No.212 : The Harvest (2013)

The Harvest (2013) at the IMDb

Not so much foreshadowing about that poster as much as ‘this is how it ends’! Oh well, with one surprise out of the way let’s have a look at what else this decent thriller can offer.

The film opens with a boy going down after being struck by a ball at a pee-wee baseball match. He is saved by surgeon Samantha Morton, who we presume to be a good sort and worthy of a solid clapping on a Thursday night. We further sympathise with her when we learn that her son Andy is confined to a wheelchair due to an unspecified ailment.

His Dad, blog favourite Michael Shannon, manages to get him black market medicine from a pharmaceuticals rep who he is also boffing on the side. Andy‘s pitiful existence of watching the corn grow outside his window is enhanced with the arrival of Maryann, a 14 year old who has moved into the neighbourhood with her grandparents following the death of her parents.

She chances across Andy and is soon climbing into his bedroom and getting up to those usual teenage games of building scarecrows and sneaking around the house. Samantha is very protective of Andy to the extent she gets totally mental with any interference with his rehabilitation. Maryann gets grounded by her grandfather Peter Fonda, but a revelation in the basement leads to her taking even greater chances.

What is going on in the secret household and will ‘the harvest’ be a lovely big pile of potatoes - or something more sinister?

I liked this film despite some of the crazy leaps in logic that were needed to propel the plot. I liked the young Maryann, who was very Nancy Drew, but I have no idea her motivation for creeping into sick teen’s bedrooms and for digging about for clues when ostensibly there was nothing going on. Maybe she just though Mum’s overacting was hiding something.

Samantha Morton didn’t quite ring true as the mad mother with her outbursts seeming a bit of a stretch.I was hoping for more from her in the last third but she just faded away. Shannon was his usual good value but was a bit underused. He was clearly meant to be in Morton’s shadow but I could have done with a bit more of his trademark mania. His arc wasn’t that well defined with his actions at the conclusion not really being merited, given his years of devotion to the cause.

The two kids did well, with Andy played by Charlie Tahan who later becomes Wyatt in ‘Ozark’ and Natasha Calis was good value as Maryann, and certainly better than she was in her last sighting in ‘When Calls the Heart’.

The film kept me guessing for the most part and I liked the big twist at the end. The make up seemed a bit off with both Fonda and Shannon looking decidedly orange in several scenes - maybe the harvest was of fake tan.

Nit picking aside this was an enjoyably mystery thriller with just a smidgen of horror thrown in for good measure.

THE Tag Line : Pick of the Crop!  73%

No.199 : The Call (2013)

The Call at the IMDb

Halle Berry stars in this 2013 thriller as a 911 call handler who takes ’the call’.

She has big hair and is at the top of her game in ‘the hive’ where all emergency calls for Los Angeles are dealt with. One night she takes a call from a girl experiencing a home invasion. Halle tries to keep her safe but makes a rookie mistake when she calls her back after being disconnected, alerting the bad guy to the victim’s location. Halle tries to talk him out of it but instead hears his soon to be catchphrase ‘It’s already done’.

Despite support from her bitch supervisor and her policeman boyfriend of ‘When the Bough Breaks’ Halle reacts badly and when we catch up with her 3 months later she has moved to a training role. She seems a bit full of herself to me, but is soon dragged back to the headset when a colleague can’t handle an abduction case and Halle takes it on. We have already seen the girl get abducted and she awakens in the boot of a car.

Strangely the bad guy never took his victim’s phone, but luckily for him the phone is a burner that can’t be traced. Halle talks her through a number of tricks that may help her be found or identify her location. The bad guy is very poor and keeps offering his troublesome charge last chances as she keeps messing up his beat up Toyota - at least that paint she dripped over it miraculously disappeared!

The villain upgrades his ride when he takes out do-gooder Christopher Molisanti off ‘The Sopranos’ - nice that he reformed ; too bad it didn’t work out well for him. Slowly the net starts to close in on the bad guy but Halle is told to go home. Fat chance, I’m the star! Halle manages to track the baddie to his underground Culture Club torture dungeon but we have a few reversals ahead of us before the credits roll and things are sorted out!

I didn’t expect much from this film due to its limited sounding premise but it was good fun and kept me interested to the end. The straightforward scenario was enlivened by lots of fast cuts and wrong foots with some innovative twists and surprises thrown in along side some hip graphics and split screens.

