THE HERMIT OF TREIG review

After living a lone, solitary life for 40 years, you'd expect Ken Smith to be a grumpy old loner. On the contrary, his is a life built on his own desire to live life on his own terms, but he's welcoming to those who pass by his little cabin on the hills surrounding Loch Treig. Among those visitors is debut director Lizzie MacKenzie, who after knowing Ken for 7 years, persuaded him to allow her to document his unique day to day life.

With a shared passion for photography that's helped forge their bond (Ken has spent decades capturing the beauty of the Loch and the flora and fauna of the surrounding woodlands), Lizzie - whose voice is ever present off camera, talking to Ken - tries to find out why Ken chose this lifestyle, and what he will do when it becomes too unsafe for a man of his advancing years to live so far away from the rest of the world.

Suffering a traumatic attack when he was 26 that lead to a brain haemorrhage and told he'd never walk or talk again, Ken defied the odds by recovering, then decided not to live on anyone else's terms again. After travelling the world he settled at Loch Treig because of its unique beauty and isolated nature. "It's known as the lonely Loch. There's no roads here". Building his own log cabin filled with diaries, notebooks, photographs and slides, living his life the way he wants has been his life's work - but with his once dark hair and beard as white as the snow on the ground around his cabin, the question of what his remaining days will be like lingers, despite Ken's assertion that he plans to live to 102. He knows he didn't choose an easy life, having to walk 27 miles to nearby Fort William and back again when he needs to do something as everyday as posting a letter, but he clearly feels at home on the banks of the Loch, stating "I think if you love the land, it sort of loves you back. It loves you in all the things it produces for you".

The Hermit of Treig is a wonderfully moving, deeply personal documentary about life, ageing, and most importantly, those connections with others that add joy to our lives. His only regular contact with the outside world is a beacon he has to use once a week so the local authorities know he's okay, but Ken clearly loves having Lizzie around, eagerly showing photos of the first log cabin he built before it burnt down - even going so far as to mock up a charming miniature replica from sticks - and playing up to the camera with his many weather-worn hats, and she similarly enjoys his company too, her camera quietly picking up on his failing memory when he misses diary entries or forgets conversations about his blooming roses. It's a gentle, thoughtful commentary that's respectful of Ken and his tenacity.

A fascinating character study with a real emotional punch over the sacrifices his way of life have cost him (Ken reads a letter he sent to his parents when on his travels, hoping they'd meet him at Heathrow airport but unaware they'd passed away in his absence), it in turn shows the strength Ken draws from the landscape around him. As he puts it, "it's a nice life, ain't it? Everybody wishes they could do it, but nobody ever does." The strikes of his axe might be coming down softer than in previous years, but in spite of his wavering vision and balance and a health scare that leads to a brief hospitalisation, he's not ready to give up his singular world just yet, and who could blame him.

Verdict

4/5

A-HA: THE MOVIE - Glasgow Film Festival review

Following Norwegian pop-stars A-Ha as they prepare for their latest tour, this new documentary reveals a wealth of information about the band's history, their solo projects, and how they crafted their most widely known contribution to pop, their 1985 classic hit, Take On Me.

Having sold in excess of 50 million albums over the last 40 years, A-Ha are still touring to this day. In preparation for their most recent stretch of shows and a coveted appearance on MTV's Unplugged, the band allowed cameras to follow their rehearsal progress, including personal interviews that reveal what has kept Norway's biggest musical export going for so long.

In a creative decision that was inevitable, the filmmakers employ the pencil sketch animation style of Steve Barron's classic music video for Take On Me, which - although impressively rendered - mercifully only lasts the duration of the introductory flashbacks that reveal the band members' childhoods. Around the first 15 minutes of the film. It's fitting that the iconic visual motif is used to this extent, as the whole film could be about the band's desire to escape from the long shadow their biggest hit has cast over them. They may have been accused of being 'one hit wonders' over the years, but racked up a number of hits (including the Bond theme for The Living Daylights). Even so, they would freely admit that their career has been defined by their signature song.

