The Equalizer 3 (2023)

They should have let me in. Sicily. At a remote winery Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) kills gangster Lorenzo Vitale (Bruno Bilotta) and his henchmen to obtain a key to the winery’s vault and recoup money stolen in a cyber-heist. While leaving the winery, Robert is shot in the back by Vitale’s young grandson (Adriano Sabrie). Robert attempts suicide due to his injury but finds his gun out of bullets and then takes the ferry back to the mainland. While driving on the Amalfi Coast, Robert pulls over and slips into unconsciousness from shock. He is found and rescued by local carabiniere Gio Bonucci (Eugenio Mastrandrea) who brings Robert to a small coastal Italian town called Altamonte where he is treated by a doctor, Enzo Arisio (Remo Girone). As he recovers and regains his mobility Robert becomes acquainted with the locals and becomes fond of the town and its people. He makes an anonymous phone call to CIA officer Emma Collins (Dakota Fanning) to tip her off about the winery’s role in the drug trade, disguised as normal business transactions in Sicily. Collins and other CIA operatives arrive at the winery and find millions in cash along with bags of synthetic amphetamines used by ISIS terrorists hidden in a storeroom, confirming Robert’s suspicions. Meanwhile, members of the Camorra harass and kill villagers in an attempt to coerce them out of their housing and take over Altamonte for property development. Robert overhears Marco Quaranta (Andrea Dodero) a high-ranking Camorra member, pressuring local shop owner Angelo (Daniele Perrone) for protection payments. To make an example of him, the Camorra firebombs Angelo’s fish store as the entire town watches. Gio reviews video of the firebombing and calls the Italian central police for an inquiry. Along with his wife Chiara (Sonia Ben Ammar) and daughter Gabriella (Dea Lanzaro), Gio is attacked by the Camorra and beaten for interfering in their operations. Thereafter, Marco demands that Gio set up a boat for him. Overhearing the conversation, Robert asks Marco to move his operations to a different location. When Marco refuses, Robert kills him and his henchmen. The Naples head of police Chief Barella (Adolfo Margiotta) is threatened and tortured by Marco’s brother Vincent (Andrea Scarduzio) the head of the Camorra and is ordered to find the person responsible for Marco’s death … Those people don’t know where to go. Our favourite vigilante returns to equalize everything in sight, starting with the mysterious catalyst whose payoff takes the entire film to establish. Transported to Sicily and the Italian mainland, the violence returns with verve in Robert Wenk’s screenplay, the scribe of the others in the series, in the finale adapted from the TV show that starred Edward Woodward and was created by Michael Sloan and Richard Lindheim. What do you see when you look at me? McCall is ageing now and even he must be tired of all the killing. Lord knows I’m allergic to bad things. Availing of R&R in a pretty village with a pleasant woman restaurateur Aminah (Gaia Scodellaro) which introduces the hint if not the actuality of romance and a civilised doctor to oversee his recuperation he’s glad of it. Do I look like a guy who kills people? That’s an existential question that’s really kinda silly at this point in the trilogy: this film commences with a horrifying sequence of murders – yes, we know it’s McCall doing in some of the Camorra but it’s extremely shocking. Giving the CIA a tip-off is just the start of an elaborate denouement which unearths a terror cell and reveals the extent of the Mafia’s viciousness. The phone relationship with Emma is a preview of coming attractions: You don’t look like you sound/You do! That’s the opening gambit when they finally come face to face 48 minutes in. In these films Denzel is paired with younger women in a non-romantic way – they get the opportunity to do stuff and he returns to pleasantly predictable vengeful type. It’s his question to her that makes her think of the situation from a different angle: Why smuggle drugs into the most secure port in the entire region? That sets her off doing what he knows she will – directing the CIA action where it needs to go and hopefully keeping her out of the line of fire. While the women in this series are given an opportunity for some action it’s curtailed as here, where a well-timed call saves her but effectively puts her out of action – allowing him to rescue her and save the day because he’s the hero and that’s his job. That’s appropriate considering their previous pairing two decades ago in Man On Fire. Washington is an incredibly charismatic movie star and it’s a relief to have the first 45 minutes dedicated to rebuilding his constitution which allows him to cultivate relationships while the gangsters have their way with the locals, setting up an awesome revenge. His medical treatment and slow recovery gives the audience a chance to recover too before the inevitable kicks in. His visceral method leads him to explain his MO to a victim: It’s called pain compliance. It’s like he’s a doctor too! Shot in a palette verging on monochrome with chiaroscuro features by the brilliant Robert Richardson, the scheme complements the black and white morality, with the amorphous evil villainy of the Mafia rather less attractive than the mesmerising Marton Csokas in the first outing. It’s a stylish way for the series to take a bow – a kind of revenge Western with some spaghetti thrown in for good measure and a coda that explains why McCall fetched up there in the first place, a one-man reenacting of The Magnificent Seven against the mafia on their own turf. Directed as ever by Antoine Fuqua. I’m where I’m supposed to be

