THE TRIP
Dir: Michael Winterbottom. Starring: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon.

First of all, an apology. Last week's ‘Pick of the Week' – Texas Killing Fields – accidentally ended up with five stars. It should have been four. I liked it, but not quite that much. And I like this week's pick a lot. It's not a film with a plot particularly, or any action to speak of, but it has a rambling charm that makes for a very pleasant couple of hours.

The set-up is simplicity itself. Steve Coogan is invited by The Guardian newspaper to go on a restaurant tour of the North of England. He invites fellow comedian Rob Brydon along for company. Over the course of a week they go to six restaurants, look at the scenery, chat and generally hang out.

Stemming from the many improvisations between the two actors that occurred when they made Winterbottom's Tristram Shandy, this is a delight. Who would have thought that two people talking could be such fun, but as they swap impersonations (Al Pacino, Michael Caine, Hugh Grant, Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins et al) and playfully bicker it's just a pleasure to be along for the ride.
This was condensed from six half-hour television shows and the generous extras include pretty much everything that got cut along the way. Fantastic.

Mercifully avoiding more Middle Eastern villains, The Double reignites the cold war when a Soviet assassin – long thought dead – appears to re-emerge and kill a Washington senator. CIA man Richard Gere reluctantly comes out of retirement and partners with young FBI expert Topher Grace. Ramping up the cleverness, the plot reveals a major twist after only half an hour, but there are more; an escalating circle of deception which, much like the ‘inner intensity' of Gere's mannered acting style, require a major suspension of disbelief to swallow. If you avoid thinking about the increasingly gaping plot holes it's quite fun.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec opens in 1911 Paris where a wild yarn is about to unfold. Adele herself is an indomitable adventure writer, sort of a laconic cross between Tintin and Indiana Jones. We first meet her ‘borrowing' a mummy from an Egyptian pyramid and planning to bring it back from the dead. As you do. Meanwhile a pterodactyl has hatched in the Paris museum and is causing chaos around town. Directed by Luc Besson – his most rounded and enjoyable romp since The Fifth Element – this has a particular French charm and humour that brings to mind the likes of Amelie.

Kill List is a rather remarkable and very English film. Following Down Terrace, a kitchen sink gangster shocker, director Ben Wheatley goes to altogether stranger places. It opens with the same social realism as we find ex-soldier Jay struggling to adapt to home life. Fellow soldier Gal gets them both work as contract killers. But there are slowly-building hints – a growing sense of menace – that more is at play here and the film slowly morphs into a thriller and then something resembling The Wicker Man's horror. It's a very impressive piece of filmmaking, unsettling and original.