Film

The Midnight Sky

26/12/20

Netflix

What a strange, mournful film The Midnight Sky is! It’s hardly the feel-good picture to end 2020 on a note of hope and yet, for all that, George Clooney’s futuristic saga exerts a slow-burning grip, as it gradually unfolds a story that takes place in two major locations, millions of miles apart.

It’s the year 2045 and the Earth is comprehensively doomed. There’s been some kind of global catastrophe – the intimation is there’s been a sudden rise in radiation levels – which means that the planet’s inhabitants are counting down their final days. Scientists based in a research station in the Arctic circle, one of the last places to be affected, are making a last desperate bid to escape, but Augustine Lofthouse (Clooney) figures there’s no point in going with them. He has a serious illness and has to depend on nightly dialysis in order to eke out his final days – see, I told you it was gloomy!

Lofthouse decides to spend what time he has trying to contact the space craft AEther, which is returning from a mission to K-23, one of Jupiter’s moons, where they’ve been investigating its potential as an alternative place to live. Lofthouse feels particularly bad about the crew’s situation, since he’s the man who discovered K-23 and is indirectly responsible for sending them out there in the first place. But they are still out of range of his communication signals and he’s rapidly slipping away.

Then Lofthouse discovers that he’s not alone. A little girl is hiding out on the base. Iris (an adorable debut by Caolinn Springall) doesn’t seem to have the power of speech, but she gives Lofthouse another reason to stay alive as long as he can.

Meanwhile, on the AEther, Captain Adewole (David Oyelowo) and his pregnant partner, Sully (Felicity Jones), are heading home through a previously uncharted section of space, an area where sudden meteor storms are a regular occurrence. And of course, there’s the added irony of the situation. They and the other members of their crew have no idea that they are all returning to a dying planet…

If my synopsis makes this feel like a somewhat disparate story, let me assure you that the cuts back and forth are nicely judged and expertly handled – Clooney directed this and he’s done so with considerable skill. A series of short sequences featuring Ethan Peck as a younger Lofthouse seem at first to add very little to the story, but they do make perfect sense when we get to its poignant conclusion. Before that, there’s plenty to keep me on the edge of my seat – on earth, there’s a heart-stopping encounter with melting ice and, in the midst of a blizzard, an attack by wolves. Up in the eye-popping splendour of the solar system we witness the most terrifying cinematic space walk since Gravity. And then, in the film’s final stretch, there’s a last act reveal that I really don’t see coming and which has me reaching for a hanky.

The Midnight Sky won’t be to everyone’s taste. I’ve already seen some dark mutterings about it on social media, complaints that it isn’t the straightforward action/adventure that people were expecting. Well, fair enough, it certainly isn’t that but, to my mind, it’s much more. It’s a dire warning about what humankind is doing to the world it currently inhabits, a plea for us to start investigating alternative worlds. It’s also a meditation on our inbuilt compulsion to survive at all odds.

And, miserable creature that I am, I find it genuinely uplifting.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Krampus

24/12/20

Netflix

It’s Christmas Eve and, in our ongoing mission to catch up with some of those festive favourites we’ve previously missed, we decide to investigate a recent recommendation.

We watch Krampus. Have yourself a creepy little Christmas? Why not?

Krampus sets out its stall in the pre-credit sequence as Christmas shoppers engage in a no-holds barred pitched battle, punching and kicking all who stand between themselves and their intended purchases. The message is clear. People have lost the true meaning of the festive season and have become greedy and selfish. It may be because we’re currently suffering through the worst Yule in living memory or it might speak volumes about my own Scrooge-like tendencies but, for some reason, I find this opening extremely encouraging. This looks like my kind of Christmas film!

We now move to the home of Tom (Adam Scott) and Sarah (Toni Colette), who, with evident dread, are preparing for the arrival of their extended family for the Christmas holidays. Their visitors comprise shotgun-toting brother-in-law Howard (David Koechner), his long-suffering wife, Linda (Alison Tolman), and the couple’s three monosyllabic children. They’ve also brought along the bluntly-spoken Aunt Dorothy (Conchata Ferrell), so this promises to be the Christmas from hell for all kinds of reasons.

But it’s Tom and Sarah’s young son, Max (Emjay Antony), who inadvertently kicks off the bad stuff when he tears up his letter to Santa and casts it to the four winds, whereupon the sky grows dark, a freezing snow storm descends and the household finds itself visited by a weird, supernatural presence.

