Blue Ruin (15)

Directed by Jeremy Saulnier

4/5

This slow-burning low-budget drama is a fascinating and refreshing revenge thriller with a twist which proved an award-winning hit on the film festival circuit.

It begins with a methodical and silent montage of the protagonist Dwight Evans (Macon Blair), who looks like a haggard bearded tramp, foraging for food in rubbish bins and breaking into strangers’ homes to bathe.

When a kind-hearted police officer tracks him down to the beaten up Pontiac car — the blue ruin of the title — where he lives, to inform him that his parent’s killer Will Cleland is being released from prison, Evans springs back into life. 

He goes in search of Cleland to kill him and then warns his estranged sister that the rest of the terrifying redneck Cleland clan are now gunning for them.

Director, writer and cinematographer Jeremy Saulnier sets the scene very skilfully from the opening shot where Evans is clearly a troubled man trying to escape his past. 

We are slowly drip-fed morsels of information as to how and why he got where he is and his thirst for vengeance.

Saulnier is adept at building up the tension gradually and deliberately in this deliciously dark and violent thriller which contains some jaw-droppingly painful moments.

Blair plays Evans with a soulful and resigned air as he turns into a bumbling amateur assassin who is inept and out of his depth in the situation.

Yet you can’t help but sympathise with this unlikely protagonist who transforms from vagrant into an ordinary looking bloke determined to protect his family at all cost. 

Although seemingly a critique of US gun culture Blue Ruin never preaches or celebrates violence and pulls no punches in its inevitable tragic conclusion.

Maria Duarte

Pompeii (12A)

Directed by Paul WS Anderson

3/5

As in Titanic it is not if but when the tragic moment will come and when Mount Vesuvius erupts in 3D splendour it is a satisfying sight to behold.

Unfortunately, before you get to the main attraction you have to first sit through the predictably romantic tale set in 79AD of Milo (Kit Harington) a slave turned gladiator who is racing against time to save the love of his life Cassia (Emily Browning) from marrying a corrupt Roman senator (Keifer Sutherland, below).

Under Paul W S Anderson’s direction this is a veritable visual feast reminiscent of the ’60s Hollywoodstyle Roman epics. Think Gladiator set in Pompeii.

Harington (Jon Snow in Games of Thrones) shows off his incredibly toned body at every turn while Browning is all cheekbones and pouting lips. 

It is Sutherland who easily steals the show with his wonderfully slimy and hammy performance.

It is great fun as long as you are not expecting a historically accurate depiction.

Maria Duarte

Plastic (15)

Directed by Julian Gilbey

2/5

This British crime caper — based on a true story — is a case of Hustle meets Ocean’s Eleven but without the polish or witty ingeniousness.

It revolves around a gang of twentysomethings who run a successful credit card fraud scheme but when they inadvertently steal from a sadistic gangster their whole world comes crashing down.

Now they need to raise £5 million to clear the debt incurred and so they infiltrate one of the biggest credit card companies in the world to carry out a daring diamond heist.

Although slick and stylish the film visibly tries to punch above its weight.

The first half is riveting and believable as you watch Sam (Ed Speelers), Fordy (Will Poulter) and the gang at work scamming victims in London,but when the action moves to Miami it loses its authenticity and transforms into wishful thinking. 

Ocean’s Eleven it is not. If only they had kept it entirely in Blighty.

Maria Duarte

Bad Neighbours (15)

Directed by Nicholas Stoller

2/5

The life of a couple with a new-born baby is turned into hell when a fraternity house moves next door in this Apatow-style gross-out comedy.

Although we now celebrate Halloween and have school proms here in Britain fraternities are still an alien concept so the actual horrors of having one of them as neighbours will be lost on most British audiences.

Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne play the couple who try to befriend and then find themselves at war with Zac Efron and his posse.

Their attempts to make peace with the frat-house are funny yet cringe-inducing.

Efron works his body to great effect and his butt off to create a believable Mr Nasty.

It has the prerequisite gross-out moments and the odd comic gem but ultimately it is silly and predictable.

Maria Duarte