No nonsense Halle was good, especially when she cracked through her tough exterior to end up talking astrology and offering movie dates to her caller. Abigail Breslin was less convincing as the abductee and I couldn’t make out a lot of her dialogue through her emotional delivery. She did look fetching in her blue bra throughout act three however.

The bad guy wasn’t too menacing although they did try to give him some back-story to flesh his character out. As a serial abductor he wasn’t very good and I imagine in the real world he wouldn’t escape capture for five minutes.

The dungeon scenes went on a bit log and it beggared belief that Halle’s character would abide by horror movie convention and let her man up off the canvas twice. Stab him in the neck many times, don’t turn your back on him!

The final conclusion was plain daft and had more than a bit of ‘girl power’ about it. It’s not one to take too seriously but if you like a throwaway thriller with a few decent set pieces you could do worse than to answer ‘The Call’.

THE Tag Line : Take the Call  73%

No.174 : The Room (2019)

The Room (2019) at the IMDb

In the second of our ‘The Room’ double bill we look over this creepy horror cum fairy tale that sees a European couple buy a ramshackle house in upstate New York. They learn that the house has laid empty for some years after a double murder that saw the unidentified killer slung in the nut house.

The couple have obviously never seen a horror film as they don’t immediately run away, but instead start work on the house. First order of business is to move that large pile of furniture that looks suspiciously like a barricade. Once the junk has gone a steel door is found, and don’t you know it? the elaborate two piece key is right there in the junk. You’d think if you blocked up the door you’d drop the key down a well, but we need to get inside if we’re going to have a film so on you go.

Strangely the couple don’t immediately explore the room but have a look at the electrics - their entire basement is covered in wires with a large glowing hub in the middle. How that passed the Home Inspection is anyone’s guess. Our man, Matt, drinks some whisky in the room and somewhat strangely says to himself ‘I could do with another bottle’. The lights go down and when they come on he has a new bottle. Jackpot! By the time the wife, Kate, wakes up Matt has filled the room with lots of paintings and booze. Lucky he didn’t think of drugs and hookers.

The two enjoy a fun montage of wishing for loads of stuff and have a great old time, including a frolic in some space suits - guess the props department had them lying around. As you’ll probably guess there is a catch, which Matt learns when he tries to take some money outside and it turns to dust. After a test with an original Van Gogh which disintegrates as it crosses the threshold he learns that all the wished for stuff can only exist within the house. This is obviously a drawback when, not knowing of the restriction, Kate wishes for a baby following two miscarriages of her own.

She takes the baby outside and it is quickly a five year old, who frankly is a little shit. Matt traces the original murderer at the nut house and learns that he too was a wished for baby and the only way to escape the house is to kill whomever wished for you. I don’t know how this was known - maybe The Room came with a manual when installed.

With their marriage deteriorating and the boy getting stronger and older with every step outside we have to wonder who will survive and what is really real.

I really liked this creepy horror with it’s underlying vibe of ‘what would YOU do’. Obviously the first step would be to check your mental health with the second being ‘run like hell’. Nothing good ever comes of these situations and in that sense the film reminded me of  'The Box‘. I thought here the wishes would turn out to be at the expense of someone else, but I liked the idea of you being stuck to the house if you wanted the stuff. What a needy and controlling house!

There was no attempt to explain how the room came about or what powered it and I was grateful for that. If they’d said ‘oh it used to be owned by a mad scientist/Cult/ voodoo priestess’ it would have taken away a lot of the intrigue.

The film kept a strong pace and my interest which was good going for a high concept affair like this. The ending sequences where there were rooms within rooms was well done and they kept on the right side of confusing.

The two leads were fine with Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace) putting in a good show and looking rather fetching in a Basque. The male lead was a bit non-descript but he did well with some outrageous dialogue.

Over all this was a entertaining offering and, although it’s tearing me up to say it, it's the pick of the ‘The Rooms.

THE Tag Line : Make Room for The Room 73%

No.171 : The Dirt (2019)

The Dirt at the IMDb

I’d read the book ‘The Dirt’ a few years back and rally liked its sleazy, grimy feel, so I was looking forward to this Netflix produced movie version. It’s pretty good but not a patch on the book, which leaves you needing a shower after reading a few pages.

The film follows the book closely and uses it’s same narrative devices with characters breaking the fourth wall to explain situations or to give opinions on the events unfolding. In the book the band members all write separate chapters and often contradict each other on key events. This is harder to show on film, so at times it does seem a bit of an unstructured mess - that’s not always a bad thing as the chaos and mayhem intended come across vividly.

