The latest slice of social realism from Belgium’s Dardennes brothers, Two Days, One Night is the gripping story of a factory employee forced to try and persuade her co-workers into giving up their annual bonus in order to facilitate her return to work. French star Marion Cotillard gives a career best performance in the lead role. A great piece of drama that’s sadly all too relevant in these tough economic times.
Daniel Radcliffe continues to eke out a post Harry Potter career with the romantic comedy What If. This one’s as formulaic as they come, but the talented young cast riff off each other nicely. Worth seeing for the laughable geography of its Dublin set scenes.
Deliver Us From Evil is a moody supernatural thriller that gets off to an atmospheric start but falls apart in a cliche ridden second half that plays like an MTV riff on The Exorcist.
Into the Storm is a found footage take on the disaster movie genre, but its impressive special effects can’t prevent it from being a dull and unengaging snoozer. Watching the weather channel for 90 minutes would be just as entertaining.
After the impressive Under the Skin, Scarlett Johansson returns to the world of offbeat sci-fi with Lucy. This one is as dumb as they come, however, featuring a plot that plays out like it came from the mind of a chemistry school dropout.
The worst movie so far in 2014, Sin City 2 is the belated sequel to the 2005 comic book adaptation. An ugly movie in every sense of the word.
If you fancy a Sunday afternoon at the movies, the Lighthouse is screening Good Will Hunting as a tribute to the late Robin Williams, while the Irish Film Institute continues its look at movies that were unappreciated at time of release with Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate, one of the biggest financial flops in Hollywood history, but a movie that’s now considered a classic of 70s cinema.
By Eric Hillis
Image: Movie of the Week, Two Days, One Night
