VOD: I Swear (dir: Kirk Jones, 2025)

"They could deliver it to my house."
"John, it's an M.B.E., not a pizza!"
 

This delightful biopic of Tourette's Syndrome campaigner John Davidson is both educational as well as a profoundly moving personal study, from 1983 and his childhood years in Galashiels as a likeable typical lad (paper round, fishing, football) starting secondary school, developing uncontrollable tics and behaviours that were undiagnosed and recognised at the time which had a profound effect on his family, then jumping forward over a decade to life as a young adult, when he meets two adults who have a profound impact on his life that ultimately leads to him reaching out and helping others with the condition.  As the adult John, Robert Aramayo does a remarkable job, matched by a wonderfully sensitive performance by Scott Ellis Watson as his teenage counterpart, and Maxine Peake (as John's best friend's understanding mother who takes him in) and Peter Mullan (as the caretaker who takes John under his wing) are simply delightful to watch.  The film succeeds not only in showing people's/society's responses and attitudes to Tourette's but also the impact it has on a person having to deal with it personally, mining the real difficulties with warmth and humour but also an unflinching look at the real-life difficulties created by the condition.  Extremely well-crafted, utterly heartwarming and heartbreaking, I Swear is a great addition the canon of exceptional small-scale homegrown British true-life-story movies.

VOD: Sisu - Road To Revenge a.k.a. Sisu 2 (dir: Jalmari Helander, 2025)

"No need to say anything."

This sequel to 2022's unexpected and entertaining Sisu is a solid continuation of Aatami's story (Jorma Tommila), offering more of the same but with a slightly lighter tone that weighs more into the outrageousness of this one-man killing machine as he tries to rebuild after the war ends, going into occupied territory to transport his family home back to Finland, but the release of Dragunov (Stephen Lang in full nemesis mode) - the man who killed Aatami's family - sees Aatami on a revenge vendetta and Druganov tasked with finishing off this unstoppable force of nature.  It does not take long for the familiar mash-up of Western/MacGuyver/Terminator mayhem  kicks in, and the devastating personal and national after-effects of war weigh heavily, with short comic-book-style 'chapters' following Aatami as he tries to get back to Finland through Russian-occupied territory and driving the narrative purposefully.  The lack of dialogue cleverly intensifies the depth of Aatami's feelings, and there is plenty of squelch, explosions and dark humour that would keep Tommy Wirkola and Takashi Miike very happy indeed.  It all leads to an outrageous final face-off and a charmingly moving final pay-off that makes Road To Revenge an effective mix of offering more of the familiar whilst moving forward.

 

VOD: Zootropolis 2 a.k.a. Zootopia 2 (dirs: Jared Bush and Byron Howard, 2025)

"Is there a reason why you don't take anything seriously?"
"Jokes are a classic defence mechanism for someone with a traumatic childhood."
"Would you like a traumatic adulthood?"
"I would not."

Disney's sequel to its massive 2016 animated hit sees Judy (the rabbit) and Nick (the fox) as mismatched rookie cops on the trail of supposed criminal mastermind Gary De'Snake, but they fall foul of corrupt Zootropolis bosses (the lynxes) and find themselves on the run, trying to expose the bad guys and restoring the status of the outcasts.  The film delivers more of the same that made the first film so successful (right down to a final rousing speech and concluding musical number), with a busy and frenetic scattershot energy that mostly lands - the Ratatouille and The Shining gags are particularly fun.  The strong and often recognisable voice cast delivers well, its gorgeously vibrant colours, madcap cartoon energy and appealingly anthropomorphised cute animal characters will appeal hugely to its young target audience, and the insane level of CG-animated detail is impressive.  It may lack the witty freshness of the original, it is a tad overlong and the pacing is a little uneven, but Zootropolis 2 has enough visual and comic inventiveness to stand up as an acceptable first sequel.  A brief post-end-credits scene alludes to an (inevitable) third entry.

 

VOD: War Machine (dir: Patrick Hughes, 2026)

"Who's the full-fledged moron responsible for this clusterf**k?"
"Who's the meathead calling me a moron?"

The elevator pitch for this in-your-face Netflix sci-fi actioner was probably 'It's Predator...but with an extra-terrestrial killing machine!', as a band of trainee elite army rangers at a remote Colorado training camp, led by '81' (the formidable Alan Ritchson), are on a final recon-and-rescue test mission where they unexpectedly find themselves up against a relentless alien murder-bot (think love-child of an AT-AT and ED-209).  With a thunderous soundtrack, training montages and a haunted veteran hero, the first act offers all the military genre conventions it can muster, before turning into a straightforward cat-and-mouse survival thriller.  The scenery/location settings looks spectacular (shot beautifully and used well), the violence is unflinching with well-executed stunt work, and the excellent sparingly-used effects work is integrated into the action well.  Ritchson's committed presence sells the fast-moving story, with the rest of the thinly-drawn troupe likeable if disposable.  War Machine is a familiar and straightforward but slick, well-executed and entertaining enough ride.
 

VOD: Baby (dir: Marcelo Caetano, 2025)

"Have you ever been in love?"
"I think so..."

This acclaimed moody Brazilian drama sees Wellington (Joao Pedro Mariano), a young man newly released from a youth detention centre, abandoned by his parents and trying to carve out an existence on the Sao Paolo streets under the mentorship of a caring older hustler Ronaldo (Ricardo Teodoro) with whom he forms a turbulent relationship.  Another film looking at the underbelly of the big city, the film has a cool percussion-driven soundtrack, and the use of camera to follow or find Wellington on-screen throughout creates an intimate journey together with the semi-documentary style employed.  Set against the usual harsh elements of street life is a surprisingly tender central relationship, played out with two solid central performances that make Baby a watchable story.
 

VOD: Dead Of Winter (dir: Brian Kirk, 2025)

"You had to pick the middle of nowhere..."

Although filmed in Finland, snowy Minnesota is the setting for this moderate action-adventure, in which stoic Barb (a game Emma Thompson) embarks on a solo fishing trip out in the wilderness, where she manages to stumble across the kidnap of a young woman held in an isolated cabin, attempts to rescue her and puts herself in danger in the process.  The beautifully bleak and stark Finnish winter backdrop and drained colour palette give the film an icy chill, contrasting with happier sunnier flashbacks of good times past which highlight Barb's current and increasingly dangerous predicament.  Emma Thompson invests heavily in her character performance both physically and emotionally which pays off well, ably supported by Judy Greer and Marc Menchaca as the desperate kidnappers with a sinister agenda.  It is a very contained and slow-burn story which is quite straightforward and limited, and Volker Bertelmann's suitably ominous score does of lot of tension heavy lifting alongside occasional moments of violence and Idiot Plot, but Dead Of Winter overall does a reasonable job of engaging the viewer as it twists a tired genre with added emotional depth and a more senior female lead.