It’s down to Tom’s German Omi (Krista Stadler) to explain what’s happening. In a charmingly animated sequence, we see her as a small child, unwittingly unleashing the anti-Santa that is Krampus: a vengeful being sent to punish all those who have stopped caring about the season of goodwill. Get on this guy’s naughty list and you’re really going to regret it…

The film is essentially a dark comedy and, while there’s little here to genuinely terrorise viewers (except perhaps the very young), it has an engaging, inventive quality that keeps everything bubbling along nicely. Much mileage is made from low budget practical effects, with Christmas toys coming to life and going on the attack. In tone, the film it reminds me of more than any other is Gremlins. I particularly like the fact that the various characters portrayed here are never allowed to become too caricatured, so often a failing in films like this. Yes, Howard and Aunt Dorothy do seem awful, but they’re believably so, and that’s important. As the family comes together to fight for their survival, we begin to see them in an entirely different light.

Those who are getting a little tired of warm and fuzzy Christmas weepies might like to give this a go. It provides a refreshingly cynical alternative. 

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

20/12/20

Netflix

The chances are you’ve never heard of Ma Rainey before: I know I hadn’t.

A quick glance at Wikipedia confirms that she was one of the earliest African-American blues singers, an entrepreneur who started her career on the Southern Vaudeville circuit in the early nineteen hundreds and who, through the twenties, became known as ‘Mother of the Blues.’ As the decade rolled on, she made a series of recordings, which introduced Blues music to a new – predominantly white – market.

It’s summer 1927 and Ma (Viola Davis) has ventured North to Chicago to lay down some tracks for the Paramount record label at the urging of her white manager, Irving (Jeremy Shamos). Her musicians duly arrive to back her up, among them a young and ambitious horn player, Levee (Chadwick Boseman). Unlike the other members of the band, he senses that the wind of change is in the air and that America is developing a new taste for jazz stylings. He’s eager to be a part of it. His fellow musicians, Toledo (Glynn Turman), Cutler (Colman Domingo) and Slow Drag (Michael Potts), urge him to toe the line. Ma is a tough cookie and he’d do well to do as she tells him, but he’s got his own reasons for wanting to spread his wings…

Director George C. Wolfe offers a lean, powerful adaptation of August Wilson’s original play, which is essentially a lament for the way in which prosperous white record producers continually took vibrant black music and bent it to their own whims, earning vast sums of money into the bargain – little of which went to the original artistes. In the titular role, Davis offers a brooding, snarling study of a embittered woman who knows only to well how her music is being stolen from her and who steadfastly refuses to lick the boots of the men who are taking it – even haranguing them when they neglect to offer her chilled Coca Cola in the sweltering confines of the studio.

But of course, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom also turns out to be Chadwick Boseman’s final performance and, at times, he comes close to stealing the show. It’s hard to believe that this passionate and talented young actor has already been taken from us. His performance here makes for a memorable farewell but it’s tragic to consider what else he might have achieved had he been given the chance. Levee is a compelling character, the product of horrifying events in his childhood, which have only served to fuel his overpowering desire to make good as a musician – but it is an ambition that will, ultimately, consume and destroy him.

There are some splendid musical interludes, but not so many that they overpower the drama – and, as the temperature rises and tempers begin to fray, there’s plenty of that to relish. The final musical sequence brilliantly pins down the kind of cultural appropriation that forms the central tenet of this film. Netflix has been raising its game in recent months and this is another success for them.

Watch it, and not just to say goodbye to Mr Boseman.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Train to Busan Presents: Peninsular

12/12/20

Apple TV

That odd, unwieldy title ensures there can be no mistake.

This is, indeed, the eagerly awaited sequel to Yeon Sang-ho’s zombie apocalypse action-flick, Train To Busan (2016), a film that completely reinvigorated a tired genre, providing the kick up the backside it was in dire need of. As in the first blood-spattered helping, it’s clear that the director doesn’t much care for ‘less is more.’ In Yeon Sang-ho’s world, zombies don’t stumble along like OAPs, they come after their prey like champion sprinters on steroids, and they come in overwhelming numbers. They writhe, convulse and gallop across the screen. They tumble off wrecked bridges, slither through shallow water and explode through glass barriers. Trust me, I’m talking peak-zombie.

