VOD: Springsteen - Deliver Me From Nothing (dir: Scott Cooper, 2025)

"I do know who you are."
"Well, that makes one of us."

Far from the typical Hollywood musical biopic, Deliver Me From Nowhere homes in on Bruce Springsteen's life and career in the early 1980s, when his first taste of commercial success sees him dealing with the pressures of burgeoning stardom, a lifestyle at odds with his small-town roots and his desire to make his next album a seemingly-uncommercial back-to-basics introspective work.  This is a very sensitive, pensive and honest film that deals with the spectre of Springsteen's alcoholic father (played with focused nuance by the wonderful Stephen Graham), record company pressure and a relationship to which he could not commit fully. all of which led to a crippling mental health crisis,  Jeremy Allen White gives yet another knockout performance in the lead role that truly inhabits and conveys this iteration of Springsteen of that time and is magnetic as an on-screen presence, with some great supporting performances from Jeremy Strong as his famed manager and friend Jon Landau, and Odessa Young as the single-mother with whom Springsteen cautiously forms a genuine relationship.  The film gives a reasonable and interesting insight into the tortuous process that shaped and created the stripped-back Nebraska album and forms a beautiful and personal companion to it.  Springsteen's involvement and approval adds veracity to the material in this sombre, quietly reflective yet powerful film that almost becomes emotional overload in the final twenty minutes and is thrown into perspective knowing that global megastardom lay just around the corner.

 

VOD: One Battle After Another (dir: Paul Thomas Anderson, 2025)

"You're a bad hombre, Bob!"

This topical awards-baiting action-thriller opens with a group pf activists freeing detainees at the US/Mexico border and attacking unethical/immoral corporate targets, focused on explosives expert, Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio), and his fiery partner, Perfidia (Teyana Taylor), which creates a nemesis in the unwavering Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn) that has considerable consequences for all concerned.  After a whirlwind trip through their turbulent lives in a compact first act, a sixteen-year time jump finds a now-dissolute Bob bringing up his teenage daughter as off-grid as possible, but the past soon - and determinedly - catches up with him.  The film has a freewheeling and engagingly chaotic spirit from the outset, mirrored in its unpredictable use of music and jazz-styled score and its often wild use of camera.  A big pleasure here is watching DiCaprio deploy his forensic characterisation skills (notably in close ups) very successfully, with terrific support from Teyana Taylor as his frighteningly energetic partner-in-crime/lover, alongside a laser-focused Sean Penn and their repressed and unhealthily-obsessed military archenemy.  This is Paul Thomas Anderson through and through, with nods to Tarantino and a great Hitchcockian road-chase sequence towards the end.   The energy of the film is largely maintained throughout - although the second and third acts perhaps get a little wearing with the generous running time - and the clash of (extreme) left and right wing values creates an ever-present tension, making One Battle After Another a bold and striking film.

 

VOD: On Swift Horses (dir: Daniel Minahan, 2025)

"Everybody makes mistakes."

This classy 1950s-set drama finds a young woman Muriel (Daisy Edgar-Jones) living a quiet country life with her devoted soon-to-be-husband Lee (Will Poulter), but the return of Lee's carefree brother Julius (Jacob Elordi) leads her into a world of gambling, lies and secrets in their pursuit of The American Dream as they relocate to California.  The lush period  recreation is excellent and filmed beautifully.  It makes telling points about gender roles and sexuality at the time as an intrinsic part of the characters and the storytelling, and the very strong young lead trio of players bring their characters and relationships to the screen with detail, focus and an easy credibility.  This is a slow-burn affair with a storyline that can at times feel like a bit of a blunt instrument, but it is consistently engaging, largely owing to the high quality of the performances on offer.
 

VOD: Downton Abbey - The Grand Finale (dir: Simon Curtis, 2025)

"Sometimes I feel like the past is a more agreeable place than the future."

This movie-trilogy capper spawned from the globally successful period drama TV show sees most of the main players return as the story moves on to 1930 and a changing societal landscape that threatens the cosy monied upper-class way of life enjoyed by the Grantham dynasty.  Indeed, amidst a rather threadbare plot, the theme of change weighs heavily throughout - older staff members moving on, the ongoing financial impact of the Great Crash, the tension between tradition/old-fashioned values and newer attitudes (focused by Lady Mary's scandalous divorce) - playing alongside the characters' own and frequent wistful nostalgia and the growing acceptance pf the end of an era.  Inevitably, the Julian Fellowes writing machine delivers some touching moments and a surprising number of genuinely funny quips, barbs and reactions, as the notably ageing older core cast gets its moderate last hurrah in  a light but well-crafted script.  Once again every effort is made to make The Grand Finale look sumptuous and cinematic, with this instalment set in the lush height of English Summer.  As a 'grand finale' it may a little restrained, but it amply delivers the cosy and comfortable viewing experience that viewers of the original TV show lapped up, delivered by an experienced and reliable cast whose characters are wrapped up to good effect, all capped off with a delightful final cameo appearance.
 

VOD: The Rip (dir: Joe Carnahan, 2026)

"How's it going, man?"
"Trying to find a f**k to give."

In this glossy Netflix police thriller, the Miami Tactical Narcotics Team - that includes a weary but level-headed Dane (Matt Damon) and scenery-chewing J.D. (Ben Affleck) is facing investigation when their own Captain is murdered, but a raid on a drugs stash house uncovers a massive load of cash that soon turns the film into a bottle/siege as the team become trapped and under fire, alliances and trust shifts as the lure of the money exerts its influence, and a rescue that opens up the finale to the well-shot city at night is not all that it seems.  The film presents a beleaguered police force rife with corruption, filled with internal suspicion and pushed to the limit by under-resourcing, setting up what seems to be the film's basic message, that money is the root of all evil.  The script is somewhat knuckle-headed in its need to explain everything very obviously and is bursting with the f-word, but it handles the story's twists and turns effectively.  The experienced lead team (director/writer Joe Carnahan and the reunited Damon/Affleck duo) can sell this kind of material in their sleep, making The Rip a slick, efficient but rather generic movie that is entertaining enough but perhaps highlights the difference in expectations and delivery of a Netflix product as opposed to a Hollywood cinema movie.  
 

VOD: The Strangers Chapter 2 (dir: Renny Harlin, 2025)

"Does there have to be a 'why'?"

Following the underwhelming opening instalment of this new (and unnecessary) spinoff trilogy, Chapter 2 takes the Halloween II/Halloween Kills route for the first act, picking up from the end of the previous instalment and relocating surviving female character Maya (Madelaine Petsch) to the nearby hospital where the murderous trio soon appear - cue shadowy corridors that are slowly wandered down, beeping monitors and sinister cubicle curtains as no sub-genre cliché goes unmissed - for little more than a contained and unsurprising cat-and-mouse chase (although sedate plod is mostly more accurate), which is then repeated in other locations (including a farm, forest, car, scrapyard, a circular return to the previous film's cabin and a finale setting) as Maya barely escapes her pursuers every time.   Indeed, Maya's injuries from the first film have inconsistent impact, as she administers self-stitching only to then fend off an improbable attacking CG boar, with the resulting leg trauma being dispensed with conveniently for the third act.  It is all written with the subtlety of a sledgehammer and limited dialogue, and the limited number of local characters means the finale reveal is hardly surprising.  This is a hollow and dreary film that offers a bland backstory told in perfunctory flashbacks and unexciting run-of-the-mill masked-killer set pieces, and it is hard to fathom why this very thin material has been stretched over three movies.  There is mid-credits preview of the trilogy-capping Chapter 3.