The Bricklayer (2023)

The days of the CIA treating Europe like the Wild West are over. After an assassination, to fight against supposedly dead formerly friendly foreign agent Victor Radek (Clifton Collins Jr.), junior CIA agent Kate Bannon (Nina Dobrev) and the agency’s director O’Malley (Tim Blake Nelson) decide to seek the help of a retired agent Steve Vail (Aaron Eckhart) off the books. O’Malley wants Vail to go to Greece with Kate to find Radek. Initially, Vail refuses to go on this mission. He reveals that he has moved on in his life and has become a bricklayer. But soon, a couple of shooters attack him and this makes him change his mind. Eventually, he reaches Kozani in Greece with Kate and meets his old army buddy Patricio (Oliver Trevena). With Patricio’s help, Kate and Vail put on disguises, get armed, and head to Thessaloniki where they check into a hotel. While Kate goes to take a shower, Vail sneaks out to rekindle some memories, related to Radek and his family. Later, he enters a fancy party and meets his old flame, Thessaloniki station chief Tye Delson (Ilfenesh Hadera). He tells her that O’Malley sent him to find Radek who is not dead as they thought. She warns him about Kostas. That night, Vail enters a pool party to meet Sten (Ori Pfeffer) and Crystal (Lili Rich) to know any details about Radek. Sten does not reveal anything. Instead, he threatens Vail, who takes it badly and fights Sten’s pawns. Luckily, Kate arrives there in time because she had put a tracker on him. I’m done with my country. Once in the car, she starts asking him about his history with Radek. Radek was performing assignments for them. He joined the CIA for asylum. But once his cover got blown, the Russians killed his family – so he responded with a killing rampage. As a result, the CIA asked Vail to track down Radek and neutralise him. We underestimated how vindictive the agency can be. Back in the US, the CIA receives a threat message from a person who wants to punish them for their wrongdoings. In exchange for not killing people, he expects a huge payment in Bitcoin. In Greece, Vail decides to follow Sten with Kate. They break into Sten’s house and look for any signs of his connection to Radek. Kate finds Greta Becker’s (Veronica Ferres) phone. Sten’s pawns enters the house. Vail and Kate fight back and escape after Vail kills him. Kate apologises that she froze during the fight. Vail asks her not to be so hard on herself. Patricio tells them where they can find the next target Alekos Melas (Michael Siripoloulos). They reach the location and see a peaceful political march turning into a street fight. Vail suddenly receives a call from Radek.  Now, the game is really on … I’m going to broadcast to the whole world what the CIA is doing in the shadows. Adapted from the Steve Vail novel in the series by Paul Lindsay (as Noah Boyd), this was originally intended as a Gerard Butler vehicle more than a decade ago. Now with 90s name director Renny Harlin at the helm its stars are more de nos jours in the sense that ridiculously good looking Eckhart brings a kind of Bogartian humour at least in the lines gifted him in the screenplay by Hanna Weg and Matt Johnson (and an uncredited Marc Moss). His dry worldweariness and arch sexism get turned around as you’d hope so it works well in the payoff department – a smart development in a rather hackneyed plot. However, the action really is action – down and dirty, no slomo SFX to beautify the violence. It’s bloody and horrible. Naturally our hero’s old friend is not a nice guy (not with a face like that, anyhow) but to humanise our hero not only does he have a cute little pooch he has a thing for Miles Davis and he doesn’t care who knows it: If you understood everything I said you’d be me. And when he’s asked why he chose to be a bricklayer, well, he’s away on a hack about the joys of form and function. You know where you are with a brick! Not to mention that a seasoned construction worker knows what to do with a tool. Dobrev is well positioned as the woman he has to work with and she gets some decent scenes challenging his preconceptions about women as well as a good portion of the action: they help to rescue eaach other. At the heart of this is betrayal – at every level. As a geopolitical action adventure starring the most exalted and maligned spy agency the world over this isn’t exactly breaking new ground but it’s a highly efficient genre outing. I can’t fight an enemy I don’t understand