Penisula is set four years after the first story. South Korea has now become a quarantine zone, a place completely overrun by the undead. They’re very short-sighted now, but are attracted to bright lights and loud noises. Surely nobody would be stupid enough to venture back there? Especially ex-army officer Jung-seok (Gang Dong-won) and his brother in law, Chul-min (Kim Do-yoon), who, as we learn in the film’s pre-credit sequence, have every reason to be afraid of the undead.

But the two men are Korean exiles living in Hong Kong, where they are despised by the local population and can’t find work. So, when an HK gang lord hears of a lorry packed with millions of American dollars, abandoned somewhere in the quarantine zone, he sets about putting together a gang desperate enough to go after it. It’ll be easy. Bish, bash, bosh, and you’re millionaires! And of course, our two heroes can’t resist.

While Peninsula might not be quite as brilliant as its progenitor – it loses, I suppose, the surprise factor that the first film had in spades – it’s nonetheless superior stuff. The devastated cityscapes of what used to be Incheon are astonishingly rendered (and really make me wish I could view this on a cinema screen), while Yeon Song-ho’s encounter with Min-jung (Lee Jung-hyun), a woman he failed to help in the past, gives us a reason to care about what happens to both of them.

The film’s trump card though is provided by Min-jung’s daughters, Jooni (Lee Re) and Yu-jin (Lee Ye-won), who have developed a way with cars (both real and the radio-controlled variety) that would put Max Rockatansky to shame. There’s also a lovely turn by Koo Kyo-hwan as Captain Seo, the former head of a military unit, now turned into a deranged despot, fond of organising bizarre games where he pits luckless captives against the infected. As before, the theme is clear. Humankind is capable of behaving in ways that make their zombie counterparts look almost reasonable by comparison.

There’s plenty here to relish: there are fight scenes, fright scenes and car chases aplenty. There are crashes, smashes and (literal) fireworks. In a nail-biting extended conclusion, the director mercilessly piles on the suspense – at several points he actually has me yelling at the screen – and there’s a satisfying reveal towards the end which I really don’t see coming.

Okay, so this hardly qualifies as a heartwarming film for the festive season, I get that… but if you’re in the market for a good zombie apocalypse picture, this one will be hard to beat.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Elf

11/12/2020

Apple TV

It’s Christmas… or, as Noddy Holder would put it, ‘It’s Christmaaaaaaas!’

It is a fact universally acknowledged that lots of people have favourite Yuletide movies, ones they return to again and again in search of that warm, fuzzy feeling… and it’s also true to say, that there are many such films that I just haven’t got around to watching yet. But I’m gradually ticking the boxes.

Last year, for instance, I finally caught up with The Muppet Christmas Carol and was very glad that I did, because it turned out to be an utter delight from start to finish. True, I got to see it in an actual cinema, but we’ll let that one go, before I start sobbing uncontrollably.

For years now, friends – people whose judgement I generally trust – have repeatedly urged me to watch Elf, assuring me that it belongs in the same category as TMCC and, for the same number of years, I’ve been stolidly ignoring their advice. Maybe it’s the Scrooge in me. But in 2020, locked down and listless as I am, I no longer have a credible excuse not to catch up with it.

And, yes, my friends were right. It’s easy to see why this film remains a perennial favourite. It’s the story of Buddy (Will Ferrell), who, as an orphaned baby, inadvertently winds up aboard Santa’s sleigh and finds himself whisked off to the North Pole. He grows up alongside Santa’s elves, under the tender care of Papa Elf (Bob Newhart), who acts as narrator for the tale. Of course, being human, Buddy soon towers above his workmates and begins to realise that he’s not like the others. (Buddy clearly isn’t the brightest – I can’t help wondering, what took him so long?)

When he finally overhears the truth about his origins, he’s understandably dismayed. Where has he come from? Where are his roots? Santa decides to send him back to New York city in search of his real father, hard-bitten book publisher, Walter (James Caan).

