Gabriel Byrne

Ballerina

12/06/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

The John Wick films are okay in a propulsive stabby-shooty sort of way. Ballerina – which we are informed is from ‘The World of John Wick’ (i.e. it features a cameo by Keanu Reeves) centres on Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), who, when we first encounter her, is just a little girl (Victoria Comte). She carries a wind-up ballerina toy everywhere she goes because, you know, she’d like to be a dancer when she grows up. But before that can happen, she’s obliged to witness the brutal murder of her father by trained assassins. (Well, these things happen.)

After his death, she’s collected by Winston (Ian McShane), who leads her from the hospital waiting room – without anybody even asking him what he’s up to – and ensures that she’s enrolled in a mysterious ballet school run by The Director (Anjelica Huston). Eve does train to be a ballet dancer, leaping about until her toes bleed but – just in case she doesn’t make the grade – she also takes extra classes in assassination. Well, you never know, it could come in handy.

Fully grown up and able to take down a whole room full of adversaries without turning a hair, she’s finally entrusted with her first mission. She must go and… you know what, I’m still not entirely sure what the first mission actually is. All I know is that it involves a massive punch-up in the world’s least convincing disco and then it escalates. More and more bad guys and gals keep coming out of the woodwork, and Eve eventually winds up travelling to the picturesque town of Halstatt, where The Cult are based. These are the people who killed her daddy, so naturally she wants revenge…

If I’m honest, even recounting this much of the plot is making me weary, but the basic premise is that everyone who lives in Halstatt – I mean everyone – is a trained killer, regardless of age, gender or occupation. They can be called up at the drop of a hat by The Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne) and instructed to kill whoever he’s taken a dislike to. And… well, you’ve probably worked out who’s next on his naughty list. Here’s a clue. Her name begins with an E.

From this point, the film becomes one extended brawl. Eve doesn’t just kill the people who attack her, she punches, stabs, decapitates, burns, bludgeons, explodes and dismembers them. (As you do.) Her opponents tend to emerge from such interactions in pieces, while she just has a discreet scratch on one cheek. You’d think, wouldn’t you, with all that frantic action going on, this would be exciting stuff? But somehow it really isn’t. The fight scenes are turgid and wearisome, and – aside perhaps from one sequence where Eve and an assailant indulge in a flamethrower duel – they’re tropes I’ve seen too many times before. There’s also a Chekhovian tendency to use any object glimpsed in a scene as a murder weapon. A frying pan? Why not? A glass vase? Go for it!

Mind you, the fight scenes are punctuated by occasional lines of dialogue and that’s where things get really horrible. Characters talk extremely slowly and offer portentous insights. A coin has two sides! Who knew? A woman can only beat a man if she fights like a girl! Really?

Well, the warning signs were there. Delays, reshoots and a change of director. I know this franchise has its fans and perhaps even a fleeting glimpse of Keanu will be enough to keep hard-core followers happy, but Ballerina has a running time of more than two hours and I find myself checking my watch after just fifteen minutes. Whats up next, I wonder? John Wick: Watching Paint Dry? Don’t laugh, it could happen.

2.5 stars

Philip Caveney

Hereditary

14/06/18

The advance buzz about this film has been powerful. There have been comparisons to The Exorcist – the movie that in 1973, caused me to write my first ever film review, a habit that has continued unbroken ever since. In its central theme, however,  Hereditary is much closer to another classic, Rosemary’s Baby, but – while it certainly has much to recommend it – it’s not really in the same league as either of those other horror milestones; moreover, it’s fatally compromised by an ending that’s so risible, it actually causes audience laughter in the screening I attend.

After the death of her estranged and secretive mother, Annie (Toni Collette), an artist who specialises in recreating scenes from her life in miniature, starts to unravel a series of clues from the odds and ends her mother left behind. Her 13 year old daughter, Charlie (Milly Shapiro), has clearly been powerfully affected by her grandmother’s death, behaving in a strange and very disconcerting manner, while her older brother, Peter (Alex Wolff), is more interested in the popular teenage pursuits of getting stoned and laid. Annie’s accommodating husband, Steve (Gabriel Byrne), just tries to keep everything rubbing along as best he can. But when Peter is a key player in a tragic and accidental death, something evil seems to settle around the house like a shroud, exerting an increasingly powerful grip…

The first thing to say about Hereditary is that first time writer/director Ari Aster has forged a powerful and highly effective debut. Eschewing the fast-paced jump cuts of many contemporary horror films, this is a real slow burner, a simmering pressure cooker that only gradually comes to the boil and manages to instil in the viewer an overpowering sense of creeping horror. The cinematography eerily manages to mix Annie’s doll’s house imagery with the actual interiors from the rambling, family home, while Toni Collette puts in an extraordinarily accomplished performance in the lead role, managing to convince us that she is genuinely terrified.

But then there’s that awful ending, which – to my mind at least – manages to destroy all the accomplishments that have gone before. And while I appreciate there’s a necessity to tie up the loose ends of the plot, it helps if that plot makes some kind of narrative sense. It must be said that other reviewers seem to have had no problem with this, so perhaps I’m just difficult to please – but trust me, the audience reaction on the evening I view this is pretty unequivocal. However, in an attempt to ensure fairness, I’ve decided to star-rate this film rather differently from our other reviews.

(Most of the film) 4.4 stars

(Last 10 minutes) 1 star

Philip Caveney