The pop band biopic has seen some interesting new twists in recent years, perhaps most notably Bros's After The Screaming Stops which leaned heavily on the ridiculous Anvil-like aspects of pop stardom, painting the brothers Goss to be somewhat disconnected from reality. Here directors Thomas Robsahm and Aslaug Holm deliver a much more grounded portrait of their subjects, largely thanks to the influence of Magne and Pål, the two key songwriters of the group. We get to learn about the band's humble origins, from schoolboy musical experimentation between Magne and Pål, to the bizarre coincidence that one of the witnesses to Magne's father's plane crash death was his future bandmate, Morten, years before they met. Propelled by a strange sense of destiny that the trio were going to perform together, they reminisce how as cocksure teenagers they manifested "we're going to be international popstars... Norway's too small for us" before heading off to London in 1981 in search of fame, fortune and that elusive chart-topper.

If you know anything about A-Ha, other than their early success with the MTV hit Take On Me and their Bond theme for The Living Daylights, it's probably focused on frontman Morten Harket, and the legions of adoring fans he has maintained since the 80s. A striking, elfish looking man who has the level of sex appeal you'd hope a lead singer to have, this meant that his two bandmates were pushed out of frame somewhat. Thankfully for the band's harmony, this film makes clear that Magne and Pål neither courted this kind of attention or begrudge Morten for having it. Throughout the film there's a number of comic moments where they see the funny side of being an after thought when greeted by hoteliers and fans across the world who want to fawn all over Morten, who's perfected a polite smile for the camera when he's clearly weary of the attention he receives.

What's surprising about this documentary is that it avoids the temptation to focus its attention on frontman Morten (who, frankly, is the least interesting of the three), giving the same weight to Magne and Pål's lives and projects away from the band. There's equal narration from all three men, and a revealing look at their surprising musical and artistic depths that would be unknown to all but the most hardcore of fans. There's also discontent within the band always threatening to bubble up to the surface, namely the age old issue with songwriting credits and the share of the royalties. It's here the documentary has the most drama, with the highlight being the deep dive into the production of Take On Me in the early-to-mid 80s. Based on a keyboard riff Magne wrote at 14 years old but largely credited to Pål, it went through numerous guises (different versions were released at least twice in various territories) before emerging as the reworked synth-pop classic we all know and love.

Still, despite the usual dramas you'd expect to find in a band who've been together for 40 years, A-Ha: The Movie doesn't offer much in a way of turmoil. There's a hint that producing a new record might bring old resentments to the front, but they're clearly a tight-knit unit that still pack stadiums on tours, and have been an acknowledged influence on bands like Coldplay. A-Ha: The Movie is a fan-pleasing portrait of the band, but for newcomers or casual observers will offer a surprising level of detail about their long career too.

Verdict

3.5/5

A-Ha: The Movie screened as part of this year's Glasgow Film Festival. More information about the festival can be found here.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN UGANDA - Glasgow Film Festival review

Growing up watching the Sly Stallone and Chuck Norris action films of the 1980s, Isaac Nabwana dreamt of one day making his own films in his home town of Wakaliga, Uganda. Armed with a digital camera and his own ingenuity building sets, props and camera jibs, as well as drafting in locals to stars for his super low budget action extravaganzas, his films soon found a dedicating cult following online. Among those fans was New York based filmmaker Alan Hofmanis who, after seeing Isaac's film, Who Killed Captain Alex? back in 2012, decided to move to Uganda to help build this emerging film industry, better known as Wakaliwood.

Directed by Cathryne Czubek and Hugo Perez, this documentary explores Isaac's filmmaking techniques on little to no budget (estimates for the overall production cost for Who Killed Captain Alex? range from $85 up to $200), and Alan's efforts to launch Isaac to a wider global audience, acting as producer, promoter, boom operator, as well as getting roped into appearing in some films as the only Muzungu (white man) in the area, and therefore the perfect casting for a specific Ugandan movie trope - "beat up the white man". The only problem is finding him a suitable stunt double - something they get around by 'whiting up' a black actor.