The film opens with a young Nikki Sixx leaving his family for the rock and roll lifestyle. He’s wearing a Judge Dredd t-shirt from the ‘Judge Death Lives’ story line that post dates the timeline being shown - I hope someone got fired for that howler!

After the usual round of trashy gigs and failed auditions they end up with the starting line up for their band ‘Motely Crue’ - sorry can’t find the umlauts. After five minutes of struggle the band are soon playing stadium gigs and are behaving very badly.

There are some funny scenes with them trashing hotel rooms and sniffing ants with Ozzie Osbourne and oh so many groupies. There are more tits on show here than in the RSPB annual survey.

The band soon starts to fracture with their relationships with each other and their partners failing, leading to break ups and fall outs. They all get sober and fall off the wagon before splitting up and then reforming. It’s basically every rock band bio-pic that you’ve ever seen.

The cast is pretty good with most of them unknown to me apart from Mick Marrs who was played by Ramsay Bolton and their manager who was played by Gale Boetticher off ‘Breaking Bad’ - that’s were the drugs came from!

The Netflix description says the film is “Unflinching” and that’s true - the band come across as a shower of self centred dicks with few redeeming features. That’s good in terms of it being an honest piece of work but you have very little invested in them - a tour bus explosion wouldn’t have been a bad thing!

Of course as a bio-pic you have to stick to the facts and that is done to the smallest detail with the closing credits showing real and recreated images of the same event. It’s good they went to that level of detail with the authenticity, but they could maybe have delved a bit deeper into the band’s motivations and the consequences of their actions. Still you don’t watch a Crue bio-pic for some deep naval gazing.

There was a decent budget in play with the costumes and sets all well done. There were limits however, with the stadium shows looking a bit light and Tommy’s rotating drums cage just being a couple of metal bars over his head.

I liked that real people such as Ozzie and Heather Locklear were shown and there were some genuinely funny moments. I especially liked the A&R man turning to camera to say ‘Don’t leave your girlfriend with Motely Crue - they’ll fuck her”.

There were a couple of bits that took you out of the story such as when the voice over tells you certain characters aren’t going to be shown in the film - I don’t know why that was needed as it wasn’t billed as a documentary. Still I guess it’s in keeping with the book’s ‘warts and all’ approach.

I did think that the bands struggle to the top was a bit quick and they missed out the best story from the book where they all bought breakfast burritos before going home so they could stick their dicks in them to prevent their girlfriends smelling the groupies on them. I guess smelling of a McMuffin was fine!

Overall this was a good effort. It wasn’t quite as sleazy as I‘d have liked with the band looking a bit clean cut in places. They did however not shirk from the sex and drugs, with the rock n roll also present although they didn’t do my favourite Crue song ‘Wild Side’.

Well worth a look on you lock down Netflix odyssey.

THE Tag Line : Needs More Dirt!   73%

No.145 : The Invitation (2015)

The Invitation at the IMDb

Don’t you hate it when you get invited to a yuppie dinner party and it turns out to be a new age death cult?

That common occurrence is the subject of this horror / mystery which stars a few people you’ll know to see but you won’t know their names.

Our hero is Will, who looks like Jesus and who is heading to a party with his black wife, Kiara. There is a bit of mystery afoot as we learn that Will used to live in the house which is now occupied by dinner party hosts, David and Eden. There is some back-story to be had, but no doubt we’ll get that later. The journey is interrupted when Will runs over a coyote that he has to finish off with a tyre iron. I may be slow, but I think this is a metaphor for the rest of the film.

They arrive at the party and we are introduced to several of their friends who look like a Benetton commercial. We learn that the hostess, Eden , is Will’s former partner and that they share a sad history - it’s revealed later on had they had son who died. Eden has a new partner in the shape of David who is a bit intense and to add to the mix they have invited Sadie and Pruitt who are downright weird.

The party goes OK at first, but it seems a little off, a situation that intensifies when the gang are shown a video of a cult in Mexico where David and Eden met. The cult deals with death and healing and the video includes a women dying of cancer. As you’d guess this really helps the atmosphere. The crew worry that they are going to get the hard sell to join the cult, but that will be the least of their worries.

As things intensify Will does some snooping and finds a big pile of drugs and a video from the cult leader who says that ‘Tonight is the night’! Will it be a blood fest or is the troubled Will just imagining stuff? He’s totally not.

