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Six Days Seven Nights (1998)
Fun romantic adventure
This is a romantic adventure comedy in the same style as movies like Romancing The Stone. Yes it's cheesy, and there are some slightly odd acting decisions - particularly from Ford. But overall it's a fun story about a New York journalist (Heche) on vacation with her boyfriend (Schwimmer), but ends up trapped on an island with a pilot (Ford).
Embrace this for what it actually is, which is a movie that throws back to those quick fire 1950s romantic comedies. There's a bit of a danger, some action, some fun arguments and it's all generally quite low stakes.
The cinematography and soundtrack are fantastic, and to see real sunsets and gorgeous locations shot on 35mm film is so refreshing compared to the digital green screen movie making all too common now.
With the characters and the acting, one thing that pleasantly surprised me was Anne Heche. Unlike a lot of movies that make the woman intensely annoying and useless, Heche is really quite watchable, mucks in on the action and plays an equal role in the movie.
Six Days and Seven Nights is the perfect date night movie, as it's essentially a "chick flick".
Ford's character and performance is the weak link in places, but not so bad that it hurts the movie. I forgive him for a lot as he's one of my favourite actors. And toward the end, he pulls a couple of really moving moments out of the bag that make it worth it.
The film races along at a very watchable pace and technically, stunts, editing, sound etc are all excellent.
It's not out to win Oscars and it's not an edge of your seat thrill ride. But by no means is this bad either.
Well worth watching with a bowl of snacks, a drink and ideally a romantic interest!
Disturbing Behavior (1998)
Leave them kids alone - fun but flawed
Entertaining, trashy 90s teen movie could have been as good as The Faculty but fell flat with its slightly odd tone and plot problems.
A year before The Faculty had kids being brainwashed into mindless straight-A psychos, Disturbing Behavior hit cinemas with basically the same plot, but it's robots (kinda) instead of aliens.
Both movies tackle the pressure to conform, perform and achieve at school, told through a scifi-lite horror lens.
Disturbing Behavior is fun enough, but suffers from some plot problems. Unlike The Faculty, which aims to save the zombified kids by using the old "kill the head vampire and everyone returns to normal" trick , Disturbing Behavior kinda runs out of steam and just, well, kills everyone except our main characters.
It left me asking "where'd the parents go?" "What about the bad guy's daughter?" And a general feeling of "what the F just happened?!"
As well as the frustrating plot, this movie suffered from a tone issue. Some actors, like the pale friend, were doing weird comedy bits, whilst our main character was being way more naturalistic.
Unlike The Faculty - which nails the tone perfectly - Disturbing Behavior has a lot of unintentionally comedic moments of bad acting and outlandish plot - literally the opening scene starts with a violent act that's so slapstick it threatens to derail the movie immediately.
Disturbing Behavior nods to other iconic teen horrors - one particular scene in the woods with voices whispering "Stephen" from a bridge was more than reminiscent of The Lost Boys, and some of Katie Holmes' goth aesthetic gave me serious The Craft vibes. Sadly, this wasn't in the same class as either movie.
With all that said, I actually enjoyed this film. As an 80s 90s fan who hadn't seen this when it landed in cinemas, I came to Disturbing Behavior only as a high school movie addict, and I felt like a got a decent enough hit off this movie.
It's a solid 6 star that keeps a pace and at least isn't boring. It left a lot of plot questions but it knew when to end and didn't drag it out to most modern movies' tedious run times.
All round, good silly fun with a decent soundtrack, good cinematography and technically all round great execution, that's still way better than the rubbish being turned out these days.
The Ninth Gate (1999)
Underrated cosy intimate neo noir
Charming, intimate and atmospheric noir movie based on a Spanish book. In many ways, it feels like a novel in its slow burning execution and beautiful detailed scenes
Depp's performance is deliberately flat, reminiscent of 40s noir detectives. And if you like watching a character drink and smoke his way through beautiful European locations, its worth it for that alone.
Depp's character, Corso's questionable morality is what makes him interesting. As a book expert sent on a quest to authenticate a rare satanic book owned by a mysterious businessman , the story takes us on a journey across Portugal, Spain and France, where we meet lots of eccentric, enigmatic and dangerous characters.
It's clearly not supposed to scary. It's more intriguing and eery. The detail of the engravings in the fictional book, and the time taken with scene setting is brilliant, as we journey into an unusual world of the occult and of rare book collectors.
