Don Quixote is a Very Big book

08/02/25

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Don Quixote is a Very Big Book is not just a title – it’s also a fact, as anybody who has ever attempted to read their way through its 1000+ pages will surely attest. Dik Downey, the man behind Opposable Thumb Theatre, has read every single one of them. But, as he happily admits, the main reason he set out to dramatise what’s often hailed as ‘the world’s first novel’ is the fact that he purchased a really great suit of armour (unused!) from some guy on eBay and figured this would be the best use of it.

So here he is, on stage at The Traverse as part of the Manipulate Festival, gamely buckling on said armour (which looks like it weighs a ton) and proudly explaining how he will single-handedly perform the entire book, complete with a horse, a donkey, a faithful squire and a climactic battle with a great big flipping windmill. 

Downey is an affable narrator with a penchant for making quirky puppets, which he utilises to help tell his stories. He openly admits to us that he’s knocking on a bit now and is worried that the piece might be too much for him, but he’s still game for an epic tale that won’t skimp on the details. And as the heavy armour goes on piece-by-piece, we begin to appreciate the tenacity of the man, and the way (rather like Quixote himself) Downey steadfastly refuses to accept that this epic undertaking might be beyond his abilities.

DQIAVBB delivers a charming and gently amusing hour upon the stage. Downey staggers back and forth, interacting with his appreciative crowd, choosing one of them to ‘Knight’ him. When he notices ‘Dulcinea’ siting in the front row, he performs a silly, ramshackle dance for her that soon starts to go wrong and has me laughing out loud. I also find myself admiring the ingenuity of the aforementioned puppets (‘it’s all done with magnets,’ Downey informs us at one point) and there’s a significant moment in the proceedings where Quixote struggles to get back to his feet for a very VERY long time, and I find myself wondering if I should run down the steps to the stage and lend him a hand. Which I suspect may be the point.

While this is an enjoyable and lighthearted performance – I laugh pretty much from start to finish – it’s also tinged with sadness at the iniquities of old age. And if you think that you need a massive special effects budget to depict a mounted knight doing battle with a windmill, think again. It’s amazing what you can do with papier maché and sticky-back plastic. 

Oh, and by the way, back in the day, I did try to read Don Quixote and gave up after a few chapters. This piece is (happily) much more accessible.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Hamlet

08/02/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

I’m a sucker for a modern interpretation of Shakespeare, illuminating the continued relevance of his themes. I’m also a menopausal woman who needs to pee quite frequently, so when I read that Aneil Karia’s Hamlet has a tight sub-two-hour running time, I’m sold. I might actually be able to sit through the whole film!

London, 2025. Hamlet (Riz Ahmed) is devastated by the death of his father (Avijit Dutt), the mega-rich owner of a controversial construction company, Elsinore. Numb with grief, the young heir is horrified when his mother (Sheeba Chaddha) announces she plans to remarry without delay – taking Old Hamlet’s brother, Claudius (Art Malik), as her new husband.

As if things weren’t difficult enough, Hamlet soon has a lot more to deal with, when his father’s ghost appears before him, accusing Claudius of killing him and urging his son to seek revenge. True to Shakespearean form, Hamlet devises a convoluted scheme to prove his uncle’s guilt. He’ll pretend to be mad, verbally abuse his girlfriend, and interrupt his mum’s wedding with a play that shows the groom committing murder. What could possibly go wrong?

In this version, Hamlet and his family are British Indians, and we’re in England, not Denmark. In my favourite change to the original, Fortinbras is no longer the defeated King of Norway, but instead the name of a collective of homeless people, who’ve been displaced by Old Hamlet’s cruel business practices. Here, Hamlet’s madness is not just a reaction to his own situation, but a response to the belated realisation that his family’s wealth comes from theft and exploitation. His struggle, in the end, is to restore social justice, as well as to avenge his dad.