I liked this slow burner of a film that seemed a bit disjointed but ended up strangely satisfying. The awkwardness of social gatherings was well realised with Will initially appearing a paranoid loon ball when a couple of his accusations were disproved. Guess it’s safe to drink the wine then!

The cast were mostly good although I didn’t buy into crazy Sadie. The only recognisable face for me (apart from ‘The Wiz' off Seinfeld as the cult leader) was John Carroll Lynch as Pruitt who gave good value as the head mentalist. You probably won’t know his name but he is recognisable from ‘The Founder’ and ‘Veep’ amongst others.

The film piles on the intensity in the last twenty minutes and it was good that a few familiar tropes of the ‘killer in the locked house’ scenario were dropped. I was sure he was getting up again!

There was plenty of blood and a few wrong foots that, although not unexpected, made it good fun. Several genres merged, especially towards the end and we almost broke into another franchise altogether - The Purge anyone?

You’ll find this one on Netflix and it’s well worth 100 minutes of your time.

THE Tag Line : Don’t drink the wine! © Blackadder 73%

No.78 : The Rounders (1965)

The Rounders at the IMDb

Gentle cow poke action now as we check out this proto ‘Brokeback Mountain’.

Henry Fonda and Glenn Ford play a couple of ageing cowboy in what would have been the present day when this was made in 1965. The pair work at breaking wild horses and regularly have to postpone their plans and dreams as they inevitably piss away their earning at the saloon or on the ladies.

After breaking a couple of troublesome steeds, ranch owner Jim Love offers them a deal to round up any stray steers or horses for a tempting $7 a head. The guys agree and, after stopping in on their hooch supplier, head off to the hills to their romantic cabin.

The round up goes well and, despite a couple of mild run ins with other cowboys, their prospects look good. They have however rounded up all the fat and lazy strays and will need a fast horse to be able to rope all the lean and quick nags that remain. They have such a horse but it can’t be broken despite their repeated attempts. Winter passes in due course and although their Christmas party is ruined by a drunk horse they are soon ready to claim their cash.

The make a seemingly hefty $700 but as they head into town they have a brainwave - why fritter their cash as always? Why not risk it is a gambling scheme involving their wild horse? Along they way they pick up a couple of stranded strippers (the best kind!) and the plan is set. Will they find happiness or at least keep their cash and will the horse that has blighted their lives save the day?

I didn’t have this film down as a comedy at first as all the ‘laughs’ seemed to be people falling off horses, again and again. It does however gather pace and towards the end it’s like ‘Blazing Saddles’ with a big saloon fight and slide whistle bottom exposures.

The two leads work well together but there is no suggestion that they are in anyway attracted to each other and indeed woman are slotted in occasionally to remind you that these are red blooded men, albeit in double denim. Down the cast there are a lot of character actors mugging away for all they are worth and although not full of laughs, the film does have a good nature and no threat element whatsoever.

The direction is OK but I could have down with out the repeated sharp cuts of various people falling off the same horse - I know it’s a buckin’ horse but they don’t have to show it so buckin’ often! The Arizona locations are great and you do get a sense of the freedom that keeps drawing the cow pokes away to the hills year after year.

There is no attempt to layer the film with any sense of commentary on the nature of man or freedom; it’s more interested in plenty of pratfalls and a brief flash of bum that gets an over prominent showing on the poster above.

At less than 90 minutes the film isn’t asking for much of your time and even less of your analytical skills. It’s gentle feel good fun and a film that I enjoyed without feeling moved or asked to understand any concept or commentary.

THE Tag Line : Well Rounded - and that’s just the bums!   73%

No.58 : The Rock (1996)

The Rock at the IMDb

Fortunately Arts Council funding arrived just in time so that my retrospective on ‘The Rock’ could be thoroughly researched by way of a trip to Alcatraz and San Francisco. Well in truth I have just returned from such a trip and thought I’d look up this old friend to see if the added on bull shit was as generous as I’d first thought. And do you know what? We were super sized!

We open in the rain with a fully dress uniformed Ed Harris telling his wife’s tomb stone that he’s off to do something and he hopes she won’t think bad of him. It’s my guess that she won’t on account of being deid.

Meanwhile dependable but slightly unhinged FBI chemical weapons expert Stanley Goodspeed is defusing a large toxic bomb that gives us a few notes for later in the film. He may be dull but he buys $600 Beatles albums so we know he’s a bit of a loose cannon, on eBay at least.