The Green Cockatoo (1937)

A small town is the nation’s greatest tragedy. Eileen (Rene Ray) is an innocent young woman from a small town in Devon who arrives in London looking for work and after disembarking from her train walks into an ambush, in which a couple of gangsters (Bruce Seton and Julian Vedey) knife an accomplice Dave Connor (Robert Newton) who has cheated them. The wounded man staggers with her to a cheap hotel, where he dies after begging her to tell his brother at The Green Cockatoo club. Going there, she is followed by police and hides in an upstairs room. It is that of Jim Connor (John Mills), the brother of the dead man but he does not identify himself to the girl. When the police leave he escorts her out but is followed by the gangsters. In another knife fight he gets away and takes her to a safe house. The police turn up, this time to take him to the morgue to identify his brother. When they leave, the gangsters led by Dave’s nemesis Terrell (Charles Oliver) abduct the girl … There’s lots of different ways of putting things. With a screenplay by Ted Berkman from an original story and scenario by Graham Greene (with an uncredited contribution by Arthur Wimperis) this British pre-war noir boasts quirk, visual verve and not a little wit. From Eileen’s meet-cute on the train with a philosopher who warns her of looming disaster in London, to Jim’s way with words in an overwrought Yankee accent, this conventional genre outing strains to make an impression along the lines of the poetic realist work coming out of France at the time and then reverts to humour. The Sex Life of a Newt. I thought if he was a newt he wouldn’t have one. Maybe I was thinking of a neutral. Eileen’s putative involvement in Dave’s demise isn’t revealed until late in the day by which time Jim is hooked. I always thought London would be beautiful. There are a few intriguing shot setups, a funny cab driver and a decidedly low-minded butler Provero (Frank Atkinson) but it’s a little short on plot. Mills of course is always worth watching particularly as this low-rent British Cagney parlays his way through a song (Smoky Joe by William Kernell) while Ray is a decidedly odd duck to be framed as the Wrong Girl and Newton bows out too soon but anything with Greene is of interest to see how his screenwriting improved over the years from this first feature credit. Shot at Denham Studios, this was partly re-shot and re-edited and not released until 1940. There’s an exquisitely exciting score by Miklos Rozsa compensating for any gaps in the story. Directed by famed production designer William Cameron Menzies. This is where we stop. And this is where we start MM#4444

Tight Spot (1955)