It’s probably pointless to list the plot in any more detail, since the film came out in 2003 and I’m way behind the wave on this one. It’s interesting to note, however, that the film is directed by Jon Favreau, long before he became the influential actor/director he is today, and that most of the effects utilised here are of the low budget, ‘forced perspective’ kind: simple, but effective. What makes Elf a winner, though, is the brilliant idea that lies at its core. Buddy is an innocent, a naive man-child who’s never been given the opportunity to grow up. His reactions to everything that happens to him in the big city are therefore priceless, genuinely disarming and often laugh-out-loud funny. Ferrell has, of course, enjoyed a varied career in the years since this film, but I doubt he’s ever been more appealing than he is here. Just the sight of him ambling around in that costume is enough to make a viewer smile.

What else do we have? Zooey Deschanel as Jovie, who works as a department store elf and whom Buddy falls for at first sight. Peter Dinklage plays hotshot kids’ author, Miles Finch… and, of course, Favreau can’t resist giving himself a cameo as Walter’s doctor. You want fuzzy feelgood? It’s here in abundance.

So, I admit it. I should have watched this sooner. Anybody who has recommendations for other Christmas movies I might not have seen, please feel free to let me know about them.

There are other boxes yet to be ticked.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Ava

10/12/20

Netflix

There seems to be a trend for art-house actors reinventing themselves as kick-ass action heroes. Jessica Chastain, previously best known for floating around in chiffon in films like The Tree of Life, is the titular star of this swaggering punch-em-up, directed by Tate Taylor. Here she plays a professional hit-woman, adept at donning disguises and dispatching powerful men in the most brutal fashion, pausing only to ask them why they think somebody hates them enough to have them offed. It seems she has some Daddy issues, after the callous treatment she received from her own father as a child. Now she’s basically eradicating him over and over again. It’s complicated, but it seems to work.

Ava takes her orders from another Daddy figure, Duke (John Malkovich), her former commander in the army, who seems to be the only person in the world she actually trusts. But, when her unusual approach to killing irks another of Duke’s protégées, Simon (Colin Farrell, sporting a truly horrible haircut), she suddenly finds herself in a very tight corner as her latest mission goes ‘accidentally’ wrong. Seeking a break, she heads home to visit her estranged Mother (Geena Davies), her sister, Judy (Jess Weixler), and her old flame, Michael (Common), who has now hooked up with Judy – which is… awkward, to say the very least.

As she is pursued by former-colleagues-turned-assassins, Ava faces a desperate struggle for survival…

The film is engaging enough in a video-gameish sort of way. There are many extended punch-ups, where Chastain has ample opportunity to display all the martial arts moves she’s clearly trained so hard for. If one or two of the fights feel unnecessarily protracted, well, that’s parr for the genre, I suppose. The emphasis on Ava’s parental issues lends this a little more depth than you’d usually expect to see in a film like this and Chastain has done a pretty thorough job of making her character believable. Farrell, always an actor full of surprises, manages to give Simon as much nuance as he can with his limited screen time, speaking softly and acting violently. It’s interesting to note that he’s an unreliable father, too.

There are the usual inconstancies. How is it, after being beaten within an inch of her life, Ava can arrive somewhere ten minutes later, sporting no more than a modest bruise on her cheek? And… I’ll just put this out there… how can we possibly be expected to believe that Geena Davis is now old enough to play the invalid mum of anybody older than Stuart Little? Can this be right?

The conclusion to this bruising tale suggests that Taylor and his team may be angling for another instalment, but I can’t help feeling that this franchise may have punched-thumped-kicked itself just about as far as it can reasonably expect to go.

Still, if mayhem is your go-to, this one should do the trick.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Click To Connect

09/12/20

We’ve seen many enjoyable musicals from this talented student company over the years, but in 2020 – for pretty obvious reasons – they’ve had to make some radical adjustments to their usual approach. With all the cast members stuck in their own spaces, they’ve decided to embrace those limitations and the result is Click To Connect, an original play/movie musical filmed as a series of Zoom meetings. If this sounds underwhelming, don’t be misled. Others have tried this approach and foundered, but I’ve rarely seen the format appropriated with such brio.

The script, co-written by no less than five authors, concentrates on four relationships. Amy (Lucy Whelan) has recently broken up with her long time boyfriend and is now living with her parents. She contacts her friend, Sam (Nicola Alexander) and confesses the real reason why she is now single. Lex (Annie Docherty) and Kelsea (Leonie Findlay) are ex-partners, who’ve set up a double-date with their respective new interests, Mia (Kristen Wong) and Tom (Attir Basri) but, once the chat is underway, things don’t quite go to plan. Finally, Sadie (Rachel Cozens) is living away from her husband, George (Sebastian Schneeberger), and things have gone somewhat awry. Can their once-strong relationship be salvaged?