Ed’s plan soon takes shape when he and a bunch of pissed off soldiers rob an army base of its supply of poison gas which looks a lot like Fairy Liquid in ball shape. One of his men gets eaten by the poison so we know from the off what we can expect if it all goes tits up - brave sacrifice soldier. His rabble then take over Alcatraz and demand $200 million for some dead black ops guys or they’ll gas San Francisco. From the start you wonder why the Government don’t just cough up - the Mayor in ‘Dirty Harry’ is keen to pay a ransom in 5 minutes but that was only $100k. The other concern is why they give a 40 hour deadline and why they don’t evacuate the city given the generous preparation time?

The answer is of course that this is a loud and stupid Michael Bay film and pulling plot holes is like trying to empty the Pacific with a colander . With Alcatraz now loaded with missiles and hostages it’s up to Stanley and ex-inmate Sean Connery to save the day. Sean plays an ex-SAS man who’s been banged up for 30 years and is the only man to have escaped ‘The Rock’. The incursion goes well for about two minutes when the hapless marine squad lead by Michael Biehn gets cut down leaving our two star names to save the day, as you’d expect.

What follows is a trip through the theme park version of Alcatraz where our heroes disarm the 15 missiles while dispatching the bad guys in some elaborate ways. Soon we are down to a few missiles and the bad guys are arguing over honour and stuff. Will the city be saved? Well it was there on Monday when I looked…

I like ‘The Rock’ despite its many deficiencies. Yeah it’s loud and unnecessary but it keeps up a good pace with plenty of stunts, explosions and grisly kills to keep you entertained. The prison itself looks great and you can take my word that the real thing does appear, albeit fleetingly. The tour I took did however miss out the flaming discs of death that looked liked they had been nicked from ’Galaxy Quest’ as well as the mine cars off ’Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'. The clue is in the name - the thing is a big rock so where did all these tunnels come from? And what were they mining? Shivs?

The plot is pretty thin and although they attempt to employ a blurring of the lines regarding the bad guys’ motivations it’s not convincing in the least. Speaking of unconvincing, Cage doesn’t convince as a scientist or indeed as an actor as he chooses to keep yelling to try and keep up with Sean’s effortless style and charm.

The film is well padded with well known faces with Candyman and an under used John C. McGinley popping up as well as the lovely Claire Forlani who sadly only gets one scene.

The outcome is never in any doubt and the characters are as thin as cage’s LP but if you go into this expecting some mindless fun and a fantasy version of Alcatraz you won’t be disappointed.

THE Tag Line - ‘The Rock Rocks’ 73%

No.21 : The Limey (1999)

The Limey at the IMDb

If you are going to upset someone you’d better first check that it’s not Terence Stamp’s character Wilson who’s as mental as a sack of frogs and not shy of spilling the claret either.

We meet up with Wilson as he arrives in Los Angeles looking for answers about his daughter’s death - think of it as ‘Get Carter’ in the sunshine. He quickly hooks up with Luis Guzman’s able stooge who had written to Wilson letting him know of his daughter’s mysterious death. Wilson is fresh out of jail after stealing the gate receipts for a Pink Floyd concert - must have been pay at the door in those days.

After no detective work at all the dynamic duo head to a back street lot where they know shady dealings go on. Wilson manages to get a name and then a right good kicking but not one to bear grudges he marches back in and slaughters everyone apart from a boy left alive to spread the word.

Next stop is the luxurious home of playboy record producer Peter Fonda who is having a party where no invites are needed. Stamp has a good butcher’s around and tosses a guard off a cliff for good measure but saves the coup de gras for another day as “it’d be too easy” - good work ethic there.

Fonda’s security man gives chase and after a scrap where we loses his Beamer he enlists some pool hall hustlers to take down our man. The deed is of course botched and Stamp is saved by some rogue DEA agents who are happy to see the villains , including drug money launderer Fonda, get theirs anyway they can.

With all the interested parties heading down the coast for a big shoot out we soon find out if revenge is best served cold or with a nice Bordeaux.

This is another film that I’d seen before but had retained almost no memory of - that Windowlene drinking craze of my early 30’s has a lot to answer for! I was glad I revisited it on behalf of this project as I really enjoyed it.

I think first time around I disliked Stamp’s almost Viz like portrayal of an Englishman abroad; all Cockney rhyming slang and wide boyness but this time it came across as a lot of fun although not exactly convincing. For a start he keeps on saying “china - china plate = mate” which seems a lot of work over just saying ‘mate’. They do play on it though with the rest of the cast all bemused at his every utterance. “there’s just one thing I don’t understand” say a cop “Every fuckin’ word that came out your mouth”.