Like poor dumb sheep we’re moved from barn to stall and nobody takes the trouble to tell us why. It’s inhuman. Model Sherry Conley (Ginger Rogers) is offered a chance by District Attorney Lloyd Hallett (Edward G. Robinson) to get out of jail for a crime she did not knowingly commit in return for testifying in a murder case against mobster Benjamin Costain (Lorne Greene). She is taken to a hotel room to hide until it is time for her testimony and a romance begins to blossom between the superficially hard-boiled Sherry and the police officer Vince Striker (Brian Keith) assigned to protect her. With time before the trial running out, Costain will stop at nothing to kill her before she can reach the witness stand … You ever lay a fat hand on my person again and the prison board’ll hear about it before I’m dry! Adapted from the 1953 Lenard Kantor play Dead Pigeon by William Bowers, this is a great opportunity to see Robinson who plays his part with typical elegance. Presumably he looked on the role a little wryly following his own experience giving testimony to HUAC as a ‘friendly’ witness which must have rankled with such a liberal individual. Beautifully shot in gleaming monochrome by Burnett Guffey, this is an underrated late crime noir, with Rogers playing a hard-boiled femme fatale to the hilt. She was in a number of murder mysteries and comedies at this point in her career and despite her being cast against type as the moll the genre suits her performing style, greased with dialogue so thick you can lay it on with a shovel, which she does with relish: Never mind, peeping John. I made sure there was nothing left over for you to enjoy. Bad as it is in prison, having to share the privacy of your shower with all the other inmates, at least we don’t have to put up with being slapped with the fat hands of the police! You’ve hauled men in for less! Keith as the slithery cop gets to thrust and parry in return: Look, sister, I wouldn’t know styles if you shoved them down my throat. They play well off each other and both are tough as nails but Ginger has her emotional high points too. Allegedly this was originally inspired by the way in which Virginia Hill was forced to testify against Bugsy Siegel and a three-character play was opened out to make it more cinematic. Greene impresses as the vicious gangster pulling strings outside the room and inside the system. Niftily directed by the reliable Phil Karlson, this just crackles with energy and nastiness. Certain things in the beginning is more important to know than others. And other things is even more important than that. And one of the most important things in this place is don’t volunteer for nothin’!

Lady in Cement (1968)

This is one blonde who didn’t have more fun. While diving off the Miami coast with charter boat captain Rubin (Pat Henry) seeking one of the 11 fabled Spanish galleons sunk in 1591, private investigator Tony Rome (Frank Sinatra) discovers a dead woman encased in cement on the ocean floor. He reports this to Lieutenant Dave Santini (Richard Conte) and thinks nothing more of the incident, until Waldo Gronski (Dan Blocker) hires him to find a missing woman, Sandra Lomax (Christine Todd). Gronski has little money, so he allows Rome pawn his watch to retain his services. After investigating the local hotspots and picking up on a few names, Rome soon comes across beautiful Kit Forrest (Raquel Welch), whose party Sandra Lomax was supposed to have attended. This encounter raises the ire of racketeer Al Mungar (Martin Gabel), a supposedly reformed gangster who looks after Kit’s interests. Thinking a connection may exist between Lomax, Forrest, and Mungar, Rome starts probing into their backgrounds and begins a romantic relationship with Kit. Then he finds both cops and crooks chasing him while an omnipresent Gronski is breathing down his neck … Dumping people in cement – that went out with violin cases. Adapted from Marvin H. Albert’s 1961 novel by the author and Jack Guss, this sequel to Tony Rome is dogged by elements of what passed for humour in the Sixties – grotesque sexism and gay slurs that simply don’t play well to the gallery these days. It’s unfortunate because a bit more care with the writing might make this neo-noir greater than the sum of its parts. There are good moments here including a scene between Sinatra and a voluptuous young Lainie Kazan as dancer Maria Barretto; conflict with his friend Conte that spins into a car chase; and one potent exchange alluding to police corruption: The law works for the law. Rome works for money. That makes him easy to trust. This accretion of character detail and the ensemble around Sinatra’s protagonist builds to a mostly agreeable hero. Beautiful Miami locations, a smattering of Chandler references (among others, brutish but useful and friendly big guy Gronski is clearly a take on Moose Malloy from Farewell, My Lovely; while the smart repartee has some zingers); and a splashy, playful tone aided by Hugo Montenegro’s upbeat score makes this an undemanding hep thriller with Sinatra fans noting his references to Jilly’s, his real-life NYC hangout, the moniker given to the club here. Offscreen he was playing a series of concerts at the city’s Fontainebleau Hotel throughout production. Joe E. Lewis makes an uncredited appearance as himself. Lanita Kent makes an impression in a small role as Conte’s wife Rose and she’s someone we’d like to have seen more but sadly died aged 44 in 1987 having made just a handful of films. A spirited, lively thriller directed by Gordon Douglas. One of these days you’re going to have to make your mind up whether you’re going to a civil liberties benefit or the policeman’s ball

