AMERICAN ANIMALS

AMERICAN ANIMALS is a beautifully crafted docu-drama about four feckless college students who decided to try to steal some valuable books - including Audobon's Birds of America - from their college library. They don't need the money. One of them even aspires to join the FBI when asked to join the heist.  They seem to do it just because... maybe boredom, or the need to feel special in some way?  It's all so moronic it hurts my brain. Nonetheless, it makes for a fascinating story because documentary director Bart Layton (THE IMPOSTER) does a fantastic job of contrasting the slippery memories and justifications of the real life protagonists -interviewed on screen - with his docudrama recreation (starring Barry Keoghan - THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER).  For those of you who loved the conflicting memories and elisions of I, TONYA, then this is the film for you. In brilliantly edited and framed scenes Layton takes us from his fictional characters reminiscences of events to the real people, deftly altering the "record" and showing how untrustworthy it actually is. There's also a superb attempt to take us inside the mind of its protagonists, showing us the heist as they imagined it might go, in an Ocean's Eleven style, Dave Grusin scored tour-de-force. And the end of what do we get? Genuine remorse - yes. But also a faintly disturbing feeling that is what kids being raised on a diet of instant gratification will aspire to - life experience and defining moments that are unearned.  Frightening, indeed. 

AMERICAN ANIMALS has a running time of 116 minutes and is rated R. It was released in the USA this summer and is currently on release in the UK.

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST is a long and convoluted film. That it remains engaging says something for the quality of the cast it has assembled, the ballsiness of its premise and the elegance of its action scenes.

The movie sees Wolverine sent back in time to the 1970s by Kitty Pryde to persuade Professor X and Magneto to come together and prevent Mystique from being captured by an evil inventor called Trask.  He will create robots called Sentinels who use Mystique's own mutated blood to become the ultimate Mutant killing machines.  If she isn't stopped Mystique will unleash a future in which Mutants are all but extinct.  But the mission isn't an easy one. Wolverine has to persuade a disillusioned, drugged up Professor X to help; he has to bust Magneto out of prison for killing JFK; and that's before he even gets to Trask.

The cast is impeccable. Fassbender vs McAvoy as Magneto vs Professor X is just the ultimate buddy movie with consequences.  You need actors will real heft to pull of a man scarred by the Holocaust and another who has to go back into his wheelchair for the good of humanity.  Jennifer Lawrence plays a woman on the brink of a massive ethical decision. The new additions are Peter Dinklage as the bad guy, Trask, fine but nothing spectacular, and Evan Peters as Quicksilver. (Yes, you're right - a different Pietro Maximoff to the one in AVENGERS....)  Peters doesn't have much to do, but he does star in the most awesome action sequence of any X-MEN movie to date, in which he goes so fast the reality around him slows down and he literally re-arranges bullets in the air.  Amazing scoring for that scene too. As for Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, well, he's played Wolverine so many times by now I almost don't think of him as acting anymore.

The heart of the film is the relationship between Mystique and Magneto.  Is he going to stay good or go bad?  And between Charles Xavier and, well, the world. Is he going to give in to depression or grasp the future, the future he can create?  It's this more than anything else that keeps us coming back to the franchise.  It's not just ever bigger and bolder action sequences but that these are grown up, complex, scarred characters that wrestle with their doubts and dissatisfactions. There are no easy choices. Everything carries weight. Everything matters.  That's what elevates X-MEN, and this instalment in particular, to something very special indeed.

X-MEN DAYS OF FUTURE PAST has a running time of 131 minutes and is rated PG-13. The movie is on global release.