There’s a lot to like about this film. It’s exciting and propulsive, stripping Hamlet down to its most interesting parts, while retaining enough soul-searching to make us understand the young protagonist’s despair. I love the depiction of the players’ performing Old Hamlet’s murder, and the famous soliloquy (“To be or not to be…”) is utterly thrilling, as Hamlet – driving through London’s busy night-time streets – floors the accelerator and takes his hands off the steering wheel…

I’m not sure that the omission of Horatio works particularly well: the contrasting counsel of Horatio and Laertes (Joe Alwyn) adds an interesting dimension to the play that is lacking here. I also think that, in a contemporary adaptation such as this, Ophelia (Morfydd Clark) could be given more to do. On the other hand, I like the subtle changes to Gertrude’s character, cleverly rendering her innocent of any crime while also giving her more agency. Chaddha’s performance is nuanced and convincing – and Timothy Spall was surely born to play Polonius.

But this is Riz Ahmed’s film, and he’s as fine a Hamlet as I’ve ever seen: a flawed young man tormented by grief and guilt, behaving badly and impulsively, hurtling towards his own demise. It’s a tale as old as, well, four hundred years. And still it endures.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

Send Help

07/02/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

After a somewhat muddled attempt to helm a Marvel film (2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), Sam Raimi heads back into the kind of territory that’s a better fit for his directorial skills. If Send Help initially seems like an odd choice of vehicle, it nonetheless features the kind of perfectly-judged horror tropes that he’s founded his reputation on. And if it’s vaguely reminiscent of JM Barrie’s 1902 play, The Admirable Crichton – with the gender roles reversed – well, that may just be coincidental.

Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) has worked for years as a strategist for an American financial institution and has become the right-hand woman of the company’s CEO. She’s confidently expecting a hard-earned promotion when his son, Bradley (Dylan O’Brien), takes over the business, but it’s clear from the outset that the smug new boss has a low opinion of Linda with her sensible shoes and her tuna salad sandwiches. He informs her that the role of Vice President will go to his bestie, Donovan (Xavier Samuel), who plays golf with him and knows not to take things too seriously. The fact that Don has even less business acumen than Bradley seems not to bother the latter one jot.

But Bradley is sensible enough to keep Linda on the team for an important trip to Thailand, where he fully expects her to use her skills to finalise the company’s upcoming merger with their Eastern counterparts. On the flight over, Donovan chances on an old audition tape that Linda has made for the survival reality show that she watches in her leisure time. He gleefully shows it to the others. The all-male team take great delight in mocking her ambitions… and then the plane is hit by a sudden storm and suddenly, nobody’s laughing any more.

Come morning, Linda and Bradley are the sole survivors of the crash, stranded on an apparently uninhabited island. Bradley has suffered a leg injury. And the tables are beginning to turn…

Raimi has always had a knack of leavening his horror tropes with well-timed gags and that’s a quality that’s very much to the fore here. The screening I attend is punctuated by gales of laughter and gasps of horror in pretty much equal measure. Okay, so a late stage ‘revelation’ may not be quite the surprise that screenwriters Damon Shannon and Mark Swift were presumably aiming for, but there are nonetheless plenty of other unexpected twists and turns in the narrative that I really don’t see coming.

Both McAdams and O’Brien supply impressively nuanced performances (the film is essentially a two-hander) and, whenever I start to warm to one or the other of them, something happens to push me back in the opposite direction. But the overarching message about toxic masculinity comes through loud and clear and, no matter how devious Linda Liddle becomes, I can’t help rooting for her – even when she’s puking in the face of the person she’s attempting to deliver the kiss of life to.

Raimi aficionados will need to keep a very sharp eye out for the inevitable Bruce Campbell cameo – blink and you’ll surely miss it – but it is there.

Send Help is fast, frenetic and perfectly paced. It’s good to have the veteran director back in the driving seat with his foot on the accelerator.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

Primate

01/02/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Walking into an empty auditorium for Primate, we momentarily suppose that we have accidentally wandered into the room where they’re screening Melania. But no, we’re in the right place – and this is horror of an entirely different kind. This low-budget fright film makes no attempt to hide the fact that what we’re being offered here is essentially Cujo with a Chimp – but, that said, I can’t pretend that it doesn’t have me filled with absolute dread throughout its pacy 89-minute run-time.