In what many would deem to be an act of madness, this doc effectively captures why Hofmanis would be willing to uproot his entire life for this emerging film industry. A struggling filmmaker himself, it's quite touching how sincere his appreciation for Isaac's films is despite their clear budgetary limitations, and his non-wavering belief that he could be the next big thing if audiences are given the opportunity to see such films as Crazy World, Bad Black, and the upcoming Ebola Hunter. There's a great dynamic between the two men, and despite their cultural differences the only real signs of artistic discontent appear when a high profile local media mogul offers Isaac the opportunity to make a Captain Alex TV series for his network, something Alan feels will distract from his efforts to launch Isaac's films internationally, with the prospect that the Toronto International Film Festival will be willing to feature his latest film at one of their legendary and influential Midnight Madness screenings.

Wakaliwood is proper low budget, DIY filmmaking that makes Troma or The Asylum look like a 300 million Michael Bay production, offering something so pure and unjaded about the filmmaking process that Isaac and Alan are easy figures to root for. It's open for debate as to whether Isaac is the next big action movie director or more akin to Tommy Wiseau or Neil Breen, but you can't dispute his commitment to filmmaking and making it an integral part of his community, going so far as to train the local kids in martial arts so they can one day appear in one of his films.

Radiating with a love for action movies, Once Upon a Time in Uganda is a fascinating look at what collaboration and the filmmaking process can create, showing how a lack of budget can't get in the way of the joy of bringing people together through cinema.

Verdict

3/5

Once Upon a Time in Uganda screened as part of this year's Glasgow Film Festival. More information about the festival can be found here.

ANGRY YOUNG MEN - Glasgow Film Festival review

When one their gang is found beaten and bloodied, The Bramble Boys discover a new group of heavies called The Campbell Group have moved in on their territory, and are recruiting the youths from the estate so they can gain control of the local milk round. Soon enough, spilt milk turn to spilt blood as the rival gangs embark on a bitter turf war and bodies start to pile up when gang warfare breaks out.

To quote Sean Connery's character in The Untouchables, "they send one of yours to the hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue". Well, Angry Young Men has a new take on that, instead delivering justice in a bloody wheelie bin. Written and directed by Paul Morris (who also stars as gang leader, Jimmy), Angry Young Men follows the Bramble Boys of Mauchton as they try to protect their estate from interlopers, The Campbell Group. Although the Campbells are better organised and increasingly bigger in number, Jimmy's gang isn't going to back down without a fight.

Produced on a low budget I wouldn't ever dare to guess, Angry Young Men is a testament to what you can do with minimal money but real filmmaking ingenuity. The camera equipment is probably of the kind you could pick up in the sale at Argos and some of the acting is a bit sketchy at times, but when a film is produced with such an independent spirit, I wouldn't hold those things against it for one second. In fact, it all adds to the appeal, as this is an easy film to want to champion. In this alternate world where the ultimate goal is the control of milk supply and gangs walk around in garish uniforms (the Brambles in berets and camouflage ponchos, the Campbells in bomber jackets and white balaclavas), Morris hasn't allowed his ambition to be restrained by the budget, with drone shots and camera moves that give a real sense of the location and its surroundings, as evidenced in an early chase scene between a guy on crutches and four guys in a black Nissan that's well orchestrated and surprisingly tense. It's also pretty funny throughout, with a dry wit cutting through some of the weirder, more fantastical elements of the plot.

Crucially, despite the odd chuckle at some of the homemade elements (the priest employed for a funeral service has the worst makeshift dog collar I've ever seen), I don't think I was ever not laughing with the film. Fully aware of what its shortcomings are, Morris has clauses written into the script to explain some of the more glaring inconsistencies. Some of the actors' hair inexplicably grows a lot between scenes, but when one of the key characters is told to shave off his hitherto present goatee, it's clearly to cover some out of sequence shooting and a gap in filming. Still, despite the rough edges (or more accurately, because of), even if the ambition outstrips the budgetary restraints, Angry Young Men is so watchable that it's an easy film to cheer on, regardless. It might feel a bit amateur at times, but it also brings to mind the early films of Peter Jackson - like Bad Taste minus the gore. Last time I checked Jackson had done pretty well for himself, and I wouldn't bet against Paul Morris achieving something similar.

