THE HILL

In the 1960's Sidney Lumet made a number of films in Britain and "The Hill" is the best of them. Indeed, "The Hill" is one of the finest films Lumet ever made anywhere. A war film unlike any other, the entire action takes place in a British military stockade where British prisoners are sent for punishment, (you could say it's a prison film unlike any other), and it's run by a couple of sadists. The hill in question is a large sand construction in the middle of the stockade that prisoners are forced to run over in full kit under the hot desert sun, (the setting is North Africa).

As photographed by Oswald Morris we endure their agonies with them and it's very easy to hate Ian Hendry's sadistic Staff Sergeant and Harry Andrews' R.S.M., maybe not a sadist but a martinet of the very worst kind. Neither actor was ever better; indeed the ensemble cast of Ossie Davis, Alfred Lynch, Roy Kinnear and Jack Watson, (the prisoners), and Ian Bannen and Michael Redgrave, (among the staff), are superb. The star prisoner, of course, is Sean Connery in the best acting role of his career up to that time. This was the film that established Connery as an actor to those who saw him simply as James Bond. The plot involves the death of one prisoner and of Connery's determination to bring those responsible to justice. A remarkable piece of film-making, it's hard to believe that this was once a play.

THE GENTLEMEN

Once upon a time this would have been called 'post-modern'; now it's just smarter than the smartest kid on the block and really terrific fun. It's a Guy Ritchie picture set in the heart of Guy Ritchie territory and it's like an amalgam of all the best Guy Ritchie pictures strung together. It starts with a killing...or does it and if so, who's been killed, before leaping forward to what's basically a pitch for the film we're watching being made by a very dodgy private investigator, (a never better Hugh Grant), to a well-heeled gangster, (Charlie Hunnam).

Part of the fun is the way Ritchie subverts our expectations, not just in the torturous way he tells his tale, but in the casting. I mean, who would have imagined 'Downton Abbey's' Lady Mary, (a superb Michelle Dockery), playing a foul-mouthed Cockney moll or indeed Grant's terrific turn as a blackmailing scumbag. The rest of the cast can be taken as read; for the Ameriican market, Matthew McConaughey as Mr Big, Colin Farrell, (brilliant as 'The Coach'). Eddie Marsan as a sleazy newspaper magnate, 'Succession's Jeremy Strong as one of McConaughey's rivals and Henry Golding, getting better with every picture, as a small-time Asian gangster with big ideas.

They are all wonderful, spouting some of the best dialogue of any Guy Ritchie film but then perhaps they had to be since the plot isn't that easy to follow, (everybody seems to be double-crossing everyone else), making this the only Guy Ritchie movie you will almost certainly need to see twice. I loved every fantastic, foul-mouthed minute.

THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY

Not quite the disaster the critics made it out to be but hardly likely to be remembered among the best of Carol Reed. It was a prestige production done on a grand scale but neither Philip Dunne's screenplay nor, indeed, Irving Stone's original novel were inspirational. The subject, of course, is Michaelangelo's painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and Charlton Heston, who else, is a hugely miscast Michaelangelo, (he's heterosexual, for starters). He does what he can with the part but the material defeats him. On the other hand, Rex Harrison not only carries the movie but redeems it. He barnstorms his way through the part of Pope Julius II, the man who commisioned Michaelangelo in the first place. He even manages the fanciful dialogue, barking it out as though it were Shakespeare. There's also a decent supporting cast, both British and Italian, with the Italians largely dubbed, but they too are wasted. Does it give us any insight into the man or his work? Absolutely not, but as epics go it's a pleasant enough time-passer.

ILLEGAL

Excellent B-Movie from Lewis Allen about an over zealous District Attorney, (a superb Edward G. Robinson), who sends an innocent man to the electric chair, takes to drink and ends up defending some less than salubrious types. The writers were W. R. Burnett and James R. Webb and the good cast also included Nina Foch, Hugh Marlowe, Albert Dekker and an early performance from Jayne Mansfield. A better director than Allen might have got even more out of the material; for too much of the time it looks like an extended episode of a television series but it's a good little yarn that crams in a lot of plot and it's always a pleasure watching Edward G., particularly in a plum part like this. Very enjoyable.

GET OUT

As Oscar watchers will confirm a fair number of last years big hitters dealt with the subject of race in one form or another. All these movies were fine in their own way yet why do I feel the best movie to tackle the subject of 'race' that I've seen in the past year is Jordan Peele's brilliant 'horror' film Get Out". This has been called Guess who's Coming to Dinner" crossed with Brian Yuzna's "Society" but in some respects that's doing it a disservice. It marks the directorial debut of writer and actor Peele and it brilliantly tackles the subject of racism by coating it in the patina of a genuinely scary and very disturbing horror picture.