Which is, I suppose, the object of the exercise.

The action takes place in a fabulously remote mountain retreat in Hawaii, where novelist Adam Pinborough (Troy Kotsur) lives with his young daughter Erin (Gia Hunter) and their ‘pet’ chimpanzee, Ben (performed by Miguel Hernando Torres Umba). Ben’s origins are briefly explained in the film’s opening credits and Adam – who is deaf – utilises a clever piece of kit that allows Ben to communicate by tapping on a screen. But Ben has been behaving strangely of late so, for safety reasons, is locked in his outdoor enclosure. When the ape receives a visit from Dr Doug Lambert (an uncredited Rob Delaney), who has come to administer an injection, the film unflinchingly demonstrates that there’s a very good reason for its 18 certificate.

After the credits, we backtrack thirty-six hours. Adam’s older daughter, Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah), is boarding a plane to make her first home visit in ages. She has been away at college along with her best friend Kate (Victoria Wynant), and they’ve brought their flirty pal, Hannah (Jessica Alexander), along for the ride. Unfortunately, Adam has to travel away from home to attend an important book signing, but he’s happy to let hunky Nick (Benjamin Chang) keep an eye on things during his absence. After all, Ben is safely locked up in his enclosure, so what could possibly go wrong?

To be honest, there’s little point in me mentioning the human characters, because they are nothing more than potential targets for the rabies-infected Ben to convert into piles of blood and bone. But director Johannes Roberts and cinematographer Stephen Murphy handle the film with considerable panache, managing to rack up the suspense to almost unbearable levels. Sometimes it’s all I can do not to yell out warnings at the screen. Even if most of the teenage characters fail to entirely convince, it matters little. The film’s real triumph is that it uses practical effects to deliver its scares and must have been made for a fraction of the budget of your average CGI extravaganza. Ben is utterly believable, despite being nothing more than an actor in an ape suit, utilising a few simple animatronics.

One extended sequence, which plays out in total silence to accentuate the fact that Adam is deaf (and therefore cannot hear any of the carnage that is happening all around him), is particularly inspired. But perhaps the biggest surprise of all is to discover that, despite all those exterior shots of Hawaii, the production was actually based in the UK.

As Primate hits its final scenes, you can’t help wondering about the court case that’s going to ensue, and it’s hard to feel sorry for Adam, who shows no contrition for the deaths that his dangerous ‘pet’ has caused – but then again, he did have hopes that his latest book might be turned into a film, so… it’s not all bad news.

Joking aside, Primate is gnarly stuff. Those of a nervous disposition might prefer to give this one a judicious steer, but for me, it ticks enough boxes to qualify as an entertaining thrill-ride. With added bite.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Is This Thing On?

31/01/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

A man walks into a bar…

Except, it’s not just a bar, it’s a comedy club – and there’s a $15 entrance fee.

Unless you’re there to perform.

It’s been a long and messy night, and Alex Novak (Will Arnett) doesn’t have $15 to hand. But, high on alcohol and edibles, he’s sure his gift of the gab will be enough to get him through a ten-minute open mic spot. Sure enough, although he doesn’t exactly crush it, he does earn a few laughs, and he finds the experience surprisingly therapeutic.

And therapy is just what Alex needs. Recently separated from his wife, Tess (Laura Dern), he’s struggling to cope with living alone in his apartment and being a part-time dad. What’s more, everyone seems convinced that he’s to blame for his marriage breaking down, which he doesn’t think is fair at all. He and Tess have simply grown apart; they’ve split by mutual consent. With friends and family making their disapproval known, the comedy circuit feels like a safe space for Alex to meet people and grapple with his new reality.

