127 HOURS (*****)

Dir: Danny Boyle. Starring: James Franco, Kate Mara, Amber Tamblyn

Many people avoided 127 Hours at the cinema and probably feel similar trepidation about watching it at home. This is, of course, the true story where a guy hacks his own arm off with a blunt penknife to escape from a fallen boulder which, admittedly, doesn't sound like the making of a fun Saturday night. And it's not.
But there's a lot more here than arm-chopping. Mixing memory with imagination, and self-filmed videos, this is as much a mental journey as a physical one, anchored by a brilliant central turn from James Franco as the reckless thrill-seeker slowly coming to terms with his situation and gaining self-awareness.
Visually it takes a similar approach to Danny Boyle's previous Slumdog Millionaire with super-saturated colours, mixed film stock, split frames, and editing that gives a constant kinetic charge, not through mere quick cutting but from expert shot choice and movement within the frame. Just as in Slumdog Millionaire the unpalatable and unpleasant (kids being blinded, diving in excrement) are presented in such a way as to make them eminently watchable, though many will look away during the brief scenes of the actual arm-cutting.
This is filmmaking of the highest order: don't let the subject matter deter you.

I haven't been able to make up my mind about The Green Hornet (***). First time I saw it I hated it, feeling nothing but irritation for Seth Rogan's spoilt rich boy take on the titular crime fighter. But with Michael Gondry directing, this was never going to be a regular costumed-hero romp. I watched it again last night and was intermittently charmed. There is a lot to like, particularly Christopher (Inglourious Basterds) Waltz as the villain, and if you approach this without great expectations – it's certainly not Iron Man – and ready for the bickering dynamic between the Hornet and 'faithful sidekick” Kato then there is a lot to enjoy.

Restrepo (****) is a fly-on-the-wall documentary detailing the 15 month deployment of an American platoon in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, once described as ‘the deadliest place on earth'. It is bleak and inhospitable, and people shoot at you every day. This is not a political film; it is not about the big picture. Alternating between interviews with the young soldiers and hand-held footage of operations and everyday life, it centres on a dozen men and captures the hardship, fear, boredom, exhilaration and general misery of a rotten war. It's powerful, messy stuff, never sensationalised and ultimately deeply depressing. This is war – it's not fun.

Wild Target (**) is the English remake of a rather good French comedy and it takes a likeable shot at things. Certainly casting Bill Nighy – repressed neuroses in delightful form – as the solitary assassin is no bad thing, and Emily Blunt is good as the irrepressible thief he is contracted to kill, but instead ends up protecting. Rupert Grinch is along for the ride as a coincidental apprentice and Martin Freeman has brief fun as a rival assassin. But somehow the bland direction, editing and cinematography let down the script, wasting the black humour: time after time potentially good moments are undercut by mediocre execution.

The Big Bang (***) opens stylishly with Antonio Banderas under police interrogation. Something has happened; five people are dead. He tells the story. It's a modern-day noir, one with more than a passing acquaintance with The Big Sleep, and has a quirky gimmick – that will elicit chuckles or irritation – in the way the script indulges in sciencey philosophical riffs and references. Banderas had been hired by a Russian boxer to find his missing stripper girlfriend. Complications ensued. Repetitive interrogation scenes break the flow but it's good looking and diverting stuff. And it's not often that particle physics and detective stories collide.