There are some breezy, melodic pop songs to kick things into action and nicely judged performances from Whelan and Alexander provide the piece’s strongest moments. I also love the way that Zoom’s limitations are cannily incorporated into the storyline – a warning that we are going to be kicked off after a set time (because we haven’t paid to use the service for longer than 40 minutes) is deftly employed and there’s even an attempt to simulate the inevitable dodgy wi-fi signal for one character.

Click to Connect is a timely example of how artistic ingenuity can overcome severe limitations and EUSOG have certainly risen to the challenge with aplomb. Of course we all look forward to the times when we can head back to the Pleasance to watch their next venture, but until then, this will do nicely.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Small Axe: Red, White and Blue

07/12/20

BBC iPlayer

After the experimental Lovers Rock – which I have to confess, really didn’t work for me – Red, White and Blue, sees director Steve McQueen moving back to the kind of material he explored in Mangrove: the rampant racial discrimination experienced by black people in 1980s London. The difference this time around is that the major player here is a black police officer. Once again, it’s based on a true story, that of Leroy Logan (John Boyega), a former research scientist, who, after witnessing the savage beating of his father, Ken (Steve Toussaint), at the hands of two police officers, decides to join the Metropolitan police in the fervent hope that he will be able to improve things from the inside.

Of course, he quickly learns that making such changes is no easy matter and that, once on active duty, he will be unable to count on his white colleagues to back him up in any dangerous situation. But he’s clearly a tenacious individual. Logan stayed in the force until his retirement in 2013 and remains a member of the National Black Police Association.

If this were a Hollywood movie, of course, we’d see Leroy battle his way through appalling odds to emerge at the end, bruised, bloody and victorious. But this is crushingly realistic stuff – the inevitable realisation being that, though things may have improved a little since the 80s, they haven’t improved anything like enough. This story ends pretty much as it starts – with Logan stubbornly refusing to compromise his position.

Boyega is particularly impressive in the lead role – indeed, he dominates this episode and makes it very much his own. A scene where he finally explodes into anger at the callous conduct of his fellow officers is riveting stuff. There’s also a gruffly likeable performance from Toussaint as his father, a man who carries his bottled-up rage around with him like a cross he has to bear.

Next stop, the Brixton Riots. Can’t wait.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Mank

04/12/20

Netflix

It seems I’ve been waiting for this film for just about forever. Director David Fincher first mentioned it as a possible follow up to Alien3 way back in 1992. With a screenplay by his father, Jack, it would focus on the creation of Citizen Kane. It would provide an answer to how much involvement Orson Welles actually had in the writing of that Oscar-winning screenplay and it would, of course, look into the allegations that the film was besmirched by the machinations of powerful newspaper tycoon, William Randolph Hearst.

Was I up for this? Yes, big time, because this is a story that has fascinated me since my youth. But, as it turned out, I was going to have to be patient…

And now, in one of the bleakest years in human history, it finally turns up, virtually unannounced on Netflix. Needless to say, I don’t allow a great deal of time to elapse before I tune in.

And it’s worth the wait. This is absolutely sumptuous, oozing class from every beautiful monochromatic frame, courtesy of cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt. Here is a faultless recreation of an era, right down to the visible scene descriptions, written clickety-clackety on a manual typewriter. From the opening credits onwards, Mank puts the viewer slap-bang in the early 1940s and keeps them immersed in that turbulent era right up until the final credits.

Washed-up screenwriter Herman J Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) finds himself installed in a remote desert location, shortly after suffering serious injuries in a car crash. Sternly monitored by John Houseman (Sam Troughton) and ably assisted by English secretary, Rita Alexander (Lily Collins), he has been given the daunting task of writing the debut motion picture for Mercury Theatre’s Wunderkind, Orson Welles (Tom Burke). And he has just sixty days in which to do it.

It doesn’t help that Mank (as he is known to his friends) is an alcoholic. But he sets about the task with as much vigour as he can muster and, as he writes, his mind skips back and forth (rather like the screenplay he’s working on) over his changing fortunes in the Hollywood film industry.