Is This Thing On?, directed by Bradley Cooper, is loosely based on the life of British comedian, John Bishop, although the only overt reference to the Merseyside comic is a single scene where Alex sports an incongruous Liverpool FC vest. In his mid-30s, Bishop tried his hand at stand-up while briefly separated from his wife, Melanie; by the time they reconciled, he’d caught the comedy bug and, within a few years, was pursuing a fruitful career as a full-time comic.

Ironically, Bishop’s real-life story is more interesting than the Hollywood version, which is resolutely low-key, and never actually shows us Novak performing a killer gig. In reality, Bishop is hugely successful: he’s a household name in the UK, and his arena tours always sell out. Although Arnett and Dern both perform their roles with consummate skill, there never appears to be much at stake. It would help if we saw Novak’s sets improve, if we could catch a glimpse of the comedic skill that has propelled Bishop into the spotlight.

In addition, the script (co-written by Cooper, Arnett and Mark Chappell) doesn’t flesh out the characters enough: they don’t appear to have lives beyond the scenes we see. We’re told that Novak “works in finance” but we never see the impact of his late-night hobby on his day-job; in fact, he never refers to work at all. He’s a friendly, outgoing character: surely he’d have friends among his colleagues? And the juggling of a demanding job, fatherhood and an all-consuming new passion would make his struggle a lot more compelling.

All in all, this is an enjoyable movie, but not an entirely satisfying one.

3.6 stars

Susan Singfield

The History of Sound

29/01/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

The History of Sound is another ‘small’ but momentous film, one that narrates the story of an on-off relationship between two gay men, in an era when such liaisons had to be conducted in secret. It pretty much spans the central character’s lifetime and is set in several different locations, but at every turn is flooded with a pervasive mournful yearning for what could – should – have been.

We first encounter young Lionel Worthing (Leo Cocovinis) living with his parents in a shotgun shack in the wilds of Kentucky, already developing an interest in the folk songs played by his father to help pass the long, lonely hours. When next we meet Lionel, it’s 1917 and (now played by Paul Mescal) he’s a student at The New England Conservatory of Music. In a pub one evening, he encounters David White (Josh O’ Connor), who is sitting at a piano and singing a song that resonates in Lionel’s memory. He introduces himself and, when David tells him that he ‘collects folk songs’, Lionel ends up singing Silver Dagger, a song from his childhood – and an attraction sparks between them. They become lovers.

But just one year later, David is called up to serve in the American Army and, though the two men promise to stay in touch, it’s several years before Lionel hears from David again. His classes at the Conservatory suspended, Lionel is compelled to head back to Kentucky, to care for his ailing mother (Molly Price), now a widow and still living in the same humble home in which Lionel grew up. It’s a thankless, hard-scrabble existence and Lionel is desperately lonely there. So when a letter from David arrives out of the blue, he reads it with mounting excitement. David is now a teacher at Maine college and is planning to spend the summer on a 100-mile trip across America, seeking out and recording American folk songs on wax cylinders. Would Lionel like to join him on the trip?

Of course, he says yes, even though he feels horribly guilty at the thought of leaving his mother alone. The ensuing summer is the happiest time of his life – but, as the two men make their way across country, Lionel has no inkling of what is to follow…

Directed by Oliver Hermanus and written by Ben Shattuck (based on his original short story), this is a handsomely mounted film that skilfully captures the changing eras and several different locations with great skill, thanks to Alexander Dyan’s dazzling cinematography and Miyako Bellizzi’s costume designs. Mescal and O’Connor play their roles with absolute distinction – little wonder that they are two of the most prolific actors in the firmament – and Oliver Coates provides a lush original score to supplement the traditional folk songs sung by the strangers the duo encounter on their travels. (I’m pleasantly surprised to discover how many of the ballads are familiar to me from my own youth).

A lengthy section set in Rome in the 1920s provides a lush, sun-drenched contrast to some of the earlier scenes but, here – as well as later in Oxford – Lionel’s attempts to find happiness in a more conventional relationship are destined to fail; and there’s a heartbreaking coda set in 1980, where an elderly Lionel (played by Chris Cooper), now an eminent musicologist, receives an unexpected parcel, containing memories of more optimistic times.