There's also a degree of quirky humour in the movie, and a slightly silly fantastical element that I think it pulls off well because it feels so much like a novel.
I'm a huge fan of this movie. Instead of looking for a jump scare laden horror or intense thriller, think of this as a slow burn, intriguing and atmospheric noir with a supernatural and conspiratorial element. Yes the pace is slow, but deliberate.
Worth watching.
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
Fun female led exotic action adventure movie
There literally isn't another movie like this. There's Indiana Jones and National Treasure and that's it. When it comes to female led exotic action adventure movies, this is it.
It's comic book in style and very much in the video game world with bombastic and fantastical moments, but builds the world of Lara Croft well, establishes rules and doesn't break them.
The biggest hurdle in the movie is getting last a slightly cringy opening scene with a robot which is super 90s, but once you're put of the initial action set piece, you're into the main plot...
Taking place in England, Venice, Cambodia and Iceland, the sets and locations are stunning - I personally visited the Angkor Wat temples after I saw the movie and was inspired by how magical they looked. And they really do look that cool in real life too!
Shot on 35mm with an eclectic soundtrack (from Graeme Revel who scored the movie in 10 days) which includes music from bands like Leftfield and Delerium, it sounds great too. There are amazing sets (the temples, Lara's home, Venice and Iceland) and Angelina Jolie delivers a quality performance that's the right blend of ballsy ass kicking, dry wit and attitude, making her more than a match for Bond or Dr Jones.
The story is emotionally engaging and mysterious, with Lara's late father leaving her clues to a hidden artefact that can control time. Naturally bad guys also want the artefact, and Iain Glen is the perfect bad guy. He plays a sort of Lucifer'esque shadowy agent for the Illuminati who seek the powers of the mysterious "triangle of light".
Lara's butler and geeky 90s hacker sidekicks are fun comic relief, and play substantial roles in the story too. And Daniel Craig in an early role, is a fantastic character with a duplicitous agenda, offering some light and shade and emotional conflict for Lara.
The adventure takes Croft to ancient temples in Cambodia, shot on location in the late 90s just as Cambodia was opening back up to tourists after its dark past. And what's captured on film is iconic. Mystical architecture and jungles, as well as turning the modest lake in front of Angkor Wat into a bustling floating village, was the standout moment in the movie for me.
The CGI is sparing and some of the effects actually still hold up surprisingly well 20 years on - with an amazing fight between the bad guys, lara and monkey statues brought to life when the artefact is disturbed.
Compared to the 2018 reboot stuck in one location (like the rebooted games), this Lara is a globetrotting adventurer going from the humid asian jungles to the Icelandic tundra, via Venetian palaces and stately British homes.
This movie and its equally fun sequel are really underrated. As far as video game adaptations go, I think are very good.
Yes if you inspect the plot too hard it falls apart, but the point is, you're too busy having fun to care about the why's.
10 stars. Pure popcorn entertainment that doesn't take itself too seriously but delivers in a well paced action adventure.
1917 (2019)
Meh
Didn't care about anyone. The "single take" felt like a gimmick that got boring quickly. The two leads are wooden and delivered the bland expositional dialogue terribly. Despite all its efforts, there wasn't any real tension in the film and it felt like a discount Revenant meets Saving Private Ryan, with none of the exciting action of the former, or interesting atmosphere of the latter. The plot was dull, and the one take concept did nothing to enhance it. Added to which, the two characters were unbelievably irritating in how much unnecessary stupid situations they got into, failing to disarm or shoot anyone they met along the way. The lineR plot felt like a bad rpg. Go here, talk to this guy, then go there and talk to that guy. Complete emperors new clothes. Mildly entertaining at points but largely tedious.
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019)
Wick loses it's way
I loved the first two Wick movies, but 3 went full ridiculous. In the first two movies the stakes just felt higher and we cared about Wick. In chapter 3, much like Neo in the Matrix (which Parabellum stole not one, but two quotes from) John Wick now feels invincible. I felt no concern for Wick at any moment. This movie also felt the most derivative, quoting The Matrix, casting two bad guys from The Raid, including yakuza traditions like a Kitano movie, using a book to beat up a bad guy like Bourne Ultimatum, and once again, ending in some sort of Enter The Dragon hall of mirrors style room. The humour didn't land and the samurai bad guy was silly. The main problem, as others have mentioned, is it's too much like a video game, with characters rushing back to the ammo depot to level-up guns and take on increasingly hard bad guys with stronger armour, requiring head shots.