Lost Girls & Love Hotels (2020)

Will you take me to a love hotel? Margaret (Alexandra Daddario) is an expatriate American working in Tokyo, Japan at a Japanese flight academy during the day teaching prospective flight attendants how to pronounce English. She spends her nights getting drunk with fellow expatriates Ines (Carice van Houten) and Liam (Andrew Rothney) and seeks out submissive sexual encounters with random men in the city’s numerous love hotels where people can rent rooms for a couple of hours of sex. Her nightly misadventures cause her to show up to work in a daze and dishevelled, drawing the concern of her instructor Nakamura (Misuzu Kanno). One day, Margaret crosses paths with a Yakuza enforcer named Kazu (Takehiro Hira) and the two begin a relationship. Margaret is at first taken aback by Kazu’s revelation that he is about to get married, but she gives into him when he admits that his marriage is more out of duty than love. Margaret confides to Kazu that she does not have a family and that she came to Japan to be alone. Sometimes being alone is not about other people. On the day of graduation for Margaret’s students at the flight academy, Kazu asks Margaret to spend the entire day with him in Kyoto. Initially reluctant, Margaret agrees when he says he will not get another day and they take the train. He brings her to the Kiyomizu-dera temple and shows her the “Buddha’s womb”, a stone illuminated at the end of a pitch-black tunnel. Kazu explains the symbolism of being reborn reaching the stone and brought Margaret there hoping to help her let go of her trauma, but Margaret seems unaffected. On the train ride back to Tokyo, Kazu leaves the train while Margaret is asleep, leaving her despondent and desperate to find him when she wakes up. She finds that she has been let go from her job and replaced for skipping graduation. She spirals down further when Ines reveals to her that she is leaving Japan. Following numerous thankless sexual encounters, Margaret finally spots Kazu with his family by chance one day and follows him into a love hotel. Kazu reprimands Margaret for following him, telling her nothing can happen between them. When Margaret insists that she loves him, they have sex one more time before he sends her away, leaving him saddened and conflicted. When Margaret returns to her apartment to find an eviction notice, she desperately takes a job as a bar hostess for drunken businessmen … All those days that came and went, little did I know that it was life. The setting if not the precise set-up is familiar: we are reminded of Hiroshima, mon amour, Lost in Translation and even those William Holden films Love is a Many Splendored Thing and The World of Suzie Wong but this is the low-income, low-rent subsistence version of expat life. After the tragic romance we are then catapulted into being reminded of real-life culture clash casualties like Lucie Blackman, the English victim of a serial killer after an easy slide into something akin to prostitution as a ‘bar hostess’: the penultimate scene-sequence shocks, when we suddenly remember the opening scene and what triggers this cascade of recollections in flashback. This adaptation by Catherine Hanrahan of her own 2006 novel skirts and limns all of the above – the seductive anonymity of brief drunken one-night stands, of nobody knowing who you are or why you’re here, of guilt-free emotionless encounters. Until. Until. Love. Yet it’s love with belts and S&M and it’s the only way Margaret can be turned on. The seen-it-all world weariness of Ines, the sweet need for romance in Liam, the principled violence of Kazu, the conscience of Nakamura, all stand as polarising dynamics in Margaret’s world which lurches from one unknown to another until she and Kazu change each other. I want to know your mind.Their epigrams and aphorisms contain a world of knowledge gained from pain. The shocking violence of the conclusion is offscreen. That’s of a piece with the concealment running both their lives, including this relationship. Daddario is fine as the protagonist – it’s an exposing performance in an expertly constructed psychological thriller masquerading as a romance. Hira is most persuasive as the man who must make a sacrifice, in his own way. They are both reborn as a consequence of meeting each other. It’s a fascinating tale. Directed by William Olsson. Every time you look you remember what you’ve done

Scarlet Thread (1951)

