In cinemas April 29th!

Part of a style of comedy essentially defined as “people doing things you wouldn’t really expect them to be doing”. Like children swearing or the entire premise of 'The Last of the Summer Wine', which is a little closer to this move. It’s a simple enough gag and the movie embraces it but I’m not sure it has much else to offer beyond an interesting premise.

Said premise revolves around Arthur (Bernard Hill), his wife Martha (Virginia McKenna) and their friends who are all retired seniors who spend their days in the local bowls club commiserating medical expenses and slowly learning that they’re all being screwed over by their various pension funds. Being pushed towards poverty by what he sees as the crooked banks Arthur hatches a half-baked plan to steal a lock box from an armoured car. When by sheer dumb luck the plan sort of works it sets off a chain of events that escalates into a growing crime spree of comedic proportions.

Unfortunately as I eluded to in my first paragraph the film doesn’t have a lot more going for it beyond the overarching joke of “old people take up bank robbing”. The complexities of the plot are undeveloped, largely explained away but the characters themselves not really understanding them, and the final caper doesn’t fully make sense when you stop to think about it.

We feel enough for the pensioners that we want them to succeed but a young flash detective, full of himself and obsessively spray tanned who is set about to pursue them never extends beyond his two dimensions and works largely as a plot device, which is a shame as the film lacks a proper villain beyond the banks, not that we don’t all hate the banks, so the tension is pretty low overall.

​The script lacks a comedic eye, the direction lack artistry and to be blunt it’s pretty boring to look at, but despite all this the film does manage to be entertaining through to the slightly anti-climactic finale that probably looked more exciting on paper than it does in camera, and whilst easily forgettable as a whole there’s a few good laughs and our heroes are sympathetic.

On the whole the film feels much too tame with no real standout moments and perhaps ironically a more mature approach might have been better. If you’re in the mood for a light British comedy you can do a lot worse but this is a little too tepid to be a classic of the genre.

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Presented at the Toronto Film Festival last year and to be released in May 13, 'Green Room' is a
thriller with a splatter and horror twist that will take the audience by surprise.

Set in the USA, the film starts with an emerging anarchist heavy metal band travelling to play some
gigs and earn money. When one of the sessions booked doesn't seem to be as profitable as they
thought, they get another show through a friend in a Nazi compound in the middle of nowhere.
After a provocative live session, however, the band will witness something really dangerous and,
what at the beginning seems like a chance to cash some easy money, it becomes a matter of survival and death.

At first 'Green Room' seems like a quiet movie about a heavy rock band trying to make it in the
show business however throughout the story the tone starts to shift progressively, turning the
film's category upside down and becoming a thriller converging into violence with cruel and
graphic scenes.

The colors in the film are quite dark and they navigate towards every shade of green but
instead of giving the audience a sense of peace and tranquillity, while at the same time reminding
them of the title and the purpose of a green room, the room in question becomes quickly associated with anxiety, claustrophobia and extreme slaughter.
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The cinematography goes from static to frantic. While at the beginning there are more panoramic
shots, towards the middle until the end of the film the scenes are all inside the warehouse and
specifically in the green room

The cast ensemble did a good job in portraying realistically their characters. Patrick Stewart got the
unusual role of the ruthless Nazi chief in charge of everything. Imogen Poots, Anton Yelchin and Alia Shawkat worked together distinctively, complimenting each other and creating a well harmonised performance in the midst of all the chaos and brutality.
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Particularly worth of notice is the female characters' courage, which stands out throughout the film
and brings a nice change to a genre in which most of the time women are mainly passive victims.
The plot is linear and it escalates in order to add more information and the movie goes along,
putting together the puzzle that creates the whole story.

However, the film's equilibrium is broken by the violence and gruesomeness of many scenes and
this drastically changes the tone of the movie instantly, startling the audience. Even the level of brutality escalates going from mild to extreme by each frame.

All in all, 'Green Room' can be considered as a thriller movie that wants to impress the audience by
adding violence to the story, but in doing so it goes a bit overboard.