For me, one of the most ridiculous elements, was how many assassins there are and how everyone knows Wick's name. It's like the ultimate drinking game to take a shot everytime someone says "John Wick", and the amount of times Reeves walks down a street and some beggar, busker, shopkeeper and god knows who else is secretly an assassin or knows who Wick is, was just got ludicrous.
I also felt the fight choreography has got repetitive. Unlike the first movie where sequences had strong purpose, chapter 3 feels like a series of levels of Wick fighting the same dudes with the same moves - including the never-ending grab by wrist, kick knee and judo throw. Don't get me wrong, there was still some stunning martial arts, gunplay and fight choreography, but it just felt relentless in a tedious way.
I really wanted this to be as awesome as chapters 1 and 2. Sadly it wasn't. It's still leagues ahead of some of the action movies being made today, but I just had such high hopes for this one. It looked just as good, it just seriously lacked a decent plot.
The Dark Tower (2017)
Remarkably pacey and moving movie about parental loss and the fear of death
I hadn't read the books so have no dog in the fight over the accuracy of the adaptation. So I thought this film was pretty good actually.
The lead actor playing the boy (who has visions of the tower and the gunslinger) is really good.
I was ready to switch off based on reviews, and child actors are often the weak link, but he doesn't annoy and does actually a great job of selling the emotions of fear and grief that are central to the plot.
Again, not knowing the books meant I really didn't mind Idris Elber being cast as the gunslinger and thought he did a great job.
As did Matthew McConaughey, who I found actually quite menacing. And given his larger than life personality off-screen, I was surprised I didn't laugh or start thinking of one of his silly mid-00s rom-coms once!
The Dark Tower movie reminded me a lot of the vibe of the Never Ending Story, taking place between two worlds with the protagonist having lost a parent and the threat of an encroaching darkness on the universe. The Dark Tower captured a similar, almost 80s kids movie tone (without being obvious or trying hard to reference 80s kids films) in the way kids movies from that decade often contained dark adult themes and just the right amount of violence and creepiness. Again, I dont know the original books and am sure book fans are upset it's not as adult as the King novels.
This film certainly doesn't deserve the 1 or 2 stars many are giving it. Its genuinely enjoyable and moving, with some great action scenes and a great chemistry between all three main actors.
It's certainly worth giving it a try on Netflix. I put it on, absolutely ready to turn it off after ten minutes, but it held me to the end. A sequel was obviously hinted at in the final scene, but I'm less sure about where that could go. For me, the thing that rooted the film and gave it dramatic tension, was the main characters' journeys with grief and loss over their fathers. Unless a sequel could develop on that somehow, I'm not sure it wouldn't end up being just a kind of boring cowboys and aliens buddy movie. But I'd definitely be interested in seeing what they did if one was in the works.
Give this film a shot if you don't know the books and just see what you think. It's a great popcorn flick that didn't deserve this panning.
eXistenZ (1999)
Cronenberg body horror meets Inception reality trip
This underrated movie takes you on a trip that has closer connections to Inception and The Game, than the Matrix.
Existenz has us guessing what's real from the get-go, and the stylised and deliberately stilted acting throughout - which could be misconstrued as bad directing and shoddy performances - is actually one of several deliberate devices used to subtly hint that the world we are in is not real.
In a Strange Days future where people interface with video games via holes drilled into their spine, Jude Law must follow game developer Jennifer Jason Lee into the only copy of her game, to check it's not damaged after an assassination attempt trashes her console in the crossfire.
The adventure begins with a journey to a garage where a wild eyed Willem Defoe shooting a hole into Jude Laws back before popping his cherry. Moments later a bizarro organic umbilical cord is inserted into Law's spine by Leigh at a motel in a scene that's half erotic half terrifying.
The Inception comparison can be drawn in how the characters journey several realities deep, with games within games within games, causing Nolan-levels of wtf moments as characters push deeper into a strangely dream-like world.
Theres also plenty of stranger humour where other characters are like NPCs who need the correct dialogue to trigger meaningful interactions - constantly reminding you this is a game, but also creating a very unnerving sense of violence and real-world threat to our characters where like Arnie in Total Recall, you're always questioning reality.
Theres a brilliant twist at the end and some excellent supporting actors including Ian Holm and Christopher Eccleston.