An East End spiv. A 1950s wide boy with cinema accent. Petty thief Freddie(Laurence Harvey) likes to talk jive in an American accent in London’s Soho where he hangs out trying to impress the ladies. He joins forces with suave gangster Marcon (Sydney Tafler) to commit a jewel heist in the University town of Cambridge with (Harry Fowler) driving their getaway car. But loses his never, fires his gun and the victim, an elderly man gets dragged away in the car. When the men are chased through the streets of Cambridge by students they take refuge in the garden of the Master’s house and are greeted by his daughter Josephine (Kathleen Byron) who takes them for graduates and invites them in. Marcon introduces himself as an old student – Aubrey Bellingham – and passes himself off to a visiting vicar but Josephine’s romantic interest Shaw (Arthur Hill) is suspicious and then her aunt (Renee Kelly ) arrives – the woman the men ran into as they escaped their pursuers. And womanising Freddie then takes a fancy to Josephine, then it transpires the man he shot was her father – and the radio news reports the man has died … This university is packed with young men who talk in inverted commas. Lewis Gilbert’s early noirish film provides a great opportunity to see a callow pulpy youthful Laurence Harvey, learning which side of his face was more photogenic and doing the old cheap romance thing with (bizarrely enough) charismatic Byron, she of Black Narcissus with the crazy lipsticked mouth – and the clue to his real British identity recalls that film. How bizarre it is to see these gangsters come a cropper in the rarefied setting of Cambridge University, chased by students in flapping gowns. There’s some genuinely interesting cinematography by Geoffrey Faithfull – over the shoulder tracking behind Tafler (Gilbert’s brother-in-law) and Harvey after the heist goes wrong; point of view shots in the getaway car piloted by Harry Fowler alongside a policeman on a motorbike making good use of the rear view mirror as he sweats at the wheel. The contrast between these surprising crims and the fish out of water setting is jarring but also pleasing, the early Soho scenes with Dora Bryan and the presentation of Harvey as spiv quite fascinating. Not great but it is has its moments, not least when Harvey’s mask (and fake American accent) slips and Tafler’s act as the ancient graduate is very convincing. Adapted by A.R. Rawlinson and Moie Charles from their play. You dance too well. It makes me think of all the women you’ve danced with

The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone (2020)