I've attended this year's Glasgow Film Festival without actually going to Glasgow, instead watching the films virtually at home. Of all the great films on the line up, this is the one I'm absolutely gutted I wasn't able to experience with a crowd. Needless to say, when and if this gets a general release and makes it into cinemas, I'll be there with a camouflage poncho on. It's fucking brilliant.

The wee bastard offspring of Walter Hill's The Warriors and Peter Mullan's NEDS, Paul Morris's micro-budget feature Angry Young Men is one of the highlights of this year's Glasgow Film Festival.

Verdict

3.5/5

Angry Young Men was part of this year's Glasgow Film Festival. You can find out more about the festival here.

REBEL DREAD - Glasgow Film Festival review

Rebel Dread tells the story of photographer, DJ, musician and filmmaker Don Letts. Fronted by the man himself, this documentary charts the many twists and turns throughout Letts's life that saw him go from manager of Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren's shop, Acme Attractions, to touring the world as a filmmaker & musician, and beyond.

It's become something of a cliche to soundtrack any archival footage of London in the 1970s with The Clash's London Calling, but for once given Letts's connection with the band (directing a number of music videos for them, including London Calling), it's appropriate. Over images of civil unrest, Letts narrates his early life in Brixton where he immediately stood out as a flashy dresser and cool looking guy, vying for and getting the attention of the local cultural elite. It's a lively retelling of his life story, from chubby teenager (or as his brother Desmond ruthlessly describes, "a fat motherfucker") to DJ at The Roxy at the height of punk, to eventually filming the bands on stage and turning that into a highly successful career directing music videos, until Letts decided he wanted a piece of that stardom, co-founding Big Audio Dynamite with ex-The Clash member, Mick Jones.

An affectionate look at Letts' life and varied career - where the film falters is the unavoidable problem of having Letts tell his own story. Sure, he's in the position to tell it better than anyone else, but there's the inescapable feeling that he's told these stories so many times that these are the carefully curated versions of the truth. He's a great orator and fantastic at building his own myth, but serving as exec producer and main storyteller, Letts is in clear control of what information were given, and crucially, what we're not. It's not completely a self-aggrandising, back-slapping affair - most notably when Letts reckons with his role as an absent parent whilst touring the world, coupled with his infidelity - but it teeters on the precipice of it, mercifully pulled away at the right moment with additional important voices from his life, chief among them Mick Jones, and Letts's former partner, Jeannette Lee of Public Image Ltd.

At its most revealing and personal when it gets to Letts search for his roots, kickstarted by a trip to Jamaica with John Lydon, it's here where Letts's cultural commentator mask slips the most, offering something that goes some way into distilling the man and his relentless drive for success, approval and legitimacy as a Black, British man working with the biggest names in punk. He's a genuinely fascinating subject, with a life like no other that has almost been engineered by Letts by chance, thanks to his unwavering bravery and ability to build upon the connections he's made in his life, such as how he became friends with Bob Marley in London, largely through force of willing it to happen.

In a career that saw Letts take a long time to decide what path he wanted to follow - DJ, band manager, photographer, musician, filmmaker - this film establishes that he was all those things at any given moment, and capable of doing it well. He estimates he made around 400 music videos for PiL, The Clash and more - let's not forget Musical Youth's Pass the Dutchie - and Rebel Dread proves that Letts's has an astounding level of intelligence, creatively and bravery. I certainly wouldn't write him off playing another important role in music, should he choose he wants it.

Verdict

3/5

Rebel Dread screened as part of the Glasgow Film Festival and is now on general release. More information about the festival can be found here.

BLACK BEAR review

Successful indie filmmaker Allison (Aubrey Plaza), visits a lakeside cabin owned by married couple Gabe and Blair (Sarah Gadon and Christopher Abbott) for some relaxation whilst she works on her latest script. As they all sit down for dinner together and the tensions between musician Gabe and his pregnant wife Blair start to flare up, heated conversation turns into bitter accusations of infidelity, and a shift in their dynamics reveals the full extent of who is lying to us and their motivations for doing so.