The score is incredibly atmospheric, with Howard Shore bringing Silence of The Lambs style menace to the movie whose cinematography and effects make this a triple threat and an incredibly atmospheric and underrated movie.
The Meg (2018)
The ultimate movie to dual-screen to
This movie is basically a rip off of Deep Blue Sea - a fixed underwater marine base is attacked by a huge mutant shark.
Unlike Deep Blue Sea, the marine base isn't the main set piece for action scenes, instead the Meg goes for a series of boat and submersible set pieces. For this reason, much of the action is a mess of underwater CGI with unclear action and lots of cages, submersibles and boats flying around, above and below.
With more Hollywood movies being Chinese funded, we are now seeing Chinese locations and actors shoehorned into plots. And for a film like The Meg, it's fine for exotic locations and makes little difference being mainly water based, but it chucked in some appalling actors whose English was weak and generally just seemed a bit random casting-wise.
Statham is phoning it in with a hilarious quasi-american accent and takes ages to show up after the opening scene. But when he eventually gets going, he's fun, charismatic, and yes, he takes his top off lots.
The supporting cast are all fairly meh, with maybe Ruby Rose being one of the stand out supporting actors, if only for her supremely 90s hair that gives the whole movie a very vintage B Movie vibe.
With John Turteltaub directing I had higher hopes for this movie as I love the National Treasure Films. But it does have it's plus sides. For one, the score is Harry Gregson Williams, whose soundtrack elevates this film massively.
There are actually a couple of good action sequences and fun moments. The humour doesn't always land, but the Meg is definitely not taking itself seriously and is obviously referencing those 90s B Movies like Deep Blue Sea and Deep Rising, rather than thinking it's making the next Jaws.
The biggest problem with the film is it's reluctance to kill off people. When there's quite a large ensemble of largely disposable and forgettable supporting actors, surprisingly few people die. And it's obviously dialled down the gore to appeal to kids.
And that's the problem - this film could have been awesome if it had embraced the 80s / 90s B Movie violence and focused on cool kills and crazy violent set pieces. But instead it opts for people leaping on and off boats and nearly being grabbed by the outlandishly massive shark. It's heavy on CG and feels like a wasted opportunity for practical effects.
At 2 hours long this film is best enjoyed on the tv at home dual-screening with snacks.
Its not the 3 star disaster most are saying, nor is it 8 star awesome. It's just 6 star yeah that'll pass two hours and is just OK.
Den of Thieves (2018)
Couldn't get through this Heat rip off
I laughed out loud when the opening armoured truck robbery played out as an almost shot for shot rip off of Heat.
Michael Mann's Heat warm-up L.A Takedown was better than this totally banal and bizarre film.
When Butler arrived on scene it was another ridiculous copy of Heat with similar dialogue and ideas - Butler lists off the criminal's M.O and talks about their professionalism. One of the cops calls a witness 'donut guy', in Heat there's 'tv guy'... the list goes on.
Then it gets boring. I skipped through the movie, landing on other rip off scenes I predicted would be in there including Butler catching his wife with another man and eating some chicken. And an assault rifle heavy final shoot out.
Only people who haven't seen Heat could think this movie is original. This made The Town feel like breath a fresh air by comparison.
Watch it only for the action scenes that are quite cool but have zero dramatic tension due to you not caring about either lead role who are both unlikable and unbelievable.
If you want to enjoy Butler butt kicking in a hilarious B Movie you're better off watching Olympus Has Fallen.
Event Horizon (1997)
Genius cult scifi horror with awesome cast and effects
This movie is incredibly atmospheric with stunning physical sets (including the mind blowing engine of the ship). Lighting is awesome, it looks great, mindblowing soundtrack by Michael Kamen (Lethal Weapon, Die Hard) and an absolutely stellar cast including pre-Matrix but very Morpheus-esque Lawrence Fishburne, Jason Isaacs (Yep Malfoy) and Sam Jurassic Park Neill (being all English and awesome).
The film is a simple search and recover missing spaceship except it's a creepy missing spaceship capable of interdimensional travel - as so brilliantly explained in the classic scene where Sam Neil does physics with pencil and Sean Pertwee's nudie mag.
This film may borrow from the greats like Alien, but it borrows well, and the more recent Danny Boyle film Sunshine is more than a nod to this cult classic.
Yes there are some outlandish moment and silly ones, but it does a huge amount of excellent world building from the offset that means you're very willing to except what's happening.