Daniel Kaluuya is the smart, handsome, successful and black photographer who accepts his white girlfriend's invitation to spend the weekend with her family. An accident en route sets the tone even if the initial ecnounter with her parents is more than amicable, (her brothers reaction is a bit more worrying), and one look at the servants should be enough to convince Kaluuya's Chris that he really should get the hell out, that plus the advice of his best friend Rod not to go there in the first place. When grandad and his friends arrive for a party, things get seriously weird. Of course, Chris is intellectually, morally and in every other respect superior to everyone else, (and that's a clue in itself), and Peele isn't afraid to make his villains white, (he certainly never pussyfoots around with the issue), nor is he afraid to provide enough jump-out-of-your-seat moments, but the real frights in this film lie elsewhere, culminating in how Chris deals with the horrors of his situation.

It's a superbly acted picture and despite the seriousness at its heart, not without a streak of ghoulish humour. Kaluuya is a real find as is LilRel Howery as the resourceful Rod while Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener are terrific as his tormentors, (and there's a brilliantly unsettling turn from the great Stephen Root as a blind art-dealer with his own agenda). Yes, there is a touch of  "Society" here but Frankenhimer's "Seconds" is also wittily evoked; just don't call it  "Guess who's Coming to Dinner 2"

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BLOOD SIMPLE

Probably the greatest of all neo-noirs and an absolute masterpiece of economical film-making, the Coen Brothers hit the ground running with "Blood Simple". This tale of jealousy, two-timing, double-cross and murder may have taken its plot from all the pulp fiction that came before but from the opening credits on, it just never lets up and it's still one of the cinema's greatest dubuts. John Getz and Frances McDormand are the illicit lovers, Dan Hedaya is the husband and an Oscar-worthy M. Emmet Walsh, the scumbag of a private investigator, (they are all superb), and nothing goes the way you expect it to for the characters or the audience. Even in view of all the Coens have done since, this is still a stunner.

LADIES IN RETIREMENT

Glorious Gothic camp. A seemingly unlikely, yet perfectly cast, Ida Lupino is the stiff-backed housekeeper and companion to fussy actress Isobel Elsom. When she discovers that her two daft sisters, (an excellent Edith Barrett and a superb Elsa Lanchester), are to be evicted from their lodgings she decides to move them in but first she must do something about her employer. Things get complicated when Lupino's scurrilous 'nephew' turns up and is quick to put two and two together.

The setting is one those quaint old cottages on the English marshes that are perpetually shrouded in fog and which one someone in Hollywood could dream up and the source material was a play by Reginald Denham and Edward Percy. By rights it should be terrible but it's actually hugely enjoyable and Lupino's terrific, (she makes for a very sympathetic murderess). It's the kind of film that would sit very nicely next to "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte" and "Whatever Happened to Aunt Alice".

CLASH BY NIGHT

This Fritz Lang film has been largely ignored though in it's way it is as psychologically astute as many of his better known works such as "Scarlett Street". In transposing a Clifford Odets play from New York to a Californian fishing community some of the more florid dialogue seems unnaturally heightened but the performances of the three principals (Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Ryan and particularly Paul Douglas) are stunning and the emotional core of the film is so strong that an audience can feel bruised by what's on screen. The blue collar milieu is perfectly evoked, the black-and-white cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca is first-rate and even the score seems understated, adding to, rather than detracting from the dramatic effect. Essential viewing.

RAY & LIZ

Richard Billingham's "Ray & Liz" is worthy to take its place next to the early films of both Terence Davies and Bill Douglas and like their films is largely autobiographical. It is a picture of Billingham's abusive, alcoholic family, his parents, Ray and Liz, and his extended family and naturally it's depressing but also not without a grim humour and as befits someone who has made his name as a photographer is full of images that might best be described as depressingly beautiful.

There is an old saying, write about what you know and in terms of world cinema it's those films that home in to a specific aspect of their country's national identity that work best. Britain has always been a class-conscious nation and that's probably why those films that dealt honesty with working class life and made in the early sixties, (the Kitchen Sink movies), that have remained freshest in the memory. It was something that Davies and Douglas knew only too well and which Billingham has now adopted.

This is a film in which every tiny detail is perfectly realised; the cheap artificial flowers, ornaments and paintings that Liz uses to brighten a home where the wallpaper is peeling off the walls and dogs pee on newspapers on the floor. Forget about something like "The Favourite", this is the best designed film of the year. It's also superbly played by its totally unknown cast. Ella Smith is particularly good as the neglectful Liz, someone perhaps more deserving of our pity than our scorn. Ray and Liz may be products of their society but Billingham, unlike Ken Loach, isn't really too concerned with the wider social picture but with the personal. This is his home movie and it's a deeply felt one.