The second feature film of Lawrence Michael Levine (after his 2014 debut Wild Canaries, starring Alia Shawkat, Jason Ritter and himself), Black Bear arrives with some fanfare after its debut at last year's Sundance, and not without justification. A sexually charged mystery with layers of intrigue and a 180 turn you won't predict, what stands out most in need of praise are the performances, in particular Plaza as the manipulative and - at least on some level - deceitful Allison. She is the most forthright and abrasive character of the core trio, seemingly unconcerned about how her actions would effect the pregnant Blair, holding information back to toy with her host and paint a different picture of herself, before the second portion of the film shows that Allison's not the only one who's capable of plotting a story for her own amusement.

In a cast that comes pre-loaded with indie cred, alongside Plaza is Christopher Abbott, increasingly headed towards major stardom after impressive turns in It Comes At Night, Piercing and this year's Possessor. His character is selfish, obnoxious and manipulative of the two women he shares the cabin with, failing to hide his misogyny and true personality (plus defects) to them, and us, blaming feminism for the decline of the traditional American family and the rise of nationalism. It's these ideas of duplicity and performance that are at the heart of the film, none more so in the stand-out performance of Plaza as a woman pushed to her emotional limits by the cruel, callous, deceptive acts of an other. 

Once the power structure in the film flips on its head and destructive domestic disputes suddenly spill out for all present to see, both Plaza and writer/director Levine are on record that this takes inspiration from real life experiences both have faced when working on film sets with respective partners, asking important questions about how far boundaries can be pushed in the creation of art, and the emotional toil actors - willingly or not - will go through in the pursuit of a believable performance. If you're aware of the cruel treatment of Shelley Duvall on the set of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining that lead to her abandoning her acting career, think along those lines.

To say much more about the film's second mode would be a spoiler for what is a genuinely surprising and intriguing set-up, but I will say that the way Black Bear shifts the direction of its story after the conclusion of the first chapter brings to mind David Lynch's Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway, whilst also staying more grounded in reality than those two. It's a film that ably injects real tension between its characters in its first half via a flirty foxtrot, then twists the narrative into something that is recognisable but different from before in order to allow its cast to show what they're capable of in a world that is both more farcical but troubling. It's an often tough, harrowing watch, but given the layer of artifice that's built into the film's narrative there's an ever-present distance as an audience that's hard to shake. As such, it's near impossible to provide a wholly satisfying narrative conclusion, but it's the performances (chiefly that of Plaza) that will stay with you long after the film has wrapped.

Verdict

4/5

POLY STYRENE: I AM A CLICHÉ - Glasgow Film Festival review

As the legendary frontwoman for punk band X-ray Spex, lead singer Poly Styrene was known for her bold sense of fashion as well as being one of the most prominent people of colour within the punk scene. Leaving behind boxes of photos and newspaper clippings after her death in 2011, her daughter Celeste Bell uses this archive along with excerpts from Poly's diaries to try and understand more about her mother and their often fraught relationship, and the issues that caused her to kill off her band at the height of their success.

Written and co-directed by Celeste (alongside Paul Sng), I Am A Cliché follows Poly's journey from Brixton teenager to performing on Top of the Pops and at New York's iconic CBGB's, as she confronted cruel jibes about her appearance, racist mindsets and her own mental health issues that saw her admitted to a psychiatric ward. Born Marianne Elliott-Said in 1957 to a white British mother and black Somalian father, Poly placed an ad in Melody Maker to form X-Ray Spex after seeing Sex Pistols on her 19th birthday in 1976, adopting her "plastic, synthetic" pseudonym by looking through the Yellow Pages. This was also a time when the racist attitudes of the National Front were prevalent (as well as certain factions of the punk crowd), and the film looks at Poly's identity issues as a mixed race woman - using the lyrics for her songs Identity and Half Caste - along with taunts her about her curly hair, the braces on her teeth, and her unique fashion sense that involved brightly coloured plastic and vintage materials clashing together.