This film plays to all out primal fears of space and psychological demons as well as real ones and had gets in your head as much as makes you jump.
This film holds up in 2018 with only a handful of shots looking dated. Some CGI zero gravity oil looks a bit rubbish today, but the sparing use of computer effects mixed with startling physical effects means you're rarely bothered by the fleeting dated moments.
There are a few grim but exceptionally brief shots that are absolutely necessary in conveying the horror of what the crew are facing. I'm a big wuss when it comes to horror and can say that it's the perfect amount of gross. Just enough for you to be watching a handful of scenes through your fingers whilst mainly enjoying a total rollercoaster of a movie.
London Has Fallen (2016)
Awesome brainless fun
1 star? Not as good as the first movie? Let's get real! Olympus Has Fallen was equally ridiculous, jingoistic, lacking well-rounded characters, and originality - so why is everyone surprised when London Has Fallen is no different?
Yes it's jingoistic. Yes it's still lacking well-rounded characters. Yes it's mindless violence. And yes it's ludicrous...
...ludicrously freaking awesome that is!
The first thing I loved about this movie was the bad language. It was refreshing. I know that sounds like an odd thing to say, but go with me a moment...
...see, in an era of 12A action movies with tonnes of violence and no bad language, Butler dropping the F bomb a billion times ironically brings a level of realism to London Has Fallen, that is lacking in movies that take themselves far more seriously.
Yes the entire concept is stupid, but that's not what we're here for. I'm here to watch Butler stab bad buys repeatedly in the chest and shoot AK-47s out of 4X4 cars bombing along the Thames at 80 miles per hour. That's what I signed up for.
The pacing of this movie is perfect. It's never boring, and the action sequences are really fun. Yes, in places the CG is a bit shoddy, but the movie is still quite spectacular in pulling off some big set pieces in London.
London Has Fallen is mainly a two-hander between Butler and Eckhart, with some nice buddy moments and fantastic action sequences throughout, including a mega shoot-out at Somerset House, a mega shoot-out in the Underground, and mega shoot outs in dark buildings, including the finale in Soho, of all places.
This isn't going to get any Oscars, but it's a brilliantly retro action movie that takes itself far less seriously than throw-back action films like Taken, which is no less crazy in the plot department.
Anyone who enjoys mindless action will not be disappointed, and where this movie lacks realistic plot, it makes up for it in pacing. At 1 hour 40 - in an age of bloated, long movies that think they're more intelligent than they are - this is frankly a breath of fresh air.
Get a big bowl of popcorn and some sodi-pops, and enjoy relentless, shooting, stabbing, swearing and explosions. Great fun!
Only God Forgives (2013)
Doesn't pack a punch
This felt like a weak imitation of a Takeshi Kitano film. But unlike Sonatine or Boiling Point, the moments of stoic zen like calm punctuated by violence felt contrived rather than controlled.
Unbelievably, Gosling was even more dead behind the eyes than he was in Drive, and not one character had a redeemable quality to them.
I didn't care about the brother who was rapist psychopath. I didn't care about the mother, who was a murderous creepy, possibly incestuous psychopath. I didn't care about the Thai cop, who was a hair-pin wielding poor-man's Kitano (with none of the charisma) psychopath. And I didn't care about Gosling, who was an attractive, but date rapey dress-grabbing drug dealing psychopath.
South East Asia has awesome potential as a location for a thriller, but this was a strangely empty Thailand, and most of our time was spent pointlessly following Gosling down dark red corridors to encounter completely unexplained apparitions of the Thai cop, that was probably meant to mean something but came off as discount David Lynch.
This is a film about boring nasty people. If they all got shot at the end you wouldn't care. If they all jumped off a bridge at the start, it wouldn't make a difference. The best thing about this film is Kristen Scott Thomas swearing, and even that gets a little dull after you realise her character has little more to do.
Sorry, but this is pretentious pap. If you're looking for the real deal, watch Sonatine.
