lovers that get turned into weepy date movies (The Notebook et al). Hes done it again with The Longest Ride, a country-fied groaner about a broody rodeo star (Luke son of Clint Eastwood) who falls for an art school student (Tomorrowlands Britt Robertson). They learn to accept each others differences thanks to co-star Alan Aldas penchant for ridiculous love letters. At two-and-a-half hours, they should have called it The Longest Movie. Its mush, but Sparks die-hards will go the distance. Director: George Tillman Jr Starring: Scott Eastwood, Britt Robertson, Alan Alda, Oona Chaplin, Jack Huston Theatrical release: 19 June 2015 Ken McIntyre
THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY
It would be a diabolical liberty indeed to let the first anniversary of Bob Hoskins death go by without a nostalgic reappraisal of his finest screen outing, originally released in 1980. Yet as magnificent as he is as Harold Shand, the London gangster whose dreams of a Mafia-backed empire are undone by a pesky IRA vendetta, it would be an injustice to overlook the power behind the throne. No, not Helen Mirren as his Lady Macbeth-like wife; were talking about Barrie Keeffes screenplay a relentless, superbly quotable masterpiece. Director: John Mackenzie Starring: Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren Theatrical release: 19 June 2015 Neil Smith
NATURAL RESISTANCE
Jonathan Nossiters doc about four Italian wine-growers and the regulatory restrictions they face for using only natural production methods is about as niche as it gets. The home-video aesthetic doesnt exactly scream big screen, either. But this is the same filmmaker who has already brought us one celebrated wine documentary in 2004s Mondovino; here, Nossiters knock for engaging with his subjects makes for a surprisingly charming film. And it also convinces that their plight against almost-conspiratorial levels of bureaucracy is an important story needing to be told. Director: Jonathan Nossiter Theatrical release: 19 June 2015 Matt Looker