The film uses new audio interviews with performers influenced by Poly's work, such as Kathleen Hanna and Neneh Cherry, and admirers and contemporaries such as Vivienne Westwood, John Robb, Don Letts, Jonathan Ross (whose first ever gig was X-Ray Spex at The Roxy) and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore (who saw them perform at CBGB's). Also included are some of her former bandmates, Lora Logic and Paul Dean, who talk about the band's musical journey and Poly's lyrics, and how they were unaware of the extent of the psychological problems she was facing at the time, downplaying the hallucinations she was having. These effects of these ongoing mental health problems - misdiagnosed as schizophrenic, she was eventually found to be bipolar -  is something Celeste speaks about firsthand, waking up to find her mother stood at the foot of her bed.

With Celeste as our guide walking in her mother's footsteps, due to her resemblance to her mother it's almost like we're seeing a ghost re-enact scenes from a former life. The film's masterstroke is using actor Ruth Negga to narrate pages from Poly's diaries, allowing us to build a far deeper connection than would be possible through just the use of old clips and photos. At the core of this film is that connection between mother and daughter (Celeste states at the start of the film that "People often ask me if she was a good mum"), and the narration from both women feels like we are hearing from both sides. Whereas Celeste can now look back on her life with her mother and the embarrassment she felt at her DIY fashion sense when out shopping with her "what an ungrateful brat I was" , Poly can also talk about how she felt being criticised by audiences for her looks (with the record label slimming down her image on their album cover) and then suddenly called a sex symbol, a label she rebelled against by shaving all of her hair off in Johnny Rotten's bathroom.

There's a sombre tone to the film that makes it extremely moving as Celeste continues on her journey through her mother's life, from finding religion in the Hare Krishna movement to custody problems to efforts to reconcile before she passed with a shared love of music. It's an extraordinarily revealing documentary that paints Poly/Marianne as a troubled woman, not given the support she needed in an unforgiving music scene. It's a powerful film that could only be made by someone close to her, allowing Celeste to deal with a lot of her own trauma from her relationship with her mother, whilst also showing her to be the trailblazing punk icon she really was.

Verdict

4/5

Glasgow Film Festival runs between 24th February and 7th March. All films are released at different times, whereafter they can be rented for three days at £9.99 each.

Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché is on general release from 5th March, and can be pre-ordered via the Modern Films website where you can help support your local independent cinema. 

RIDERS OF JUSTICE - Glasgow Film Festival review

When his wife dies in what appears to be a tragic train accident, soldier Markus (Mads Mikkelsen), returns home to care for his daughter Mathilde (Andrea Heick Gadeberg), who survived the crash. Also among the survivors was Otto (Nikolas Lie Kaas), a theoretical scientist who thinks the events leading up to the crash point to it being an elaborate hit on one of the other passengers, soon to be a key witness against a notorious biker gang. Approaching the grieving Markus with his ideas, they form an unlikely group of vigilantes to bring down the bikers, the Riders of Justice.

Mikkelsen's latest collaboration with director Anders Thomas Jensen - that also sees regular co-stars Nicolaj Lie Kaas and Nicolas Bro as members of his crew of hackers - Riders of Justice is a darkly funny action thriller that asks some deep philosophical questions about fate, coincidence, chaos theory and the butterfly effect. Otto is the inventor of a probability calculator that is able to analyse coincidences to predict trends before they happen, but that had no clear real world application until the tragic crash. Along with his colleagues Lennart (Lars Brygmann) and Emmenthaler (Bro) they convince Markus that the blame can be assigned to the Riders of Justice, as a whistleblower former member was also on the train and a suspicious looking man who exited the train shortly before the crash resembles the brother of the gang leader. More emotionally stable than her father, Mathilde too hopes to work out why this tragedy befell them, covering her walls in post-it notes that chart the events of the day. Had someone not stolen her bike, could she and her mother have avoided the tragedy, or was it the phone call Markus made that morning to say he was going to be away for three more months the reason they took the train? Who, if anyone, is to blame?

From the outside Riders of Justice looks like a suitably dour experience, and it certainly offers moments of that. As an emotionally shuttered man full of pent up aggression, Markus is unable to vocalise his grief and quick to lash out with his fists at his daughter's blue-haired boyfriend Sirius (Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt), or Otto's group of hackers, posing as the psychiatric help his daughter pleads with him to get. With his shaved head and greying beard, Mads's Markus is a departure from the silver fox roles he's become popular for in recent years, but it's as impressive a performance we've come to expect from Mikkelsen. He's on fantastically brooding form as the stoic soldier, unable to express any emotion apart from rage, but able to convey so much with his physicality in place of an over abundance of dialogue. When the film pushes into its action elements, it goes hard, and these scenes impressively show that Markus is a highly trained soldier who's willing and able to kill when needed. The easy comparison would be to Liam Neeson's role as a killer turned family man in Taken, but it's more akin to a 21st century Death Wish, albeit with a weapons expert at its core.