I won’t pretend this isn’t a sad story; it most certainly falls into that category. But it’s utterly compelling throughout and is the kind of film that leaves you thinking about its themes, long after the credits have rolled.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

H is for Hawk

25/01/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Based on Helen Macdonald’s 2014 memoir, H is for Hawk is the story of the author’s headlong plunge into depression after the sudden death of her beloved father, Alisdair (Brendan Gleeson). When we first meet Helen (Claire Foy), she’s an academic, teaching History and Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, but already feeling that she’s not really inspiring her students. Alisdair, a celebrated newspaper photographer, is her constant source of solace: warm, understanding, the only one who really ‘gets’ her. His unexpected demise leaves her utterly bereft, unable to properly communicate with her mother (played by Lyndsey Duncan) and strangely detached from her Aussie best friend, Christina (Denise Gough).

After chancing upon one of her father’s old photographs, where a teenage version of herself is standing with a hawk perched on her outstretched hand, Helen becomes obsessed with the idea of revisiting this long-forgotten interest and, almost before she knows it, she’s impulsively driven to the North of Scotland to purchase a goshawk – the most feral and unpredictable of birds. But once she has ‘Mabel’ installed in her college digs, she realises that she will now have to spend her days working with the bird, learning its habits, how to feed it, care for it and, eventually, take it out to hunt in the Cambridgeshire countryside.

Meanwhile, her commitments at the University are going to have to take a back seat. To her friends and family, it seems as though she’s having some kind of nervous breakdown…

H is for Hawk is a ‘small’ film with big things to say about the nature of bereavement. Adapted from Macdonald’s book by director Philippa Lowthorpe and novelist Emma Donoghue, it’s an absorbing story, anchored by a remarkable performance from Foy. Lacking the kind of budget that would allow for CGI, she works alongside real birds – there are four of them in total, though only the eagle-eyed will spot the joins – and the developing ‘relationship’ between woman and raptor is at the heart of this affecting story. The moments where Helen unconsciously mirrors some of Mabel’s feral characteristics are a particular delight and so are the scenes featuring extraordinary wildlife footage, courtesy of veteran cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen.

Flashbacks to Macdonald’s memories of Alisdair are nicely interwoven throughout the narrative and a climactic scene where Helen delivers a moving eulogy at her father’s memorial mass has me in floods of tears. The mournful tone won’t appeal to everyone, but for me, this ticks all the right boxes.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

No Other Choice

24/01/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Korean director, Park Chan Wook’s latest offering is very hard to pigeonhole. The mastermind behind films like Oldboy and The Handmaiden has always played fast and loose with genre, and No Other Choice continues in that tradition. While it initially feels like a free-spirited romp in the vein of classic Ealing comedy, Kind Hearts and Coronets, it also ventures fearlessly into the realms of crime thriller, knockabout slapstick and, in its latter stages, body horror, as the main character becomes ever more embroiled in his own ruthless machinations.

Yoo Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) is a long-serving employee of paper-making company, Solar. He’s been with them for twenty-five years and has recently managed to fulfil his dream of buying his childhood home. He lives there with his devoted wife, Son Ye-jin (Lee Mi-ree), his teenage stepson, Si-one (Woo Seung-Kim), and his young daughter, Ri-one (So Yul Choi), who barely speaks and is obsessed with playing the cello. When the company gifts the family some very expensive eels for their barbecue, Man-su is at first delighted – until a colleague warns him that such gifts are generally made before the bosses issue bad news.

Sure enough, Man-su soon finds himself on three months’ redundancy notice and his initial attempts to find work seem doomed to failure. He and his family try to cut back on expenses as much as they possibly can, but it’s not long before they are obliged to consider the possibility that they may have to consider selling their home, complete with the greenhouse where Man-su cultivates his beloved bon sai trees. When he hears about a new, highly-successful company called Moon Paper, he realises it’s his last hope of staying in work. But he also knows that there will be other veterans of the industry seeking employment there.

