THIS WEEK sees another busy week for Brits on the silver screen, with Liam Neeson, Jamie Bell and Christopher Lee all debuting in new movies that are well worth a trip to your local flea pit.
The biggest release of the weekend is The Grey, which sees Neeson cementing his unexpected position as a mature action star which came so unexpectedly with the success of The Taken a couple of years back.
This time round we see the Ballymena-born Neeson leading a gaggle of oil-rig workers through the Alaskan wilderness after their plane crashes. Fighting off the elements and a pack of man-eating wolves there’s plenty of suspense, action and heroism in this movie, and some of the scenery is just spectacular. Helmed by director Joe Carnahan, it’s a popcorn movie that comes as the perfect antidote too all the serious Oscar fare being proferred of late. View the trailer here: (warning: contains violence and strong language):
Jamie Bell is also enjoying a busy spell as an actor these days. The intense young Briton, who shot to fame in Billy Elliot, stars with Australian (but British born) actor Sam Worthington (Avatar) in the by-the-numbers but quite suspenseful drama Man On A Ledge. Worthington plays Nick Cassidy, an ex-cop who goes to extreme lengths to prove his innocence after he is framed for the theft of a rare diamond. Contemporary themes of the 99% vs the 1% and the danger of bad buys pushing a good man too far are all to the fore here, and it’s another good bet for your weekend moviegoing plans.
In a more offbeat vein (and only available to cinemagoers in LA or NYC), is The Wicker Tree, director Robert Hardy’s reboot of his cult 1973 minor classic The Wicker Man, which saw poor old Edward Woodward come to a sticky end as a hapless cop investigating a disappearance in a tight-knit community on a remote Scottish isle. This time out we find two equally hapless young American missionaries (Brittania Nicol, Henry Garrett) heading to another remote Scottish isle, where they are initially charmed by their engaging baron Sir Lachlan Morrison (Graham McTavish) and agree to become the local Queen of the May and Laddie for the annual Tressock town festival. But the couple is not prepared for the frightening consequences of their decision and the very disturbing secrets they are about to discover about Tressock’s seemingly friendly townspeople….
The Wicker Tree is showing at only one local cinema, the Chinese 6 Theatres,6801 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.
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