The team that forms around him, Otto, Lennart and Emmenthaler, are a ragtag bunch of misfits, all middle aged men who've never really grown up, specialising in some form of illegal activity that pulls them in to a darker world without fully comprehending the danger they're putting themselves in. They're the primary source of the dark comedy in the film, with comic observations such as what detergent is the best one to use what hastily cleaning up a crime scene, and what should you do when you find a sex worker tied up in someone else's house? These moments of levity help cut through and enliven what would be a taut revenge thriller, sitting nicely alongside Jensen's other darkly comic works with Mikkelsen and Kaas, Men & Chicken, The Green Butchers and Adam's Apples. It's also another appealing entry into the "Mads and friends get into ill-advised mischief" cycle of films alongside the upcoming ode to alcohol, Another Round.

Delivering enough gunfire and bloodshed to appeal to action thriller fans whilst also revelling in its black humour, Riders of Justice digs into a grieving man's emotional state to ask questions about causality, the futility of pride and the price of vengeance.

Verdict

5/5

Glasgow Film Festival runs between 24th February and 7th March. All films are released at different times, whereafter they can be rented for three days at £9.99 each.

UNDERGODS - Glasgow Film Festival review

Director Chino Moya's debut feature film offers a nightmarish vision of a world fallen to ruin. Told via loosely connected stories that look at various ideals of family life, Undergods is a harsh warning of how close our fragile society and a collapse into a heartless dystopia really are.

A husband concerned that his wife is having an affair with the mysterious stranger from the 11th floor; a prisoner free to return home from the Orwellian gulag he's been captive in for fifteen years; a father telling a bedtime story of industrial fraud and kidnap to his young daughter. What do these things have in common? Well, this film, obviously. Sharing tonal similarities with last year's Vivarium but with a much grander canvas, every segment of Undergods connects in some way to the idea of family - marital paranoia, strained loyalties, bitter resentments, a father expressing his love - in this debut film from writer/director Chino Moya. 

Hitherto a music video director for the likes of St. Vincent, Marina and the Diamonds and Years & Years, it's clear that Moya is something of a (gulp) visionary director, crafting a world of harsh, brutalist tower blocks both new and in ruin, filled with characters you wouldn't stomach spending more than the allotted time with. The cast includes a number of (to be polite) "interesting" British faces, such as Kate Dickie, Ned Dennehy, Tim Plester and Burn Gorman, all playing various socially inert degenerates, but the only characters who appear throughout are Johann Myers and Géza Röhrig's K & Z who drive around their barren, industrial wasteland looking for victims they can sell off to the local factory, but hey, at least they have fun while they're doing it. For all that Undergods plunges into the depths of human misery, there's some comic moments too, albeit springing up from a dark place.

The structure, or lack thereof, may be too baffling for your average audience (there's no 'A' story, no 'B' story, just a collection of scenes that flow into one another, connected by little more than a single character or even a single frame), but for sci-fi fans willing - and hoping - to have their worldview stretched with some gorgeous, despairingly bleak imagery, Undergods delivers the goods.

Verdict

3.5/5

Undergods is screening as part of the Glasgow Film Festival between 26th February and 1st March.

CREATION STORIES - Glasgow Film Festival review

Starring Ewen Bremner as Alan McGee, the head honcho of the 90's indie record label success Creation, this biopic follows McGee's life from his own childhood dreams of being a rock star to representing some of the biggest rock bands in the world in Primal Scream and Oasis. Told with the caveat that what we are about to see mostly happened, but that "some of the names have been changed to protect the guilty", Creation Stories covers McGee's story through a haze of excess and success, with drug addiction, rehab, and a flirtation with the politics of New Labour, all soundtracked by some classic hits from the era.