The plot is a straightforward revenge thriller but director Steven Soderbergh does well to keep the interest level high by flirting back and forth as the characters speak showing scenes from their past and more tellingly their futures. I think the idea is that they are on paths already set with no chance to change and you see this is the case with the final shots.

I also liked that they used footage from the film ‘Poor Cow’ to show a younger Stamp with his daughter - certainly beats a bad wig or ropey CGI. The film is undeniably Stamp's with a real powerhouse showing throughout. Pass marks are also won by Guzman’s willing and strangely motivated helper and Peter Fonda who does a great sleazebag when he wants to, which seems to be always.

There are not too many surprises or big set pieces and you get the idea they could have shot the film in a couple of days given the lack of elaborate sets or costumes and the sometimes wobbly cameras. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as you get a fast paced, engaging thriller that has equal laughs and shocks.

THE Tag Line : Make Miney A Limey! 73%

No.19 : The Jacket (2005)

The Jacket at the IMDb

The ‘jacket’ in question is a straight-jacket and it helps someone travel through time. Sounds a bit fanciful and light? Not really, it’s so grim that bits had to be filmed in Scotland!

We open with Adrien Brody fighting in the Gulf War and getting his just desserts, in the form of a bullet in the head when he tries to help a gun toting tot. We see him again a few months later back home, after he has been discharged form a military hospital. His lucky streak stays hot when he fixes the car of a mother and her young daughter but gets the bum’s rush as a reward.

Things look up slightly when he hitches a lift, but wouldn’t you know it? the driver is a nutter who goes on to kill a cop and frame our man for the crime. Adrien gets the worst punishment imaginable - he gets sent to a Scottish mental hospital that doubles for the USA and gets Kris Kristofferson as a doctor.

Kris is a bit of a maverick in the care stakes and his treatment consists of drugging up patients, sticking them in ‘the jacket’ before bunging them in a mortuary drawer. This cruel and unusual treatment has a side effect on Adrien who manages to jump through time, by the time honoured route of the camera darting into his eyes.

He wakes up in 2007 and manages to snag a night on Keira Knightley’s sofa. He finds his army dog tags and soon works out that Keira is the young girl with the dodgy car we met in paragraph two. She sensibly poo-poohs his far fetched tale and tells him that the real Adrien died years back, a mere four days after he went into the drawer.

Adrien spends the rest of the film darting back and forth through time in a bit to solve the mystery of his apparent death and to try and secure a better life for Keira who seems to have grown up a bit skanky. He also gets the information in the future that buys him his favours in the past, in a sort of causality loop that would make the Borg explode if they tried to work it out.

I saw this film way back in 2005 and couldn’t remember much about it what with my own time machine in the shop and all. At first I thought it was going to be a bit grim but an intriguing plot and a top notch cast made it a really enjoyable and thought provoking experience.

It shares a lot with ‘The Butterfly Effect’ although thankfully not Ashton Kutcher. The non-linear narrative and the other world sense throughout keeps you guessing and it’s gratifying when all the pieces come together. Some of the cast do buy into the time travel angle a bit too eagerly and I think I’d be wanting some lottery numbers rather than a few snippets any punter could have gleaned from the papers.

Adrien Brody gives his usual great performance and he’s the kind of actor who seems genuinely likable. Keira does OK and fills the role of the druggy waitress well with her slender frame. In the second string we have Kris as a not quite menacing enough doctor and a pretty frumpy looking Jennifer Jason Leigh as a doctor on the fast track to losing her licence. For your money you also get Daniel Craig as an overacting patient and the great Fish out of Marillion showing he can twitch with the best of them.

The mechanisms in place are never explained and although you could come up with something along the lines of ‘he’s dead at the start’ or something you’d be better off just believing that it’s a magic drawer and be done with it.

The familiar theme of redemption worked its usual magic with me and although the ending wasn’t exactly happy we did get a bit of hope for our troubles - and Keira got a slightly nicer car out of it too!

The direction was great also with the unnerving world of the mental hospital and the claustrophobic environment in general well realised. It doesn’t quite all come together with a few plot strands and ropey performances letting the side down but it’s certainly worth a look and an enjoyable night in (a drawer)

THE Tag Line : This Jacket Required 73%