So he embarks on a ruthless mission to eliminate the opposition…

Based on a story by American crime writer, Donald E Westlake (and previously filmed by Greek director Costa Gavras – to whom No Other Choice is respectfully dedicated), this version of the tale swings confidently from one set-piece to the next. None of Man-su’s elaborate plans go anywhere near as smoothly as he has hoped, causing him to flail wildly through a series of botched executions and desperate attempts to conceal evidence. In less accomplished hands, the variations in tone could be jarring, but Chan Wook handles the different story strands with absolute authority, while cinematographer Kin Woo-hyung manages to make every scene look ravishing: one long-shot in particular, which depicts an ocean-side murder, actually makes me gasp in admiration.

Byung-hun – who many viewers will recognise as one of the key actors from TV’s Squid Game – is superb in the lead role, his seemingly implacable gaze somehow conveying the lead character’s inner desperation and his overriding will to succeed, whatever the cost. As the story hurtles to its inevitable conclusion, Man-su’s family find themselves increasingly drawn into the intrigue and are faced with a terrible decision. Do they shop him to the authorities or help him achieve his goal?

But it’s in the final sequences where the true horror of the situation is fully revealed: the realisation that all of Byung-hun’s efforts have been wasted on ensuring humanity’s looming obsolescence in the very industry to which he has devoted his working life. It’s a sobering and thought-provoking conclusion to yet another triumphant film by Park Chan-wook.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Into the Woods

22/01/26

Church Hill Theatre, Edinburgh

Although I’m not really a fan of Sondheim (he’s not exactly the king of singalong, is he?), I do love a good fairytale and who better to perform this mystical mash-up than the ever-impressive EUSOG?

Co-directed by Tai Remus Elliot and Hunter King, Into the Woods brings together Little Red (Richeldis Brosnan), Cinderella (Maia Jones), Jack Beanstalk (Reuben Reilly) and Rapunzel (Aarya Gambhir). The named-for-a-cabbage, famed-for-her-hair princess plays a minor role, but her baker brother and his wife are central to the plot, as is the witch who keeps her imprisoned in a tower. Like her mother-in-law before her, the baker’s wife (Rosie Wilkinson) is desperate for a child – and just as ready to do a deal with the green-fingered witch who lives next door (Lauren Green). And so the baker (Shaun Hamilton) is duly dispatched to the woods, where he must find the four items the hag requires: a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, some hair as yellow as corn, and a slipper as pure as gold. No prizes for guessing which characters are in possession of said treasures.

Ninety minutes of mayhem ensue, as the various stories overlap, causing Midsummer Night’s Dream levels of chaos in the woods. It all builds to the inevitable conclusion: the goodies gain riches, get married or have babies, while the baddies all die – or are at least brutally maimed. And all those who survive live happily ever after…

Until Act 2, when reality kicks in. “I was raised to be charming, not sincere,” says Cinderella’s prince (Max Middleton), apologising for his wandering eyes. The baker isn’t adapting well to parental responsibility and there’s a giantess on the hunt for the young lad who slew her spouse.

If the first act is stronger than the second (and it is), I lay the blame at writer James Lapine’s door. The play is too long: Act 1 feels like a complete story, and Act 2 just isn’t as inventive. I like the idea of subverting the famous stories, but the plotting is clunky and unadventurous.

Nonetheless, this production is admirable, with some cracking choreography from Morgan Hazelip and Tilly Heath Born, particularly for Last Midnight, which Green performs with evident gusto. Of course, the music is key – and there is a lot of vocal talent among the cast, most notably Green, Wilkinson and Jones. The orchestra (led by musical director Abby Bailey) handles the tricky time-signatures with great skill. It’s a shame there are a few technical problems with the sound, so that the vocals are sometimes overwhelmed by the instruments.

Elliot and King really bring out the humour in the show, with the two princes (Middleton and Aisling Ní Dhochartaigh) given ample scope to explore the silliness of Agony.