Based on McGee's 2013 memoirs of the same name, Creation Stories treads a well worn path of rock music biopics, starting with the younger Alan (played by Leo Flanagan) singing in his childhood bedroom with posters of Bowie, T-Rex and (ahem) Slade on his walls, before a move to London to find fame and fortune turned him into the cynical, jaded music exec he's best known as. Structured around series of interviews the older Alan (Bremner) gives to Suki Waterhouse's music reporter, Gemma, the film jumps into flashbacks to show Alan's earlier life in his native Scotland under the disapproving glare of his father (a fantastically gruff Richard Jobson). As formulaic as they are these earlier scenes are the most appealing portion of the film, in no small part due to Leo Flanagan as the enthusiastic younger incarnation of Alan. When the film does the clichéd biopic move of switching its lead character to the bigger name actor (wearing a series of unconvincing wigs) 20 minutes in, it's a tough ask to accept the mid-40s Bremner as someone 20 years younger. That's not to say that Bremner's not good in the role - in fact, he's great - and as the action moves along to the higher points of McGee's career (such as his discovery of Oasis through sheer dumb luck) he's arguably playing the role he was always destined to play.

With the script co-written by Trainspotting's Irvine Welsh, you'd hope Creation Stories would more effectively tap into that Cool Britannia era that McGee was a figurehead for and that director Nick Moran was himself no stranger to, having starred in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels at the tail end of the decade. Sadly, it feels like a missed opportunity. As much as McGee enjoyed his celebrity (and fair enough, this is based on his memoirs), the vast majority of this film's audience will be wanting to know more about the musicians he's associated with, but the film moves along so quickly that the likes of Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus and Mary Chain are on screen for mere seconds. Even when the much coveted appearance of the Gallagher brothers comes an hour in, they're ushered off screen and only appear again fleetingly, despite James McClelland's pretty decent approximation of Noel.

It would be near impossible to talk about this film without mentioning the high watermark of music industry biopics, Michael Winterbottom's 2002 film, 24 Hour Party People. Tony Wilson shares enough in common with McGee (both power hungry men in the right place at the right time, or as McGee would put it "situationists") that there's cross-over beyond their association with Manchester music acts. It's clear that 24HPP was used as a basic blueprint for this, but as highly regarded as that film is, music bios have done some interesting things with their presentation in the intervening two decades, beyond quick editing and a jukebox soundtrack, and the fantasy elements this film employs to show McGee slapping Maggie Thatcher's arse or watch Paul Kaye's record company sellout get buggered by a corporate bigwig. It's also difficult when a film like this ticks so many boxes in the music biography checklist (drugs, rehab, bad wigs), not to think of the Johnny Cash spoof, Walk Hard: A Dewey Cox Story, which only seems more and more spot on since its release.

Nearly buckling under the weight of its cameos, from the inoffensive but forgettable (Ed Byrne as Alistair Campbell), the surprisingly convincing (director Moran as Malcolm McLaren), the outright caricature-ish (James Payton as Tony Blair) and the utterly bizarre (Jason Isaacs as a foppish crack addict), it's a shame that the supporting cast aren't given more opportunity to shine, as there's some great turns there from the likes of Michael Socha as McGee's record company colleague 'Slaughter' Joe Foster. As it stands, the film rests solely on the shoulders of Bremner's performance, and he does succeed in inhabiting McGee, both physically and in attitude. The film plays with the notion that McGee is either a genius or a blagger, with his unwavering assertion that one day he'll have a band that's "bigger than U2". It's just a shame the film doesn't pay more attention to them when they do turn up.

In terms of evoking the anarchic spirit of the Britpop era, Creation Stories doesn't quite hit the mark with its formulaic and unsurprising story, but it's a great central performance from Bremner with a blinder of a soundtrack. It might have limited appeal outside of rock historians and Oasis enthusiasts - who may also be frustrated by the lack of focus on real rock and roll stars - but as to whether they'll like it... it's a definite maybe.

Verdict

3/5

Glasgow Film Festival runs between 24th February and 7th March. All films are released at different times, whereafter they can be rented for three days at £9.99 each.

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