We encounter Mank’s hostile relationship with muck-raking press baron, Hearst (Charles Dance), his platonic friendship with Hearst’s wife, Marion Davies (an almost luminous Amanda Seyfried), and his pugilistic dealings with the extremely unlikable Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard). There’s more – much more – in a packed two hours and eleven minutes; indeed, it’s probably fair to say that this is a story as rich and multi-layered as Kane itself. It’s also surprisingly prescient. The realisation that a super-rich newspaper proprietor can exert a powerful influence over the politics of a country, even going so far as to film fake news items to help steal an election, seems like a decidedly contemporary notion… but clearly that kind of thing has been going on for decades.

The film isn’t quite perfect. A scene where Mank goes on a (very long) drunken diatribe at one of Hearst’s lavish parties stretches credulity, and there are a few leaden missteps around the middle section, but these are minor blips in something that’s a giant step up from much of the so-so fodder that gets made. Fincher has created a warm, and moving testimonial to his late father’s memory, one that deserves to stand alongside the infamous movie it commemorates. Of course, it helps if you’re a fan of Kane in the first place, but it’s by no means essential.

If you’ve a couple of hours to spare, why not spoil yourselves? This is a superb piece of cinema.

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney

The Laundromat

03/12/20

Netflix

The Panama Papers – the massive exposé of hundreds of shady shell companies, dating back to the 1970s – was revealed in 2016 by a mysterious whistle-blower known only as ‘John Doe.’ It’s a fascinating tale of greed and deceit and one that was inevitably going to find its way onto cinema screens sooner or later. Furthermore, Steven Soderbergh is exactly the kind of director I would have picked to helm such a project. And yet, The Laundromat doesn’t quite work – mostly, I think, because of its scatter-shot approach.

It starts well. We are introduced to Jurgen Mossack (Gary Oldman) and Ramon Fonseca (Antonio Banderas) wandering through a variety of exotic locations as they chat direct to camera, sip cocktails and explain that shell companies aren’t exactly illegal, they are simply ways of ensuring that billionaires won’t have the tiresome burden of paying all those pesky taxes they owe.

No big deal. The way they tell it, it sounds almost reasonable. But it can more succinctly be described in two words. Money laundering.

And then we meet Ellen Martin (Meryl Streep), recently widowed when she and her husband were on a cruise on Lake George and their hire boat capsized. First Ellen learns that the insurance policy she and her hubby took out for the trip won’t pay up because the firm they bought it from has itself been purchased by a shell company known only as ‘Nevis.’ And then her plans to retire to a condo that overlooks the place where she and her husband first met are brutally scuppered when the apartment is purchased – for cash – by a couple of Russian oligarchs.

Understandably miffed, she decides to devote some time to investigating the dealings of Nevis…

So far, so good, but it is at this point that screenwriter Scott Z. Burns takes us on a whistle-stop tour around the globe, to meet other people who, because of the wheelings and dealing of Messrs Mossack and Fonseca, are the nominal owners of shell companies, purportedly worth millions of dollars, but in reality not worth the paper they are printed on. African billionaire Charles (Nonso Anonzie) is attempting to pay off his wife and daughter over an affair he’s been having with a teenage girl, by making them the ‘owners’ of two such companies – and, in China, Madame Gu (Rosalind Chao) will seemingly go to any lengths to protect the reputation of her husband, whose main method of generating income seems to be trading in human organs.

These side-stories whizz past and aren’t investigated deeply enough to make them feel like part of the overall narrative arc. The unfortunate effect is that, by the time we get back to Ellen Martin’s quest, much of the story’s momentum has been lost. The film is by no means terrible, but it is unfocused – and even a late reveal (which I have to admit I didn’t see coming) fails to salvage it.

There’s certainly food for thought here. It’s interesting to note that the victims focused on in these stories are not the poor and impoverished, but middle-class people who’ve failed to realise that they are toiling at the behest of the greedy rich, whose paramount intention is to hang on to every penny they have generated, with no concern for the human wreckage left in their wake. It’s also sobering to learn that Mr Mossack and Mr Fonseca were able to walk away from this debacle with what amounts to little more than slapped wrists. Because, you know, it’s not really illegal…

For a winter evening stuck at home, this provides a decent night’s entertainment, but it certainly won’t figure among Steven Soderbergh’s best films – and there’s surely a more definitive adaptation of the Panama Papers story waiting somewhere in the wings.

3.6 stars

Philip Caveney