The Interpreter (2005)
Excellent thriller with annoying moments
This is a decent political conspiracy thriller with solid performances and some interesting ideas. Nicole Kidman is a South African interpretor at the UN who overhears the whisper of an assassination plot. Sean Penn is a secret service agent assigned to investigate it. The main conspiracy plot is well executed and there's some exciting moments in the movie, as well as all the clichés you come to expect of this genre - staring through venetian blinds onto rain soaked streets, hunched over laptops drinking whisky and speaking into wrist cuffs whilst waving pistols. For me, Kidman's performance is the weak link. It's reasonable but there's something I don't buy about her. I don't believe her past and feel irritated by her at points - though in her defence, that's sometimes the script / director who get her doing stupid stuff like playing an African flute in a moment that borders on comedy. Other than the odd silly moment, The Interpretor kept me gripped and Sean Penn's hair was constantly entertaining. This would make a great double bill with Fair Game - also starring Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman, oh sorry, I mean Naomi Watts.
The Grey (2011)
Not the movie you were expecting
Watching the trailer for The Grey, you'd certainly be forgiven for thinking this was going to be a Stallone-style Cliffhanger-type movie. Men leaping off cliff edges, flaming spears, Liam Neeson wrapping broken glass round his hands and fighting wolves. Yep, sounds like a standard action movie. It isn't.
My biggest problem with The Grey is the marketing. And I can understand the conundrum marketers faced with this. Because contrary to the trailer and poster, this is actually a rather existential, angsty story about facing death.
The problem is that it's not psychological enough. Just when it goes all Touching The Void, a big CGI wolf that looks marginally better than the one in The Never Ending Story, rears its furry head and pulls us out of reality.
But when the wolves do show up, there isn't enough action either. So for me The Grey fails to be either a compelling psychodrama or a no-brainer action movie - the latter was what I was expecting.
I would however, recommend the film and certainly enjoyed aspects of it. But I they should have made it far clearer this was not the action film presented in the trailer.
Though the film did provide some element of humour for me as I imagined a gang of teenage boys in the cinema laughing and cheering before the slow realisation that this is not Taken with wolves.
Fair Game (2010)
A class thriller for an intelligent audience
Fair Game is directed by Doug Liman (Bourne Identity). Based on true events, the story focuses on CIA operative Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts) and husband Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) and takes place in the period leading up to the US invasion of Iraq (the second invasion that is).
The story begins with the interception of some aluminium tubes purchased by Iraq and suspected of being part of an attempt to develop a nuclear weapon. Valerie Plame is tasked with investigating the tubes.
Plame's husband Joe Wilson is a former US diplomat who has spent many years in Niger, Africa. He has been asked by the CIA (via Plame) to verify a rumour about the sale of Uranium Yellow Cake from Niger to Iraq.
As the story unfolds, both the aluminium tubes and the yellow cake are looking less and less credible. But powerful players inside the CIA and Washington are insistent that Iraq is developing WMD.
I won't say how this plays out because I believe it would spoil the film. But I will say that performances from Penn and Watts are exceptional.
Watts very much leads the film in a refreshing reversal of gender stereotypes as Penn's character spends the first half of the movie at home looking after the kids (a role that is sadly reserved for women in 99% of movies).
Watts is a power-house as Plame and brings the film a level of realism and drama that might have been missing in the hands of another actor.
This is a truly adult film that doesn't compromise or dumb down. Unlike the trailer, the film doesn't patronise the audience.
This is a tense thriller that has perfectly blended domestic drama with spy thriller. The script by British playwright Jez Butterworth is expertly crafted and any faint whiff of plot exposition subtly emerges in naturalistic conversation and dialogue with the pace of an Aaron Sorkin drama (sans the stilted Mamet/Pinter cadence).
Doug Liman manages to convey the tense psychological and political drama of life in the CIA without making it look unrealistic or overly glossy. In fact, much of the movie makes life in the CIA look like nothing more than a regular stressful office job (where you can't tell your husband or friends about your day that is).
What makes this so exciting is knowing that it's based on a true story. One even gets to see the real Plame in the credit sequence.
My only criticism, and I'm stretching to find one, is the bizarre choice of a piece of music for the title sequence. Opening with a tense montage of news footage, we are subjected to The Gorillaz "Clint Eastwood".
This sets a tone that is completely at odds with the rest of the film and it took me a while to settle into the idea that this wasn't going to have as much humour as the music suggested.
Bar that minor point, I highly recommend this film. But don't watch it if you're hoping for lots of Bourne'esque assassins.
In fact, the only assassins in this film are members of the CIA who don't want the truth to be known - that WMDs were a fabrication. That the war in Iraq was at best, an illegal invasion resulting in the deaths of thousands. That lies were told and false facts created and covered up by people inside the US government.