Reviews by Ben Nicholson
Robot & Frank [12A]
Ben Nicholson
Tackling the issue of aging has proven rather popular in recent cinema with the ‘grey pound’ said to be a key market for distributors. Films dealing with the subject have gone from the ...
12 years ago
Robot & Frank [12A]
Bullhead [15]
Ben Nicholson
Before bursting onto the international stage last year with his compelling performance in Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone, Matthias Schoenaerts was a 'Bullhead'. That is to say, he ...
12 years ago
Bullhead [15]
Hitchcock [12A]
Ben Nicholson
If there’s one thing that you don’t want to do with a biopic of The Master of Suspense, it’s make it dull. Sadly, despite the talent involved in Sacha Gervasi’s study of the ...
12 years ago
Hitchcock [12A]
Lincoln [12A]
Ben Nicholson
When the first images landed online of Daniel Day Lewis as Abraham Lincoln, you could have been forgiven for thinking you were seeing a ghost. The feeling continues when watching his performance as ...
12 years ago
Lincoln [12A]
Zero Dark Thirty [15]
Ben Nicholson
It is difficult, nigh on impossible, to discuss Katheryn Bigelow's follow-up to the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker, without mentioning torture. Not that it is especially prevalent in Zero Dark ...
12 years ago
Zero Dark Thirty [15]
The Sessions [15]
Ben Nicholson
In 1955, at the age of six, Mark O’Brien contracted polio. He spent the rest of his life paralysed from the neck down and requiring an iron lung. Despite the situation in which he found ...
12 years ago
The Sessions [15]
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey [12A]
Ben Nicholson
Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels and Peter Jackson’s awe-inspiring Lord of the Rings film trilogy have long been excited about the prospect of a return to Middle Earth. After years of ...
12 years ago
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey [12A]
Amour [12A]
Ben Nicholson
Michael Haneke is one of the finest auteurs operating in Europe today. With the voyeuristic Hidden and the Palme D’Or-winning The White Ribbon, he already has a couple of ...
12 years ago
Amour [12A]
Rust & Bone [15]
Ben Nicholson
After the blistering success of 2009's A Prophet, French director Jacques Audiard returns to British cinema screens with his new film Rust and Bone. Managing to balance melodrama and gritty ...
12 years ago
Rust & Bone [15]
Taken 2 [12A]
Ben Nicholson
Liam Neeson was transformed into a bona fide action hero by his starring role in Luc Besson's slick European exploitation thriller, Taken, in 2008. His grizzled embodiment of retired CIA ...
12 years ago
Taken 2 [12A]
Skyfall [12A]
Ben Nicholson
Within the first two seconds of Skyfall audiences are treated to a familiar and satisfying injection of some iconic music. It serves to perfectly encapsulate the shift back towards a traditional 007 ...
12 years ago
Skyfall [12A]
