INSIDE JOB (****)

Dir: Charles Ferguson. Starring: Matt Damon (voice), a whole bunch of crooks

Better late than never we finally get this Oscar-winning documentary, still completely relevant since the fallout from the myriad criminal frauds that climaxed in the financial collapse of 2008 is still affecting all of us – except of course the crooks and power elite that caused the damn thing in the first place.
Soberly narrated by Matt Damon this serves as both an easily understood primer and an almost thriller-style uncovering of what happened. From the financial deregulation of the ‘greed is good' era of Reagan and Thatcher through subsequent administrations blind beliefs that their mates and donors would play by rules that they themselves were then allowed to create and regulate, the whole sorry mess is clearly laid out, and it's not a pretty picture.
Many of the major players are front and centre here in all their self-justifying shamelessness, while the sobering fact that this wasn't just unchecked greed but criminal fraud on a massive level, which still continues unchecked at the likes of Goldman Sachs (as the recent report by the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations shows) will raise righteous anger.
As Ferguson pointed out when accepting
his Oscar, not one single person has been jailed, or even tried, over these actions, and
the people whose judgment allowed for the situation to arise are now the ones running
the asylum.
In other words, we're still being screwed on a daily basis and things are not getting better. This film goes some way to explaining how.

The latest in a long line of Phillip K Dick adaptations to simply grab a central idea and do with it what they will (Paycheck, Total Recall et al), The Adjustment Bureau (***) features very likeable turns from Matt Damon and Emily Blunt, who fall in love only to find their relationship stymied by the actions of the titular bureau, a sort of semi-sinister bunch of fate-planning overlords. Sadly, rather than just going with it, the film attempts to explain things in logical terms leading to an ending that is less sci-fi than mystical gobbledygook. The final two minutes are particularly condescending.

The Next Three Days (***) is an American remake of a very good French thriller called Anything For Her. The original set-up had the wife of a mild-mannered history teacher jailed for murder. Fearing for her life he decides to spring her, but being a mild-mannered history teacher ‘n' all this proves tricky (no ‘movie hero' powers) and significant suspense derives from him being so clearly out of his depth. The remake sticks to the plot with one significant change. Rather than the original's unknown everyman lead, the remake stars Russell Crowe. It's pretty well done but adding star power rather unbalances that crucial dynamic.

When biopics take a stylised approach there are risks, but also potential rewards in creating something not literal but possibly more insightful. Witness the recent Gainsbourg. Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (***), the story of Ian Dury, is less successful, despite an heroic central turn from Andy Serkis and impressive scenes recreating the glorious early music. However, the heavy-handed psychological approach adds less than is hoped and a straight-ahead story might have been more revealing. Unfortunately ignored is the interesting question of why Dury's inspiration seemed to dry up so comprehensively after such a sustained burst of brilliance.

Jackboots on Whitehall (*) must have seemed like a really good idea at the time. There's no other explanation for how this glaringly unfunny piece of low-rent animation attracted dozens of high class Brit voices, from Ewen McGregor and Timothy Spall to Tom Wilkinson and Alan Cummings. Using the crudest-looking stop motion techniques the film posits a Nazi victory in WW2, opposed by the plucky coalition of farmboys, Braveheart-style Scots and sundry others. Actually the Braveheart bit is briefly entertaining but, by then, the dullness of the whole venture will have overwhelmed most. A rare highlight is Richard O'Brien's screamingly camp Himmler, too briefly on screen to be worth the price of admission.