Eleanor Reviews

**** DVD Release Picking up where The Raid left off, The Raid 2 sees Rama go undercover in the criminal underworld of Jakarta. Tasked with finding evidence of police corruption, Rama finds himself caught up in the life of Uco, son of Indonesian gangster, Bangun. Uco is desperate for the chance to prove himself a capable leader, and will do anything, including fracturing the long-term peace between the Japanese and Indonesian gangs, to obtain power. Considering it’s a film all about fighting, it isn’t boring. Each fight sequence (and there are quite a few!) is different from the next, with a range of martial arts on display, as well as gun shoot-outs, a memorable fight in a mud field, and a particularly disturbing sequence involving hammers on an underground train. I don’t claim to know anything about martial arts or fighting, but each segment was excellently framed and shot, and I can only imagine how long it must have taken to choreograph each fight. In some cases, t

***** After a house search goes horribly wrong, new recruit Private Gary Hook is abandoned behind enemy lines in Belfast, 1971. Alone and afraid in a city that is tearing itself apart, Hook must negotiate the dangerous streets of war-torn Belfast to make it back to his barracks. The quality of filmmaking on display here can only be considered as excellent, so the fact that it is directed by a relative newcomer, Yann Demange, only makes it more remarkable. Focusing his attentions on abandoned Private Gary Hook (Jack O’Connell), Demange escorts the viewer around the brutal and bloody landscape that is Belfast in 1971, building the tension to almost unbearable heights as various factions of Irish militants close in on our young soldier. The violence is shocking and unflinching, but never gratuitous, and at times I had to turn away to avoid witnessing another bloody execution. There is one particularly gruesome moment involving the detonation of a bomb that is very hard to watch

DVD Release ***/**** (3.5 stars) After her father is murdered, fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross persuades the notorious Rooster Cogburn to help her track down the killer.   The Mattie Ross character is quite endearing, and brilliantly acted by Hailee Steinfeld; seeing her stomp around town, out-witting her elders and bartering for the best deal is amusing and indeed one of the major strengths of this film comes from Steinfeld's pitch-perfect performance. Jeff Bridges doesn't really act at all, as Rooster Cogburn is just one of the many tough, smart-mouthed parts that he has played in his lifetime... it would have been good for him to speak a little more clearly however. Matt Damon is doomed to a rather dull and underdeveloped character in Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, but all the characters bounce off each other quite well, with various scenes of bickering and gun-toting fuelling their inevitable friendships. It is an attractive film - the camera makes full use of the massive