The lighting design (by Lewis Eggeling, Sophie Bend and Kiran Mukherjee) creates a suitably mystical atmosphere, emphasising the wild unpredictability of the woods. There are some lovely touches, such as the hard-edged beams highlighting the separateness of the fairytales before they converge, and the gentle downlights, suggestive of sunbeams filtering through the trees. However, the balance between eerie shadows and visibility perhaps requires a little tweaking, as there are moments where the actors’ faces are obscured, making it harder for the audience to connect with their emotions.

The costuming is ingenious: the wolf (Naomi Jessiman)’s lace-frilled suit is particularly memorable, as is the witch’s dress with its drop-down cloak. So hats off to wardrobe (Sophie Slight, Eloise Robertson and Olivia Fialho Rosa).

All in all, this is a vibrant, sprightly production, as polished and ambitious as we’ve come to expect from EUSOG. There are only two more chances to see it, so do whatever it takes to acquire a ticket – sell your cow, steal a cabbage, find a hen that’ll lay you a golden egg – and get yourself to the Church Hill Theatre as quickly as you can.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

The Rip

20/01/26

Netflix

It’s what’s known as ‘The Netflix Effect”: a movie that was originally conceived and filmed to be watched on a giant screen, which – through no fault of its own – ends up on a much smaller one. Joe Carnahan’s The Rip features plenty of action sequences filmed in dark corners and on gloomy rain-drenched streets. Even when projected onto the big-ish B&B home-viewing screen, I occasionally find myself struggling to establish who is shooting/stabbing/punching whom. A shame, because I’m convinced that in a movie theatre, this would easily have made it into four-star territory.

Welcome to Florida, where the cops appear to be every bit as ruthless and foul-mouthed as the drug dealers they repeatedly find themselves up against. After the brutal murder of Captain Jackie Velez (Lina Esco) of the Miami-Dade Police Department, suspicion falls upon members of her special unit, the Tactical Narcotics Team. The FBI are brought in to question them, but find themselves drawing a blank. The team’s leader, Lieutenant Dane Dumars (Matt Damon), and his bestie, Sergeant JD Byrne (Ben Affleck), are bewildered. Who could have killed Jackie? (Byrne has particular reason to be cut-up about it as the two of them were in a serious relationship.) Could it really be that somebody on the team murdered her?

Then an anonymous tip-off comes in. A house in Hialeah contains hidden drug money, belonging to a local cartel. Dumars and JD head out there with their regular team in support: Detectives Mike Ro (Steven Yeun), Numa Baptiste (Teyana Taylor) and Lolo Salazar (Catalina Sandino Moreno), the latter with her trusty dog in tow, trained to sniff out not drugs, but dough. (Hmm. Where can I get a dog like that?) When said pooch becomess very excited, Dumars convinces the current tenant, Desi Molina (Sasha Calle), to let the team in to her late Grandmother’s house, whereupon they do find an eye-watering sum in used notes. It’s the kind of haul that could change their lives forever.

But it soon becomes apparent that certain unidentified others know all about that hidden stash – and are determined to get their hands on it by any means possible…

Okay, so it’s essentially another version of The Pardoner’s Tale, but Carnahan’s twisty script, co-written with Michael McGrale, is a clever mix of whodunnit and taut action adventure. The former element keeps me guessing for the film’s first two thirds – some of the reveals are genuinely surprising – while the final section flings me headlong into a breathless chase. It’s here where the aforementioned Netflix Effect begins to take its toll.

Damon and Affleck demonstrate the kind of chemistry they’ve had ever since Good Will Hunting, and the supporting players all make the most of the screen-time they’re afforded – though it’s probably true to say that the female actors are somewhat sidelined in what feels increasingly like a big boys punch em’ up. But if action is what you’ve been craving, you’ll find it here by the bucket load.

Those who persist in watching movies on their iPhones should probably quit while they’re ahead.

3.5 stars

Philip Caveney