Just when I thought I was out they pull me back in. As Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) ages and has a place of respect in society having divested himself of his casinos, he finds that being the head of the Corleone crime family isn’t getting any easier. He wants out of the Mafia and buys his way into the Vatican Bank but NYC mob kingpin Altobello (Eli Wallach) isn’t eager to let one of the most powerful and wealthy families go legit. Making matters even worse is Michael’s nephew, Vincent (Andy Garcia) the illegitimate son of his late brother, hothead Sonny. Not only does Vincent want out from under smalltime mobster Joey Zasa (Joe Mantegna) who’s now got the Corleones’ New York business, he wants a piece of the Corleone family’s criminal empire, as well as Michael’s teenage daughter, Mary (Sofia Coppola) who’s crushing on him. Ex-wife Kay (Diane Keaton) appeals to Michael to allow their son Anthony (Franc D’Ambrosio) quit law school to pursue a career as an opera singer.  A trip to Sicily looms as all the threads of the Corleone family start to be pieced together after a massacre in Atlantic City and scores need to be settled … Why did they fear me so much and love you so much? Francis Ford Coppola revisited the scene of arguably his greatest triumph, The Godfather Saga, with writer Mario Puzo and yet he viewed it as a separate entity to that two-headed masterpiece. That was thirty years ago. Now he’s felt the need to re-edit it and it holds together better than the original release. The beginning is altered and it’s all the better to direct the material towards the theme of faith. Pacino is doing it all for his children and it’s his legacy he cares about more than money or respect: the symbolism writ large in the concluding sequence, a performance of Cavalleria Rusticana in which the weakness of our own central Christ figure is punished with the greatest violence – the death of close family.  This story then mutates from a pastiche of its previous triumphs to a a pastiche of an opera. The shocking and intentional contrast with the Cuban sex show in Part II couldn’t be starker yet it’s there for the comparison as Michael does penance for the death of Fredo, his dumb older brother who betrayed the family. He is physically weak from diabetes and the accompanying stroke;  his efforts to go totally legitimate have angered his Mafia rivals from whose ties he cannot fully break and they want in on the deal with the Vatican where Archbishop Gilday (Donal Donnelly) is the contact with Lucchesi (Enzo Robutti) who has a strange way of getting to everyone in the manner of old school Sicilians.  The Christ analogy is also about family sacrifice as his brother Sonny’s bastard son Vincent is nipping at his heels while sleeping with his own besotted daughter; he finds he is still in love with a remarried Kay, whom he finally introduces to Sicily when Tony is set to make his opera debut;  he is in bed with God’s own gangsters and the one good man Lamberto (Raf Vallone) is revealed as the short-lived Pope John Paul I. The references to the cinema of Luchino Visconti (and The Leopard) are rendered ever clearer while Carmine Coppola’s musical phrasing even drops in a bit of a spaghetti western music. It’s a sweeping canvas which gradually reveals itself even if the setup is awkward:  we no longer open on the windows at the Lake Tahoe house with their inlaid spider webs, instead we’re straight into the Vatican deal. It takes us out of the world of Godfather II. But we still see that sister Connie (Talia Shire) is the wicked crone behind the throne in her widow’s weeds, her flightiness long behind her but her song at the family celebration echoes her mother’s song at the wedding in the earlier film. The same acting problems remain in this cut. Like Wallach, her performance is cut from the finest prosciutto as she encourages Vincent in his ruthless ride to the top of the crime world. Mantegna isn’t a lot better as Joey Zasa. The Atlantic City massacre at the Trump Casino isn’t particularly well done – we’re reminded of a cut price Scarface. Wrapped into real life events at the Vatican in the late 70s/early 80s which give Donnelly, Raf Vallone and Helmut Berger (another nod to Visconti) some fine supporting roles, with an almost wordless John Savage as Tom Hagen’s priest son Andrew, this has the ring of truth but not quite the touch of classicism even with that marvellous cast reunited, something of a miracle in itself:  it feels like the gang’s almost all here. I cheered when I saw Richard Bright back as Al Neri! So sue me! And good grief Enzo the Baker is back too! Duvall’s salary wouldn’t be met by Paramount sadly and he is replaced by George Hamilton as consigliere. Even Martin Scorsese’s mother shows up! That’s Little Italy for ya! Pacino is filled with regret in this unspooling tragedy. And there we have it: the coda to a form of Italian American storytelling, the parallels with the earlier films expressed in flashbacks, as if to say, This was a life. Scorsese’s work is acknowledged but the narrative is forced forward to the inevitable tragedy. Life as opera – filled with crazy melodrama, betrayals, love, violence and murderous death. Garcia’s role makes far more sense in this version – we meet him quicker, his relationship clearly cultivated by Connie to ensure a passing of the guard. Yet what this cut also reinforces is that Coppola’s filmmaking wasn’t as confident, there are too many close ups – where is that surefooted widescreen composition? There are some awkward transitions and frankly bad writing. It’s long but it’s a farewell to a kind of cinema. And the death of Sofia Coppola as Mary was the price she had to pay for being her father’s daughter, non e vero? Now she’s the film world’s godmother. Gangster wrap. Finance is the gun, politics is the trigger.

Pixie (2020)

