Iain Glen convinces as damaged Jack Taylor, an alcoholic former cop who now works as a Galway gumshoe. As one sultry client says near the start, “They say you’re good, because you’ve nothing else in lifeâ€
Mike Newell’s adaptation, apart from a bland performance from Jeremy Irvine as the endlessly striving, rather unsympathetic Pip, is perfectly acceptable Sunday-night entertainment.
Neil Maskell is horribly convincing as Arby, a psychotic working for shadowy organisation The Network.
Hairy funnyman Ross Noble plays Mr Jelly, a grubby clown who is freakishly killed at an children’s party.
Finally, thankfully, Twilight comes to an end and it appears, given the sloppy acting, to be a relief for everyone.
Two poor, plucky teenagers (Lynne Frederick and Garry Miller) are visited by a mysterious 19th-century lawyer, Mr Blunden (Laurence Naismith), who, straight off the bat, asks the duo if they’d “be afraid to see a ghostâ€.
Wayne Blair’s needy musical comedy is desperate to be liked and it should, on paper, work as this true story’s an interesting one: four young Aborigine women in 1960s Australia form an all-girl soul group, managed by their muddled Irish manager (Chris O’Dowd), and are asked to entertain American troops fighting in the Vietnam war.
Argo is further proof, after the excellent Gone Baby Gone and efficient The Town, that Ben Affleck is an accomplished film-maker. The 1979 Iranian hostage crisis is the catalyst for this bizarre true story, in which a CIA agent (Affleck) sets up a fake fantasy film in order to smuggle six Americans, hiding at the Canadian embassy, out of Tehran. He recruits a foul-mouthed producer (Alan Arkin …
Frankenweenie, from the science teacher who resembles Vincent Price to the Stepford Wives-looking suburban neighbourhood, is the closest in spirit to Tim Burton’s 1990 masterpiece Edward Scissorhands.
If you’re not a Woody Allen fan, subtract one point from the above rating. If you are an Allenite, you’ll still be forced to file To Rome with Love among his minor works.