Olga Kurylenko

Fans of the film In the Loop and the TV series Veep will definitely not want to miss this raucously hilarious political satire from the same creator, Armando Iannucci. This time he has gone back in history to 1953, giving his snappy dialogue to the Russians jostling for control after the Soviet leader's sudden demise. The setting makes it a lot darker than Iannucci's previous work, but it's packed with unforgettable one-liners, visual gags and pointed observations on politics today.

In the wake of Stalin's death, his successors aren't sure whether they should continue with his campaign of terror against Russian citizens. Dopey deputy Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor) wants to maintain the status quo, while more progressive Krushchev (Steve Buscemi) is looking for change. Their main rival is Beria (Simon Russell Beale), a thug who likes young girls. Then the enthusiastic General Zhukov (Jason Isaacs) charges in, deciding that they need to push Beria out and go in another direction. Meanwhile, Stalin's spoiled children (Rupert Friend and Andrea Riseborough) are determined that they should have a say in any new government, but everyone else knows that their days are numbered.

Continue reading: The Death Of Stalin Review

With a plot so thin that it's barely there, this sleek South African action thriller is surprisingly entertaining simply because the cast is allowed to chomp merrily on the scenery as they try to torment and kill each other. And even though the film's tone is relentless machismo, this is a rare thriller with a female leading character. So there's a bit of attitude and wry humour to undermine the otherwise sadistic violence.

It opens in Cape Town with a ludicrously over-planned bank heist that goes wrong simply because the robbers are all hothead thugs. The gang leader is Alex (Olga Kurylenko), and her clash with one of her cohorts leaves her team in disarray. She's also on the run from Mr. Washington (James Purefoy), the viciously swaggering henchman of top American boss the Senator (Morgan Freeman). It quickly becomes clear that Washington isn't trying to recover the diamonds stolen from the bank vault; he wants a mysterious memory stick instead. After Alex turns to a cohort (Brendan Murray) and a former love-rival (Lee-Anne Summers) for help, she leads Washington on a spectacularly grisly cat and mouse chase across the city.

Cameraman-turned-director Stephen Campanelli certainly knows how to make a movie that looks achingly cool. There isn't a moment when anyone moves or speaks like a normal human being: they strut, pose, shout, leer, scowl and taunt. And of course they all look great doing it. Kurylenko is a steely presence at the centre of the action, with a character intriguing enough to hold the interest even if Campanelli hadn't forced her to do most of her biggest scenes in a state of undress. Purefoy is clearly having a great time deliciously playing with his character's verbose speeches and grisly actions. And even Freeman gets to chew on some scenery in his few scenes.

Continue reading: Momentum Review

For his directing debut, Russell Crowe tells a story so compelling that it almost obscures the rather clunky filmmaking. Based on the hint of a true story, the events are fascinating, moving and often thrilling, with some strikingly well-staged sequences along the way. But the earnest tone is sometimes distracting, as is an unnecessary romantic subplot that makes the whole movie feel like pure fiction.

It opens in 1919 Australia, where Connor (Crowe) is grieving the loss of his three sons in the 1915 battle of Gallipoli. Having vowed to bring them home before his wife dies, and with nothing else to do now, Connor heads to Turkey to find them. But the local British officer (Jai Courtney) doesn't want him anywhere near the battlefield, where experts are still identifying the remains of fallen soldiers. So with the help of local officer Hasan (Yilmaz Erdogan), Connor makes his own way to the site and, using his skills at discovering underwater wells, finds the bodies of two of his sons. Then he learns that the third (Ryan Corr) might have survived.

Alongside this story, Connor has a series of tentative romantic interludes with Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko), the hot clerk at his Constantinople hotel, where she lives with her precocious 10-year-old son (Dylan Georgiades) while waiting for her husband to be declared one of the war dead. But if this happens, she will have to become her leery brother-in-law's third wife. This sideroad is so soapy that it constantly derails the rest of the movie, stealing focus from the more intriguing political tensions and Connor's own emotional journey. At least Crowe and Kurylenko are solid in their roles, even generating some chemistry in their tentative, unnecessary scenes. And Erdogan and Cem Yilmaz (as a rival Turkish officer) ground things nicely, connecting the rest of the film with the grisly well-recreated battle scenes.

Continue reading: The Water Diviner Review

Even though it never feels believable, this twisty spy thriller has such a quick pace that it's consistently entertaining. Packed with surprising revelations, the movie makes terrific use of shady American espionage agencies and villainous Russians, as well as a former James Bond. As with most of these kinds of films, it's also far too violent and edited in such a way as to make the action almost incomprehensible. But there's a sense of breezy fun to the film that keeps us watching.

It's been five years since CIA operative Peter (Pierce Brosnan) retired from active service, but his old friend Hanley (Bill Smitrovich) needs his help. So he heads to Moscow to intercept an operative with whom he has a past, and everything goes spectacularly wrong. He ends up in a face-off with his former protege David (Luke Bracey), a current CIA spy who is now ordered to eliminate his mentor. But there's life in Peter yet, and he manages to keep one step ahead of David, travelling to Belgrade to intercept a young woman, Alice (Olga Kurylenko), who is the key to a major operation that centres on a dodgy Russian politician (Lazar Ristovski). Chased by American spies and Russian thugs, Peter and Alice make a run for it.

Director Roger Donaldson has been making slick political thrillers since 1987's No Way Out, and he knows how to divert the audience's attention from plot holes and contrived action by simply never pausing for breath. He also packs the scenes with characters who bristle with snarky attitude, making them far more interesting than the usual action movie line-ups. Brosnan is clearly having a great time charging through each scene, nodding continually to his 007 history while playfully adding spark to his banter with Bracey, who just about keeps up with the "we know each other too well" interaction. And Kurylenko dives in with gusto, vamping it up gleefully as a woman with a lot of secrets.

Continue reading: November Man Review