She won’t just break you she’ll take a Kalashnikov to your heart. Sligo, Ireland. Wannabe photographer Pixie O’Brien (Olivia Cooke) uses her ex-boyfriends Fergus (Fra Fee) and Colin (Rory Fleck Byrne ) to stage an elaborate drug heist on gangster priests which winds up with the men of the cloth murdered, and Colin kills Fergus with a bullet to the head. Two smitten local boys Frank (Ben Hardy) and Harland (Daryl McCormack) join her on the run from the hit man Seamus (Ned Dennehy) her gangster stepfather (Colm Meaney) has set on them when they try to sell 15kg of MDMA back to the priest Father Hector McGrath (Alec Baldwin) who runs the drug scene on the west coast. It turns out Pixie has a very personal motivation beyond money – revenge for the death of her mother who was helped along by her psycho step brother Mickey (Turlough Convery) … These guns won’t shoot themselves. Father and son team Barnaby and Preston Thompson direct and write respectively and this road trip down Ireland’s west coast (rechristened the Wild Atlantic Way to attract tourists) is bloody and violent and very funny, played by a well cast ensemble who revel in the opportunity to get up to Tarntino-esque antics in a picturesque setting shot rather niftily by John de Borman. There are some zingers but they’re often let down by the sound which prioritises a crazily effective set of songs curated by David Holmes and punch lines get lost in the mix (which does not include any songs by Pixies …). Cooke is fantastic in what is likely her best role to date as the amoral (not manic) pixie dream girl but there is also effective characterisation by Meaney and Baldwin as well as her companions Hardy and McCormack whom she seduces into a homoerotic scene that definitely was not on their cards. It’s got references from all over the shop, it’s rackety and fun with a very spirited tone. Dylan Moran appears as a very nasty piece of work indeed. You’ll cheer when you see what Pixie does to him. Naturally there’s a shootout that features nuns with guns. A great bit of craic altogether. I’m sorry we didn’t fucking cover body disposal in our economics course

Year of the Dragon (1985)

Only one Stanley White. Following the murders of Mafia and Triad leaders in NYC, Polish Captain Stanley White (Mickey Rourke) takes it upon himself to bring down the Chinese organised crime gangs. He’s breaking the long held treaty to permit the Chinese to take care of things in Chinatown. This puts him in conflict with Tony Tai (John Lone) the ruthless leader of the organisation.  It pulls his life apart with his already crumbling childless marriage to nurse Connie (Caroline Kava) collapsing altogether when Stanley falls for the charms of ambitious journalist Tracy Tzu (Ariane). Now Tony has a major shipment coming in from Thailand and Stanley engages in wire tapping for information .. This is America and it’s two hundred years old and you need to change your clocks. This sprawling portrait of the gangs of New York was much misunderstood upon its release but it lays its cards on the table upfront: it’s all in the name (changed) because NYC’s most decorated cop is an unapologetic racist Nam vet and sexist to boot. He’s launching his own tong war. Naturally Rourke plays him as a total charmer and it works:  he has the aura of death about him, his hair is as white as his adopted name and everyone around him seems to get crushed.  As written by Oliver Stone and director Michael Cimino this adaptation of Robert Daley’s novel is remarkably discreet in some areas – and lurid in others. The major love scene between Stanley and Tracy is cleverly done as they tell each other how much they hate each other and then … Her big ‘angry’ scene when he’s moved his team into her preposterously huge loft is amusing because her acting is so poor, all stiff arms like an Irish dancer. Part of the film’s issue representationally is the obvious inexpressivity of the Chinese actors, a physical trait there’s no escaping. They make up for it by killing people. Their treatment historically in the US and their unequal immigrant experience is posited against Stanley’s veteran’s hangups, something that’s used against him.  He wants to sleep with a journalist while both he and Tony decry the media’s role in the portrayal of violence and the way ethnicity is covered. Therefore there is a balance established with Tony – that’s clever storytelling. Lone is super handsome, a great suave villain to play opposite.  The lean way in which the marital story is exposed is a good hook for Stanley’s humanity and it’s the dramatic crutch that assists the outcome. The intra-Asian racism is well dramatised and horrendously violent. Class is an issue that becomes an overriding theme. The whole thing looks incredible – shot by Alex Thomson on a set (by Wolf Kroeger and Victoria Paul) in North Carolina for NYC (except for the views from Tracy’s apartment at the top of the Clocktower Building giving a beguiling view of the city’s skyline).  There’s a fascinating and intricate score by David Mansfield with echoes of phrases from The Deer Hunter. That this is a disguised western is clarified in those final scenes on the railway track. And in this wonderful mesh of genre and tradition there is an honourable way out for one man. What a way to end. Amazingly the role of White (originally called Arthur Powers – but there’s a Stanley White credited as Police Consultant!) was intended for Clint Eastwood. Both he and Paul Newman turned it down. Just as well. Only one Mickey Rourke. He’s a good cop but he won’t stop